Has society really progressed?

I must admit, prior to this past week’s discussions, I have never thoroughly considered the differences between gender and sex and never entertained the thought that we have been forced into a niche in one of two strict categories:  male and female.  I am Indian and was surrounded with very staunch ideals intrinsic to our culture while I was growing up, and many of those ideals were extremely chauvanistic.  Because of the situation with which I was presented, I was acutely aware of the differences between men and women, and I focused on ways to avoid being solely defined on my femininity.  Since I was so involved in defeating the status quo of female oppression, I never had the chance to believe that more than just these two concrete realms of sex could exist.

So, as I ponder the categories of sexes that could exist, I now wonder, is the battle of the sexes really between men and women only?  It now seems to me that leaving room for only male and female sexes completely disregards a large category of people who cannot precisely fit into either category and in turn, face a form of social injustice.  The hermaphrodite population most likely endures identity crises because society has left no room for them to be easily labeled.  They cannot safely be called male nor female, so does this make them an “it?”  Personally, I believe that hermaphroditism is now prevalent enough of a topic in our society that we can slowly evolve the way we perceive sex to include more than just the two categories.  But I’m guessing that old habits die hard.

In light of the issue of gender roles, I do believe that society has progressed somewhat to realize that men and women could possibly be equals.  That being said, I’ve heard one too many sexist jokes to believe that people have really tweaked the way they perceive the independent woman.  It was mentioned in class that even if both parties of a marriage work outside of the house, the woman still handles the majority of the domestic work.  One of my best male friends recently made the joke that the ability to cook and clean is programmed into women’s DNA.  I just smirked and didn’t take the joke personally because I knew it was a blatant lie.  The skills we possess are learned and not coded into our genome.  The jokes about women belonging in the kitchen will only stop when the male population slowly disregard the naturalized perception that household chores are for the woman to complete.  Because women are expected to handle the domestic tasks, this leads me to believe that when choosing a mate, the men instinctually seek out women that have been well-versed in the domestic arts.  In my opinion, this does not seem so far from the rituals of the Incans, where women were considered valuable based on what they could contribute to their community.  The process of exchanging the bridewealth in order to compensate the family for losing a working member shows that women were bought basically for their skills and possibly their beauty.  While women are not objectified as such in our society, it is still fairly apparent that they are considered more valuable if they know their way around a kitchen or laundry room.

I tend not to harbor extremely feminist values, but I’ve learned from my own experiences how hard women will have to work in order to ever really be on an even platform with men.  We have to put forth much more effort, and oftentimes attain the label of “bitch”, in order to gain respect and success in comparison to our male counterparts.  I also tend to have an open mind.  While I personally choose heterosexuality, I believe that a broad spectrum of sexuality exists and eventually, society will become more tolerant of this fact.