Gender, Biology and Language

[kerravonsen]

So, there is OUTRAGE about deviantArt offering only "male" or "female" as gender choices in registration. No, I don't wish to join in the outrage on behalf of people who psychologically consider themselves not to have a gender. Certainly not going to throw around inflammatory phrases like "bigoted jerks".

What I'm wondering is why the heck should one have to specify one's gender in the first place? The only reason I can think of is that there is something in the software that has to decide what pronoun to use. Why else do they need to know? So that they can treat you differently depending on your gender? That's discrimination. Sexism. I get enough of that crap already as a woman geek. So think again, peoples.

(I've just changed my profile on DW in regard to gender to "rather not say")

Comments

[foxfirefey]

A few main possible reasons for a site to consider doing it (whether right or wrong):

* Pronoun fear, like you mentioned. They don't want to use the neutral alternatives since not many people know them, don't want to use "their" as a solution, don't want to go through the effort of wording things neutrally, etc. This is generally only relevant on sites where the site is trying to report on the actions of other users, aka "X has uploaded a new photo! See (his/her) gallery here!"

* Ad targeting. An ad based site can increase ad revenue by better ad targeting, either through higher ad rates (advertisers will pay more to try and reach more specific groups of people) or through (in general) better relevancy to a given demographic resulting in more clicks. Catering to stereotypes make marketers money, even if we don't like it or don't fit into them.

* Ignorance and a desire for user data, for whatever reason (customer analysis? curiosity?), or someone being okay with enforcing a choice between the two, in order to make the stats more "solid-ish" seeming, since if you offer a decline or "other" PEOPLE COULD TAKE IT and then you wouldn't be able to classify everybody on the site into one or the other bin.

My guess in DA's case is it's probably mostly ad targeting driving it, since I've read they let you hide your gender from displaying, and I guess are apparently more willing to make the hiding more complete than give back a neither/undisclosed option.

[alias_sqbr]

From everything I've heard it's an ad targeting thing.

Not considering yourself to have a gender (which is afaict different to identifying as a gender other than "male" and "female") isn't always a "psychological" thing eg some people are intersex, for example, not that there's anything wrong with people who are not identifying as being outside the gender binary anyway.

I consider DeviantArt to be bigoted not just because of the choice to only have two genders offered (which is a common mistake) but because of their reaction to criticism about it, as well as their double standard about art depicting lgbt relationships and other stuff.

I consider them jerks for LOTS of reasons. Not just the bigotry, they're terrible about plagiarism too, plus there's the malware ads, the creepy way they tried to pressure people to publicly show their birthday...Seriously. Jerks. And I can think of more inflammatory things I could call them :P

[vilakins]

Huh. And I was considering joining DA.

[watervole]

I know someone contemplating a gender chance who is gradually going around removing 'Mr' from his bank accounts and the like, and simply leaving the field blank - which is surprisingly hard to do in some case as 'empty field' is not an option.

But the one that really amused him was the one that allowed you an easy blank in the 'title' field, but then insisted you put 'male' or 'female' as gender.

[watervole]

I should add that that was 'amused' as in that he related it to me as a joke, rather than screaming 'outrage'.

[izhilzha.livejournal.com]

DW asks that? I don't recall LJ asking, though it's been long enough that I might not remember. It does seem odd--unlike for a survey or study, where the data might be useful.

[kerravonsen]

The hoohah is about DeviantArt, not Dreamwidth. Both Dreamwidth and LiveJournal ask you about your gender in the "edit profile" stuff. LJ gives you three options: male, female, and other/unspecified. DW gives you four options: male, female, other and "rather not say". On LJ I'd already selected the "other/unspecified" option, but it seems that I'd forgotten to do so with Dreamwidth. But that omission has now been corrected.

[izhilzha.livejournal.com]

I got what the hoo-hah is about, thanks. I'm not on DeviantArt, nor particularly interested in it (not being a visual artist), that's why I asked about other things.

