(Hmm, and here I thought I was being diplomatic...)
There are a large number of traits associated with gender. They are "associated" because, for a majority of the population, a genetic male will have mostly male traits and a genetic female will have mostly female traits.
If you were to plot a scattergram showing the location of each individual (in some large population) in a multidimensional space with one dimension for each of these traits, there would be heavy clustering around two points which would more or less describe the archetypical male and female -- and the line in between these two clusters would also be more densely populated than other areas of the space.
Perhaps this is what you mean by stating that there are only two poles, with a linear spectrum between them. Such a graph would appear as two fuzzy dots with a fuzzy line connecting them. Most people would be in those dots or near that line -- sure.
What it sounded like you were suggesting is that everybody -- or most people, at least, with not enough exceptions to be worth considering as a group -- would be right on a straight, fairly narrow line between those two points, and that the points would be only slightly fuzzy at best.
If you are actually saying the latter, then I'll need to go fetch my evidence, but maybe I just misunderstood you.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ninetydegrees
Re: opinion contradicted by evidence
on 2009-01-30 11:55 pm (UTC)There are a large number of traits associated with gender. They are "associated" because, for a majority of the population, a genetic male will have mostly male traits and a genetic female will have mostly female traits.
If you were to plot a scattergram showing the location of each individual (in some large population) in a multidimensional space with one dimension for each of these traits, there would be heavy clustering around two points which would more or less describe the archetypical male and female -- and the line in between these two clusters would also be more densely populated than other areas of the space.
Perhaps this is what you mean by stating that there are only two poles, with a linear spectrum between them. Such a graph would appear as two fuzzy dots with a fuzzy line connecting them. Most people would be in those dots or near that line -- sure.
What it sounded like you were suggesting is that everybody -- or most people, at least, with not enough exceptions to be worth considering as a group -- would be right on a straight, fairly narrow line between those two points, and that the points would be only slightly fuzzy at best.
If you are actually saying the latter, then I'll need to go fetch my evidence, but maybe I just misunderstood you.