Gender

What is the psychology behind giving something Gender? For example, since I have been a child I have always thought of things in terms of gender. My thumbs are masculine, index finger is feminine, middle finger is masculine, ring finger is feminine yet with my pinkies one is masculine one is feminine. Forks are feminine, knives are masculine, spoons are feminine/masculine. And so on and so forth. I have unwittingly given everything gender. Is it for the sake of the creative process? Is it my visual perception, which I have internalized in order to create a work of art? To provoke empathy out of one who is viewing the artwork? Ponder this: Are the ancient and modern great works of art, great because the gender it supposes therefore provoking empathy accordingly? Do we relate to art, simply by relating to the gender it suggests?
One night I drew a picture of a large oak tree and asked my four year old what it was. He replied,“that’s a tree, and he grows in our yard.” Why did he assume the gender was masculine?
I could be reading more into it, but for the sake of thought, why do things without gender seem to have gender?
If a motorcycle had sex organs would it be a boy or a girl? My mind says boy, WHY?

As Freud wrote because everything either looks like a penis or a vagina.

Also I believe there is a femanine and masculine energy which is really a part of everything. I tend to like the Jewish analogy of comparing women to a circle and men to a straight line. This probably goes beyond the spiritual and human to the non-physical world as well.

thanks for commenting, I am a great believer in energy as well. Whats your take on this observation. With things having female and male energies, and God as the creator of them, God then has both male and female attributes. I wonder then, why people tend to think God as a male.
Let me ask you for your opinion. I write and illustrate childrens books and I am usually biblical with them. Reason being I like to educate my children on God and the Bible yet when I find those type of children stories, they paint rosey images of Noah in a boat, smiling and waving with all of his animals. And I grew up with that image as well, yet it isn’t accurate and I think it actually does a little harm by giving the image that everything was good and happy. It wasn’t happy, God was about to destroy the earth and all of the people except for Noah his seven family members. (those stories usually leave out the other people also). What I think is dangerous about the rosey image is if a child receives only those children images and no further biblical education throughout adolescents, he will retain the notion that God is only about happy, cheer, joy etc into adulthood. He perceives God as that and nothing else. Then, considering his family situation, if there is no joy no happiness in his life he then is more apt to reject God due to the image that was first painted into this subconcious and that was abscent in his life. He may feel abandoned by God simply because he was only given rosey images of him. Children are impressionable. Therefore, if he feels abandoned by God then he may be more apt to rebell against him. “if you don’t like me, I won’t like you” sort of thing.
I am just speaking on tems of my own perceptions. So I ask you this,
this is an idea in very early stages of developement, Would a book about Gender be helpful to children? A gender book about God and male and female energies. There is something seemingly helpful to distinguish male and female in everything. I feel like it’s innate and everyone has those feelings. Or would it just confuse them? Although I think children are very receptive and know a lot more than we give credit. Also, why do you think it goes beyond to the non-physical world? What purpose does it serve? I think it does also, but its the why. The why is what I want to put into book form. Why does gender exist in the non physical world?
There has to be a reason.

I have found that some things are so deep that they actually become simple, which is what I love about writing children stories.

The term ‘sex’ is used to mean “Maleness or femaleness as determined by genetic factors present at conception that result in anatomical and physiological differences,” (Baron & Byrne, 2002, p. 184) regardless of our self-concept. The term ‘gender’ refers to “The attributes, behaviors, personality characteristics, and expectancies associated with a person’s biological sex in a given culture,” (Baron & Byrne, 2002, p. 184) again regardless of our self-concept. Gender norms in our culture, although changing, currently define femininity for those who are biologically female, and masculinity for those who are biologically male. We are born into our biological sex, and we are born into a culture and family which has ready-made gender norms all set up for us, but only with time and experience will we develop our gender identity, “The part of the self-concept involving a person’s identification as a male or female,” (Baron & Byrne, 2002, p. 185).

