“Gender roles are taught. How wonderful it would be to have a genderless society…” This was the position I was presented with from a less than informed, former colleague of mine, made while discussing the place of gender roles in society. I found this exceptionally odd, especially considering that it was coming from one of the staunchest gay/gender rights activists I’ve met in recent years. I say it’s odd because typically the gay rights community is the first to jump out of their seats and proclaim that gender identity and sexual orientation are something a person is born with.
The conversation arose when discussing the matter of a couple in Europe who have decided that they will raise their child without gender recognition. With all of the toys, activities and interactions they will obtain or participate with for their child, they have taken intentional steps to eliminate gender differentials in an effort to give their child the “opportunity to grow without being blinded by gender identity.” While many may see this as a progressive and almost enlightened approach to parenting in the modern world, I do not. In fact, I’d go as far as to call it dangerous and irresponsible.
Now I’ll point out that I firmly believe that matters of gender and sexuality are in fact natural to a person, be they gay, straight, trans-gender or some variation on any of them and that I also firmly support equal rights for all people regardless of their sexual orientation or lifestyle. I believe that homosexual couples should have the same rights to suffer the burdens and enjoy the rewards of marriage and family as any other consenting adults. Furthermore, I am even inclined to hold the belief that polygamous marriages should be legally recognized, although I will point out that I believe this all to be true, while also holding the position that tax incentives and such should be removed for all marriages and that the matters should be personal and/or religious in nature, according to the individual’s particular preference.
Regardless, the discussion of gender identity and gender roles left me with the feeling that something very wrong is going on within the ranks of the gender equality advocacy base. Much akin to the way early feminism gave rise to the modern femtocracy and womynist movement, which seeks equality through preferential treatment of women in matters of law and business while also advocating for an almost total teardown of classic societal family structures, it would appear that many of the modern calls for equality have given rise to implied calls for societal preference and a total social restructuring. These calls of course are made despite the natural state and evolution of gender and sexuality in society, however in what I can only assert to be a shortsighted and emotionally driven ideological fight, these fringe elements of our modern civil rights movement seem to be all to eager to ignore the scientific and cultural realities which govern our norms and relations.
Though women’s suffrage and the inequality faced by homosexuals in the United States is a matter which does strike right to the core of our national identity as a free country with equal protection and respect for all citizens, the fringe elements which seem to be claiming that family unit paradigms such as the classic ‘dad goes to work, mom stays home with the kids’ are fundamentally corrupt, are in my opinion making short sighted arguments rooted in zealous emotionally driven ideology. These elements, which claim that women should not have to face a choice between a career and a family seem to be seriously overlooking very fundamental matters of sociology and basic biology in that whereas denying women professional success is counterproductive to both business and social progression, the needs of children and families are in themselves, too great to be properly maintained, should they need to compete with the “go-go, get yours and win at all costs” mentality needed to succeed in business or industry. Throughout history, men have typically worked to provide for the families that women care for. While this has been institutionalized by society and while the institutionalization thereof has created environments where women have become second class subjects to a male dominated world, the core matter of the family dynamic cannot be thrown aside so readily if true equality and social benefit is to be realized. In this, I mean simply that while women should have all of the same opportunities as men and are entitled to equal pay and treatment, the assertion that there need be no choices made between family and career are outright false.
A family requires a great deal of hard work and time. Children need more than parents who park them in front of the television or drop them off with sitters. Children need stable, loving, nurturing environments where they can grow and learn. Most of all, they need parents who are both around and active in their lives, beyond merely attending recitals, games or activities.
By nature, women are more nurturing and emotionally available. They take to the raising of children with a more passionate enthusiasm than that of men. This is not because they have been taught to be so, nor is it because society demands it (although this last point does factor in, but just not in the ways many in the feminist lobby would like to claim,) but because by basic biological makeup. The human being, in its most fundamental biological sense, is in reality, simply a vessel by which to reproduce, as this is the natural core purpose to any living creature.
Biological organisms are survivalists, be they the grand and intelligent humans who build the homes, drive the cars and listen to the iPods we all appreciate or simply the viruses that spread and infect other living things and mutate whenever possible to increase their ability to carry on their existence. However as humans, with our rich history of socialization and technological advancement, we often forget that we are not the homes, cars and iPods we strive for, nor are we as a society entirely the products of our own choices and desires.
Social structures, especially family structures, are not solely the product of our own design. The institutions which have sprung up around them may be, but at their very core, the dynamics of the human family are more biologically inspired than emotionally. Recent theories regarding human sexual evolution have proposed that love itself and our capacity for emotional devotion are themselves tricks of evolution. As we discover the bio-chemical and neurological triggers, we find that beyond basic physical attraction that draws two people together and often gets them in bed with one another, that other triggers such as serotonin rushes inspire two who have bred together to remain together, which with the exception of a handful of other mammals, is an almost exclusively human phenomenon.
