"gender is a social construct": fairly easy for leftists to understand
"race is a social construct": a bit harder to swallow for some but still reasonable
"mental illness is a social construct": this one gets you hate mail in your inbox
Gotta add previous tags on here, because this is gonna live rent free in my head from now on. The stars are real, constellations are not. Damn. Tags by @smoreofbabylon (if you don’t want me to put you on blast like this I’ll delete lol!)
Just for anyone getting mad because they misread this post as 'mental illness isn't real' it very much is, but think back to every time you've ever had someone who doesn't know you well be like 'you have depression? but you seem like such a positive person?' or 'you don't seem very bipolar to me'
The social construct aspect of it is the part that allows strangers to form judgements based on how they think you should behave, or just generally exist, just as it is with gender and race, if you want to be put in that box that's fine, I, personally, do not.
This is not really on-topic and I apologize, but the “gender is a social construct” one IS actually a thing that a lot of liberals and leftists struggle with?????
The struggle is simply not exactly in the same direction that this post is addressing.
Like, the entire basis for TERF ideology is, “gender is only a social construct ever always,” and “therefore sex is the only important axis of oppression.”
Like, they’re taking an ostensibly correct concept, and twisting it to be so black-and-white that it bends back around to being oppressive.
Is this a Horseshoe Theory moment . . . ?
And then, there are also some transgender people who get gender expression, social dysphoria, etc etc tangled up. Or misidentify what their actual gender is, because of binarism or somesuch.
They have not fully internalized the idea that gender is a social construct, and assume they must be one or the other. The same sort of thing also happens with people policing bisexuals “you just gotta pick a side” or “you’re in a straight relationship, what are you doing at a queer event”
Anyway, we still very much have SSSSTUFF to sort out about gender, even among explicitly queer and leftist spaces.
