Post #1942980

2026-03-29 14:23 UTC

@eljojo it's making the point that the roles are real - recognized fairly broadly by a culture and even seen as "just the way things are" even though we know that how the roles are defined (men are like this, women are like this, dads are like this vs young childless men are like this) aren't the same across cultures or across time. They're not some inherent truth about biological sex, they arise in a particular cultural context- but that doesn't make the role/category not a thing, right? And yeah - people of any sex assigned at birth can shift between the categories. Some people find they like it more when they're automatically recognized as part of a category that's different than the category they were originally seen as - the childless man who is trusted more as a father, or a person who was assigned male at birth but who feels better when people read them as being part of the "woman" category and treat them how people in the "woman" category are usually treated. You don't _need_ to change your appearance to be treated differently but it sure helps - the roles exist even if we might prefer they didn't, and people recognize others as being part of certain social categories without really thinking about it. If it feels better to be recognized by others as part of the category you prefer - why not?

Replies (2)

@cassey@ottawa.place 2026-03-29 14:30

@eljojo when I have short dyed-blue hair, I get recognized as part of a different category than when I had long blonde hair and dressed more femininely. It's not "man" exactly, but it's still a social group I am recognized as being part of - "blue hair and pronouns" or queer or countercultural or whatever. I like being seen that way, so I keep the short hair (sometimes blue) and dress/accessorize in a way that people often recognize as queer. In the past I tried harder to be more what people expect "straight cis woman" to look like, and I was never super great at it, and the styles I wore felt slightly wrong to me; I was never all that comfortable when I tried to wear what I thought was expected of me at things like formal family pictures or a fancy dinner. I feel better when my style is more 'me', and I feel less like I'm wearing a costume of what a woman is supposed to be. I prefer feeling that way! You could say that is changing my appearance, but it's not like I was born wearing a 20-sometings adult woman's fashions, accessories, and hairstyles - I picked all that stuff out over time, too, and tried it for a while, and now I pick other stuff. Changing how people treat me isn't really the goal for me, it's feeling more "me", but the result is similar (though often somewhat subtle): people assign me a different category in their head without thinking about it, even if we're not directly interacting. I get slotted as "queer probably-woman, maybe they/them" instead of "straight cis woman". Or on the odd hardware store trip, I get called "sir", or maybe "sir uh.. ma'am?" and all that is fine with me, really.

Open ##1942981
@eljojo@ruby.social 2026-03-29 16:10

@cassey my angle is that people perpetuate the existence of a category by legitimating it. if “you” need to be seen as a woman in order to be comfortable being feminine, you’re postergating the idea that femininity = womanhood, by projecting it into the world through your own living. I see patriarchy as a result of gender, gender reinforces patriarchy.

Open ##1942986