Suggestion - sex of the listener on the profile and search
Hi. I would like to suggest putting the sex of the listener on the search results and profile (along with their age). Sometimes you want listener to be specifically male or female, depending on whose perspective you want to hear, and since majority of profiles have flowers or sky as picture, it would be nice to have this possibility to choose.
This sounds like a really good idea . No?
I agree. I want a listener a little closer to my own age as a 20 year old psychology student really doesn't have the life experience native to my problems but maybe in their own peer group. I also feel more comfortable talking to a female as I already have a male's perspective, a female point of view might be more useful.
I think that this is a great idea. Gender, and maybe age? I have some problems opening up to male identified persons (working on that, and it's getting better, but I'm not there yet). I'm brand new to 7 Cups as of just now, and would love the added safety that a gender marker and age could provide.
Perhaps if this was provided as more of an optional thing, such that the listener could opt out if he/she preferred? I think it would be a great idea.
I really like this idea, in theory!
However I can see flaws within it.
We have quite a big LGBTQ+ community here, will they be made to conform to either a male or female box, or an 'other' box? It can be difficult to get all the genders in one place and just as difficult to say to someone that they have to choose to be either male or female. I'm not sure how that part of thecommunity would feelabout an 'other' box? (i guess it can be a positive and negative, you'd know the person is LGBTQ+ but it can also be kinda rude).
Also, listeners are sometimes subject to sexual objectification and verbal assault from members/guests. I have a feeling people who use the site to troll or look for a person to chat with in a sexual way would take advantage of this feature.
Perhaps if it was an optional thing and we had an as extensive list as possible?
I'd be really interested to hear other peoples opinions, and yours on my thoughts
I think that a very extensive list could be good, and like you said maybe even just make it optional. There's gotta be some way. I am sure that I am probably not the only person with some anxieties around this.
I don't think it would be difficult to implement it from the technical perspective. It's just a few more lines of code, and there are other forums that have no problems with 10 or even more categories.
The idea to make it optional is a good one. That way anyone who feels unsure or offended by the choices doesn't have to enter anything. The fact is that probalby the majority of people on this site wouldn't have anything against those boxes, including LGBT+. If there's someone that doesn't find himself/herself in any of the categories can fill the field "other" themselves.
I am sure that there are some trolls here, but there are such things as banning the account or even IP address. But seriously, this is a site where people come to share their problems and sorrows. I doubt there are many trolls out there that prefer this site to troll people around.
This isn't quite as simple as one would like to believe.
To start, there are an incredible number of gender identities. Facebook added something like 50 more gender identity options, and that list (from what I've seen) doesn't even include demi or flux identities, among many others. Not to mention the fact that many more are being coined all the time to help better encompass the extent we experience gender. It would be an impossible task to cover all of them, and incredibly tiring for our developer to constantly add more options.
That leaves the other suggestion -- of having Male / Female / Other + text box. The text box is necessary, since being outright called an "other" isn't cool.However, the same gender term can be written many different ways, such as demi-girl and demigirl, which can also be demi-femme and demifemmeand more. That will make it hard for guests and members to find an appropriate search term, unless our search engine was smart enough to grab the similar identities, as well (which, again, a whole ton of time and energy with more identity terms being coined all the time).
That said, this is no different from our current method. Listeners have the option to state their gender in their profile, and guests and members can then use the keyword search to find listeners of a particular gender. Having a specific gender option would make that clearer, but the option to add and search by gender already exists.
Lastly, I'm not going to go in-depth on the topic, but suffice it to say objectification, harassment, abuse, and trolling are all very real issues we face every day.
(p.s.: sex andgender are not equivalent)
@rain72
Ok. Let's just skip identifying as gender, sex and all the labels that come with that.. The reason I wanted to be able to have sex & gender option is that I needed someone who understands female thinking. So maybe this will sound funny or even ridiculous, but maybe we could have a category of "female brain" and "male brain", which would denote that listener is better equipped to see things from a perspective of certain sex. So a lot of sexual identities can actually fall under one of these two categories of thinking. So if I want to have a woman help me see things from a female perspective, I would only have to search for "female brain" and that is it. And it would be optional of course. If a listener doesn't ant to state it, they don't have to.
Anyway, maybe you can come up with something similar.
