PKU4 HUMAN NATURE “Gender” in Modern Western Cultures
Gender in Modern Western Cultures
To keep in mind as you read: Why has gender never seemed all that
important in the Chinese tradition as compared to the modern West?
Gender is strongly marked in Western civilization, including Western languages [link:
much more than in the Chinese tradition. For tha reason, the
public discussion of gender issues so prominent in the West in recent decades may be
difficult to appreciate. In the contemporary West, the sex of one’s body is understood as
a biological given, but one’s gender is the result of socio-cultural construction. Most
males are encouraged to conform to stereotypes of masculinity (男性特质 / 男性气质) as
most females are encouraged to cultivate femininity (女性特质 / 女性气质). But these
connections no longer seem either inevitable or “right.” The behavior associated with
these general labels differs from one culture to another and at different times within the
same culture. The associations of men and masculinity or women and femininity now
seem to be not natural but cultural, hence open to question and to change.
gender as Western concept],
Challenges to Traditional Patriarchy
The vast majority of cultures known since the beginning of recorded human history
have allotted to men superior status and power compared to women [link: ancient
patriarchy]. The technical term is patriarchy (父权 / 父权制) (from Greek, patr, “father”; arch,
“ruler”). All over the world, with rare exceptions, patriarchal systems have dominated. In
the West, the justification for patriarchy was already explicit in the Adam and Eve story
in the Garden of Eden [link: p 151]. Only in recent time has patriarchy diminished in its
influence, in the West and also in China. In Europe, a significant break in the dominance
of patriarchy starts with the Enlightenment, which as of the 17th century gradually
brought a new emphasis on the principle of equality [link: equality, p 285]. Starting in the
late 18th century, public advocates of equal rights for women emerged to challenge the
allocation of superior power and prestige to men. As part of the large-scale cultural
movement known as romanticism individuals were encouraged to think of themselves
as individuals rather than to accept traditional categories unthinkingly [link: romanticism].
This revolutionary idea ultimately involved all aspects of Western civilization.
Romantic Revolutionary Thinking
Revolutionary thinking of a feminist kind surfaced most obviously in England, for
example with William Godwin (1756-1836) and his daughter Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
(1797-1851), wife of the revolutionary romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (1791-1822). To
these early protesters there was nothing natural about the subordination of women.
Instead they applied to relations between the sexes the new socio-political principles of
freedom and equality [link: freedom vs. equality, p 284].
Later in the 19th century, feminists concentrated on social reform movements and on
getting the vote (women’s suffrage) (妇女选举权), which they achieved over time in various
Western countries: New Zealand, 1893; Australia, 1902; Finland, 1906; Norway, 1913;
Denmark, 1915; Russia/USSR and Canada, 1917; Germany, 1918; UK (women over 30),
1918; USA, 1921; UK (all adult women), 1928; Spain, 1931; France and Italy, 1945;
Switzerland, 1971.
The 1960s and Women’s “Lib”
In the 1960s began the contemporary movement for “women’s liberation,” first in the
USA, with repercussions all over the West. The immediate roots of the movement may
lie in World War Two, during which many women were encouraged to take over jobs
formerly reserved for men. After the war, women were expected to return to full-time
home-making and to produce many children, launching in the USA a period known as
the “baby boom” (1946-1964). The end of the baby boom coincided with the availability of
the birth-control pill (口服避孕药), which allowed women, for the first time in human
history, to decide unilaterally how many children they wanted to bear and when. Since
then, wherever and whenever they have had the means to decide, women have chosen
to have fewer children than before.
This “Women’s Lib[eration]” movement agitated for change in all the domains of
modern Western life where women felt excluded or kept down. The resulting changes
have been widespread. Though poor or rural women have always been part of the work
force, the latter part of the 20th century saw most women going to work, in the West as
in China, regardless of social class. Not the least of the changes launched by feminist
agitation concern the understanding of gender as it relates to sexuality, though the
implications go far beyond the status of women. Feminists (女权主义者 / 女性主义者)
insisted on separating sex from gender and then, joining with homosexuals, went on to
distinguish sexual orientation as a distinct component of sexual identity. Their basic
insistence is that each individual person has the right to determine his or her own
preferred practices in these most personal realms of human existence.
