Comments by "marie parker" (@marieparker3822) on "What Is Gender?" video.

  1. Use of the term 'gender' puts us in danger of falling into essentialism and therefore sexism. 'Men would tend to the cows.' Connor, have you ever heard of milkmaids or shepherdesses? Some Victorians: 'Girls who read "difficult" books will render themselves sterile'. Men are physically stronger than women - more muscle, less fat, greater heart-lung capacity, denser bones, longer legs, greater upper-body strength. This is the result of testosterone throughout male puberty. Medieval times: women in farming, milking cows, making butter and cheese, making beer, helping to bring in the harvest (no tractors, far less combine harvesters), oh, and raising poultry, collecting the eggs, and killing and plucking the birds to sell or eat. Cooking, and cleaning and laundry, before housework was mechanised. Result: probably death at 35. Industrial Revolution: women (and children, until Lord Shaftesbury) in factories, in cotton mills, in coal-mines, pulling coal wagons when they were pregnant. Btw, I know there are some cultures which sequester menstruating women, who are regarded as unclean, but in our culture to my knowledge no difference is made between menstruating and not - you don't get a day off from the cotton mill because you have the first day of menstruation. You should certainly not now be taking any time off from the office, classroom or lab. My point? Complaints are made about 'women working' when the work they start to do is non-manual, interesting, well paid or influential. Fun facts: the first computer programmer was called Ada. She lived in the middle of the 19th century; the only person to have received a Nobel Prize for physics and another for chemistry was called Marie. They both had children, btw. It is the epitome of sexism to suggest that a woman who exhibits political acumen (Queen Elizabeth Tudor of England), or has the charismatic inspiration to guide an army to victory (Joan of Arc) must really have been a man, as some gender idealogues have maintained.
    1