Li Sam :: At the Embankment We Run

Monday March 16^th 2009: There, one week older and it’s not my fault. During the past week I have actually done something and nothing. This doing something and yet not knowing if I have accomplished anything can be very irritating. So what did I do? Actually, I grabbed the moment as there was something in the newspaper that caught my attention this time. It was about gender, but not as you may think. This is a Swedish thing, maybe it’s spread here among the Scandinavian countries, but elsewhere I doubt it.

We have something here in Sweden called “Genus” and in Swedish that word stands for gender or rather “Social gender”. This “Genus” thing has through several years now turned into science and there are professors in universities, you can go to courses, there are a lot of books and much, much more. This “Genus science” supports equity between genders as they say, so in that sense it should be a good thing? However the means to reach that goal indicate quite the opposite.

A consequence of this “Genus science” is at daycare centers particular boyish and girlish things are put away, our children boys and girls should not have that option, like boys choosing to play with cars and girls choose playing with dolls. In daycare centers everything should be gender neutral nowadays. It’s even so that this gender thinking includes colors too, there should not be any blue play corners or rooms so boys can choose to go there and play and of course girls can’t have equally pink corners or rooms. Boys and girls are supposed to be raised free and without any gender role applied on them. So this way boys and girls are supposed to be raised in the same way, playing with the same gender neutral toys in gender grey premises, etc. There’s even talk about clothing, what to wear. Who knows: gender fashion next?

Another consequence is that this so called “Genus perspective” can be and is applied on everything; it’s even so that it can be demanded. In one case there is a young scientist that has got funds equal to $80,000 for research on a trumpet and differences in sound, like differences when a man plays it from when a woman does the same thing. So a trumpet can have a male tone and a female tone. We even have reports presented including this “Genus perspective” on how to handle nuclear waste and storing it.

So this week I have been engaged criticizing this “Genus science” and writing comments in newspaper articles and submitting articles of my own. So far with little attention, but I at least got some of my lines published. A main problem with this “Genus science” is that it decreed everyone and everything to be gender neutral and that is not equity to me. We should have equal rights and same pay for equal work and so on regardless of gender and that to me is about “Managing Diversity”; we should be able to and free to show ourselves presenting gender related variations. My experience tells me that presenting gender one way or the other can be very important for our well-being, even if we’re aware of thinking of it or not. And I’m very critical about exposing our children to these kinds of experiments, it has been tried before and always failed. To me children should be allowed to be just children. Time will tell who their true selves are and how they would like to present themselves.

If you are interested in discussing this aspect of gender perspective influencing our society and lives, I’m open for it. Just drop me a line or two and tell what’s on your mind.

Ohh… I almost forgot: the title and the ingress line, what do those stand for? Well, this is how I was thinking having these “Genus people” popping up from everywhere assembling.

“Along the water we run freely and fast, but only a step away, in the wrong direction, we can sink deep.”

Keywords: Gender, AcrossBorders, Personal, Diary

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Comments

Re: At the Embankment We Run

by Jacqui on Fri 20 Mar 2009 02:37 AM CET | Profile | Permanent Link

Once apon a time, pre-children, I would have agreed with this idea of genus science because I just couldn't believe that there were real, inherent differences between the sexes other than physical ones. Post-little girl I don't believe it for a minute. There ARE real differences, they're expressed early, and they are innate. The thing that most people don't grasp is that different doesn't mean better or worse, or more valued (well they shouldn't anyways), they're just that - differences. It's odd - little girls do things differently than little boys and they always seem to come out looking good because they come closer to society's current ideal of what little kids should be like. Boys are violent and non-verbal and all that blah blah blah. As they get older though, women's ways and skills are not valued and judged as highly as men's.

Re: At the Embankment We Run

by Li Sam on Tue 24 Mar 2009 03:58 PM CET | Profile | Permanent Link

I very much recognize what you describe here Jacqui (20mar2009-02:37am), I too had some ideals I believed in as young. I guess as young we have a lot of ideas on how we want things to be, but not yet enough experience and knowledge on how things really are. One thing that really struck me after my transition was that I never got valued before my transition as man in the same way as other men did. I was never in question when it came to promotion, career and those things. I was never really invited into the “Men’s world”, even though by flesh I was a man and my behavior as man never was questioned. So to me this male/female difference seems to go even deeper than just body and appearance.

Re: At the Embankment We Run

by naa2007 on Sat 19 Sep 2009 04:47 AM CEST | Profile | Permanent Link

Wow, I like pink ... and blue. Actually I like green and purple the best. No, I like all the colors. I'm just glad I can see.

I have always thought of gender as a spectrum. On one end of the spectrum you have the most masculine Rambo and on the other the most feminine Princess and the Pea. All people populate this spectrum whether they have a male body or female body.

But when I think about a spectrum, the first thing that comes to mind is color. White light is a mixture of all the colors. If you take one of the colors out, you don't get white. Therefore gender is like color. when you take all the genders of all the people, you get the whole ... white. Take one out and something is missing, the white is gone.

I think part of our problem in understanding gender is not realizing that gender expression can be different than gender. My definition of gender is where you are on the gender spectrum when your guard is down and you can be who you really are.

I have read many examples of transsexual women having lived life as a Marine or a fire fighter or participating in other macho endeavors. Many times in an attempt to "cure" themselves. Most of the time to prove themselves to the people who were defining what was expected of them. As for me, a transsexual woman, I didn't have to be a Marine. However, I have expended massive amounts of energy to push my gender expression as far as I can to the masculine side of the spectrum.

Until we let people be who they are, the world cannot be white. It will always be dull and dingy. Oh, if all that energy could be used to accomplish positive things!

If a man can wear pink, I think that he is more self confident and courageous than Rambo. I doubt he could pull it off. If a boy child wants to play with dolls on the pink side of the room, or a girl child wants to play with trucks on the blue side, I say we should let them. And, at the same time, teach the kids to accept themselves and others in their gender expression. Once we get over that hurdle, perhaps we could somehow determine, early in life, those children who either are comfortable with both their gender and sex, or are comfortable with their gender, but not with their sex.

And while we are at it, whats all this about sticks and snails and puppy dog tails?