Does Gender Apply to Things Without Sex

A few years ago I took a few classes for fun after a long absence from the college scene. I took a plant kingdom survey course. We studied some plants that were pretty simple and at a certain level have distinct gametes that are similar enough in size and function that assigning them male or female seemed arbitrary. Some were assigned '+' or '-' designations.My professor told a story about consulting with an grad student in English in an interdisciplinary seminar. The student was speaking to the gender split in all life and found the neutral sex assignments troubling. The prof seemed nonplused about the matter and considered it the way things are, not the way we think they should be.This stuff is from memory and lacks support links, but if any have an interest I'll find my notes to find the particular class of floral critter.ABB

look up. i posted two articles that make your point, and one that made holmes's point.but hey, i'm not the one with the big chip on my shoulder about what plagiarism is. we've all done it here, myself included numerous times. nobody cites every instance of where every idea came from.but i'd like you to notice how words can carry such a negative connotation. you have no right to get your panties in a wad after specifically complaining about my reaction to the negative connotation of calling rape a masculine quality.

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Arach is insane

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unless, you know, you actually read them. let's examine this one for a second. suppose i came on here and said "i know where the ark of covenant is! it's just outside jerusalem, in a cave directly under the location jesus was crucified!"suppose i'm making this argument in support of archaeology. how would you refute it? it's fairly obvious to anyone verse in the subject where that argument came from, and exactly how much bs it really is. wouldn't saying "ron wyatt is a hack and a fraud, don't be decieved by him" suffice? and if not, wouldn't it seem best to address wyatt's claims, instead my own reading of them?i know where your argument comes from. i know the claims these people are making. i linked to several of them above. if you're NOT making those claims, don't repeat their arguments. your position is that it was acceptible to assign a human gender role to a non-human, fictitious, inorganic, asexual movie monster. it has specifically been demonstrated to you that this is unacceptable for every reason there is, from producers intentions of inspecific gender roles, to why it is invalid to apply this sort of bias, the factors that are motivating that bias.i'm sorry, but you have been pwned. repeatedly. maybe it would help if you, i dunno, watched the darn movie in question. i'm sure you've wasted well over it's running time in this stupid agrument. plagiarism is not neccessarily word for word. i posted the definition above. please refer to it. and you're copying all the main ideas of specific subset of feminist film criticism. you do not seem to be familiar with the nature of that argument, no. you don't realize that for instance, both subsets are starting with a definition of man as the rapist of natural world. see the references to francis bacon? look up what they think of him. if you're not taking the position, don't repeat the argument. what, that it's sexist? it starts with a biased assumption of what society perceives gender roles to be.

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Main Entry: sexism
Pronunciation: 'sek-"si-z&m
Function: noun

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1 : prejudice or discrimination based on sex;
2 : behavior, conditions, or attitudes that foster stereotypes of social roles based on sex

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now, would that make me culturally male, or female?This message has been edited by Arachnophilia, 04-10-2005 02:36 PM

so how can an object have gender? how can a non-human animal have gender? even the ones that have distinct sexes? does not follow. i addressed this point above. you ignored it. gender does not apply to our behaviour relating to the sexual associations of objects. gender applies to things that have the sexes or genders.also, please AGAIN refer to the definition of gender above. notice the first usage?

yes, it's getting annoying. so far, my friend and i have been sitting around wondering when someone would poke their head and notice that he's not even interested in the debating the questions at hand, and i've "been consistently pwning" him.perhaps i could afford him the same courtesy he's been giving me, and just start replying to every further message with: "god fuck yourself." what a master debator he is.

this is the difference between science and social science classes.i've thought about making a post about this in the "is it science?" forum, regarding social sciences such as sociology, feminism, and postmodern philosophy. and "inter-disciplanary studies."

Arach, you're a douche, and I'm done here. It's impossible to get you to address points I'm actually making. Hell, I don't even get a chance to make points, because I'm forced into the position of repeating "that's not my argument" and "I'm not saying that" because you insist in continuing a discussion you had in a college class - and where you probably got your ass kicked - instead of discussing what I'm saying to you. Courtesies were afforded you, in the beginning. You rejected them when you insisted on debating with your feminist boogymen instead of me. I'm a patient person, but I have no use for people like you.

