Gendered Activities, gender difference, gender exclusion
Dr. Michael Sosteric | Dec 06, 2012 | Comments 14
We all see the world through eyes colored by the psychological imposition of gender. Girls are girls and boys are boys and never the twain shall meet. We think what we see is natural reality, but is it really? Sociologists would argue, not so. In truth, gender is less about physical reality and more about social control, the status quo, and power. At birth we are put in little gender boxes and these boxes limit us, and control us. Something to think about in the pink and blue world of modern life.
As sociologists, one of our (my wife and I) biggest pet peaves is gendered activities. These are activities where an individual is excluded from participation based on a superficial external sexual characteristic. You know the drill right? Only boys allowed! Only girls allowed. You can’t come in because you have a vagina. You aren’t allowed because you got a penis. It is exclusion and sorting based on sex and gender and to be honest and frank, as two counselors and social scientists working on healing the damage done by patriarchy, and trying to create a saner and just world, it’s a real annoyance.
Why?
Well, because gender based exclusion, one sex only activity, is quite literally the root of all female (and male) oppression in this world. We’ll stop short of saying it is the root of all evil because as we all know, the root of all evil is love of money. But it is definitely the root of all gender based oppression.
[ad#article]Now we know that’s a pretty bold statement, but bare with us for a moment. We all know that women are not treated equally in this world right? That’s the reality! Women perform 60% of work world wide, they earn 10% of income, and own 10% of the land (Eitzen and Baca-Zinn, 2003:243). Women are segregated into pink collar occupations, enjoy less financial stability, lower rates of pay, and are generally expected to sacrifice their career paths to raise the family while their men get ahead. Women are generally left at home to raise the children (an incredibly difficult and demanding job) with minimal help from their spouses and ironically, this is true even in relationships where the male and female are overtly egalitarian. You can go into a marriage with very high ideals but when the babies come, traditional scripts tend to come into play and it is the women who are the ones who bear the primary responsibility. Of course, take five or six or ten years off your career path to raise children and what do you get? Less raises and fewer promotions! It is a sacrifice that we have to make when we raise children, but it’s almost always the woman who makes that sacrifice. Ironically, this sacrifice can come back and slap ya in the face when the kids grow up, the marriage breaks up, and the female who made the career sacrifice is left with nothing but the pink collar ghetto. As a result of the “sacrifices” they make, women experience higher rates of depression, poverty, and social stigma. And not only that, women and girls are victims of spousal abuse and sexual violence far more often than men. Globally, around the world, women are oppressed and there is no denying that. If you were born female, you are born with a social and economic handicap that is going to make your life a lot harder than it needs to be if genders were treated equally.
And why is this?
Well, there are a lot of reasons why it happens but if you ask us it all comes down to the fact that we (and by “we” we mean the people of this earth) have convinced ourselves that boys and girls are significantly different on an emotional, intellectual, even spiritual bases. Boys are like this, girls are like that. Boys play with trains, girls play with dolls. Boys are the breadwinners, girls are the nurturers. Boys are stronger, girls are weaker. If you think about it long enough you’ll probably come up with a hundred oppositional differences between boys and girls.
And how is this related to gender oppression?
Well think about it for a moment. When you believe that there are significant differences between boys and girls, men and women, you have a ready made JUSTIFICATION for just about any gender based inequality, exclusion, or oppression that you might want to think of.
Why do women (why should they) stay home and look after the babies?
Because girls are different!
They are the ones who nurture.
Why can’t girls be doctors?
Because boys are different!
They are smarter and more capable.
Why don’t men participate more in cooking?
Because men are different.
They like mechanical things while girls like to bake.
Why don’t women get paid as much as men?
Because they are different.
They aren’t as motivated or committed as men are.
Why don’t women get promoted as fast?
Because they are different.
Why can’t women be priests in the catholic church?
Because they are different.
You get the picture?
In order to justify and support gender inequality and oppression all you have to do is invoke gender difference. It is that way because boys are girls are different.
