Tag: gender

In praise of unisex and how to achieve prime monogamy

On By Catherine HausteinIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

I’m not the first one to wonder why in humans, it’s often the females who adorn themselves. It’s not natural and you need to look no further than newly discovered Eresus hermani

to see yet another example of this.  Which one do you think is the female?

You guessed it. The one on the left. According to biologist Paulina Mena “Evolutionarily speaking, sexual selection has to do with investment in reproduction. The mode in nature is that females invest more in making gametes and in many cases in parental care than males. This means that females maximize their reproductive success by being choosy. This is what leads to the elaborate adornments, bird songs, dances, etc. in males. They are trying to be picked.”

Of course, as my anthropologist/sociologist friends point out, not all human cultures put an emphasis on female adornment. In some cultures, males and females are equally adorned or not and in others, the men are the fancy ones.  Jeff Bass points out that “There is a general observation that there tends to be less gender equality (or more female dis-empowerment) in societies based on intensive agriculture.” This possibly comes as women are less central to economic production, and is less of a factor in industrialized countries where there’s plenty of work for women to do. In this case, adornment is less important.

When males and females look different, it’s called sexual dimorphism. (Sexual dichromatism is the term for different coloration between males and females.) As far as humans go, we don’t have exaggerated sexual dimorphism. Some studies have suggested that when males and females look similar to each other, there is less fighting and competition among males. Is grooming oneself, trying to look different, encouraging competition? If we were a gender neutral society, would we be more peaceful?

Ever since Darwin brought it up in 1871, there’s been debate on WHY certain mates are chosen over others. Sometimes, it depends on parental involvement. If the female invests more, she’s the picky one. If males invest more (as in seahorses), it’s the male who is picky. Evolutionary biologist Paulina Mena says, “Biologically speaking, it’s not so clear-cut where humans stand in this spectrum. We see females adorning themselves but the fact that males don’t wear makeup doesn’t mean they aren’t trying to get females to choose them by showing something off. They just do it in a different way. Working out to have a very athletic body could be considered the equivalent. For example it has been proposed that even intelligence and artistic expressions like music may have evolved as a way to impress females and be chosen as mates. This offends some people because they don’t want to think that cultural expressions may have its origin in sexual selection. But then again, the idea that females are driving evolution through being choosy was also something that upset people until kind of recently. They had a hard time accepting that.”

Like many animals without distinctive dimorphism, white storks are monogamous–for a while.

Monogamy is the primary type of pair bond for humans, and this is prevalent across societies. When looking back at our ape ancestors, monogamy is more prevalent when the males and females have less physical differences. To quote: in primates, minimal levels of sexual dimorphism in body weight and canine size are generally associated with monogamy and low rates of male antagonistic competition (e.g., gibbons; Harcourt, 1981) Gorillas on the other hand, where males are twice as big as females, are not monogamous.

Smaller testicles related to body size is also correlated with monogamous species.

There’s been speculation on the driving factor behind some of today’s weirder cosmetic surgery trends. One theory is that the participants are trying to enhance sexual dimorphism and have taken it to the extreme. It could follow then, that those who take their procedures seriously would be more antagonistic and less faithful.

As an author, I sometimes have to make a choice for my characters: settle down or be libertine. Most readers of novels do not like unfaithfulness. The idea of romance especially is to successfully pair bond. I will make sure to avoid having any heroes with big balls or surgery and take it from there.

For more discussion, go here.

The rise of the pants police

On By Catherine HausteinIn Uncategorized1 Comment

Maybe it’s too big, maybe it’s too small, maybe it’s too average or you don’t have one at all.

Maybe you don’t dress right. Your hair’s too long or short. Maybe you like women or nothing of the sort.

The pants police are coming. They’re coming for us all. They’ll use a complex trait or two, to shove us to the wall.

“Almost all human traits are complex traits. They don’t act like a switch being on or off. They are more like a bell curve. The average trait is what most people have but being outside of the middle of the curve is perfectly normal. An example would be height.” People are not 3 inches tall or three miles tall, but they do show variation in height. Likewise, sexual expression and interest is a complex trait.

Recently, a sweet child wanted to have an adult conversation about the election.

“Donald Trump is mean but Kamala Harris wanted men to play women’s sports,” the child said. “So, people had two poor choices.”

I was surprised that the trans issue was one they focused on, but I shouldn’t have been. The Trump campaign spent over 200 million dollars on anti-trans ads. The complexities of the issue have been explained on many levels. Yet the campaign didn’t care to pass this on to the public.

The White House’s definition of two genders as “a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell [or] a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the small reproductive cell” has been called wrong and simplistic. It’s outdated and some in high places want to keep the outdated ideas.

Many animals can be both sexes and can have a fluid sexual attraction. The whole notion of binary sexuality is only one form of normal. Why would anyone care? Clearly, this is paving the way to look into our pants and apply discrimination.

Women have no explicit constitutional rights. Furthermore, Christian Nationalists have a limited view of equality and autonomy.

When you discriminate against a group, you can pay them less and even get free work out of them. Yes, highlighting differences and even saying they are natural can produce a whole underpaid underclass. One example would be saying women are naturally better at housework and taking care of kids and then paying less for these services, not paying at all, and not even recognizing this as useful work. One time women were told they didn’t have brains for complex thoughts, but science didn’t support this. Still, the gender pay gap persists. You can see how bad it is in your area here. We are seeing discrimination in search of a target. Discrimination needs to be able to easily sort us into male and female.  Hence, the pants police and their partners, the book police. Maybe they will sort us further, based on our genitals or some other arbitrary look -or as scientists say “phenotype.”  

