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Totally agree with jrizzo on the identity thing. And sorry if this post gets a little reiterative and is off-topic from feminist poetry. I'm glad we're finally asking questions about this! I was confused at first too, by the objection by many members of the class had to discussing Woolf and 2nd wavers that gender doesn't exist. I didn't know if they meant it literally and physically, or in a theoretical sense. Then once I thought I had it all straightened out, I was a little confused after reading smigliori's explanation.

I agree with smigliori's ultimate aim (to not have people judged according to their gender and its stereotypes, but also not to make everyone the same), but I don't think it's feasible or desirable socially or biologically to ignore all divisions of gender/sex completely. I don't mean to tell anyone how to speak or what to do at all, by the way, sorry if it comes off that way. Two things are necessary for making a baby: sperm and an egg. I don't think this is in dispute, since the question seems to be less about biological criteria for labels and more about identity related issues (I don't agree that "There are no inherent biological differences" between "females" and "males") Biologically speaking, there is a spectrum in which intersex people fall, and I looked around the Intersex Society of North America's homepage and found a FAQ which answered the question: "Why doesn't ISNA want to eradicate gender?" at http://www.isna.org/faq/not_eradicating_gender, which is interesting, but responds for people happy "doing their gender", and not third gender-ers or gender queer-ers. Anyway, I think smigliori's ideal of a gender-blind society (at least as it was written in the above posts) is taking the concept of ambiguating and un-heteronormal-izing the world's categories a little too far. I might have misinterpreted it, so tell me if I have, but I gather that it involves no separation whatsoever between public/private spaces/rights/treatment/everything for "fe-/males", and basically no check boxes (so to speak) at all (?)

I don't have any real argument for this, but I don't believe men and women are that "separate" now. Separate but equal was the same rhetoric used to justify racial segregation. Is that what you meant by "Seperate but equal is not equal"? Or maybe just any sort of difference between how they're treated? One thing I'm also not clear on is how the parathesized "men" and "women" are to be defined.

It's natural, once segregation and other such oppressive and dehumanizing institutions have been discarded, to assume another arbitrary difference-barrier ought to be taken down as well. I guess it comes back to the same question: will being gender- race-blind help society? Also, lefties may have been demonized once, but there is still a difference (left-handed products etc) in their lives today, and they're probably happier for it.

Like jrizzo and anonymous, I think there are fundamental, not strictly socialized reasons why the fe-/male dichotomy has been so pernicious in human history. It doesn't have to be one or the other, gender-blind or gender-determinate. I feel like I'm living in a pretty gender-blind society right now. And I don't believe it necessarily follows that all women are inherently irrational and emotional and men emotionally impartial and logical.