comment: >
  
  nope you didn't misunderstand anything. Post-structuralist have a gaping hole in their reasoning in terms of how much agency the subject has. Their reasoning implies we have none but they just ignore it
context: Is anyone saying that social constructs are wrong per se?
  Democracy is a social construct.
  Marriage is a social construct.
  Justice is a social construct.
  Absolutely no one is saying that social constructs are bad. The point is - social constructs is something we can CHANGE (to improve). It's not something set in stone. >
  
  Exactly, as OP states social constructs are just groups or terms we use to help us understand the world. Doing so isn't inherently bad and is actually very useful if not necessary. I think what OP is confusing here is that, with many social constructs, they do have a history that is not good. Take race for example, a social construct with an almost exclusively bad history and purpose. Now, acknowledging that fact isn't saying that we should never use any words or groupings around people's backgrounds or that all social constructs are bad, it just means that we should work to both acknowledge the history and work to fix/replace the bad parts where necessary. >
  
  I agree that the way we treated social constructs has been problematic in the past. My point is that it doesn't mean we should tear them apart. Instead, we can embrace differences without discriminating against anyone.
  Of course, questioning the system is always a good thing. I definitely do. >
  
  It's not about tearing them apart, it's just about ensuring that we don't trap ourselves within them.  
  There's a lot of posts like this on CMV, where everyone sort of just... wonders where some supposed opposition is coming from, because no one's noticing any but the OP. >
  
  Well, one, Butler is way the fuck obtuse and is not the best way to get an initial understanding of these things.
  But:
  
  We, humans, need reference frames to understand the world. We naturally gravitate to categorizing things. There's nothing wrong with the distinction between "female" and "male." 
  
  The problem is that the distinction between "female" and "male" (sexes) has become a distinction between "woman" and "man" (gender [roles]) that is, generally speaking, oppressive particularly but not exclusively to women. It creates a set of expectations that deny people the ability to pursue their own interests independent of what they themselves actually want.
  
  Butler says there's indeed no such thing as a "woman," since the definition is not widely accepted. She wants to find a new subject of feminism. And this confuses me. Her gender performativity also confuses me. If gender isn't innate but something performed (and doesn't even exist), then what's the point of even saying that people can identify as X or Y? Wouldn't that go against TG?
  
  This is the 8756243876523847562346598th thread that boils down to two distinct uses of gender.
  Gender identity is not the same thing as gender roles, norms, or expression, although the two are obviously related. It's the same kind of relationship the feeling of pain has to the word "ow". The word "ow" is constructed, expressive, voluntary to some extent, culturally variable, etc. But pain in and of itself is not. Similarly, gender [as Butler is using the term] is constructed, expressive, voluntary to some extent, culturally variable, etc. But gender identity, which is a distinct underlying thing, is not.
  
  Should we deconstruct reference frames? Wouldn't it be better to accept that there's a norm but people can fall out? And most importantly, if we do deconstruct them, how do we build new ones?
  
  A valid question!
  I'd argue the point of deconstruction is to understand the construction itself and decide whether and how to rebuild it. Constructions are too built into the way we view the world for us to totally do away with them, but they're also too often wrong for us to not examine them.
  For example, physics needed a bunch of deconstructing after the discovery of quantum mechanics. The foundations on which physics was built - of a bunch of little billiard balls flying around with definite speeds and velocities and bouncing off of each other - were bad ones, and we needed to tear the whole thing down and start from scratch. And so a large part of the initial development of quantum mechanics was just getting back to what we already knew with that foundation.
  Or to get back to social issues: transitioning involved a lot of deconstruction and reconstruction in my personality. I was socialized as a man in a way that didn't prepare me for the challenges I'd face as a woman, and it led me to many conclusions that turned out to be false with that new perspective. So I ended up having to treat a lot of things that I "knew" as conditional and uncertain, dig down into the roots of those things, pull out a few roots, and then rebuilt the things that seemed true from that perspective.
  Butler might not agree with me on this, but I believe in deconstructing to reconstruct better. Every generation ought to do it at least once, not with the idea of changing everything, but with the idea of being willing to change anything that isn't working anymore, and to follow the consequences of that where they lead. >
  
  
  Gender identity is not the same thing as gender roles, norms, or expression, although the two are obviously related. It's the same kind of relationship the feeling of pain has to the word "ow". The word "ow" is constructed, expressive, voluntary to some extent, culturally variable, etc. But pain in and of itself is not. Similarly, gender [as Butler is using the term] is constructed, expressive, voluntary to some extent, culturally variable, etc. But gender identity, which is a distinct underlying thing, is not.
  
  This is really informative and explains something that has confused me for a long time. Thank you for educating some of my ignorance. Is there anything you could recommend that explains Gender Identity more? >
  
  There's not really a "more" to explain. It's just a thing that is, in much the same way that sexual orientation is. >
  
  Can you define it? >
  
  Saying something is a social construct isn't saying it's "right or wrong" to begin with. It's drawing a distinction between something rooted in reality vs. something that is real because we collectively believe it's real. Having dark skin is a biological reality, "race" and the way society will treat you as a result of that phenotype is a social construct.
  One reason this distinction is significant is that it tells us racism is not an unchangeable natural phenomenon, but a product of human behavior that we can address. The fact that race is a social construct doesn't make racism or the consequences of race any less "real". >
  
  The tendency to categorise the world, to identify groups of things and to name them, is natural but I think there is a particular problem with social categories that do justify viewing them as problematic, even perhaps evil. The issue is not with the act of categorisation itself, but how social categories acquire (socially) accepted attributes or properties. It is this process, controlled by the dominant group that reproduces their coercive/abusive power. So while “female” may identify something in the world, the meaning of female in a society depends on the power structure of that society. If it is male dominated then negative attributes become bound up with the social meaning of female to justify male dominance. Such a process seems to be intrinsic to social constructs (categories) and I don’t think it’s possible for social constructs to avoid this fate. This justifies treating them differently from natural categorisations such as tree which do avoid reproducing social structures by virtue of not being part of the social world!
  When you say about there being no such thing as “man” and “woman” this distinction between natural categorisation and social categorisation is crucial. In principle they would exist if construed as natural categorisations but I don’t think that’s what we mean by these in practice. We mean them as social categories which are somewhat like mythologies. The Sun exists as an object fusing hydrogen into helium in the natural world. But for some societies it was a god in constant war with the Moon. When people in such a society talk about the Sun they mean the god with the attributes they ascribed to it and not the nuclear furnace we know it as. Their Sun story is a myth of course even though there is something 150 million km away. >
  