Of course at this point some of you will be thinking, well the genders are different. Boys will be boys and girls will be girls. Girls are emotional, irrational, weak. Boys are tough, strong, achievers. Girls like dolls, boys like cars (though tell that to Danica Patrick). Girls are like this, boys are like that. Honestly though, all that’s a load of pseudo-scientific horseshit. There’s really no “scientific” basis to suggest that boys are all that much different than girls. For one, the scientific academy has a huge gender bias that makes any scientific defense of gender differences useless and indefensible. And you can’t argue this. When I did my psychology undergraduate degree twenty years ago, we knew there was a bad gender bias in psychology and psychologists knew they had to do something about it. Sad thing is, they didn’t! In fact after twenty or thirty years of awareness, the gender bias is still there. As much as they may not like to hear it, psychologist are still referencing reality on the basis of their gender perceptions and worse still, they are justifying their bias. In the article linked above the psychologist actually defends scientific methodology suggesting that when it comes to identifying gender bias, science works. But clearly it does not. If scientific methodology has been unable to make much progress against gender bias in research over the last thirty years, if gender bias still exists, how can anybody make a claim that science works or can provide us with valid knowledge about gender. The conclusions are methodologically straight forward. If there is a systematic bias in the research on gender, the research on gender is not valid. And if after thirty years the bias is still there, then it may certainly be fair to suggest that there is something fundamentally wrong with the way we approach gender in science. Certainly it is more reasonable to suggest that than to say, despite the presence of bias, “it’s working.”
A second reason that you can’t really believe science when it comes to gender is the bell curve, or rather our misuse of the bell curve. As you all know, the bell curve is a graphed distribution of “characteristics.” You can put anything you want on a bell curve from height and weight to IQ to hair color. When you do that, or rather when you put the sampling means on a graph, you often get what a statistician calls a “normal” distribution. This normal distribution shows the purported distribution of characteristics in a population.
Now, there’s a lot of problems when it comes to using the normal distribution to describe human characteristics but putting those aside for now, what we notice when we graph male and female characteristics on a bell curve is not difference but similarity. You can look at the example graph in this article showing the height and weight of humans differentiated by gender and ask yourself, what do you see. Do you see the little bit of difference in the tails of the distribution, bend to the statistical indoctrination, and tell yourself the difference is highly significant, or do you look at the amazing overlap? In my view, when you consider the height and weight of male and female what is most striking are the similarities. That is, we are more alike than we are different. Yet if you were a psychologist, or a pop culture pundit, or a chauvinistic male, you might highlight the difference (perhaps because talking about difference makes it look like you’ve actually discovered something) without ever commenting on the similarity. It is a bit odd when you think about it. While it is true there may be difference in the extremes in abilities, sometimes, really what is so remarkable about the genders is their similarities. The truth is, male or female, we all have two arms, two legs, two eyes, an identical looking brain, an intellect, emotions, feelings, and all the things that make us human. We would argue that it is not our differences that are important (though admittedly they can be a lot of fun), it is our similarities and these similarities far outweigh any superficial sexual characteristics that might differentiate us.
Of course, the pseudo-scientific clap trap about gender differences, or the fact that we all chose to focus on difference rather than similarity, isn’t the main point here. The main point is that once you do that, once you allow for the idea that men and women are significantly different (even though it’s their similarities that are arguably more remarkable) then you have created the necessary ideological support (i.e. the rationalization and justification) for gender oppression on this planet. You buy into that dichotomy, you become the oppressor (even if you are the sex being oppressed). It really is as simple as that.
And what does this have to do with gendered activity? Well, gendered activity is the prototypical gender oppression. It is the prototypical exclusion upon which all other exclusions are based. Of course, I understand you might have a hard time swallowing this. I mean, what does a girl’s only baby shower, or a boy’s only hockey club, have to do with the suppression of women on this planet? Well, everything because once you polarize the genders, once you create a distinction, once you allow exclusion and sorting based on difference, then it becomes possible to rank, and sort, and organize and deny and exclude along any other indices you can care to think about. If you say, only girls can play or only boys can play then by default you give legitimacy to the mythology of gender difference. And if you give legitimacy to the myth of gender difference, then you have provided support for the reality of gender oppression. Of course, you may not like to hear this. You may be sitting comfortably in a life organized around gender based activities, but that doesn’t change the fact that if that is your life, then you are supporting the gender based oppression of women on this planet, even if you don’t want to. It is exactly like the feminists say, the personal is political.
So what are you going to do about it? Well, if you are a male and you have a wife, or a sister, or a mother, or a daughter, and you are interested in seeing them treated equally in this world, then you have to stop thinking about gender differences, stop supporting gendered activities, and start working towards gender inclusion. If you do anything else you are a part of the problem, and a component of the oppression. If you need help, take a page out of this grade school lesson book on peer exclusion and just say no (http://www.tolerance.org/activity/peer-exclusion)
Problem: Sometimes a group of children won’t let another kid play with them just because of their gender. Gender is whether you are a boy or a girl. Sometimes boys will say that a girl can’t play with them. Sometimes girls will say that boys can’t play with them.
