The first thing you must do is forget my Gender.
Second, you must never forget my Gender.
The first thing you must do is forget I’m a Woman. Second, you must never forget that I’m a Woman
Here in the West, we’re pretty good at the second. But when we think of Woman, what comes to mind?
And forgetting that the person in front of you is a woman? I’m still learning how.
Here’s the structure of enquiry:
- This enquiry starts with an look at the current state of “gender”.
- We’ll then explore both what it means to embrace gender and conversely how to let gender go completely.
- We’ll check how these approaches affect how we address current inequalities.
- With Mikey’s help we’ll explore energetic polarities and uniqueness.
- Then we’ll look at how to integrate both approaches to gender.
An overview of Gender
Sex refers to biological differences; chromosomes, hormonal profiles, internal and external sex organs. This is different to Sexual Behaviour, or Sexual intercourse, which is how we often use the word Sex. We really need another word.
Gender describes the characteristics that a society or culture delineates as masculine or feminine.
Gender is currently a part of our common language.
“What a cute little girl!”
“Oh, her presentation went really well”
“I’m getting in touch with my masculine”
Though we don’t often explicitly state them, there are sets of characteristics that we associate with the genders.
Here are the first results a child would find on Google:
Ok, so according to Google, the feminine gender gets:
- delicacy
- prettiness
- girlish (childish)
- something about snowdrops
And the masculine gender gets:
- virile
- strong
- powerful
- raw energy
Note: masculine gets “powerful”, while feminine gets ‘girlish’?
Note: nothing about “boyish” in the masculine one.
Gross.
So.
Is the current state of gender in our language problematic?
In politics, in business, in academia, in sport, in education…
For power to be associated with male and not female IS a problem.
For strength to be associated with male and not female IS a problem.
For childishness to be associated with female and not male IS a problem.
There are many more…
For logical intelligence to be associated with male and not female IS a problem.
…
So yes. I think the current state of gender in our language is problematic.
Let’s look at the two ideas Pat Parker gave us:
- “You must forget my gender” — Leting go of genders through non-gendered language, which alleviates the problem of having out-dated and destructive associations subconsciously tied to our common language
- “Never forget my gender”. There’s work to do here: let’s surface the characteristics that we all associate with the genders, and make sure they are better than the Google ones.
Let’s start with the second.
Option 2. “Never Forget My Gender” AND Getting Genders Right
There are infinite ways to split human characteristics by gender. Here’s a more beautiful split than Google’s dictionary.
Ok. Lovely.
But!
I live with a one-year-old child, who’s sex is female.
I call her “A wonderful little girl”
am I going to subconsciously engage with her as a surrendering, loving, patient, empathetic person? (the feminine traits)
Ok, lovely. I’ll probably strengthen those characteristics in her through our interaction.
but am I less likely to engage with her as a free, directional, confident, strong, stable, passionate person? (the masculine traits)
I notice that when I use gendered language this normally happens. Sometimes just a tiny bit. Sometimes a lot.
I want my little friend to grow into a wise adult who is powerful through her embodiment of all traits.
I also live with a one-year-old child who’s sex is male.
I don’t want gendered language to subconsciously prevent me from supporting him to develop and embody the important ‘feminine’ traits — loving, patient, empathetic…
I think that even the most beautiful gender-split of characteristics is limiting, because subconsciously we’ll constantly support and reinforce the characteristic set associated with the gender we use when we address people, and fail to support and nurture their development of the opposite gender characteristic set.
This is why we ALSO need to simultaneously let go of genders.
Let’s look at how.
Option 1— “You must forget my Gender”
Argh! You can’t let go of genders! It’s a real thing. You can’t deny reality!
Wait.
Let’s re-check the definitions.
Sex refers to biological differences; chromosomes, hormonal profiles, internal and external sex organs. This is different to Sexual Behaviour, or Sexual intercourse, which is how we often use the word Sex. We really need another word.
Gender describes the characteristics that a society or culture delineates as masculine or feminine.
In simpler language,
Gender is something made up by our society that uses the difference in sex to split the characteristics of humans into two sets, one set for each sex.
“Masculine” & “Male”, “Feminine” & “Female” — the roots are the same, and the words are so close that I don’t believe we can decouple (separate) Gender from Sex.
In 1926, Henry Watson Fowler stated that the definition of the word pertains to this grammar-related meaning:
“Gender…is a grammatical term only. To talk of persons…of the masculine or feminine g[ender], meaning of the male or female sex, is either a jocularity (permissible or not according to context) or a blunder.”[13]
To talk of gender, masculine or feminine is either a joke or a blunder.
Ok, so gender is shared imagining of our culture. It is as real as…“racial-segregation”. Another thing our culture has previously imagined together.
We made it up.
We can change it.
Biological Sex (distinct from Sexual Behaviour) is not an imagining. I have a penis. I’m not imagining it. There are real differences. Let’s keep sex as a useful thing to notice, but keep it as a tool, not an identity or centrepiece of our culture… We’ll need this still…
Ok but what about inequality?
Ok, but what about feminism? What about gender-inequality?
Does letting go of gender mean not addressing the current inequalities?
No!
This is really important. Maybe the most important part.
