A friend who constantly advocates for Bernie Sanders, higher taxes, solar power, government-set wages for women, bigger government, etc. posted the following on Facebook:
… it is a sense of “female social superiority” as in, females generally speaking are more community oriented, more nurturing and more considerate of others.
I responded with
If you changed gender and became a female, Q, would you then become more nurturing and considerate of others? If Bernie Sanders became Bernice Sanders would she be more community-oriented?
That lead to the following exchange:
- Him: I have no idea. If I were a bird I would be able to fly, but currently we have no way to effect such a transformation. We do know that there are gender differences that affect behavior; there was a recent article about gender differences in stress response that I thought was an interesting example.
- Me: I don’t know of an available procedure for you to become a bird, Q. But isn’t it possible for you to identify as a woman starting tomorrow?
- Him: Possibly, but we have no reason to believe that my self-identification as a woman would sufficiently alter my behavior
- Me: So you’re saying that a transgender woman would not share these positive characteristics with a cisgender woman?
- Him: It is an unknowable question since two natural women may not share these properties or possess them in equal measure smile emoticon
Don’t pretend you don’t know how it works. It’s the same as the issue with making locker rooms open to people who declare themselves to identify as women, and many other situations where you might attempt to use logic like this. The principle is as follows:
“Anyone who identifies as a woman is actually a woman in every relevant way unless I or some other feminist tells you they aren’t because shut up.”
I’d be surprised if you haven’t figured it out yet, any serious analysis of the issue and all of the discussion around it eliminates every other possible principle except that one.
“But isn’t it possible for you to identify as a woman starting tomorrow?”
Maybe not. He could certainly tell people he identified as a woman.
I do share what I take to be your skepticism and possibly bewilderment. I wonder if it is even true that anatomical men who identify as women (and vice versa) can articulate what they think makes women different from men. There seems to be quite a bit of variation within both groups.
If gender is only a social construct, why do we have separate tracks in the Olympics for men and women? It seems the patriarchy is holding women back from achieving their potential.
I’m less interested in his position on transgendered women than on “natural” women: “It is an unknowable question since two natural women may not share these properties or possess them in equal measure smile emoticon”.
I suppose that may be a difference between average, “general” statement about women and individual cases, but it does call into question the pronouncements about social qualities of women made here by men or women.
#FTR: add this lament from Lauren Besser on Medium as YA answercomment to your question: If Bernie Sanders became Bernice Sanders would she be more community-oriented?: