À La Carte The Gender Agenda Is this the end of gender?
by Gary Shacklady
I
have always been curious about linguistic structure, which certainly played a part in my studying of German to GCSE level and French to A-Level. It enabled me to get by in Barcelona without much knowledge of Spanish nor Catalan and with my friends speaking English slowly and loudly in the conventional British way (and one speaking Portuguese similarly); help Austrians to use my phrasebook in Thailand; and tell off an angry French tourist who was shouting at a sales assistant in Rome. As a teacher, I have taught many children for whom English is an additional language. Increasingly, I am having to adapt my teaching to suit the needs of children whose mother tongue is different from mine. Sometimes, I can use my knowledge of languages, often families of languages such as the Romance languages (commonly those with a Latin base: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, and the dialects thereof). At other times, I have no starting point whatsoever. For example, I recently had a Turkish boy start in my class. Other than ‘taksi’ (yes, ‘taxi’), I had no Turkish vocabulary. Fortunately, he was literate in Turkish and we successfully used a translator on his desk for him to understand, read and write English … until we hit a block. Gender. He. She. Turkish is a gender-free language. Some will say English is, too. French has masculine and feminine for its nouns (le/la; un/une); German adds neuter (too complicated with nominative, accusative, genitive and dative to give examples). English just has ‘the’ or ‘a/ an’. But here is not where the problem lies. It’s the he/she/it which confused him. Turkish has just ‘o’ for ‘he’, ‘she’ and ‘it’, nothing gender-specific. Even then, this pronoun is often not used, being a part of the verb conjugation. Conversely, in English, we decide whether someone is male or female (we most commonly do this without checking), then we use a pronoun to define this, every time we mention that person. Why? Is it relevant? Do the contents of their underwear always prove important to our discussion about that person? No. For the vast majority of anyone’s day, our actions could be performed by either sex. The only difference between me and any of my female colleagues during the school day is that I might stand up to pee at some point. So what’s the difference? Why do we need to add the information about my gender when talking about me? I’m a teacher, just like my colleagues, but I’m the male teacher and for some reason that needs mentioning. I can’t work out why.
Firstly, defining others is largely based on assumptions. If we see someone with short hair, wearing a suit and tie, we are likely to assume that person is male. Likewise, if we see someone in a dress, wearing make-up and carrying a handbag, we assume they are female. We don’t ask. We certainly don’t check for proof. Yes, often the signs are more obvious – an Adam’s apple, for example, but not always. This middle-ground, where it isn’t always obvious whether a person is male or female is referred to as androgyny, perhaps a combination of the male and female characteristics. There are a few things to address here: who decided which characteristics were male and which were female? Who decided upon the dress code for the different sexes? And, if there are answers to those questions, why are we still upholding those rules? Are genders just barriers? We often hear about gender inequality, and most sports separate according to their sex (in some cases, banning those who have transitioned from one to the other). Awards go to the best male and the best female. Well, what can celebrated musician Sam Smith win? Sam identifies as non-binary – neither male nor female. So is Sam excluded from these awards? They (Sam’s preferred pronoun) have won many awards in the past. Androgyny is becoming more common, not just with people who identify as LGBT+. I predict it will become more common, as attitudes towards gender become more relaxed. When we meet people, we will not immediately know if they are male or female. Will that be a problem? What if we find them attractive or even fall in love with them before we find out? Will it matter? This isn’t about me but I have many genderless aspects to my life. For instance, there are no male staff toilets in most primary schools so I have to use the accessible toilet, which is unisex. I have no problem with this. Some people might feel that children need a balance of adult males and adult females around them as they grow up but I have seen many children develop well with only a single mother. In fact, I have seen some grow up just fine with a pair of mothers. If we no longer had genders, or even if we began attaching less importance to them, we could rid ourselves of gender inequality, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, transgender issues, anxieties surrounding sexuality, toxic masculinity (the reason why 75% of suicides are male?), chauvinism and even aspects of feminism. To me, that sounds like a list of things to be rid of. But none of this helps that Turkish boy to learn English.
My discussion here is not about whether men or women are better than the other. More, my discussion is about why that is even considered. I have a young child. I am bombarded with adverts for seemingly gender-specific toys and clothing. Again: why? If children need their genitals to play with the toys, the toys probably aren’t for children.
The Deux-Sèvres Monthly, February 2021 | 31