/lit/ - Literature

>tfw i was the joyce one
>tfw i will never get to put another synonym instead of putting 'pervert' twice

>>11760842

>>11307365
Not the guy you're arguing with, but "femininity is a social construct" means "womanhood is a cultural phenomenon, not a biological one," and the other half of his sentence means "in most cultures, ideas about womanhood serve as a way of indirectly constraining women's choices."

For evidence of the first clause, we could look at things like the history of the high-heeled shoe — first worn by male aristocrats because the added height was considered masculine, then transitioning to a "feminine" shoe after it was used by french prostitutes to accentuate the legs and ass — or the persisting cultural weirdness around cooking — it's seen as effeminate to cook, but at the same time, there's a bias against women in professional kitchens. These contradictions wouldn't arise if womanhood was mere biology, because we could investigate femininity scientifically and make definite conclusions about what clothes, activities, etc. are and aren't feminine.

I'm not going to argue for the second clause, since it's more controversial (and poorly-phrased), but it should be obvious to anyone who does even a little bit of reading about the history of gender roles that "femininity" is something that people — both men and women — make up as they go along.

Small dump incoming

>>10651178

>>10255651
Disappointing thread so far

>>10005341

>>14120

>>9244778

>>9236460