I will respond by addressing the comments line by line and then finishing by

synthesizing those comments into a cohesive explanation of my views and rebuttal.

A) You are stating the definition, yes. Again, the debate is how tied that social norm is to
biology.
B1) Objectively false. You do not seem to grasp how biology works. The injection of
testosterone has the exact same effects not just across cultures, but across *species*:
https://books.google.com/books?id=SQ6RM9sTHiAC&pg=PA140&lpg=PA140&dq=injec
ting+testosterone+into+animals+effects&source=bl&ots=qVtraDMY4E&sig=VwS1USjuU
x79JOF1OHG3QzCVQ4E&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjfpJHSy5XRAhWJzIMKHQjwD
UoQ6AEIPjAI#v=onepage&q=injecting%20testosterone%20into%20animals%20effects
&f=false (page 140, if the page is not properly linked - effects of testosterone and
estrogen on animal behavior)
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF01946450 (effects of testosterone and
estrogen in animals)
https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/volume-22/edition-1/testosterone-and-malebehaviours (actually *read* the myriad studies linked in this article to understand how
the same effects are seen in different cultures)
Your note that one cannot observe biological disposition prior to indoctrination by
culture is hamstrung by not only the consistency of these effects across cultures, but
also the consistency of these effects across *species*. To claim biology does not play a
huge role in gender and social behavior is to willfully stick your head in the sand.
B2) No one denies this. But what you seem not to grasp is how culture emerges.
Culture is not some transcendent entity that magically arose. It arose, just like other
social constructs (like language) based on pre-existing conditions. For example, verbal
language emerged from body language and primitive sounds, eventually developing into
a complex descriptive construct. Culture emerged from foundational realities. One of
those I think we can agree on is geography. You will never find a shipbuilding culture in
the middle of the Sahara or the Arabian desert, especially not one on the same level as
one found in an island country. So we agree that geography and, by extension, material
conditions play large roles in the development of culture.
But one other thing we dont grasp is biology. And thats not just gender. Lets assume
there is no sex difference, and that individuals are not identified by sex in this thought
experiment at all. This is to reduce the number of variables. This model is not designed
to be accurate, just to demonstrate a point.
If we assume all traits, including compassion, empathy, kindness, greed, and loyalty,

are distributed on a spectrum with a normal distribution, it is statistically possible (and

once the sample size gets large enough, actually likely) that you will begin getting
societies made of individuals clustered at one end of these spectrums. Its possible to
get a society of sociopaths and a society of utterly selfless individuals. These biological
differences will affect how the culture emerges. Culture itself is a product of the
*interaction* of individuals, dependent on their inborn traits, with their
geography/surrounding material conditions.
So, how does gender play into this? We can both agree gender is a social norm
emerging from a pre-existing construct (Culture). But why does it emerge? To
understand this, we have to understand one key point: it is difficult to survive. This may
be something we forget in the modern world, but life pre-industrial revolution was
fucking hard. Much simpler that our world, but fucking hard. High mortality and therefore
lower life spans, lots of hard manual labor in order to grow food, etc. And these
conditions existed long before any state emerged. Mother Nature is a cruel mistress.
But what does this mean and how does this apply to our argument? Well, it means that
the only societies that survived were the ones whose cultures adapted to the
environment in a successful manner. This requires taking advantage of every possible
advantage that a society may have. To understand this, we will turn to economics and
the concepts of comparative advantage and opportunity cost.
Imagine this:
The US and Mexico both have the ability to use all possible manpower and resources
within their respective countries to produce 1 good. They can choose between 2 goods:
Food and Clothing.
At full production, the US can produce either 100 units of food or 90 units of clothing.
At full production, Mexico can produce either 50 units of food or 48 units of clothing.
Now, the US can produce more food than Mexico can, and it can produce more clothing
than Mexico can. However, Mexico has an advantage of producing clothing, because
its opportunity cost of producing food is higher than Americas. For every unit of food
that America produces, it gives up .9 potential units of food (90/100). For every unit of
food that Mexico produces, it gives up .96 units of food (48/50). So, Mexico should
produce clothing and America should produce food. This is comparative advantage.
But how the fuck is this relevant? Societies MUST take these comparative advantages
into effect. For example, womens response to babys cries are linked directly to specific
hormones, and these same hormones cause the same responses in different *animals*.
I will relink the human studies I linked in my last post and I also again recommend you
read the above studies showing the consistency of hormone effects across species.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v520/n7548/full/nature14402.html