Rationale: This isn’t nice. It is wrong to exclude someone just because they are a boy or a girl, or because of their gender. Not letting someone play with you just because of their gender is called bullying, and bullying is not allowed…
If you are a female and you don’t like the social, political, economic and (even) spiritual inequality that becomes possible when we allow gender difference and gender exclusion, if you don’t like the idea of maybe one day finding yourself on the wrong end of a glass ceiling, submerged in a pink collar ghetto, or crying as your husband of twenty years, whom you sacrificed your entire life and career for, leaves you to go hang with a younger female because “that’s what men do,” then take a page out of the same grade school lesson book on peer exclusion and just say no. You can’t say “you can’t play just because you’re a boy.”
[ad#article]And just to be clear, just because you are female doesn’t give you free pass. You don’t get to engage gender inclusions and then complain about the sorry state of this world, or your life, or your daughter’s awful marriage to that “typical male,” down the road. The personal is political and change starts with you.
Oh an incidentally, everything we’ve said here about gender difference and exclusion applies equally well to ageism, racism, or any of the other exclusions, based on difference, that make the inequality of this world go around. As long as we keep thinking of ourselves as different and not as a unified human race, as long as we hang onto our “we and they” mentality (however we choose to spin that), we create the wedge that allows the inequality that causes the suffering that ruins the lives of the vast majority of people on this earth.
References
Eitzen, D. Stanley and Maxine Baca-Zinn. 2003 Social Problems. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
Additional Reading
http://www.delmar.edu/socsci/rlong/problems/chap-09.htm
http://www.tolerance.org/activity/peer-exclusion
http://personalispolitical.tripod.com/
Filed Under: Classroom Controversy • Featured Articles • Gender • Michael Sosteric
About the Author: I'm a professor of sociology at Athabasca University with interests in the transformation of scholarly communication, spirituality and sociology, inequality, gender, ethnicity, and social problems. I was the founding editor of the Electronic Journal of Sociology but realized the limitations of scholarly journals a couple of years ago. The Socjourn is a recent attempt to leverage the "sociology.org" domain to provide an alternative window into the world of sociology that does not depend on the staid and stuffy world of traditional scholarly journals.
What to know about the nature of money, the value of money, and money's role in our modern economies of exchange, then download The Rocket Scientists' Guide to Money and the Economy and let the truth set you free. [download]
Statistics for the rest of us. Afraid of math? Not sure how you're going to get your social statistics credit without permanent damage to your mental health? Consider Sociology 301: Social Statistics from Athabasca University. This course is designed for you, as a grounded and thorough introduction to social statistics. Learn everything you need to know in a sophisticated, well designed, and gentle package. Credit in Sociology 301 is fully transferable.
Thank you for an insightful, well written article that expresses some thought provoking ideas in easy to grasp language. I am thrilled to explore more of the available works on this site.
you are an amazing and wonderful individual.
Agree with much of what is expressed in this article. Of course girls can be doctors, and they are! Boys are nurses . I agree that there are not true spiritual, emotional or intellectual differences between the genders.
But I do not agree with your basic premise, ” gender based exclusion, one sex only activity, is quite literally the root of all female (and male) oppression in this world” a group may gather to explore female sexuality for example, and that would be a good reason to exclude men.
My thinking is that the root of all oppression is the dominator culture that prevails in our society. Where rigid dominator hierarchies are considered normal and God ordained. Where the male is believed to be the spiritual leader and head of household , and the female is subservient. Dominator cultures condition boys to idealize violence, and competition, and girls to be passive and submissive. Conquest of others and dominion over Nature are conditioned mindsets in our prevailing societies. Where strength is believed to be domination.
Riane Eisler is a social scientist who has worked on these issues for decades. She has written volumes, and is actively engaged in changing our future by teaching others to shift our relations from Domination to Partnership.
http://www.partnershipway.org/core-pathways/abcs-of-dominator-and-partnership-relations/copy_of_partnership-relationships
But I do not agree with your basic premise, ” gender based exclusion, one sex only activity, is quite literally the root of all female (and male) oppression in this world” a group may gather to explore female sexuality for example, and that would be a good reason to exclude men
Why is that a good reason to exclude men? Is there something about your sexuality that men won’t understand? Are you just to embarrassed to talk about it in front of men? Or are the men in your life dismissive and unconcerned about the sexuality of their partners so you have to deal with it outside of the relationship, out of context, and with people you presumably don’t have sex with.
