"It has not yet been disclosed what we are to be" (1 John 3,2)
Feature article
Why I do not subscribe to the concept of “male and female values”
There are quite a lot of people, women and men, who like to speak of „female and male values“. I often like those people as they are usually sensitive, serious and willing to improve the state of the world. Many of them hold that „the future will be female“. Consequently, in our world that, on the whole, is still strongly dominated by men and their fraternal connections, these people promote and often try to live what they call „femininity“: care, patience, responsiveness, cooperation, modesty etc.
I agree that we all should develop qualities that differ from the cowboy attitudes that have shaped the world for quite a long time: competition, assertiveness, toughness, coldness, greed, excessive love of technical solutions. And it is true that the virtues which will perhaps be able to “save the world” look a bit like those cultivated by many women who work in traditional female spheres, that is: as nurses, primary school teachers, housewives or mothers. The solution to release those values from their captivity in private spheres in order to use them for the healing of the whole seems plausible at first sight. Nevertheless I avoid designating “female and male values”. Why?
First of all I do not feel I would become male by being, for example, determinate, aggressive, scientifically minded or greedy. Neither do I feel any more female by peacefully cooking a meal for my family or listening to a child. I would just continue being the woman I am, for twenty-four hours a day. The advocates of female and male values of course tell me that these concepts do not refer to biological sexes, rather that our individual personalities contain actual female and male parts, just as our bodies contain both kinds of hormones - only men a bit more of male ones and women a bit more of female ones. But, I reply, if the qualities we are talking of do not refer to real persons, why do we call them male and female? Why don’t we just say that in order to heal the world we all need to become more responsive, careful, patient and sensitive?
I do not negate the existance of differences between women and men. But isn’t it strange that what we think to be “feminine” is exactly what men need in order to become the (supposedly) independent heroes that are able to control – and often destroy – the world? Aren't they dependent on care, patience and unconditional love to become what they think “real” men should be like? - In our western society men, for centuries, have been allowed to define what is true and women had to remain silent. So, I think it’s reasonable to suspect that our definitions of “male” and “female” do not refer to nature but to male interests that are reflected in a pseudo-truth.
There is another problem: Although “male and female values” are said to be (almost) totally independent from real sexes, women and men nevertheless are likely to behave differently towards them and consequently towards the task to shape our common future. While women will be prone to think that they are naturally more qualified to behave in a female way and thus do not have to learn a lot to save the world, men will probably continue to leave the tasks of caring to the other sex that seems to be much more able to fulfill them. Instead of learning necessary virtues they will tend to maintain the traditional division of labor we all are all too much used to. Why? Because the concept of female and male values enables them to benefit from the privileges of maleness using a new, politically correct argument: “As we are not so able to be female as women are, we unfortunately have to take the male part that unfortunately will never become dispensable… (and, by the way, enables us to stay in control)…”
Indeed, it is much more difficult for men to become “female” than it is to become “male“ for women. But not because men are not able to learn certain virtues but because in a world that has overvalued, praised and rewarded maleness for centuries to become “female” means to give up power, to voluntarily decline one’s own social status in doing what the “weaker sex” usually does, while for women “becoming male” means a clear social advancement. So, to conclude, I hold that it is illusory to use the notions “male” and “female” as if this context of power did not exist. As we cannot use the terms “male” and “female” without evoking associations of “strong” and “weak”, “higher” and “lower” we better say that our future good life will depend on care, sensitivity, responsiveness, patience and cooperation, thus virtues that everybody, men and women, will have to learn.
June 2010
Thank you Melissa!
Already appeared in this section:
- My actual creed and how it developedal
- Thinking God in the Beginning of the 21th Century
- The Art of Creating Postpatriarchal Meaning (WINCONFERENCE Prague, oct. 2009). This text has moved to the Pelican Web.
- Thinking Dependency. This text has moved to the Pelican Web.
There are quite a lot of people, women and men, who like to speak of „female and male values“. I often like those people as they are usually sensitive, serious and willing to improve the state of the world. Many of them hold that „the future will be female“. Consequently, in our world that, on the whole, is still strongly dominated by men and their fraternal connections, these people promote and often try to live what they call „femininity“: care, patience, responsiveness, cooperation, modesty etc.
I agree that we all should develop qualities that differ from the cowboy attitudes that have shaped the world for quite a long time: competition, assertiveness, toughness, coldness, greed, excessive love of technical solutions. And it is true that the virtues which will perhaps be able to “save the world” look a bit like those cultivated by many women who work in traditional female spheres, that is: as nurses, primary school teachers, housewives or mothers. The solution to release those values from their captivity in private spheres in order to use them for the healing of the whole seems plausible at first sight. Nevertheless I avoid designating “female and male values”. Why?
First of all I do not feel I would become male by being, for example, determinate, aggressive, scientifically minded or greedy. Neither do I feel any more female by peacefully cooking a meal for my family or listening to a child. I would just continue being the woman I am, for twenty-four hours a day. The advocates of female and male values of course tell me that these concepts do not refer to biological sexes, rather that our individual personalities contain actual female and male parts, just as our bodies contain both kinds of hormones - only men a bit more of male ones and women a bit more of female ones. But, I reply, if the qualities we are talking of do not refer to real persons, why do we call them male and female? Why don’t we just say that in order to heal the world we all need to become more responsive, careful, patient and sensitive?
I do not negate the existance of differences between women and men. But isn’t it strange that what we think to be “feminine” is exactly what men need in order to become the (supposedly) independent heroes that are able to control – and often destroy – the world? Aren't they dependent on care, patience and unconditional love to become what they think “real” men should be like? - In our western society men, for centuries, have been allowed to define what is true and women had to remain silent. So, I think it’s reasonable to suspect that our definitions of “male” and “female” do not refer to nature but to male interests that are reflected in a pseudo-truth.
There is another problem: Although “male and female values” are said to be (almost) totally independent from real sexes, women and men nevertheless are likely to behave differently towards them and consequently towards the task to shape our common future. While women will be prone to think that they are naturally more qualified to behave in a female way and thus do not have to learn a lot to save the world, men will probably continue to leave the tasks of caring to the other sex that seems to be much more able to fulfill them. Instead of learning necessary virtues they will tend to maintain the traditional division of labor we all are all too much used to. Why? Because the concept of female and male values enables them to benefit from the privileges of maleness using a new, politically correct argument: “As we are not so able to be female as women are, we unfortunately have to take the male part that unfortunately will never become dispensable… (and, by the way, enables us to stay in control)…”
Indeed, it is much more difficult for men to become “female” than it is to become “male“ for women. But not because men are not able to learn certain virtues but because in a world that has overvalued, praised and rewarded maleness for centuries to become “female” means to give up power, to voluntarily decline one’s own social status in doing what the “weaker sex” usually does, while for women “becoming male” means a clear social advancement. So, to conclude, I hold that it is illusory to use the notions “male” and “female” as if this context of power did not exist. As we cannot use the terms “male” and “female” without evoking associations of “strong” and “weak”, “higher” and “lower” we better say that our future good life will depend on care, sensitivity, responsiveness, patience and cooperation, thus virtues that everybody, men and women, will have to learn.
June 2010
Thank you Melissa!
Already appeared in this section:
- My actual creed and how it developedal
- Thinking God in the Beginning of the 21th Century
- The Art of Creating Postpatriarchal Meaning (WINCONFERENCE Prague, oct. 2009). This text has moved to the Pelican Web.
- Thinking Dependency. This text has moved to the Pelican Web.
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