Postgenderism

This is something that often comes up in my mind as I roam about this community. Should gender roles be eliminated? Should gender differences be eliminated? Should gender identities be eliminated? Or are any of the above too good to pass up?
^---Unless you have a differing view on this issue, we've got it pretty much covered.

In addition the scope of the issue, the process is also important. If it's something to be desired, should we actively work towards the realization of a postgender world? Should it be voluntary? Is it achievable or is it simply a utopia? How far should we as a society move towards it before it is too much? How far should we push society before it's too much?

Do any of you identify with a postgender worldview? Is it even possible to have a worldview devoid of gender when there is so much focus in our discourse? Is the prominent focus on gender a necessary evil towards realizing a genderless world? Or is a postgender worldview something else altogether - what does it mean to you?

Plenty of questions and nuances to pick at, so discuss away!

A lot of questions and things to talk about!

First, I believe that gender roles are not inherent in people, but are a societal creation. Second, I believe that people who follow gender roles are not bad, but that when people are pressured (actively or otherwise) to follow those roles then that pressure is bad. In this sense I would welcome a world without gender roles and, to an extent, gender itself. I have no problem with people having genders, but a gender would perhaps become akin to something like height or hair color. People would see there is gender, but not make a big deal of it. I think it's possible to having something like this in the future.

In the moment I think it's important to talk about gender because there is inequality among the genders. I liken this to race. We all have races, and while we (ideally) don't believe one's race should determine everything about you and what people think of you, there are still race problems in the world and so we have to talk about race even as we work toward a world where race isn't an issue.

I feel like gender and its consequent roles shouldn't be abolished, but rather the fluidity for a person of one gender into another role, or gender for that matter, should not be as strictly scrutinized. Worded strangely, but pretty much people shouldn't necessarily clamor about gender when the lines become blurred or when crossing over occurs. That means, for example, the age-old stereotype of women being housewives/whatever the terminology is shouldn't be brought up every time a woman wants to pursue a career. Obviously a postgender world would eliminate a lot of problems, but it could very well cause problems of individuality.

I don't like gender roles. I think people shouldnt be so hard on people that don't fit into certain norms and I hope in the future, society becomes more understanding. I don't see gender roles or pressure to conform to them going away completely, nor do I think the concept of genders should go away. I just think the idea of everyone being exactly the same is weird even though eliminating problems sounds great in theory.

Flush'd said:

I feel like gender and its consequent roles shouldn't be abolished, but rather the fluidity for a person of one gender into another role, or gender for that matter, should not be as strictly scrutinized. Worded strangely, but pretty much people shouldn't necessarily clamor about gender when the lines become blurred or when crossing over occurs. That means, for example, the age-old stereotype of women being housewives/whatever the terminology is shouldn't be brought up every time a woman wants to pursue a career. Obviously a postgender world would eliminate a lot of problems, but it could very well cause problems of individuality.

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I agree with this view. We should accept those who don't fit or shift between the traditional gender roles.

I also don't see a postgender world happening in our lives times if ever.

I've quit on trying to define all the shapes and forms of equality. For me, I believe in one thing: freedom. I believe that instead of saying we should abolish gender-roles, we should be focusing on acceptance. What I mean is that while many of us dislike gender-roles and want them gone, I don't think that's possible. What is possible, however, is to advertise acceptance, in a sense. We should respect peoples' freedoms and simply accept whatever they want to do.

Whether a certain person wants to abide by the roles society has determined for them or whether they want to take on a whole new life and a whole new set of responsibilities should be their own choice. And whichever choice they make, if people would just learn to accept that, the world would be a much better place.

Now you can argue that this is the essence of removing gender-roles, I'd argue that this method of thought transcends one topic of equality to reign over all of them.

Hate. Hate is the problem. "All you need is love".

Gender roles are driven by values and norms driven by society at large, therefore gender roles won't be eliminated. However it could change over the course of time.

Now, Postgenderism is something that I personally don't agree with at all. It sounds too extremist for my liking and I think going extreme with pretty much anything is no good.

Gender Roles actually are shown in the earliest developed cultures (hunter/gather cultures) HOWEVER in these cultures both genders are viewed as equals, so it's hard to argue that it's not "natural" but it is certainly societal to view one as over the other.

It has been shown scientifically that females have, on average, different skills inherently than males (such as spacial and language skills). However, since the range of these skills is highly individualistic, and we are approaching an individualistic society, we should focus more on an individual's skill than necessarily the average of their gender. This way their abilities are more focused.

Let's not forget that gender roles, differences, and identity can vary depending on the culture one is discussing. For example, you'd imagine that China has a very traditional culture that tends to look down on feminism when compared to the West, but it may surprise you to find out that half of the world's self-made women billionaires are Chinese! Yes, there are gender-related abortions and women are under pressure to marry and all, but there's always been an undercurrent and respect for powerful women in Chinese culture.

