Toxic Gender Philosophy

[Immanuel Can]

So did you want to discuss gender philosophy, or did you wish to take personal snipes at people you don't even know? I guess you have to decide. But I can't see any point in us wasting time on the latter.

Since you ask, I don't want to discuss gender philosophy with you, because nothing you write is enlightening.

Well, the truth is that it's all challenging to the "patriarchy" orthodoxy you've been taught by our current society, and apparently come to rely on. The Feminist narrative is one of our "sacred cows": even to ask a question about it is assumed to warrant an ad hominem attack..."You're a sexist," or "You're a bigot..." So I get where the perceived threat is coming from. You don't want that comfortable narrative shaken, so facts, reason and arguments about it are regarded as unhelpful to that goal.

But conversation, here and elsewhere, is always at the discretion of both speakers. If you don't wish to participate, I have no intention of trying to make you do so.

And that's that, I suppose.

[Immanuel Can]

Assuming she is a woman, a woman’s view.
The leftist war against women’s yearning for a family
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/20 ... amily.html

Thanks for that. It's basic, but it's also right. What people don't usually understand is what James Lindsay has pointed out about all these Neo-Marxist causes, including such things as Feminism, "Antifascism," "anti-racism," fat advocacy, Queer Theory, Trans-"Rights," and so forth, is that the world-remakers do not actually care about any of them in particular. What they do care about is how useful they are in creating a scared, fragmented, destabilized and dependent kind of populace. And so long as their disruptive influence is useful to that goal, the Great Social Engineers, like the WEF, or the EU, or our Left-favouring political parties, or the soft "Academics" in Gender Studies and whatnot, are happy to champion them in the loudest possible terms; but what all these partisans fail to grasp is that these would-be Social Engineers will also abandon them completely in a heartbeat, whenever they fail to be useful to its sole purpose of disrupting society so as to generate more dependency.

We see this so clearly with the Feminists. Feminism has become respectable, mainline, generally believed. Because of this, it's become an intrinsic part of the status quo. But the Social Engineers hate the status quo, and always want to destablize it in a Hegelian way. So now, Feminism has become something to be attacked...which they now do, through the "Trans" movement. In an ultimate case of irony, they tell you that the best women are men. The "woman of the year" can be Bruce Jenner or Dylan Mulvaney, or perhaps William Thomas. Women's sports, women's achievements, women's prisons, women's personal bodily security, and women's bathrooms are no longer anything they care about; and in fact, the narrative produced by the Engineers now condemns any woman who protests against these incursions into women's freedoms and privileges. They're "TERFs" -- "trans exclusionary radical feminists," according to the new dogma.

They also sell out the Lesbians they now tell are "really men," and the male autogynophiliacs they celebrate as "real women." Feminism, it seems, was not nearly Queer enough: it didn't permanent destabilize society and disorient the populace. More was needed. And so they ramp things up again. And now they're starting to take a bite of advocating for pedophiles: don't think that "drag queen story hour" or books about sexual deviancy being supplied to kindergartens are random happenings. This is intentional. There's nothing more disrupted than a child who has been sexually exploited. They make the ideal profile of a disturbed adult who is never happy, always broken and isolated, and can be easily manipulated.

Against this, the two-parent, traditional family stands guard over the children. And the Engineers see this family as their sworn enemy. Thus, it is no surprise that they cannot allow it to persist.

[Alexiev]

So did you want to discuss gender philosophy, or did you wish to take personal snipes at people you don't even know? I guess you have to decide. But I can't see any point in us wasting time on the latter.

Since you ask, I don't want to discuss gender philosophy with you, because nothing you write is enlightening.

Well, the truth is that it's all challenging to the "patriarchy" orthodoxy you've been taught by our current society, and apparently come to rely on. The Feminist narrative is one of our "sacred cows": even to ask a question about it is assumed to warrant an ad hominem attack..."You're a sexist," or "You're a bigot..." So I get where the perceived threat is coming from. You don't want that comfortable narrative shaken, so facts, reason and arguments about it are regarded as unhelpful to that goal.

But conversation, here and elsewhere, is always at the discretion of both speakers. If you don't wish to participate, I have no intention of trying to make you do so.

And that's that, I suppose.

You've proven you can't write. Now you are trying to prove you can't read, either. Instead of reading what I have written, you think you already know what I think. You (evidently) have been taught very little by our current society (or by anything else). So you don't "get where the perceived threat is coming from", and you are a pompous jerk for claiming that you do. You whine endlessly about "ad hominems" and then proceed to explain not why I am incorrect about anything I have written, but how I think and what "comfortable narratives" influence my thinking. You think (incorrectly) that you can successfully argue against a particular position (which I do not hold), and ignore what I actually write.

Your supposed arguments against the existence of a patriarchy, against some imagined feminist strawman, and against the entire field of anthropology amount to nothing more than you stating your opinion. In other words, they are not arguments at all, but are mere rants.

I have nothing against rants, when they are skillfully done. Yours are not. They are redundant and badly written. No more can be said of them because, since they are mere statements of opinion, there is no use arguing.

