Why Men Should Care About the Gender Binary
Photo by Delia Giandeini
From the Future of Masculinity weekly newsletter for people particularly passionate about engaging, educating, and empowering boys and men around gender and masculinity with news-you-can-use, tools, and events.
This is part one of blog series of the gender binary. Read part two next: Queering the Gender Binary
“Is it a boy or a girl?”
It’s one of the first questions expecting parents are asked—and remains one of the clearest examples of how, even before we’re born, our sex is considered a defining feature of our identity. But why is our sex considered so significant?
Is it because of the meaning we attach to sex? What is means to be a boy or a girl in a given society? Why should we care about that?
The short answer is maybe we are limiting and harming ourselves and others when we hold onto a binary understanding of gender.
The longer answer is first, we have to know what the gender binary is. And that starts with understanding what gender is.
The gender binary is the rules that you, I, and society are told to live by.
Gender is a set of expectations or rules that we learn through every social institution that exists: family, peers, media, schools, religion, government laws, communities, and so on.
These expectations are about everything: how we should walk, talk, dress, style our hair, express emotions, what activities we should do, interests we should have, media we should consume, people we should associate with or look up to, and so much more.
The rules of gender aren’t the same for everyone though. As a society, we’ve developed two sets of rules built as opposites: this is known as the gender binary.
Gender binary refers the behaviours we expect of people based on their assumed sex, either male or female*. In plain language, the gender binary is the different set of rules and expectations we have for men/boys and women/girls.
Read more: Want to know the difference between sex and gender? Or learn more about gender expression and identity? Check out our Gender Lexicon.
“We are born as who we are. The gender thing is something that is imposed on you.”
So if we see a child that ‘looks’ like a boy—they have short hair, they are wearing shorts and a t-shirt—then we can acknowledge we have certain expectations about what we think a boy should look like, right? Perhaps we now also have some expectations about how he might behave (rambunctious?) or the things he might like (sports or video games?).
Those expectations? That’s gender.
Photo from The New York Times
The gender binary values people and traits on a hierarchy.
Not only are we saying ‘this is how people should act, based on their sex,’ but we often value ‘masculine’ traits, qualities, and expectations more than ‘feminine’ ones.
For instance, do you remember how in the movie Meet the Parents, it was a running joke that Ben Stiller’s character was a nurse? Nursing is generally a respected profession, it’s essential work, and it takes years of study and a variety of skills, so why was he ridiculed for his career choice?
Presumably, it’s considered worthy of ridicule and humiliation because it’s a female-dominated profession and he’s a man. He is taking a ‘step down’ into an under-valued role, a ‘feminine’ role. This was made even clearer with the contrast with his father-in-law, Robert De Niro's character, who was a former CIA operative (a highly ‘masculine’ career).
If the worst thing for boy/man to be is ‘feminine’, what does that say about the value of girls/women? It must therefore be lower.
That’s just one example, but we could easily think of many more—but this is how we know that there’s not only a binary but a hierarchy when it comes to gender.
Okay, so there are expectations and we value masculinity more than femininity, but what’s the big deal?
If you look at the image above, you can see that all of the traits or qualities listed are human traits, but they’ve been divided into ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ traits.
When we are expected to act in line with only the traits ascribed to our assumed sex, this cuts us off from half of our humanity.
This means we are all limited in how we can behave—it limits our possibilities—and it means that we limit the potential, growth, and authenticity of others, too.
The fact that we collectively undervalue traits deemed ‘feminine’ also harms us all.
For women and feminine people, this has led to being treated as property, sexual objects, valued only for their appearance, or their ability to provide care (which itself is labour that is typically unpaid or underpaid).
For men and masculine people, this has led to them being cut off from themselves, having fewer (and less fulfilling) relationships, and living in a culture of competition with other men where they never feel like they’re enough.
The ways in which we police this gender binary, pushing ourselves and others to conform to these rigid rules is also very troubling.
We use shame, guilt, or peer pressure to limit one another’s authenticity—our ability to be ourselves and feel comfortable in our skin. With a look, a joke, or a comment, we tell one another what’s the ‘right way’ to behave like a man or woman.
Or, we outright inflict violence on one another to force conformity to these rules. As an easy example, think of the bullying that boys who are labelled ‘feminine’ or queer experience at school (think ‘quit acting like a girl’ or ‘grow some balls’).
It doesn’t have to be this way.
You can challenge the gender binary.
If you think about it, you can probably describe a time when you behaved rationally, or a time when you were empathetic, strong, or sensitive—whether you’re male, female, or nonbinary.
The truth is that none of us ‘stay on our side’ of these binary expectations. So whether consciously or not, we already push back against the gender binary all the time.
Women act in ways that are considered ‘masculine’ and men act in ways that are ‘feminine’ every day.
And nonbinary people, well, they’ve pushed back against the gender binary so much, they’ve completely rejected it; nonbinary = not within the binary.
Truly, many queer folks have been at the forefront of questioning, challenging, and outright subverting the gender binary and its rigid rules for as long as they’ve existed (read: forever).
Stay tuned for part two in this series, where we will continue to explore the idea of queering the binary!
Join us at our next Circle event to continue the conversation—we’ll be unpacking the gender binary, its significance in our lives, and what exists outside of binary ideas of gender. Register on Eventbrite!
Veronika Ilich is the Community Manager for Next Gen Men. Find her at NGM events, on the Modern Manhood Podcast, or on our online Inner Circle forum! She is passionate about social justice, and in particular, gender-based violence prevention and eliminating poverty.