7 topics over 7 days: Gender

7 topics over the next 7 days.

I'm sharing my thoughts on 7 topics this week stemming from a conversation with some friends who say I'm too obtuse. So, I'll write a little something of my thoughts on these topics:

Government, Gender, Religion, Race, Marriage, Sex, and Culture

If you want to play along... Just reply to this status update or share it with your answers and then tag a few people whom you'd want to see it and hopefully share their thoughts

Day 2: Gender

Boys will be boys. Girls will be girls.

This little saying used to wrap up behavior we'd see that fit what we knew about how men and women behaved. Boys were brash, troublesome, adventurous and wild. Girls were more refined, helpful, cautious and domestic. That's all been ripped to threads. Things were nice and neat, and roles were simple. There was a pathway to becoming a man or a woman. It turns out however, like in most things, gender is a lot messier than we'd like to assume.

My understanding is that sex is a biological category with genes and their resultant effects defining males and females for the most part, and gender refers to the social script that the holders of these characteristics are meant to follow. This social construct is something that has seen shifts as the elements we face have changed. The man had the role of provision because that required greater physical strength which males have; women tended to care for the children and the home. Now that means more using your brains and ingenuity. This is also probably why certain profession are still predominantly done by men- railroad workers, steel workers, and the like. The social expectations followed the environment in which we arose. Now that things have changed, we face a shift in which being a man and being a woman is now something that can be defined by the individual and yet can be critiqued by society because society still feels there’s an order to certain things. This tension about “How things ought to be” and “What I want to be”

Yes, gender may be a social construct but there are biological differences too and the question is how far reaching are those? I mean a man hitting a woman is socially abhorred because men are physically more powerful than women. Acknowledging this biological difference does not make any one gender less than the other. Simply different. Sometimes I fear this is treated like a red headed step child and totally ignored. When John McEnroe was asked if Serena Williams is the best player in the world. He said best female player. The qualifier irked people. But he was stressing, if in an inelegant way that pitted against the best male players, she wouldn’t be as dominant. Is it sexist to think this when Serena herself has said pretty much the same? This I think is an extreme trigger-happy response to an honest factual opinion. We can treat each other equitably without ignoring key differences.

Gender fluidity

Many people feel the gender binary situation doesn’t capture how they truly feel and this leads to them being gender neutral, trigender, bigender etc. Others undergo the necessary surgeries to align their bodies with the gender roles typically assigned to be a man or a woman. I fully feel people should have the right to change their bodies and live out the life that they want. I do not however think that we must require people to accept this, but the bare minimum tolerate and not impede people from doing this. The issue comes with shared spaces. Say public bathrooms. If by my account, I am a woman in a man’s body, and want to go into the women’s bathroom, does my right to self-expression trump your right to feel safe and have some privacy? Is there any real harm in having men and women share bathrooms other than the current standards of decency? This is where the personal starts to invade the public and I think off hand dismissing the worries of parents and more conservative people as “unwoke” doesn’t help.

The same way a trans person will say there isn’t a simple binary set up of the world, the world isn’t just bigots and enlightened. Oppressors and the oppressed. No one is one thing at all times in all situations. Context matters.

I think broad generalizations are a hack for navigating through the world without using too much brain power but are a dangerous tool for making conclusions about people and their fears. Again, this is simply my opinion. I sssume the people who oppose the freedom for me to feel safe and express myself might have their own fears and discomforts that may be irrational but need to be dealt with wisely rather than bulldozed.

Men = Trash.

The very popular hashtag has been a rallying cry calling attention to the injustices suffered by women at the hands of men. It’s also been a lightning rod of controversy because by design, it will get a rise out of people. In response to many who retort with not all, “If you’re not trash then don’t mind” is given.

Premise 1: Men are trash.
Premise 2: Only men who are trash should feel offended
Conc: Not all men are trash?

This argument is internally flawed as the conclusion cannot follow from the premises. It appears to me is that for it to be sound, it should say “Some men can be trash”. This would clear up the meaning and bot allow a misandrist or someone who thinks that indeed all people that can be called man are in fact, trash. But that waters down the urgency advocates of the hashtag want to raise. So, what if men are made to feel uncomfortable? What matters is that attention must be drawn to the issues?

Again, curious for me is that if this were to be applied to the issues of race or religion, the response would not be to dismiss the concerns of the maligned. “Muslims are terrorists”. “If you’re not a terrorist don’t be offended”.
“Black people are criminals”.
Um Not all.
Don’t obscure the fact that black people commit crime at a higher rate than other races “

It’s likely that the same person may use the Men are trash hashtag but protest another similar sweeping generalization made concerning their race or religion.

As I said above, these generalizations are a life hack. A great way to move things along quickly. But a lot of the nuance and understanding of context and degrees that modern life has exposed us to will invariably be sacrificed at the alter of expediency. It seems to me that if it’s not you, it’s easier to dismiss these protestations as the dying cries of the oppressor. But you forget that you are throwing the entire gender under the bus. It appears to me that it lends itself then to extremism. As Mohammed Ali one put it.” “There are many white people who mean right and, in their hearts, wanna do right,” …. “If 10,000 snakes were coming down that aisle now, and I had a door that I could shut, and in that 10,000, 1,000 meant right, 1,000 rattlesnakes didn’t want to bite me, I knew they were good… Should I let all these rattlesnakes come down, hoping that that thousand get together and form a shield? Or should I just close the door and stay safe?”

This seems to make sense till you think about it. Shut the door? To conversation, to engagement? At what point, and number will it be worthwhile to let them come down? 9500 snakes? Would you enjoy this reasoning being applied to you? If you’re the proverbial snake, and assumed to be the worst because of an aspect of your identity you cannot readily change-your skin color, your gender, your nationality and grounded in some statistical fact …Do you accept this? Will you say this about yourself in a way to show contrition? These are all the questions I genuinely have for this hashtag.

I won’t use or subscribe to it because I see it has more danger than what it seeks to eradicate in the long term. My desire for equitable treatment of all people demands I don’t reduce the standards for any side.

Thanks for reading.

Tomorrow…Religion. It might take a twist you don’t expect 








Government I Gender I  Religion I Race I Marriage I Sex I Culture