  Butler isn't saying that social constructs are inherently evil, rather what they're doing is arguing against a view of gender that understands it as consisting of two parts: identity, and performance. E.g. the idea there are women, and there are the social roles and expectations that women are expected to have within the patriarchy, and together those constitute the socially constructed identity of women. Butler is saying that actually, there is only the second part, the performance, because people don't have identities that spring fully formed from their bodies. Rather, only the social construction of gender exists. But this doesn't mean that people are wrong about what their gender is, it just means gender as a thing is inherently tied up with the societal distribution of power, and is complicated by race, class, sex, sexuality, etc. When they're talking about finding a new subject of feminism, what Butler means is that if you confine yourself to thinking about feminism as about separating women from patriarchal norms, you're going to come up short, because "woman" is still defined by those patriarchal norms, forming a dialectic: either you embrace the norms or you go against them, you're still being governed by them. Instead, they argue, people need to attack those norms directly through, for example, parody and deconstruction. It's not enough to just say that women can defy gender norms if they want, what really needs to be done is for a new sort of womanhood to be invented through intentional and repetitive challenging of gender norms and the social structures which reinforce them >
  
  Regarding transgender issues, in later books Butler says that while gender is performative and a social construct, not aligning yourself to that construct generally means not being accepted as a complete person by society — which is painful. (Indeed, the high rates of suicidality and depression among trans folk correlates directly to the degree they do not feel accepted by others.)
  And I don’t think Butler ever makes the case that all social constructs are evil though, does she? But they are all the products of power relations. You can’t make people accept new social constructs without power (whether that power is violent, or persuasive, or legal.) Academia is a center of power too.
  I also get the sense that Butler, and other critical theorists carrying on the tradition of Foucault (and ultimately Nietzsche) is too focused on breaking things down, smashing idols, and not on building anything new. It’s a common criticism. I think you have to think of critical theory as a tool — it’s a tool that’s great for tearing down old constructs to clear space for something new. But it shouldn’t be the only tool in society’s tool belt. 
  Accepting that there is a norm, but that people fall out of it, is creating a new norm. Just ten years ago or so falling outside that norm was a mental illness (according to the DSM-4.) >
  
  So let’s change the way people treat others not in the norm. 
  I don’t see why we can’t have a norm and still respect people who don’t fall into it perfectly. 
  I don’t understand why we can’t still have a description of non binding gender characteristics and still allow and respect people living outside of those norms. 
  I see a direction where the mass is told to reject norms and non binding definitions to make those outside the norm feel comfortable when what we need is people to treat others with respect regardless of what norms they do or do not fall into >
  
  A social norm is a shared agreement of what constitutes acceptable behavior.
  Treating everyone with respect regardless of gender norms is a great norm in my opinion. But such a norm necessarily exists in opposition to gender norms. If all gendered behavior is acceptable, there are no gender norms.
  Though then again, I wouldn’t want every gender norm to be acceptable. Many westerners would have a lot of difficulty accepting extremely traditional gender norms, or norms that have been proven to be harmful, like locking women away from public view while the menstruate. This would be unacceptable gendered behavior and would therefor be a norm — don’t act this way.
  Your just never going to do away with all gender norms, nor would you want to. But you can make some less restrictive and change others. >
  
  U can change your gender not sex your sex. Cis female and cis male will always exist because it's a scientific fact, u can change your team and identify as whatever but u can't ever change the way u were born and most people always feel that. Take for instance trans men who want to get pregnant if they actually wanted to be a man they would use a surrogate not carry >
  
  Sorry, u/jacobsonjohn287 – your comment has been removed for breaking Rule 1:
  
  Direct responses to a CMV post must challenge at least one aspect of OP’s stated view (however minor), or ask a clarifying question. Arguments in favor of the view OP is willing to change must be restricted to replies to other comments. See the wiki page for more information.  
  
  If you would like to appeal, you must first check if your comment falls into the "Top level comments that are against rule 1" list, review our appeals process here, then message the moderators by clicking this link within one week of this notice being posted. 
  Please note that multiple violations will lead to a ban, as explained in our moderation standards. >
  
  
  power is the driving force.
  
  Yes. Power for whom, do you think? >
  
  Everyone engaging in politics. There's two manifestations of power, individual strength and the strength in numbers. If democracy wins, then it's because it's the strongest force. It's literally in the name.
  Whenever I criticise the political left on Reddit I get downvoted, that's also a power imbalance.
  Did you want me to say "Bad people take power for themselves"? But everyone wants power for themselves. All political discussions are just losers complaining that they have less power than others, and that this is an injustice, and that they're good people and the moral standards which everyone else should be measured against.
  I do not believe the positive words with which any force adorn themselves, all political power struggles are ugly, and I find the whole identification with groups to be pathetic, and these groups don't really exist anyway (which is why discrimination is always invalid. You can't judge people for the actions of the group to which you think that they belong, be it their race or anything else) >
  
  
  Whenever I criticise the political left on Reddit I get downvoted, that's also a power imbalance.
  
  Lol.
  Not allowed to have opinions different from yours?
  
  But everyone wants power for themselves.
  
  Yes. 
  
  I find the whole identification with groups to be pathetic,
  
  Lol.
  
  and these groups don't really exist anyway
  
  Then you shouldn't be so upset about it. >
  
  I never said they didn't, but it's not even their opinions, they've just found some group to identify with. Those who think for themselves don't fit under any labels.
  
  Then you shouldn't be so upset about it.
  
  I'm not upset, I'm just calling out nonsense. No progress is being made >
  
  
  No progress is being made
  
  But things are better now for LGBTQ+ people. Seems like progress to me. 
  
  it's not even their opinions, they've just found some group to identify with. Those who think for themselves don't fit under any labels.
  
  Labels are shorthand. Everybody fits some label. >
  
  Look at the posts being made on this subreddit. They've been made 100s of times before. This conversation we're having now has been had 100s of times before.
  
  Everybody fits some label.
  
