3 upvotes, 1 direct replies (showing 1)
View submission: Do non-binary identities reenforce gender stereotypes?
You cannot discover things in the social sciences in the same way you can discover them in math. These are abstract concepts in a very literal sense; gender is a human concept from its origin and its a way to categorize how social roles are played out. At best, we can say it's a sort of internal compass towards how we navigate our social roles, but even then, these social roles vary incredibly, culture to culture and epoch to epoch. Something as ephemeral as that cannot be innate, if for no other reason than the fact that it is the result of us orienting ourselves against the environment it's in. Different environment = different role. There are tendencies perhaps, but that's not at all the same as sommethinf being immutable and innate.
Comment by shivux at 13/01/2025 at 11:01 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
You cannot discover things in the social sciences in the same way you can discover them in math.
I’m not sure this is true, but even supposing it is, it’s not clear that the “innate gender identity” people are talking about would actually fall under the domain of the social sciences. If, as some people suggest, it’s related somehow to brain structure or chemistry, then it would be neuroscience, wouldn’t it? You can certainly discover new things in neuroscience.
I also disagree that cultural variation in something means it can’t be innate in some way. Language, for example, varies a lot, but evidence also seems to suggest that humans have some kind of innate “language learning instinct”, especially as children. Perhaps gender is something similar, where the specifics of it vary between cultures, but we still have a kind of innate “gender learning instinct”, or like you said, a kind of internal compass that orients us towards certain social roles?