What will you do for a gender free tomorrow?

http://nakedthoughts.wordpress.com/2008/12/12/gender-free-tomorrow/
12/13/2008

I've always been a huge proponent of gender deconstruction. But I don't know if that is really the right phrase. People talk about hetero-normative culture, I believe it is only part of a larger problem of gender-normative culture.

What is "straight" but a gendered expectation on who we should want to ->-bleeped-<- or raise a family with? The patriarchy thrives on the gender binary system. It sees Masculine and Maleness as good and anything outside that as, well, not good. We can not live freely as womyn if we are living in the confines of "femininity". But we cannot change what it means to be a "woman" without affect what it means to be a man. If we take away the strict definition of "man" the patriarchy has no legs to stand on.

Some good notions in that.

Made me think about a couple of things. The foremost being the antipathy many transsexed women particularly have with "breaking the binary." Jennifer Reitz question 32 on that silly ole COGIATI struck me as relevant to the question the writer brings up.

QuoteSuddenly the entire world is magically changed. Now you exist in a world utterly devoid of gender. All bodies are hermaphroditic, utterly androgynous in appearance, both male and female at the same time. The culture reflects this, as does all human interaction. You, however, are still yourself inside, with all of your memories of living in our world as it is now. Your feelings are intact, only your flesh has been changed. In this new world, everyone dresses, acts, and lives however they feel at the time, and there is no such thing as being male or being female. You alone remember the world of gender. In such a world, would you still need to dress like a woman?
   
A. How I dress is not really the issue for me. I would just dress how I felt.
   
B. Yes. I really enjoy expressing femininity. I would miss it a lot.
   
C. I don't know. It would be easier to live how I wish though.
   
D. Without question. I really love being feminine. It would be a very disturbing world, too.
   
E. I guess it just would not matter anymore, would it? This is my dream world.

I wonder how many women who take that test and face their world feel a compulsion to check D. as their answer? And why.

It seems to me that one is who she is, regardless of the world she lives in. Our notions of our own validity mayhap make more of an effect on the ways we feel about "the binary" without any regard at all to the reality that it's demolition wouldn't necessitate our not "being women."

Instead we find, often enough, the idea to be abhorrent; an attack on "my identity."  I find myself wondering "why?" What is so abhorrent about that. "My identity" is what it is. Things don't require a gender for me to live my life as myself. In fact, in most ways I can imagine life being a heck of a lot easier without tht gendering-dominance we seem so prone to desire.

Nichole

How boring this world would be, everyone the same. I do like the diversity of who we are as humans. Each and everyone of us are totally different. I think the way we all dress will depend on what we do. I'm sure that if a woman who works with the telephone company on the lines would not go to work in heels and skirt with a very sexy blouse. The same with a man who would do the same job would be working in a 3 piece suit. People who work offices certainly wouldn't be coming to work in jeans and t-shirt.  I do like the binary system, I do think that we all should be equal in every way but different.

Nothing, really. I'd rather work towards people not regarding gender as a cage, towards a world where one gender does not subjugate the other, where everyone is paid the same, where people are free to be whatever they want, dress however they want and love whoever they want.

Why does this entail being gender-free? Is gender the problem or rather what we attach to it?

A world where everyone dresses and acts the same sounds extremely boring. I'd miss difference, honestly, and I don't consider myself a girly-girl or an airhead bimbo.