The theory states that as the early humans began walking upright, the birth canal and female reproductive organs shrank and shifted in the body, causing the human infant to be born weaker and more venerable than most any other mammal and through the process of natural selection, those infants whose parents remained together after their birth were given a greater chance to survive. As such, their increased chances of survival contributed to an increased chance of breeding and thus the grand and often cliché cycle of life continued. At any rate, I’m getting off topic.
The point is that the development of the classic family archetype wherein mom raises the kids full time while dad hunts, gathers, works or fights to provide for them is not rooted in the modern ideas about male dominated society, but rather are products of our natural and evolutionarily inspired breeding and reproductive processes. Males by design are generally larger, stronger and more inclined to engage in physically demanding manual or technical activities, while women, by the product of physiological makeup and hormonal inspiration are generally more naturally inclined to emotionally rewarding matters such as the raising and teaching of children. The male dominated work force is not dominated as such due to a piggish, chauvinistic mentality, but rather due to a long and well traveled road, paved by our biologically inspired, social evolution, (although said mentality does and has developed as something of a side affect of this evolution.)
In the ancient world, while male domination was in even greater force than it is today, other social norms were accepted which are not presently. In the ancient Greek and Roman worlds, love and sex between two people of the same sex was commonplace and commonly accepted. In ancient Sparta, relations between husbands and wives were more a matter of protocol, with the homosexual relations between men being seen as virtuous and pure and those of straight people being seen as lustful and impure. And while we in our modern “enlightenment,” may see these behaviors as antiquated or outright silly, they too had their roots, not entirely in chauvinist mentalities, but in natural biological impulses.
Sex and sexual attraction between human beings did not evolve for our leisure. The pleasure humans derive from sexual activity exists not to fulfill or gratify us, but rather to add incentive to reproduction, which as we’ve already determined in the course of this piece, is the core purpose to our existence. As we grew more intelligent and began intellectually considering the different parts to our nature as human beings, we, as we have with all other needs, desires and impulses, developed structures to promote and manage our habits. The original roots of homophobia and hetero-preferential social consideration for example, are not really rooted in theological mandates or matters of morality, though they have been framed that way throughout the centuries. In reality, when Emperor Constantine of Rome implemented the first social tax incentives for heterosexual married single unit families, his aims were not as much religiously inspired as socially inspired, seeking to increase the raw numbers of Rome’s citizenry as any good old world leader would while utilizing the existing religious fervor as a means for public marketing of the ideas.
In reality, almost all of our social structures and developments have been made in an effort (be it consciously or subconsciously) to create a more suitable environment to survive in so as to reproduce and multiply. As we’ve already discussed the obvious advantages that family units provide to our species over the habits of other species, it is only fair to acknowledge the benefits that social structures have provided to our species as a whole. The developments of agriculture and social networks within cities and states are in their most fundamental purposes, social constructs by which we improve our abilities to survive and in turn, reproduce.
Essentially, all efforts made by mankind throughout history can be linked back to the needs to improve conditions for reproduction and proliferation of the species. From the individual desires for prosperity, to the social frameworks such as the family unit and the gender roles which have played into them, all of humanity’s advances have their roots in this most basic and fundamental human instincts for survival and replication. And despite what our philosophical objections or considerations may be regarding this matter, the old adage that “he only has the nice car to get laid” is in reality one of the truest and more human truths to modern sexual dynamics.
And so this brings us back the matter of gender identity and its place in society. While issues with an individual’s gender and sexual identity can vary greatly from person to person and while many of the old conventions regarding women’s places at home and men’s places in the workforce are rather antiquated, the modern efforts to address them are all too often disregarding of some very basic and elementary aspects of science and human nature. Women, by nature can better serve children emotionally, while at the same time men, by nature, are better suited to provide for the family.
Though this dynamic can be and often is inverted quite successfully, the calls to abandon the natural order which both preceded and developed the framework for the modern gender based family structure are both dangerous and irresponsible. The psychological affects that the creation of endless gray zone in regards to gender dynamics can have on a child can be destructive in both that they leave the child in the dark regarding the established social norms in society, as well as leaving them even more confused as to their own naturally occurring gender identity. In times of development such as puberty, these frustrations and confusions can be overwhelming, especially when the social norms of the society of young people (such as peer pressure, teasing, taunting, bullying, etc) are considered. The analogy of throwing fuel on a fire in a room full of petrol soaked kindling and newspaper clippings may be fair in this case and as such, in our efforts to create a more just and verdant society, we should…no, we must keep the natural order of things in mind and take to matters with caution and comprehensive consideration.
While the fight is a just one and while equal rights and treatment should be afforded to all people regardless of their sexual, racial, ethnic or gender identities, the efforts by some have become overreaching in their applications. A “genderless society” is not only a social impossibility, but the efforts to create one can in many instances, such as the case originally discussed, create greater social problems than they seek to address. As with so many well intentioned efforts by social interest groups, the modern gender rights movement seems to have come off the tracks just a bit and I can only hope for their sake and the sake of those they seek to support, that they find their way back to common sense and societal reality, lest we find the very fabric of our society torn asunder and the replacement met with conflicted confusion by the masses we have created.
Nicholas Goroff: The Wizard of Cause 