Is a Genderless World Possible?
What does it truly mean to be a man, woman, or anything else?
Gender is a hotly debated topic that is difficult to breach without someone getting upset. The current precedent is that self-identifying as a particular gender is absolute, and we should accept the individual’s claim without question. In this article, I would like to question not the validity of one’s feelings, but what it actually means to identify as a specific gender.
In other words, what does it mean to identify as a woman? What does it mean to identify as a man? How do you define a man or a woman?
First, let’s clear up some terminology. Everyone is born male, female, or intersex (this might be expanded on, but we’ll go with this for now). Around 1.7% of people are intersex, which is roughly the same amount of people who have red hair — so uncommon, but definitely relevant. This is our biological sex, which is determined by a doctor’s judgement of our anatomy. Because it’s determined by just another person, there are reasonable assertions that sex may be a social construct too — but that’s a discussion for another time.
Gender refers to characteristics of people that are socially constructed, such as norms, behaviours, and roles (WHO). Being social constructs, they vary from culture to culture and may have wildly different norms from the Western concepts of men and women.
It’s difficult to find any consensus on which terms are correct to refer to sex and gender; for the purpose of this article, when I say male or female (or intersex) I am referring to biological sex. When I say man or woman I am referring to gender.
So what does it mean for me to identify as a man? I‘ve reflected on my gender for answers to no avail — I truly have no clue what it means to be a man. There is nothing I can put my finger on and say ‘Aha! This is what it feels like to be a man!’, I just feel like a person. Sure, I conform to some norms like playing video games and football, but this is insufficient to account for what it’s like to be a man. I like baking cakes and pretty flowers too, but that doesn’t make me a woman —just as a woman playing football doesn’t magically transform her into a man. Besides, gender concerns your personal feelings, not a checklist to see if you fall into a certain category determined by other people external to you. So the idea that gender is how well you conform to societal norms doesn’t hold up — anyone can wear a dress, or play football, without changing their gender.
When I asked some of my female friends what it means to be a woman, they highlighted experiences that they felt encapsulated the concept of a woman, and one of the first mentions was the burden of having periods. Although this may contribute a part of what it means to be a woman for them, as we’re interested in the gender of an individual (rather than their sex), this is quickly ruled out. Those who are transgender, for example, will identify as a man or woman without necessarily having the biological features (ovaries, facial hair, etc) of a male or female, so it seems gender can’t be tied to this standard.
The most defining characteristic for them, however, was vulnerability — avoiding going out when it was dark, avoiding men when alone, and generally being on high alert for danger. Of course, this is a deeply sad reality for many women and a serious problem in modern society, but it is still insufficient as a definition for a woman. Evidently, there seems to be much more to being a woman than being vulnerable, but even if we take it to be just a part of what it means to identify as a woman, it doesn’t make sense. Any person of any gender can feel vulnerable or feel like their vulnerability defines who they are. Those who are transgender, in ethnic minorities, gay, or elderly are also more vulnerable to abuse — but we wouldn’t want to include that in any definition of those identities. So yes, a woman’s experiences may be heavily shaped by one phenomenon such as vulnerability, but this isn’t necessarily because they are a woman. If it was because they were a woman, every single person that identified as a woman would feel similarly vulnerable, which isn’t the case.
Hang on, you might be thinking. Everyone’s experiences are different. Just because some women feel more vulnerable than others doesn’t mean they aren’t women — it just means that being a woman means different things for different people. Unfortunately, there is a problem with this solution too. If being a woman (or man) is different for everyone, the term loses its meaning completely. With no agreement on a definition, when one person says ‘woman’, they could be referring to something completely different to what you and I understand as a woman.
To illustrate, consider the term ‘pain’. We all know what pain means, and if someone says that they are in pain, we understand what concept they are referring to. But if we treated pain like gender, and let different people define it in different ways, the person in ‘pain’ could mean anything. Perhaps they mean ‘cold’ when they say they’re in pain, or ‘happy’, or ‘having an itch on their left elbow’. The reason we all understand each other when we say ‘pain’ is because we have an agreed definition of the term — without this, you cannot use the term to meaningfully communicate with anyone else.
Despite this, letting individuals define what it means to be a particular gender is the accepted precedent. But if this is the case, then there is no difference between being a man, a woman, or anything else. If being a woman to you means being strong, independant, supportive, sexy, vulnerable, and so on — these can be applied just as equally to someone else’s definition of being a man.
So again, I ask: what does it mean to identify as a certain gender?
At the moment, I have no answers. If it is true that identifying as a certain gender is meaningless, then it is redundant. The claim of being a man, woman, or anything else isn’t actually communicating anything — just say you are strong, scared, curious, or whatever other characteristic you mean instead. It seems gender could be removed from the equation completely, without any losses, and we could live in a genderless world. How radical of an idea this is, I’m unsure; perhaps there are already cultures where this is the reality?
I am genuinely interested in your thoughts and experiences on this — if you think I’m missing something, or can offer an answer to what it means to be a particular gender, I’d love to hear it!
If you’d like to read more about gender, philosophy lecturer Sophie Allen has an excellent article that covers further issues in more detail here.
James is an undergraduate passionate about social issues, climate change, and philosophy. He aims to have enough optimism to dream of a better future, while providing practical advice to help achieve it.
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