And I don't mind checking "female," because, well... I am. I get why you and others might not do so, but I feel that as long as we have to avoid saying who we are, equality hasn't arrived. I say it in hope, I guess; or maybe optimism.

[kerravonsen]

I'm not so much of an optimist. (sigh)

[izhilzha.livejournal.com]

Thank you for posting about this, actually--I'd never sat down and thought about why I usually don't mind saying what gender I am.

And this even though, as a genre writer, I've contemplated using a gender-neutral pseudonym if and when I start getting published or produced. I've never quite decided, although I have been using my full name on scripts the past couple of years.

...we younger feminists have more reason to be optimistic than anyone before us ever had. Sometimes I'm glad of that; sometimes I know we don't remember the tough times of even 30 years ago well enough.

[kaffy_r]

I agree that asking for gender, or at least making it a required field (no matter how many options are given) is ridiculous. Offering it as an optional fields, with lots of options therein, is fine for people who want to provide as much information as possible about themselves to acquaintances, etc.

Requiring it smacks of marketing, and marketing is de facto sexist. (And generally all the other 'ists, because, unless it's specifically targeted at some defined "subgroup" (snicker quotes), it's specifically targeted at whatever the marketer sees as the great unwashed, uneducated lowest common denominator. Why yes, I do harbor an irrational distaste for marketers, why do you ask?)

[kerravonsen]

I'm with you on marketing and advertising in general, because - well, what angers me about advertising is that its entire purpose is to make people discontent and unhappy; it lays before people, constantly, the temptation to break the 10th commandment: thou shalt not covet. In modern society, contentment is a sin against Capitalism. 8-(

[kaffy_r]

Which is one of the reasons I'm extremely suspect of Big C capitalism.

[izhilzha.livejournal.com]

What about small-c capitalism, i.e. the general idea of the free markets as opposed to super-regulated bureaucracy-controlled ones?

(I'm genuinely interested in any response you have, mostly because I'm with you both in hating marketing, and yet I feel that having free markets is one of the only ways to prevent the accumulation of power that can lead to tyranny. Yes, I am American. *g*)

[kerravonsen]

I'm not kaffyr (and I'd like to see what she says too) but I have my opinions on that too...

I'm not sure that "small-c capitalism" is "the general idea of the free markets as opposed to super-regulated bureaucracy-controlled ones".

I don't think that a completely free, completely unregulated market is a way to prevent "the accumulation of power that can lead to tyranny". All it means is that the power will accumulate in the hands of the steel barons as opposed to the political barons. That is, the rich and greedy will have nothing to stand in their way, because the market will not be regulated. This whole recent debt crisis was caused by unscrupulous greed, and there will always be unscrupulous greed. Greed may be the carrot of capitalism, but there needs to be a stick as well, because human nature is imperfect.

Capitalism works better than Communism because Communism (as opposed to Stalinism) depends on people altruistically working for others, while Capitalism depends on people selfishly working for themselves, and that's a motivation that is more reliable. But it must be bridled, or the horse that's pulling the cart will run loose and crash.

The purpose of government is to protect the weak from the strong, and that includes protecting the poor from the rich. A completely unregulated free market does not do so. Therefore I believe that the Market should be regulated.

[izhilzha.livejournal.com]

Well, certainly business should be subjected to the laws of the land, and I wouldn't argue that that doesn't include laws specifically to keep things like monopolies from forming, etc.

But I do think that there is such a thing as over-regulation, quite short of Communism but still dangerous. I don't want to see either the steel barons or the White House running everything. Neither would do it well, judging from history.

[kerravonsen]

Drowning people in paperwork just means that the unscrupulous will hire crooked accountants.

I'm really not an optimist, am I? Call me Eyeore.

[kaffy_r]

What you said. (I should have read your response before coming over all verbose, as I did below. Sigh.)

