Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with gender

Is tipping at hotels sex-biased?

KimikoPi — Wed, 08 May 2013 12:21:30 -0800

I've never worked in any hospitality industry, so I'm just wondering as a casual consumer/observer. How come people are supposed to tip their valets and bellhops at hotels, and they are always only men while there's no rule that you tip the housekeeping, and they are always female? I've always heard that at hotels, you're supposed to tip valets and bellhops and waiters and bartenders, of course. When I go to hotels, they are almost always male. I've never seen a female valet or bellhop (why is this btw?). But the housekeepers are always female immigrants and I've never heard of people tipping them. What are the wages of these groups? Do valets only work on tips and get no base hourly rate like the housekeeping staff? Do the high rollers who go to vegas give big tips to valets and bellhops but nothing to the housekeeping? Why aren't women either applying for or getting jobs that tip well?

Mars and Venus - are you for real?

tenaciousmoon — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 21:35:14 -0800

Do men and women really have distinctly different communication styles. For those of you who are in healthy relationships (romantic love or platonic), is there a wedge in communication that you constantly have to go against your natural instincts and fine-tune in a way that you don't have to with same-sex friends? Is the stereotype true, do women need to 'talk it out' and men need to 'go to their cave'? Can women really improve the relationship by NOT talking about it and can men really improve the relationship by practicing reflective listening? Is there really a pre-programmed way to communicate based on your gender? Something in this widely-spread viewpoint really rubs me the wrong way, and I'm not sure if the cultural/societal views(at least in my area) regarding men/women relationships are in fact, entirely valid and its just my own personal issues that need work. What are your experiences?

Gender confusion at 30-something

Anonymous — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 06:40:22 -0800

Becoming suddenly gender-confused at age 35, this is weird, please help. I have very recently - like in the last few weeks - become somewhat gender confused. I'm a bisexual woman in my 30s, and I would have until the last few weeks identified myself as cis-gendered, albeit without a very strong sense of gender-identity.

I've always been fascinated by gender bending: when I was little, I liked Boy George because he was feminine, later I sought out books and films about girls passing as boys and wished I could do the same. But I also really liked being feminine, like wearing frilly dresses. I wanted to wear a frilly dress one day, and pass as a boy the next.

As I grew older, I tended to present as feminine. A typical outfit in the last few years might be a knee or ankle length skirt with a feminine blouse. I had long hair, and I was happy being girly most of the time, though (unlike strongly cis-gendered people) I wouldn't have minded if I had magically woken up male one day.

But very recently, like in the past few weeks, I've had some strange urges. First, I really felt the need to cut my hair. I even thought of cutting it very short, like a buzz cut, but that would have looked awful with my face-shape, so I settled for a chin-length bob. But also, I've been finding myself avoiding wearing my skirts or feminine blouses, in favour of trousers and men's style shirts. It's like, suddenly, I felt the need to dress in a butch style, and wanting to walk and sit in a more masculine way. I've been wearing the same two pairs of trousers for the past two weeks, and the same hoodie (really need to wash that one). I wore a bit of make-up when I went out the other day, but it was in conscious imitation of a male character in a book I read recently.

This is coming at a very stressful period in my life: my career is at a very bad place, my relationship is strained, and I am going through a major depressive episode (which itself is the cause of the former two problems, and on a lovely feedback loop with them). I have to wonder if I am almost creating a personality to disappear into - like I want to become someone else, whether that person is a man or a (more) butch woman. I wouldn't worry so much, but I keep fantasizing about going out and living this person's life, and it's distancing me from my own. I was out dancing at a club with my male SO, and I was having fun, but also feeling like I wanted to be somewhere without him, where I could be someone else. I even got to the point of googling lesbian dance bars and thinking about how I could sneak out to go dancing with other women without his knowing. I have also fantasized lately about being a man with another man.

To boil out some questions out of this:

- do people become gender-confused at such a late age?
- could this just be a temporary issue, brought on my stress and my fully-acknowledged desire to flee my life at times (like several times a day)?
- I've been reading a lot of LGBT literature lately, and maybe I'm just over-identifying with my slightly genderqueer side?

also - if this is part of me, what are healthy ways that I could express it?

Help me respond constructively to my brother!

