Status Updates From Gender

I listened to the Reveal episode “Lessons From a Mass Shooter’s Mother” about Elliot Rodger, it was a really heavy look at just how dangerous incel ideology can be. Interestingly, the book points out his intersectionality as an Asian man when I don’t think the podcast ever mentioned his race. Something to think about.

“To be close friends, men need to be willing to confess their insecurities, be kind to each other, and sometimes sacrifice their own self-interest- a description of friendship that men themselves articulate and say they want. This, though, is incompatible with the rules of masculinity.”

“Androcentrism is different from sexism because it doesn’t put men before women; instead, rewards accrue to anyone who can do masculinity. This is why women wear pants more readily than men wear skirts”

“A man does not grieve when he loses the smooth, unlined, hairless skin of a boy. For he has only exchanged one form of attractiveness for another… There is no equivalent of this second standard for women.”

“Gender isn’t more important than age, for example, nor is age more important than gender. Instead, there is a gendered way to age.”

“The environment comes first, hormones come second. In other words, the strongest evidence suggests that acting aggressively leads to a rise in testosterone, not the other way around.”

“If humans were as dimorphic as elephant seals, for example, the average male would tower six feet above the average female. If we were as sexually dimorphic as the blanket octopus, human males would be no bigger than walnuts.”

Is this performative female of me? It was in the LFL and you know I enjoy a good textbook 🤷🏼‍♀️ and also the version I’m reading was published in 2023 so it’s pretty current

“If one wants to argue that Group A is superior to Group B, these must be distinguishable groups. We can’t think more highly of one type of person than another unless we have at least two types.”