Comment by nicoburns | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nicoburns | Hacker News Reader

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> Could it be that traditional gender roles are socially adaptive and comfortable for the majority of men - and for that matter, also for many women

I think so. But the key word there is majority. I think it might well be a majority, but I don't think it's anything like an overwhelming one (ie.. more like 60% than 99%). That still leaves an awful lot of people for who this organisation doesn't work particularly well.

Women's liberation over the 20th century also shows us that it's very much not a binary thing. Many modern women will embrace femininity when they're dressing up to go out, but also appreciate and take full advantage of the option to wear trousers and adopt more traditionally masculine attitudes when working of exercising.

As someone who doesn't have any inclination towards traditional gender roles, I somewhat question the idea that they are linked to our biological makeup. Or at least, I think it needs to be recognised that it is not as simple as men having one set of inclinations and women another. And I think it's quite important that society recognises this and gives people the flexibility to do as they want to not as their gender roles tell them they should do.

> Or at least, I think it needs to be recognised that it is not as simple as men having one set of inclinations and women another.

Of course there's a lot of variance in how these gender roles might play out individually. Where I see some potential issues and pushback is largely with the common tendency in these movements, of wanting to throw out gender roles altogether. Again, a key majority of people would find this dehumanizing, not freedom-affirming, Many people want to be told what they might comfortably be expected to do, even if they would ultimately also want the right to choose differently. This is just as true for gender roles as for the many other ways of providing some common shared structure to our actions as we conduct ourselves and relate to others.

> Many people want to be told what they might comfortably be expected to do

Sounds like Queer Liberation is for you! This is very common, and there are very traditional roles for this in my community. I know plenty of ladies who will tell their partners what they are comfortably expected to do. It's a high consent environment, so you still ultimately have the right to choose differently.

"Queer liberation" is perhaps one of the best examples of how many activists are choosing to focus on what's 'strange' and 'peculiar' socially (hence, 'queer') over what's mainstream. Why should we care to emphasize the queer so much when that means making what common and thus not queer socially marginalized?

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