Gender Roles, Identities and Biases
In our society, there exist social norms that are considered appropriate for people based on their perceived sexuality. This gives rise to identity traps and confines people to specific roles. These norms are slowly getting recognized as hypocritical and challenging to one’s freedom.
At large, we follow a binary type of classification, identifying male and female as appropriate genders. Before I get to point out the narrow-minded thinking we have seemed to adopted by refusing to accept a non-binary classification, let’s talk about the flaws of the very system we are desperately clinging onto.
Dominating patriarchial rule rebelled by empowering women conflicted by culture and modernization does not paint a pretty picture. The word equality is thrown around a lot. Why should men have all the fun, be it going out to a party or in the context of being a breadwinner? Feminism, a revolutionary ideology, then came into the picture in hopes of empowering women. Though vastly misunderstood as trying to overthrow the existing rule and trying to tip the precarious scale between the two binary genders, it emerged to answer all the hard questions being thrown around. It wanted strong women to rise and take with the other strong women in their life-changing journey. Simultaneously, efforts were put to recognize the existence of reverse sexism and conclusions were drawn that the two entities need to be worked on in parallel for a revolution to take place.
As I previously stated, this classification is far from perfect. Then why follow it? Why let it exist? Why let these social norms that are more of an output of society’s beliefs than biological results, rule our discipline of life?
When a mere child, a young boy of five claims he doesn’t want to play with his female classmates because he believes they have girl ‘cooties,’ we have to seriously consider the effect gender stereotypes has on those around us. Is such statement solely based on his observations or is society’s influence slowly and subconsciously shaping him? If you have an ounce of common sense, you will know it’s the latter. The labels in the context of gender have a poisonous grip on the society and its deathly influence is the root cause of chaos in many scenarios.
Now that we are starting to question gender, it’s about time we also recognize that others exist. The others who can’t simply classify themselves into binary genders but are just as human as the rest exist. So, what now? Will adopting a non-binary classification change the current scenario? Would it smooth out the flaws and can all the people get to live happily ever after?
No. That’s is not going to happen. It’s very similar to the race problem. The fight for black Americans to get recognized as an equal citizen of the country did bear fruit. However, there still exists some form of active and passive racism. In my opinion, that’s the same situation with gender. There will always be an underlying sexism no matter what changes are implemented. We should abolish the notion of gender as a whole, fight from the root for any real change to take place. In my opinion, a few ticked boxes in medical forms should be enough to determine healthcare procedures. In regards to sensitive contexts like sports, gender is an evident classification. However, imagine this. The previously ticked boxes can be used to classify people into diverse groups based on weight, height and such. The members of a particular group can compete with each other. This is solely based on abilities and it has nothing to do with body parts.
This is merely a thought. This is my imagination running wild in trying to create a system where all are accepted and gender roles are erased. What about right now? How do we ease the suffering of the lonely outcasts who are unable to fit into our society? I am appealing to the entirety of Homo Sapiens, the children of God. God cannot be wrong in creating any one of us. We might differ in biological aspects and sexual preferences but we are at the end of the day made up of the same entity. We all have a beating heart, basic emotions and understandable desires of wanting acceptance and love. The key right now is promoting equity.
“Equality is treating everyone the same. But equity is taking differences into account, so everyone has a chance to succeed,” Jodi Picoult had written.
This is exactly what needs to be embraced within our society. We might be biologically different. However, we all need to be given all the basic human rights despite the difference. By practicing equity, we will take ourselves forward, hand in hand towards a better and liberal society.
