Just like introversion-extroversion or sex drive, gender is a spectral trait which follows a Gaussian distribution: occupying the extremes is rare, most people fall somewhere in the middle.
I could not disagree with this more. Gender absolutely does not follow a Gaussian distribution. By this claim, you would have a hard time determining what gender most people are. And yet I can assure you, that barring cherry-picked exceptional cases, the median human will have an exceptionally easy time sorting photographs of people into "male" and "female". What gender is, is a bimodal distribution.
Incidentally, the same criticism applies to your forced normalization of all of the other labels you are criticizing - for people's usages of terms like 'ambivert' to to make sense, it is sufficient that they believe its a bimodal distribution, not a discrete one. (And this goes doubly for sexual attraction, where 'bisexual' is definitely not the majority category)
Finally, knowing that somebody is average in a trait is useful information, because it collapses your uncertainty about that person. It's not the same thing as describing an elephant as gray.
the median human will have an exceptionally easy time sorting photographs of people into "male" and "female"
I agree, but that's sexual dimorphism, whereas I'm talking about adherence to gender roles. It's a bit confusing because He-Man both looks like a man and fully conforms to a classical archetype of how a man is supposed to behave (vice versa for Barbie), but I'm only really talking about the extent to which people adhere to gender roles, not what they look like. I was trying to make this distinction clear in a footnote but maybe it was too ambiguous.
This obviously varies from culture to culture, but I think it's fair to say that in much of the West, few people fully conform to classical archetypes of how members of their gender are "supposed" to behave. Even leaving aside overt gender non-conformance like men wearing dresses and makeup: very few men engage in hard physical labour as their primary source of income, no one bats an eyelid at a woman drinking beer or wearing jeans, women pursuing careers in STEM are generally encouraged to do so by their peers and mentors, it's not seen as embarrassing if a man knows how to bake (or a woman doesn't).
And this goes doubly for sexual attraction, where 'bisexual' is definitely not the majority category
very few men engage in hard physical labour as their primary source of income, no one bats an eyelid at a woman drinking beer or wearing jeans, women pursuing careers in STEM are generally encouraged to do so by their peers and mentors, it's not seen as embarrassing if a man knows how to bake (or a woman doesn't).
But these are all examples of historical gender norms (though I doubt there was ever a physical labour-income norm for men) not contemporary norms.
Well yeah, that was precisely the contrast I was striking in the article, or as I said in the comment above, 'few people fully conform to classical archetypes of how members of their gender are "supposed" to behave'.
If you're arguing that "contemporary" gender norms are far more open to the point that androgyny (or something approximating it) is the rule rather than the exception, then that's literally the exact point I was arguing in the article.
though I doubt there was ever a physical labour-income norm for men
Huh? Surely you accept that, for most of human history, the overwhelming majority of men earned their income through physical labour (e.g. coal mining, carpentry, assorted agricultural activities, tree felling etc.).
If you're arguing that "contemporary" gender norms are far more open to the point that androgyny (or something approximating it) is the rule rather than the exception, then that's literally the exact point I was arguing in the article.
No, the evidence you cite is just as consistent with a change in gender norms. That doesn't mean that gender norms aren't still present and clear to people.
Huh? Surely you accept that, for most of human history, the overwhelming majority of men earned their income through physical labour (e.g. coal mining, carpentry, assorted agricultural activities, tree felling etc.).
Right, but was it a norm, let alone a gendered norm? If you look at great admired male figures in most of human history, like Achilles, Jesus, Odysseus, Gilgamesh, Heracles, Caesar, King Arthur, Alexander, Buddha, Confucius, Socrates... They are distinguished mainly by just about everything except earning an income through physical labour. Fighting? Yes. Doing something physical in an adventure? Yes. Working down a mine or fixing a wheel? Hardly something for great men to do.
Among intellectuals Aristotle thought that men doing physical labour belonged with women and children in the political hirearchy: not fit for citizenship. The normative life for Aristotle was that of a leisured aristocrat, not some proletarian or peasant. Physical labour could be used to keep oneself fit and virile, or monastic labour to get closer to God, or to get out of some sticky situation (see Heracles) but it wasn't something that you were supposed to do to earn a living of all things!
Among intellectuals Aristotle thought that men doing physical labour belonged with women and children in the political hirearchy: not fit for citizenship. The normative life for Aristotle was that of a leisured aristocrat, not some proletarian or peasant. Physical labour could be used to keep oneself fit and virile, or monastic labour to get closer to God, or to get out of some sticky situation (see Heracles) but it wasn't something that you were supposed to do to earn a living of all things!