  Badly, at best. If your opinion on 20 different subjects are almost the same as other people the same label, then you're not an individual, but some conforming automatron which is afraid of standing out or going against the flow. >
  
  Most people pick a label that fits their opinions; they don't change their opinions to fit a label.
  I know it's tempting to think most people are mindless but that's not true. >
  
  Yes they do. Most people will change their opinions on things if they get 10 downvotes because they hate negative social judgement. They will think they're "in the wrong" if others disgree with them. So they just always conform to public opinion.
  Like 3 people have mentioned "The paradox of tolerance" to me in this thread. None of them have read the source material that it's from, and neither have even understood the message. They all just consider it a piece of text that they can copy and paste online in order to justify hostility towards different viewpoints.
  Whenever I write, I can predict the replies that I'm going to get in advance. Perhaps I write anyway just to prove a point, I'm not really sure. In any case, most people are pathetic. >
  
  Changing your opinion just because it's popular isn't thinking for yourself either. >
  
  It is important to note that the idea that gender is a social construct does not mean that it is not real or that it does not affect individuals' lived experiences. Social constructs such as gender can have real and tangible effects on people's lives and can be used to justify discrimination and marginalization. However, recognizing that gender is a social construct can also help to challenge and deconstruct societal norms and expectations that limit individuals' self-expression and autonomy.
  Judith Butler's concept of gender performativity emphasizes that individuals are not simply passive recipients of societal norms, but rather actively participate in the construction and maintenance of gender through their actions and expressions. This concept also highlights the fluidity and malleability of gender.
  It is also important to note that the existence of intersex individuals and individuals with gender dysphoria challenges the idea of a binary understanding of sex and gender. The concept of a binary understanding of gender is not universally accepted and is not inclusive of all individuals.
  In terms of building new reference frames, it may involve rethinking societal norms and expectations around gender, and creating space for individuals to express their gender identity in a way that feels authentic to them. This could involve a more nuanced understanding of gender identity, and the acknowledgement of non-binary identities. It could also involve a shift towards less restrictive and more inclusive societal norms and expectations around gender expression. >
  
  
  It is important to note that the idea that gender is a social construct does not mean that it is not real or that it does not affect individuals' lived experiences.
  
  That's part of my argument. Assuming gender is real to some extent, why deconstruct it? Wouldn't it better to accept that people don't always adjust to the norm? Like okay, "man" and "woman" are the vast majority of people, what's wrong with that? 
  Can't we accept that some people don't fully adhere to them (because personality is much more than gender) and move on? >
  
  Because if you have a social norm you transgress, you are outside of the normality and people will often change how they treat you. Think of blue-haired women, towards whom a lot of people have a lot of cliché of who they are.
  If you meant, "why don't we let people do whatever they want ?", well at that point they would not be a norm anymore and that would be deconstruction. >
  
  I conceive "norm" as what's most prevalent, which doesn't mean that there can't be outliers, like in a normal distribution. 
  Now, if we mean "norm" as an imposition, then I would agree with you. I think our language is very limited on these matters. >
  
  The only purpose of a norm is, inherently, to change behavior. For example, when people say that "boys don't cry" to a crying boy, they are obviously telling the boy that he shouldn't cry; if the statement "boys don't cry" was factually true, there would be no need to say it.
  The "gender defenders" like you want to pretend that norms are only statistical averages that don't carry a social obligation or at least can be separated from that existing obligation. The simple fact of the matter is that this isn't true; gender norms exist purely and exclusively to artificially control the behavior of people based on gender. If they were accurate, they wouldn't need to be said!
  There is no social norm that is not imposed. They aren't even statistical averages in any serious sense; even if we took those averages today, there would be an inherent bias that can't be adjusted for, making the measurement worthless from a scientific perspective. All of this "normal distribution and outliers" talk is based on, well, nothing other than the leftover, arbitrary whims of a society that literally, without exaggeration, believed that women were too stupid to understand anything other than domestic concerns, and legalized and even encouraged husbands to hit their wives to coerce them into obedience. Why hold on to these notions, which only seem to hurt us for no legitimate benefit that anyone can explain? >
  
  Sex is not a social construct, is an objective characteristic. Gender on the other side is a social construct which is based on a specific culture ( a man in is not the same in India, Saudi Arabia, China, Italy, US, etc).
  Social constructs are not wrong but helpful inside a society, in fact they help others to judge you ( "bad man" if does not behave as a "man", or great man if behaves according to the set of cultural rules expected for said role). 
  People who doesn't want to follow any specific set of rules ( especially teenagers), could want to identify to a new gender in order to escape judgement ( "since there's no reference to judge me, you can't judge me") >
  
  
  a man in is not the same in India, Saudi Arabia, China, Italy, US, etc.
  
  That's not quite true, is it? A man is the same in the sense that they're all male, everywhere you go. But the expectations imposed upon men (and, typically more oppressively, upon women) in between cultures is different. >
  
  A man as human with a penis is indeed the same. The expectations upon man, which are defined by the local culture, are what define the social construct of man in said country. You just said what I wrote, probably I wasn't clear enough >
  
  This is a separate point but might also change your mind in the long run. Reading Gender trouble is really difficult because of Butler's writing, that said Bodies that matter really helps understand it better and once you're done I highly recommend reading it. 
  "There's no such thing as a woman" also has contexts to Beavouir who says there is only one sex and that is woman, because man isn't a sex but the norm. Women is the other, that what has been categorised has been done through the oppression of men. 
  (Also just a fair note, I'm playing off of my memory from doing my dissertation, I could very easily be misremembering since my focus moved away from Butler and their work) >
  
  Almost everything is a social construct, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t serve a purpose >
  
  
  Butler says there's indeed no such thing as a "woman," since the definition is not widely accepted. She wants to find a new subject of feminism. And this confuses me. Her gender performativity also confuses me. If gender isn't innate but something performed (and doesn't even exist), then what's the point of even saying that people can identify as X or Y? Wouldn't that go against TG?
  
  The thing to keep in mind about Butler is that her work is philosophical in nature, and isn't really supposed to be applied to override what we might call realistic, practical feminism.
  For example, the women and girls being oppressed in Afghanistan can't just identify or perform their way into being men and boys to escape the impositions of the Taliban. Feminism in Afghanistan needs to work with the reality that women and girls are being mistreated based on their sex, not identity or performance. >
  
  Well, society is as much a product of evolution as our biology so these things serve a function and just being rid of them will probably have unforeseen effects 🤷 >
  
  Social constructs are not wrong per se, the weekend is a social construct, traffic laws are a social construct. These are useful.
  What is meant by "gender is a social construct" means that certain behaviours aren't innate to the male or female sex, they are just heavily (dis)encouraged by society. Feminists would argue that these behaviours being enforced differently on either sex is the cause (or one of the causes) for sexism and therefore harmful, but that it wouldn't be harmful due to it being a social construct. >
  