https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/growth-curve/how-baby-cries-boremom%E2%80%99s-brain
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/apr/15/mothers-more-sensitive-to-cryingbabies-thanks-to-hormone-study-says
http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/08/why-mom-wakes-up-when-babycries/?_r=0
So, we can see that there is a comparative biological advantage, and this advantage
remains constant even through analyzing different species. So, one can begin to make
a solid claim that, yes, biology has profound effects on behavior, this is constant across
species, and to deny that these effects do not demonstrate differences in behavior
between sexes (and therefore genders) is foolish. In this case, as gender is behavioral,
the clear connection between biology (sex and therefore hormones and
neurotransmitters) and behavior demonstrates sex has a very clear link to gender. To
explain this further and demonstrate how behavior is affected by sex, I highly
recommend reading A Mind of Her Own: The Evolutionary Psychology of Women by
Anne Campbell, as well as reading the works of these feminists who study evolutionary
psychology:
http://anthropology.ucdavis.edu/people/sbhrdy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Smuts
http://www.unm.edu/~jlancas/
So, clearly B1 and B2 are based on faulty reasoning, not understanding that by
demonstrating the consistency of results regarding biological manipulation not just
across cultures but also across species signifies extremely strong support linking sex
hormones, neurotransmitters, and other chemicals in the body to behavior and therefore
to personality.
C) Not sure what youre getting at here. If you mean our personalities are determined by
our behavior, I would question that line of thinking, as I argue our personalities are not
always expressed at all times. To see more, go to #politics, check the pins, and read my
descriptions of identity. The description is extremely long (5-6 full 2000 character posts),
so I will not be posting it here again.
D) Do the same thing as C, but note something: personality is based on your inborn
traits interacting with the environment. If you grew up in Germany in the 1930s, you
likely would have been a Nazi. If you grew up in revolutionary America, it is likely your
family and peers would have directly influenced your viewpoints on the world. YOU do
not exist outside of the environment you find yourself in. hence, the abstract individual

of Aristotle and Rawls is innately flawed and cannot be defended or even be

manipulated to be useful.
E) I would again point you to my response regarding identity. A man and a woman may
have similar personalities, hell they may have similar traits, similar interests, similar
libidos, etc etc. But there are *fundamental* differences between them. That woman will
react more quickly to the cries of a baby. That man will likely engage in more risk-taking
activities. Etc etc. And heres the thing you dont seem to grasp that I pointed out above:
humans are fucking awful at categorizing things. Check my post above and you will see
the link towards our cognitive biases, which are side effects of how we process
information and therefore will never go away. The norms in society are for 2 reasons: 1,
the majority of men and women conform to them, more or less, and would conform to
them without the norms being innately imposed. The differences in their biology will, on
average, lead to differences in behavior. And 2. for the comparative advantages as
societies and cultures fight to survive (as I explained above).
Now, I think this is where we begin to maybe agree on something. I argue that out
current conception of gender norms is flawed. But I argue for a new set of norms, one
which probably would not be supported by you, and runs antithetical to the concepts of
emancipation seen throughout critical theory, which I find flawed and fundamentally
incorrect. But E, again, raises a good point.
G) As I already revealed by demonstrating the flaws of your argument in B, these
conclusions *can* be reached, because the exact same effects are seen across both
cultures, AND species. So G is also foundationally incorrect.
>Saying every womenact in a similar way one cannot conclude
I never said that. Not every woman acts in a similar way. All traits exist on some form of
a spectrum with some non-normal distribution. What I AM saying is that there are
significant differences between the behavior of the *average* female and the *average*
male, which *can* be linked to biology, as I have demonstrated repeatedly in this post.
>One also cannot concludegender is fit perfectly to sex because of B2
Also, I never said gender is fit perfectly to sex. What I showed, is that sex significantly
affects behavior, and norms (including gender), being constructs, are built on
fundamental realities which we observe. So, gender will be based, and will always be
based, on the fundamental differences between sexes. Those differences will be
approached in different ways by different norms, but there will always be these
differences.
>historic necessityone need to make a pragmatic and ontological argument in favor of
it