/unabashed nationalism

Now where was I going with that? XD Hmm, I think I wanted to say something about how the inequality between the sexes can occur in different ways in different cultures - that in some ways it can be greater and in other ways it can be less.

I just thought of another question:

Is moving past gender (postgender) a necessary step for human progression? Is it inevitable? - I know some of you have reservations, but surely it's more than a black/white, yes/no answer?

Also, to state this differently:

Is it even possible to have a worldview devoid of gender when there is so much focus in our discourse? Is the prominent focus on gender a necessary evil towards realizing a genderless world?

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If we have resolved for tolerance and that we should push towards an increasing postgender world - freedom from strict roles, differences and identity - would we work towards that by increasing or decreasing the attention to gender? Should we gradually allow gender references to fade away through time, or should we shine a brighter light upon it, increase our collective awareness in order to change it (this is similar to the debate between gradualism and revolution among socialists)?

Gender has affected the human race since the beginning. Men were hunters, women were foragers/gatherers. And it has literally changed how a female brain and male brain work. That's why women can generally see more shades of red, yellow, and orange then a man can. And why men are generally better at spatial matters.

Anatomically the male and female bodies are different. I'm not talking about the obvious things such as sexual orgins, but rather something even more blatant. Generally, the male human body is more built for muscle, whilst the female body is more built for agility, and is usually much more adroit.

Now, all this having been said, to propose to completely eliminate gender differences, or identities is incongruous. I'm not saying that men and women should be paid differently, nor that they should be given different jobs, or be pressured to act a certain way. But rather, that gender is not only a social matter.

Both men and women have certain strengths and weakness that accompany their perspective gender. It's not a rigid boundary, more wobbly if anything, really, but a basic truth regardless.


The ever-changing gender roles are a distress of the public at large, I pay very little stock to them. If someone feels the need to adhere to them then it's a faux pas of their individuality, and hardly my problem.


Now then, I'm rather tired right now, so if I made any blunders of my own when typing that out feel free to give me a right good telling off. It might eventually make me stop posting in Discussion threads after midnight. . .

Physical differences, on average, exist, but what of it? Black people have on average more melanin in their skin than white people. East Asian people are generally shorter than Northern Europeans. So? I'm not proposing ignoring differences, but constantly reminding people that they are there is... problematic. Not because these are observable facts, but because people always seem to have a need to bring them up. I wonder why.

BlahISuck said:

If we have resolved for tolerance and that we should push towards an increasing postgender world - freedom from strict roles, differences and identity - would we work towards that by increasing or decreasing the attention to gender? Should we gradually allow gender references to fade away through time, or should we shine a brighter light upon it, increase our collective awareness in order to change it (this is similar to the debate between gradualism and revolution among socialists)?

Click to expand...

Shine the light. Does anyone think that we would have the relative levels of equality we do today if people in the past didn't keep bringing up gender and equality? It's a mindset kind of thing. There were people back then who thought things were fine as they were. I didn't occur to them that there was a problem with gender roles, if they even thought about them in those terms. Even today you get people saying that everyone is equal, feminism accomplished its goals, etc. when there is still a lot of inequality. Not talking about it is, in my view, accepting things as they are and I don't want to accept things as they are because they can be better.

PEDRO12 said:

I've quit on trying to define all the shapes and forms of equality. For me, I believe in one thing: freedom. I believe that instead of saying we should abolish gender-roles, we should be focusing on acceptance. What I mean is that while many of us dislike gender-roles and want them gone, I don't think that's possible. What is possible, however, is to advertise acceptance, in a sense. We should respect peoples' freedoms and simply accept whatever they want to do.

Whether a certain person wants to abide by the roles society has determined for them or whether they want to take on a whole new life and a whole new set of responsibilities should be their own choice. And whichever choice they make, if people would just learn to accept that, the world would be a much better place.

Now you can argue that this is the essence of removing gender-roles, I'd argue that this method of thought transcends one topic of equality to reign over all of them.

Hate. Hate is the problem. "All you need is love".

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i'm of the same option. If we start turning on those who actually follow traditinal roles wouldn't that end up making us the oppresors? We need to accept and love everyone for their differences, be it a traditional role or not.

Gender fairness, as hestistant I am to use 'fairness' may better address issues of inequality. Inequality can be good. For instance, men and women in the work place should have certain differences in how their leave of absence policies go. If women and men were under similar policies without factoring maternity leave, which would deviate from men's leave of absence policies, one might make a concession on equality. However, looking at this example from another perspective, employer's forced to implement 'fair' leave of absence policies, may be discouraged to hire a woman knowing that they may have to pay for her leave of absence and for an interim worker, along with the training and possible lack of expertise in comparison to this woman. Thus, women who do not choose to have children or already have had children might be looked over if she could be a liability to the business. Thus, equal policies would allow for more women to work, in this instance, despite not being viewed as 'fair'. So, there is no clear-cut answer as to what is no good or bad in relation to what is equal or fair.

