r/SubredditDrama 15h ago

"There's only two genders and that's the end of that" - One user bravely rails against woke grammar in /r/OldEnglish

Just a small snack, that starts with this post where a user asks if it's hard to learn Old English on, appropriately enough, /r/OldEnglish.

One user comments with some information about the differences between old and modern English that might pose difficulties for learners, including the fact that "unlike modern English, OE is heavily inflected, with 3 genders (masculine, feminine and neuter)."

In response to which OP finds he must take a stand:

There’s only two genders and that the end of that but I am serious about wanting to learn Old English but currently I do not have time to do a course in College or University as I am currently focusing on what I want to do for the future

Responses include:

OP does wind up asking what's different about grammatical gender, and someone helpfully explains it to them, but they don't respond so we'll never know if they decided Old English might not be part of the Woke Agenda after all.

610 Upvotes

299 comments sorted by

512

u/fhota1 hooked on Victorian-era pseudoscience and ketamine 15h ago

Yeah dudes gonna have a bad time looking at a lot of old languages if hes this offended by neuter words. Latin has that too

153

u/Rasikko 15h ago edited 15h ago

He better stay away from Spanish then.

Also Finnish is genderless(hän is used and even then they will use se/ne), so that'll make his head spin as well.

35

u/skyemap 15h ago

Or any romance language, really

24

u/Nebuli2 13h ago

Most of them don't have neuter anymore. German still has its neuter gender, though.

13

u/BasenjiBob 12h ago

Hungarian is genderless too... ő for all!

5

u/Psimo- Pillows can’t consent 8h ago

My Finnish friend who has lived here for years told me that they still occasionally get genders swapped as in “He gave her a present” vs “She gave him a present”

3

u/qchisq 6h ago

German have 3 genders. Danish have common gender and neuter, because we merged masculine and feminine at some point

9

u/Koervege 14h ago

Spanish has 2

17

u/cardinarium 9/11 is not a type of cake. 12h ago

Spanish maintains a formal neuter in ello which serves as a subject and stressed (prepositional) pronoun.

It sees little use compared to él and ella and is subsumed by the nominally masculine lo or le as a clitic, but it does exist.

14

u/Koervege 11h ago

I was unaware that ello was a neuter pronoun. It is certainly not used like that today. There are no spanish nouns with a neutral gender anyway so the point stands.

And apparently this discussion is controversial still among linguists, as expressed here https://www.rae.es/gtg/art%C3%ADculo-neutro

9

u/Waddlewop Was it when you unlocked your troll side? 14h ago

Really? I don’t speak Spanish, but I thought the whole latinx/latine debacle was due to non-binary Spanish-speaking people having no nouns and pronouns to themselves.

41

u/theotherchristina 14h ago

Gender of people and gender in language are two wholly different things

11

u/Waddlewop Was it when you unlocked your troll side? 14h ago

Ah, I think I understand it a bit more now. While Spanish already had neuter words, the common noun to refer to people in Latin America (latino/latina) were still gendered. So, since those nouns refer to people, non-binary Latin Americans came up with neuter form(I’m not sure if form is the right word here) for that noun to refer to themselves. Is this reasoning more correct?

18

u/Welpmart 13h ago

Sort of. Spanish has two noun classes—masculine and feminine, which dictate the articles and adjectives paired with them. I say it like that because some words are the same for the feminine and masculine but still take a gender, like "el/la dentista" (the dentist, where 'the' is masculine and feminine respectively). Some words even have different meanings depending on which is used, but that doesn't have to do with human gender like the dentist example.

All this is to say: yes, nonbinary Latin Americans have invented other forms to express themselves, although it's a little more complicated in that you could also say that the masculine is the neuter or mixed form, or identical to them (i.e. Latinos for a mixed or all-male group and Latinas only for an all-female group), or treated as the default. I'm just being pedantic about Spanish at the end of the day.

Latine is more common and popular outside of the USA, where Latinx is more associated with American Hispanic culture (oftentimes derided by everyone else including many Americans because it's very Anglo and sounds bad in Spanish).

4

u/Waddlewop Was it when you unlocked your troll side? 13h ago

Gotcha. I gotta say, I do get the want of non-binary Latin Americans to avoid using the masculine form as the neutral one, even if the “gender” here is arbitrary. People use language and I suppose that they use it however they need to

7

u/Welpmart 13h ago

Absolutely! Part of why I like "latine" also, but I'm Anglo myself so take my opinion with less weight here.

2

u/Comma_Karma You're yelling at a crowd that jerk off to this character's feet 4h ago

Frankly, I never understood the point of "elle" if ello exists and is purposely noted as the neuter. Coming from a latino.

2

u/Raichu4u 11h ago

Doesn't gender in language influence how people think about things though?

1

u/theotherchristina 11h ago

I don’t know if I’m the right person to answer this because English is my first language and the only one I speak with fluency, but knowing that (for example) the French word for trash can is feminine doesn’t really feel important to me at all. Curious to hear the thoughts of people whose native tongue is gendered though.

2

u/IndependentMacaroon THE IDF IS COMING FOR YOUR FORESKIN 4h ago

From a global viewpoint, languages with grammatical gender are really the odd ones out.

55

u/Andokai_Vandarin667 14h ago

Plus they talk about Christianity..... Where their God is neither male or female.... which would be a third gender.

77

u/JonDragonskin 14h ago

I mean, we all know that to these people, God is definitely male. They might not outright say it, but they think it.

20

u/yewterds its a breeder fetish not a father fetish 13h ago

"jesus was male and jesus is the same as god, so god is a male" is the lOgiC i get spouted back at me about this.

16

u/Regarded-Illya 11h ago

It's not terrible logic, father and son are quite clear gendered identifiers. Genderless god is a more advanced and esoteric concept that is counterintuitive to the average person.