First, ontological arguments are completely unnecessary. If you do not believe in a

metaphysical realm, or at least, your faith in such a realm is not strong enough for you
to consider basing your entire political philosophy on it, then one must return to
naturalism or materialism. And that means ontology is completely irrelevant. We merely
demonstrate how these norms emerge. There is no why besides cultures need to
survive and therefore use every advantage they have, including the comparative
advantages granted by biology.
So, we only need a pragmatic argument. I already demonstrated that, yes, biology
affects behavior. It also affects physical strength and our bodies. Men are stronger than
women physically and much less prone to injury (see the studies done by the military in
my previous post on this topic). They would be the ideal hunters. Sure, a woman might
be a better hunter and a better mother than a certain man, but the opportunity cost of
her becoming a hunter is far greater than of the man becoming a stay-at-home dad. So
the woman always remains the mother. If you do not understand how these
comparative advantages affect culture and build society, then you will not be able to
understand their nature and properly critique them.
>I do dispute the necessity of the *Form* that it took in current western society
And I have demonstrated that regardless of your normative claims, these comparative
advantages are always around. Cultures must always struggle to survive, due to
competition and conflict. Comparative advantages will always be there, so gender
norms will always be there to some degree.
>could have taken many forms
maybe. this isnt really a positivist claim as much as you musing, and therefore has little
significance
>there are some matriarchal societies out there
No, there arent. I posted this in my last response and Ill repost it:
http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/e/eller-myth.html
As a Native American who gets really annoyed at how people describe our culture, the
idea we were egalitarian and/or matriarchal is lolworthy and completely false. Liberals
and Conservatives both lie a huge amount about prehistoric cultures in order to
demonstrate their flawed notions of human nature. Ignore them.
>how gender took Form would have been quite different
baseless claim. No data to support this beyond your musings. Perhaps you are correct.

But perhaps it is also telling no matriarchal society survived and thrived. And that even
when queens ruled society, the society itself remained quite patriarchal. And even when
society seemed matriarchal, recent research has shown in basically every one of these
societies, a man was always at the top. I do not say this to be sexist. Rather, I point out
that there may be a reason why matriarchal societies failed.
>demonstrate the necessity
This point was already explained and responded to above.
>My objection .. is that not every woman is interested or knows if [she] wants to be a
mother
Again, you are pointing out exceptions and using those to demonstrate the supposed
invalidity of gender norms while again, not understanding where they come from. If the
gender norms based on comparative advantage borne out of biology left out 1, 5, even
10% of each gender, that might have been (and clearly was) a necessary sacrifice in
order to maintain cultural unity and maintain the tribe. Remember, before agriculture,
tribes could fall apart, and unity based on kin was very very necessary. So, these
unifying norms needed to remain. One may sit there and say, today, we do not need
these but that is a normative claim. I also would argue that the threat of anomie
provides a very solid counterargument to any idea that we should remove these
foundational norms in society. emancipation is not a valid argument in situations such
as these.
>may or may never be expressed
Considering even to today, >80% of womens lineages remain active, demonstrates that
the vast majority of women reproduce. In this case, the norms are again necessary, and
if they dont adequately represent 10% of the population, that is the necessary cost of
survival.
>sheer biological difference between sexes[but] same categorical difference can be
made within one sex
These two things are not mutually exclusive. Take this data set for example.
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 ||||||| 150 160 170 180 190 200 210 220 230
What do these numbers mean? Well, lets assume these numbers represent some unit
and that they are distributed in those two groups separated by the bars.
The range of 10-90 is 80. The range of 150-230 is 80. The difference between 90 and
150 is 60. In this case, within-group variation is greater than between-group variation,

