Why do people assume this about gender neutrality?

Question

It seems that people tend to assume that gender neutrality is about obliterating all genders and meshing them into one.

Have people who thought this realized that it's about acknowledging that there is more than two possibilities?

Are they just insecure about their own gender?

Do they feel their gender identity is being underminded or threatened?

Do they feel the need to discredit other people's gender identity to feel more secure about their own gender?

What do you think of gender neutrality and why is it important?

Answer 1

"Know Thy Self". I feel sorry for young adults today. They are so confused about many things: sexual identity, the difference between right and wrong, femininity & masculinity, and the list goes on. I subscribe to the belief that these individuals are unconfident about their own identity. Their only recourse is to change the social landscape so they can fit in and feel normal.

6 years in the the field on Mental Health

Answer 2

I don't think gender neutrality should be applied in every scenario. It is important to be fair, to all genders equally, when it comes to equal work for equal pay. Stereotyping and labeling of people into categories is a good way to miss out on a wide array of different opinions from within any given group. But if I want a man's opinion on something gender specific, I will ask a man, likewise for a woman. I won't ask a man what it is like to have morning sickness, and I won't ask a woman how it feels to be a new father. If people think I should, that's nonsense. Being respectful to others regardless of their gender is being neutral, and the things that makes us different shouldn't be the things that divide us, but the avenues for ways we can better understand another point of view. In short, you can not be neutral if you attach prejudices, either positive or negative to any given group.

Answer 3

I think gender neutrality is silly. People are way oversensitive these days and get offended over *everything*.

As for there being more than two possibilities, what do you mean? People are either male or female in their gender. There are those who are some sort of blend of both, but that isn't a third separate gender - it's a blend of the two.

Answer 4

Hello, luv.  Thanks for answering my question so nicely.

Gender neutrality.  Well, there's no such thing, is there?  It's all in the mind.  Men can't have babies, or have periods, can they?  (Thank God!!).  I think it may come down to the more general idea of the level playing field.  After all, I've heard that in some schools, kids are never given tests, because it's felt that if one child wins, the children that lose will be mentally damaged!  Idiotic, but there you are.

I'd like to hear what else you think on the subject,

Mike B

Answer 5

But that's exactly what gender neutrality is about; it's a P.C. attempt to obliterrate all genders and meshing them into one so that we can all pretend that nobody is really any different in any way than anyone else. Saying that it isn't doesn't make it so, and calling me insecure isn't going to make me break down and say that you're right when you're not; if anything it strengthens my point. It's ironic that you're accusing me of feeling the need to discredit  other people's gender identiy while you're so dedicated to telling me that men shouldn't be men and women shouldn't be women.

EDIT:

"Actually, I don't believe I said that men shouldn't be men or that women shouldn't me women, nor do I specifically believe that."

You may not have but you certainly  implied it strong enough. Don't try to backpedal; you're just making yourself look even more foolish than you already are. You are advocating gender neutrality in your question so please don't insult my intelligence by telling me that you don't believe that women sholdn't be women nor should men be men.

Perhaps you should look up the definition of "neutral" some time...

Answer 6

Some people are trying to mash them lol...

Someone here recently asked about not using words to differ s*x....

Does that mean that we are all its?

And ya kinda sounds  like an unisex bathroom lol.

Answer 7

I think that a lot of people, unfortunately, don't realize the multiple possibilities. Since one of the people I'm closest to is transgendered and I'm in an LGBT rights organization, it tends to be something I think about more often than the average person, but my freshman year of high school almost no one knew what transgender meant, and even once they'd wrapped their head around that they didn't realize that some people might not have a determined gender. It's just not something a lot of people think about.

Answer 8

I have no idea what you're asking. To me, gender neutral is like a unisex bathroom.

Answer 9

From personal experiences and studying psychology including cultures in which the gender roles are reversed I don't personally believe in gender differences and neither does my husband. From a spiritual point of view - does the soul have a gender?

