Gender Binary Blog

It is extremely hard to try to analyze our gender binary system. Of course we have been socially programed to accept people as either male or female, but even knowing this doesn't make it easier to think past. It is clear to me after our past few readings and classes that the gender binary system is inadequite. With intersex people we have been forcing them to conform into our age-old system, probably just because it's easier than the alternative. When you look at the substantial amount of progress society has made in the past century (racially, woman's rights, disease awareness) one would hope that as a society we will be able to change this flawed system.

If the decision was left up to me, and it probably should be, the ideal system would involve a uniform gender. As it is today we are constantly moving closer (at a slow pace) to a universal gender. The male and female human are heading towards economic, social, and political equality. While progress is slow, great strides have been made since even the beginning of the 1900's. If we can continue progressing in these area's the only thing that would separate the male and female would be biologically. With an increased awareness into transgender and intersex people, even biologically the differences would be dissolved. All that would be left in question would be one's sexual preference and desires. As is, people are not ashamed anymore to admit to having homosexual feelings, so what would actually be different here? Instead of society telling us if you are homosexual or heterosexual people would just be attracted to other people. Even if you were heterosexual, society's restrictions would be erased. It would be normal to have a stay at home 'dad', because he would just be a stay at home parent. The same would be true for working women.

While I don't see many drawbacks some would initially exist. The thought of not knowing your sexual identity would be unbearable to those who had already been socially constructed. The biggest problem for me would come with work. My family runs a boys sports camp where the presence of females only occurs at night. There is definitely something to the male-bonding part of camp. There is no one you are trying to impress or act foolish around (which is a constant when the boys camp and girls camp get together). I would even go so far as to say that the boys would participate differently in activities if females were present. Instead of the focus being solely on competition, some would be distracted by an attraction to their competitors. Similarly, unisex bathrooms can only lead to an increase of sexual crimes, explanation self-explanatory. Before you say that this could still happen now with homosexuals, I don't think that the aggressiveness and impact would be close to as high. Not only with sheer percentages, but also with behavior. I don't see a gay man trying to rape another guy in a bathroom, just as a gay camper wouldn't try to impress any of his bunkmates in a sexual manner. 

Again, it is hard to think of a society without the gender binary, and while there are a great number of positives there are drawbacks as well. Who knows maybe our society is already heading to a path close to that of ambiguous gender.