Pink vs. Blue

It seems that my previous entry not only saw a few of you taking pride in your mysterious powers but also one person taking exception. In fact, she emailed me on the issue. And since my response was invited, I now offer it.

Aside from her thoughts on women having a nebulous "6th sense", she addressed the issue of sex and gender with sex being an indication of which gonads a person has and gender being an aggregate set of behaviors associated with one of the sexes. She says:

"i believe that gender is socially constructed. society, in general, has decided what has been deemed masculine & feminine, and in turn, men and women have accepted this formula...i think that ideas of gender are generally restrictive. i see gender as just a way that you 'act.' it is all a performance, rather than a way of being. one is not born 'masculine' or 'feminine', one acts these things."

Personally, I disagree with this statement. As I maintained in the previous Conversation, humans are not born with blank slates that society casually fills in as it pleases. She continues:

"our society has driven into our heads that women are the nurturing sex. we are the caring sex. and also, the needy sex. but is there anything in our biology to actually prove this?"

There is an ever-increasing amount of data to show that, yes, this is the case. The ideas of masculinity and femininity are present in all human cultures. For instance, men are more aggressive, not just in the United States or the West, they are that way in all societies.

Such sex differences are also very prevalent in primates and mammals generally. The physical traits of men (ie - that they are usually bigger than women) and the diversity of mitochondrial DNA suggests that the "sterotypical" roles in mating are true: namely that men compete for women while women are highly selective in choosing mates.

The brains of men and women have physical differences. Men's brains are larger and have more neurons but women have more grey matter. I quote here: "The interstitial nuclei in the anterior hypothalamus, and a nucleus of the stria terminalis, also in the hypothalamus, are larger in men; they have been implicated in sexual behavior and aggressiveness." Increased levels of testosterone are linked to the drive for dominance.

A study followed 25 genetically male humans who were born with cloacal exstrosphy - without a penis. They were castrated and raised as girls yet they exhibited the behavior of boys. See also research on children afflicted with Turner's syndrome in which the person has only a single X chromosome.

And take rape, as an example. "Rapists are not representative of the male gender. They are overwhelmingly young men, the age of the most intense sexual competitiveness. The young males who allegedly have been 'socialized' to rape mysteriously lose that socialization as they get older."

My readers continues:

"so like i said, i think the gender split is restrictive. by saying there are 2 clear cut genders, it leads to a big gap between the sexes. cross-dressers & transvestites & transgenders break down those barriers."

I will admit ignorance here as I'm not really sure what she means by "restrictive" here. Having 2 arms instead of 4 is restrictive in certain ways but we have no problem accepting having only 2 of them. She then goes on to talk about transvestites:

":for instance-take the case of cross-dressers. cross-dressers are people who enjoy wearing clothes identified with the other gender. cross-dressers play the gender roles. a male who dresses like a woman, and moreover 'acts' feminine by acting a bit campy shows that gender is something that is played, is pretend. something that people act out."

It shows no such thing. When an actor plays a serial killer in a movie, do we point to it as proof that he is really a serial killer at heart but has been conditioned not to be that way?

Next comes hermaphroditism:

"personally, i think hermaphrodites shouldn't be given surgical procedures at all. because there is really nothing physically wrong with them. in one study i read, if hermaphrodites were accepted, we would actually have multiple sexes. there would be the man and the woman. then there would be varying degree of mixes. some hermaphrodites have more 'womanly biological parts', others more manly, others a 50/50. our world would be so much different if we were to accept hermaphrodites as they are...just think...what would happen to mens & womens toilets. where do hermaphrodites go? what about changing rooms? what do they do when they fill in the census and have to check male or female."

Now, I was under the impression that a) true hermaphroditism was very rare among humans and that b) they are mostly, if not all, sterile. So that needs to be sorted out.

The thing is, masculinity and femininity are not really set in stone - they're generalities. There are men who have feminine traits and vice versa. But so what? And so what if men are born into a masculine role and women into a feminine role? I don't understand what restrictions and barriers these roles create. That men are generally more aggressive doesn't condone rape, war, and violence. Nor does it mean that men cannot be good, compassionate individuals. Just because women may generally be more caring and nurturing does not mean that their place is in the home. Nor does it mean that all women are compassionate, caring individuals.

If you seek equality between the genders, then you seek a to have a certain moral view which says that you treat your fellow human being well, with respect and dignity. Equality is not that men and women are exactly alike excepting gonads. Besides, while there are differences in gender that arise from a person's sex, there are countless shared traits between men and women that arise by virtue of being human. We all have the same sets of emotions, we all love our children as well as making them, everyone has needs and sometimes go about fulfilling them in less than savory ways, etc. The emphasis should be on our commonalities while taking into consideration our differences.

A question: if gender roles were imposed by society and you could snap your fingers to change them, what would you make them into? Would society be populated by a bunch of homogenous, androgynous, unisex things?