Aye. So was mine. It's been an informative thread as far as learning new terminology is concerned.
I've learned to watch gender threads from a distance though.
i'll tell you one person who has been notable by his absence, and that's johnny vodka. i think he's done well not to get embroiled in this.
Then what use is the word "binary", if you are meaning it in different ways about the same thing in subsequent sentences?
For me (although others may feel differently) binary indicates either end of the gender, sex and sexual orientation continuums.
But you are still suggesting that gender is a continuum that has two ends. That one can be "either end" of gender. That does imply each "end" is mutually exclusive of each other. What is the evidence for this? What definition or template are we even working from?
kabbes any chance of an answer?
Maybe binary as a term will lose meaning once the concept of continuum is more readily accepted. For now it's a working hypothesis subject to change. Further, I think gender is what we do (which may vary with time and circumstances) rather than what we are, which is the performativity angle.
The problem is not the continuum, it's the one-dimensional nature of the concept. It's a line with two ends. But what if gender is multi-dimensional? (1,0) is not opposite to (0,1). These are not a pair of binary states; the continuum is not well-ordered.
Talking across eachother here a bit, but the problem arises when the continuum requires multiple dimensions.
If you think of gender as what you do rather than what you are, it doesn't seem as one-dimensional because it varies with time and circumstances (or not, depedning on the individual).
How about if you like all nuts but some days you like cashews and some days you don't want any nuts at all?
yeh. but at least you see that oranges are not the only fruit.
But what I do also exists on multiple dimensions.
Well quite -- that just makes it even more complicated, as if the lack of well-ordering on the set isn't already difficult enough.
There may not be. But (our) society is ordered around the binary concepts of man and woman even if people don't fit that binary. Or if they do fit the binary, but they're stuck in a different biological binary of male and female.
Right, I totally get that, and I do get stuck on that. And people have to do what they have to do to get by in the imperfect world we live in. But on a different level, I don't think we collectively help improve this state of affairs by pretending that the binary concepts are in any way helpful or valid. These binary concepts of man and woman -- what actually are they? Seriously.
I'd point you in the direction of Judith Butler but that might be unkind
I'm informed that her partner's writing, Wendy Brown, might be easier to read but it's from a slightly different angle.
I agree that they're not particularly helpful, but they're a starting point for discussion.
... but only if we define them first.
and when you've been asked something multiple times you've hardly covered yourself in glory by answering.