  I agree that a lot of the language surrounding social constructivism is confusing. Everything changed for me when I heard it phrased this way: "Society is constructed along the lines of gender" Examples being-- we have different spaces that have been reserved exclusively for men and for women (bathrooms, changing rooms, prisons, etc.) we have a language built to distinguish between men and women (with pronouns or titles like Mr. Mrs. Waiter, Waitress), we have different social expectations (dress code, what responsibilities each gender should have in a relationship). There's more to this I know, and gender is only one example. 
  I think that the point of acknowledging social constructs is to call into question how necessary all these divides are. There are other lines along which society could have been constructed, but we ended up with these. I think it's worth asking why we have a society drawn along these lines and what it actually achieves. Who benefits? (Don't get me wrong, I understand that some of these things can serve a practical purpose.)  I believe it's worth "deconstructing" some of these things so that people's anatomy doesn't have to dictate their life in unnecessary ways. Obviously, people are going to argue about what's "necessary." >
  
  nope you didn't misunderstand anything. Post-structuralist have a gaping hole in their reasoning in terms of how much agency the subject has. Their reasoning implies we have none but they just ignore it >
  
  I think the big part is that gender expression is not based on XX or XY, but a cultural identification system. As a group of people in the past the biological element was very important for procreation, how we expressed that is separate. We view high heals as feminine, but during medieval times men wore them for practical reasons. Some cultures don’t express themselves in such binary thinking because it’s not necessary, just something we’ve done and grown attached to. >
  
  It’s so interesting. Intersex people exist, and generally Intersex people know which gender they are—even in the most chronic examples like CAH or AIS.
  Trans people who go through HRT will report a noticeable change in their emotions. Generally, high levels of estrogen they often report being in touch with their emotions, feeling more compassion, and empathy. Generally, high testosterone and the individual reports feeling a boost of confidence, competitiveness, and “taking up more space”.
  This is why in one part of LGBTQ+ community they express in terms like masculine or feminine—suggesting a more comprehensive inclusiveness that they both are interconnected and occur in gradients.
  Gender expression is very individual. However, the experience of gender identity is separate, unique, and individualized too. >
  
  I haven't read that book, but I've read later writings where she addresses Heidegger and my interpretation of her ideas were in line with his phenomenology.
  In other words, I don't think that gender as performance means the same thing as socially constructed.
  "Social construct" in this sense is meaningless because everything can be said to be a social construct if the term means "ontological". The dichotomy is between things that have an a priori essence and an expressed phenomenon.
  Performance means that gender is only something that exists in reality as a phenomenon, not as an abstract ideal.
  That's the exact opposite of saying "it doesn't exist.", It's saying that it only pertains to what actually exists.
  It's the definition of gender that doesn't "really exist" because it's just something that is made up, or a social construct. >
  
  Constructs aren't wrong, but there are wrong constructs.  In the examples you mention not seeing as wrong, you are mentioning specific constructs. It seems like you are really asking how those constructs are wrong.
  I have not read the book you talked about. I think I understand the "there is no such thing as a woman" part though. Try to describe a woman without using anatomy/biology. Now ask many people all around the world what makes a woman a woman without describing anatomy. You will get many different answers. Now ask a random woman if every definition you acquired describes her. It will not. 
  Social constructs are there to explain things in an oversimplified way. A woman is/was whatever your cultures many people believe a woman to be, oversimplified. 
  Let's take another social construct. Value. What we think things are worth are a social construct. A pack of ramen is 75¢, while a restaurant dinner is 30+$. Is the restaurant dinner 40 times more enjoyable? Is it 40 times more rare? Does it cost 40 times more to make? No. We just agreed that a restaurant dinner should cost around that much in a regular restaurant, and that ramen should cost what it does. If things were different and a meal was deemed worth 10$, rather than specific meals having their own price, the person spending more on quality ingredients and paying someone to make the food might feel like that social construct is wrong. They might feel it is unfair to provide something that costs more time/money to make than the mass produced ramen is valued at the same price. They would probably ask the world to allow things to be less simple. To take the time/effort to value things correctly.
  Back to your examples with gender. You say there is nothing wrong with the distinction between male and female, but it can be. You can't say you haven't heard of someone saying "but you're a woman/man" or "aren't you a woman/man?" Or anything that would mean those things. To people that this happens too often, the social construct that is gender feels unfair, and they want people to allow things to be less simple. To take the time/effort to describe who they are correctly. 
  Social Constructs are wrong because they oversimplify things. Emphasis on the "over". Whether you meant wrong as incorrect or as "not right" it applies. Social Constructs oversimplify things in a way that is incorrect 100% of the time. They also oversimplify things in a way that makes some people feel is unfair some of the time. >
  
  
  Or anything that would mean those things. To people that this happens 
  too often, the social construct that is gender feels unfair, and they 
  want people to allow things to be less simple. To take the time/effort 
  to describe who they are correctly.Or anything that would mean those things. To people that this happens 
  too often, the social construct that is gender feels unfair, and they 
  want people to allow things to be less simple. To take the time/effort 
  to describe who they are correctly.
  
  But aren't you just trading in one social construct for the other. One less 'simplistic' but yet still a construct. The entire idea the pronouns and gender are important is a construct in and of itself is it not?
  Imo the gender diversity movement is not doing anything else then trading in on social construct for another... >
  
  None of this generation stuff is oppressive. They are confused and mentally ill people. It is wrong for our society to normalize and cater to the insane like this. >
  
  Who are the ‘insane’ and ‘mentally ill people’ you are referring to? People can argue many mental illnesses are ‘social constructs’ since we generally define mental illness as deviating from what society considers acceptable.
  What specifically do you think our society is ‘normalizing’ and ‘catering to’ that is wrong? >
  
  We are wrong for indulging in their delusions. We should not use preferred pronouns, offer transition surgery, HRT, or entertain any of this gender nonsense.
  You wouldn't encourage a depressed person to stay in bed all day. 
  You wouldn't tell a schizophrenic to listen to the voices in their head.
  Yet, when someone speaks this nonsense that they are a woman when they were born a man, and vice versa. Or when they say they are neither, or simultaneously both and neither, we encourage it. We allow them to alter and mutilate their genitals and hormonal system.
  How can we as a society achieve great things, when we cannot even agree on what is a boy and what is a girl? >
  