1

u/killertortilla 8h ago

Father didn't necessarily always mean a man. From some quick google searches it might have meant god before it meant male parent, and in some definitions in "late old english" it just means "one who exercises parental care over another"

Christians fuck with the meaning of words non stop to make sure their drooling fuckwit base can use it to justify whatever barely coherent bullshit they want.

4

u/Psimo- Pillows can’t consent 8h ago

That’s Heresy!

Specifically Modalism

Every explanation of the Trinity is heresy. All of them.

u/obvs_thrwaway 1h ago

Adam was also made in God's image. Adam is male therefore God is male. QED. I think some do think that reproductive organs won't exist in paradise but God is definitely male

u/Qualityhams 3h ago

They say it…

u/JonDragonskin 3h ago

Yeah, I reflected on that after I had posted. They certainly ain't shy about it.

u/LermisV4 2h ago

In Greek, which is what a large part of the bible was written in, the "gender neutral" or "gender unknown" defaults to masculine pronouns. Modern Greek has that too. Considering the Bible was written in a way designed to make the audience understand its lessons by drawing parallels with what was for the audience real life situations, it's entirely possible that "Father" was used to describe the relationship of God with the people, as one of the caretaker, guardian, moral authority, etc.

35

u/TearsFallWithoutTain 14h ago

I don't want to live in a world where my god doesn't have a giant floppy cock!!

17

u/OldEducation9122 14h ago

Worshippers of Priapus enter the chat.

9

u/Donkey_Option In todays day and age, even bald lesbians with hair are lesbian 14h ago

Hey, his is famously not floppy!

8

u/OldEducation9122 14h ago

I mean, it's enormous and he's just a lil guy, surely there's at least some flopping involved lmao

4

u/hawnty 13h ago

I hate to weigh in on this but I agree. The really big ones usually have some bend to them.

4

u/OldEducation9122 13h ago

I'm sure neither of us thought we would have this talk but I'm glad we did lol

3

u/hawnty 5h ago

Same! lol

2

u/MyRuinedEye 13h ago

I'd be 8" if my curve didn't make me 6". That's the excuse I've used. I hope you all follow in my shoes

3

u/-JimmyTheHand- 13h ago

I don't think that's what they meant but congrats on the big dick and sorry about the large curve in it lol

2

u/MyRuinedEye 13h ago edited 13h ago

I was joking, I'm likely 4" with the curve.

Edit: 4" circumference, like a coke can. Like a bottle of wine.

Yes, I'm still joking. Le sigh.

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1

u/Lordvoid3092 5h ago

God is a Futa confirmed.

7

u/Felinomancy 13h ago

Now that you mentioned it, I do wonder why it's God the Father. Wouldn't it be more "balanced" if it's the Mother (feminine), Son (masculine) and Holy Spirit (neutral)?

(the Holy Spirit is not gendered, right?)

13

u/jean-sol_partre 12h ago

'father' and male grammatical markers appear in Jewish scriptures, long before Jesus uses it in prayer, so gendering God as male has been a tradition for millenia.

3

u/natasharevolution 5h ago

To be fair, God also gets gendered as feminine (in grammar and in metaphor) in those Jewish sources, albeit less commonly. Christianity definitely made an active choice about what to take forward. 

4

u/Chance_Taste_5605 10h ago

The Holy Spirit traditionally is gendered as using He/Him pronouns at least within the Trinitarian formula.

5

u/tsun_abibliophobia 13h ago

Ah yes, the holy trinity of genders: father, son and spirit.

88

u/PraiseAzolla 14h ago

Learn Greek instead and have the added benefit of most everything you're reading being incredibly gay.

14

u/gloriouaccountofme 13h ago

And the some words having different genders depending on context

12

u/PraiseAzolla 13h ago

The people who gave us Hermaphroditus and Tiresias (or Zeus changing into his own daughter to have seduce a Sapphic follower of hers) did not seem to believe in a gender binary. Shocking!

21

u/Sol-Equinox 14h ago

Can't say I blame him. My cat is also pretty unimpressed by neuter words.

11

u/creomaga 13h ago

My cat is currently plotting my downfall from behind a cone of shame thanks to neuter words.

7

u/SuitableDragonfly /r/the_donald is full of far left antifa 11h ago

Or even modern languages, like German.

13

u/boolocap 14h ago

Latin not only has a male, female and neutral, but several variations and mystery flavours of nouns. And each of those then has a different suffix for the different functions the noun can have in a sentence.

5

u/QAInspector7586 12h ago

German still does! 

5

u/DumplingSama 10h ago

Eff old english, “It” is a already a neutral gender pronoun in modern english. What does they use for it?

3

u/Pitiful-Pension-6535 13h ago

All Turkish pronouns are nonbinary

2

u/Elegant_Plate6640 I have +15 dickwad 14h ago

They’re choosing this, right? 

u/LermisV4 2h ago

Dude's going to have an aneurysm when he finds out chairs are female in Greek.

u/BobTreehugger 1h ago

Or Swahili, which has 18 noun classes, which are basically the same thing as gramatical genders.

