In Case Anyone Was Forgetting What The Church Was All About

Social Construct Masterpost

I was inspired to make this post because of the mass confusion on tumblr about what social constructs are and how they function. I will start with a simple example:

This is a one dollar bill. It is an excellent example of a social construct. This piece of paper represents a specific amount of spending power in the society that it exists in (the USA). An individual person could decide personally that it represents 1000$ worth of spending power, but it would not matter because like all social constructs, the collective agreement between individuals in society is what determines the meaning of the construct. There are laws on the books about currency but it doesn’t stop society from changing the meaning of a dollar; after all, in times of scarcity a dollar is a much more valuable asset than in times of plenty. The exact value of a dollar is something that fluctuates in tune with other factors, including things like consumer confidence- meaning, how consumers feel about the economy. Social constructs can change based on changes of opinion in the population. 

One way to test if something is a social construct is to remove it from its native society and see if it retains the same functionality. The US dollar is accepted in some foreign countries, but in other places, it is just a piece of paper. 

Another way to test if something is a social construct is to remove people from the picture entirely and see if it retains its functionality. Without people to give a dollar meaning it simply becomes paper. 

Contrast the attributes of a dollar with say, biological sex.

Male humans produce sperm and much higher levels of testosterone than females. Females produce ova and offspring if their eggs are fertilized and implanted. Individuals who are sterile still have either male or female anatomy which serves sexual functions for the individual. Virtually everyone on earth qualifies as one sex or the other, with or without malfunctioning or variations. Is this binary a social construct?

Does the collective agreement of society give male and female organs their functionality? Absolutely not. Humans did not always have an understanding of how pregnancy happened, and yet it happened anyway. Individuals who don’t know about or understand reproduction can and do get pregnant via sex. No matter how many people got together and decided that females inseminate males there would be no change in the function of testes or ovaries. 

The functionality of human reproductive organs is also impervious to cultural or geographical differences. All over the world people get pregnant and have babies by mixing sperm from males with ova from females. There is no exception. 

Removing humans from the equation also has no effect on the biological reality of mammalian reproduction. Male mammals are male, female mammals are female, and only one of the two can give birth. 

Biological sex is not and never has been a social construct.

Another example is gender. Femininity is the easiest example to discuss. Lets look at different examples of femininity from around the world:

As you can see, what it means to be feminine or girly is very different depending upon the society. None of these is the “correct” femininity, just different versions from different cultures. There is no objective way to determine what makes someone feminine in any given culture- you have to ask people. 

The nature of femininity is totally subjective and relies on the collective agreement of society. If you move one of these women into a different society their defining feminine characteristics instead become physical characteristics with no gender designation at all. In fact, what would make you gender conforming in one culture would make you gender non conforming in another. Gender also changes in individual societies over time, so the meaning of being feminine in America in the 1800s would differ markedly from what it means to be feminine in America right now. How people feel about the construct changes its meaning.Thus we can easily say that gender is a social construct. 

I was watching a video and there was this ‘joke’. He sees a couple fighting and it seems really threatening and aggressive only for them to start passionately making out and the end of the gag is, ‘this is why I mind my own business.’

And I can’t help but think about how I’ve read about domestic abuse previously being seen as, ‘a personal issue’ a private matter that everyone might know is going on but no one’s really supposed to talk about. It’s convenient for abusive people when others mind their own business, it’s easier to isolate their victim and make them think what’s going on is normal. It’s convenient for them to be able to hide assaults behind the thin veneer of, ‘sex games’.

Obviously young republican men being more likely to think men than women face discrimination in our society is dumb and stupid but we really gotta work on the fact that a QUARTER of young democratic women think men face discrimination.

to keep it simple, i don't think any abuser deserves the privilege of being able to go "but im sorry!!" and be forgiven by the internet for what they did. i dont think any victim should have to see their abuser be put on a pedestal. only victims can forgive our abusers. and we do not have to

"separatism/anti-natalism is so unrealistic. it won't fix the problem." okay and marrying men worked? bearing their children worked? educating them worked? transing your gender worked? did the patriarchy stop when you wore eyeliner "sharp enough to kill a man"? did it stop when you got a mastectomy? did it come to a screeching halt when you said "sex work is work" and "not all men"? bffr

I’m not the one who compared Trans People to shifters, you opened up the idea that your ideas of the world are ridiculous enough that they should by default ally with you because weirdos got to stick together. Both you and most Radfems believe trans people’s existence should be treated more sincerely than that, the comparisons were calling that bluff.

