November 24, 2012
Payton Schwarz
Dear Mother,
People are born with a specific sex. You can't change
that, you're either born a male or a female. But that does not
necessarily define you as masculine or feminine. There are specific
gender roles that are associated with either. These roles are placed on
one via society, whether it from your family, friends, school or church.
Our distinction between one another is culturally adapted with specific
traits. Traits that segregate ourselves from one another and build prejudices
based on subconscious “knowledge”. But these traits change over time; they
adapt to the environment around them, much like humans themselves. Unfortunately there’s a resistance movement
that is attempting to suppress our evolution.
This restriction is preventing us as human beings from reaching our full
potential. The only thing these
discriminations are achieving is regression and leaving us a stagnant world
that will either die off, or never be able to evolve to a more advanced
society.
Here in our country of the United States, we seem to associate gender directly to one's sex. If one has a penis, they are ordered to be manly, rugged and enjoy cars/guns. Or if one have a vagina, they must be sweet, decorated with makeup, nurturing and passive. This coincides with the idea of the Nuclear Family and traditional gender roles, ideologies that have been force-fed to us since the early 20th century. But what happens if someone steps outside of those gender barriers? Our gender roles are so intertwined with us in our society that we don't notice them. But the second someone DOES, we are quick to judge. Think of a full grown man, walking down the street in pumps and a halter top. The average person would immediately take notice of him over everyone else on the street. Why? Because he's "weird". We have an immediate prejudice against that individual because he doesn't fit the roll of a fully grown man that we envision in our minds. This could be derived from the Christian upbringing our nation has had, “And thy estimation shall be of the male from twenty years old even unto sixty years old, even thy estimation shall be fifty shekels of silver.... And if it be a female, then thy estimation shall be thirty shekels. (Leviticus 27:3-7)”. Literally, there in plain English, the Bible states that a woman is worth about half as much as a man. And being in a country where all of our nation’s leaders have been Christian, there is good reason to believe there is religious input when it came to forming our nation. The Christian faith, unfortunately, is infamous for being derogatory towards people that are “different”. The Ku Klux Klan has very “Christian morals”, which they employed through violence and bigotry, also the Spanish Inquisition was establish by Catholic Monarchs to ensure “orthodoxy” of its people through sadistic torture. On the contrary,take Ancient Rome for example, homosexuality and orgies were accepted among the social elite and part of everyday life, “The prestige of Greek literature and art made homoeroticism seem urbane and sophisticated.” This society, obviously, had different contributing factors to the creation of their social norms, as did we. Unfortunately, ours is just a tad bit more restrictive. Our race is under constant change with a constant altering set of standards. These changes have been proven to aid us in time of need, when gender lines can be blurred.
In World War II, women had to take up a "man's role" of building airplanes, tanks, bombs and more to fuel the war, and our eventual success. Even though temporary and brief, this gender roll adaptation shows the fluidity and effectiveness of an androgynous society. Unlike us here in America, there are cultures all around the world that have much different roles that what we assign our citizens. Native American tribes in Northern America have what is called "Two Spirit", which is someone who has qualities of both male and female. They would wear the clothing of both genders and perform actions that were of both genders as well, such as cooking and hunting. They were held in high regard and held positions such as healers, match-makers and foretellers of the future.