HopperFan — Sun, 17 Mar 2013 18:39:49 -0800

My older brother (in his 50s) posted something on FB regarding the Steubenville rape case, which was: "Well, this is not going to make me any friends, but here goes anyway:

I am less than totally sympathetic for this young woman because she can not be completely absolved of a significant amount of responsibility of what happened to her:
- To say she had no responsibility for her own well being is ludicrous. Had she stayed at least conscience, not sober just conscience, she could have prevented this with a simple "Don't touch me there." Instead she drank to the point she passed out (at 16 no less. The parents have no culpability?) and consequently "depended upon the kindness of strangers." Which leads directly to:
- if you chose to swim with sharks (teenage boys with alcohol) you had better expect to get bitten. The boys made unacceptable choices but to carry this for the rest of their lives is beyond appropriate.

Kind of like defensive driving. You don't walk through a bad part of town with $100 bills stuck on your shirt and think you are absolved of all blame or responsibility if you are mugged."

I am appalled and very disappointed at the same time - he has a daughter who's only a few years younger than me (we're in our 30s).

I'd like to respond in a way that is thoughtful and hopefully makes him think about a different way (or ways) to look at the issue. Right now, I cannot think of anything, because my first response is FUCK YOU, MISOGYNIST PIECE OF SHIT WHO NEVER HAD TO WORRY ABOUT GETTING RAPED IN YOUR LIIIIIIIFE, and then lava starts pouring out of my ears.

I'm not especially close to this brother, but I would like to remain on good terms with him. Appeals to logic, not emotion, work best with him - but all my logic skillz have just flown right out the window.

Give me some examples of rephrasing a question into a statement

geekgirl397 — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 13:15:01 -0800

I've heard that men don't like questions. I'm a woman and would like to have better relationships with the men in my life. Give me some examples of ways to rephrase questions into statements, directives or imperatives. I've recently been reading some of the work of the life coach Talane Miedaner.

Watching a webcast of a seminar she gave the other day about "breaking through the glass ceiling", a light went on.

She claims that "men don't like questions" and suggested that women, especially, would communicate better with men if they asked fewer questions and rephrased their communications. Polling men friends, coworkers and relatives, most men seem to agree.

I work in a male dominated industry and am looking for any way I can increase my influence and effectiveness. I figure this is worth a try.

Ordinarily, I ask questions about everything compulsively. I do it so instinctively I don't even know I'm doing it, so it's going to take some practice to stop and reframe my questions into forms that are less challenging and threatening to men.

An example might be: instead of "How was your day?" rephrase it into "Tell me about your day".
Another might be: instead of "How are you going to fix this problem?", say "Explain to me how you are going to fix this problem"

I am looking for more examples, as this kind of rephrasing is far from natural to me. I'd like to create a "cheat sheet" list of sentence openers and forms that I can carry around with me and use as a reminder until this habit is more ingrained. Please give me your suggestions.

Any commentary on the thesis is also welcomed.

Wonderful 4 Year Old Son Likes Girly Stuff - No Problem! Right?

stewieandthedude — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 14:32:39 -0800

My wonderful 4-year old son wants lots of girly things. I want nothing more than to support him and help him grow into the person he wants to be. My only question is, is there anything that a loving, responsible, progressive parent should do to protect him from hurt, possible bullying etc. He wanted his finger nails painted, we did it, he wanted pink tights, we got them for him, he wants hair clips, we plan on getting them for him. He wants all of these things pretty badly - they aren't things he mentioned once and then dropped. It is interesting because it has given me an opportunity to really examine my own feelings on this in a "rubber meets the road" kind of way. Bottomline: I really don't care. I want him to be happy, fulfilled, etc. If that is wearing pink tights and hair clips, more power to him.

But, I am a little bit concerned (and no, I don't think I'm using this just as a cover to really feeling uncomfortable about it myself) about kids making fun of him and eventually bullying him. When all is said and done, I think I ultimately take the position that: he is only 4, he may not even want to do this kind of boundary pushing into the age where he's going to face more bullying, and, even if he does, I know that parents can't really protect their kids completely from that kind of thing. I have ultimately concluded (though I welcome your ideas on this) that the best thing I can do for him is love him completely and support him in whatever expressions of himself he wants to make. When he does encounter mean kids or bullying, I can continue to support him. I'm not naive about the nature of the world - I know he'll face those things, but he's going to learn eventually that there are mean people in the world - at least he'll know he has his parents in his corner.

