Okay sorry for responding three years later, but, I feel like I should clarify what I meant. Yes, we do have sexual dimorphism, but looking at the whole animal kingdom, the amount we have is relatively tame, and there are exceptions to every âruleâ our sexual dimorphism has. Women are shorter than men on average, men are taller than women on average, but there are many exceptions, to name one example. Some men can grow beards, but not all of them depending on genetics and hormones, while some women can also grow beards, or at least some amount of facial hair.
However, society demands we take our relatively tame sexual dimorphism and push it to the extreme in either direction depending on your assigned gender at birth.
Women are permitted, and even encouraged to grow their hair out, sometimes even punished for not doing so depending on the community, while men are demanded they keep their hair short, and are even punished for failing to get frequent enough haircuts. This has begun to change in some communities, but not all. It completely ignores the fact that for both males and females, our head hair grows continuously throughout our lives, so long hair is perfectly natural and normal for both genders.
Speaking of hair, women are demanded to shave their legs, armpits, etc, because body hair has been deemed a trait only men are permitted to have, ignoring the fact that body hair is normal, natural, and even beneficial for women to have.
Women are punished by society if they work out and develop a muscular physique, or even if they are naturally muscular, because visible muscle is also a trait thatâs been deemed only acceptable for men to have. Itâs to the point where some women are afraid to lift anything heavier than 5 pounds because they worry theyâll become âbulky and manlyâ. Some people even react to muscular women with revulsion, and are often accused of taking steroids even if theyâre clearly not. Men, on the other hand, are punished for not having visible muscle, even if theyâre perfectly healthy without it. If they have functional muscle but not visible muscle, or their muscle is hidden beneath a healthy layer of fat, theyâre pushed to try and âfixâ it through extreme diets and exercise regĂmenes, and in some circles, are even encouraged to take steroids despite the well-documented risks.
Women are pressured to undertake surgeries to âfeminizeâ their face shape by shaving down sharp angles in their jaws and noses, even if the women of their families have had similar face shapes for generations. Men are pressured to do the opposite and âmasculinizeâ their faces by exaggerating sharp angles, either with medical intervention or by exercising the facial muscles.
Tall women are shamed and stigmatized, while short men are similarly shamed and stigmatized, to the point where some men will undergo a painful, lengthy procedure that forces their leg bones to grow. (Side note, Iâm 5â4â and have a guy friend whoâs shorter than me, but he is legitimately a badass and one of the manliest people I know. Height does not determine how much of a man or woman you can be.)
On top of all of that, we have people online obsessing over every single detail of celebrity photos to âproveâ theyâre transgender, the âevidenceâ usually consisting of things that have no real relation to biological sex. I actually saw a video once of a woman analyzing a photo of Zendaya, claiming that Zendaya must be a trans woman because her collarbones were forming a straight line instead of an obtuse angle, which very well may have simply been a matter of posing and camera angle.
Frankly, I find it all absolutely ridiculous.