Here in our country of the United States, we seem to associate gender directly to one's sex. If one has a penis, they are ordered to be manly, rugged and enjoy cars/guns. Or if one have a vagina, they must be sweet, decorated with makeup, nurturing and passive. This coincides with the idea of the Nuclear Family and traditional gender roles, ideologies that have been force-fed to us since the early 20th century. But what happens if someone steps outside of those gender barriers? Our gender roles are so intertwined with us in our society that we don't notice them. But the second someone DOES, we are quick to judge. Think of a full grown man, walking down the street in pumps and a halter top. The average person would immediately take notice of him over everyone else on the street. Why? Because he's "weird". We have an immediate prejudice against that individual because he doesn't fit the roll of a fully grown man that we envision in our minds. This could be derived from the Christian upbringing our nation has had, “And thy estimation shall be of the male from twenty years old even unto sixty years old, even thy estimation shall be fifty shekels of silver.... And if it be a female, then thy estimation shall be thirty shekels. (Leviticus 27:3-7)”. Literally, there in plain English, the Bible states that a woman is worth about half as much as a man. And being in a country where all of our nation’s leaders have been Christian, there is good reason to believe there is religious input when it came to forming our nation. The Christian faith, unfortunately, is infamous for being derogatory towards people that are “different”. The Ku Klux Klan has very “Christian morals”, which they employed through violence and bigotry, also the Spanish Inquisition was establish by Catholic Monarchs to ensure “orthodoxy” of its people through sadistic torture. On the contrary,take Ancient Rome for example, homosexuality and orgies were accepted among the social elite and part of everyday life, “The prestige of Greek literature and art made homoeroticism seem urbane and sophisticated.” This society, obviously, had different contributing factors to the creation of their social norms, as did we. Unfortunately, ours is just a tad bit more restrictive. Our race is under constant change with a constant altering set of standards. These changes have been proven to aid us in time of need, when gender lines can be blurred.
In World War II, women had to take up a "man's role" of building airplanes, tanks, bombs and more to fuel the war, and our eventual success. Even though temporary and brief, this gender roll adaptation shows the fluidity and effectiveness of an androgynous society. Unlike us here in America, there are cultures all around the world that have much different roles that what we assign our citizens. Native American tribes in Northern America have what is called "Two Spirit", which is someone who has qualities of both male and female. They would wear the clothing of both genders and perform actions that were of both genders as well, such as cooking and hunting. They were held in high regard and held positions such as healers, match-makers and foretellers of the future.
Think of what a genderless society would look like. It would be a society where there would be no
masculine or feminine. Everyone would do
the same things, and look similar as well.
Could you imagine a world where men and women play with dolls and wear
makeup, then later that day go change their oil and play some football? There would be no prejudice because the only
thing that would be separating the two different parties would be their sexual
organs. Sure biology takes a roll in
influencing people’s likes and interests, but there would be no definition as
to which activity is either masculine or feminine. People would be free to do what they please
without fear of repercussion from their peers.
A society like this is referred to as a “Type One
Civilization”, a global(if not planetary) society. Michio Kaku, a Professor of Theoretical
Physics at CUNY explains that there are two paths our society can go, being a
“Type Zero Civilization”: “The first trend is toward what we call a type one
civilization, a planetary civilization, a civilization that resembles something
out of ‘Buck Rogers’ or’Flash Gordon.’ A type two civilization is stellar.
They consume so much energy they can play with stars. That is for example
the Federation of Planets in ‘Star Trek.’ ‘Star Trek’ would represent the
typical type two civilization. Then we have type three, which is galactic
like the Borg or ‘Independence Day’ or the empire of ‘The Empire Strikes Back.’
That is a type three civilization, which is truly galactic. Now by the
time you reach type two, you are immortal. Nothing known to science can
destroy a type two civilization. Comets, meteors, earthquakes, even a
supernova a type two civilization would be able to survive even a
supernova.” Kaku goes on to explains
that since we are dependent on “salvaging”, such as harvesting energy from
fossil fuels and dead plants-we could be en route for destruction. There are far more incidents that can go
wrong using these primitive sources of power, along with having nuclear weapons
that are capable of wiping out the entire planet. But there is hope, we are already showing
signs of transitioning to a Type One, we have the European Union, fashion and
music trends that cross all borders, and even a semi-universal language, being
the one I’m speaking at this very moment.
In conclusion, I beg to you as a human being to do your
research on these subjects. Our civilization
has so much potential in the fields of science and evolution. But we are limited by segregating ourselves
which leads to fighting over such trivial things as religion. Perhaps gender roles were more important back
when finding a mate was absolutely necessary for survival, back when
environmental disasters weren’t a priority.
But today, we risk planetary destruction. Our society needs to reunite as one to
overcome this obstacle that has been placed upon us. We have the power to evolve past these
differences and come together and as a more whole society that has one common
goal. Evolving. We can reach the stars, if not other worlds –
if only we can throw away the past.
Sincerely,
Payton Schwarz
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