What if our "private parts" were actually private....

[Senior citizen]

I know that's unthinkable in a patriarchal society, but I've been thinking about it for 25 years, so maybe now I can talk about it.

Most of us have heard of that famous university experiment where they took a diapered infant and handed it to people saying it was female, and the infant was treated quite differently than when they handed the same infant to people saying that it was male--and when they gave no indication people were at a loss and tried to peek under the diaper!

So just imagine that we dress babies alike and gave them unisex names. Of course secondary sexual characteristics would appear around puberty, but by then kids have already learned how to interact with others and gained what self-esteem they're allowed.

We'd have to use the traditionally inclusive pronouns for all children, of course, because we wouldn't be able to differentiate on the basis of sex in order to assign them separate and different pronouns. So kids wouldn't have to be divided into two teams at birth and could grow up treating each other as individuals.

And if we couldn't differentiate, as Prof. Gerda Lerner has pointed out, we wouldn't be able to discriminate. We wouldn't be able to force kids into artificial gender roles, but would have to let them act and develop naturally. Schools would have to have 1-person toilets instead of public locker room type bathrooms.

There are lots of ramifications, but as I say, I've been thinking about this for a long time. Patriarchal societies begin to enforce patriarchal values from the moment of birth, so when as adults we say that we prefer something, we've forgotten that we weren't given a choice as infants and therefore we don't know what we'd have preferred if we'd actually had that choice.

[NMMNG]

1. It's a wonderful concept

But it will never happen. People would be too worried about children not developing the "proper" gender identity and (perish the thought) possibly even becoming gay as a result :o . After all, you know, boys become gay because they were allowed to play with Barbie's when they were little!:rofl:

No, our society is just not ready for such a concept. Perhaps in a century or two-or ten.

;(

[Senior citizen]

2. The abolition of gender roles is a prerequisite to the

abolition of patriarchy.

There have been accounts of Robbin Island, where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned, about how two notorious male gangs on the island fought. The winners killed the losers, except for those who were willing to become "wifies." Those of the losing gang who were permitted to survive had to take female names, wear female clothes, and become household and sex slaves. In other words, they were forced to adopt the gender role of women. And these were men! That's how patriarchy was imposed in the first place. Warriors would attack a village, kill the adult males, take the females and children as wives and slaves, and then kill those of them who refused to accept their assigned gender roles and raise their kids that way. Patriarchy did to females 5,000 years ago, exactly what the winning gang did to the losing gang on Robbin Island.

Don't know about you, but I don't have a century or two--or ten to wait. And neither does the planet.

[redqueen]

3. I haven't heard of that experiment, I'll have to look that up.

Doesn't surprise me a bit.

As for your idea, it's an extreme method to be sure, but I like it... however I doubt the masses would adopt such a method without being forced.

[geniph]

4. I've never understood why we treat girls differently from boys

I've had this argument with people more times than I can remember. I don't think children should be treated at all differently until puberty. I've never understood why we treat prepubescent girls differently from boys.

I was kind of gender confused myself; I thought I was just slow to grow a penis. ;-) Really. I was kind of freaked out when I realized I was going to stay a girl (girl cooties forever!). I think that's part of the reason I've never accepted traditional gender roles. I think that's a healthier way to be, overall (although I will admit it's caused me a certain amount of difficulty in my life, but that's mostly because OTHER people insist on one having a single gender identity).

I have friends who are intersexed persons; they refuse to identify as one gender. It's very instructive to watch people try to force them into a gender and a gender role. Why on earth does a person's gender matter in anything non-sexual or non-reproductive? I'll never understand that. Why should gender matter any more than eye color?