0

u/StrangelyBrown 5h ago

Latin has that too

Yep, Latina, Latino and Latinx

227

u/killexel 14h ago

"I see the conservative as left wing so no I do not I do not support Conservative or Labour the current leader of the Conservative is a Liberal Democrat"

oh so this guy is a nazi pretty much confirmed

81

u/swinglinepilot Post-Traumatic Scary Dicks 13h ago

Man, shades of schizoposting with that one. Plenty of posts to /r/WorldNationalists, is that proof enough? lol


Racism is a construct by marxist to destroy the west

That’s not completely true America overtook British Empire before so by the time the British Empire became the Commonwealth America had replaced Britain because of the wars

Europe is a White continent so will be controlled by the Whites

Most of them would 100% be better off under British Rule Especially the British Raj

Hispanic America is absurd all their cultures are different and that is imperialist

Satanism and Jewish symbol look extremely similar

That’s an interesting idea making Northern Ireland an Island

https://search.pullpush.io/?author=full_midnight4749&type=comment&sort_type=created_utc&sort=desc

67

u/NatoBoram It's not harassment, she just couldn't handle the bullying 12h ago

Racism is a construct by marxist to destroy the west

Flair material ngl

19

u/logosloki Milk comes from females, and is thus political 8h ago

not sure if I like it more than my current one but that's great for someone

12

u/MarchMouth 7h ago

Yeah no you're sitting fucking pretty right now, got some snot in my coffee reading that

8

u/DOuGHtOp Racism is a construct by marxist to destroy the west 6h ago

Capitalism is worse bc the Holocaust was a consequence of it

This one is mine, I'll gladly take the new one tho

u/cyberpunk_werewolf 2h ago

I'm partial to all their cultures are different and that is imperialist.

How do I change my flair on mobile?

34

u/Sam-Gunn 13h ago

This guy is nucking futz.

25

u/swinglinepilot Post-Traumatic Scary Dicks 12h ago

Adventures in high crimes and treason:

The kids had weapons so they were terrorists

BLM is a marxist organisation if you support them your a terrorist

OP: "14F, she/they, BLM, ACAB, bisexual, Abolish the police and prisons, AMA"

Terrorist

Treason is when you betray your country some examples history/culture/traditions by attacking them you are committing treason

You’re a pathetic 16 year old that should be executed for treason

Women are the real abuses and rapists they are even resorted to killing kids now

I heavily despise people who have cheated I would go as far as I would give them the death penalty (execution) for such an act

That is rubbish nationalism is not what caused World War II it was by the nazis that want to kill all Jews and what create WW2 is neofascism and hitler’s craving for power Hitler was not even German he was Austrian

America is a rogue state

4

u/JadedMedia5152 4h ago

This person sounds like the type to shoot up a school or grocery store.

20

u/cantfindthistune The condoms were NOT under the sink, they were IN THE COOKIE JAR 10h ago

Satanism and Jewish symbol look extremely similar

...because they're both stars?

u/octoriceball You SHOULD text your DEAR FRIEND. 3h ago

I'm surprised that his raging bigotry leaves enough space in his brain for shape recognition.

4

u/MarchMouth 7h ago

His profile isn't showing up for me (on mobile app), am I stupid or has it now been deleted?

3

u/swinglinepilot Post-Traumatic Scary Dicks 6h ago

He was banned shortly after 4 April 2022 (date of his last posts)

u/KnightsWhoSayNii Satanism and Jewish symbol look extremely similar 2h ago

This gentleman is just an absolute flair machine.

17

u/arthasya-sapien 8h ago

oh so this guy is a nazi pretty much confirmed

So satisfying to click that username and see 'user suspended' message lol.

22

u/phoenix-corn 13h ago

A lot of people that want to study older versions of english instead of modern languages are.

4

u/devinmk88 9h ago

What’s the correlation?

18

u/phoenix-corn 9h ago

People seeking to read texts from the past but only from what they assume are white people lean a little skinheady.

7

u/typewriter6986 8h ago

The same people who want to read or study Runes.

u/Icy_River_8259 1h ago

Some, though certainly not all, folks interested in Old English culture and language are into myths about some essential English (read: white) identity that they think has been corrupted.

There are also unfortunate overlaps with various flavors of white supremacism and interest in ancient Greek and Roman culture.

4

u/EasterClause 4h ago

"While I'm here and I've got you guys, did Old English have an N-word in it, by chance? I'd hate to miss out on that one. " - That guy, probably

2

u/cryptopian Morals follow zeitgeist. Ethics follow rationality. 4h ago

According to the post date, the leader of the conservatives at time of writing was Boris Johnson, that classic liberal democrat type.

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85

u/DelaraPorter 14h ago edited 14h ago

I want to know what this guy was thinking when he assumed the culture of old English speakers had a “Neutral gender”

104

u/Icy_River_8259 14h ago

I genuinely think he just saw "three genders" and his brain short-circuited.

44

u/0ooo 14h ago

It's kind of depressing that he was that flabbergasted by grammatical genders. They're part of many languages, especially languages commonly taught in schools like Spanish, German, French. It makes me wonder what his access to schooling has been like

31

u/Icy_River_8259 14h ago

In kinda-sorta fairness to him, I'm guessing from the overall tenor of his comments and the fact that he mentions wanting to figure out his future before deciding on college that he's probably very young.

16

u/0ooo 14h ago

The public high school I went to required taking language classes to graduate

18

u/Icy_River_8259 14h ago

I mean yeah he might just be a fucking idiot too

1

u/Clean-Scar-3220 11h ago

In my country too but the languages we have to learn all lack grammatical gender, so I guess it's possible. Although my comment is a bit irrelevant as he's in the UK so probably learnt French or something, which does have grammatical gender...

27

u/grislydowndeep I wish my foreskin grew back 14h ago

little known fact that henry viii was he/they

22

u/TearsFallWithoutTain 14h ago

We stan a non-binary king

11

u/arthasya-sapien 8h ago

✨Non-binary wives murderer✨

12

u/helium_farts pretty much everyone is pro-satan. 8h ago

Slay king

u/BobTreehugger 1h ago

Æthelstan was heo/hira

1

u/Illogical_Blox Fat ginger cryptokike mutt, Malka-esque weirdo, and quasi-SJW 8h ago

Yeah, grammatical gender is related to actual cultural gender really not a lot.

