What is a Man? What is a Woman

[Mr_A]

What are some feminine traits?
What are some masculine traits?

What is a masculine man? What is a feminine man?
What is a masculine woman? What is a feminine woman?

What is a man?
What is a woman?

[CBlokland]

Yin and Yang of course.

[Terumoto]

Originally Posted by CBlokland

Yin and Yang of course.

Precisely.

You can't have "masculine" man without "feminine" traits. You can't have a "feminine" woman without "masculine" traits.

Anyway, it's not really possible to accurately describe what traits are feminine and what traits are masculine.

[Ninja]

To me, there is no such thing as a real man or a real woman. Only a real person. nothing more, nothing less.

[Akashic_Librarian]

Well unless I had a particularly bad Biology teacher, a man is a human being with a Penis, and a women is a human being with a vagina.

Now if your talking about sociological roles, then a man is a man based on his upbringing, peer review etc...etc...

Neurologically we are hardwired to have certain gender traits.

Spiritually I fear to say.

[Michael Chui]

Originally Posted by Akashic_Librarian

Well unless I had a particularly bad Biology teacher, a man is a human being with a Penis, and a women is a human being with a vagina.

This is not true. You'd be closer if you say "born with", but that's still not true.

And I'm not sure what business your biology teacher had telling you such things.

[Brutha]

These days you define being a man in biology as someone who has a Y-chromosome.

[Akashic_Librarian]

Michael are you saying that a women can have a penis then?

[Michael Chui]

Originally Posted by Akashic_Librarian

Michael are you saying that a women can have a penis then?

Yup. It's called Phalloplasty.

Sex reassignment surgery female-to-male - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Ak47]

In regards to penis vs. vagina - that is sex, not gender.

In regards to masculine vs. femininity - that is gender.

masculine and feminine traits are different in many cultures. i'm sure there are biological aspects to it, but social influence is probably the most considerable. it really comes down to that men and women are more the same than different- we are the same species after all.

you could describe masculine as physically dominant. this has nothing to do with the sex of the person though- if you gave women treatment with testosterone they'd be just as strong physically as men, etc.

what is defined as masculine and feminine are generally only opinions, really.

there are most definitely differences, but if they're a result of social influence that means they're changable. for instance girls learn to read better at a younger age than boys do. BUT, both boys and girls are taught to read at the same time. that time just happens to be closer to the time that girls are more likely to be able to learn the material faster/better- leaving the guys in the dust. the result? on average, though only slightly, women score higher in literacy than men.

all the same men on average, score slightly higher in math and spatial skills than woman do.

it's also known that men and women use different portions of their brain for different things, yet we obviously function very similarly.

personally though... i'd define femininity as overly emotional, dramatic, sociable, caring, etc.... and masculinity as corageous, controlling, etc.

don't forget though, whether man or woman, each person is an individual and has their own specific cardinal and seconday personality traits.

oh yeah, reference, 'Psychology' text book by hockenbury and hockenbury [5th edition... i think] none of that is quote, but it's in there saying the same thing more or less.