Here's an example. IC is speaking of anthropologists:

They don't have a distinct discipline. They don't have a strict adherence to the data. They don't even subject themselves to basic rules of evidence. They rely heavily on imaginative narrative-making, rather than observation. They are heavily propagandized. Why would I expect rigour from that?

This typifies your rhetoric. It's a rant, utterly unsupported by any evidence. OK. That's your (misguided and ignorant) opinion. Who cares?

[Immanuel Can]

You've proven you can't write.

You're so funny. The obviousness of the falsehood...it's really quite astonishing.

Well, have a nice life.

[Walker]

- It’s an interesting topic. Machines may someday take over the state-defined “drudgery” of raising children, and machines would make sure that the children are raised properly from day one, according to state specifications.
- On the flip side, infants are like ducklings. They will form attachments to a mother surrogate that will shape their adult perceptions. Primal, emotional attachments to the machine will make the future adult more vulnerable to future AI's programming.

They're "TERFs" -- "trans exclusionary radical feminists," according to the new dogma.

- That’s another string of $50 words caused by the education system.

[Consul]

What "rigor" do you expect from anthropology?

I don't expect any.
They don't have a distinct discipline. They don't have a strict adherence to the data. They don't even subject themselves to basic rules of evidence. They rely heavily on imaginative narrative-making, rather than observation. They are heavily propagandized. Why would I expect rigour from that?

Who exactly are they? What exactly is that?

There are different anthropologies:
1. biological/physical anthropology (including paleoanthropology)
2. archaeological anthropology (archaeology)
3. cultural/social anthropology (ethnology)
4. linguistic anthropology
5. philosophical anthropology

[Wizard22]

Whenever I see Consul's username in the active thread list...

Just had to mention that, carry on.

[Immanuel Can]

Who exactly are they? What exactly is that?

It's a generalization, of course. In all areas of anthropology, they have something to offer. Even something as ideologically-corrupt as Gender Studies occasionally gets something right. Likewise, even a hard science like physics or chemistry can get facts wrong, from time to time. That's the nature of science: if it were not so, then there would be nothing more for science to learn, and nothing left for it to teach us.

But the hard sciences have distinctive methodologies designed to minimize this. As we move down the scale toward the soft sciences (such as psychology or sociology) we get less and less methodological rigour, fewer ways to test hypotheses, less systematic testing, a less coherent pattern of explanation, more speculation and guessing, and so on. That's why we even have the distinction between what they call "hard" and "soft" sciences: some are still a kind of "science," but not the rigourous and disciplined sort you find up the scale.

The key question is when the balance of undisciplined work exceeds the value of the fruitful theory and trustworthy results. Somewhere down near the end of the soft sciences line, things just get too soft, and we aren't any longer dealing with a true "science" at all...just a kind of tradition of speculation and hypothesis-generating, or even myth-making, but one that lacks the demanding sorts of terms that characterize the harder sciences. The exact placement of that tipping point is a matter of reasonable debate: but what nobody debates is that it exists; because everybody makes a distinction between "science" and mere "speculation." They may not have spelled it out for themselves, but they have some kind of instinctive point anyway.

For instance, most people would accept that astronomy is a science, but astrology decidedly isn't. Both deal, in a general way, with the same objects (stars, constellations), and use the same equipment, perhaps (a telescope, the human eye), but the lack of rigour and discipline in the latter renders it inherently non-scientific and merely speculative.

So the question is, where is anthropology on that spectrum? It's certainly far down the "soft" spectrum. And I would suggest that Gender Studies has so little rigour, so much ideological claptrap, so little discipline and such scattered "methodologies," and is so often just dead wrong, that the term "science" really can't be applied to it at all. It's far closer to astrology and phrenology than it is to physics, chemistry or biology.

Now, anthropology has some more disciplined methodologies. Demographics would be an example: the gathering of data on the numbers of individuals corresponding to criteria X or Y can be very systematic, disciplined and scientific, so long as it is not improperly selective in its gathering of data, or wildly speculative in its conclusions. But anthropology has also, in recent days, become a garden full of ideologically-driven "weeds," in which observations and results are accepted or discarded based on the ideological preferences of the practitioners or the willingness of the public to receive the results. Political correctness abounds: some studies simply "cannot be done," because they are suspected to render unpalatable results; and other studies, often very selective or methodologically-unsound ones, are privileged because of their tendency to yield politically-preferred results. And anthropology lacks a basic methodological discipline that would correct for this.

No better indicator could be given than the current debate over what a "woman" is. It's absurd that anthropology lacks even the means for arbitrating such an obvious question, one that disciplines like biology already have firmly in hand. The concept of "gender" is totally arbitrary: we have no data proving that a person can have one kind of body and another "gender" of brain, save the self-reporting of those who claim to be experiencing it. We cannot test their claims, and it's not considered politically-acceptable for us to do so. So we are treated to the comic-and-tragic sight of people like Bruce Jenner, the triumphant male Olympian, prancing around in heels and claiming to have been a woman all along. And "gender" theory can say no more about it than that he's right to do so, even though his biology is 100% male. And we're treated to the absurd spectacle of "women's rights" advocates who cannot even answer the question, "What is a woman?"

