when people say words like woman/man, masculine/feminine, masculinity/femininity, girlhood, womanhood, manhood and boyhood. I am left utterly confused. I have no idea what any of them mean or are referring to.
I feel like there is a group of people are born and then they are told that woman = vagina, feminine power, pink and long hair and that man = penis, muscles, alpha male and weponized incompetence and they take that and run with it/defend it for the rest of their life and then there's people who studies gender/queer theory and/or have had to go throught their life journey of understanding themselves and their gender identity and what all of that means to them (obviously there are more groups of people then that but) and I wish I was in at least one of them because I feel like there is an entire concept of life that people just get or they know what they're talking about when relating to it and I font understand it at all.
when I say I want to know what a woman is, I dont mean like a dictionary definition. I want to talk to people and understand what they define it/understand it as, how that formed and why exaclty it is like that.
I really just want to know why these categories exist if gender identity is a person by person case basis and there is nothing that can be fixedly put in any of these categories. the furtherest I've gotten to anything can be placed in these categories is that vagina = female(not nessecerily a woman) and penis = male(not nessecerily man). but I know that biological sex is not that simple( and apparently sex is also a social construct but I really dont know much about that)
I understand that even thought gender may be a social construct it does not mean that it does not affect people and the way they think.
for example, ive heard of a genderfluid person that when they feel feminine they like wearing wigs that touch or go over their should. and when they feel either or, they like wearing thick eyeliner. why is long wigs relegated to feminine and eyeliner can transend categories
i really dont want to spew transphobic talking points which is why I want to ask now and correct it instead of going out into the world and saying the wrong thing. correct me if I say anything wrong. if someone is transitioning from a boy to a girl, and they start wearing wigs and get top surgery and start wearing high heels (obviously all of those things are only external and maybe they also have a mindset shift about the world when transitioning from a boy to a girl but) why is it that being a woman is defined as all of those thing?
I understand that even if gender is a social construct it still affects people and people are taught to see gender as a binary and when they are transitioning maybe they are going off of that binary they have been taught
is it that they want to be a woman and are conditioned to thing cleavage = woman so they then also want cleavage or they want to have cleavage and cleavage is associated with being a woman so they then want to be a woman?
I have heard very vaguely about the idea of gender abolishen and I have admittedly not looked in deathly about it but the idea of getting rid of gender makes sense to me but I have read around and I saw that people say that it is also a transphobic talking point and I want to understand why.
for example take a non binary person. I would think that if they define themselves as non binary they are affirming the existence of a binary but just saying that they are not a part of it. I would assume that that person would understand that the gender binary just doesnt exist and isnt a thing, so why continue to affirm it? if they do belive/abide by there being a gender binary (because just because something is a social construct doesnt mean i doesnt affect people) and that non binary person's pronouns are they/them, (i understand that pronouns and gender are not nessecerily linked/the same), why are their pronouns, according to their understanding, out of the binary? why can't they/them or xe/xer or flower/flowers elf pronouns be considered feminine or masculine?
I've seen terfs say that since trans women want to define them by wearing lipstick and dresses and having boobs, that they now want to define themselves by having vaginas/wombs which obviously doesnt make any sense because what about intersex woman and women who are inferile? so since no one can be defined by neither what they deem female gender expression to be or what they deem female biological characteristics to be, doesnt that make the category of woman to be null and void? (on a tangent, I dont understand why terfs are called terfs and get to be considered feminists with exceptions instead of just transphobes?)
I've seen people talk about girlhood and womanhood and I have no idea what it means or what I'm supposed to be doing to embody that. if its girls boding over being girls but everyone's gender identity is different, what are we boring over? if its over experiences, its there a specific set of gender experiences that woman experience? the most definite I've seen is like bonding over having to deal with gender norms. so are women experiences defined by not being a man/being an oppressed by men. there are others like having sleepovers or getting their nails done, but is that not something that both genders can experience? or is that relegated to womanhood as a result of gender roles/norms and thats why its considered womanhood?
everyone gender identity is completely different and formed by different experiences and influences. no two people have the same understanding of gender. so if there are no real differentiation between what belongs in female, male and non binary, then why do those categories of exist? if gender identity is on a case by case basis, than why can't what someone considers their gender identify or their gender expression, just be their identity and their self expression?
i understand there is alot of things I have simplified as a result of never really talking to people with different view and experiences. I've only recently come to college and for most of my life I have read about these things without anyone to answer any leading or subsequent questions I have