Ultimately my question is - does this sound right? Any other thoughts on ways to approach this that both support him and, in a loving, constructive way, minimize the pain that may come from his choosing to buck traditional gender confines? (I acknowledge he's only 4 and it is a complicated question of whether he is bucking gender confines or that he simply likes pink things and doesn't have any concept of the gender implications).

I want some male comedian bits... on gender

spamandkimchi — Sat, 09 Mar 2013 03:48:41 -0800

Dave Chappelle. Chris Rock. Louis C.K. Some of the funniest male comics are the least funny when it comes to gender -- incisive humor suddenly deteriorates into sexist tropes and gender war cliches. Are there any male stand-up comedians who have interesting routines about women?

How DO you find out your sex chromosomes?

Anonymous — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 20:51:16 -0800

Is there a test adults can get to tell them what their sex chromosomes are, e.g. to know if they're an XX despite having male genitalia, or if they're XXY women, or any other non-binary possibility? I appear to be unambiguously female, but I have had several reasons to wonder if, biologically, I might have something somewhat different going on:

- I have had dark, coarse facial hair since puberty. I've had to get electrolysis for this. I don't have PCOS.

- I had pubic hair for as long as I can remember, as early as four years old at least. And I don't mean just a little. When I was learning about puberty at school I was surprised to hear that people don't have pubic hair before then. To my knowledge I wasn't diagnosed with anything, though I'm not sure my parents would have said. My mom is the type that might be weird about those things.

- There's a slight extra... inch-long tentacle-y bit inside my vagina, which otherwise appears pretty normal. I've gone to a gynecologist about it and she said sometimes stuff like that happens and it's nothing to worry about, and I'm not self conscious about it. But it has made me wonder.

- This is difficult to explain because it's not binary, but you'll see why I might wonder if I have an underlying biological reason to feel so perfectly in the middle: as a child I felt more like a boy, but not to the extent that a trans man would have felt, and it didn't feel wrong to be a girl. If I had to pick a gender, I might have picked male, but I don't particularly care either way, and not in a "I'm above this or think it's stupid way," but in a "I feel both describe me fine" way. I have two trans women friends and I definitely did not have the kind of gender dysphoria they experienced as children. Today, if some people called me he and some people called me she I wouldn't care either way and could identify as either psychologically.

- I wonder if my mom found out something when I was a kid -- how do you not find a reason why your kid has pubic hair? -- and wouldn't tell me, because of some stuff she's done/said. She would not get me boys' toys or clothes even though I asked for them in addition to girl stuff, and when I was adult she said it was because she didn't want me to be a lesbian. Even though I have been married for ten years, she worried a few years ago that I might be a lesbian, despite the fact I'm SO happy in my marriage (my husband is the best person in the world) or anything like that and have never touched a woman. I am bisexual and can't tell her this because she's crazy. She's not religious or even homophobic (well, not entirely, I guess this counts some) but it strikes me more as she REALLY thought that I was destined to go that way for some reason.

For that same reason I can't ask her if she found out I had some chromosomal abnormality as a kid either because she'd just lie anyway. I could definitely see her finding out and deciding it would be better for me not to know, because she's like that and thinks everyone else is as dramatic as she is. Asking her is just off the table, especially when presumably the answer is my blood and I try to limit contact with her.

- I have extremely low cortisol but good DHEA levels, and reading about some of these sex chromosome permutations, some of them are said to interfere with cortisol production.

It is mainly the last issue now that makes me want to get tested, because curiosity alone wasn't enough before; the cortisol issue is really fucking with my life, I haven't had any luck resolving it (diets and medical stuff both), and I'm beginning to wonder if it's because the medical people are just assuming I'm an XX female. All I've been told is something is very clearly not working with my adrenal glands, and has not been working since I was a child.

When I've done bloodwork for various tests, would sex chromosomes even be something they'd notice automatically, or think to check? I'm guessing they just check for whatever hormones or thing the particular test was looking for, right? It seems like if I were intersex in some way, that would explain a lot and at least get me the appropriate help for this. It also seems like if I were intersex and didn't know, I could be in the position I am now where everyone just doesn't seem to know why my hormones are so weird and why things aren't working.