It’s worth noting here that you’re making a transmedicalist argument and I wonder if you actually are one of the ones left or it’s one of those cases where it’s more convenient to say it’s what you believe. If you believe that the definition of transgender should be related to actually physically engaging in the medical activity of transitioning to gain traits related to the opposite sex instead of just saying, ‘this is the thing that I am’ than you’re correct that the therian argument is not applicable. I think it’s useful to have a name for the class of people who were and are oppressed on the basis of possessing a body with a layout to produce large gametes, that is a group of people who exist and are at risk for further violence on the basis of this reproductive role. As this role is called ‘female’ in every other mammalian context, I think Female Human is a fine term for them. If transmedicalists want to keep woman to mean ‘Anyone with secondary sex characteristics that resembles the other sex’, they can do that but all things considered in 2025, I doubt the value in denying the existence of primary sex characteristics entirely. I also don’t see the value in separating prisons based on secondary sex characteristics.

maladaptive daydreaming is more real than gender identity, and it’s a-okay to tell people to kill themselves

honestly - TERF arguments are entirely horseshit. they don’t care about science, they don’t really care about women’s safety. it’s a regressive alt right movement in the garb of a feminist

Are you?

Oh shit they want to be a part of the ‘weird spiritual belief but go off king’ group?

That’s so cool, because no one’s legally required to recognize Therians as their chosen species or Kin people as their chosen fictional characters. It’d be considered kind of fucked up if a Witch came into Congress (lol) and a meeting was put to a stop because one member refused to acknowledge the existence of Nyx. If a Therian insisted on being in a dog pageant (because see, they legally changed their identity to dog. Because the government gave in to that belief because a small collection of them underwent surgery to more heavily resemble a dog to help their species dysphoria and the human government decided that it was more convenient to just say they’re dogs) and won because they can do dog tasks more easily, the reaction would be, ‘this is the dumbest thing imaginable.’

You guys don’t want spiritual weirdo comparisons, because the only thing spiritual weirdos get is vague acknowledgment and the ability to believe in whatever bullshit.

maladaptive daydreaming is more real than gender identity, and it’s a-okay to tell people to kill themselves

honestly - TERF arguments are entirely horseshit. they don’t care about science, they don’t really care about women’s safety. it’s a regressive alt right movement in the garb of a feminist

See now I know you’re for sure scrolling through my blog lol.

I mostly think it’s fine to leave the conversation there because A. My information is very likely out of date and while I think anyone in a given industry (especially as a figurehead) is unlikely to talk shit about it because it puts their job security at risk, it’d be useful to hear the current concerns in the industry. And B. On the points that matter I don’t think we particularly disagree. I don’t think any industry should be treated as above scrutiny, especially from left-leaning people and groups. It’s gross seeing how supposed leftists reaction to fucking McDonald’s workers being overworked, underpayed and making a penny on the bosses billions their reaction is rage, they’re indignant and want to fight. But the same people when told about abuses in the sex industry respond with apathy. We should be working harder to stop all exploitation in society in every shape it takes in every industry.

… Food metaphors really are perfect. You don’t like raisin cookies and do like chocolate chip cookies. Your friend baked cookies, ‘oooo chocolate chips cookies!’ You’d say. If your friend is good and cares about you having a good time eating they’d say, ‘actually these are raisin cookies’, but instead they say nothing leaving you to go, ‘oh- these are raisin cookies, sorry I don’t actually like raisins.’

‘But you like cookies, you’ve eaten other cookies before I’ve seen you.’

‘I like chocolate chip cookies. Sorry.’

‘But the dough is really good and it’s well baked!’

‘Raisins really just ruin the experience of eating a cookie.’

non-transfem lesbians are always trying to tell me why it's actually fine for them to have genital preference but for some reason I never hear any of them saying "I would be so grossed out if I had to fuck a vagina"