Nathanial.Dread said:
Why do you have to gender these forces? We don't live in a dualistic universe - with the exceptions of some very fundamental physical laws (which aren't dualistic, but rather, quantized), pretty much everything we've ever found is a spectrum. Sex and gender are no exceptions.
I think fundamentally the universe is dualistic, it exists because of two fundamental aspects. You have the medium and the form. The dance and the dancer. The thing and the action. You can not have an observer without a thing, and your can not have thing without an observer. You can not have matter without movment or movement without matter. Matter is vibration of the field. Sure we have a whole bunch of different elements, particles, forces etc., but they are all just different combinations of two things, vibration and the field. Its a spectrum, yet it is dualistic because you have two absolutes and then the infinite combinations of in-between. So I agree with your spectrum sentiment.
One could argue that dualism is an illusion, yet a necessary one for the existence of our reality.
I didn't gender these forces, that was done a longtime ago. I am using the terms that are commonly know and referred to.
Nathanial.Dread said:
To say "we're all some combination of masculinity and femininity forces us all into a heuristic that completely ignores the fact that gender is a fiction, as well as completely ignoring the fact that many cultures have more than 2 genders (Hijra in S. East Asia, some indigenous tribes have multiple genders, and people in the west who identify as agender or nonbinary).
Gender is not fiction, there are two genders and everyone falls somewhere on the spectrum between the two. The Hijra that you speak of are no different. Just because the Pakistan government makes a law declaring it a third gender doest mean it isn't a combination of the male and female gender, which is exactly what it is.
"Hijra (for translations, see [n 1]) is a term used in South Asia – in particular, in India – to refer to transwomen (male-to-female transsexual or transgender individuals).[1][2] In other[which?] areas of India, transgender people are also known as Aravani, Aruvani or Jagappa.[3]
In Pakistan, the hijras are officially recognized as third gender by the government,[4] being neither completely male nor female"
I can say I am genderless, but regardless of my belief, I will have traits from both genders, some more pronounced then others, and some subtle and almost non existent.
Nathanial.Dread said:
Also, why do these kinds of thing seems to always end up producing 1950's gender roles, and reinforcing Western stereotypes about what 'men' and 'woman' should behave like.
Blessings
~ND
I believe gender rolls go back farther then the 50's and western culture. I believe genders rolls would have been around for the birth of the first human. In my analogy of the hunter gatherers I would never suggest that a certain gender must stay home and take care of the offspring while a certain one must go and hunt. But one must do the hunting and one must take care of the offspring for it to be a successful endeavour towards survival. If you were to choose the person most suited to hunt, it would be the person with physiological differences like increased testosterone, because this tends to increase capabilities in skills that are advantageous to hunting. If you were to choose a person most apt to take care of a baby, it would probably be the one that naturally produces the necessary food from their breasts. These are female and masculine properties, they exist and they have there purposes.
I would never suggest someone behave a certain way because of their gender. I understand that there has been some unbalanced views of gender that for some reason have been ingrained into many cultures. My post does not suggest that these are correct, or right. Even though the idea of gender has been twisted and manipulated to assert power and control over others, it is something that does exist.