Friday 9 August 2013

Gender roles in a broken world.

There  is a wonderful documentary that you need to watch, and you can find it here.

The documentary is called The Codes of Gender and it breaks down the gender roles dictated by society and how we can see exactly what those roles are by looking at advertisements.

Okay, so what is a gender role? More importantly, what is a gender?

Don't make the mistake of confusing gender with sex. A person's sex is defined by their biology. Their gender however is societally imposed. In England and the western world, there are two main gender roles, male and female. The male gender role is one of a strong, dominant, active person. The female gender role is one of a weak, submissive and passive person.

Watching this documentary has caused me to look at again and really think about the type of man that I am, the type of women I am looking for and to compare this to how men and women are represented in society. To an extent, how they are expected to be and to behave.

I would argue that the greatest cause of misery and confusion is when a person does not fit into the slot provided by society. Maybe they have a few knobbly edges or sharp corners and they don't fit into the nice round hole that they are told to fit in. It seems almost juvenile and the answer most commonly given is that you should just be yourself. This is a naive response because the situation is not always that simple. What if I as an individual happen to like walking around barefoot? What if I hate shoes so intensely that if ever I wear a pair I break out in hives? Is it convenient to not wear shoes when out in town? Is it acceptable? What if I want to go to a nightclub?

There are a million situations comparable to this. Some more serious, some less so but the fact still remains that the rules that govern this situation are arbitrary. Why shouldn't I walk around barefoot all day? So long as I don't go on a building site I should be fine!

These arbitrary rules are laid down by society. Without them we would each be free to do exactly as we please. I will not accept the argument that all would be chaos because people are not chaotic. In general people like routine. People like simplicity and predictability (so long as there are interesting people about). Nobody wants to be navigating a riot on their way home and if there is a riot, then it must be for a good reason.

The Buddhists say that all life is suffering but I must disagree. Civilisation is suffering.

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