The assumption that there's female or male thinking is down to sexism, though. I couldn't tell you how every woman thinks, and I imagine you couldn't tell me how every guy thinks! : ) I can see knowing a listener's sex or gender identity might indeed be helpful for specific issues, but men and women are all people, all individuals.
i agree with that, there is already an option forlistener to mention the gender in the description . adding a specific and separateoption will make it less helpful as if a girl wants to talk to girl, she will be able to but other listeners will lose the opportunity to help. Like currently member/guest is not able to identify the gender of a listener so the listener attends the member as a help seeker not a girl or a guy.and member treats the listener as a friend in need not a person from a specific gender. when u are helping someone gender is secondary.
i am sorry if i missed any point and i welcome any counter arguments if i am wrong.
Thanks
I see a sprout of a discussion that can turn really serious here, but nevertheless, I'd like to add mypossiblycontroversialopinion, and offer possible solution to this issue. I hope my opinion and viewswill not insult anyone here, but if this happens, please message me privately and I'll apologize. So here goes:
There are three sexes: male, female and intersex. So those could be three options that do not have to be mandatory. People who are born with specific sex characteristics (that have nothing to do with brain - there are no male and female brains), have different life experiences and because of this, some things are more easily understood by people of the same sex (first examples to come to mind - menstrual cramps, pregnancy, things that have to do with sexual behavior). One is not able to identify with particular sex, sex just is what it is, and we are animals like any other.
Now, there are many 'genders', and those are social constructs. The point of gender is opression to people of particular sex, so it should be abolished. When we think of what a woman or girl is, we imagine things that are constructed as ways of oppression to people born as females (sex) - behavior, style and other things that are either learned during our lives or are bought and put on (think of drag queens). There is no such thing as 'feeling like woman' or 'the way woman thinks'. Gendersare just creations that are product ofsocieties with particular history and ideologiesand are mostly harmful. There are some attempts to construct new labels and to reclaim some terms, but this doesn't solve the problem, it just perpetuates it and leads to more discrimination and misunderstandings. That is simple reason why I am against the idea of adding gender categories here, even if it was possible. I just do not see why complicate these things, when they are simple like this.
So, in short: I think it is fine to ask people to provide answer to their sex and/or age if they want to, but not gender.
But providing sex seems even more meaningless, especially for someone who's gender does not align with their sex?
And I don't think sexuality should be reduced to just male, female, and intersex experiences. The female experience cannot be explained by simple things such as "cramps and pregancy" -- a plethora of things contribute to the experiences of females.
I think, if we decide to have anything like this,PGP makes a lot more sense -- what matters is what each individual member/listener would most prefer to be thought of as, not what they were born with (unlessthey themselves say/think it matters).
In our society, other things contribute to the experience of females, yes, but that's because our society is sexist and shoves people into narrow boxes based on their biological sex. Otherwise, cramps and pregnancy and that kind of thing are pretty much it (and there's certainly nothing meaningless about those experencies). I think the poster is right there's a risk of perpetuating the idea that the categories have to exist, if people don't understand that gender is a social construct.
But since it seems like it might be difficult to include sex or gender, agree with the idea that age ranges might be helpful. It's especially awkward when lookig for an adult listener, as the current age ranges are so wide.
I know personally I prefer women as my counselors, listeners, and even doctors. I would love this option and have always been sad that they didn't have it.
It seems to me like this could be a very helpful resource and as long as it was done respectfully and carefully, would hopefully not offend or exclude anyone.
I think a) leaving it optional and b) having a free-response option are both great ways to avoid exclusion, as well as a way for people to find listeners who might relate well to them if they fit into one of the categories outside the gender binary.
I also think having age as a range might make sense (e.g., 20-30, 30-40, etc.), just to avoid getting too specific, but also to make it easier to find a listener without having to narrow in your search so far (assuming this is searched, not just listed when browsing listeners)
Just my two cents - either way, I think it's a great idea!
I personally feel that this goes against exactly what 7COT stands for... The whole point is for us to offer an ear to listen to our members as well as for members to be able to speak to and be spoken back by the listener. Age and Gender matters very little when it comes to someone speaking from the heart and you being there for them. As a listener it is NOT our place to offer advice so this shouldn't be an issue either, that is what professionals are for.
Once again please understand that this is a personal opinion.
Furthermore, I feel that the profile system is adequate enough for one to make the additional changes themselves should they see fit. I have seen several profiles that state their gender and/or age. This is a personal preference thing, and should it ever be added I would hope it would be optional so as to give the listeners their much needed privacy (as the topics discussed sometimes can lead to attachment which can prove a very scary security risk for the listener or vice versa).
Again, nothing personal to anyone. :) I am merely sharing my own thoughts on this matter and my thoughts are of my own.
Best of luck to all of you!
I like you
