Post a response:
|
"you couldn't EMPIRICALLY define with certainty the difference between a drag queen and a woman Im pretty sure I did nothing of the sort. Feel free to point out where I did though." You have to understand what I mean by the empirical nature of science. An electron has a certain nature: it has a certain charge, a certain spin, and a certain mass. Note my use of the word "certain". It is only CERTAINLY an electron with it has precisely the right quantities. When you admit gender is "blurry" you admit that precision doesn't exist. If I have a device that is supposed to measure an electron, and my device works only 9 times out of 10, I have to admit my device isn't perfect. I can't TRUST it. I never know FOR SURE that the particle I just measured REALLY is an electron. (But all that doesn't mean the electron doesn't exist!) Sick Rose-- and other essentialists makes such a claim about something almost infinitely more complex and varied: he claims he/we can go all over the world and WITH CERTAINTY identify males, and females. It just is not a valid claim to make. "I havent agreed with your view. I said blurry "at the edges". This means that most people will be perfectly able to be placed in one category or the other. " No. Absolutely no. The moment you use the word "perfectly" you are saying it isn't blurry. And if the edges are blurry-- as you admitted-- then you can't "perfectly" define those edges. Your admission of "blurry" is sufficient to conclude you cannot identify a male 10 times out of 10, or 100 times out of 100. And that means you are NEVER sure. No one can be certain. So your claim that "most people" perfectly can is wrong, because that means "most people" have the correct method/device/algorithm that measures gender perfectly (with no "blur") and the minority that are not "most" are just plain wrong. There is no method/device/algorithm that always gets it right. Not only can't "most people" do it perfectly, NO ONE does it perfectly. Science is empirical. Language and culture are not. Remember: I don't claim their is no "masculinities." I claim there are multiple masculinities, that different people recognize different performances of gender in different ways. That you and I might agree 9 times out of 10 or 99 times out of 100 that this or that performance is "masculine" doesn't turn identifyin |