You can't get less scientific than that.

Long answer to a short question? Maybe. But then, it wasn't a simple question to answer, given our current political climate.

[Alexiev]

Who exactly are they? What exactly is that?

It's a generalization, of course. In all areas of anthropology, they have something to offer. Even something as ideologically-corrupt as Gender Studies occasionally gets something right. Likewise, even a hard science like physics or chemistry can get facts wrong, from time to time. That's the nature of science: if it were not so, then there would be nothing more for science to learn, and nothing left for it to teach us.

But the hard sciences have distinctive methodologies designed to minimize this. As we move down the scale toward the soft sciences (such as psychology or sociology) we get less and less methodological rigour, fewer ways to test hypotheses, less systematic testing, a less coherent pattern of explanation, more speculation and guessing, and so on. That's why we even have the distinction between what they call "hard" and "soft" sciences: some are still a kind of "science," but not the rigourous and disciplined sort you find up the scale.

The key question is when the balance of undisciplined work exceeds the value of the fruitful theory and trustworthy results. Somewhere down near the end of the soft sciences line, things just get too soft, and we aren't any longer dealing with a true "science" at all...just a kind of tradition of speculation and hypothesis-generating, or even myth-making, but one that lacks the demanding sorts of terms that characterize the harder sciences. The exact placement of that tipping point is a matter of reasonable debate: but what nobody debates is that it exists; because everybody makes a distinction between "science" and mere "speculation." They may not have spelled it out for themselves, but they have some kind of instinctive point anyway.

For instance, most people would accept that astronomy is a science, but astrology decidedly isn't. Both deal, in a general way, with the same objects (stars, constellations), and use the same equipment, perhaps (a telescope, the human eye), but the lack of rigour and discipline in the latter renders it inherently non-scientific and merely speculative.

So the question is, where is anthropology on that spectrum? It's certainly far down the "soft" spectrum. And I would suggest that Gender Studies has so little rigour, so much ideological claptrap, so little discipline and such scattered "methodologies," and is so often just dead wrong, that the term "science" really can't be applied to it at all. It's far closer to astrology and phrenology than it is to physics, chemistry or biology.

Now, anthropology has some more disciplined methodologies. Demographics would be an example: the gathering of data on the numbers of individuals corresponding to criteria X or Y can be very systematic, disciplined and scientific, so long as it is not improperly selective in its gathering of data, or wildly speculative in its conclusions. But anthropology has also, in recent days, become a garden full of ideologically-driven "weeds," in which observations and results are accepted or discarded based on the ideological preferences of the practitioners or the willingness of the public to receive the results. Political correctness abounds: some studies simply "cannot be done," because they are suspected to render unpalatable results; and other studies, often very selective or methodologically-unsound ones, are privileged because of their tendency to yield politically-preferred results. And anthropology lacks a basic methodological discipline that would correct for this.

No better indicator could be given than the current debate over what a "woman" is. It's absurd that anthropology lacks even the means for arbitrating such an obvious question, one that disciplines like biology already have firmly in hand. The concept of "gender" is totally arbitrary: we have no data proving that a person can have one kind of body and another "gender" of brain, save the self-reporting of those who claim to be experiencing it. We cannot test their claims, and it's not considered politically-acceptable for us to do so. So we are treated to the comic-and-tragic sight of people like Bruce Jenner, the triumphant male Olympian, prancing around in heels and claiming to have been a woman all along. And "gender" theory can say no more about it than that he's right to do so, even though his biology is 100% male. And we're treated to the absurd spectacle of "women's rights" advocates who cannot even answer the question, "What is a woman?"

You can't get less scientific than that.

Long answer to a short question? Maybe. But then, it wasn't a simple question to answer, given our current political climate.

You continue to spew nonsense. Do you even know what "methodologies" anthropologists use? It seems unlikely. The notion that for anthropologists gender is "totally arbitrary" is ridiculous. I'm not current on anthropological literature: perhaps you can find one or two anthropologists who are confused about gender, but I doubt it.

It is of course true that anthropologists study culture, and in some cultures (ours, for example) the concept of gender has become more fluid than it was in the past. What are anthropologists to do with this cultural phenomenon? Ignore it? It is also true that in some Native American cultures gender was seen as fluid, and some people behaved in roles normally reserved for those of different biological gender. Such "two-spirit" people were accepted in many indigenous societies. What are anthropologists supposed to do with this fact? Proselytize against such perverse practices? Or should they report their findings and, perhaps, study their effect on the cultures and individuals involved?

I'm sure physical anthropologists are fully capable of looking at skeletons and determining whether they were male or female; cultures, including our own, might view gender differently. Culture (the topic which Cultural Anthropology explores) cannot be studied like physics. Myriad reductionist attempts at such studies have produced mediocre results. Some literature academics analyze word use with computers. The results are unenlightening.

A cultural anthropologist studying modern American culture who said, "Gender in American culture is fully determined by biology" would be an idiot. Yet that appears to be what you think anthropologists should say (in order to be "scientific").

