on gender
Man is outward. Woman, inward. Man’s ambition is to extend himself and by doing so, prove that he is in fact a man. Woman need not prove anything, but rather desires that she might feel, herself, a woman. Men revere force and resilience and lastingness. Women, depth and permanence of a different kind — where men erect monuments, women would rather a field where upon life is the monument. Where a man’s complexities are rather exposed, a woman’s are buried and seldom encountered with full disclosure — and both would be glad to keep it that way.
Where man is a tower, woman is a canyon, the limits of each identical to each other, save the distance of polarity. Where there is fit, there must too be contrast and opposition, thought not necessarily strife — there must be difference where there is found complement.
For what thrill is a plain when it is on heights and in depths the human finds their vigor?
When the two at last concede — to share the horizon — there is no seam to be found. They continue on toward their limits, and it is by a mystery done together. By this same mystery the fit will not, by the end, have been lost. Both will have fused into one continuity of form, where, as the man extends the woman deepens, and where the woman deepens, she allows the man to extend again.
It is in each other they see the distance, complement, and furtherance that only gender can effect.
Should we be passive and see the hills and valleys washed away for tundra? I treasure the uneven terrain; humanity finds its colour in the slopes.
tags: gender
December 20th, 2007 at 2:34 pm
Is this based on scripture? Psychiatry/Psychology? Experience? Where are you coming from with this and why is it important? Are talking about all men and women or just Christian men and women? In either case what about homosexuals, who may favour attributes that most people would assign to one paticular gender? Feminists? Stay at home Dads? Women who are naturally predisposed to lead and men who are inclined to be followers? etc etc
Not everyone fits into your discription, I believe within the church there is a struggle for both men and women to embrace biblical gender roles. We see this in North American Christian divorce rates, church attendance and volunteering statistics. Perhaps your post is an ideal that we can strive for, but it’s certainly not how things presently exist.
December 20th, 2007 at 2:46 pm
I know people see their roles differently. I’m outlining, as you noted, an ideal (and not a hard fast one either, it was 25% a moment of poetic whimsy).
Actually, what I did was make an observation of sexuality, and use it as a metaphor for our relationship and complement to each other in non-sexual terms.
I think that God has wonderfully given us a metaphor of our relationship to Christ through marriage. I also think I’m justified in thinking that He has given us a metaphor for both, in sexuality.
I think, specifics aside, from the section “When the two at last concede — to share the horizon” on, is undeniable — we find ourselves in each other, and it is through difference that we are, ourselves, enabled to be more of what we are. Contrast leaves both parties better defined and better appreciated.
December 20th, 2007 at 7:19 pm
Well I have to say, your writing style is bizarre. Without an academic style it’s hard to see the point, at times while reading your post I wondered if this was philosophy or a poem. The days of combining both are long gone. Thesis and arguments, they’re not fun but they work.
“Actually, what I did was make an observation of sexuality, and use it as a metaphor for our relationship and complement to each other in non-sexual terms.”
Are you saying I didn’t get that? the triangles thing in the Davinci Code is all anyone needs man.
“I think, specifics aside” BuZzZZzzZ
I feel like that means, “Anything that could be used in a court of law …can’t.” LOL
I agree to a point, in regards to your last paragraph/last comment. Marraige is a great blessing and in not as eloquent language as yours, having someone around all the time, in an intimate fashion, helps to encourage growth in positive ways being yoked with another is in itself a limitation. We can only go as far the other person will allow. Of course, lets not forget the potetial for it all to collapse, we’re dealing with people here …and women
When Paul says it is better not to marry and devote yourself to a life of service like him, there lies the limitless potential, because when we’re in the hands of God alone, well where’s our limit? However, I guess you still have a point because, we’re all like little Jonas’s anyway.
oh and one more thing
Jins
December 20th, 2007 at 7:54 pm
Sometime caves and canyons can shadow each other to make an even greater depth. Ay, caves do become more unique as defined in context to a vast world of mountains and steeples. Cities competing for a more impressive horizon…
But their is something to be said for the mysteries unlocked between those who share a deeper knowing; a womb. Interned flowering and budding, synchronized hidden gardens - ruled by the moon and the tides. Warm and fertile. A mutual knowing, and understanding that takes place between the navel and her safest warmth. It is here that we understand and create and inspire. It is here we can be lost and found again. It is here where we experience our greatest pain and pleasure.
Personally I knew not myself, until i knew a women. And these days, with so much more fluidity and ambiguity with regards to gender (in society), some men are more complimented by the same sex then their opposite.
As gender takes place in the mind and is influenced by several social and environmental factors, while our sex, is constituted by our physicality alone.
Thankfully in Christ there is neither male nor female. I rejoice in His ingenuity, his prize, his body. Made of men and women both.
I really enjoyed this entry. I spy.
s
December 22nd, 2007 at 9:46 pm
Women are inward? Women are every bit as social as men - at least in my experience. And men who expose their complexities don’t make for very good poker players. If you don’t mind my asking, where are you getting your ideas on gender?
December 23rd, 2007 at 7:34 pm
To Jay:
True! God is our sufficiency and all we need.
But we know that He has chose other means! Women was taken from man. He is incomplete without here. Something was removed.
I don’t think you have to think too long or hard to gather from the scriptures that in the one lies the completion of the other.
To Dan:
I’m not talking about the purely practical. Yes. Women speak. Men coneal. This is a bit self-evident, wouldn’t you say?
I’m talking about the internal postures — where our spirits run to. No, there are no hard and fast rules. There are tendencies though. You’ll read in my first comment response I said “it was 25% a moment of poetic whimsy.”