Current Distinctions in the Semantic Field of Gender and Sex
Current “liberated” views of such issues run along the following lines:
“Sex (生理性别), gender identity (社会性别身份), and sexual identity (性身 份)
refer to different aspects of oneself. One may be any combination of sex
(male/female, 男性 / 女性), gender (masculine/feminine, 男人 / 女人) and sexual identity
(heterosexual [“straight”] 异性恋, bisexual 双性恋, or lesbian/gay 女同性恋 / 男同 性恋).” [plus,
now, “trans-gender” for individuals who through hormone treatments and
surgery have changed to the other sex]
“Gender identity refers to how one thinks of one’s own gender: whether one
thinks of oneself as a man (masculine) or as a woman (feminine). Society prescribes
arbitrary rules or gender roles (社会性别角色) (how one is supposed to and not supposed
to dress, act, think, feel, relate to others, think of oneself, etc.) based on one’s sex (whether
one has a vagina or a penis). These gender roles are called feminine and masculine.
Anyone who does not abide by society’s arbitrary rules may be targeted for
mistreatment ranging from social exclusion, snide comments, verbal harassment,
assault, rape, or even murder based on one’s (socially perceived) gender identity.
“Sexual identity refers to what sort of person one is sexually and romantically
attracted to.” [Source: http://eserver.org/feminism/sexual-gender-identity.txt, 150214]
The issues discussed in the above passage aim to take into account self-conscious
minorities of men and women who are inclined toward same-sex involvement but who
no longer want to feel different or “queer,” except in so far as that term may serve as a
badge of self-acceptance and even pride.
Note that in the West same-sex activities were not always perceived as problematic.
In pre-Christian times, among the ancient Greeks and Romans, homosexual relations
were common and approved, particularly between young men and the older men who
served as their mentors [link: Greek statues]. Greek women who were attracted to women
may not have been numerous, but their experience was the primary subject of eloquent
poetry by Sappho, whose association with the island of Lesbos gave them their current
name as Lesbians.
Sexual Politics
Judeo-Christian traditions strongly condemned all same-sex involvements, but in
today’s relatively permissive world, homosexuals agitate for equal acceptance [link: samesex marriage]. Sexual politics of this sort now engage intense feelings on the part of many
Westerners, particularly in the USA. Conservatives, often citing the Bible, favor
traditional “family values” [link: types of modern American families, p 498-99]. They also tend to
be hostile to divorce and to mothers working outside the home, as well as to
homosexuals.
Commentary
Gender, then, has come to identify a range of unusually sensitive issues subject to
cultural renegotiation as time goes on. In US universities during the late 20th century,
many institutions started women’s studies (妇女研究) programs with the aim of
reexamining all kinds of issues from the perspective of women and their interests. A
smaller number of more thoughtful researchers defined their interest as gender studies
(社会性别研究) on the grounds that any modification in the understanding of what is
“feminine” inevitably affects what is taken as “masculine.”
Study questions:
1 In the website quotation explaining “liberated” or “post-modern” ideas on issues
of sex and gender, why do the writers distinguish three aspects (sex, gender identity,
and sexual identity) instead of only two? What controversial issues does
distinguishing the third factor allow the writers to open up [link: same-sex marriage]?
2 A concept like sexual identity (as defined in the quotation above) allows for
homosexual attraction and sexual activity. Homosexuals continue to be a small
minority in Western countries, as elsewhere. Is it a good thing (or not) that
marginal groups or practices should ask that the majority of people, whose
thinking is by definition conventional, change the way they think, in this case
about sexuality? Compare and contrast how homosexuality is treated in China.
Excerpt from Western Civilization with Chinese Comparisons, 3rd ed.
(Shanghai: Fudan University Press, 2010), pp 244-47.