Strangely, you also appear to worship "science" (strange because of your Christianity, which, of course, is as unscientific as astrology). There are many approaches to knowledge that are useful yet unscientific. History comes to mind. So does philosophy, and so do all of the Humanities. Should we limit our studies of literature to those silly attempts to add, divide and measure word use, so that they would be more "scientific"? As I said before, cultural anthropology shares some of its methods with the sciences (data collection, linguistics, etc.) and others with the Humanities (recording stories, rites, customs, etc.).

Indeed, science is dependent upon mathematics, which is unscientific. Is math untrustworthy, because it does not involve the "methodologies" ("methods") of hard science?

Here's Walt Whitman's take on science (Whitman may have been a little gender fluid himself; at least, he was gay.)

When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer
BY WALT WHITMAN

When I heard the learn’d astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

[Immanuel Can]

Do you even know what "methodologies" anthropologists use? It seems unlikely.

And yet, I do.

The notion that for anthropologists gender is "totally arbitrary" is ridiculous.

Yeah, it is. And yes, any talk of "gender" is ridiculous.

But you can prove me wrong. Just give me your definition of "woman." Maybe they can use it to reset their discipline, and to fix what's so ridiculously wrong with Gender Studies.

...the concept of gender has become more fluid than it was in the past.

Complete nonsense.

If you're raising cattle, and have ten cows, don't be surprised if you don't get any calves...even if two of your cows "identify" as bulls.

What are anthropologists to do with this cultural phenomenon? Ignore it?

Fall over laughing at it. It's absurd. Or campaign for the establishment of medical institutions to treat body dysmorphia, which seems to be at the root of much of it.

I'm sure physical anthropologists are fully capable of looking at skeletons and determining whether they were male or female; cultures, including our own, might view gender differently.

And they'd be silly.

A cultural anthropologist studying modern American culture who said, "Gender in American culture is fully determined by biology" would be an idiot. Yet that appears to be what you think anthropologists should say (in order to be "scientific").

He would be a man of science, obviously.

Strangely, you also appear to worship "science" (strange because of your Christianity,...

Ah. Now Christianity is "too scientific" for you? You skeptics should make up your mind which narrative you want to go with. For a long time, people have tried to argue that Christianity was "against science." Pick one. The two don't make a lick of sense, relative to each other.

There are many approaches to knowledge that are useful yet unscientific. History comes to mind.

Well, history is also on the continuum between the "hard" and "soft" sciences. So are things like psychology, sociology, ethnography, cultural studies, and so on. But none these, including history, is anti-scientific, as "Gender Studies" so clearly is. History is scientific when it employs scientific data.

So does philosophy, and so do all of the Humanities.

Well, philosophy is premised on logic. And the Humanities, such as, say, literary studies, are premised on analysis of their respective materials. While not "scientific" in the hard sense, they can, at least, be data and evidence driven, and modified by their own disciplinary methods. By contrast, "gender" itself is anti-scientific nonsense, pure ideological supposition in defiance of all biological data.

Indeed, science is dependent upon mathematics, which is unscientific.

But not anti-scientific. Maths definitely also has a discipline and methodology distinctive to it...unlike Gender Studies. In fact, mathematics (and logic, of course) might well be said to be the foundation of all science, since it underwrites the "hardest" of the regular sciences, physics.

But I thought you were done talking with me. For somebody who was done, you don't seem particularly done. But that's fine. Welcome back to the debate. I only invite you to keep control of your emotions, and to minimize lapses into the ad hominem fallacy, if you would be so kind. We'll all thank you for that. Some of us want to discuss the subject matter, rather than make vain attempts to assassinate other people's characters instead of facing the facts.

[Alexiev]

Do you even know what "methodologies" anthropologists use? It seems unlikely.

And yet, I do.

The notion that for anthropologists gender is "totally arbitrary" is ridiculous.

Yeah, it is. And yes, any talk of "gender" is ridiculous.

But you can prove me wrong. Just give me your definition of "woman." Maybe they can use it to reset their discipline, and to fix what's so ridiculously wrong with Gender Studies.

...the concept of gender has become more fluid than it was in the past.

Complete nonsense.

If you're raising cattle, and have ten cows, don't be surprised if you don't get any calves...even if two of your cows "identify" as bulls.

What are anthropologists to do with this cultural phenomenon? Ignore it?

Fall over laughing at it. It's absurd. Or campaign for the establishment of medical institutions to treat body dysmorphia, which seems to be at the root of much of it.

I'm sure physical anthropologists are fully capable of looking at skeletons and determining whether they were male or female; cultures, including our own, might view gender differently.

And they'd be silly.

A cultural anthropologist studying modern American culture who said, "Gender in American culture is fully determined by biology" would be an idiot. Yet that appears to be what you think anthropologists should say (in order to be "scientific").

He would be a man of science, obviously.

Strangely, you also appear to worship "science" (strange because of your Christianity,...