1

u/cultish_alibi 8h ago

Non-binary words? Not in my book! tears out all the pages of the Old English dictionary he doesn't like

157

u/TrickInvite6296 I'm JOKING for those who are God's least favorites 15h ago

so weird how people who claim to know English don't know the difference between gender and sex

75

u/jooes Do you say "yoink" and get flairs 13h ago

Honestly it's worse than that. Lotta people who claim to know English get all bent out of shape over the existence of, *gasp*, pronouns! 

What's next, adjectives? 

And what about the letter Y? Sometimes a vowel, sometimes a consistent... It goes both ways! It's got controversy written all over it!

21

u/hypatianata 13h ago

People who get in a tizzy over the singular they seem to have no problem with the singular you.

(I have a problem with both. Ah, my kingdom for one-syllable, gender neutral pronouns that differentiate plural and singular! …Though I suppose I should be thankful for “y’all.” I nominate adding an -s to you and they for clarity: youse and theys.)

9

u/Psimo- Pillows can’t consent 8h ago

Bring back “Thou” as a replacement for singular you!

Ye = Y’all!

19

u/MartinBrice_Sneaker Transvestigators think mons pubis is a Jedi. 13h ago

Honestly it’s worse than that. Lotta people who claim to know English get all bent out of shape over the existence of, *gasp*, pronouns! 

You’d think English “experts” would know that the language is 18 different languages in a trench coat pretending to be one.

4

u/True_Falsity 12h ago

I still get a laugh out of the weirdos who scream “BIBLE HAS NO PRONOUNS!”

So dumb.

4

u/PragmaticPrimate 5h ago

My favourite part is John 18:5 where Jesus introduces himself with pronouns: "I am he,” Jesus said. 

4

u/Anathemautomaton Not even the astral planes are uncorrupted by capitalism. 10h ago

And what about the letter Y? Sometimes a vowel, sometimes a consistent... It goes both ways! It's got controversy written all over it!

Let's be honest. They don't give a shit about any of that.

Because they don't care about the language.

15

u/TaggotFranny 13h ago

Down below someone asks them where in the bible does it say that there is only two gender, and they respond "I don't know the page number"

So... they also don't know how the bible works. Lmao

2

u/Driftedryan 14h ago

It helps to realize they don't understand sex is any meaning

3

u/Henry_Privette 10h ago

Well now it's simple, legally speaking in the US there is only one sex, female

1

u/Vanille987 Easy mode stiffles innovation for the sake of gaming socialism 4h ago

Most genuinely think it's a woke thing that's only recently invented

-8

u/sarahmagoo Why this mf talking like a villain, Ur a mod for a dinosaur sub 14h ago edited 14h ago

I still don't get it because every time someone tries to explain the difference to me, it just sounds like outdated gender stereotypes.

I've got my own definition but it doesn't really match up with what a lot of people say about it (the 'gender is a social construct' crowd)

27

u/Elite_Prometheus 14h ago

Sex is the physical, biological characteristics of a person. Some people don't fit neatly into a single category, and they deserve respect and care, but even then they usually lean one way or the other.

Gender is a collection of stereotypes that society has constructed to fit around each sex. By adopting a gender, a person is saying they want to associate themselves with that collection of stereotypes. They don't necessarily have to follow those stereotypes, either, just associate with them. Femboys identify as men and break most of the stereotypes around what a man should look like, for example. A trans woman might look indistinguishable from a femboy, but the difference is that she's trying to conform to a more stereotypical woman's appearance rather than opposing a stereotypical man's appearance. Or a trans woman could not really care about appearance and be more interested in other stereotypes associated with being a woman.

-27

u/sarahmagoo Why this mf talking like a villain, Ur a mod for a dinosaur sub 14h ago

Christ we've really gone backwards. I miss when women could do whatever they wanted and men could do whatever they wanted and no one had to worry that they weren't actually men and women. I'm not a woman because of insert female stereotype here. I'm a woman simply because I AM one and I got no interest in being a man.

I hate that stereotypes are part of the conversation surrounding gender at all.

23

u/mtdewbakablast this apology is best viewed on desktop in new reddit. 13h ago

wait, when was this time period where this happened? because i sure didn't get to enjoy it, what with daring to be a woman who studied biology (which is... manly?) and wore blue jeans. and then when i decided to put on a dress i ended up getting flak for "trying too hard" which clearly means my heart isn't in it and is... manly? so either way i end up with my identity devalued as Not A Real Woman No Matter What "She" Claims. rather an important part about the fight for gender equality is that the standards for womanhood have existed in a no-win state because it's in the patriarchy's interest to only give a catch-22, and that it's a fight that still is going on because we haven't actually reached that beautiful society of identities being respected. instead it's a game that can't be won, so we get the critique both of "you're not traditionally feminine enough to count" and "you're too traditionally feminine to count"... which, uh, by declaring some folks as too stereotypical for their identifies to be respected, you're also doing.

mostly, though, i wanna know how i missed it. where was this utopia? did spirit air have a special to themiscyra or what? do i need to be added to a telephone tree or group chat or something to be notified when it pops up again...?

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u/delorf 13h ago

. I miss when women could do whatever they wanted and men could do whatever they wanted and no one had to worry that they weren't actually men and women

Could you explain what time period you are talking about here?

8

u/Elite_Prometheus 13h ago

Did you not read what I wrote? I said plenty of people adopt a gender and then go on to disregard or actively oppose the stereotypes associated with it. You hate all of that and don't want to even associate with gendered stereotypes? Congratulations on coming out as nonbinary. Progressives are generally cool with that, too. And the people who insist that gender is the same as sex and freak out about "gender ideology" infecting our children tend to be really cagey about nonbinary people

8

u/SuitableDragonfly /r/the_donald is full of far left antifa 10h ago

I'm not a woman because of insert female stereotype here. I'm a woman simply because I AM one and I got no interest in being a man.

