One Massive Horrendous Game of Philosophical Dominoes

I have always assumed, when thinking about the new-found sparkly visibility of the gender non-conformist community, that those living in the Romance language countries must have it so much harder. Here in the U.K, using pronouns ze or they in place of he/she, is a concept that has relatively recently entered into the public consciousness. Which of course is radical enough for the majority who, brought up on clear rail-tracks of he and she as far as the eye can see, have rarely known a spark to fly out and wink between the two, even for a moment. 

So imagine the overhaul required in Spanish, where the entire ordeal is grammatically gendered. Every item of clothing you are wearing, every adjective used to describe you, has the appropriate ending to match your perceived gender. To neutralise this involves a completely new grammatical ending, not to mention the fact that some of the male/female versions of the same word in Spanish don't even mean the same thing. My all time favourite example of this is the public man and the public woman– 

el hombre publico y la mujer pública

The public man is a politician, whereas the public woman is a prostitute! Despite the problematic (albeit quite comical) idea of a female politician having to choose between being called a male politician, or a prostitute (arguably, how different are they really?) there is the question of what would happen if you somehow neutralised these phrases to a genderless state. Which definition would the gender-neutral meaning fall onto? It becomes then a problem of association of meaning in gender, a problem ultimately in ways of thinking.

This monkey-chain of musings, mused in a park on a particularly polluted day, brought me back full circle to considering the English language. It isn't a particularly acute observation to note that we too have gender associative ways of thinking, despite not having grammatical gender. But what about binary modes of thinking? Ideas built on the structure of couples, of opposites, ideas built on the idea that opposites even exist. Once I began looking for binary concepts, they came surging out at me from all angles, like school kids on the first day of summer. We are obsessed with opposites. Some examples for you  – 

Active/passive

Dominant/submissive

Strong/weak

Logical/emotional 

Stable/unstable

Sane/mad 

These pairs of words are opposites. Why? They just are. Our language says they are, so we except this as a cosy, furry fact – these are opposites, because they just are, great – done. But influencing this societal agreement that these words are opposites, there is a more murkily hidden agent at work, and that agent is hierarchy. If you look back at the examples, you will notice that the first words possess the higher social status, the second the lesser. Classical philosophy is built on this structure of opposites, a hierarchical structure of two options; more or less agency.

If you're an honest person, you might admit to yourself that you would naturally associate the first column of words with ideas of masculinity, and the second with femininity. It is in this way that gendered language riddles English despite having no grammatical gender. In expressing ideas of philosophy and psychology through the lens of opposites, coupled with deep rooted gender association, a secondary gendered language is created. It is extremely difficult to neutralise. And so we find ourselves again between the prostitute and the Spanish politician… as no doubt so many before us have found themselves caught. 

The problem with structures of thinking that identify opposites, is that ideas can become associated that needn't be, purely through being lined up with other opposites. It's essentially one massive horrendous game of philosophical dominoes. A good example of this is the internalised ideas in society on mental health. Traditionally, binary ideas of mental health fell unfavourably on women, usually categorised on the –

 /emotional /unstable /mad - side of - logical/ stable/ sane/ 

However now it is the very problem of being on the masculine side of binary thinking, because this is hierarchically superior, that is causing such difficulties in male psychological health. If you identify with being on the masculine side of the masculine/feminine binary system, then through association of definitions, you are supposed to be as strong, logical, and stable as you are masculine. To admit to feeling weak, emotional or unstable, is to voluntarily align oneself with the feminine side of binary, which hierarchically, is the lesser in this strange domino world of opposites. This is, in part, why suicide is the highest killer in men from 18 to 25, but not in women. The hierarchical binary society creates a culture where a person who identifies as masculine, would in some cases rather take their life, than admit to perceived weaknesses that align them with the feminine, and the social scorn that this might unleash. This is my interpretation of ‘toxic masculinity’: a learnt need to define yourself by the upper-hierarchical side of every binary mode of thought, regardless of its damaging and polarising qualities, to in fact not even be able to see the ways in which it is damaging and polarising, because we have been raised on a life philosophy built on the structure of opposites. Including the “opposite” of all opposites; man and woman. 

To end this I’ll leave you with some questions that relate back to our reoccurring comic pair, the prostitute and the politician. How might homophobia be lessened if gay and straight weren't considered opposites; eternally cursing one to be defined by the other, and not in and of themselves? How might political discussion be freed if the expression of ideas wasn't locked into the opposing structures of left and right? Above all, think of how different discussion and decision making in your life could be, if it wasn't for the bonds of the biggest binary myth of them all: right and wrong.