So IS there a test I can take that'll spell out my sex chromosomes? It's totally possible I have another hormonal disorder, but I'd like to narrow things down more. How do I get it? How much does it cost? etc etc...

How old are video game players?

Wordshore — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 08:26:44 -0800

Looking for recent, substantive, data on the demographics of video game players that does NOT source back (as so many do) to the ESA. There must be some others out there? Yes? Looking for:

- a breakdown of the age ranges of video game players, in the USA, western world or whole world
- the proportion of female to male players, for same
- the average age of a video game player, for same

But ... has to have a source reference of some credible kind. There are many websites and blogs out there that have this information, but those which provide a reference pretty much all link to the ESA stuff such as this one. Looking for several original sources - if they exist - of this specific information, and the only other one found so far are the Newzoo reports. Are there any others?

Looking for a blog post about gender pronouns & dogs

citywolf — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 22:02:47 -0800

I remember reading months ago (could have been as long as 1-2 years ago) a blog post written by (I think) a man talking about the assumptions people make about gendering dogs. I think people always assumed his female dog was a male. Anyway the whole thing lead to a discussion about gender and equating male with "neutral" or "default." Would love to read it again (in part to fill in all my obvious memory gaps).

TIA.

Gender, sexuality, and mental health.

whalebreath — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 06:09:35 -0800

Gender, sexuality, and mental health. Help me design a workshop? A while ago I asked this question, asking for your input about how to design a workshop about gender and sexuality for mental health professionals who didn't know a lot about queer or trans issues or identities. You guys provided some awesome ideas and resources, and that workshop was a raging success.

Now I want to design a workshop from the opposite perspective: a workshop about mental health for people who are already very well-versed in issues of gender and sexuality, who are activists and queers themselves and allies working within these communities. I'm a graduate student in a mental health field, and the workshop will be part of a multi day gathering with lots of workshops on oppression, activism, etc. I'm a lot more intimidated about giving this workshop than I was the last one, and so I really want to inform myself and make it as relevant and interesting as it can be.

So far what I've thought of doing is talking about some of the institutionalized oppression within the field of psychology: the history of homosexuality in the DSM, the current inclusion of gender identity disorder (and the necessity of getting a diagnosis of a mental disorder in order to access hormones/surgery), the phenomenon of gay conversion therapy, the history of surgically operating on the genitals of intersexed infants....that's all I've got there so far. I could also talk about how the DSM imposes this dichotomy between pathological and normal....but I'm worried about getting up as a psych grad student and giving a rant/tirade against psychology...not because I don't have a lot of problems with the DSM etc., but just because I'm going to need a job in the future, and this is a small community. I want to be able to offer critique and controversy in a calm, almost impartial way, but the truth is I'm currently kind of raging inside about some of these things, and I'm scared of broadcasting that to all of my future employers, who may not be so receptive to a scathing critique of their field and practices.

Then I was thinking of exploring mental health issues among queer and/or trans people...for this I was originally thinking of getting a loan of a bunch of clickers, so that I could poll the room anonymously about their experiences with mental illness and access to treatment, but it looks like that's not going to be a possibility, and I wasn't sure how to go about that in a really sensitive manner anyway...

I would love input from you guys about how to make this workshop a success. I'd love to be able to get the audience involved somehow, but I'm not sure how many will be there...probably somewhere between 20 and 50. As a queer person/trans person/ally, what would you want to learn about mental health, or what do you wish people knew? I feel like I'm going to learn a lot from making/presenting this workshop, and I'm really open/wanting to hear about perspectives that I've neglected or not thought about. I have about 45 minutes to give the talk/presentation/workshop, and then another 30 minutes for discussion.

Thanks guys!

Innovations in non-gendered clothing

velebita — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 11:08:58 -0800

Most androgynous clothing styles skew towards the masculine. I'm trying to work out some ways might it be possible to go in the other direction. Specifically, if you have or have wanted to shift towards a more feminine presentation, what kind of clothing do you wish you could find? I'm an artist and fashion designer, working on a collection that will be more of an art project than a commercial venture. All perspectives (trans, genderqueer, people who just want skirts to have pockets) welcome!

What do women think men and women want in relationships?

tybeet — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 07:47:46 -0800

"Men want sex" and "women want romance" -- so the stereotypes go. To what extent does the average woman believe (or not believe) in these stereotypes? Does anyone know if there is research on this? I've been searching for hours, but haven't turned up anything yet.