  Is your argument that our current social constructs aren't working (because that's not surprising considering how much damage the left is doing to him) or that social constructs aren't working in general? 
  Man and Women are social constructs, they are the social expectations of male and females, trans people are people who take on the appearance and social expectations of the opposite sex, this can be colloquially referred to as passing. 
  So for example the social construct of men 70 years ago was go to work, make money, provide your family where the social construct for women was marry a man who can provide for you, have kids and raise them while taking care of the house. Then there's stuff like men wear pants and women wear dresses and in other cultures there's even like that the lip elongation and other weird stuff because they have a different social construction of what a man and women is. 
  There are other social constructs like keeping right when going up/down stairs in public places and take dogs to the park to play with other dogs and wear a suit and tie when going to a interview despite the job requiring steel toe boots and a heavy winter coat. None of these are hard rules, if you have a dog you don't have to take it to the park to play with other dogs but generally people do same with the others and same with man/women. 
  The issue with our current social construction of man/women is that decades of equality and diversity pushes as well as a desire to appear inclusive at all costs especially in regards to the trans issue has made it so we aren't allow to socially enforce or even talk about what the social construction actually is. For example if you say women work in social positions like cashier and sales rep where men work at hard labor and math heavy jobs like computer programmer feminists will jump down your throat while at the same time insisting anyone who deviates from the unspoken social constructs even slightly is trans, as if tomboys don't exist while also at the same time insisting we must call everyone by their preferred pronouns even when they make no effort to actually be a man/women (think bulky hairy man with a beard insisting he be called mam). 
  So yeah our current social constructs around man/women are fucked, but that's due to direct attacks against it social constructs in general tend to work quite well. >
  
  Sex is not a social construct, gender is. And no one says social constructs are inherently bad. What people say is since we’re the ones who construct them we should construct them to benefit people. We shouldn’t say gender is X when X hurts a bunch of people for no reason. We shouldn’t be slave to the constructs. Kids commit suicide because they feel like they don’t fit into the definition of gender we’ve decided on. Why not just change it? >
  
  Race is a social construct as well. Many things are since they’re our ways of trying to identify ourselves and the world around us. Norm is just is what commonly accepted at the time. 
  It was a norm for men to wear high heels and women not to at one point. Slavery was a norm at one point. In china it was the norm to have only one child, or non, and it was better if it was male. 
  A norm doesn’t mean it’s better or worse. 
  Do I agree with her, no. However, I believe it’s good to challenge norms and ideas. So her ideas are good. It’s good to challenge social constructs. 
  Hispanic and Latino used to be used as a negative label. Now I would say it’s used positively. >
  
  
  Do I agree with her, no. However, I believe it’s good to challenge norms and ideas. So her ideas are good. It’s good to challenge social constructs.
  
  I agree with that too. >
  
  
  I understand gender as a set of behaviors associated with XX or XY, like women being feminine and delicate. 
  Most people fall under one of those categories. I understand that intersexual people exist, as well as gender dysphoria. But does that mean that cis people, those who actually identify with their gender, have been wrong for thousands of years? That there's no such thing as "man" or "woman?"
  
  Going by your own definition of gender: what could anyone be wrong about, if gender is merely a set of behaviors? Is there any behavior that cannot be performed by XX, or XY? What would prevent an XY from being "feminine and delicate"? >
  
  Giving birth, having a period, breastfeeding (although I’ve heard some rare cases where XY have been able to lactate) — these are some “behaviours” that are specific to XX and XY that aren’t necessarily performance based. Just like XX do not produce sperm. These are natural occurrences in the body, we don’t necessarily think about but just happen. A pregnant woman is not performing, she is simply being. 
  The terms men and women are used when we talk about sex and gender interchangeably without distinction being made. Which is why often times issues are conflated. For instance, can a man be pregnant? Instead of just saying no (answering based on sex or XY) now we have to factor in gender based on the social construct of what “man” means. This would change the answer because a trans man, non binary person, etc. could be pregnant.
  Ultimately sex is unchangeable but in terms of gender, since gender is a social construct that we can change and interpret differently - gender in and of itself is changeable. 
  I like to think of it as objective and subjective truths. Both happening simultaneously. >
  
  
  Giving birth, having a period, breastfeeding (although I’ve heard some rare cases where XY have been able to lactate) — these are some “behaviours” that are specific to XX and XY that aren’t necessarily performance based. 
  
  I didn't think I would have to specify that, but I don't think that those are typically included in the type of behaviors when people talk about gender. OP's example was "being feminine". The things you mentioned come down to sex, not gender. And none of them can even be considered essential for any sex or gender either, because it would exclude (cis) people who lack them, e.g. due to illness.
  I don't disagree with the sex/gender distinction. I was only addressing the relevance of the question whether "cis people...have been wrong for thousands of years". If gender only comes down to certain masculine/feminine behaviors, no one can be wrong about being a man or a woman.
  
  The terms men and women are used when we talk about sex and gender interchangeably without distinction being made.
  
  That is because we mostly don't know anyone's sex. We can only guess based on someone's appearance/presentation. That makes someone's sex irrelevant for most interactions.
  
  Ultimately sex is unchangeable but in terms of gender, since gender is a social construct that we can change and interpret differently - gender in and of itself is changeable. 
  
  Not disagreeing here. >
  
  Fair. I wasn’t trying to come off as if I was disagreeing because I agree with most of what’s being said. I guess I was just trying to point out or add on that some behaviours are inherently tied to sex. Maybe behaviour is the wrong word. 
  Also, I tried mentioning the fact that sex and gender are used interchangeably to point out the importance of language and interpretation. 
  But you did point out something that I definitely overlooked and is probably what this whole conversation is about. We really only make assumptions based on outward appearances/performances to classify people as men/women. >
  
  Is anyone saying that social constructs are wrong per se?
  Democracy is a social construct.
  Marriage is a social construct.
  Justice is a social construct.
  Absolutely no one is saying that social constructs are bad. The point is - social constructs is something we can CHANGE (to improve). It's not something set in stone. >
  
  Exactly, as OP states social constructs are just groups or terms we use to help us understand the world. Doing so isn't inherently bad and is actually very useful if not necessary. I think what OP is confusing here is that, with many social constructs, they do have a history that is not good. Take race for example, a social construct with an almost exclusively bad history and purpose. Now, acknowledging that fact isn't saying that we should never use any words or groupings around people's backgrounds or that all social constructs are bad, it just means that we should work to both acknowledge the history and work to fix/replace the bad parts where necessary. >
  
  I agree that the way we treated social constructs has been problematic in the past. My point is that it doesn't mean we should tear them apart. Instead, we can embrace differences without discriminating against anyone.
  Of course, questioning the system is always a good thing. I definitely do. >
  
  It's not about tearing them apart, it's just about ensuring that we don't trap ourselves within them.  
  There's a lot of posts like this on CMV, where everyone sort of just... wonders where some supposed opposition is coming from, because no one's noticing any but the OP. >
  
  except judith butler literally is advocating tearing them apart, she doesn't think "woman" exists in any meaningful sense. >
  
  Well, one, Butler is way the fuck obtuse and is not the best way to get an initial understanding of these things.
  But:
  
  We, humans, need reference frames to understand the world. We naturally gravitate to categorizing things. There's nothing wrong with the distinction between "female" and "male." 
  