To address gender inequality, we need engagement from both sexes.
By letting go of gender, we let go of an artificial construct that separates “Men” and “Women”.
We can say
We’re all people.
We all want to be well, for other people to be well
We all want to not suffer, and for other people not to suffer
We all want to have the courage and resources to face the challenges in our lives, and for other people to have the courage and resources that they need to face their challenges.
We all want to be in our flow, our wisdom, our love and our power, and we want other people to be in their flow, their wisdom, their love and their power.
So let’s all look at what is going on together!
If we divide the world by biological sex, we see a spectrum of people with two large clumps at each end of the room. Overall, the people with vaginas and breasts aren’t being respected or paid as much as the people with penises.
Ok. so biological sex is a useful way of dividing people to gain insight into issues. Good tool. Lets keep it as a tool, not make a big cultural identity thing of it. Let’s keep it in the toolbox.
The people with vaginas say that the other people with vaginas respect them and pay them well, so seems like there is something to enquire into and address about how people with penises relate to people with vaginas.
We also notice that in the group of people with penises, there are some people who say they are not being respected by some people with vaginas. Ok. So there’s something to enquire into about how some people with vaginas relate to people with penises.
These enquiries might be pretty challenging — they might ask us to face some pretty uncomfortable things within ourselves.
The #MeToo movement has highlighted the huge scale of violations of respect of people with vaginas by people with penises.
Our culture previously normalised a lot of sexual abuse. A lot of people have deeply disrespected, and been deeply disrespected.
All people — whether vagina’d, penis’d, with both, neither, or something different— will need the qualities of both the yin & the yang in this enquiry.
And we’ll have to support and be gentle with each other in these enquiries — there are unknown and challenging things we’ll have to face. Sexual abuse. Sharing of power. Gifting of power — I think we’ll need affirmative action here. Our pasts. Changes in how we relate to ourselves. Changes in how we relate to each other.
Let’s not face these challenging enquiries as Women facing Men.
Let’s face these challenging enquiries together, as people embodying both the Yin & the Yang, together facing a future of possibility.
This sounds like a good idea now. But how can I practically let go of gender?
We can let it go with language!
We can simply stop saying “Masculine” and “Feminine”.
We can stop saying “gender”.
If we find the split of human characteristics into two sets helpful, you can refer to them with the non-gendered yin & yang language:
When we’re talking about or to people, we can use
- Their names
If we don’t know their names, or if that’s not in flow, we might need some new pronouns. I don’t know if these will catch on, but I’m about to start trying them:
- she/he → ze
- her/him → zir
- hers/his → zirs
- woman/men/non-binary → people
Because how often is a person’s gender relevant to what you’re saying?
I met this amazing woman, she really brings out the best in everyone around her
I met this amazing person, they really bring out the best in everyone around them (slightly less intimate)
I met this amazing person, ze really brings out the best in everyone around zir (same intimacy as first)
We can refer to qualities/values/characteristics directly. Rather than referring to a huge ambiguious set, like saying
I think we need more “feminine” in politics
we might say
I think we need more sharing, empathy & receptivity in politics
The specificity may take more mental effort, but can also be clarifying and lead to better dialogue.
Practicing naming the values/qualities/characteristics can also help us grow a shared language, which will be a useful foundation and tool we can bring to dialogue and debate about things like biological-sex inequality and climate change.
Energetic Polarity, Uniqueness and Enquiry
Energetic polarity
Mikey reminded me that:
a valuable role of Masculine/Feminine and Yin/Yang is to help people embrace polarities that create energetic tension
The most obvious value of this is in sexual relationship — having polarities and tensions can create a lot of sexual energy. You’ll notice that even in homosexual relationships there is often a natural and delightful attraction to polarity — butch and femme, top and bottom.
Adaptive and healthy polarity is a source of good energy and creativity outside the bedroom as well — in friendships and working relationships.
Uniqueness and Enquiry
Mikey also suggested the idea of a polarity quality set as a “topological map” of a person.
It’s not totally accurate, but is helpful for navigating and exploring.
The thing is that every person is a unique landscape.
So any set of values is only a starting place to enquire into your own unique landscape.
It could be valuable to develop your own topological map of your unique polarity quality sets.
I can’t believe we used to do that…
In 50 years, what will we look back at and say:
‘I can’t believe we used to do that!’
?
What things were happening 50 years ago that we can’t believe were happening?
Martin Luther King was assassinated 50 years ago. He said:
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
What is your dream for gender in 50 years?
I wonder if in 50 years people will look back on this time and say:
“Wow, I can’t believe people used to be judged and defined by gender, it was so restrictive and harmful!
Can you believe that people with penises and one particular ‘masculine’ quality set dominated leadership? No wonder they couldn’t solve climate change or inequality!
I guess it makes me appreciate that everyone is now encouraged to engage and create in their unique way. That we get to live with the joy and energy of both polarity and unity.
To think that people could only see half a duality at a time. That must have been awful.”
The first thing you must do is forget my Gender. Second, you must never forget my Gender.
Forget. Don’t forget.
Forget. Don’t forget.
Know each.
And hold the two
Together.
This is my challenge.