I mean, did anyone find this discussion, which spanned two threads, in the least coherent? I sure didn't, and that's been half the problem. Here was my argument in a nutshell:1) The alien thing exhibited certain characteristics that an audience would recieve as masculine.
2) Those characteristics included reproduction by sexual dominance.
3) When I say this characteristic is receieved as masculine, I'm not saying that all males exhibit this characteristic.And Arach responds with, in a nutshell:1) How dare you call me a rapist.
2) The alien doesn't have a penis.
3) A feminist once picked on me in class.And the rest of it - all 200 posts or however long its been - has been me trying to explain that none of those points are coherent responses to my argument, and Arach insisting that they are, because I'm actually making arguments that have nothing to do with my posts.Arach, if you could have made an effort to address the points that I had carefully laid out for you as plainly as I could, instead of using me as a mannequin to dress me in the arguments you wish you could have refuted that one time in class, this could have been a very interesting discussion. But it degenerated into name-calling, and that was entirely your fault.

crashfrog responds to me:

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Gender is a behavioural phenomenon.

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Right; specifically human behavior.

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Then that destroys your argument. Computer plugs aren't human, therefore how can they have "human behaviour"? If gender is "human behaviour," then how can a plug have a gender?They don't. They have a sex.

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And the behavior to which it applies is the human act of associating penetration with maleness

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You're equivocating sex and gender. We do it all the time, but you're trying to draw a distinction and then cross over it.

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thus, the cables have no sex but have the male gender.

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No, by your own logic, they have a sex, not gender. They don't have human behaviour, therefore they cannot have a gender. You even say that the act of penetration is part of "maleness," which is an aspect of sex, not gender. Therefore, they have a sex, not a gender.

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I mean, if what you say is true, then why doesn't anyone ever refer to the sex of a cable?

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Because you'll get fired for sexual harassment. No, I am not kidding.Instead, they refer to the sex of the plug by the specifics rather than than using the word "sex." As I said previously, it's called a "male" and a "female" plug, not a "masculine" or "feminine" plug. The former is a reference to sex. The latter is a reference to gender.They're "male" because they have penises, crash. Really and truly. Pins are phallic in shape and that makes them little penises which is the hallmark of being male. Not masculine. Male. You can be male and still not be masculine.

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For organisms that have genitals. Everything else? Since there are no genitals

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What do you think those pins are if not genitals? It's called "anthropomorphization" and humans do it all the time. They're little penises.

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we (humans) are applying sexual associations to objects; and you're quite correct that the word for that behavior is "gender."

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Incorrect. The application of sexual associations to objects is "anthropomorphization." When you have anthropomorphized something to have sexual characteristics, it does not acquire a "gender." It acquires a "sex."Things are male or female.
Things behave in a masculine or feminine manner.Plugs don't "behave." They "are." Therefore, they have a sex, not a gender.But say sex and you get fired so people have used "gender" as a synonym for "sex." It isn't, but it's what you do to keep your job.

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

Look, I don't see where in "gender" it's limited to behavior. I'm going to backtrack on my agreement that gender is limited to behavior. Certainly its not limited to behavior in languages that inflect nouns for gender. But I do see where in "sex" its limited to genital configuration.I don't see that a cable has genitals, but I do see that it has characteristics that are reminiscent of one sex or another, and I specifically mentioned these in the OP. And those characteristics that we associate with biological sex are called "gender", and therefore, that's the word that applies to the associations and terminology we're using for the cables.But even if you disagree, you can't argue with the fact that we speak of the gender of cables, and not the sex. If you're right, then how do you explain that cables are referred to as having gender and not sex? But a phallus is not a penis; those pins are not erectile structures for the purposes of inseminating a female. They're metaphorical penises, sure - the word we use for that is "phallus."They're phallus, not penises; and when we have metaphors for genitals, instead of genitals themselves, that's gender, not sex. They're pins. Oh, don't get me wrong. They're certainly phallic, which is why we consider that the male end, not the female end. Therefore, the word to apply is "gender", because its just a metaphor, not sex, because they're not real, biological genitals. Yes, it does. The act of applying those anthropormophizations is gender, not sex. Hence, the use of the term "gender", and not "sex."Words have gender. Plugs have gender. When we apply sex to things that don't have sex, that's "gender."