  The problem is that the distinction between "female" and "male" (sexes) has become a distinction between "woman" and "man" (gender [roles]) that is, generally speaking, oppressive particularly but not exclusively to women. It creates a set of expectations that deny people the ability to pursue their own interests independent of what they themselves actually want.
  
  Butler says there's indeed no such thing as a "woman," since the definition is not widely accepted. She wants to find a new subject of feminism. And this confuses me. Her gender performativity also confuses me. If gender isn't innate but something performed (and doesn't even exist), then what's the point of even saying that people can identify as X or Y? Wouldn't that go against TG?
  
  This is the 8756243876523847562346598th thread that boils down to two distinct uses of gender.
  Gender identity is not the same thing as gender roles, norms, or expression, although the two are obviously related. It's the same kind of relationship the feeling of pain has to the word "ow". The word "ow" is constructed, expressive, voluntary to some extent, culturally variable, etc. But pain in and of itself is not. Similarly, gender [as Butler is using the term] is constructed, expressive, voluntary to some extent, culturally variable, etc. But gender identity, which is a distinct underlying thing, is not.
  
  Should we deconstruct reference frames? Wouldn't it be better to accept that there's a norm but people can fall out? And most importantly, if we do deconstruct them, how do we build new ones?
  
  A valid question!
  I'd argue the point of deconstruction is to understand the construction itself and decide whether and how to rebuild it. Constructions are too built into the way we view the world for us to totally do away with them, but they're also too often wrong for us to not examine them.
  For example, physics needed a bunch of deconstructing after the discovery of quantum mechanics. The foundations on which physics was built - of a bunch of little billiard balls flying around with definite speeds and velocities and bouncing off of each other - were bad ones, and we needed to tear the whole thing down and start from scratch. And so a large part of the initial development of quantum mechanics was just getting back to what we already knew with that foundation.
  Or to get back to social issues: transitioning involved a lot of deconstruction and reconstruction in my personality. I was socialized as a man in a way that didn't prepare me for the challenges I'd face as a woman, and it led me to many conclusions that turned out to be false with that new perspective. So I ended up having to treat a lot of things that I "knew" as conditional and uncertain, dig down into the roots of those things, pull out a few roots, and then rebuilt the things that seemed true from that perspective.
  Butler might not agree with me on this, but I believe in deconstructing to reconstruct better. Every generation ought to do it at least once, not with the idea of changing everything, but with the idea of being willing to change anything that isn't working anymore, and to follow the consequences of that where they lead. >
  
  
  Gender identity is not the same thing as gender roles, norms, or expression, although the two are obviously related. It's the same kind of relationship the feeling of pain has to the word "ow". The word "ow" is constructed, expressive, voluntary to some extent, culturally variable, etc. But pain in and of itself is not. Similarly, gender [as Butler is using the term] is constructed, expressive, voluntary to some extent, culturally variable, etc. But gender identity, which is a distinct underlying thing, is not.
  
  This is really informative and explains something that has confused me for a long time. Thank you for educating some of my ignorance. Is there anything you could recommend that explains Gender Identity more? >
  
  There's not really a "more" to explain. It's just a thing that is, in much the same way that sexual orientation is. >
  
  Can you define it? >
  
  Saying something is a social construct isn't saying it's "right or wrong" to begin with. It's drawing a distinction between something rooted in reality vs. something that is real because we collectively believe it's real. Having dark skin is a biological reality, "race" and the way society will treat you as a result of that phenotype is a social construct.
  One reason this distinction is significant is that it tells us racism is not an unchangeable natural phenomenon, but a product of human behavior that we can address. The fact that race is a social construct doesn't make racism or the consequences of race any less "real". >
  
  The tendency to categorise the world, to identify groups of things and to name them, is natural but I think there is a particular problem with social categories that do justify viewing them as problematic, even perhaps evil. The issue is not with the act of categorisation itself, but how social categories acquire (socially) accepted attributes or properties. It is this process, controlled by the dominant group that reproduces their coercive/abusive power. So while “female” may identify something in the world, the meaning of female in a society depends on the power structure of that society. If it is male dominated then negative attributes become bound up with the social meaning of female to justify male dominance. Such a process seems to be intrinsic to social constructs (categories) and I don’t think it’s possible for social constructs to avoid this fate. This justifies treating them differently from natural categorisations such as tree which do avoid reproducing social structures by virtue of not being part of the social world!
  When you say about there being no such thing as “man” and “woman” this distinction between natural categorisation and social categorisation is crucial. In principle they would exist if construed as natural categorisations but I don’t think that’s what we mean by these in practice. We mean them as social categories which are somewhat like mythologies. The Sun exists as an object fusing hydrogen into helium in the natural world. But for some societies it was a god in constant war with the Moon. When people in such a society talk about the Sun they mean the god with the attributes they ascribed to it and not the nuclear furnace we know it as. Their Sun story is a myth of course even though there is something 150 million km away. >
  
  Butler isn't saying that social constructs are inherently evil, rather what they're doing is arguing against a view of gender that understands it as consisting of two parts: identity, and performance. E.g. the idea there are women, and there are the social roles and expectations that women are expected to have within the patriarchy, and together those constitute the socially constructed identity of women. Butler is saying that actually, there is only the second part, the performance, because people don't have identities that spring fully formed from their bodies. Rather, only the social construction of gender exists. But this doesn't mean that people are wrong about what their gender is, it just means gender as a thing is inherently tied up with the societal distribution of power, and is complicated by race, class, sex, sexuality, etc. When they're talking about finding a new subject of feminism, what Butler means is that if you confine yourself to thinking about feminism as about separating women from patriarchal norms, you're going to come up short, because "woman" is still defined by those patriarchal norms, forming a dialectic: either you embrace the norms or you go against them, you're still being governed by them. Instead, they argue, people need to attack those norms directly through, for example, parody and deconstruction. It's not enough to just say that women can defy gender norms if they want, what really needs to be done is for a new sort of womanhood to be invented through intentional and repetitive challenging of gender norms and the social structures which reinforce them >
  