Ah. Now Christianity is "too scientific" for you? You skeptics should make up your mind which narrative you want to go with. For a long time, people have tried to argue that Christianity was "against science." Pick one. The two don't make a lick of sense, relative to each other.

There are many approaches to knowledge that are useful yet unscientific. History comes to mind.

Well, history is also on the continuum between the "hard" and "soft" sciences. So are things like psychology, sociology, ethnography, cultural studies, and so on. But none these, including history, is anti-scientific, as "Gender Studies" so clearly is. History is scientific when it employs scientific data.

So does philosophy, and so do all of the Humanities.

Well, philosophy is premised on logic. And the Humanities, such as, say, literary studies, are premised on analysis of their respective materials. While not "scientific" in the hard sense, they can, at least, be data and evidence driven, and modified by their own disciplinary methods. By contrast, "gender" itself is anti-scientific nonsense, pure ideological supposition in defiance of all biological data.

Indeed, science is dependent upon mathematics, which is unscientific.

But not anti-scientific. Maths definitely also has a discipline and methodology distinctive to it...unlike Gender Studies. In fact, mathematics (and logic, of course) might well be said to be the foundation of all science, since it underwrites the "hardest" of the regular sciences, physics.

But I thought you were done talking with me. For somebody who was done, you don't seem particularly done. But that's fine. Welcome back to the debate. I only invite you to keep control of your emotions, and to minimize lapses into the ad hominem fallacy, if you would be so kind. We'll all thank you for that. Some of us want to discuss the subject matter, rather than make vain attempts to assassinate other people's characters instead of facing the facts.

You are making yourself look foolish. Words are defined by public use. If the public calls transgender women "women", then lexicographers (or anthropologists cataloging a different language) are required by the methods of their field to define the word in accordance with that usage.

Clearly, you know nothing about the methods of either anthropologists or lexicographers. You may object to the public use of the word "woman", but you cannot rationally complain that the lexicographers or anthropologists are to blame. They are using proper "methodology: (I would just say "methods" but you prefer the more pretentious word).

I have never studied "gender studies". However, my (limited) understanding of it is that it is as much one of the Humanities as one of the social or physical sciences. Aren't you the least bit interested in how different cultures and languages view gender and gendered roles within the culture? I, suppose you think you know everything already, and can learn nothing from other cultures or other people. You are wrong.

Once again you misunderstand me. I'm not claiming that Christianity contradicts science, merely that it (like other religions) is non-scientific. It deals with the supernatural; the realm of science is the natural. Also, you failed to comment on my contention that mathematics is non-scientific, as it clearly is. If science depends on and uses math, and math is non-scientific, then we must admit that knowledge can be gained through non-scientific means -- like the Humanities (or the "soft sciences"). Scholars use the tools and methods available to them. Of course different sciences apply different methods of data collection and inference. Sometimes the results are more certain; other times more uncertain. So what? Instead of holding an entire field in contempt, most reasonable people look at studies on a case by case basis. That's because reasonable people want to discover the truth, instead of merely confirming their predispositions.

You are not interested in how words are actually used. Instead, you rant about how they SHOULD be used, or would be used if you ruled the universe.

since you ask, I will give you not my definition of woman, but that of the Cambridge Dictionary:

“an adult who lives and identifies as female though they may have been said to have a different sex at birth.”

There you have it. Now you can continue to whine.

[Immanuel Can]

Do you even know what "methodologies" anthropologists use? It seems unlikely.

And yet, I do.

The notion that for anthropologists gender is "totally arbitrary" is ridiculous.

Yeah, it is. And yes, any talk of "gender" is ridiculous.

But you can prove me wrong. Just give me your definition of "woman." Maybe they can use it to reset their discipline, and to fix what's so ridiculously wrong with Gender Studies.

...the concept of gender has become more fluid than it was in the past.

Complete nonsense.

If you're raising cattle, and have ten cows, don't be surprised if you don't get any calves...even if two of your cows "identify" as bulls.

What are anthropologists to do with this cultural phenomenon? Ignore it?

Fall over laughing at it. It's absurd. Or campaign for the establishment of medical institutions to treat body dysmorphia, which seems to be at the root of much of it.

I'm sure physical anthropologists are fully capable of looking at skeletons and determining whether they were male or female; cultures, including our own, might view gender differently.

And they'd be silly.

A cultural anthropologist studying modern American culture who said, "Gender in American culture is fully determined by biology" would be an idiot. Yet that appears to be what you think anthropologists should say (in order to be "scientific").

He would be a man of science, obviously.

Strangely, you also appear to worship "science" (strange because of your Christianity,...

Ah. Now Christianity is "too scientific" for you? You skeptics should make up your mind which narrative you want to go with. For a long time, people have tried to argue that Christianity was "against science." Pick one. The two don't make a lick of sense, relative to each other.

There are many approaches to knowledge that are useful yet unscientific. History comes to mind.

Well, history is also on the continuum between the "hard" and "soft" sciences. So are things like psychology, sociology, ethnography, cultural studies, and so on. But none these, including history, is anti-scientific, as "Gender Studies" so clearly is. History is scientific when it employs scientific data.

So does philosophy, and so do all of the Humanities.