I am not taking a stance either way, just giving everyone a bit more to think about it when they analyze gender roles and the advocating broad policies, when in application, these generalities may have unintended consequences. Perhaps certain issues should be addressed in terms of equality while other should be methodical and pragmatic, establishing inequality policies. It is highly dependent upon context.

I don't believe we should get rid of the labels of male and female altogether (some people do argue this, and I can't say I understand) but I do think we should get rid of gender roles.

In my eyes, there's very little benefit in having them, if any, especially since people tend to get so much crap for not abiding by them (like, I was once mistaken for a feminine guy and I was called a bunch of names and almost beat up for it). It makes me really sad... and it's kind of personal to me for the reason I explained and for all of my friends who are treated poorly because they do not conform to gender roles.

I also believe it's next to impossible to still have gender roles without prejudice against people who do not follow them, which makes me even more inclined to say we should get rid of them.

I think it's a great idea to do away with gender roles. Women can work in tough jobs and serve in the army just as good as men, while men can cook and care for kids just as good as women. I don't care if people in my culture object to it. (Arabs such as myself who ascribe to more modern ideas about gender get a lot of flak from traditionalists.) But I think that physically, we need different genders. I can't imagine not having a gender identity. I kind of like being a boy - I can't imagine being an "it" or a "hir". Besides, the male and female bodies really do differ - a man is NEVER going to know what it's like to have a menstrual cycle, and most women will probably not know what it's like to have facial hair. That's why we should have genders, but gender roles are something that we don't need.

I don't exactly have the highest hope we'll live in a society free of gender roles anytime soon, but I'd personally love to see it. Gender roles have absolutely no benefit and the vast majority of them aren't even based in anything accurate. I've heard they are a few differences between the "male brain" and the "female brain" (although there will always be exceptions) but I still don't see why it's necessary to keep gender roles.

I don't like gender roles very much, or rather I don't like the enforcing of those roles. I think the issue of equality in terms of workplace and so on is quite obvious, but gender roles are a bigger thing.

I really couldn't begin to suggest a way to stop society expecting all its subgroups to act in a certain way, outside of particularly oppressive laws based around people expecting things of certain genders. I'm sure Robin Thicke would end up in jail under those sort of laws, though.

I don't know, I guess what would be needed would be a way to encourage individuality in society as a whole. I think the trajectory of change should go something like:

encourage people to be individual / not care about societal views > people see others acting differently > expectations fall apart

But of course even that's really rather idyllic. Presently I think it's really up to individuals to do whatever they want - if they're too worried about people not approving of them then that's their problem.

Scarf said:

Shine the light. Does anyone think that we would have the relative levels of equality we do today if people in the past didn't keep bringing up gender and equality? It's a mindset kind of thing. There were people back then who thought things were fine as they were. I didn't occur to them that there was a problem with gender roles, if they even thought about them in those terms. Even today you get people saying that everyone is equal, feminism accomplished its goals, etc. when there is still a lot of inequality. Not talking about it is, in my view, accepting things as they are and I don't want to accept things as they are because they can be better.

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What if I said that shining a greater light would cause animosity and reaction? A recent development are men's rights groups, which look at the world in the terms of gender differences and see that men are also a disadvantaged group. Some of these groups perceive that feminism and the elevation of women's social standing play no small role in causing the disadvantage of men. Some women's groups don't take the agenda of men's rights seriously. Both of these groups shine light on the perceived inequality between men and women, but to me it seems like the conflict only deepens. I know there is an argument of some vs. all and as long as not all of these groups are antagonizing it's okay etc. but I find that to be an intellectual dead end. How do we contextualize this conflict? Does it serve or harm the goal of equality between the sexes? Or what if this is simply a "epiphenomenon", a superficial reaction to what is truly the inevitable force of gender equality?

Now, is it true that gender equality cannot be improved without putting extra attention on it? I think one can reasonably argue that cultural phenomenon can self-perpetuate once they enter our collective consciousness - so perhaps the ball of gender equality can keep rolling without anybody pushing it. This begs the question: has gender equality (or the elements that are important to you or enough of it) entered our collective consciousness enough for equality to proceed without (or with lesser) activism? I would argue for the most part yes - regardless of what a conservative religious segment of the population would like for us to think.

(I am probably appropriating the term epiphenomenon from some esoteric discipline but all I mean is that it's literally an epi phenomenon, something that is occurring "on top" and caused by/reacting to a more significant force.)

Edit: a good analogy would be comparing it to a symptom vs a disease.

What if we go further than gender roles. What if the technology develops to a point where either a) both men and women can carry a pregnancy or b) reproduction exists without a woman carrying a pregnancy?

Is it that relationship between mother and child that defines to greatest difference between men and women?