yet between-group variation remains significant. Not understanding this difference will
lead to serious defects in your argument.
>empirical evidence [shows] every occupation one sex does, another can do also, alas
less commonly but still
If by less commonly you mean less well or that for each occupation one sex will
generally be more capable than the other, then sure. Take for example hard physical
labor. As the military studies showed, women are not just weaker than men on average,
but even the strongest women demonstrate a proneness to injury that men do not have.
A lot of this injury occurs around the pelvis. Why? Because womens pelvises are
different cause they have to give birth lol. So again, biology dictates reality. Here is just
one study besides the ones done by the US military and especially the marine corps.

http://jap.physiology.org/content/89/1/81
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2394531-marine-corps-force-integrationplan-summary.html
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/09/10/439190586/marine-corps-studyfinds-all-male-combat-units-faster-than-mixed-units
So, these differences DO play significant roles, as all the empirical evidence
demonstrates. And if you want to see the behavioral/psychological differences, see the
evolutionary psychologist feminists I linked above.
>we need to make a special social category with all their implications
We already have those. Theyre called weak, strong, smart, dumb. They are
modifiers based on other underlying traits. Strong man or woman. Dumb man or
woman. Etc. These already have categories. I have no idea why you want a new one.
>sexual attraction
Again, idk where this comes from. Gender/sex isnt innately tied to sexual attraction.
These are different concepts.
>beside giving birth, no real pragmatic benefit in keeping the current forms of gender
Of course there are. See these studies I posted in my last response based on anomie:
http://compass.port.ac.uk/UoP/file/7bb5c099-a05e-4037-a4ea394f0ea4d719/1/Anomie_IMSLRN.zip/page_04.htm
http://gerontologist.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2014/10/16/geront.gnu097.full

We must balance freedom and emancipation with the empirical reality that every single
one of us will be unable to express our full identities at all times (or even at any time)
due to the constraints of society. And there will never be a society that will allow you to
express your full identity. Besides maybe a few people living in the woods together.
Besides that, its a pipe dream.
>no real pragmatic benefitB1
As I demonstrated, B1 is an objectively false claim. Gender being tied to sex (as biology
dictates) tells us a huge amount about the individual, mostly because a man is, ON
AVERAGE, more dangerous than a woman. In fact, a set of recent studies have shown
we make more judgments based on age and apparent gender/sex than on race. So yes,
there ARE ways we know things about people based on gender. And just because you
or anyone else does not see them, does not make them less real.
>you made the claim biological differences mean there should be social categories of
gender
No, I made no claim about *shoulds*. I made an entirely positivist, empirical claim based
on a wide ranging set of evidence. Which I have linked between this post and last.
Normative judgments never entered the world.
>necessity of upbringing of children based on sex, to a specific gender role
Done. See above. Mother Nature makes it a necessity. Culture merely reacts to survive.
>social implications for it in their adult lives
This is completely unnecessary. Gender is a social construct that we create to allow
cultures to survive, which do so based on reproduction. As long as an individual
reproduces, the construct works. I can criticize the effects of these norms on people
during adulthood, but that doesnt make them any less real. And it will not remove the
effects of mother nature shaping culture.
>how is that certain people find themselves with sex that is not compatible with the
supposed appropriate gender
Because as I explained above, the norms work for the vast majority of people, and as
evolution doesnt care about *everyone*, if the norms maximize reproduction and
survival and productivity by leaving out the 10% that dont conform, then the norms still
work since they are maximizing survival, which is the goal.
> other biological differences between and within sexes, [so] categorizing them into
[genders] seemed not be appropriate on that level that is concurrent in our society.

As demonstrated earlier, just because within-group differences may be greater than

between-group differences, the differences between groups may still be immense. And,
as I demonstrated with the anomie studies as well as the unending fight for cultures to
survive, categorizing people by gender will ALWAYS exist, as it is tied to sex and one of
the biggest short cuts humans make is categorizing things. Reread the cognitive biases
if you dont understand.
https://betterhumans.coach.me/cognitive-bias-cheat-sheet-55a472476b18#.gfzcvlwh1