Well, philosophy is premised on logic. And the Humanities, such as, say, literary studies, are premised on analysis of their respective materials. While not "scientific" in the hard sense, they can, at least, be data and evidence driven, and modified by their own disciplinary methods. By contrast, "gender" itself is anti-scientific nonsense, pure ideological supposition in defiance of all biological data.

Indeed, science is dependent upon mathematics, which is unscientific.

But not anti-scientific. Maths definitely also has a discipline and methodology distinctive to it...unlike Gender Studies. In fact, mathematics (and logic, of course) might well be said to be the foundation of all science, since it underwrites the "hardest" of the regular sciences, physics.

But I thought you were done talking with me. For somebody who was done, you don't seem particularly done. But that's fine. Welcome back to the debate. I only invite you to keep control of your emotions, and to minimize lapses into the ad hominem fallacy, if you would be so kind. We'll all thank you for that. Some of us want to discuss the subject matter, rather than make vain attempts to assassinate other people's characters instead of facing the facts.

You are making yourself look foolish.

Let's keep this civil. I'm not insulting you, you don't insult me. If in doubt, refer back to any of the six (6) definitions of "ad hominem" I gave you.

If the public calls transgender women "women",...

Wait: we don't have your definition for "woman." We can't know whom you are talking about, until we do. What I think a "woman" means appears to be somewhat different from what you do.

So, in your view, what is a 'woman'?

You may object to the public use of the word "woman",

I don't. It's the Gender Theory use of it that I am questioning. The ordinary use is perfectly fine.

Gender Theory is a very new phenomenon. Encyclopedia.com pegs it to the '70s or'80s: but even then, it was not any kind of concept in common use. That's really a phenomenon of about a dozen years or so, if we're going by when it became routine outside of weird, pseudo-academic literature. And even today, it's a highly contested concept. By no means is it generally accepted that "gender" is even a concept different from "sex."

So I'll stand on the ordinary usage, and ask for a justification of the new usage, thank you.

I have never studied "gender studies".

Well, I didn't really think you had. Your previous statements seemed quite naive about it.

Aren't you the least bit interested in how different cultures and languages view gender and gendered roles within the culture?

You mean, whether or not some of them are deluded? Yes, I find that interesting.

...you failed to comment on my contention that mathematics is non-scientific, as it clearly is.

I certainly DID comment on it. I pointed out that maths is not just a discipline in its own right, but the base method of physics. Do you not remember that? And I pointed out that all science is premised on logic, as well. Go back and have a look, if you've forgotten.

Of course different sciences apply different methods of data collection and inference. Sometimes the results are more certain; other times more uncertain. So what?

So those that use a more disciplined, accurate methodology get more reliable results. Those that aren't really disciplined and make stuff up get all kinds of mistakes blended into their claims. That's "so what."

You are not interested in how words are actually used.

That's the funniest thing you've said so far. Until recently, everybody used "woman" to mean "adult, human female." That's how I use it. But I'll be very interested to see your definition...especially if you regard yourself as any voice in favour of "women's rights." Because if you don't even know what a thing is, how can you be an advocate for its alleged "rights"?

...since you ask, I will give you not my definition of woman,...

No, I have many dictionaries at my disposal, some good, and some poisoned by absurd political correctness. I've given you MY definition, above: now, I want YOUR definition, the one you're using whenever YOU use the word. When you say "woman," exactly what do YOU mean?

Go ahead.

[Consul]

Who exactly are they? What exactly is that?

It's a generalization, of course. In all areas of anthropology, they have something to offer. Even something as ideologically-corrupt as Gender Studies occasionally gets something right. Likewise, even a hard science like physics or chemistry can get facts wrong, from time to time. That's the nature of science: if it were not so, then there would be nothing more for science to learn, and nothing left for it to teach us.

But the hard sciences have distinctive methodologies designed to minimize this. As we move down the scale toward the soft sciences (such as psychology or sociology) we get less and less methodological rigour, fewer ways to test hypotheses, less systematic testing, a less coherent pattern of explanation, more speculation and guessing, and so on. That's why we even have the distinction between what they call "hard" and "soft" sciences: some are still a kind of "science," but not the rigourous and disciplined sort you find up the scale.

The key question is when the balance of undisciplined work exceeds the value of the fruitful theory and trustworthy results. Somewhere down near the end of the soft sciences line, things just get too soft, and we aren't any longer dealing with a true "science" at all...just a kind of tradition of speculation and hypothesis-generating, or even myth-making, but one that lacks the demanding sorts of terms that characterize the harder sciences. The exact placement of that tipping point is a matter of reasonable debate: but what nobody debates is that it exists; because everybody makes a distinction between "science" and mere "speculation." They may not have spelled it out for themselves, but they have some kind of instinctive point anyway.

For instance, most people would accept that astronomy is a science, but astrology decidedly isn't. Both deal, in a general way, with the same objects (stars, constellations), and use the same equipment, perhaps (a telescope, the human eye), but the lack of rigour and discipline in the latter renders it inherently non-scientific and merely speculative.