yes, you obviously are since you can't defend your position and are resorting to name calling. something you accused me of. what wonderful debating tactics you have.you're wrong, get over yourself. which points did i NOT address? hmm? i addressed gender v. sex in physical things like cables. i talked about the gender role of sailing vessels. i even breifly talked about the difference in the application of gender with other language, and how you're using it.maybe i didn't address that last point too completely, because frankly i don't know WHY romance languages attribute gender to objects. you have however failed to offer any explanation of why this is, let alone what that has to do with ENGLISH. crash. you've lost. you're using gender inappropriately. get over it.

and now for the summary of my refutations. those characteristics are not neccessarily masculine. however, the alien also exhibits very feminine characteristics as well. to paint it as one gender is a misapplication, and an oversight. parasitic relations are not sexual. and when i say "liking fried chicken and watermelon, that's a black thing" i'm not making a racial stereotype. your argument was sexist and offensive, whether or not that's what you meant. talking about what you said is not the same as what you said. you were using a stereotype that feminists use to demonize men, whether you meant to or not. i did. i addressed every single one of your points. notice how other people are starting to pop in? notice how one even asked why you were ignoring my points? since we're on to the name calling phase, i got one for you: hypocrite. practice what you preach. yes. you calling me a "douche" that's my fault. typical man.

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Main Entry: 1gender
Pronunciation: 'jen-d&r
Function: noun

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2 a : SEX b : the behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits typically associated with one sex

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you have failed to explain why.

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Main Entry: 1sex
Pronunciation: 'seks
Function: noun

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1 : either of the two major forms of individuals that occur in many species and that are distinguished respectively as female or male
2 : the sum of the structural, functional, and behavioral characteristics of living things that are involved in reproduction by two interacting parents and that distinguish males and females
3 a : sexually motivated phenomena or behavior b : SEXUAL INTERCOURSE
4 : GENITALIA

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see above.

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Main Entry: euphemism
Pronunciation: 'y-f&-"mi-z&m
Function: noun

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: the substitution of an agreeable or inoffensive expression for one that may offend or suggest something unpleasant; also : the expression so substituted

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does not follow. it has the physical properties. gender, by definition, does not apply to physical properties. you could argue the "gender" of the cables come from how they are used, but that's not especially good either, since that still comes from the physical properties, and sex is inclusive of behavioral patterns, if we can call it that. and that is a misuse of the word "gender." in reality, they have neither sex nor gender in the terms we've defined. but more importantly, the debate is silly since the two words are mostly synonymous. (see above) no, that's sex. read your own sentance over again. you said you're applying sex. so it's sex, not gender. gender is a subset of sex. because saying words have sex would allude to them doing the nasty. and that's not the case. we use the word "gender" because they are not sexual beings, and do not reproduce. you're arguing the difference between "which" and "that" here.in the case of the original argument, the alien HAS a sex. it's a either a hermaphrodite or androgynous (the difference in its case being somewhat moot). it takes one to create an egg. its reproductive cycle, although parasitic, is not sexual. unlike human hermaphrodites, it's not bound to fall into one of two gender roles. it's society (in terms of the first movie) has only two asexual roles. so it does not fulfill a masculine or feminine role, but a strange cross section in each. i will however readily admit that in the purposes of the second movie, they should be considered males.have you seen the darned movie yet? i'm sure the blockbuster down the street has one.This message has been edited by Arachnophilia, 04-10-2005 08:23 PM

no. engineers use the word gender because engineers are geeks and if they used the word sex they'd never get anything done because they'd be too busy laughing like butthead.

hey now. keep my idss out of your argument bitch.

you're poly-sci. that's slightly less bs than stuff i was referring too.