1007
Words matter.
You aren't writing an academic paper. Always use simple direct language.
- Help the poor
- Healthcare for everyone
- Good treatment at work.
Don't use complex words.
this post was submitted on 03 Jul 2025
1007 points (99.6% liked)
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Great question, and one that's pretty fraught at the moment. I don't have an answer beyond a tautology - a man is someone who identifies as a man - and the knowledge that some cultures assign adherence to certain behavioural norms to that (ex. A man acts as breadwinner, is competitive, has a certain type of physicality distinct from women, etc.), most of which crumble with any hard look at them.
To be frank, I don't really care about what a man or woman is. If identifying as a man if female, or a woman if male, makes it so someone doesn't want to blow their brains out, then that's a cool and good thing. But note the distinction - man != male and woman != female in my statement.
Isn't that sexism, something we should be fighting by saying "women can do that too?"
It is, though noting the term sexism itself hasn't been replaced with another that captures the distinction between biological sex and gender, at least one I know of. Gendered prejudice could be one, I guess.
We should be fighting it in a few directions:
"Women can do that too"
"Men can do that too"
"Women don't necessarily need to do that"
"Men don't necessarily need to do that"
"People who do not consider themselves men or women can do that too, and/or not do that."
It seems to me that saying that someone does not neatly fit into the category of man or woman is accepting that "category of man" and "category of woman" are valid categories. Rather than fighting sexism, it's reinforcing sexism. If someone truly believed that cultural norms about what's male and what's female was sexist BS, there would be no need for a "they" pronoun.
Well yes there would because communication is necessary and important. They may want to communicate this distinction outwardly in a way that can't be ignored, in order to fight perceptions.
I do think your argument holds some water, that it can reinforce sexism to think rigidly in that way. But I think the leap from that to the conclusion misses the key context of the society and culture in which we exist.
And moreso the signals members of it use in order to find others like them, signal support, or signal opposition.