So the question is, where is anthropology on that spectrum? It's certainly far down the "soft" spectrum. And I would suggest that Gender Studies has so little rigour, so much ideological claptrap, so little discipline and such scattered "methodologies," and is so often just dead wrong, that the term "science" really can't be applied to it at all. It's far closer to astrology and phrenology than it is to physics, chemistry or biology.

Now, anthropology has some more disciplined methodologies. Demographics would be an example: the gathering of data on the numbers of individuals corresponding to criteria X or Y can be very systematic, disciplined and scientific, so long as it is not improperly selective in its gathering of data, or wildly speculative in its conclusions. But anthropology has also, in recent days, become a garden full of ideologically-driven "weeds," in which observations and results are accepted or discarded based on the ideological preferences of the practitioners or the willingness of the public to receive the results. Political correctness abounds: some studies simply "cannot be done," because they are suspected to render unpalatable results; and other studies, often very selective or methodologically-unsound ones, are privileged because of their tendency to yield politically-preferred results. And anthropology lacks a basic methodological discipline that would correct for this.

No better indicator could be given than the current debate over what a "woman" is. It's absurd that anthropology lacks even the means for arbitrating such an obvious question, one that disciplines like biology already have firmly in hand. The concept of "gender" is totally arbitrary: we have no data proving that a person can have one kind of body and another "gender" of brain, save the self-reporting of those who claim to be experiencing it. We cannot test their claims, and it's not considered politically-acceptable for us to do so. So we are treated to the comic-and-tragic sight of people like Bruce Jenner, the triumphant male Olympian, prancing around in heels and claiming to have been a woman all along. And "gender" theory can say no more about it than that he's right to do so, even though his biology is 100% male. And we're treated to the absurd spectacle of "women's rights" advocates who cannot even answer the question, "What is a woman?"

You can't get less scientific than that.

I don't subsume gender studies under anthropology, but I get your general point. There is a hierarchy of sciences in the intuitive sense that—regarding their respective institutional process/product structures—some are "harder" or "more scientific" (particularly, more objective) than others, with the "softest" or "least scientific" (particularly, least objective) ones bordering on or overlapping with pseudosciences.

Philosophical anthropology is not a science at all, since it's part of philosophy; and biological anthropology (anthropobiology) is "harder" than cultural/social anthropology (ethnology/comparative sociology).

However, when it comes to giving a precise meaning to the hard-soft distinction that goes beyond intuitive plausibility, things get complicated. This is off-topic here, so I just want to mention a paper I found via Wikipedia's page on Hard and Soft Science:

"The hypothesis of a Hierarchy of the Sciences, first formulated in the 19th century, predicts that, moving from simple and general phenomena (e.g. particle dynamics) to complex and particular (e.g. human behaviour), researchers lose ability to reach theoretical and methodological consensus. This hypothesis places each field of research along a continuum of complexity and “softness”, with profound implications for our understanding of scientific knowledge. Today, however, the idea is still unproven and philosophically overlooked, too often confused with simplistic dichotomies that contrast natural and social sciences, or science and the humanities. Empirical tests of the hypothesis have usually compared few fields and this, combined with other limitations, makes their results contradictory and inconclusive. We verified whether discipline characteristics reflect a hierarchy, a dichotomy or neither, by sampling nearly 29,000 papers published contemporaneously in 12 disciplines and measuring a set of parameters hypothesised to reflect theoretical and methodological consensus. The biological sciences had in most cases intermediate values between the physical and the social, with bio-molecular disciplines appearing harder than zoology, botany or ecology. In multivariable analyses, most of these parameters were independent predictors of the hierarchy, even when mathematics and the humanities were included. These results support a “gradualist” view of scientific knowledge, suggesting that the Hierarchy of the Sciences provides the best rational framework to understand disciplines' diversity. A deeper grasp of the relationship between subject matter's complexity and consensus could have profound implications for how we interpret, publish, popularize and administer scientific research.

Positivist philosopher Auguste Comte (1798–1857) first proposed a “natural” ordering of scientific disciplines based on generality of subject matter. From mathematics to sociology, his Hierarchy of the Sciences (HOS) was intended to reflect the growing complexity, inter-dependence, and vicinity to human passions of research fields, all of which determined their level of development as sciences. This idea was abandoned by post-positivist thinking, who increasingly emphasised the irrational side of scientific progress, leading to the extreme opposite view that disciplines are an unordered product of historical and cultural contingencies, similar to political or artistic currents. Today, concepts like “hard” and “soft” science are used in a vague, confused sense, and their imputation to specific research fields is felt to be controversial if not offensive. This might be a costly mistake, because these concepts seem to capture an essential feature of science, and have important implications that today tend to be ignored.