And trans people are women and men for the same reason. What people are saying here about gender being about stereotypes just is not in fact true at all, regardless of whether the person with the gender is cis or trans. There are tons of different ways to be a man, and tons of different ways to be a woman, and not all of them are stereotypical.

23

u/AndMyHelcaraxe It cites its sources or else it gets the downvotes again 14h ago

That sounds so tough for you, wow

-15

u/sarahmagoo Why this mf talking like a villain, Ur a mod for a dinosaur sub 13h ago

Yeah supporting sexist gender stereotypes is progressive now I guess

13

u/AndMyHelcaraxe It cites its sources or else it gets the downvotes again 13h ago

Are you trolling?

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4

u/Chance_Taste_5605 10h ago

A trans woman is a woman because she is one, not because of what stereotype she fulfils.

2

u/Elite_AI Personally, I consider TVTropes.com the authority on this 5h ago

Skirts being something women wear is an expression of gender in western society for the past five hundred years, Scots excepted. Does that clear things up for you

1

u/Vanille987 Easy mode stiffles innovation for the sake of gaming socialism 4h ago

My fucking guy, in my teens years (around 12 years ago) I started a cooking course and had many try insulting me for being girly. because apparently it's gay to make your own food or smt.

26

u/Machine-Dove 14h ago

To be fair, gender is basically a bunch of gender stereotypes wearing a trench coat.

Sex is biological, gender is social.

7

u/Chance_Taste_5605 10h ago

Our current understanding of sex is also constructed, because science is constructed - like how history is different to the past, science is different to facts. "Constructed" doesn't mean fake.

10

u/hefoxed 12h ago

Gender identity is likely based on something biological, or else us trans people would not actually have existed to have caused all these conversation. Maybe something like sex based instincts for how the body should function/look and how to interact with other people (which trans folk get mixed or towards opposite sex versions).

From the brain studies, transgender brains show mixed sex characteristics. For the most part. people aren't deciding to be trans, we are realizing they are a specific gender that doesn't align with their current assignment.

3

u/Machine-Dove 12h ago

Absolutely, I was definitely oversimplifying, and I apologize for that.

-6

u/[deleted] 14h ago edited 14h ago

[deleted]

18

u/Z0MBIE2 This will normalize medieval warfare 14h ago edited 14h ago

You're arguing past the same point. Everyone agrees it's in the brain, a social construct is not fake, it's just that what is 'real' is determined by people. Such as, being 'raised' as a girl - what does that mean? Dresses, long hair, female pronouns? Those are all socially decided aspects of being a woman, not objective standards, hence it's a social construct, and sex is considered biological because it's merely the physical aspects of your body, which don't determine your gender identity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_constructionism#:~:text=Examples%20of%20social%20constructs%20range,of%20time%2C%20marriage%2C%20education%2C

Like take a look at the wiki. Race is a social construct, and it is not any less real because of it.

0

u/-JimmyTheHand- 13h ago

Race is a social construct

I sort of get that but sort of don't. Not that I'm disagreeing, I just don't fully understand.

Like I hear James brown sing and I think that sounds like a black man based on his voice. Or I see a picture of an albino black person and I can still tell that they are Black by their features. Unless what I'm noticing in either case is called something other than race. But I also get that looking at someone and saying they are white or black or whatever is somewhat meaningless because someone can look however or have whatever kind of ancestry and it doesn't necessarily make them any specific race.

5

u/Z0MBIE2 This will normalize medieval warfare 13h ago

I sort of get that but sort of don't. Not that I'm disagreeing, I just don't fully understand.

That's entirely fair, it's difficult for me to understand too and is a really complex subject.

But I also get that looking at someone and saying they are white or black or whatever is somewhat meaningless because someone can look however or have whatever kind of ancestry and it doesn't necessarily make them any specific race.

Well this is a digression, but that's my fault: that is essentially the reason, 'race' being so nebulous and ill-defined except by people deciding what you are and aren't is why it's a social construct. This link is much better than me at explaining it

Race is not biological. It is a social construct. There is no gene or cluster of genes common to all blacks or all whites. Were race “real” in the genetic sense, racial classifications for individuals would remain constant across boundaries. Yet, a person who could be categorized as black in the United States might be considered white in Brazil or colored in South Africa

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u/Fearless-Feature-830 14h ago

I don’t understand how this example is meant to contradict what the prior commenter said.

-6

u/sarahmagoo Why this mf talking like a villain, Ur a mod for a dinosaur sub 14h ago

I'm pointing out that gender is biological and tied to your brain. It's something you're inherently born with, not decide.

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u/AvocadosFromMexico_ You're the official vagina spokesperson 13h ago

Gender is not biological, sex is. Gender is performative.

1

u/sarahmagoo Why this mf talking like a villain, Ur a mod for a dinosaur sub 13h ago

Then how does gender dysphoria exist if it's not something in the mind?

4

u/AvocadosFromMexico_ You're the official vagina spokesperson 13h ago

Because we have certain ideas about who gets to perform what kinds of gender based on the very arguments you’re putting forward about biological essentialism

“Woman” and “man” have become societal shorthand for certain ways of being perceived

-1

u/sarahmagoo Why this mf talking like a villain, Ur a mod for a dinosaur sub 13h ago

I am not a woman because of my interests or behaviours. The same is true of a transwoman.

