This Women’s Day, I am wondering whether gender itself is a necessity and if the world would be better of without it.
In our society, boys and girls, men and women, are regimented into very specific roles, isn’t it? This ranges from clothing and hairstyles, to hobbies, jobs, and personality traits, to ways of thinking and behaving, isn’t it?
There are only two boxes to which everyone is assigned at birth-masculine and feminine. Masculine is defined as only for men and feminine only for women.
There are very strict specifications for what qualifies as masculine and feminine, both externally and internally. Anyone who embodies anything even slightly out of this box is shamed, ridiculed, bullied, or ostracized.
So men are respected and validated only when they embody so-called masculine traits, clothing, behaviors, and jobs, and lifestyles and women, when they embody the feminine equivalent.
But I don’t think that anyone can reach their full human potential unless they embody the full human spectrum which has to include the masculine and feminine.
So when society restricts people into these boxes, what we get are walking, talking, wounded, incomplete human beings. Wounded people wound others.
Even as adults, even as they are nearing the end of their life, they may never live up to their full potential.
I could say that the solution is that women should embody qualities that are traditionally considered masculine, such as being assertive, bold, confident, taking the initiative, giving full expression to their sexual libido, etc.
I could say that this means men should embody qualities that are traditionally considered feminine, such as being nurturing, caring, compassionate, gentle, soft-spoken, letting others take the lead, etc.
But balance is important too.
So much of what we call ‘’toxic masculinity’’ stems from this patriarchal society’s respect and validation for only those men that embody these so-called masculine qualities. But it is because they are not complemented by the feminine, that it becomes toxic.
Men are so miserable inside that they take out their frustration on those less powerful than themselves on society’s rungs, whether that be their subordinates in office, or their juniors in school and college, or the women in their lives.
The same problem with women who embody only the ”feminine” to the detriment of completely suppressing the masculine. The reason why women put up with so much toxicity in their personal and professional lives is because they were not allowed to express these so-called masculine qualities that could help them to lead more empowered lives.
But women who express these qualities are made an example of, shamed, even ostracized, so that other women start suppressing these very qualities that could be the lifeline that gets them out of toxic situations. Same with men who express these ”feminine qualities” of being caring and compassionate.
These masculine and feminine roles were defined at a time in history when humans didn’t know better and when patriarchy was putting down its roots.
Why do we need it in today’s times when we know better and have learnt so much about the human mind and human potential?
This next thought may be off on a tangent, but an important one. I have always read with fascination the experiences of people who identify as a different gender from the one they were born into.
When I read how much they are bullied, how much they suffer, how much they have to fight just to live as a full expression of who they are, I have always thought that wouldn’t everyone be so much freer and happier if we didn’t put anyone into these boxes of masculine and feminine?
Would a trans-man or trans-woman have to fight so much and suffer so much then?
Today, a man wearing makeup or choosing to be a stay-at-home dad is as threatening to the patriarchy as it might have been when women wanted to get out of their corsets or pursue careers in STEM a hundred years ago, isn’t it?
Even a woman choosing to not take off her facial hair today is as threatening to the patriarchy as men who wear makeup, isn’t it?
A woman who is loud and outspoken and bold and sexually adventurous is as threatening as a man who is soft-spoken and compassionate and reserved and asexual, isn’t it?
But why?
I always think about the Ardhanareeshwara concept in Hindu mythology. Just like the Native American concept of ‘’two-spirit’’ people.
The awareness that indigenous cultures may have had about the complexity of human nature does not exist in a patriarchal western world and that has unfortunately percolated all over.
So, this Women’s Day, my only wish is for everyone to leap out these stringent boxes.
I wish that everyone gets to explore and embody and express their full self.
I wish for a society that accepts and celebrates all of everyone.
If more women got in touch with their ‘’masculine’’ side and more men got in touch with their ‘’feminine’’ side, we would have a balanced world, one where equality of the sexes is a given, where everyone is respected as they are, and every human is free to be all of who they are.
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