- Mentus – Mental genus. The parent concept to femininity and masculinity. The mental sex in reference to biological sex. A set of characteristics that make up a personal identity in reference to biological sex.
Some folks use the term ‘gender’ for the concept I described. However I will use the term Mentus. Mentus seems to be an emergent set of characteristics typical of the two biological sexes, male and female. To be very clear, mentus is about what is emergent from the groups of male and female within a species and not any specific male or female. Mentus is a group typical trend characteristic. Individual males or females may express to varying degrees physical, behavioral, or mental aspects that are not typical of their biological sex group.
These explanations are just to share with you the reasons I will be using the concept of mentus instead of gender. Gender is a term that is very contentious and political. The shared reasons are not to say you are wrong if you disagree with the reasons, only to share the reasoning of why mentus will be the term used instead.
In my view, gender terms are sexually dimorphic terms. Those terms are where biological sex is one component of the term with at least one additional characteristic component. Additional to the biological sex aspect in these terms, there are other biological aspects. Those aspects often being species and maturity. This makes the entire term about biology aspects. Gender can be understood as biological sexual dimorphism.
Here are some examples:
- Bull – adult male cow
- Heifer – adult female cow that hasn’t had a calf yet
- after having a ‘calf’, then just referred to as ‘cow’
- Rooster: Adult male chicken
- Hen: Adult female chicken
- Stallion: Adult male horse
- Mare: Adult female horse
- Boar: Adult male pig
- Sow: Adult female pig
- Buck: Adult male deer
- Doe: Adult female deer
- Boar: Adult male wild pig
- Sow: Adult female wild pig
- Man: Adult male human
- Woman: Adult female human
For young and juvenile animals, there are also some gendered terms such as:
- Colt: Young male horse
- Filly: Young female horse
We may also use girl and boy to refer to a young non-specific animal of a biological sex. If referring to an adult with one of these terms, it may be done to refer to more juvenile characteristics or an even simpler concept of a non-specific animal of a certain biological sex. So instead of saying male or female they may say boy or girl.
There is something like sexually dimorphic terms but for not yet matured animals without biological sex being included. That would be “juvenile terms” or “names for young animals.” These terms are used to describe animals at a young age or developmental stage. For example:
- Calf: Young cow or bull
- Fawn: Young deer
- Piglet: Young pig
- Gosling: Young goose
- Duckling: Young duck
- Lamb: Young sheep
- Kid: Young goat
- Pup: Young dog or seal
- Kitten: Young cat
- Chick: Young chicken
What’s the value of talking about this at all? That’s a great question. If you are asking such a question it may be because you really want to know or you may believe there is no good reason and only bad reasons to talk about such a thing.
If you do not find good reason, fair enough, not everyone will be interested. Some people may feel there are only bad reasons. I humbly request you withhold judgement until understanding more about the reasons that I will share. To start, the reasons do not include “you have to conform to these roles or you are a bad person”.
REASONS GO HERE…
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