Instead of gender, ‘type’ or ‘category’ is probably a better term to classify nouns. African languages in the Bantu family, e.g. Swahili have 10-12 genders/categories. Most obviously have nothing to do with biological gender.
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The Purpose of Gender
- Thread starter SalixIncendium
- Start date
Grandliseur
Well-Known Member
As a rule, I do not care if inanimate objects are assigned gender. In the case you mention in another thread, it is not the object on its own merit that carries the gender, rather, we see how the earth gives life to all kinds of organisms. Its function is clearly motherly. Thus because of some similarities the comparison comes to mind.
In many languages, nouns have gender. That is just part of how things work, part of being human. Why this is done with metaphors is probably because we are so good at identifying patters. With languages, it is at times possible to imagine that we can see the reason for some things being given a male or female identity as there are emotional and other distinct differences between males and females. This can carry across species boundaries.
Native
Free Natural Philosopher & Comparative Mythologist
Of course planets have no gender! It is impossible to imagine a gendered planet from the small dot it makes in the Sky. The gendered planets confusion derives from the Roman Empire naming of planets from their ancient Pantheon of deities of Creation which specifically is connected to the pre-formation and factual formation of our Milky Way which white contours have been imagined as a female and male deity in the Sky as illustrated here:
The Mother Goddess - The great Mother Goddess
The Father God - The Greatest God in Heaven
These Milky Way figures resembles the prime deities in most cultures and secondary deities are mostly connected with some significant star constellations. It is from the Milky Way realms that planets in our Solar System got their gendered names as in the popular astrology.
The gendered planetary confusion also have caused some authors and scholars to believe that the planets once were very different located in the Sky and much more close to the Earth. Read my critic of this cultural confusion here - Thunderbolts Forum • View topic - The Mythical Interpretations in the TBP
Cheers
Ivar
Romance languages and German have gendered nouns...so...I'd say: yes, we inevitably think of some elements or things as either feminine or masculine entities.
I unwillingly think of water as feminine element because in my language it is a feminine noun.
The Moon is the emblem of the feminine in Latin countries, but in Germany Moon (Mond) is a masculine noun, simply because the lunar deity was a male Máni - Wikipedia
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BilliardsBall
Veteran Member
Gender toward objects is function of some language roots toward English, and also, culturally rooted. Most people call vehicles "she" and so . . .
God loves diversity and made the original couple male and female.
Prestor John
Well-Known Member
It is my belief that God designed Men and Women to complement one another through the principles of fidelity in marriage.
Basically, "Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord." (1 Corinthians 11:11)
Both a Man and a Woman have the necessary attributes to fulfill their roles in the marriage covenant, as husband and wife and as parents.
Ideally, the principal attributes of both the man and the woman begin to rub off on each other and each comes that much closer to perfection until finally, in eternity, they can be even as God.
One of these days, it would be amazing to see folks adopt the proper distinction between the words "sex" (physiology/biology) and "gender" (society/psychology). I can hardly read this thread without cringing. 
The purpose of sex is obvious. Gender has no purpose at all and I reject it as a thing entirely. Okay, it has a purpose - to create and support sexism. That's all it does at the end of the day. When it's finally dead and gone, sexism will be dead and gone. That day cannot come soon enough.
The purpose of sex is obvious. Gender has no purpose at all and I reject it as a thing entirely. Okay, it has a purpose - to create and support sexism. That's all it does at the end of the day. When it's finally dead and gone, sexism will be dead and gone. That day cannot come soon enough.
One of these days, it would be amazing to see folks adopt the proper distinction between the words "sex" (physiology/biology) and "gender" (society/psychology). I can hardly read this thread without cringing.
The purpose of sex is obvious. Gender has no purpose at all and I reject it as a thing entirely. Okay, it has a purpose - to create and support sexism. That's all it does at the end of the day. When it's finally dead and gone, sexism will be dead and gone. That day cannot come soon enough.
There is (was? don't know if he's deceased) a professor of linguistics, Joseph Foster Ph.D. who often said "people have sex, language has gender".
the idea of polarities, things that arise, are formed, must have their opposite to be recognizable. an empty hole can only be observed by the difference in density that surrounds it
The Kybalion: Chapter X. Polarity
and
Unity of opposites - Wikipedia
No, what causes sexism is believing that people are better or worse at certain things or as a person based on rigid conceptions of the categories of man and woman. So it's not gender itself. I also wonder how this will bode for transgender people if we only had physical sex categories. Not well, assuredly. We'd only be right back where we are. I think the key is to allow gender diversity and to get rid of compulsory gender norms.One of these days, it would be amazing to see folks adopt the proper distinction between the words "sex" (physiology/biology) and "gender" (society/psychology). I can hardly read this thread without cringing.
The purpose of sex is obvious. Gender has no purpose at all and I reject it as a thing entirely. Okay, it has a purpose - to create and support sexism. That's all it does at the end of the day. When it's finally dead and gone, sexism will be dead and gone. That day cannot come soon enough.
I suppose I'm cynical on this. I don't believe that can happen without full remission of the idea of gender. Whenever folks can name this-or-that, appraisals along the lines of this=better and that=worse seem inevitable. Stereotyping also seems inevitable.
Yeah, and I'm doubly cynical on this because I don't believe that remission of the idea of gender will occurr in the human species. We have to evolve into something else... something that makes the idea irrelevant. Oh well.
Because it may be of some interest to anyone interested in gender as a linguistic phenomenon:
"Dyirbal has a system of four genders (including one which refers just to edible plants)...There is no absolute limit on the number of terms in a gender system but it is generally between two and ten (only occasionally more)...Of the 45 or so languages of Australia which have
a fully-fledged system of genders, about one half of them have a gender whose primary reference is to plant foods"
Dixon, R. M. W. (2015). Edible Gender, Mother-in-Law Style, and Other Grammatical Wonders. Studies in Dyirbal, Yidin, and Warrgamay. Oxford University Press
idea
Question Everything
is it obvious? Why did biology evolve to create different genders? I see the advantages of combining genes from multiple living animals to minimize errors - but why not combine from 3 instead of 2? or why allow only one to become pregnant and not both? What advantage is there in that?
Evolution isn't intentional. If something works, like gene mixing from two individuals, it's unlikely that a more complicated system, like requiring three individuals, would have any selective advantage.
Nature does exhibit a great deal of reproductive flexibility, though. Some species can change sexes, as needed. Some can reproduce either with or without a sexual partner.
