Gender Identification - by Khala

One of the most important lines from the textbook in Chapter 8 says, “Every culture recognizes distinctions between male and female, but cultures differ in the meanings attached to these categories.” Another line from the text says, “…gender roles are not biologically determined but rather are culturally constructed.”

This may be all well and fair game for anthropologists, but this treads the fine line between being immorally permissive and respecting human life the way it should. When people view the differences between men and women by whatever definition a culture believes, they are actually (and more or less, unknowingly) destroying and ignoring the beautiful dignity of human life itself.
The term “man” is generic, referring to the human race. Both male and female human beings were created and distinct since the beginning of time, and each complement each other. If one denies the complementariness of the sexes, one denies the need of fulfillment outside oneself and what it means to be human.

Many cultures in the past, however, denied and degraded women’s role in society because they didn’t respect women for who they were - complimentary to men - and vice-versa. In the custom of the suttee, the widow was expected to throw herself on the funeral pyre of her dead husband. Pagan Greek families killed the majority of their female children. The Roman husband could divorce his wife, who had no rights in marriage anyway. In ancient China (even up to our own century), the feet of upper class women were bound at birth so that they never property developed. Thus, the woman was restricted first to her father’s home and then to her husband’s. In no pagan society were women accorded any rights or value.

The French Revolution’s mania for equality resulted in women being brutalized and brutalizing like men. The Industrial Revolution degraded women because they would work for less than men. Because women did not have the physical strength to keep up with men, there were inequalities in the job market which soon became institutionalized. During the 19th century, women themselves helped foster the idea that women were the “weaker sex”, that women must not compete with men, and that it was not feminine to think rationally and logically. It became generally accepted that the man was the head of the family because he was superior. Obedience became submission; authority became dominance. The result was the radical feminist reaction. “Women are not inferior”, the feminists said. “They are equal to men in all respects and society should treat them accordingly.” The basic philosophy of feminism can be summarized as follows: the only differences between men and women are limited biological differences related to reproduction. “Because women can now control reproduction, these differences are unimportant. Therefore, there should be no distinction in the roles of men and women”.

Many people would agree that the pagan treatment of women was evilly wrong and viciously brutal. Societies such as these subjected them to an image of something they were not: a less-than human. However, a more heated discussion arises when it comes to the feminist view, declaring women should be just as equal to men in all respects. This view also subjects women to an image they naturally aren’t called to be. Men and women complement each other, both biologically and mentally. If one tries to place a woman in the same category as a man in all circumstances, it takes away her dignity and honor of being a woman in the first place, treating her no better than a pagan society would.

Gender roles are NOT culturally constructed, because the differences between men and women go much deeper than mere physical traits or what a culture believes.

Biological differences are crucial to an understanding of men and women. Besides the physical differences directly related to reproduction, there are many others: men are larger, have more muscle and body weight, and larger hearts. Women are better protected against viruses and bacteria, and a woman’s physical advantages help her to bear, nurture, and care for her children.
There are also emotional and intellectual differences between the average man and woman: men are more rule-bound, less sensitive to changes in situations, more single-minded, less narrowly focused, more persevering, more mathematical, and more aggressive. Women are more sensitive to touch, odor and sound, have better fine motor coordination, more sensitive to context, process information faster, draw conclusions more quickly on the basis of less evidence (so-called “women intuition”), and are more verbally oriented. Male and female brains are also different. The right hemisphere of the brain is primarily responsible for visual-spatial skills (which include mathematics). The left hemisphere specializes in language and verbal skills. In male brains, the right hemisphere develops faster, and females in the left.

These differences are not found only in adults, but also in children and unborn babies. Boys will be more aggressive, girls will be quieter, boys will do better in math, girls in verbal skills… no matter what kind of environment, culture, or role models they are provided with! The differences between males and females appear in infancy, before they could possibly have been learned. Thus, they must be innate.

These differences come from the same source: the sex chromosomes which each person receives at conception. At the moment of conception, the new human person receives 23 chromosomes from his mother, 23 from his father. 44 of these chromosomes come more or less from the parental chromosomes; 2 of the chromosomes are special, not randomly selected. These are the X and Y chromosomes, which determine gender. Every child receives an X chromosome from the mother, and either an X or Y from the father. If the child has two X chromosomes, she will be a girl. If an X and Y chromosome come together, he will be a boy. These chromosomes are on the DNA molecules in every cell of every person’s body. Thus, every cell is marked masculine (XY) or feminine (XX). A woman, therefore, is feminine in every cell of her body, not just in her reproductive organs. Likewise, a man is masculine in every cell of his body. No culture can dismiss or ignore this fact!

The emotional and intellectual male-female differences are also directly related to the differing roles of mothers and fathers in a family. The man’s abilities make him better able to cope with the world outside the home, to earn a living, to provide for the family’s needs, including protection if necessary. A woman’s special abilities make her better able to meet her family’s needs within the home. Even a woman who is a nuclear physicist or a professor of calculus will possess the inborn abilities needed for motherhood. It is thus not surprising, nor should it be a cause for dismay to feminists or anyone else, that the universal experience of human society (except in a few isolated instances) gives men and women different roles.

Women must realize that motherhood is integral to a woman’s nature – physically, emotionally, and spiritually. She must either live in harmony with her feminine nature or frustrate it. She can’t just ignore it or “correct” it as one might correct nearsightedness or crooked teeth. Even a woman who never gives birth to a child must live in harmony for who she is. If she does not, there will be frustration. There is no third alternative.

Examining the question of male-female roles outside marriage, we should not assume that certain jobs or talents are only for men or women. We should also not assume that certain virtues are unfeminine or unmasculine. Men can and should be gentle; women can and should be strong. Nor does it mean that certain defects are justified simply by being masculine or feminine. Being a man does not justify hostile aggressiveness or sexual indulgence, and being a woman does not justify irrationality. Virtue and vice are the same for all… no matter what culture!