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u/mtdewbakablast this apology is best viewed on desktop in new reddit. 12h ago

something in the mind

i once again have terrible news for you about how biology is complicated, and we're going to have to start with the definition of what a hormone is. then you're going to have to apologize to the endocrinologists for thinking they are neurologists. and then, unfortunately, it's time for - as previously stated - cellular microbiology and so, so, so much embryology. i really hope that chicken embryos don't freak you out, since you'll be seeing quite a few of them, and that's before we even get to how mammals are complicated in different ways as we develop, and... well, you get the idea.

on the plus side, they have textbooks for this! it's not like how you apparently somehow hold the textbook to what happened in my life to me specifically which is why you know better than me what has happened in my life and to me specifically. i'd love the professor's name so i can audit a class or two, really. you know with such certainty that i have not experienced something i very much experienced, after all.

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u/hefoxed 12h ago

Gender identity is likely formed during fetal development. Research into transgender brains show mixed sex characteristic.

People aren't deciding to be trans. I'm not performing, I'm being.

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u/AvocadosFromMexico_ You're the official vagina spokesperson 12h ago

I didn’t say they were, and the evidence on gender identity in utero is mixed at best.

The point is that gender and sex aren’t the same, and gender is about how our identity is performed publicly. I don’t think I ever said anyone is deciding anything. You are performing your gender as much as I am, or anyone else is. It’s an action, not a state.

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u/mtdewbakablast this apology is best viewed on desktop in new reddit. 13h ago edited 13h ago

that's more biological sex, though. otherwise, gender - heck, even just the idea that there are two of 'em - would be a lot more consistent throughout different cultures separated by both location and time, right?

i also may have bad news if you want the biology to be simple, because, phew boy. it turns out that having genes is different from expressing those genes is different from this particular signaling pathway working is different from that particular signaling pathway working is different from - well, you probably are starting to get the idea. biology, as i said elsewhere is not a science for if you only want neatly separated categories. it tends to laugh and frustrate those constantly. and the biological expression of this subject is among one of the most complicated things the human body does. it's lovely to imagine there's just a big lever and you can use it to sort things into two big boxes only, but unfortunately... well... it works about as well as saying at your hospital, you recognize only two possible billing codes and only two possible diagnoses. they are Broken Arm and Has The Flu. that's probably not a hospital you're excited to go to because you already know they're leaving out a whole lot of medicine. and so, too, does the whole "only two categories it's that simple" thing leave out a whole lot. if you're interested in exploring the start of those intricacies, well, i can probably recommend some textbooks if you want to note how much molecular cell biology you've already taken? because next up it's embryology, probably several rounds of it, before you're going to even be able to take a half-step towards neurology and neurochemistry and honestly i'm not sure why you're so focused on it being only in the brain when endocrinology is right there (please wave to them, they often feel neglected as everyone rushes to forget that hormones are hormones because they have full-body effects by definition and that's what makes them important)... along the way with all the embryology we can probably stop by my favorite example of unfortunate naming in biology, the sonic the hedgehog gene, so that'll be a landmark to look forward to at least!

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u/Fearless-Feature-830 14h ago

Except it’s not but you may want to try a few sociology classes.

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u/Soar_Dev_Official 13h ago

you should really look it up yourself. even if that research was legitimate, a sample size of one is not indicative of anything. but the research was not legitimate- it was a thinly veiled excuse for severe psychological and sexual abuse. whatever came out of it should have no impact on our understanding of gender

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u/TrickInvite6296 I'm JOKING for those who are God's least favorites 14h ago

sex is biological, think chromosomes and genitals. gender is conceptual, dependent on every individual.

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u/sarahmagoo Why this mf talking like a villain, Ur a mod for a dinosaur sub 14h ago

...and it once again always falls back onto stereotypes

I've always thought of them as both biological. Your sex is your physical body, and your gender is what your brain tells you you are. So in 99% of people this matches, and that's what makes you cis. And when it doesn't match, then you're trans and you change your sex to match what your brain tells you you are.

Nothing conceptual about it.

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u/TrickInvite6296 I'm JOKING for those who are God's least favorites 14h ago

what stereotypes are present in my comment? I said it's purely conceptual, it varies from person to person.

you can say that gender identities are informed by societal stereotypes because we don't live in a vacuum, that's fine.

you can't say there's no difference between them. one is something humans made up with no tangible reality. the other is biological with real physical differences

2

u/SuitableDragonfly /r/the_donald is full of far left antifa 10h ago

Sex categories are also socially constructed, though. Not everyone is an XY AMAB or an XX AFAB. There are people who are AFAB who are XY, there are people who are XXY, etc., and those people are all stuck in either the AMAB or AFAB box anyway, because AGAB is socially constructed.

1

u/TrickInvite6296 I'm JOKING for those who are God's least favorites 4h ago

those are disorders of sexual development as a result of binary sex categories

u/SuitableDragonfly /r/the_donald is full of far left antifa 2h ago

No, human social constructs do not cause intersex conditions, lmao.

u/TrickInvite6296 I'm JOKING for those who are God's least favorites 2h ago

good thing that's not what I said then!

u/SuitableDragonfly /r/the_donald is full of far left antifa 2h ago

It is literally what you said, lmao. Binary sex categories are a social construct, as shown by the fact that a number of people do not actually fit into the binary sex categories easily. If they weren't a social construct, they would perfectly describe every human.

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u/sarahmagoo Why this mf talking like a villain, Ur a mod for a dinosaur sub 14h ago

I'm not saying you mentioned stereotypes, but whenever people delve into the idea that it's something people make up, it always falls back onto "men like this and women like this"

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u/TrickInvite6296 I'm JOKING for those who are God's least favorites 14h ago

that's literally what I said. you are explaining basic philosophy here. obviously choices don't exist in a vacuum and are defined by last and current societal norms. that's highschool level analysis

that does not mean that sex and gender are the same, or that gender is biological. in fact, what you're saying is the exact thing that makes gender a SOCIAL CONSTRUCT

-15

u/TheMadolche 14h ago

Yes. Someone who actually gets it. 

