everything is a spectrum
Can you give me a description of the average woman or the average man? Can you? Averages take into account the entire total, and so you would have to take into account every single person who has identified or has ever identified as a woman.
And you know what that would give you? A person who is beautifully complex in their expression of their gender, BUT I would bet that person is not even close to what you were envisioning. Because that question relies heavily on something similar to gender essentialism, that there are specific biological or intrinsic things that make the sexes different.
But if you actually look at the real world around you, you’d realize that idea falls apart almost instantly. Because not even every cis woman has all the expected body parts for a feminine form. Cis women get hysterectomies, mastectomies, and can’t have kids all the time. Not every woman has longer hair or wears dresses or likes makeup. And that’s not even taking into account cultural differences AND differences in gender expression across time periods. Honestly, I think if you really were to take the average male and average female form, you would get two forms that look nearly identical.
Gender is a spectrum through and through, because we do not live in a vacuum. We are affected by so many environmental influences, whether that be culture, time period, societal trends, age. It’s such a complex matter and it can’t be reduced into two choices.
This is also why I usually embrace nuance when discussing right vs wrong. Right and wrong mean morally correct and immoral respectively in this context, and yes, these two choices exist as exact opposites of each other, implying some sort of binary structure, but I would argue nothing fits into those definitions as cleanly. Because no crime or mistake or decision is ever that clear cut. Even crimes that I would define as immoral and reprehensible, aren’t necessarily considered to be the same level of immorality to others. Laws and moral codes provide some guidelines, but just because something is a law doesn’t mean it’s right, and just because something is a moral obligation doesn’t mean it is right. It’s complex because the CONTEXT MATTERS. Again we don’t live in a vacuum.
[wish I would have said this in the conversation which inspired this rant, but ah well, at least it can live now]
~nan