This is misunderstanding of classical antiquity attitude. It was not about "labor".
In ancient mindset, only free man, man worthy of being a citizen, was an independent man.
Who was an independent man?
Slaves were obviously dependent, had to obey their masters or else.
Wage laborers were also considered slaves who had to sell themselves every day in order to survive.
City dwelling artisans were dependent on their customers - if no one wants to buy the shoes you make, you are hosed.
The same about merchants.
In ancient mind, the only independent people were farmers living on their land - both small farmers working their land themselves and large landowners sitting in atrium and watching the slaves.
large landowners sitting in atrium and watching the slaves.
is sufficient for my purpose: there was not a general norm that hard physical labour should be one's primary source of income, which was the original claim under contestation.
No, the evidence you cite is just as consistent with a change in gender norms. That doesn't mean that gender norms aren't still present and clear to people.
Gender norms can still exist and be present at clear, and yet vary in degree of strictness. I never claimed that gender norms no longer exist, but I believe that, in the West, they are far less restrictive than in other cultures or historically.
If you look at great admired male figures in most of human history
I wasn't talking about "great admired male figures". I was talking about the overwhelming majority of men in human history, most of whom were neither great nor admired.
Fighting? Yes. Doing something physical in an adventure? Yes.
I think both of these things fall under the definition of "physical labour".
Among intellectuals Aristotle thought that men doing physical labour belonged with women and children in the political hirearchy: not fit for citizenship. The normative life for Aristotle was that of a leisured aristocrat, not some proletarian or peasant.
I don't doubt that Aristotle thought this, but that doesn't imply that the belief was universal or even widespread for most of human history: this belief could well be a luxury belief held only by intellectuals.
So, we agree that, for most of human history, most men had to earn a living through physical labour (even if certain intellectuals thought such behaviour was unbecoming). We also agree that many historical male figures considered "great" or "admirable" (such as Odysseus, Alexander, Heracles, Caesar, King Arthur) also earned a living or became famous as a result of physical labour, albeit physical labour of a different type (namely fighting, conquest, exploration etc.). I still don't feel like you've really contradicted my argument.
Lumping together fighting with handling dung is a low-resolution picture that is inadequate for understanding past norms about masculinity.
The example of great admired men was just some of the evidence that earning a living from physical labour was not, historically, seen as a norm for men. Another would be that idle landowners and royalty didn't generally use their spare time to do physical labour, although some did.
Of course, there are exceptional individuals and periods. For example, the social status of male physical labour seems to have risen in the Victorian period. I recommend reading the works of Samuel Smiles, e.g. Self-Help and Life and Labour. Part of the novelty of his books was that he was esteeming proletarian labour - not just proletarian inventors and savants, but also men at all levels who worked hard and honestly. To this day, I think there's a degree of social esteem in men earning a living from physical labour, but it is important to note that this is a recent phenomenon.
I still don't know exactly what you're getting at when you say a "norm". I appreciate that physical labour was seen by the aristocracy as something undesirable and laborious that only plebs engage in. But that's just it - it was seen as such by the aristocracy, who almost by definition are small in number relative to the human population as a whole.
It can be true that the aristocrats believe that physical labour is ignoble drudgery, and also true that the commoners believe that toiling in the fields is "real work" that requires you to get your hands dirty, unlike "women's work" that involves sitting at a desk all day. Both of these things can be true simultaneously, but because commoners are far greater in number than the aristocracy, the latter belief will be held by a far greater share of the human populace than the former.
You seem to be saying "the elites don't believe in X, therefore X isn't part of human culture and never was". But a recurrent theme of discussions in this space is that what the elites believe (or profess to believe) is often radically skew of what ordinary people believe. Modern Western elites are disproportionately likely to believe that a) male and female brains are biologically indistinguishable and any observed differences between them are solely attributable to socialisation; b) the police are unnecessary or actively detrimental to society, and hence ought to be defunded or outright abolished; c) God doesn't exist; d) homosexuality is natural and harmless.
By using your logic, I could point out that elites currently believe these things and conclude that all of humanity believes that men and women are the same, police are unnecessary, God isn't real and homosexuality should be tolerated. But doing so would give me a very skewed impression of what beliefs or norms are held by the human race as a whole, currently or historically.
