Thoughts on Epistemology and Gender

Again, posting this mostly for myself, so I can look back in several years and retrace what happened and what I learned.  Though I don’t mind that this is also public, so that anyone else who stumbles across this might also learn without having to go through the same vitriol.
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The entire purpose of the first post, as I said three times therein, was to ask for feedback and guidance.  I also wanted to voice my frustrations by putting emotion into my post, to help the reader understand what I was feeling, and relate more to the difficulty I was having.  Instead, what seems to have happened was that most people began filling in the unknowns with their own narrative – influenced of course by the unpleasantness of my tone, creating their own character of who I am in their minds, and then responded to *that* character, rather than to me, or anything I actually said.
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This lead to a great many responses from other groups, including other transpeople, with all sorts of vicious things being said, and I’ve touched on before about the irony of lesbians, and in this case even trans people, attacking someone for their gender identity.  But the anonymity of the internet, combined with the opportunity to lash out at a wicked person constructed in one’s imagination, resulted in that very thing happening.
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Despite this, I began digging through the mud, searching for a pearl of wisdom.  I did actually read all of the hate-posts about me, on the chance that I might find some comment buried within all the personal attacks that might help me re-examine my situation, or give me some new thought pattern or perspective I could explore.  I also revisited epistemology, and went through a period of deeply questioning myself and my life.
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The following is take from an email I sent to a friend regarding the insights this experience has provided.
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I’ll try to be concise.  Epistemology is the philosophy of “how do you know what you know”.  It generally begins with – how do you know you exist?  Descartes said “I think, therefore, I am”.  Essentially, you are aware that you are aware… in your mind, you are conscious of yourself.  Descartes put forward that this was about the only thing you honestly could know, and everything else was just a “really really good assumption based on things that seem extremely likely“.  There’s no definitive way to prove that you’re not in a constant and ongoing dream… there’s also a fun thing called “Last Thursday-sim”.  It’s one of those thought experiments – I’ll tell you about it next time if you remind me!
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Alright now there’s a few ways you can know what you know.
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Heuristics is where you build off past experience.  For example, if you go into a new grocery store and you’re looking for tomatoes, even though you’ve never been in the store before, you will probably go to the area where all other veggies are kept.  Why?  Heuristically, that’s the thing that’s always worked before.  This is basically a group of shortcuts we take to navigate the world around us.  It makes things convenient, and most people go through life navigating on “common sense”.
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Dialectics is generally a method where some truth is taken from multiple sources and combined to make a new truth that combines all of the originals.  Dialectical Behavioral Therapy is currently the mainstay of modern mental health practice.  We teach people to take the truth of their emotions, the truth of their perceptions, and the truth of reason, and consider that while they may seem contradictory, they are all simultaneously true!  We combine them into a solution that works for them.
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Empiricism is the method I explained that uses facts, evidence, and proof.
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A fact is any element of verifiably accurate data. “Verifiably accurate” means it can still be shown to be true even to those who don’t want to believe it. Facts alone do not make “evidence” until they collectively prove one scenario over any other (some facts may be strong enough to do this).

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Evidence is when factual circumstances which are accounted for, and indicative of one particular explanation over any other. Gather enough evidence together, and you’ve got proof.

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Proof, then, is an overwhelming preponderance of physical and logical evidence showing – beyond contention – the accuracy of particular position. (100% absolute proof exists only in mathematics)

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There are other methods of knowing the world, such as “revelation” (generally, knowledge gained from some meditation, prayer, or some other method, which skeptics tend to deny), but empiricism is our primary focus for right now.

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Empiricism is the philosophy upon which the Scientific Method is founded upon (science being more of a systematized process).  This is the only method we have that consistently produces real world results that we can actually see and use.  However, it’s not flawless.  There are some examples where even science stumbles.  I’ll share just two.

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One of the first “scientific” experiments ever carried out happened on board sailing ships at the end of the 1600s to address the problem of scurvy.  Taking a shot in the dark, one ship was assigned to carry various foods which included fruits, while the other carried the usual meat and biscuits (the food of choice since there was no refrigeration back then, and heavily dried / salted meat and biscuits could last a whole voyage).  While the fruits eventually went rotten, the crew that included these in their diets didn’t get scurvy!!
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This was in the day *before* there was any understanding of vitamins or minerals, and microscopes were just beginning to be developed (in fact, when they did come around, there was no way to adjust them – so dozens of different microscopes were designed to study all different kinds of material).
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What the “science” of the time suggested was that the body had a “balance of different fluids”… so it’s natural to assume that perhaps the body has acids and bases.  Seas and oceans are alkaline… perhaps too much alkalinity in the body is what causes scurvy!
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Can we test this?  Sure we can – and guess what!  Every single person who spends time out at sea gets scurvy!  Even if it’s a smaller body of water – if they’re out there on a boat (and have the usual foods), sure enough, they get scurvy.  It has to be from the sea air.  Citrus fruits are acids, so they balance out the alkalinity.  The more you test this theory, the more it seems accurate… all of the information reconfirms the conclusion again and again – taking you further away from the truth, rather than closer to it!