Where do I get my ideas on gender from? Well, again, from the first comment response I posted here:
“I think that God has wonderfully given us a metaphor of our relationship to Christ through marriage. I also think I’m justified in thinking that He has given us a metaphor for both, in sexuality.
I think, specifics aside, from the section “When the two at last concede — to share the horizon” on, is undeniable — we find ourselves in each other, and it is through difference that we are, ourselves, enabled to be more of what we are. Contrast leaves both parties better defined and better appreciated.”
Are men and women the same? No. That means there are things about them that are different. The physiological differences are obvious — I think that they mirror the psychological differences to some degree.
I think stopping to think about men vs women for 5 minutes would lead anyone to at least some appreciation of this.
Again, no, not everone conforms to a tidy model. But unless it’s women who start most wars, and unless men suffer post-pardum, you’ll have to conceed there are some general patterns of psychology dividing the genders?
December 23rd, 2007 at 11:00 pm
Your last comment is, on some level, entirely uncontroversial. The problem arises when we conflate cultural conditioning and actual biological differences. For example, in Sparta literacy and math were considered effeminate while in Athens they must not have been as a bunch of their male philosophers and scientists seem to have been well regarded. These are two cultures with similar languages and religions.
Men may not suffer post-partum depression, but there are certainly millions of men suffering every other type of depression. Gender roles in many societies have kept women away from the decisions that lead to war, but when they have access to those decisions, someone like Elizabeth I of England or Catherine The Great of Russia was just as likely to engage in military stuggle as any man. Actually Catherine The Great probably puts most male rulers to shame, she was vicious.
January 1st, 2008 at 11:37 am
Problem? Maybe if we try to take things too far. But there is a degree of unity to things. Some parts of the Universe tend to mirror others. That doesn’t mean such an exercise is right, but based on what I’ve seen of the two genders, both from my own personal relationships, and those that have dotted history, I think I have quite a strong case.
Have kept women away? Who kept them away, men? I hope you’re not playing the “Men are usually stronger physically, and so have been able to subdue women” argument.”
How many times have we seen the weaker prevail because of their desires — because of their will. No, it is those who desire power, who have the goal of domination, that succeed. If you do not desire power, you will not pursue it. The reason men have been in a place to keep women from anything has entirely to do with their psychological make-up, not dudes having marginally bigger biceps or anything else purely physical.
I think you’ll find, as in this example, the occasional exception to the general psychological differences I’ve mentioned — certainly, the bulk of men and women will fall on some kind of gradient, but more often than not, in one bucket or the other. More than body parts determine our differences. Having close contact with females with entirely different personalities, and from completely unrelated upbringings and contexts has shown this to be true. The vast testimony of history has as well.
January 2nd, 2008 at 10:40 am
“I hope you’re not playing the ‘Men are usually stronger physically, and so have been able to subdue women’ argument.”
I’m not playing at anything. What I’m saying is that the interaction of innate physical and psychological traits, social conditioning and whatever else is extremely complicated. You could launch a career in anthropology several times over researching these sorts of things. To condense the origin and nature of gender roles to a paragraph or two is to overlook a great deal of scholarship.
“Having close contact with females with entirely different personalities, and from completely unrelated upbringings and contexts has shown this to be true.”
Yes but you’ve seen them all through your own contingent lens. Making assumptions about gender roles is one of the classic examples of Foucault’s “gaze.” Male doctors in the 19th Century assumed women were irrational - primarily it appears because they saw themselves as rational. They devised “hysteria” as a medical condition to which women were subject because, well, they were irrational - again, unlike rational male doctors. I don’t think they were all misogynists or chauvinists or anything - but they were culturally conditioned to make certain assumptions about the sexes that we now consider false.
January 3rd, 2008 at 3:21 pm
I’m not sure what scholarship has anything to do with it. Since other people have written and “battled it out,” that is to say my view is somehow unqualified? I do not subscribe to the idea that one must run through some sort of gauntlet to be validated. “I’ve consumed X amount of writings, now I’m justified!”
As you said, one could spend lifetimes on the topic. However, such has been done! There’s a “great deal of scholarship.” Yet, no consensus. Clearly volume is not the problem. If volume could lead to certainty, we’d have some by now.
I’ve presented a very general, very broad view. There is room for variance. Nonetheless, it’s defensible, and you haven’t told me how, it is generally untrue. You’ve mentioned some interesting exceptions, but they’re only exceptions, and I would think, all exceptions considered and compared to the whole, they would be of statistical insignificance.
The reason why, if you’re wondering, i think there’s even justification for trying to establish any sort of generality, is that the generality exists. There are men. There are women — and generality. Men and women are aware that they are unlike each other — a generality. Uncountable hours have been spent researching these generalities because they are recognized to exist. Generalities are not necessarily the enemy and can often help us grasp a larger view without getting bogged down in minutia that would, usually, render us intellectually immobile. If 1 out of every 100 women disagreed with me, their dissent would noteworthy — but the 99 women that did agree would certainly indicate that in fact the generality was one worth serious consideration and was of some real value.
But does that negate the ability to actually come to correct conclusion? I’m not sure it does. That’s why we need to evaluate the position itself with more vigour than the “positioner.”
Right. They were. Are we forbidden from drawing conclusions? It’s clear that it is something to be a “man” and something else to be a “woman.” Complexities or not, we are permitted to observe and comment.
I do not think my comments here are in violation of any greater or more true observations. Are they?
January 4th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
What an interesting dialog! Thanks Ben for your comments and for sharing, in an intriguing way, observations that challenge others to think about this facinating subject.