ignore this, it's about women and sexism ...

[Brad De Long]

>On Wed, 24 Nov 1999, Brad De Long wrote:
>
> > >I gotta jump in here.  Do really believe that giving birth or menstruating
> > >are necessary preconditions for being a woman in our society?  C'mon,
> > >think about this for two minutes.  In Kessler & McKenna's book
> > >Gender: An ethnomethodological approach, they point out that no one
> > >characteristic is an infallible indicator of whether you're
> > >male/female.  The only way that we are able to identify people as
> > >male or female is through social interactions.  In practice,
> > >the male/female distinction is a social one, just like race.
> > >
> > >Miles
> > >cqmv at odin.cc.pdx.edu
> >
> > Then why did D. McCloskey have to go through a *long* and *painful*
> > series of operations and hormone treatments to try to change her
> > gender? Is it just that she's dumb?
> >
> >
> > Brad DeLong
> >
>
>S/he had to undergo this procedure because we socially define
>the male/female distinction as a physical one.   It's not
>that s/he is dumb; it is that s/he is trying to live up to
>the definition of gender as a physical attribute, like hair
>color.  And note: to live up to this socially created
>definition, s/he has to engage in particular social
>relations with particular individuals.  Like everyone
>else, this person's gender is socially constructed, and
>not biologically given.
>
>Miles

Meaning that in our society gender is physical? But that the fact 
that gender is physical is a social fact?

Seems to me that the difference between saying "gender is socially 
constructed" and "we have socially constructed a physical definition 
of gender" is analogous to the difference between "an ocean of water" 
and "a notion of water."