Research these things for the socialization side of gender:

structural functionalism and social learning theory

social conflict theory and identification theory

symbolic interaction (and gender-schema) theory and cognitive development theory

agents of socialization: environment, family, language, peers, television, school

Interesting to research are studies on androgyny.


Research these things for the ‘nature’ side of gender:

essentialist perspective (biological, sociobiological, evolutionary)

“Man the Hunter”

Cross-cultural comparisons of gender norms.

Sex chromosomes and their determination of biological sex (andrenogenital syndrome, Turner’s syndrome).

sex differences in infants

hormones and aggression

“His” and “Hers” brains

differences in sexual behavior

Excellent insight I love it. Tolstoy said something very similar and I quote: “There is no greatness where simplicity, goodness and truth are absent.” :slight_smile:

I’ll try and respond to your other post a bit later my head is spinning from disscussing all that theology in the other thread oy vey.

Thank you. Isn’t it funny how that happens?

I do not have children, nor do i really spend alot of time around them, well not in the physically young sense of a child, but it has intruiged me as to why they attach genders to inanamit objects (I’m really only referring to children whose first language is english) and how to each sex the opposit is “bad” or “icky”. If anyone has any thoughts on this…

As to labeling certain things as being femanine and others to be masculane, perhaps it has its roots in Ancient Chinese philosphy and the Yin-Yang symbol that represents the universe being divided into creative and destructive forces which are always dynamic and always equal. The Yin represents femaninity, dying, submission, completion, cold, darkness and night While Yang represents masculinity, birth, creation, heat, light, dominance and day.

Just because these concepts orginated in the East does not mean they havn’t had an effect on western thought, and even if we don’t believe in them it does not meen that we are not aware of them. Perhaps these ideas within our subconcious would lead someone to view the bright, living tree to be a manifestation of Yang and call it him.

A child to western parents may not have gotten the Yin/Yang in their subconscious, but would have obsorbed some ideas of what constitutes male and female attributes and, much as the ancient Chinese philosophers did, apply these attributes to the world.

In many languages around the world inanimate objects are given gender and it is not that big of a deal.

Gender doesn’t exist. Sex does.

Knives are male, but feminine.

Gender doesn’t exist, it simply forms around the environment. Human females are passive, but in other species females are murderous. So violence isn’t a gender. If the conditions happened to be just right, Males might evolve to have tender skin, beautiful appearance, and boobs, whilst the females were bony muscular and went outdoors to cut down lumber.

As a middle aged male, I am developing boobs and so does that mean o am becoming feminine?

Yes. Surreptitious 57 is at the extreme end of this equation, he no longer cares about finding a partner and also he views life as meaningless, has no ambitions or drive of any kind and views death as a reward.

When both estrogen and testosterone are at zero, nihilism begins. But with a bit of estrogen, surreptitious will begin to feel cravings for things (estrogen is a similar compound to testosterone.)

What will estrogen develop craving for?

A craving for peace, serenity, happiness, beauty, comfort, and love.

I would tend to agree with that, as there is a direct correlation between my moobs and and peace seeking attitudes but correlation may not equal cause.

Estrogen is a sensitivity hormone. It causes a more tender and sensitive psychology. Thus peace-seeking attitudes develop as a rudimentary response to incompatible stimuli.

The feminine desire for peace is both emotional and logical, the masculine desire for peace is only logical.

Note how I said masculine and feminine not male or female. It is logical for males to desire peace, since they have feminine modes, and peace benefits them during those modes.

I never quite understand why we blame so many human activities such as war and violence on religion as it is clearly a testosterone issue.

Chris Brown allegedly pointed a gun at a woman.

No it takes a certain mix of the two components actually.

It takes a feminine mind to actually absorb the teachings of a book and be willing to blow yourself up because a book says so.

Alternatively, it takes a feminine mind to take an insult, such as someone’s bullying, or a cheating wife, to become so hurt that it acts violently upon it.

So estrogen and testosterone are needed for violence.