Gina I just don’t see it. Why would my wife want to explore her sexuality with a bunch of women, and not me? Wouldn’t “partners” in a healthy relationship explore their sexuality together? And if they aren’t doing that, can the relationship be considered healthy? Why wouldn’t a caring partner want to know about the female menstrual cycle and its impact? How exactly does cutting men off from these critical aspects of female experience make any sense at all?
Dominator cultures condition boys to idealize violence, and competition, and girls to be passive and submissive
Women are not exactly “without sin” you know. One of the biggest problems I see in counseling relationships is the emotional and psychological violence of women, directed at their partners. It is not a small problem. Men can take a lot of emotional shit and abuse from their partners and the really oppressive thing about it is that they aren’t supposed to be hurt by it because if they are, they are being “pussies.” They are supposed to put up and shut up.
The problem with your thinking it that it is one sided. You are only seeing one half of the oppressive equation. Female as victim of male domination, but in reality females participate in creation and re-creation of The System just like men do. They participate in the oppression and energetic suppression, just like men do. In fact, as I argue in the article “Feminism Sucks” they are actually linchpins in the process. If it wasn’t for the (unpaid) contribution of women as they socialize the next generation, The System wouldn’t exist. Women impose The System, women are the ones who socialize the children (mom’s, daycare workers, teachers) so if men are violent and competitive, the buck stops at the female’s door. Of course, men participate to. We are all “with sin” in that regard. The point isn’t to single out and point the finger, the point is to simply say women aren’t innocent victims, they are active participators. They create and re-create The System just like men do.
“Why wouldn’t a caring partner want to know about the female menstrual cycle and its impact? How exactly does cutting men off from these critical aspects of female experience make any sense at all?”
Absolutely, caring partners do want to know and are safe to share and explore. Hence the Partnership way. I don’t think that just because a woman gathers with other women means necessarily that that are cutting off their partners. I think that is an erroneous assumption. And, yes some women may be uncomfortable and embarassed about their sexuality, and want to get to to know themselves more before sharing with a partner. Not everyone has a partner.
“The problem with your thinking it that it is one sided”
Really its not, that is an assumption you made. Every male is female and every female is male. The masculine energy in women also is guilty of domination, competition and conquest. And recreates the system as you said. I call it my inner patriarchy, and yes I was conditioned to believe it. But it doesn’t have to be that way, if we move forward recognizing the forces within ourselves , then we act to promote a better way of being. Even arguing and debating is a form of competition because someone is wrong and someone else wins. What I am am suggesting is that the root cause of oppression is dominator consciousness and all that goes with that, and there is a better way, partnership. Parnership in our relationships in our home, our work, with other nations. Partnership on on all levels. Where collaboration and co-creation happen. Where people work together for the common good of all beings.
I don’t think that just because a woman gathers with other women means necessarily that that are cutting off their partners.
They are if they exclude them and say “you can’t come.” How is this any different than what the Freemasons do? They put up a wall and say “women can’t enter” and then huff and puff with an endless stream of justification, but really it is just about exclusion, privilege, and power. Power on this earth revolves around gender based exclusion and suppression of both men and women. Gender based exclusion is central to the operation of The System. Keep justifying it in this manner and you continue to provide support for The System. Justify it in this manner and you are part of the problem.
Really its not, that is an assumption you made. Every male is female and every female is male. The masculine energy in women also is guilty of domination, competition and conquest. And recreates the system as you said. I call it my inner patriarchy,
You’re INNER PATRIARCHY? How one sided is that? The evil in you is male based patriarchy? The problem on this earth is the DOMINATOR CONSCIOUSNESS of patriarchy?? It is the “masculine energy” in you that is “guilty” of domination???? Come on! This all seems pretty one sided to me. Not only are sexualizing a certain type of energy (yang), but you are blaming that sexualized energy as “male energy” for all the problems of this earth. Huh. That pesky, evil, “masculine” energy eh. If we could just crush that pesky, evil, masculine energy out of existence than maybe everything would be OK.
