In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

Why I Heart Dr. Charles

Lauren

The sometimes crossed signals between testosterone and estrogen in the developing young body demonstrate the pliability of external gender. When that conflicts with inner gender indentity it can be quite traumatic, especially for 13 year-old boys. It may be a valuable right of passage for the heterosexual male if only for the simple demonstration that, like nipples, gender can be unpredictable and mutable. Only the effects of a handful of DNA and a few hormones separate the males from the females.

Even this doctor can shamelessly admit to having had peripubertal breast buds on the way to masculinity.

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11 thoughts on Why I Heart Dr. Charles

  2. Only the effects of a handful of DNA and a few hormones separate the males from the females.

    So what is the point of highlighting the difference with movements like feminism if that’s all it is?

    A penis is just an external vagina if we want to get technical. The line on the underside of the penis is the vagina, the sensitive gland on the underside of the head is the clitoris.
    And this being the case why do feminists care about the inherently sexist “Vagina Monologues”?

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  4. Mr. Monjo asks: So what is the point of highlighting the difference with movements like feminism if that’s all it is?

    i think it might have something to do with the fact that for the last several thousand years men have been continuously highlighting & harping upon the “difference” in order to justify the subjugation of women.

    ummm… there was something else too. what was it? oh right! this is completely off-topic but i just wanted to say that i’ve personally always found the process of actually familiarizing myself with a given subject to be extremely useful when attempting to discuss or criticize it. that way i don’t come off sounding really really ignorant. anyways, i highly recommend it!

    sorry. just felt like going off on a tangent for a moment. can’t imagine why….

  5. And this being the case why do feminists care about the inherently sexist “Vagina Monologues”?

    Spoken like someone without a vagina….

    Just because gender is mutuable, and much more fluid than we thought, doesn’t mean gender politics don’t still exist. The difference between a woman and a man may be small, even negligible, but in this world that difference has enormous impact.

    To use a parallel idea, we know that race is a social construct. There’s no biological difference between a white person and a black person. But racism nevertheless exists.

  6. Well the question was rhetorical and have men really done it to subjugate? You really do talk with inflammatory language. As far as I can see from history both men and women have spent most of the past 5000 years (until the Industrial Revolution) toiling hard in the fields.
    And men going off to die to secure these lands for their womenfolk and children – doesn’t sound like men got a good deal, does it?

    If you consider the right to vote it is also a story of land possession. When men went off and did the dying they only had the vote; when the land was only owned by nobles they had the vote as it was their land to lose. Now everyone has rights to the land and can die protecting it, everyone has the right to vote.
    To me that would sum up western voting and the so-called subjugation. Plus dont label all men, 99.999pc of men are just as “subjugated” by their status as women. We’re all mostly serfs.

    I guess you went off-topic as a self-reminder to get an education? I mean you couldn’t be so rude as to suggest I am ignorant, could you?

  7. Andygrrl – ever heard of tribal solidarity? This on a biological level does explain racism. Whether ‘pure’ races exist is irrelevant, as long as there’s differences between humans our base biology decrees that there will be tensions.

    Oh and the argument in that link also doubly explains my view that abortion is not only a woman’s issue.

    Feel free to attack me ad hominem some more 😉 Oh and dont confuse ‘gender’ with ‘sex’.

  8. Monjo:

    A penis is just an external vagina if we want to get technical. The line on the underside of the penis is the vagina, the sensitive gland on the underside of the head is the clitoris.

    I’ll have to refer back to some of the stuff I’ve read on comparative anatomy, but I think you’re wrong here. I believe the entire penis is homologous to the clitoris; the foreskin being homologous to the clitoral hood. I’ll have to find out for sure, but I remember reading that the scrotum is the homologous structure to the labia.

    Anyway, I remember it being much more complicated than your explanation. My point is that when comparing the male and female genomes, we see a miniscule difference when compared to the whole, but the resulting trajectories are very divergent through our perceptions of them; anatomically, historically, and socially.

  9. Mr. Monjo & his Amazing External Vagina replies: Well the question was rhetorical…

    really? well my reply was sarcastic – funny how that happens.

    but if your “question” really was rhetorical then i guess you’re not expecting any real response – you were just, how do you say, “blowing your own horn”, yes? thanks for clearing that up though – at least i don’t have to waste time with responding to your… well, what shall we call them? “ideas” seems a bit too strong a term, don’t you think? umm… howzabout “whimsical batfowlings”?

    Feel free to attack me ad hominem some more

    really? well, OK… seems a strange request but, hey, you asked for it: you’re a stoopid head and you’ve got a dumb butt!

    well, that got boring quick… bye y’all!

  10. that’s a good link. i would point out that the latest findings by NIH studies looking at the 46th X chromosome ilustrate much greater differences between men and women than just the physical differences. it’s not like we didn’t know these differences were there i just wanted to reintroduce the fact that the complexity of women both physically and mentally should be respected when considering this topic. the similarities are fascinating as well, but personally i prefer the differences. that’s all.

  11. hey thanks for the link – i kept my conclusion very simple since the topic is a huge one fraught with peril. also read your post about links, and I have recently moved mine to a separate page away from the front. blogrolls are a nice form of flattery, but I am increasingly seeing them as ugly patronage, tribalism, and social climbing. are we doomed to repeat the sad lessons of high school clique-dom in the blogosphere?
    maybe i’ll get the courage to drop mine sometime too

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