Hey guys.
@shayne here with a super light and uncontroversial topic :D
Gender
I know that gender can be a very touchy subject, but that doesn't mean we should avoid talking about it.
In this post I'm going to share my thoughts about gender as they are at this point in time, and I would appreciate your considerate response and your own thoughts in the comments below.
More than Biology
Right here, I believe, is where the greatest fault line in perspective understanding comes from: some people think of gender as biological, and others think of it as cultural roles.
The reality is, it's both
In fact, gender isn't just both, it's more than just biology and cultural roles.
"Gender" is a linguistic tool used to distinguish inherently different but essential parts which are intended to create a complete process or system when combined.
Mechanical Gender
Perhaps the best way that we can begin to understand human gender is to understand mechanical gender. Yes, mechanical engineering uses gender to distinguish parts that are intended to create a complete system when combined.
In electrical and mechanical trades and manufacturing, each half of a pair of mating connectors or fasteners is conventionally assigned the designation male or female. The "female" connector is generally a receptacle that receives and holds the "male" connector.
This is actually quite simple to understand, and using the understanding of mechanical gender, we can better understand what we are talking about as it applies to humans.
An example of a mechanical gender pare is a female nut which is threaded into a male bolt.
The identification of mechanical gender is actually quite intuitive. For example, an HDMI plug is clearly male, and an electrical power outlet is clearly female, and we understand why.
But don't start thinking that there are only male and female genders in mechanical engineering. No -- remember, gender is only the linguistic tool used to identify the parts which complete the system. These parts can have BOTH a male and female nature, such as knuckle couples, which are actually described as hermaphroditic because both halves of the pair include both the female receptacle and the male connector.
Hermaphrodite
Metaphysical Gender
This is another area where we can better understand what we mean by gender.
Everyone is familiar with the yin and yang of Chinese philosophy.
This is a way of dichotomizing our understanding of the sympathetic processes of the nature of reality.
It is important not to look at these metaphysical qualities of gender with a moral sense. But rather, in the sense of an energetic addition or subtraction.
Male is "light" because light is an additional quality, whereas "darkness" is female because it is the absence of light, a reductive quality.
In essence, the "female" represents a void, while the "male" represents the filling of a void.
This can seem... crude. But if we are being honest with the dualistic nature of reality -- this really is the way reality works, metaphysically.
Check this link to learn more:
At the top I mentioned about how the major culturally misunderstanding about gender today is about weather it is biological or social roles. And, as I also mentioned, it is both.
So let's go over each of these individually.
Biological Gender
This is less about body organs and more about chromosomes.
"Biological gender" can also be called "sex". and the fact is that there is no existing medical procedure that can truly switch an individual human's sexual gender. The transformation of sex organs is a cosmetic procedure similar to facial reconstruction, and does not affect the biological sex of the individual.
The reason I know this is because humans are not the only organisms with male and female sex, and not all of these organism have the same sexual organs.
Plants, for instance, reproduce sexually and have male and female genders, but they do not have penises or wombs. We determine the sex of these organism by the chromosomes they have, not by the way in which they express their gender.
Some species have natural process of sexual transformation, called sequential hermaphroditism. Humans are not one of these species. Our biological gender is not malleable.
Gender Roles
This is the part of gender that is malleable, and extremely so.
Gender roles in human societies are highly fluid and vary greatly between cultures, within cultures, and over time.
What is considered a "masculine" or "feminine" role can in some cases be diametric between cultures.
There is a story of when the Europeans first came to American. The local natives saw that the White men were chopping down trees and gathering wood, and the men laughed, because in their culture the women were the ones who gathered the wood, and in their eyes these European men were behaving like women.
Were the European men really "behaving like women"? Well -- yes: to the native couture, they were. In the same way that most modern Western cultures consider it taboo to send women into infantry positions in war, the native people understood that men do not gather firewood.
In this highly culturally insensitive clip from Peter Pan, we can see this when the "Red" woman approaches Wendy while she's dancing and says
"Squaw no dance! Squaw get'um firewood!"
This is just a simple fictional example of how gender roles can differ substantially between cultures. In no way am I claiming that Disney movies are an accurate representation of American Native culture lol.
Gender Transition
Is gender transition possible?
Genetically, not as of yet. Culturally, it depends on the culture.
In a liberal society where the population is generally open to the notion of fluidity of gender roles, such as we have in most modern Western countries today, gender transition is possible. Some cultures, for example in the Muslim world, are not open to this possibly in the slightest. Some cultures do not strongly attach biological gender to gender roles, and others see no difference.
While still a contentious issue in even the most liberal of Western cultures, people can still be openly transgender without repercussions. What I mean to say is that people have a right to express their gender identity safely, and if anyone violates that right they can be held legally accountable. Anti transgender "hate crimes" are forbidden by law.
However, in some countries, it is actually against the law to be transgender.
Gender Categories
There are many different ways to identify categories of gender. However, I think it's a bad idea to extend gender roles to behaviors or criteria that is not related to biological gender.
In other words: one can assume the role of male, female, both, or neither.
When you find these Tumblr gender identities -- you know, the 150 genders or whatever -- that's just the product of people who do not know where to place their intellectual talents and have created an identity field to flex their mental muscles.
This, for example, is not a gender:
I can emotionally understand the concept of kind of feeling like vapor, but that's not a freaking "gender". Like, I'm a little tired right now, that doesn't suddenly make me "want-a-nap-ogender". It just means I'm tired.
Not every feeling is a gender. We can't just go around acting like that's a real thing because its a linguistic cancer.
What do you think?
This is an issue where people have a broad range of opinions and views.
I want to open a dialog about this, but I ask people to please be respectful.