Women and False Choice: The Truth about Sexism

V.2.2 Confounding sex with gender What is often confused in writing about female and male differences, be it cognitive ability or in leadership styles, is the attribution of differences in behaviour to women and men instead of, more accurately, to women’s femininity and men’s masculinity. The confusion arises because we confound women with femininity, since girls are brought up to be feminine, and men with masculinity, since boys are brought up to be masculine. Masculinity in women is frowned upon, while femininity in men is rejected, denigrated and repressed. Remember that the gender system is constructed in order for marriage to take place and be successful, i.e. for women to bear and rear children and for men to provide for their families (see section II.2). In order for the gender project to succeed, women are bred as feminine, i.e. other oriented, communal, intuitive and compassionate. Masculine behaviour in women does not serve the objectives of child bearing and rearing and is therefore discouraged. That said, as women increasingly combine paid with unpaid work, their masculinity has been rising, not least to compete with men in a man-made workplace. The same is not true for men, because the masculine project is two-prong: economic provision for the family and upholding male superiority in society. This double burden on men raises the bar on masculinity leading to the outright rejection of feminine attributes in men. Masculinity is heavily policed in society, particular by other men, with severe penalties for those who veer into feminine territory, symbolised by care and service. Given this system of thought, or social indoctrination more accurately, it is easy to see why we confound men with masculinity and women with femininity, with masculinity and femininity being the two pillars of the gender system. Left to their own devices, society fears, and without the whip of gender proscriptions and prescriptions, individuals may make choices that don’t serve the greater good, which in this case is society’s reproduction of itself, both literally and culturally. Prima facia, there is logic in the madness of the gender system: as female power rises and women become more and more agentic, many women across the world are now choosing to be childless. However, what is not understood is that rather than reflecting women’s free choice, declining fertility more accurately reflects another of women’s false choices: constrained by the rigidity of the gender system that precludes caring practices from men’s lives and creates work practices that are incompatible with family life, many women avoid the double burden of paid and unpaid work by choosing to remain childless. V.2.3 ... and confusing feminine and masculine attributes for sex differences As a result of confounding sex with gender, we inevitably confuse differences between feminine attributes (dominant in women) and masculine attributes (dominant in men) as differences between women and men per se. In the vast literature on sex differences, rarely do scholars attribute observed differences to masculine and feminine traits. Rather, they invariably attribute differences to women and men themselves. Experiments of sex differences consistently show differences between women and men, because women are conditioned to be predominantly feminine and men are conditioned to be predominantly masculine. In effect, what is being observed is a conditioned state in women (the dominance of femininity and near absence of masculinity) and in men (the dominance of masculinity and near absence of femininity). The differences in behaviour observed would be more appropriately attributed to and explained by the feminine and masculine aspects of each individual, rather than by their sex per se. One of the rare examples that rightly attribute differences to feminine and masculine traits is Cahill et al. (2004) who looked at sex differences in the recall of emotional information. The scholars did not find any differences between women and men. They did however find significant differences between those high on masculine and those high on feminine attributes, as measured by Bem’s index (see section III.2.3 for details). The authors conclude that “sex-related traits, rather than actual sex per se, may be a more sensitive indicator of these influences”. Societies the world over raise boys to be masculine and girls to be feminine, but in the absence of any conditioning, both feminine and masculine attributes are present in both sexes in varying degrees. It is possible, in theory at least, to have males with predominantly feminine attributes and females with predominantly masculine attributes. Psychologists, like Lefkowitz and Zeldo’s (2006) mentioned in section III.2.3, acknowledged that we all have both masculine and feminine attributes in various degrees, but folk wisdom is still in denial. It is worth pausing here to make the distinction between the natural feminine and masculine attributes and aspects of our humanity and conditioned femininity and masculinity. V.2.4 Natural masculine and feminine attributes vs. conditioned masculinity and femininity Even in the 21st century we are still highly confused about the feminine and the masculine, and we live our lives as women and men out of the mythology that men are masculine and women are feminine, and that the masculine is all powerful and the feminine is ineffective. There are many layers of error that lead to and sustain this myth which aims to create difference and division between women and men. The first error is that we do not distinguish between natural feminine and masculine attributes and conditioned feminine and masculine attributes. The conditioned feminine is symbolised in girls by the colour pink, as in ‘pretty in pink’, to convey the high value of girls’ ‘prettiness’ to society, in order for them to be marketable for marriage as adult women or useful for sex for men more generally. Hence society’s need to emphasise looks and appearance for women. Women’s conditioned femininity is also symbolised by ‘emotionality’ - a kind word for ‘irrationality’. By contrast, in men aggression is a highly conditioned masculine attribute, as Sapolsky and others have demonstrated (see section I.4.5). Men’s addiction to paid work and their push for longer and longer working hours is also conditioned masculinity. Natural feminine and masculine attributes by contrast are all positive. Masculinity expresses self-power, self-confidence and inner strength. It manifests in accomplishment, decisiveness, focus and reason. Femininity expresses love for others, compassion and nurturance. It manifest in doing other-focused good in life, in fluidity, creativity and intuition. Negativity associated with the feminine and the masculine is either conditioned directly, like aggressiveness in men and ineffectiveness in women, or created through the imbalance between the two sets of attributes, which is also a conditioned state. Male ‘selfishness’ for example is not a natural outcome of masculinity but of underdeveloped femininity that would have balance men’s self-focused masculine attributes with the other-focused feminine attributes of inclusion and nurturance. Repressing feminine attributes leave men with considerable fear and doubt about their ability to connect with others and create community.