  Regarding transgender issues, in later books Butler says that while gender is performative and a social construct, not aligning yourself to that construct generally means not being accepted as a complete person by society — which is painful. (Indeed, the high rates of suicidality and depression among trans folk correlates directly to the degree they do not feel accepted by others.)
  And I don’t think Butler ever makes the case that all social constructs are evil though, does she? But they are all the products of power relations. You can’t make people accept new social constructs without power (whether that power is violent, or persuasive, or legal.) Academia is a center of power too.
  I also get the sense that Butler, and other critical theorists carrying on the tradition of Foucault (and ultimately Nietzsche) is too focused on breaking things down, smashing idols, and not on building anything new. It’s a common criticism. I think you have to think of critical theory as a tool — it’s a tool that’s great for tearing down old constructs to clear space for something new. But it shouldn’t be the only tool in society’s tool belt. 
  Accepting that there is a norm, but that people fall out of it, is creating a new norm. Just ten years ago or so falling outside that norm was a mental illness (according to the DSM-4.) >
  
  So let’s change the way people treat others not in the norm. 
  I don’t see why we can’t have a norm and still respect people who don’t fall into it perfectly. 
  I don’t understand why we can’t still have a description of non binding gender characteristics and still allow and respect people living outside of those norms. 
  I see a direction where the mass is told to reject norms and non binding definitions to make those outside the norm feel comfortable when what we need is people to treat others with respect regardless of what norms they do or do not fall into >
  
  A social norm is a shared agreement of what constitutes acceptable behavior.
  Treating everyone with respect regardless of gender norms is a great norm in my opinion. But such a norm necessarily exists in opposition to gender norms. If all gendered behavior is acceptable, there are no gender norms.
  Though then again, I wouldn’t want every gender norm to be acceptable. Many westerners would have a lot of difficulty accepting extremely traditional gender norms, or norms that have been proven to be harmful, like locking women away from public view while the menstruate. This would be unacceptable gendered behavior and would therefor be a norm — don’t act this way.
  Your just never going to do away with all gender norms, nor would you want to. But you can make some less restrictive and change others. >
  
  U can change your gender not sex your sex. Cis female and cis male will always exist because it's a scientific fact, u can change your team and identify as whatever but u can't ever change the way u were born and most people always feel that. Take for instance trans men who want to get pregnant if they actually wanted to be a man they would use a surrogate not carry >
  
  Sorry, u/jacobsonjohn287 – your comment has been removed for breaking Rule 1:
  
  Direct responses to a CMV post must challenge at least one aspect of OP’s stated view (however minor), or ask a clarifying question. Arguments in favor of the view OP is willing to change must be restricted to replies to other comments. See the wiki page for more information.  
  
  If you would like to appeal, you must first check if your comment falls into the "Top level comments that are against rule 1" list, review our appeals process here, then message the moderators by clicking this link within one week of this notice being posted. 
  Please note that multiple violations will lead to a ban, as explained in our moderation standards. >
  
  
  power is the driving force.
  
  Yes. Power for whom, do you think? >
  
  Everyone engaging in politics. There's two manifestations of power, individual strength and the strength in numbers. If democracy wins, then it's because it's the strongest force. It's literally in the name.
  Whenever I criticise the political left on Reddit I get downvoted, that's also a power imbalance.
  Did you want me to say "Bad people take power for themselves"? But everyone wants power for themselves. All political discussions are just losers complaining that they have less power than others, and that this is an injustice, and that they're good people and the moral standards which everyone else should be measured against.
  I do not believe the positive words with which any force adorn themselves, all political power struggles are ugly, and I find the whole identification with groups to be pathetic, and these groups don't really exist anyway (which is why discrimination is always invalid. You can't judge people for the actions of the group to which you think that they belong, be it their race or anything else) >
  
  
  Whenever I criticise the political left on Reddit I get downvoted, that's also a power imbalance.
  
  Lol.
  Not allowed to have opinions different from yours?
  
  But everyone wants power for themselves.
  
  Yes. 
  
  I find the whole identification with groups to be pathetic,
  
  Lol.
  
  and these groups don't really exist anyway
  
  Then you shouldn't be so upset about it. >
  
  I never said they didn't, but it's not even their opinions, they've just found some group to identify with. Those who think for themselves don't fit under any labels.
  
  Then you shouldn't be so upset about it.
  
  I'm not upset, I'm just calling out nonsense. No progress is being made >
  
  
  No progress is being made
  
  But things are better now for LGBTQ+ people. Seems like progress to me. 
  
  it's not even their opinions, they've just found some group to identify with. Those who think for themselves don't fit under any labels.
  
  Labels are shorthand. Everybody fits some label. >
  
  Look at the posts being made on this subreddit. They've been made 100s of times before. This conversation we're having now has been had 100s of times before.
  
  Everybody fits some label.
  
  Badly, at best. If your opinion on 20 different subjects are almost the same as other people the same label, then you're not an individual, but some conforming automatron which is afraid of standing out or going against the flow. >
  
  Most people pick a label that fits their opinions; they don't change their opinions to fit a label.
  I know it's tempting to think most people are mindless but that's not true. >
  
  Yes they do. Most people will change their opinions on things if they get 10 downvotes because they hate negative social judgement. They will think they're "in the wrong" if others disgree with them. So they just always conform to public opinion.
  Like 3 people have mentioned "The paradox of tolerance" to me in this thread. None of them have read the source material that it's from, and neither have even understood the message. They all just consider it a piece of text that they can copy and paste online in order to justify hostility towards different viewpoints.
  Whenever I write, I can predict the replies that I'm going to get in advance. Perhaps I write anyway just to prove a point, I'm not really sure. In any case, most people are pathetic. >
  
  Changing your opinion just because it's popular isn't thinking for yourself either. >
  
  It is important to note that the idea that gender is a social construct does not mean that it is not real or that it does not affect individuals' lived experiences. Social constructs such as gender can have real and tangible effects on people's lives and can be used to justify discrimination and marginalization. However, recognizing that gender is a social construct can also help to challenge and deconstruct societal norms and expectations that limit individuals' self-expression and autonomy.
  Judith Butler's concept of gender performativity emphasizes that individuals are not simply passive recipients of societal norms, but rather actively participate in the construction and maintenance of gender through their actions and expressions. This concept also highlights the fluidity and malleability of gender.
  It is also important to note that the existence of intersex individuals and individuals with gender dysphoria challenges the idea of a binary understanding of sex and gender. The concept of a binary understanding of gender is not universally accepted and is not inclusive of all individuals.
  In terms of building new reference frames, it may involve rethinking societal norms and expectations around gender, and creating space for individuals to express their gender identity in a way that feels authentic to them. This could involve a more nuanced understanding of gender identity, and the acknowledgement of non-binary identities. It could also involve a shift towards less restrictive and more inclusive societal norms and expectations around gender expression. >
  
  
  It is important to note that the idea that gender is a social construct does not mean that it is not real or that it does not affect individuals' lived experiences.
  