Humanities PhD in Australia - advice and suggestions!

geek anachronism — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 15:27:07 -0800

In March I will be starting my PhD (humanities - gender, fan culture and writing) but I have been out of academia for a long time. I finished my Honours in 2002, completed a Masters but since it was coursework (librarian coursework at that) it doesn't really count as far as the rigours or the demands of a PhD goes. I've started trawling Jstor and a couple of other databases I can access through the State library while I ease into it all and I was wondering: what are some of the crucial humanities texts that I've probably forgotten/missed in the past ten years?. The ones that are expected to be referred to in any thesis about gender, writing and identity, or humanities in general. I'm building my reading list/book list but don't have uni library privileges yet so I'm stuck with online/non-academic library access - unless it's something I should buy (aka Strunk and White, Judith Butler etc).

Exclusive Spaces Primer

TheGoodBlood — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 20:01:09 -0800

I want to know more about the theory and practice of exclusive spaces for groups perceived as oppressed or subaltern, as in exclusively gay spaces, exclusively racialized spaces, trans only spaces, women only spaces, etc. I am specifically looking for:

• Texts that justify/refute the need for and efficacy of exclusive spaces (could be theory-heavy or insightful journalistic pieces, essays, blog posts, etc);
• Your personal, direct, first-hand experience.

If there's some sort of canonical literature about this, I'd love if you could point me in that direction.

[I am not interested in learning more about exclusive spaces for groups in position of power, like exclusively white spaces or spaces for men only, and so on. I am not interested in hear-say or speculative opinion]

Thanks!

Transgender reading list

morninj — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 19:38:15 -0800

Which books and articles are the most important for understanding transgender issues?

Do we find out our baby's sex?

Anonymous — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 09:56:19 -0800

We're pregnant! But we're on the fence about finding out the baby's sex. Parents: what did you decide? Did you regret your decision or love it? HOORAY, we're 14 weeks pregnant and just telling friends and family the news. However, we're not sure if we should find out the kid's sex. Can you help us?

We broke it down thusfar:

Finding out the baby's sex:
Pros: People can buy us gender-"appropriate" clothes (more on that in a second)*, we only have to agonize over one set of baby names, we can refer to the baby as he/her instead of "little monster," and we can satisfy our curiosity

Keeping kid's sex a secret
Pros: ruins the fun delivery room surprise, thus extending the OMG factor several months longer, prevents our insanely excited parents from buying the baby gender-appropriate clothes (re: ugly onesies with baseballs/unicorns) for the time being until we can formulate a polite "thanks but no thanks" policy about ulta-gendered clothes, stops people from making stupid gendered comments about having a boy or a girl**
Cons: I know once the kid arrives I'll be thrilled!!! no matter what, but right now I have my heart set on having a girl. A tiny part of me is worried this wish will intensify as the months progress and I'll actually bit a tad glum if the kid arrives as a boy.

*I don't mind pinks for girls and blue for boys in moderate amounts, but I really dislike "Little Princess"/"Mommy's Little Hellion" garbage.
**I have generally noticed people more freely make stupid gender comments when the baby is still in the womb and thus not a real person yet? Perhaps I'm wrong.

Films, shows, videos, imagery representing success and failure in American culture?

cymru_j — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 08:31:51 -0800

Depictions of success and failure in American culture? Films, videos, commercials, shows, songs, and other (non-literary) media requested. I'm teaching a class in literary representations of success and failure in American literature and culture, nineteenth century to present. We'll be looking at works that factor in gender, race, and class in figuring economic and other measures of success. Readings will include Ben Franklin's Autobiography and John Howard Griffin's Black Like Me.

One catch: it's a summer course that meets four days a week for three hours at a time. In order to stave off inevitable exhaustion for both me and the class (to make matters more fun, I'll be late in my third trimester of pregnancy!) I want to weave in some visuals/audio/multi-media.

I plan on showing GlenGarry Glen Ross in its entirety toward the end of the term. What other films, TV episodes, scenes, music videos, songs, art, etc. might be fun to include? I'm open to depictions from other cultures, since they might offer interesting points of comparison.