What do we mean by “hard” science? Scholars have treated the topic from a multitude of angles, but all definitions seem to converge on the concept of consensus – consensus, for example, “on the significance of new knowledge and the continuing relevance of old”. In an ideal science, scholars share a common background of established theories, facts and methods. This allows them to agree (usually after debate and further evidence) on the validity and significance of a new research finding, making it the basis for further theorizing and research. Harder sciences are hypothesised to come closer to this ideal. Moving towards “softer” fields, this consensus becomes less likely to be reached, the common background shrinks and fractures, and so data become less able to “speak for themselves”. Already in Comte's intuition, this happened primarily because of the increasing complexity of subject matters.
…
The fundamental prediction made by a modern version of the HOS, therefore, is that the ability of a scientific field to achieve consensus and accumulate knowledge will decrease when moving from the physical, to the biological, to the social sciences."

Source: Bibliometric Evidence for a Hierarchy of the Sciences

[Consul]

"…What do we mean by “hard” science? Scholars have treated the topic from a multitude of angles, but all definitions seem to converge on the concept of consensus…"

Source: Bibliometric Evidence for a Hierarchy of the Sciences

On the one hand, quantum physics is "very hard" science; on the other hand, there is no consensus among physicists as to which quantum theory (* of physical reality is true. (* which theoretical, ontological "interpretation" of the mathematical apparatus of quantum mechanics)

[Consul]

Gender studies is part of the vast field of cultural studies, whose scientific status is questionable, mainly because of its political bias. In cultural studies in general and in gender studies in particular we find a mixture of (left-wing) politics, philosophy, and "soft" science (sociology, psychology).

"It remains difficult to pin down the boundaries of cultural studies as a coherent, unified, academic discipline with clear-cut substantive topics, concepts and methods that differentiate it from other disciplines. Cultural studies has always been a multi- or post-disciplinary field of enquiry which blurs the boundaries between itself and other ‘subjects’. It is not physics, it is not sociology and it is not linguistics, though it draws upon these subject areas. Indeed, there must be, as [Stuart] Hall (1992a) argues, something at stake in cultural studies that differentiates it from other subject areas.

For Hall, what is at stake is the connection that cultural studies seeks to make to matters of power and cultural politics. That is, to an exploration of representations of and ‘for’ marginalized social groups and the need for cultural change. Hence, cultural studies is a body of theory generated by thinkers who regard the production of theoretical knowledge as a political practice. Here, knowledge is never a neutral or objective phenomenon but a matter of positionality, that is, of the place from which one speaks, to whom, and for what purposes. At the start of the evolution of British cultural studies the idea that the field was politically engaged was taken as a defining characteristic. Today, cultural studies’ alignment with political activism is more controversial – both inside and outside of the field."

(Barker, Chris, and Emma A. Jane. Cultural Studies: Theory and Practice. 5th ed. London: SAGE Publications, 2016. p. 5)
——————
"Cultural studies is an interlocking set of leftist intellectual and political practices. Its central purpose is twofold: (1) to produce detailed, contextualized analyses of the ways that power and social relations are created, structured, and maintained through culture; and (2) to circulate those analyses in public forums suitable to the tasks of pedagogy, provocation, and political intervention."

(Rodman, Gilbert B. Why Cultural Studies? Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell, 2015. pp. 39-40)

"Cultural studies is both an intellectual and a political project. Neither half of this equation is optional. Perhaps more crucially, neither takes precedence over the other. Instead, these two spheres of activity are mutually constitutive of one another. Cultural studies’ politics are not simply an afterthought. If political questions only surface when you are writing up your conclusions at the end of an otherwise “objective” or “neutral” scholarly project, the resulting book or essay may still be smart, insightful, and important—but it is not cultural studies. At the same time, cultural studies’ political agendas never guarantee in advance the end results of its analyses. If your politics tell you the answer to your research questions before you have even begun the intellectual work of your project, then (again) you are not doing cultural studies. Done properly, cultural studies always remains open to the possibility that its politics may lead it into unexpected intellectual territory—and that its intellectual work may lead it to take unanticipated political positions.

Put a different way, cultural studies is not interested in the abstract production of knowledge for knowledge’s sake. From the very outset of any given cultural studies project, the intellectual questions at that project’s core derive from “real world” political concerns of one sort or another. As [Stuart] Hall describes it:
—
It was not possible to present the work of cultural studies as if it had no political consequences and no form of political engagement, because what we were asking students to do was to do what we ourselves had done: to engage with some real problem out there in the dirty world, and . . . to spend that time usefully to try to understand how the world worked . . . So, from the start we said: What are you interested in? What really bugs you about questions of culture and society now? What do you really think is a problem you don’t understand out there in the terrible interconnection between culture and politics? What is it about the way in which British culture is now living through its kind of postcolonial, posthegemonic crisis that really bites into your experience? And then we will find a way of studying that seriously.
(1990, 17 ["The Emergence of Cultural Studies and the Crisis in the Humanities." October 53: 11–23])
—
At the same time, however, cultural studies’ efforts to intervene in those “real world” concerns depend on its practitioners working from a position of knowledge about the situations and the contexts where they hope to bring about change. There is little value, after all, in un(der)informed activism, and the most effective forms of political intervention depend heavily on having reliable maps—that is, theoretical models informed by empirical analysis—of the terrain on which one is struggling."

(Rodman, Gilbert B. Why Cultural Studies? Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell, 2015. pp. 40-1)