Got Gender?

So, we're supposed to be writing about anything that interests us for these blog posts. Whenever I'm asked what interests me, I promptly forget all of my interests, so for this post, I figured that I would start with something very broad -- gender. I then realized that gender was in fact one of my interests and managed to narrow the topic down into something a bit less gigantic.

So, like I said, I'll start with the broad by defining gender. According to the American Psychological Association, gender is defined as, "the attitudes, feelings, and behaviors that a given culture associates with a
person’s biological sex. Behavior that is compatible with cultural expectations is referred to as gender normative; behaviors that are viewed as incompatible with these expectations constitute gender non-conformity. " In case you still don't get it, gender is not defined based on your genitalia-- that's sex. Gender is what attributes are ascribed to a sex, traditionally male and female.

Next, I'd like to introduce the idea of the gender spectrum. The gender spectrum is the concept that instead of being binary, male and female, "gender occurs across a continuum of possibilities," (according to Gender Spectrum, an organization about gender). So based on the gender spectrum, not everyone fits into the traditional genders of male and female.

I also found a test online called the S.A.G.E or Sex and Gender Explorer test. This test is offered as a way to help people figure out where they fit on the gender spectrum, whether they are male, female or somewhere in between. This test is amazing, in that it professes to be able to tell you your gender (something extremely complicated and hard to understand by its very nature) in only 160 multiple choice questions. As I went through the test though, I noticed that there was a very, very obvious trend in the questions. For each question, there were two answers that were in fitting with female stereotypes about thought processing, physical attributes, or hobbies among other things, and two that were in fitting with male stereotypes. If you didn't fit in either of these two groups of stereotypes, you had one more option, one that according to this test implied that you were androgynous.

I guess that now would be a good time to explain what androgynous is. Androgynous is defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as "neither specifically feminine or masculine".

Personally, I feel that it's a bit presumptuous to assume that someone is neither specifically feminine or masculine just because they don't fit into limited stereotypes of the two genders. You can't tell all that much from a multiple choice test about gender because even within the most binary gender expectations, people are individuals who may not fit under one of four or even five statements. It is unhelpful to sort people into genders, even if they are not the traditional genders, as this only perpetrates stereotypes.

And that brings me to the main point of my post. It has recently dawned on me that gender is really nothing more than stereotypes put out by society about what a specific sex is expected to be like. Using male and female as a way to put people in gender boxes is really invalid because realistically, no one will ever be 100% "female" or 100% "male". At the same time, the gender spectrum, although enormous progress from the original binary way of thinking about gender, can be just as constricting. The gender spectrum, in saying that some people don't fit the societal ideal of male and female, is again perpetuating the idea that some people do fit the ideal of male and female and that gender ideals are an attainable thing to fit under.

To me, in an ideal world, there would not be labels to describe gender. Instead, each person could express themselves in whatever way felt comfortable to them, regardless of their genitalia. Now, would this be lovely? Yes. Is this going to happen anytime in the near future, based on where society is today? Very Probably not. Are we even going to get rid of the titles of male and female anytime in the near future? Doubtful. The world as we know it is too grounded on gender and even language would have to be redesigned if that were to happen. But hey, it's a nice idea.