The ‘Yin Yang ID’ Proposal
A proposed solution for a non-binary ‘gender equality’ system that encompasses marginalised LGBT people.
Initiatives like the United Nation’s 50-50 by 2030 are making great headway in furthering the cause to get women fairly represented in senior decision-making roles, but…
If we are to establish true equality, it is imperative that any system employed to achieve that aim encompasses the LGBTQ and other genderfluid communities. If it doesn’t, it’s simply shifting the error factor and exclusion that women currently face — to other marginalised communities.
That’s a bad thing.
Recently there was an article in the Guardian regarding the new Women’s Equality Party in the UK titled The Women’s Equality party has a problem — no one hates it. A founding member of the Women’s Equality Party, Alison Hackett, commented on it:
“Until women and men experience being governed by a fair balance of women and men debating and influencing the passage of laws and budgetary allocation in the United Kingdom, then nothing will change as most women and men will continue to accept (and believe in) the status quo.
The quickest and easiest way to 50–50% male-female representation in parliament would be to enact a law which states that there must always be a female and a male list of candidates with voting (by the electorate) applied to each separately. The top candidates on each list would be elected.”
That naturally raised further comments about how to cater for marginalised people:
“I am in favour of a 50–50 split, however where would the prescription end? For example, would there have to be a prescription for quotas on minority, gay and trans, comprehensive schooled, those brought up in care homes, age, etc etc? Although gender is a good place to start, I’m not sure simply campaigning on that quality alone is a comprehensive analysis on the democratic deficit, or on equal rights in general.” (julesv 23 Oct 2015 9:06)
“Omg this is like so binary… Binary gender: a traditional and outdated view of gender, limiting possibilities to “man” and “woman.” (Alfonso De Maria 23 Oct 2015 9:12)
Alfonso is absolutely right, and the problem of binary gender thinking is endemic throughout institutions across the world. Whilst many people are just waking up to the critical need for ‘gender equality’ — which of course is a fantastic development, we absolutely must find a fair, natural way of establishing an all inclusive gender equality system.
A colleague and like-minded feminist recently posed the question “What even is a man?”
An interesting question.
I had a friend named Andrew, a chef and a fun guy. I met him as he got involved in similar events as me and my network of friends, a community of people with ethics of being non-judgemental and welcoming to people. After Andrew settled into our community a few years ago, I noticed him start to feel more relaxed as he realised he wasn’t going to be judged and could be himself.
Strangely, he disappeared out of the group and I didn’t see him for a couple of years. Then he walked up to me one day as a woman called Jane. It took some getting used to but after I got over my own adjustment issues, I realised she was much more comfortable now, in fact, I realised that I didn’t think being ‘Andrew the man’ suited her back in the day.
If Jane were in an organisation or political party that had strong 50/50 guidelines, would she be fired when she became a ‘woman’? Or would the management delve into the murky, hurtful, unfair and libelous waters of saying that they consider her to still be a ‘man’?
So, the question is: At what point was Jane a man? Never, it seems.
This minefield that few seem to be addressing, can, I believe, be very simply neutralised by “comprehending and copying Nature” as the immensely aware Viktor Schauberger said many years ago.
Everything in Nature needs a complement to exist; you can’t have light without dark to compare to, you can’t have hot without cold. However, Nature doesn’t use ‘woman’ or ‘man’, or ‘female’ or ‘male’, Nature’s balance of energies in this respect are best represented by the ancient Chinese expression ‘Yin’ and ‘Yang’.
Yin can be described in many ways, but I like ‘shady side of a hill’: cooler, ‘feminine’ energy. Yang can be described as the ‘sunny side’: hot and ‘masculine’ energy. We all have a balance of Yin and Yang—I’d identify myself as about 75% Yang masculine energy and 25% Yin feminine energy. It seems clear to me (although I’ve not asked) that Jane would probably identify herself mostly with Yin energy, even when she was a ‘man’.
It’s that simple. Let’s do it Nature’s way. Allow people to identify themselves in non-binary Yin Yang energy terms. Just like we can identify ourselves with a political party, we can establish a system where the 50/50 system in organisations simply balances 50% of people who mostly identify with Yin energy and 50% Yang energy people — whatever their physical form or ‘gender’.
Although I’m delighted to be working for ‘gender equality’, I actually believe that we should balance the Yin Yang energies — particularly in organisations that make decisions regarding the governance of our planet — in the same ratio as Nature uses. Which is not 50/50. As my Phi Assembly website explains, Nature uses the balance of roughly 60/40 Yin and Yang energy in all thriving creative lifeforms.
Although somewhat binary, Rebecca Shambaugh — an internationally recognised leadership expert—succinctly sums up the complementary differences between Yin and Yang energies in human terms:
“Gender intelligence relates to the considerable differences in how men and women operate in the workplace — how they think, lead, communicate, act, react, problem solve, make decisions, negotiate and work together. Men tend to be more competitive, evidence based, results oriented and present focused. Women, on the other hand, tend to be more collaborative, intuitive, empathetic and future focused. Certainly, both men and women can and do possess the traits of both genders, but each gender is geared toward natural tendencies.”
Imagine — if using Nature’s 60/40 Yin Yang balance — how our planet and societies would be right now. It’s patently clear that mostly Yang thinking has got us into this mess, imagine a world where the attitude was tipped in favour of Yin, “collaborative, intuitive, empathetic and future focused”. What a wonderful world that would be.
50/50 is a great start, but it’s just the start.