Let’s make this one sided the other way, Gina. Actually the problem isn’t the “male energy,” is is your “female” energy. The problem is your INNER MATRIARCHY, with all its gossipy, female centered, passive aggressive, manipulative ways. Your inner female is what is “evil” about you, and the world. It is causing you to justify exclusion, and to create centers of female power that exclude men. If you would just crush that weak, manipulative, evil female energy down, rationality would blossom and the world would be good again. Oh wait, that can’t be right because that vilifies the female, and “female” energies, and we know we can’t do that because the “female” energies are all good, and are never responsible for anything “evil” in this world. If the world was just a matriarchy everything would be all hunky dory. It is is those pesky patriarchal energies of “domination” that are the real problem.
Gina, not only is your thinking incredibly sexualized (that is you are filtering everything through a gender lens) but it is one sided. You are failing to see the sexualization of energy (yin as female and yang as male), you are focusing critical attention only on the male side (like many “feminists” do), and you are supporting gender based forms of exclusion, forms of exclusion that when applied the other way (i.e. when men exclude women from their little boys clubs), are a key aspects of this world’s structures of power and domination.
Gina, “domination” has nothing to do with gender. Sure there are “male/yang” types of domination, but there are also female/yin types of domination as well. Male forms of domination rely on physical power and force. Do what you are told or else (physical) violence will be used and you will be punished/made to feel bad. Female forms of domination are “social” and rely on ridicule, emotional abuse, and exclusion. Do what you are told or else (emotional) violence will be used and you will be punished/made to feel bad.
As for “arguing,” sure domination can enter into that as well. Of course, it is not always the case that one person is right, and the other is wrong. Sometimes “perspective” makes a difference. But then again, sometimes it has nothing to do with perspectives, winners and losers. Sometimes it is simply about truth. Sometimes one person is right and the other is wrong and discussion is not a way to dominate another, but simply to bring out the Truth.
I’m not arguing, I’m discussing. I’m not trying to dominate you, I’m trying to make you see the Truth. I’m sure you would say the same thing, i.e. that you are not arguing with me, that you are discussing, and trying to make me see The Truth. That’s fine. I’m totally open to the truth, but you have yet to convince me that your thinking is truthful. Instead you seem, to me, to have sexualized the world, vilified male energies in a one sided way, and put your chips down in support of a system whose foundations can be found in the sexualized antagonism of male/female, black/white, yin/yang, etc. ad nauseum (duality in other words).
If you want my opinion, the way forward from here isn’t to simply paint the duality in a different light (i.e. first it was females that were the dark, evil, witchy ones, now it is the males), but to put that garbage aside once and for all and embrace our fundamental unity as human beings and (if you want to get all “spiritual” about it) incarnated sparks of divine cosmic light.
Really, how does excluding one human being from a group of other human beings make any sense at all? It only makes sense when you impose things like social class, race, or gender on the social fabric. You may not like gender being thrown into the same category as social class, and race, but hey, these are the big three categories of exclusion that have been practiced on this earth for thousands of years. We have no trouble seeing the imposed categories of social class and race as a problem, and we have no trouble seeing class and race based exclusionary practice as WRONG (white’s only please), perhaps now it is time to put gender in the same category and to quit using it (i.e. gender) as a basis for organizing reality and excluding one or the other group of people just because they happen to be “lower class,” “black/white/yellow” or “male/female.” Justify it all you want by reference to cosmic principles or the sacred female but its exclusionary thinking all the same.
It just doesn’t make any sense to me to exclude somebody based on the physical characteristics of their body. Presumably you are not racist and you wouldn’t exclude a black female from your group, so why would you exclude a white male?
m
Oh my, Dr.S, I am going to need some time to sort through that! Did you hear what I said?
I don’t think I need to defend my perspective. You can substitute the word yang for any place that I wrote male or masculine if that helps to understand what I was saying, and yin for feminine. Sure absolutely agree domination has nothing to do with gender, Neither does manipulation, or passive aggression. Or active aggression. I agree . I can use other words.
And if you want to make the discussion about me personally, we’ll maybe a different communication avenue would be more appropriate.
I agree with 99% of what you wrote in the article, it’s just the hypothesis that I disagree with, and you have disregarded the point of my comments.
And FYI, You cannot MAKE anyone see the Truth.
‘If you want my opinion, the way forward from here isn’t to simply paint the duality in a different light (i.e. first it was females that were the dark, evil, witchy ones, now it is the males),”
I agree with you, but that is not what I said, by the way.