Witty, weighty, trivial -- all welcome, as long as they represent some spin on the topics of success and/or failure. Just FYI, I'm mostly thinking in socioeconomic, racial, or gendered terms, but I also want to keep the theme open at this point; in fact, alternate readings of the (admittedly VERY broad) "success and failure" label could provoke new insights as I plan the class, so bring them on!

Thanks, guys!

Interesting scifi / glam rock makeup looks?

lemoncakeisalie — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 20:55:32 -0800

Can you point me to some (non-prosthetic) scifi/fantasy makeup looks? I've landed a volunteer position as a makeup designer for a production of a beautifully campy show. For a few of the characters, who are aliens, the director wants a glam rock look, something like Alice Cooper meets Ziggy Stardust.

I'd like to mix it up a bit further by looking at designs from science fiction / fantasy TV and film, glam rock, fashion / modeling / photo shoots, and theatre of all sorts.

I'd especially like to see campy designs for aliens, like from Star Trek: The Original Series or from old scifi films. I don't have access to prosthetics, and I don't want to, say, paint someone completely green or something.

I've already looked through all of www.themakeupgallery.info and gathered some inspiration from the scifi series Farscape. Can people offer further resources, photos, links, or suggestions?

Thank you!

Help me find an old Stephen Jay Gould article.

ropeladder — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 20:57:33 -0800

Help me find a Stephen Jay Gould (I think) essay. Long ago and far away, I picked up a used, outdated intro college reader called "The Conscious Reader". (You can find new copies on the web, but I think I had the 6th edition or so, and I can't find the table of contents for older editions.)

The version I had had an essay by (I'm pretty sure) Stephen Jay Gould. It was not the essay "Sex, Drugs, Disasters, and the Extinction of the Dinosaurs" that is in the current edition. Instead, it was about gender and how populations of species tend to remain in gender balance despite forces that would seem to push it to different ratios.

There was some Bigger Lesson about science, and an important example about insects that have a different gender ratio because they had some weird thing where they ate their mate or mother or some such pleasantries.

Casual relationships and gender norms, plus any feedback on this guy's behavior?

thesnowyslaps — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 08:26:41 -0800

Mixed signals from a guy I made out with. What do they mean? Any hopes for further fun? And also, on a philosophical level, what are your thoughts on women pursuing men and differences in the rules of the game for dating versus casual fun? So, Met this guy a couple of weeks ago when out with some friends. We had kind of a fun and random night, and made out at the end. He struck me as someone who is a natural flirt and who is enjoying himself at the moment (mentioned within my hearing to another person in the group that he is dating a lot recently), but it was kind of fun to hang out with him and be pursued for the evening.

I didn't see him for a couple of days afterwards, but eventually ran into him around school and, well, upon seeing him it occurred to me that I would have liked to have made out more. So . . . I sent him a fb message and asked if he wanted to hang out. I think it was pretty obvious that I wasn't thinking date level hanging out, more fwb hanging out, or at least that was how it was meant. He replied almost immediately in the affirmative. I messaged back a bit later to set up a time/day. And . . . he never messaged back! Grrr . . .

So, that was maybe two and a half weeks ago. Ran into him about a week ago in the library and he seemed happy to see me and walked with me back to the apartment complex where we both live. He opened the door to the apartment complex for me in a kind of demonstrative way, then when it seemed like we were going to part because I was taking the stairs and he was taking the elevator, he turned around and wanted to walk up together.

So, at this point my pride is probably rightly saying not to message him a second time (plus enough time has passed that my motivation to do that has gone down) but I feel slightly baffled by his behavior. Should I pursue him any further? And more philosophically, in your opinion, how do rules (or guidelines if you will) for pursuing differ when you are looking for something casual versus something that would go in more of the 'dating' category? And, perhaps even more philosophically, how do you think these sorts of rules should/do differ for men versus women. Present situation aside, I am a girl but I kind of like pursuing people (in addition to liking to be pursued as mentioned earlier), or would like to pursue people more. But I always feel frustrated that pursuit of men will make me seem desperate or something. Your thoughts on any/all of this multipart question would be greatly appreciated!

Sex ed for a young person?