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The good news is that while pure empiricism can lead you down a wrong road… science, as a process, is self correcting.  Eventually new information is discovered and someone challenges your ideas (extremely important – coming back to that later!)  The ability to challenge ideas is essentially the fuel that makes science work.  This is why the more free and open a society is, the more technologically advanced it becomes (western nations vs middle eastern nations).
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That’s also why it’s kind of a big deal when someone wants to censor the freedom of speech simply because a particular idea hurts your feelings or challenge established dogma.  Countries that clamp down on free speech are almost never as advanced as countries that both allow and encourage it – because social progress happens by the same principle.
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There’s a second pitfall to pure empiricism.
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In the late 60s, a group of scientist built a large radio telescope that, for it’s time, was the most advanced telescope ever built.  They would be able to pick up new information about stars, and they greatly anticipated the discoveries they’d be making!  A great deal of excitement surrounded turning this thing on – only to moments later, be hit with an extremely disappointing rumble of static.
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They worked and worked for weeks to figure out how to fix their very-clearly-and-obviously broken radio telescope.  I mean come on… static is what you pick up on a 5 dollar receiver from Radio Shack.  This was supposed to be above and beyond anything ever previously built – surely it could filter out basic static!
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A great deal of frustration was felt as the weeks passed by… until some professors in Europe were giving lectures on the Big Bang, and hypothesized that if anyone ever built a radio receiver sensitive enough, they should be able to pick up static left over from it!
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This incident demonstrates how with empiricism, you can’t always know the nature of the information you’ve uncovered.  The ultimate solution you’ve been searching for may appear to be an annoying problem that’s getting in the way.
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Thankfully, once again – science is a more complex and self-correcting process (although science itself is also limited, but that’s a discussion for later).  Hence why they were able to figure out finally that the static was the discovery, not an obstacle.
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Okay, so.
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How does all this relate to that facebook message? [I’m referring to a facebook message where a good friend was being honest in light of my thread being attacked on reddit, and was telling me that I just don’t pass as a woman, because I’m “too masculine”]  And the now dozens of people who’ve decided to tell me I’m clearly afflicted with some mental disorder, that I’m not really a woman, that I’m just a “man in lipstick” and clearly have some sick fetish for lesbians that’s making me “prey on women’s spaces”?  (They said plenty more, but you get the idea.)
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First, what is “femininity”?  And is it the same as “femaleness”?  Lets use some empiricism, and maybe a dash of dialectical synthesis.
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Femininity, like masculinity, if we were to keep it simple, is a group of expectations that evolved from early survival behaviors.
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10,000 years ago, women sat around the cave, communicated, and nurtured children.  Why?  Because women have to give birth and raise kids, or otherwise the entire tribe is dead.  It takes 9 months to do this, then 2 more years of breastfeeding.
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Men on the other hand, banded together and killed mammoths.  This required a completely different kind of communication (objective and logical, vs emotional and expressive).  Again, why?  Because if men don’t do this, the entire tribe is dead.  Also, men’s bodies didn’t have to give birth and therefore could afford to dedicate more genetic instructions towards physical strength and endurance.
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The “do this or you’re dead” is kind of important, because it’s a key component of how evolution works.  There were actually a number of different intelligence species on earth around 50,000 years ago (no, this is not some X-files conspiracy – it’s quite true.  We have fossils.)  Neanderthals were among them – they weren’t human, they were a completely different species, related to humans the same way humans are related to chimpanzees (although with perhaps a bit more similarity).  While there’s no way to know for sure why they died out, some hypothesize that humans were simply better at the “do this or your dead” part of evolution.  Humans adapted to the conditions by adhering to – AND ENFORCING – early survival behaviors…. whereas the Neanderthals could have been peace loving hippy feminist for all we know.
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Neanderthal parent: “Oh sweety, you can wear a dress if you want!  Boys don’t have to act tough.  You can – OH GOD A SABER TOOTH TIGER IS EATING US AAAAGHASHDFHOWER!!!

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Human parent: And that, son, is why you better man the f*ck up and not wear a dress.  Mmmkay?
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The important concept here is that gender roles were enforced for this very reason.  In order for the tribe to survive, we need a woman’s uterus to stay intact and safe from harm.  Women are the sole life-bringers of this world.  Men cannot do that.  Women can.  Therefore, they must be protected.  (On a side note – most early civilizations were matriarchal, but again that’s for another discussion.)
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Men possess greater physical strength.  Also, they’re disposable.  What does that mean?
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Imagine a cave with 99 men, and 1 woman.  In a few decades, that whole entire tribe is gone.
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Now imagine a cave with 99 women, and 1 man.  They’re safe!  In a few decades, there will be an entirely new generation.
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This is why men are disposable.  It’s fine if you die – we can always find another man, now take this spear, get out there, and kill that mammoth!
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This is why women are cherished.  You need to stay inside – if you die, we can’t bring new life into the world.  Please stay safe.
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This is why modern society treats men and women differently.  Men are expected to rush into a fire and save the woman in the burning building, and never the other way around – and it’s for this reason.  Feminist want you to believe it’s because of “oppression” (because staying in the cave / castle / fortress and NOT being killed by a mammoth / barbarian / enemy soldier is sooooooo oppressive).
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Now this is what “feminine” and “masculine” essentially come from.  Throughout the ages, these things have changed, as empires rise and fall and cultures continually change, new interpretations happen, but the core principles are still very identifiable.
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However… a purely original form of femininity, in today’s world, wouldn’t actually work, and might even be nearly useless (what woman today lives like a woman 10,000 years ago?).  The concept of femininity has changed because the world has changed, and what is accepted as “feminine” has changed over and over again.