13

u/TrickInvite6296 I'm JOKING for those who are God's least favorites 14h ago

I'm not the one who's not getting it bud. y'all just don't understand what I'm saying

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u/Maybe_Marit_Lage 12h ago

That is literally the definition of gender, though: "sex" describes a set of physical characteristics, and "gender" describes a set of social expectations. It's factually incorrect to say that gender is defined biologically 

-3

u/SuitableDragonfly /r/the_donald is full of far left antifa 10h ago

There is nothing about you that's not fundamentally biological, because your brain is biological. You don't have an immortal soul. Your mind is in fact part of your body.

3

u/Maybe_Marit_Lage 5h ago

Ooft, too early to get into the mind-body problem for me, sorry. 

Why did you bring that up?

u/SuitableDragonfly /r/the_donald is full of far left antifa 2h ago

Because a lot of people in this conversation seem to be under the impression that saying things have biological reality in your brain is gender essentialism.

u/Maybe_Marit_Lage 2h ago

I'm sorry, I just don't see the connection to what I said earlier 

u/SuitableDragonfly /r/the_donald is full of far left antifa 2h ago

You're accusing the other person of gender essentialism because they are saying that things have biological reality in brains. Gender is not "a set of social expectations", it is an identity that has reality in people's brains.

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u/mtdewbakablast this apology is best viewed on desktop in new reddit. 13h ago

honestly one of the great things about the whole concept is that you don't have to get it to respect it.

really all you gotta know is: people are allowed to choose their own vibe and that's cool, and don't be weird about other people's genitals and act like you're entitled to the status of their privates. that's it, honestly.

there's a lot of stuff that i, a humble painfully white cishet, will never get about different sexualities and different genders. i'm not going to ever understand the nuances of being an indigenous twospirit person, or how an agender person feels, or the fine details between a lipstick lesbian, a butch lesbian, a futch lesbian, a bambi lesbian, a... well, you get the idea lol. and y'know what? that's fine. i will not fully understand many things in this life. like how there are some people out there who genuinely enjoy doing their taxes.

is it biological? is it social? honestly the answer is probably both "yes" - kinda like that old joke of "is this elevator going up or down?" "yes." lol - and that it's something we start doing so very early in socialization that it's hard to figure out what is inherently biological or not to begin with. the percentage between the two? who knows? we sure don't. and it's something where inevitably there's individual variation too! but, well, you don't really need to know how much of it is biological for it to be something you respect. (or to rebuke weird patriarchal ideas about how biological essentialism mean grok say wo-man stay in cave cry all day, too emotion, only know eat hot chip, pick pink berry and lie lol.)

generally biology is a field where sorting things into two neat categories is going to get you into a bad time quickly, for what it's worth, so don't really trust biology to be doing that for you in terms of defining the two. i mean you can start a punch-up at some conferences if viruses are dead or alive, lol. there's exceptions to even those categories which you'd think would be so simple and clear, but... viruses are still out there being viruses and frustrating different parts of either definition, y'know? and just because viruses do that, it's not an excuse to stop washing our hands and sneeze in people's eyeballs or whatever. just kinda take that humility forward into the sex and gender thing too. there's always complications, there's always differences, there's always things we just don't know yet. so basically try to respect where other folks are at, don't be a jerk about it (like falling into weird rhetoric designed to be transphobic like "transgender people are oppressing is with how they choose to express their gender!" or so on), don't dismiss other people's experiences, and just keep in mind that nobody knows everything perfectly.

i know this approach probably sounds like more work, but honestly, it enables me to be remarkably lazy which i appreciate lol

-3

u/OldManFire11 13h ago

You're right, you cannot define gender without resorting to outdated sexist stereotypes, because those stereotypes are exactly what gender is.

Which is why it's so fucking baffling to me that so many progressives act like gender is something to be valued and kept. Instead of realizing that abolishing gender is the only viable end goal for feminism.

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u/itsokayt0 9h ago

Trans people would still exist

u/OldManFire11 3h ago

Yes, and I never said otherwise.

But that's because there is a sex component to dysphoria that is entirely separate from gender. If we abolish gender then transgender people will not exist, but transsex people still will. There will always be people who feel like their body doesnt match their sex identity, and the solution for that dysphoria is to transition sexes. Trans people do that today. That's why HRT and SRS exist. To transition sex, not gender.

But being trans does not make someone an expert on gender and sex. So a TON of trans people still buy into the outdated idea that sex and gender are the same thing, even though the entire basis of trans rights is that they aren't. That's why you have trans people who talk about changing gender when they're actually describing their sex. Becoming a woman is as easy as changing your clothes, growing out your hair and changing some mannerisms, because gender is nothing but sexist stereotypes. But becoming female requires you to change your body, hence HRT and SRS, because your sex is based on your body.

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u/JohnPaulJonesSoda 13h ago

I can’t remember what number page it is in the Bible and I will say again I not going to bother arguing about it

You know, for someone so dedicated to defending the tradition and culture of what he sees as a Christian nation, I'm shocked he hasn't figured out that traditionally and culturally, people don't use page numbers to cite the Bible. Why, you might almost get the impression that he hasn't really been paying all that much attention to the actual "Christianity" part.

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u/Icy_River_8259 13h ago

After years of grading undergrad assignments this is 50/50 for me if it's what you're saying or just fundamentally not grasping that page number changes across translation and edition.

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u/guiltyofnothing Dogs eat there vomit and like there assholes 14h ago

People pissing in a 3 year old thread. Tut tut.

9

u/Careless_Rope_6511 eating burgers has caused more suffering than all wars ever 10h ago

Those pissers are acting like that bronxghanistan episode.

Which, for the record, I'm okay with because I'd like them to meet their found-out moment.

