The F word

I am not talking about my favorite expletive either, I am talking about feminism. The first thing that comes to mind are man hating female supremacists that want to make society a matriarchy. Ok, that is the extreme just as the "patriarchy" is seen as a strict male centered world where women are disrespected and treated like objects and property rather than people. They are opposites on the spectrum on this supposed battle of the sexes and hardly the reality.

I don't want to enter a pissing contest with men on a "who is more oppressed basis". We are equally oppressed by the same norms just in different ways.

My definition of feminism is less exclusionary. Feminism for me is about choice. Masculine-ism should be too. We should have the right to perform in a relationship based on actual skills and self recognized identity than on a norm that is not the "only acceptable" or average state. When gender ceases to be the primary indicator for role and skill set in our society we may be less stressed out by behavior models. There must be patience with humankind because there is a often a long adjustment period for society as a whole. A redefinition period where the majority must refashion what is acceptable and this must be done all together for those who identify as men, women, both or neither. We are people, with skills and abilities that compliment some one else's skills and abilities. The bundling of gender and behavior is a control mechanism to create a dominant order in a society and is oppressive to all sides.

There is also the hardwired physical evidence to consider. Science has adequately proven that primally speaking our bodies are made for different tasks. Women have more rods and cones in their eyes which detect more color variation. Anthropologically, it is assumed this is a mechanism to aid in the gathering of food. Many plants look alike and poison knowledge is essential to survival in a primal setting. Women also hear sound in a higher range than men, children in distress tend to emit high pitched sounds. Women experience cold in their extremities more, presumably because all the body heat is focused on the baby producing core of the body.  Men tend to develop verbal language skills at a later time but rather than this being the bane of primal man it is essential in group hunting to be able to communicate in a minimalist non verbal way. Men tend to be stronger thanks to testosterone which also makes procreation more likely and defense more effective.

The body's are what they are, and evolution and adaptation are slow. We have socially grown out of a need for these basic reflexes with more sedentary jobs and less fight or flight living. But are we to ignore hardwired reflex? Doesn't that place more stress on us? Can we live and evolve bodily beyond what nature has wired us too? Then there are the anomalies the "98lb weakling" or the "russian female athlete". They are funny stereotypes certainly, but aren't we seeing more of these in places we didn't expect?

The things that make us male or female identified or presented go way beyond body style. Science has a lot to say about the hormonal baths received at certain times during gestation. Every person's experience varies. A missed hormonal trigger provides genetic variance and this presents differently. Could not sexual preference be evidence of this? And what about the heterosexual male who is weak of body and strong in social skills? Or the woman who is bodily strong and not attached to nurturing? Is he less of a blueprint man? Is she automatically a lesbian? Society's dominating tropes would have you think so.

Social science may give you a typical bell curve about who is male and who is female based on bodily presentment but you can't be so sure as to presume anymore. I think this upsets people. Nature doesn't stay in the box we put it in for easy management. Why would humans be any different?

The real problem of radical feminism and it's woman hating opposite is social. It is still trying to force competition rather than cooperation. We are compliments of each other along wired in and learned behavior not necessarily presentment. Isn't it time we were on the same side and isn't it time that we reevaluated why we need strict two gender behavior norms that exclude anomaly? In our fast paced world is the auto-pilot control really better than actively engaging another person as a person rather than a box of expected behaviors?

No wonder women are angry when they have to raise children on less than a man would make for the same job. No wonder men are angry when the rules of engagement change from woman to woman or based on what Cosmo says this month. When will we be ready to take responsibility for our own nature no matter how traditional or not rather than let the rules of overarching acceptability force us to be what we are not?  And when will Equality stop being supremacy and go back to being equality?