I didn't claim that the attitudes of elites (and scribes, poets etc.) proved that they thought that earning a living through physical labour was considered undesirable by everyone. It does provide some evidence.
Now, what's the evidence that earning a living through physical labour was seen as a general gender norm for men in the past?
It can be true that the aristocrats believe that physical labour is ignoble drudgery, and also true that the commoners believe that toiling in the fields is "real work" that requires you to get your hands dirty, unlike "women's work" that involves sitting at a desk all day. Both of these things can be true simultaneously, but because commoners are far greater in number than the aristocracy, the latter belief will be held by a far greater share of the human populace than the former.
Where to start...
No, this has nothing in common with "traditional society". No, America seen in 1950's sitcoms was not "traditional society".
Toiling in the fields was, in traditional societies, fate of 90+% men and 90+% women (may differ due to urbanization rate). Labor of peasant woman was lighter than one of peasant men, but still hard enough it would crush any modern man, no matter how tough he imagines himself to be.
Sitting at a desk - work of scribe - was extremely prestigious and desirable work, and it was for (elite) men only.
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Notes -
I could not disagree with this more. Gender absolutely does not follow a Gaussian distribution. By this claim, you would have a hard time determining what gender most people are. And yet I can assure you, that barring cherry-picked exceptional cases, the median human will have an exceptionally easy time sorting photographs of people into "male" and "female". What gender is, is a bimodal distribution.
Incidentally, the same criticism applies to your forced normalization of all of the other labels you are criticizing - for people's usages of terms like 'ambivert' to to make sense, it is sufficient that they believe its a bimodal distribution, not a discrete one. (And this goes doubly for sexual attraction, where 'bisexual' is definitely not the majority category)
Finally, knowing that somebody is average in a trait is useful information, because it collapses your uncertainty about that person. It's not the same thing as describing an elephant as gray.
I agree, but that's sexual dimorphism, whereas I'm talking about adherence to gender roles. It's a bit confusing because He-Man both looks like a man and fully conforms to a classical archetype of how a man is supposed to behave (vice versa for Barbie), but I'm only really talking about the extent to which people adhere to gender roles, not what they look like. I was trying to make this distinction clear in a footnote but maybe it was too ambiguous.
This obviously varies from culture to culture, but I think it's fair to say that in much of the West, few people fully conform to classical archetypes of how members of their gender are "supposed" to behave. Even leaving aside overt gender non-conformance like men wearing dresses and makeup: very few men engage in hard physical labour as their primary source of income, no one bats an eyelid at a woman drinking beer or wearing jeans, women pursuing careers in STEM are generally encouraged to do so by their peers and mentors, it's not seen as embarrassing if a man knows how to bake (or a woman doesn't).
Completely agree.
But these are all examples of historical gender norms (though I doubt there was ever a physical labour-income norm for men) not contemporary norms.
Well yeah, that was precisely the contrast I was striking in the article, or as I said in the comment above, 'few people fully conform to classical archetypes of how members of their gender are "supposed" to behave'.
If you're arguing that "contemporary" gender norms are far more open to the point that androgyny (or something approximating it) is the rule rather than the exception, then that's literally the exact point I was arguing in the article.
Huh? Surely you accept that, for most of human history, the overwhelming majority of men earned their income through physical labour (e.g. coal mining, carpentry, assorted agricultural activities, tree felling etc.).
No, the evidence you cite is just as consistent with a change in gender norms. That doesn't mean that gender norms aren't still present and clear to people.
Right, but was it a norm, let alone a gendered norm? If you look at great admired male figures in most of human history, like Achilles, Jesus, Odysseus, Gilgamesh, Heracles, Caesar, King Arthur, Alexander, Buddha, Confucius, Socrates... They are distinguished mainly by just about everything except earning an income through physical labour. Fighting? Yes. Doing something physical in an adventure? Yes. Working down a mine or fixing a wheel? Hardly something for great men to do.
Among intellectuals Aristotle thought that men doing physical labour belonged with women and children in the political hirearchy: not fit for citizenship. The normative life for Aristotle was that of a leisured aristocrat, not some proletarian or peasant. Physical labour could be used to keep oneself fit and virile, or monastic labour to get closer to God, or to get out of some sticky situation (see Heracles) but it wasn't something that you were supposed to do to earn a living of all things!
This is misunderstanding of classical antiquity attitude. It was not about "labor".
In ancient mindset, only free man, man worthy of being a citizen, was an independent man.
Who was an independent man?