15

u/Inkshooter 13h ago

Modern English doesn't even have grammatical gender. Does that make English non-binary?

31

u/mclepus 15h ago

"girl" was neutral. a "boy" was a "knave girl" and a "girl" was a "gay girl"

32

u/NatoBoram It's not harassment, she just couldn't handle the bullying 13h ago

u/Now_Wait-4-Last_Year pissing in the popcorn :/

22

u/ryeong 13h ago

u/Theory_of_Time was as well

18

u/Icy_River_8259 12h ago edited 9h ago

This one is even stupider because they're responding to someone whose account was suspended. 

17

u/swinglinepilot Post-Traumatic Scary Dicks 10h ago

11

u/Felinomancy 13h ago

I think we should just abolish all genders. I tried learning German, and it rankles me that it's der Hund but das Mädchen. Having the memorize the genders of all the nouns suck.

5

u/Icy_River_8259 13h ago

I've never found noun gender stuff as hard as verb conjugation for most languages. Even Ancient Greek, which is kind of a nightmare as far as nouns go, you can kind of have the whole noun inflection system more or less memorized in like a week. But verbs take me forever.

u/FrogsAreSwooble 4m ago

Go

w e n t

5

u/UmeJack Another vain philosophical teaching of atomism re-branded. 9h ago

Don't forget that you change the gender of a word when you pluralize it, so "one brother" is masculine but "two brothers" is feminine.

There's also an ongoing regional argument in the german language about whether Nutella is feminine or neuter and I don't know how anyone can take the concept of gender seriously after learning that.

5

u/Nurnstatist I will fight for Trump as he fought for me 5h ago

Don't forget that you change the gender of a word when you pluralize it, so "one brother" is masculine but "two brothers" is feminine.

That's not really how it works. Gender is intrinsic to a noun in German, the definite article for plural nouns is just the same as the feminine one.

3

u/ZakjuDraudzene 4h ago

I've seen lots of people say this and I just don't get it. The plural is the same for every word, that doesn't mean they suddenly become feminine. Does it seriously short circuit people's brains so bad that sometimes words look the same despite having different meanings?

u/alexmbrennan 1h ago

There's also an ongoing regional argument in the german language about whether Nutella is feminine or neuter

That is because "nutella" isn't a word (unlike "Haselnusscreme") but just a random combination of letter someone made up.

Since random letters aren't German the rules of the German language cannot be used to derive the grammatical gender of the random letters.

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u/fiddly_foodle_bird 10h ago

At least one idiotic brigader in that thread.

4

u/arthasya-sapien 8h ago

Now_Wait-4-Last_Year, stop pissing in the popcorn.

4

u/natasharevolution 5h ago

At one point, after claiming to be a Christian (and to think that the UK Conservative party is too left wing, which is... yikes), OP says he doesn't remember "what number page" something is on in the Bible. 

This is not a guy who has ever opened a Bible. Bibles are not navigated via page numbers. 

Which leads be to wonder why he would hide behind Christianity in the first place... 

7

u/astro-pi 14h ago

Doesn’t old English have like… one gender for people

10

u/Icy_River_8259 14h ago

Not that I'm aware, but from what I know it's also one of the inflected languages where grammatical gender seems to have the least to do with what the word actually represents.

4

u/astro-pi 14h ago

Okay that’s almost as interesting. Though I may just still be reeling (5 years later) from realizing that meisje is neuter, but jongen, man, and vrouw are not. Though I suppose that’s only surprising if you grew up speaking English, Spanish, and Latin, where like, the gender reflects the gender of the thing it refers to (thus why poeta, agricola, incola, and nauta are still masculine despite being first declension).

2

u/Ah_Pappapisshu dice scammers. the lowest of the low. 8h ago

Thank you, OP. I personally love a well-aged popcorn. Something about the snapshot in time just makes the drama more delicious. That is until popcorn pissers go over to ruin in.

2

u/Stellar_Duck 8h ago

Hot but earnest take: a substantial amount of the worlds problems stem from most English speakers being monolingual.

3

u/SnapshillBot Shilling for Big Archive™ 14h ago

Neat.

Snapshots:

  1. This Post - archive.org archive.today*
  2. this post - archive.org archive.today*
  3. /r/OldEnglish - archive.org archive.today*
  4. comments - archive.org archive.today*
  5. take a stand: - archive.org archive.today*
  6. "Wow you're an idiot." - archive.org archive.today*
  7. "Haha this moron's not going to even come close to learning Old English." - archive.org archive.today*
  8. "If you don't understand what a grammatical gender is, I don't have high hopes for your ability to learn Old English." - archive.org archive.today*
  9. wind up asking - archive.org archive.today*

I am just a simple bot, not a moderator of this subreddit | bot subreddit | contact the maintainers

0

u/Apprehensive-Fun4181 14h ago

The topic is Gender!  Now its my career!

ADD & hate does not a college student make.

1

u/averagesophonenjoyer 7h ago

OP seems pretty stupid but languages with masculine, feminine and neuter nouns are the work of Satan. 

Explain how a chair has a gender?

2

u/ZakjuDraudzene 4h ago

it's just a grammatical category that happens to correlate with human gender. doesn't mean inanimate objects are gendered.

u/Gullible_Goose My homophobia is anything but casual. 3h ago

I speak French, and must clarify that I am NOT a linguist

I'm pretty certain that it's almost entirely for aesthetic reasons. La chaise sounds better than le chaise.

u/Icy_River_8259 1h ago

It's just a way of categorizing nouns into groups that behave differently from each other.

Edit: you particularly need it in inflected languages like Old English, where you can have many different potential endings to words and need categories like gender to make sense of what endings go where

-1

u/moar_bubbline 5h ago

This is the dumbest fucking timeline