Gender Roles 101

When discussing feminist issues, an often-assumed premise is that a disturbingly large amount of our habits, mannerisms, interests, skills, or even choices are not truly organic and natural. Many of what we assume to be biologically inherent differences between the binary genders are in fact taught to us as we grow up, just by living in the conformist status quo of our society. And yep, I’m quite happy to entertain the image of “society” as a manipulative education-gone-so-totally-wrong. What we see is that through experiential learning of what is “right” and “wrong” for “girls” and “boys” to do/think/like/say, we end up with some lovely little boxes to put people into. Warning in advance: this article will contain exorbitant amounts of quotation marks.

Firstly let’s look at the science, since biology is always brought up when it comes to discussions about gender. Supposedly there are two sexes – male and female – which are biologically defined by physical attributes: genitals, chromosomes, hormones, and secondary sex characteristics. Most people are taught that there are only two distinct options for these physical indicators of sex, resulting in only two distinct genders. (Quick note, sex is not that same as gender: sex refers to physical characteristics, while gender is an emotional and mental identification.) However if you really look at the science, you will see that this “binary” attitude towards sex is incorrect. It is extremely common for people with vulvas, female reproductive systems and breasts to have “male” levels of testosterone. Nor is it particularly “strange” for someone to be born with neither the XX nor XY chromosome patterns. Many babies each year are born with both, neither, or a mix of both the “male” and “female” genitalia. Basically, intersex people are very common, and despite the social stigmas, they are alive, healthy and fully functioning. Check out more statistics at www.isna.org/faq/frequency. Strictly biologically speaking, there are as many sexes as there are variable permutations from the above physical characteristics. Which is a lot. Science. Bam.

Alright, so what we learn in year 8 biology is totally wrong, and there are more than two sexes, but what does this have to do with gender roles?

Proving the immense diversity in biological sex points out the flaws in how we define gender. The “male” and “female” genders are supposedly natural categories based off a biological binary. But since that biological binary simply does not exist… where does that leave gender? And so we finally reach the conclusion that being male is not solely specific to having a penis and testosterone, and being female as little to do with vaginas or oestrogen.

This is because gender is a concept constructed by humans.

And since it’s entirely made up, people are not inherently one gender or another. We can choose to identify with whatever gender makes us feel most comfortable and most human. For many people, this will be the gender we are assigned at birth based on certain visible physical aspects, however many people in our society do not naturally fit this narrow imposition of gender, and identify as transgender, gender-non binary, and many other variations. How can we expect everyone to conform to a label given to them based off a false sexual binary, which is extrapolated into yet another binary of identification? Ladies and gentlemen, I address you now with a misrepresentative and inherently incorrect gender-binary. Have a nice evening.

Now here’s where we apply science and common sense, and end up with feminism.

There are things in our society which we consider “feminine” or pertaining only to “females”, for example and affinity for design and creativity, rather than maths and engineering. How can we assign this arbitrary skill to one specific gender? “Females” don’t exist as a definitive set of either biological or emotional/mental characteristics, as proved above, so therefore design and creativity cannot be more geared towards a group of people labelled as such; there is nothing tangible to make it a legitimate statement. Similarly the idea that “males” are more sexually aggressive than females follows this fallacy. It is true that testosterone has been proved to link to sex drive, and it is not incorrect to say that people with higher testosterone levels may experience a slightly stronger sex drive (and I say “slightly” because according to a National Geographic article, it is only a slight difference). However it is problematic to associate men with sexual aggressiveness and women with weaker sex drives, because there is no evidence to make using terms like “male” and “female” accurate generic representations.

However despite all this, it is true that we do see more women in design and arts, and more men in STEM subjects. We do see surveys where more women say they prefer typically feminine activities, while more men prefer typically masculine activities. This is due to our little friend social conditioning. Since people generally believe in the gender-binary, and all its subsequent attributes, the message spread throughout society about what is “right” and “wrong”, “unnatural” and “natural”, is both perpetuated and perceived as correct, to a point where it overcomes what people innately feel.

When you spend your entire life being told – either implicitly or explicitly – that your gender is more apt for one thing over another, you will begin to believe it. This is a pretty basic way of putting it; it’s actually quite complex and convoluted.

Here’s a story: A “girl” is born, and given pink clothes. Pink is associated with femininity, femininity is associated with weakness, motherhood, creativity, etc. Although initially she enjoys playing with trucks just as much as dolls, most of the toys in her house are dolls, so they become her favourite. Playing with dolls teacher her maternal traits, how to interact socially, and a sense of design. Her ability to think logically, and visualise complex patterns is limited because she does not play with trucks and Lego as often, because her parents didn’t buy her any; they only shopped in the “girls” aisle at Toys R Us. She goes to school where the boys won’t let her play soccer with them, even though she plays in the local girls’ team. When she cries, friends rush to comfort her, and she watches how they scorn the boy in her class who cries for the same reason. Her mother invites her – never her brother – to bake cookies, and she learns how to cook, while her brother never does. At high school science class, she and her friends felt like it wasn’t a “relatable” subject, as opposed to textiles and history, even though they’re quite good at it, as a result, they stop putting in effort. Then they get lower grades, and end up dropping all sciences because they’re not good at it.

The narrative continues, as she takes a lower-paying job than she is truly capable of, and ends up not getting the promotion she wants because she has a baby. This story is pretty damn relatable for so many women. The infinite possibilities of talents and interests that every human is naturally born with is systematically whittled down to fit into these assigned gender roles which society has created over the centuries. As an example of nurture over nature, so many people make “free-willed choices” that are conditioned to adhere to certain gender-based expectations.

This shouldn’t invalidate the choices people make and the interests they have, but rather draw attention to the harmful mechanisms of society.

Speaking of, why are gender roles so harmful?

Firstly, since the whole concept is based on the gender binary, it erases other identities from what is considered “normal”. This of course leads to ignorance about trans and non-binary identities, then transphobia, transmisogyny, and the whole shebang. It also heavily adds to the oppression of cisgender or stereotypically feminine women, as certain careers or work place opportunities become more difficult to access, rape culture is perpetuated, the image of femininity is damaged etc. etc.

It’s important to acknowledge that while concepts of gender are integral to the functioning of our current society, they are extremely limited and do not represent large amounts of our communities. Many people who perpetuate binary gender norms, whether maliciously or not, add to the overall oppression that genderqueer people and cis women face on an everyday basis, and we need to put in a lot of effort to openly accept the legitimacy of variations on the gender-binary. It is best to be aware of the factual nuances of sex and gender, and how its misconceptions create limiting and harmful gender roles.

Wow that took a while. Worth it. 

Comment below!

Hannah