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Moreover, there have been countless examples of men who have happened upon situations where they’ve been remarkably successful taking on what would otherwise be considered “feminine” (remember: expectations derived from early survival behaviors).  Nearly any philosopher, from Aristotle to the modern day Sam Harris is considered quiet, flexible, compassionate, understanding, and morally insightful.  Yet we don’t see any of them as “womanly men”.  Same vice versa – no one looks at Judge Judy and sees a man, or even a “manly woman”.
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Hence, “femaleness” has to be different than “feminine”.  A woman can be very womanly, yet, ascribe to behaviors that would be considered masculine.  This really jarred me the first time I became aware of it maybe a week ago.  I described on my facebook wall here: [Link removed]
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And said:
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Then I see something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avY49O_Tzms
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From the video at around the 1:25 mark:
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“These women, we’ll just call them “alpha female”… they’re really successful in all these areas of life, because they have this energy that enables them to get things done, take control, multi-task, be effective. Whatever they want, they create. [This was called “masculine”]
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^ And I just feel totally exasperated.
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First…. HOW IS THAT MASCULINE???????!!
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That isn’t masculine at all!! Who is sitting here saying that women can’t be like that and also be feminine? Some of the most courageous women I’ve ever seen fit that *exact* description, and I admire them tremendously. Someone who is strong enough and never cower away from new challenges.
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Second – that’s exactly and precisely what I wish I could find in a woman. I mean that is the character down to a T. I see women like that and I just do not for the life of me see even 1 single iota of masculinity. Women like that are just amazingly awesome, beautiful women.
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This contrasts and clashes so completely thoroughly with this other form of being female… seemingly enforced, strangely, by other females… where you’re not allowed to take a stand, or believe in something, or build your position on a groundwork of facts and evidence (these same exact women then go on to complain that women aren’t in STEM fields, or found in congress). Putting yourself out there and trying new things is frowned upon.
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This extreme difference in view of what it means to be a woman could be the source of a lot of the difficulty I’ve been having.
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^ It’s beginning to make more sense now.
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“Femaleness” and “feminine” are not the same thing.
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What’s the difference?
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While “feminine” refers to a set of expectations belonging to one or the other gender, “femaleness” refers to a concept that matches some presupposed criteria in any given person (this matches other research I’ve done).  Femininity *can* be a part of femaleness, but it doesn’t have to be.  This is why I get “you’re not really a woman because of X Y or Z” – it’s because I don’t match that person’s presupposed criteria for what *that person* understands to be female.  However, another person is fine with me and sees me as female – because I *do* match their presupposed criteria.  This happens entirely independent of how well I’m matching the expected set of behaviors understood as “feminine”.  I could be matching all feminine behaviors perfectly, and I still would get “you’re not really a woman” simply for the reasons mentioned.  A person’s presupposed criteria might be “you had to have been born with a vagina”.
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By assuming feminine = womanhood, or femaleness… I may have been getting good answers to a bad question, and getting further away from the answer, not closer.  That’s analogous to the first example (about scurvy) of an empirical flaw discussed earlier.  My simply being who I am, perhaps, a “masculine woman”, is perfectly fine, and doesn’t need to change.  The problems that my masculinity is causing are not actually problems – they’re supposed to be there.  It’s possible that I am simply – as you’ve said before – an “alpha female”.  This is the answer, not the problem (like the static), analogous to the second example discussed earlier.
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Now remember way back there when I said challenging ideas was important, and that’s how progress gets made?
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Had my friend not challenged my presenting as a woman, and had those people on Reddit not said such horrible things to challenge my identity, I never would have found such answers.  The additional research and philosophizing would not have happened.
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I’ve also considered that my current strategy (going to lesbian meetups) will probably not work, regardless of how much research is done or how much effort is put into matching the expectations of femininity, because regardless, I may never match their presupposed criteria.  Moreover, I actually rather hate behaving like some empty-headed do-nothing bimbo who can never just come right out and say what ought to be said for the sake of trying to match this archaic survival behavior, or else I’m not “woman enough” (which I’ll never be for them anyway).  A better strategy may be to go to regular dating meetups, as female sexuality is already documented as more fluid than male sexuality, and it’s possible to meet women who are, if not bi, at least willing to accept me and possibly pursue a relationship.  That’s right: cis-gender heterosexual people appear to be *more* accepting, and less hateful, than LGBT people.
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.So I’ll attend regular dating meetups and we’ll see what happens.