[kerravonsen]

Ah, but I was going to say "what you said" for your comment too!

[kaffy_r]

Somehow I missed your response, and the conversation is now three weeks (!) old, but I'd feel quite guilty not responding now that I know you asked the question.

I was born in Canada, which some folks here in my adopted country would argue marks me, by default, as a raving loonie (see what I did there?) leftist. I call myself a hard-headed socialist who believes in small "c" capitalism.

Hard-headed socialism? That means I believe that (to use a business term) buying some things in bulk - roads, defense, health care, environmental protection, standardized justice - makes sense for society, and that the government is the one body that can do that well.

And I reject arguments that government is, or would be, somehow less efficient in delivering the goods. Government in this country has managed to provide a remarkable number of services to a remarkable number of people for years and years; I give you, for all the glitches and frustrations recipients deal with, Medicare, Social Security, the Coast Guard, the National Institutes of Health, and many more programs and departments.

On the other hand, every day, in every way, I see evidence that private companies large and small are just as inefficient and wasteful - perhaps more - than government. And we have less say in convincing those inefficient businesses to become better or more service oriented than we do in the governments we elect. Pressure tactics work more quickly on elected officials and the people they hire than on business, although business sometimes - sometimes, if we're lucky - responds to things like boycotts.

Small and medium-sized businesses, the ones who most directly serve people, the ones who most intimately know the needs of their own employees, the ones whose idea of a good year, or reasonable profits, tends to be 10-12 percent profit... those businesses get my enthusiastic vote as the base of a healthy and responsive capitalist economy. They have not forgotten what they sell, in the fever of gamesmanship that infects businesses who only recognize portfolio wins and fear share-holder response.

Sadly, when it comes to certain societal responsibilities - the responsibility not to endanger employees or customers with poor workplaces or shoddy workmanship, the responsibility not to poison the planet in ways large or small, that sort of thing - businesses both large and small have proven over and over again that too many of them will do the right thing only if forced by law. Voluntarily ethical acts on the part of corporations are to be treasured and championed, but not to be expected. It's sad, but it's true.

And ultimately, I believe that social responsibility is good for the bottom line - an attitude that might prompt snake-eyes from both ends of the political and economic ideology spectra.

Don't know if you'll read this, since it is so long delayed, but at least you have it if you want it! :)

[kerravonsen]

Australians are also loony leftists compared to the USA.

I'm nodding all through this. Totally agree with you about Small Business, too. And about governments (democracies, anyway) being answerable to The People, while big business is only answerable to The Stockholders. Small family businesses for the win! (Thinks fondly of the local fish-and-chip shop on the corner, which has been in business there since the mid-70's)

If I ruled the world, I would try to figure out a way of wiping out Big Business, and making them all small-to-medium. Not sure what to do about things that require a lot of capital, such as airlines or telcos.
Faceless bureaucracies are Bad, whether they are government or business bureaucracies. Once something gets too big, then it becomes less efficient, because there is more overhead in simply keeping people informed, or more mistakes made because people aren't kept informed.
I'm torn between what would be better, though: to give more power to Federal government because that makes things consistent and there are fewer "demarcation disputes"(*), or giving more power to Local government because that is less likely to be faceless, and if you know the people you are working with, there is more accountability. Peer pressure is a stronger force when one knows ones "peers".

(*) The US system of having so many different jurisdictions for law enforcement officials is silly, in my opinion. Victoria has the state police and that's all - no County Sheriffs or Highway Patrols, they're all under one umbrella. Whether that makes it a faceless bureaucracy I'm not sure. I suppose that depends on whether they move the police around a lot.

[kaffy_r]

If I ruled the world, I would try to figure out a way of wiping out Big Business, and making them all small-to-medium. Not sure what to do about things that require a lot of capital, such as airlines or telcos.

I had the same thought, because there are definitely roles that large businesses could play, if their policy makers and captains of industry could force themselves to be ethical.