  That's part of my argument. Assuming gender is real to some extent, why deconstruct it? Wouldn't it better to accept that people don't always adjust to the norm? Like okay, "man" and "woman" are the vast majority of people, what's wrong with that? 
  Can't we accept that some people don't fully adhere to them (because personality is much more than gender) and move on? >
  
  Because if you have a social norm you transgress, you are outside of the normality and people will often change how they treat you. Think of blue-haired women, towards whom a lot of people have a lot of cliché of who they are.
  If you meant, "why don't we let people do whatever they want ?", well at that point they would not be a norm anymore and that would be deconstruction. >
  
  I conceive "norm" as what's most prevalent, which doesn't mean that there can't be outliers, like in a normal distribution. 
  Now, if we mean "norm" as an imposition, then I would agree with you. I think our language is very limited on these matters. >
  
  The only purpose of a norm is, inherently, to change behavior. For example, when people say that "boys don't cry" to a crying boy, they are obviously telling the boy that he shouldn't cry; if the statement "boys don't cry" was factually true, there would be no need to say it.
  The "gender defenders" like you want to pretend that norms are only statistical averages that don't carry a social obligation or at least can be separated from that existing obligation. The simple fact of the matter is that this isn't true; gender norms exist purely and exclusively to artificially control the behavior of people based on gender. If they were accurate, they wouldn't need to be said!
  There is no social norm that is not imposed. They aren't even statistical averages in any serious sense; even if we took those averages today, there would be an inherent bias that can't be adjusted for, making the measurement worthless from a scientific perspective. All of this "normal distribution and outliers" talk is based on, well, nothing other than the leftover, arbitrary whims of a society that literally, without exaggeration, believed that women were too stupid to understand anything other than domestic concerns, and legalized and even encouraged husbands to hit their wives to coerce them into obedience. Why hold on to these notions, which only seem to hurt us for no legitimate benefit that anyone can explain? >
  
  Sex is not a social construct, is an objective characteristic. Gender on the other side is a social construct which is based on a specific culture ( a man in is not the same in India, Saudi Arabia, China, Italy, US, etc).
  Social constructs are not wrong but helpful inside a society, in fact they help others to judge you ( "bad man" if does not behave as a "man", or great man if behaves according to the set of cultural rules expected for said role). 
  People who doesn't want to follow any specific set of rules ( especially teenagers), could want to identify to a new gender in order to escape judgement ( "since there's no reference to judge me, you can't judge me") >
  
  
  a man in is not the same in India, Saudi Arabia, China, Italy, US, etc.
  
  That's not quite true, is it? A man is the same in the sense that they're all male, everywhere you go. But the expectations imposed upon men (and, typically more oppressively, upon women) in between cultures is different. >
  
  A man as human with a penis is indeed the same. The expectations upon man, which are defined by the local culture, are what define the social construct of man in said country. You just said what I wrote, probably I wasn't clear enough >
  
  This is a separate point but might also change your mind in the long run. Reading Gender trouble is really difficult because of Butler's writing, that said Bodies that matter really helps understand it better and once you're done I highly recommend reading it. 
  "There's no such thing as a woman" also has contexts to Beavouir who says there is only one sex and that is woman, because man isn't a sex but the norm. Women is the other, that what has been categorised has been done through the oppression of men. 
  (Also just a fair note, I'm playing off of my memory from doing my dissertation, I could very easily be misremembering since my focus moved away from Butler and their work) >
  
  Almost everything is a social construct, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t serve a purpose >
  
  
  Butler says there's indeed no such thing as a "woman," since the definition is not widely accepted. She wants to find a new subject of feminism. And this confuses me. Her gender performativity also confuses me. If gender isn't innate but something performed (and doesn't even exist), then what's the point of even saying that people can identify as X or Y? Wouldn't that go against TG?
  
  The thing to keep in mind about Butler is that her work is philosophical in nature, and isn't really supposed to be applied to override what we might call realistic, practical feminism.
  For example, the women and girls being oppressed in Afghanistan can't just identify or perform their way into being men and boys to escape the impositions of the Taliban. Feminism in Afghanistan needs to work with the reality that women and girls are being mistreated based on their sex, not identity or performance. >
  
  Is there any kind of feminism other than realistic practical feminism? If your feminism isn't working towards improving the lives of women as a material class it isn't really feminism. At best it's intellectual onanism if it isn't looking to make any material changes, at worst it ends up as an "All Lives Matter"ing of feminism
  And this is the least of my problems with Butler, her downplaying of incest is way higher >
  
  Well, society is as much a product of evolution as our biology so these things serve a function and just being rid of them will probably have unforeseen effects 🤷 >
  
  Social constructs are not wrong per se, the weekend is a social construct, traffic laws are a social construct. These are useful.
  What is meant by "gender is a social construct" means that certain behaviours aren't innate to the male or female sex, they are just heavily (dis)encouraged by society. Feminists would argue that these behaviours being enforced differently on either sex is the cause (or one of the causes) for sexism and therefore harmful, but that it wouldn't be harmful due to it being a social construct. >
  
  I agree that a lot of the language surrounding social constructivism is confusing. Everything changed for me when I heard it phrased this way: "Society is constructed along the lines of gender" Examples being-- we have different spaces that have been reserved exclusively for men and for women (bathrooms, changing rooms, prisons, etc.) we have a language built to distinguish between men and women (with pronouns or titles like Mr. Mrs. Waiter, Waitress), we have different social expectations (dress code, what responsibilities each gender should have in a relationship). There's more to this I know, and gender is only one example. 
  I think that the point of acknowledging social constructs is to call into question how necessary all these divides are. There are other lines along which society could have been constructed, but we ended up with these. I think it's worth asking why we have a society drawn along these lines and what it actually achieves. Who benefits? (Don't get me wrong, I understand that some of these things can serve a practical purpose.)  I believe it's worth "deconstructing" some of these things so that people's anatomy doesn't have to dictate their life in unnecessary ways. Obviously, people are going to argue about what's "necessary."