We just believe that everyone is an individual and there are no specific traits which are unique to all women or all men. Generalisation are just that because tehre are far too many variables.

I personally feel just a spirit, neither male or female but my body is female for reproduction reasons.

If people enjoy being their gender then that's great, but the only problem in that assuming all women or all men are the same is that it makes people act or do things which may be unnatural to them but they feel they need to fit in. E.g I know a few men who admit that they don't actually like football but they don't want to be ribbed for it! :-o

Answer 10

For someone who scored extremely low on your little test you posted, you may want to be asking yourself this question.

Add:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...

Answer 11

Gender neutrality in law is a good idea. Socially, as long as nobody is pigeonholed because of gender, I can deal.

Answer 12

People confuse s*x and politics.  For example, I dated a wonderful powerfully intelligent man whom I was gaa-gaa over and highly sexually submissive to, dressed erotically for and felt deep pleasure in his strong leadership in our romance.  BUT, we also happened to work together in a highly charged life-and-death special team in nursing.  In that role, I absolutely dominated, at the top of my lungs sometimes.  We nearly came to blows at work, figuratively speaking, in these colossal clashes of brain power and will.   Then, he and I would go home and make love like rabbits with total dominance role reversal.  : )

I did not dress seductively at work for him.  I did not assume bedroom-gender role behaviors in the workplace.  That is HIGHLY inappropriate.  Gender "neutrality" is essential when goals are not sexual, such as trying to keep babies alive.  People who "expect" that others assume bedroom-gender behaviors in the public sphere are attempting to suppress them, use them, exploit them, reduce them, s***w them, sabotage them.  

People who bring their sexual role expectations of other people into the public sphere and workplaces are acculturated to believe, consciously or otherwise, that women are only s*x objects and have nothing else to offer and must "assume the position" in their PUBLIC roles to satisfy male sexual role expectations of them.  Big businesses are like REALLY sick and tired of people bringing their bedroom-sexual gender role expectations of others into the workforce and are mightily screening for that during hire-on not just because of all the trouble caused by sexism and harassment on the clock at employers' expense, but because there is a correlation between employees who do not emotionally "feel right" or do not feel "complete" or manly or feminine or whatever about themselves (their identity / sexuality /self-esteem) unless OTHERS around them assume certain behaviors, which leads to poor outcomes related to how that type cannot emotionally/intellectually adapt optimally in any OTHER way, either, on teams and in global / multi-cultural client relations.

Answer 13

I don't see understanding and accepting LGBT people as neutralising gender - I see it as celebrating gender differences!

Gender neutrality is about trying to remove gender identity from society altogether, whereas an equal society would accept that there are many different gender identities and treat them all with respect, encouraging people to be proud of them rather than ignoring them.

I may just be getting stuck on semantics here, but to me, to neutralise gender is to discredit it...

Answer 14

I think a lot of people, including myself are "gender" phobic to some degree. I don't really care what sexual orientation you are but if a man acts feminine, I just get this instinctive gut response of being extremely uncomfortable, it's does no way mean that I'm ignorant of gender variability, and that gender like sexuality is not dichotomous. It's just one of those few things that really gets to me.

I agree that workplace gender neutrality at work is simply based towards efficiency, but in bed it becomes more of yin-and-yang thing.

Answer 15

For me, it's not about denying gender or meshing them together. Not at all.

I admit I hadn't really thought of the LGBT connection. I think it could benefit from this way of thinking.

When I think of gender neutrality, I'm not thinking about political correctness. I'm thinking more of along the lines of assuming...

women's issues=supported by women only

men's issues=supported by men only

...and changing that way of thinking. Of course, many people probably feel the same way that I do.

I think everyone could benefit from coalitions. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. Really, we are all interconnected. Something may not affect me directly but that's not to say that it never will or that it never will affect someone close to me. (If it hasn't already.)

In my eyes, it's a taking down of the blinders and looking at the big picture. It's about letting go of rigidity really.