WidgetAlley — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 21:06:13 -0800

Denizens of Metafilter, I need your best sex-ed materials. For a 16 year-old young man. My family does not exchange gifts on Christmas, but in the spirit of the season (and being the only person in his immediate family who will do something like this), I have decided to send my 16 year old nephew a big anonymous box stuffed full with a variety of condoms, lube, and sex ed materials. My reasoning is, if he's not having it now he will be soon (he is an athlete, an excellent student, and extremely popular with the ladies already), and I know his education from family and public school has been insufficient. His life is quite tumultuous in many ways and the only persons who might take him aside about something like this are his church-going God-fearing Southern grandparents. I don't want to embarrass him, just provide him with the resources to make his own decisions safely.

I know exactly where to get nice condom/lube assortments online, but I am less great with educational materials. So, Mefites, what are your favorite sex ed resources?

Ideally, I would like to provide him with some reading on: STI prevention and transmission; first-time sex; peer/cultural pressure and how to choose between having safe sex and waiting; consent and healthy relationships; basic mechanics/anatomy; and something that addresses how to have sex in a (safe) way that will feel good to all.

Requirements:
- They need to be free, super-cheap, or easily printable (or all three.)
- They need to be sex positive (no Chick tracts please.)
- They need to be engaging! I could just print off the CDC website but I doubt that would hold much attention.
- I would love for them to cover oral/manual sex as well as other types of sexual activity.

Thank you for helping me help my nephew!

Grammatical gender consistency across languages

obloquy — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 12:49:16 -0800

Are grammatical genders, as a rule, consistent across the Indo-European languages which use them? I am thinking of romance languages generally, but information on others are by no means discouraged. Any examples of nouns (or other gendered words) that are differently gendered in different languages would be very helpful.

More femme, please

elephantsvanish — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 21:52:48 -0800

How can I build confidence to incorporate more femme elements into my gender presentation as a young straight(ish) man? When I was younger (15-19) I would buy blouses and other androgynous kinds of clothes, wear eyeliner, etc. just because I wanted to and it felt good. In college, I took the opportunity to wear my friend's dresses during a few drunken nights out. It probably came across costumey/boundary-crossing for its own sake. But I loves those articles of clothing- dresses are rad and I like wearing ones that suit me more than bland dude clothes.

I was always kind of hoping my style would come together around dresses and the like but I found myself presenting more and more as straight up male. Partly this was due to a rejection of a culture I perceived as oppressively hipster. I liked having a simple style because it focused less attention on myself, or so I told myself. My friends were quite traditionally straight guys, and perhaps I moved closer to the mean.

Now I'm a couple of years out of school and have put progressively less and less energy into clothes. But I can't help feeling this sublte desire to be more feminine. I feel like I'm playing as myself when I'm being too outwardly dudeish. I think back to the liberation I felt with a pretty, smart sundress and feel no equivalent today. I had a small moment of intense happiness today and one thought that immediately followed it was "I want to buy feather earrings!" Then some part of me got angry at the thought, and then I was bummed out.

I would love to hear from anyone who found themselves further away from the gender presentation they intended. How can I move closer to where I want to be while dealing with self-critiques like "you're being self absorbed, people will treat this like a fad and write you off as fickle, there's going to be wide consequences, etc." ?

Why have case endings and gender endured in language?

stenoboy — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 15:03:16 -0800

Case endings and gender in language: why? I'm curious as to why so many languages employ what seem to be difficult grammatical structures, and I'm thinking particularly of case endings and also genders.

Historically, how did they develop? Is language easier without them?

I am sure 'difficult' is a relative concept, and growing up around a language you wouldn't find these endings or genders strange, but as an English speaker who doesn't have to deal much with these grammatical phenomena (other than the odd 'her' for a ship, and a 'whom' now and again), I find it odd that more langugages haven't dropped this grammatical baggage.

Take German: German has retained gender and case. However, the gender only seems to affect the articles and demonstrative pronouns (this, these - I might be wrong on the nomenclature!), whereas the noun themselves remain unmodified unlike as in Latin or Russian.

Why is it in English and other languages (Dutch, Scandanvian languages other than Finnish) did away with the case endings (although those other languages mentioned maintain a gender system).

Is there any evidence that these grammatical forms are weakening at all, or are they too ingrained within the structure?

Also, how do new words coming into a language get assigned a gender?

I must say, having to learn three genders AND cases puts me off learning a language. I don't know how people ever overcome this hurdle!