 We even work against nature in our society. Throughout history, dressing like a woman has been harmful to health. In  a gender-biased human society, women spend much more time grooming because they need to look like they will accept pain in order to get male approval. We even have a “conservative bad make-up” trend that’s easy to spot and doesn’t look great close up. In fact, it’s based on pageantry and can be easily replicated for drag shows. It’s part of the reason people go to drag shows and pay for it—the pageantry and recognition that gender roles are kind of funny. Maybe drag shows will be banned as well.

In most species, it’s the males who need to preen and look pretty. Why do we think it’s how human women should look?  Women are supposed to have kids, run after them, clean the house, and gob on drag-show level make-up. The animal world is laughing at us.

The outdated notion of two genders

On By Catherine HausteinIn Uncategorized3 Comments

It’s been cold and I’ve been inside exposed to too much social media—enough to know that chains are being rattled and some people are boldly declaring there are two sexes/genders. They are also declaring they know what a woman is. Defining a woman is a Republican obsession. With their typical heavy hand, the Iowa Legislature may try to define what a woman is.

I hate to break the news to those who think in binary terms but there are not two sexes. Scientists used to think this but now we know more. 

The idea that sex chromosomes consist of a big one, X, and a smaller one, Y, goes back to 1905. The pioneering work was done by Nettie Stevens, who by the way shares my birthday. She discovered that in many species, the tiny chromosome conferred maleness. She studied meal worms to reach her conclusion. Her idea was briefly stolen by a man.

We’ve all learned this in school:  XX means a female, XY means a male. But after nearly 120 years, it’s time to update, because human life is more complicated. Being male or female comes as a result of some biological tug of war, often helped along by chromosomes but not always. Sometimes hormones come into play and anatomy is not always forthcoming.

One to two out of every 100 people will not fit the purely XX female or XY male genetic patterns. The blanket term for this is intersexual. What’s their story? The answer has many twists.

Some people carry the genes of an absorbed twin, and that twin might have been a different sex.

Some have gonads which are different than their chromosomes due to disruptions during sexual development in utero.

Others have genes that give them gonads different than their chromosomes, so an XX person might have male sex organs or an XY person will develop breasts and female sex organs. This is rare, it occurs in one out of 4,500 people. 

A man can have a functioning uterus and even fallopian tubes.

A woman with genetically caused CAH, congenital adrenal hyperplasia, will grow a beard and have ambiguous sex organs.

Men can contain XX cells from their mothers.

Women who have been pregnant with a male can have XY cells lingering inside.

One in 2,000 women have a single X chromosome  (instead of two) in all or some of their cells. It’s called Turner Syndrome and is the second most common genetic disorder of chromosomes.  Several famous people rock their one  X chromosome. Medical treatments can help these people live long and healthy lives. In very rale cases, people diagnosed with Turner syndrome have been later found to have a very small  undeveloped Y chromosome. Some women are born with an extra X chromosome and are XXX.  

Men can have an extra X chromosome and be XXY. It’s called Klinefelter Syndrome. One symptom is having a female public hair pattern (triangle)  vs a male one (diamond). They may opt to have hormone therapy, sometimes choosing to enhance their femaleness and other times their maleness. It is a common condition, affecting one in 650 males and is often not diagnosed. Diagnosis and treatment can help prevent depression and anxiety.

Men can have XYY chromosomes, a condition called Jacobs Syndrome. Some may be abnormally tall and have learning and speech challenges which can cause them to be bullied.

In fact, there are numerous variations of X and Y chromosomes, some associated with problems and mental illness because these individuals feel different from their peers. There is even an association dedicated to those with extra chromosomes. It would help these individuals if they had early diagnosis and understanding.

The whole idea of two easily defined sexes is overly simplistic.  

People can have ambiguous genitals. Or both male and female genitals.

https://www.worldhistory.org/image/8684/statue-of-hermaphroditus-from-pergamon/

Anatomically unclear genders have been among us for most of human history. In some cultures, these humans were considered bad omens and killed at birth. In the ancient Greco-Roman world, hermaphrodites, of which there are 4 types,  were worshiped as gods and popular gods were hermaphrodites. The god of ecstasy, Bacchus, was gender fluid. Gynomorph,  a female with a penis was “the first western god… All of western religion springs from the veneration of a bi-gender entity, known to the ancient world as the Gynomorph.”  There’s even a theory that Jesus wasn’t a traditional man. Adam is thought by some to have been both a man and a woman. You can see where those who believe in The Chain are upset by this ambiguity. 

Biologists say sex is hard to identify because it could be based on anatomy, or chromosomes, or hormones. I haven’t even discussed hormones!  It’s a topic best left to endocrinologists. Making laws about sexual identity, especially when done by the less informed is reckless and possibly malevolent. 

Below: the sponsor of the “define woman” bill ,Heather Hora, a farmer whose farm has had a dispute worth reading about. So far, she won’t answer any questions about the bill or her intent. In fact, she won an election after not answering questions. Despite this, she has a cadre of energetic followers, no doubt eager to defy science and define a woman. She’s even gotten the governor taking up her bill (this is a common bill for conservatives to cling to) and the governor might even try to define a man and sex. I can’t find what the governor majored in ( she made several attempts at college) but I don’t think it was biology.