What I would say regarding this is at this point we live in an electo-magnetic universe and there are energy polarities that are there(physically) and that doesn’t go away simply by wishing it gone. Gender is just representative of the fundamental polarity of creation, and its the balanced union of the polarities that will move us forward. And that means partnership, working without dominating one another in word, thoughts or actions.
“Presumably you are not racist and you wouldn’t exclude a black female from your group, so why would you exclude a white male?”
I am speaking completely hypothetically, I do not participate in a group that is actively practicing exclusion, though I do meet with group of women for support in our healing practices. It just happens to be all women, and there has not been a single male that has approached us to join the group. But if there was, I’d encourage the other women to be inclusive.
Like I said before, I think a group that was for women to empower them and help them understand their powerful sexuality would be a legitimate reason to exclude males. It’s just an example that I thought up. Some women are not comfortable with their bodies, and do not have partners, and would benefit from a group that helped them in this area of their life. What is wrong with that? Having men in the group would complicate things, and likely scare away a very shy unconfident woman.
“Gina, not only is your thinking incredibly sexualized (that is you are filtering everything through a gender lens) but it is one sided. You are failing to see the sexualization of energy (yin as female and yang as male)”
Yin is receptive and magnetic energy, yang is directive and electric energy, that’s how I see it. I think you are right about filtering, my experience has been a gendered one so that is a filter and perspective that I have.
“you are focusing critical attention only on the male side (like many “feminists” do)”
Yes that’s true I didn’t mention the “inner matriarchy” as you named it. I see what you are saying however, and am quite aware of “evil” , as you say, yin qualities of being and have sinned (ie. fallen short of perfection, who hasn’t?) I haven’t read much “feminist” writings. I have talked to people, usually women, (because those are the people I come across with interest in these issues). And there is still some male-bashing and competition/ antagonism (ie. matriarchy should replace patriarchy) that comes to light. Riane Eisler encourages looking at our unconscious support of the world as it is. Are you aware of her work?
“and you are supporting gender based forms of exclusion, forms of exclusion that when applied the other way (i.e. when men exclude women from their little boys clubs), are a key aspects of this world’s structures of power and domination.”
The world’s structures of power and domination are really not something I want to be a part of. Who wants to be a CEO of a hierarchical corporate structure that siphons the energy of all the workers at the bottom of the pyramid ? Only someone that buys into the dominator culture and feels entitled to do so. Boys clubs? From what I have read, they are nothing more than playhouses and centers of one upmanship. No thank you, the power hungry ( male and female)can keep them.
I am surprised that you take issue with the term patriarchy. One only needs to look at what happens in the middle eastern countries with honor killings, and the recent gunning down of a 14 year old girl riding a school bus to see the damage it still causes.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/09/pakistan-girl-shot-activism-swat-taliban
I thought that patrilineal and matrilineal were adjectives that described how societies or households are structured. It is only when one or the other oppresses a particular gender that it becomes an issue so both are equally guilty of causing problems.
Nice photo of the Pink Ladies by the way.
Dominator culture?
“Dominator culture is a term coined by futurist and writer Riane Eisler. This term first appears in her book The Chalice and the Blade (Harper Collins San Francisco, 1987). This book outlines in detail her theory of hierarchical dominator cultures vs. egalitarian “Partnership” cultures”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominator_culture
oh I see so dominator is much like imperialism and colonialism. How does the Dominator culture fair with the Scavenger culture that is to say, poverty robbing from poverty and poverty oppressing impoverished?-cha cha cha
“Instead you seem, to me, to have sexualized the world,”
The world is sexual, that’s how it keeps going. If it stops, the world ends in one generation.
” vilified male energies in a one sided way,”
Maybe so, but that is because that’s what I’ve experienced, and that comes from my personal perspective. I am growing out of it and I also see male energy as beautiful and strong, protective, stable, secure, benevolent etc.
” and put your chips down in support of a system whose foundations can be found in the sexualized antagonism of male/female, black/white, yin/yang, etc. ad nauseum (duality in other words)”
I think we all support the system in many ways , that’ s a whole other discussion.
I disagree that male/ female is duality. I see it as polarity, two necessary and equal fundamental qualities. I see them as the fundamental energies of everything that lives and moves , that we see, touch. Everything within us,and everything outside of us. Everything that has been created.
“embrace the fundamental unity of all human beings.”
Yes. Couldn’t agree more