What does it mean to be a woman? What does it mean to be a man? Do we have to be one or the other? Is femininity limited to women and masculinity limited to men? The sexes is probably the single most important dichotomy that the average human considers. Every encounter is painted by our idea of sex and gender and when someone doesn’t fit into a typical role it can become a sticking point. Notice when you encounter someone, the first thing that registers in your mind is their sex. Sex refers to physiological characteristics while gender is a myriad of character traits, behaviors, and social roles that fall on a spectrum between masculine and feminine. In our western culture, people think that sex implies gender and vice versa. This myth is unraveling every day especially as the dawn of the internet sheds more light upon the human perspective.
Our interactions with each other are predicated upon sex and gender. We have been indoctrinated into this dynamic and so we aren’t aware of it. Not only does another person’s sex or gender affect the way we interact with them, but also our own identifications with our sex and or gender. These sometimes subtle interactions include behavior changes, emotional sensitivity, and heightened awareness. For most people, these changes occur without them even knowing. Only when we become aware of our behavior can we start the work of understanding.
In western culture, there is far too much emphasis on male and female. It begins even before a baby is born. The sex of the baby determines the color of the nursery and what clothes are purchased. There are “gender reveal parties.” This illustrates my point entirely. People are celebrating the revelation of their baby’s sex and they are calling it gender. I’m all for celebrating in the joy of an impending birth, but all too often this is secondary to the knowledge of a child’s sex. Parents are making plans and projecting expectations in relation to whether it’s a boy or a girl.
Women used to be considered the fairer sex. It was thought that women couldn’t take care of themselves and that they needed a man to protect them and manage their affairs. In some cultures today, women are still treated as property and they are considered the source of a man’s uncontrollable sexual desire. These beliefs influenced the way men treated women and even the way women interacted with one another. Even though great strides have been taken away from these myopic ideas, their effects are still echoing through our culture today. In spite of that, women are increasingly being seen as men’s equal. Masculine acts once considered natural such as holding the door for a woman, pulling out her chair, and standing up from the table when she also stands up are falling by the way. While physical beauty remains to be the hallmark of femininity, women are showing that they will not be constrained by such narrow views.
Men aren’t the only perpetrators here. Women have done their share to place men in a box. Men have been the ones tasked with going to war. Only until recently have women been afforded the opportunity to show their courage on the battlefield. Men have dominated leadership roles in the workforce and continue to do so. What most likely began as a masculine instinct to provide has recently begun to acquiesce in favor of a feminine approach to the labor pool. It is thought by some that men aren’t capable of constructive expression of their feelings and so fall prey to the masculine burden of bearing them silently. Not so long ago, it was thought that women should be the ones to fulfill the feminine role of caring for and nurturing the household and family. Today, men are filling these shoes quite well. The interactions between men and women and the idea of femininity and masculinity are complex and extremely nuanced. They are a product of human evolution just as politics and law. The goal is not to condone nor condemn sexist ideology and behavior, but merely point it out so that we can become more conscious.
Those people whose sex does not align with their gender might consider themselves transgender. Many transgender people go out of their way to portray a gender role that is normally ascribed to the opposite of their given sex. For example: a trans woman is a genetically born male who identifies as female. In many cases, she will take on the gender role of hyper-femininity as a means of getting as far as she can from her assigned masculine role because of her male sex. She may gravitate towards feminine color palettes, wear sexy dresses, play coy, and dote on men. These are her ideas of femininity which of course she learned from societal indoctrination. Once we transcend femininity and masculinity we will be free to just be, without trying to fit into a category. These distinctions and labels can be quite muddled because human beings are complex and the factors at play are infinite. This the trouble with categorizing and attempting to confine anything within a definition.
The rise of transgender and genderqueer culture is an expression of the human collective that desires to break free from the dichotomy that has been in place for so long. Do not misunderstand me. Transgender, genderqueer, and the likes have been a feature of humanity since its dawn, but only until recently has it become more accepted. This acceptance has ushered in a blossoming or perhaps a celebration from the constrictive ways of thinking in the past. Thinking outside the typical gender box is really an example of creative expression. All of life is creativity being realized. As humans we are also fulfilling that role. The only rules that exist are the ones we confine ourselves to.
Male and female sex organs came about for the purpose of procreation. Looking towards the future, they offer no clear advantage from an evolutionary perspective especially as we move from a species struggling for survival to one that is creating its own destiny. The human species is already exploring alternatives to the act of sexual intercourse. Lets face it, its inefficient and susceptible to natural deviations. The pleasure aspect from sexual intercourse can and will be transcended. Certainly in the beginning, just as all life has certain needs to proliferate, humans relied on primitive drives such as pleasure. The process of evolution is essentially changes to the way an organism and its reality interact with one another. When something is no longer necessary for life, it ceases to be.
I believe that the future holds a being of no sex or gender. These labels are merely a categorization or even a limitation of the human being. Of course, this is millennia from now and its merely a conceptual expression of how I see the evolution of human life. There will no longer be a need for different sexes. I realize this may be hard to envision, but its no different than the appendix or molar teeth. Because the dichotomies of masculine and feminine or man and woman have existed for so long it could be difficult to imagine a reality without them. Not so long ago the scientific-minded community thought the earth was flat or that the sun moved in relation to the earth and they believed that bloodletting someone could cure them of disease. For people then, these things weren’t questioned only accepted. Just as Pythagoras, Nicolaus Copernicus, and John Hughes Bennett defied the norm, there are those of us who question sex and gender.