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This definition presupposes that these roles are all learned and are mere societal expectations (presumably arbitrary ones at that).
But actually the same thing that makes your body grow a penis or a vagina also affects the brain, the hormones etc. The gender-sex distinction is made up, it's not even possible to express it in any other language than English (other than outright loaning the word "gender" as is). Gender started out as a euphemism for sex, to avoid referring to the act of sex (before that, it only referred to grammatical categories). They should be nothing more than synonyms.
No, it doesn't assume that. A norm is literally that which is deemed normal. Eg: Men are stronger than women, so it is natural that society would deem it normal that men do jobs which demand physical strength. There is no reason at all that gender norms should be arbitrary. But they can be nonarbitrary, yet nevertheless change, as when they take more extreme forms, such as "women can't be lumberjacks" or "men don't cry" or "married women shouldn't work."
And, feel free to suggest a different term, if you don't like "gender." We would be having this same discussion, regardless.
Feminists who still understand gender as the roles you mention are fringe today and labeled TERFs. Yes, originally gender studies was about these roles and women's place in society etc, but today's woke gender concept is something else. The whole point was that these gender roles are something you are pushed into by your social setting, not something you choose based on your unique snowflake personality quirks. The original goal wasn't to tell people "hey, you don't like the roles/social expectations put on you? Then you aren't actually a woman/man!" but to allow women and men more flexibility in shaping their roles to their personality and temperament without anyone denying that they can live like that as women/men.
Interestingly enough, a significant chunk of the Hungarian left (including a massively popular leftist YouTube show) are also with that earlier definition and are woke-critical/gender-critical. It would be worth a post sometime I think.
I think that is an issue that is orthogonal to the one I am raising. I am merely saying that the concept referred to as "gender" is different from the one referred to as "sex." How a person who does not conform to current gender norms should or should not respond is a separate issue.
Is your gender the social expectation from you or is it your inner feeling?
Does someone who doesn't conform to "current gender norms" have a different gender then?
No, It does not make sense to say that someone "has" a gender in that sense, because, as I said, gender is a set of norms, etc. You can conform to the set of norms assigned to your sex, or not, and based on gender norms, you can identify with your sex, the opposite sex, or in the case of those who identify as nonbinary, neither.
Identity is, by definition, an inner feeling. Whether a given identity should be recognized by others is a different question, but even ethnic identities are manufactured to some degree and are a function of beliefs/feelings. See, eg, the literature on the development of Scottish ethnic identity, and of course arguably almost no one identified as "Palestinian" pre-1948, but plenty of people do today.
I realize that this is a popular claim on the left. I reject it, and this is one of the central points of debate between the woke left and everyone else. You do not get to assume your preferred conclusion and get away with it.
Certainly, everyone has a self-conception, which generally is highly colored by feelings. But everyone also has a social identity, which is separate. The claim on the left is that this social identity is subordinate to self-conception--that you have some right to dictate how you are perceived by others. You do not. You may, through your actions, influence how others see you--and everyone does this--but that identity is...socially constructed.
I think you are conflating two different things: 1) whether identity is an inner feeling; and 2) how others must respond to that identity. Although there are disputes between left and right re #2, I do not believe that #1 is a claim of the left; white identity is a thing, after all, and of course immigration issues are tied to claims about identity.
Your comment looks confused to me, and not particularly related to what I wrote.
A person has what might be termed a "true identity." This is an objective list of that person's qualities, experiences, associations, everything. Examples are hard because objective accuracy is hard.
He also has a "self-conception." This is his own perspective of his true identity, and usually is flawed in various aspects--perfect self-knowledge isn't really a thing people do well, though some self-conceptions are closer to truth than others.
He also has a "social identity." This is an aggregate of what other people think his qualities, experiences, associations, etc. are--it is literally a social construct. It can and does vary by context--my family have a particular view of me derived from years of personal interaction, but the posters on The Motte likely have a different view of me derived from the posts that I've written.
Nothing that I've written here has anything to do with "how others must respond." I am not conflating anything; I am distinguishing various aspects of what someone might mean when he's talking about a person's "identity."
Edit to add: It only occurred to me after posting, but there's a local term for what I'm doing here--"tabooing your words." In this case, I'm tabooing "identity" in order to tease apart the various mottes and baileys people use around the word. I am trying to rigorously define terms. If you don't like my definitions, propose your own.
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