My daughter was 7 when she first said to me 'I'm glad I'm a girl but I'm not girly.' This is meaningful to her & I know what she means.
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Replying to @HPluckrose
Consider: I'm glad I'm an uncle, but I'm not very avuncular. Equally meaningful. But no need to adopt a parallel concept of kinship.
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Replying to @HenryTarquin
No need to try to eradicate it either tho. It exists & is in common usage & always has been. Female & feminine., Male and masculine.
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Replying to @HPluckrose
"Gender" was once (v. briefly) useful as a way of referring to male/female without sounding like you were talking about fucking. No longer!
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Replying to @HenryTarquin
Before that people were described as 'manly' or 'womanly' - the concept of descriptors for gender existed way before the word did.
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Replying to @HPluckrose
Sure, but there's also "avuncular" - and fatherly, motherly, fraternal, bovine, & countless other adjectival forms of biological kind terms
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Replying to @HenryTarquin
Yes. And we can talk about the difference between the biological fact of being a mother & the presentation of motherliness.
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Replying to @HPluckrose
We can, and I think we can do so better without a separate word for the latter kind of thing.
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Replying to @HenryTarquin @HPluckrose
In short I think "gender" was more useful in grammar, and more useful disambiguating "sex", than it is in its current incarnation
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Replying to @HenryTarquin
But ppl will still want to talk about things other than biological bodies. They'll want to talk abt what we call 'gender'
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Taking word away doesn't make the subject go away. Masculinity & femininity will still be central concepts in our own identity & attractions
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