Slaves were obviously dependent, had to obey their masters or else.
Wage laborers were also considered slaves who had to sell themselves every day in order to survive.
City dwelling artisans were dependent on their customers - if no one wants to buy the shoes you make, you are hosed.
The same about merchants.
In ancient mind, the only independent people were farmers living on their land - both small farmers working their land themselves and large landowners sitting in atrium and watching the slaves.
Fair points, but:
is sufficient for my purpose: there was not a general norm that hard physical labour should be one's primary source of income, which was the original claim under contestation.
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Gender norms can still exist and be present at clear, and yet vary in degree of strictness. I never claimed that gender norms no longer exist, but I believe that, in the West, they are far less restrictive than in other cultures or historically.
I wasn't talking about "great admired male figures". I was talking about the overwhelming majority of men in human history, most of whom were neither great nor admired.
I think both of these things fall under the definition of "physical labour".
I don't doubt that Aristotle thought this, but that doesn't imply that the belief was universal or even widespread for most of human history: this belief could well be a luxury belief held only by intellectuals.
So, we agree that, for most of human history, most men had to earn a living through physical labour (even if certain intellectuals thought such behaviour was unbecoming). We also agree that many historical male figures considered "great" or "admirable" (such as Odysseus, Alexander, Heracles, Caesar, King Arthur) also earned a living or became famous as a result of physical labour, albeit physical labour of a different type (namely fighting, conquest, exploration etc.). I still don't feel like you've really contradicted my argument.
Lumping together fighting with handling dung is a low-resolution picture that is inadequate for understanding past norms about masculinity.
The example of great admired men was just some of the evidence that earning a living from physical labour was not, historically, seen as a norm for men. Another would be that idle landowners and royalty didn't generally use their spare time to do physical labour, although some did.
Of course, there are exceptional individuals and periods. For example, the social status of male physical labour seems to have risen in the Victorian period. I recommend reading the works of Samuel Smiles, e.g. Self-Help and Life and Labour. Part of the novelty of his books was that he was esteeming proletarian labour - not just proletarian inventors and savants, but also men at all levels who worked hard and honestly. To this day, I think there's a degree of social esteem in men earning a living from physical labour, but it is important to note that this is a recent phenomenon.
I still don't know exactly what you're getting at when you say a "norm". I appreciate that physical labour was seen by the aristocracy as something undesirable and laborious that only plebs engage in. But that's just it - it was seen as such by the aristocracy, who almost by definition are small in number relative to the human population as a whole.
It can be true that the aristocrats believe that physical labour is ignoble drudgery, and also true that the commoners believe that toiling in the fields is "real work" that requires you to get your hands dirty, unlike "women's work" that involves sitting at a desk all day. Both of these things can be true simultaneously, but because commoners are far greater in number than the aristocracy, the latter belief will be held by a far greater share of the human populace than the former.
You seem to be saying "the elites don't believe in X, therefore X isn't part of human culture and never was". But a recurrent theme of discussions in this space is that what the elites believe (or profess to believe) is often radically skew of what ordinary people believe. Modern Western elites are disproportionately likely to believe that a) male and female brains are biologically indistinguishable and any observed differences between them are solely attributable to socialisation; b) the police are unnecessary or actively detrimental to society, and hence ought to be defunded or outright abolished; c) God doesn't exist; d) homosexuality is natural and harmless.
By using your logic, I could point out that elites currently believe these things and conclude that all of humanity believes that men and women are the same, police are unnecessary, God isn't real and homosexuality should be tolerated. But doing so would give me a very skewed impression of what beliefs or norms are held by the human race as a whole, currently or historically.
I didn't claim that the attitudes of elites (and scribes, poets etc.) proved that they thought that earning a living through physical labour was considered undesirable by everyone. It does provide some evidence.
Now, what's the evidence that earning a living through physical labour was seen as a general gender norm for men in the past?
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Where to start...
No, this has nothing in common with "traditional society". No, America seen in 1950's sitcoms was not "traditional society".
Toiling in the fields was, in traditional societies, fate of 90+% men and 90+% women (may differ due to urbanization rate). Labor of peasant woman was lighter than one of peasant men, but still hard enough it would crush any modern man, no matter how tough he imagines himself to be.
Sitting at a desk - work of scribe - was extremely prestigious and desirable work, and it was for (elite) men only.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Satire_of_the_Trades
https://web.archive.org/web/20190308063715/http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/texts/instructions_of_kheti.htm
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