Yin-yang 3 - a unified yes

Source: Dessy92

This is the third part of my article on yin-yang, an elegant, complex and often completely misinterpreted symbol. Yin-yang shouts to the cosmos that we humans tend to see dichotomies where they do not exist. 

But many don’t hear this message. 

In Part 1: Yin-yang - not what you think, I explored the common misinterpretation of the yin-yang symbol as about 'natural' opposites. Then, in Part 2: Yin-yang seriously not, I explored misusing yin-yang related to the gender stereotypes of feminine or masculine.

I draw on the ideas in Parts 1 and 2 to develop the argument in this final part of the article, so probably best to read them first.

I want to redirect the messy arguments about gender away from biological and social arguments and onto the human tendency to create false dichotomies. 

So now, I’m putting it out there. 

It’s time to ditch thinking about people with the false dichotomy of feminine vs masculine traits.

Dichotomies are definitely useful. Until they are not.

Dichotomies are helpful a lot of the time; they simplify thinking about the world and save us the mental energy of having to explore every option, degrees of nuance, and all possible complexities before making any single decision. In Part 1, I explained just how central dichotomies are to human thinking.

Unfortunately, we all too often forget that these simplifying categories are ‘mental boxes’ that humans create, and their purpose is to help us focus our attention on just a few details in order to make decisions efficiently. They do not necessarily reflect the messy complex reality of the world.

Some true dichotomies do exist - where things can only be in one category or the other, like the 'true' dichotomy of planet versus a star. (True dichotomies are more likely in physics and biology, but even then, the picture can be complicated and dynamic).

The problem is we often create ‘false’ dichotomies: quick, convenient simplifications of people and the world, where we just ignore messy complexity that is actually important. We can then get quite attached to this false dichotomy, and we can end up blind to reality, or at least extremely blinkered. 

In Yin-yang - not what you think, I gave examples of thinking of people as left OR right wing, safe OR dangerous, able OR disabled - each of which are much more complicated concepts than just ‘this one OR that one’. But we ‘put’ people into these simplistic ‘boxes’ (categories in our minds) and work hard to ignore any information that the 'boxes' are wrong. 

Each of these is a false dichotomy - just think about real people you know in terms of a dichotomy of able OR disabled. Do you consider someone who wears glasses as disabled? No. What about someone who wears hearing aids? Mmmm. We put one in the ‘able box’ and the other in ‘disabled box’. What about someone who needs assistance to eat? Is that different from someone who needs assistance to swim or use a computer? Both need assistance to do activities of daily life, but we decide one is ‘disabled’ and the other ‘able’. We’ve just created two categories of ‘able’ and ‘disabled’ which we think are 'real', but we ignore all the evidence they are not discrete and opposite conditions. 

The false dichotomy in our minds stops us seeing the world as it is.

I think we’ve done this with gender stereotypes. We’ve taken the complexity and diversity of human traits and behaviours and created a simplistic, convenient, but false dichotomy of feminine versus masculine.

The false dichotomy of feminine/masculine traits and behaviours is blinding us to human wholeness.

Source: Deviant Art

Obviously, humans do fit into two biological categories: male or female. This biological division of humans as either male OR female is a ‘true’ dichotomy. The lack of overlap of the categories is what makes it true. You get one set of genitals OR the other - there is no other way to conceptualise these two categories*. While there are some rare variations of genitalia, this does not negate the physical biological separateness between the two categories of male/female (or the biological separateness of the three categories of male/female/intersex - intersex being a third category, not half and half despite its name!).

However, it doesn't follow to then create a dichotomy of human traits (linked to each biological sex), unless masculine OR feminine is a ‘true’ dichotomy too, unless the traits we put in these two categories NEVER overlap or occur in the other category.

Does seeing human traits and behaviour into a dichotomy of masculine OR feminine align with reality? Is masculine a completely separately category, with no possible overlap ever from feminine? Does it help us to understand the way the world is, the way each of us is?

They clearly do overlap. They clearly don't reflect two separate categories.

Source: Rampages

We know it about ourselves; we know it about our close friends and family. We recognise a complex range of human traits in the people we know, despite the gender stereotypes of our culture. We know men who are quiet, caring and patient. We know women who are logical, confident and independent. We know both men and women who express assertiveness, loyalty, greed, sincerity, competitiveness, tenderness, jealousy, generosity, scepticism. Up close, the people are a complex combination of the supposedly completely separate masculine and feminine traits.

But when we think about people we don't know and about the broader world, we often resort to a simplistic dichotomy. 

As a result, we often need to twist our thinking and our words to maintain this simplistic idea. 

Because we are so deeply attached to a dichotomy of feminine/masculine, we describe the sporty, assertive girl as a tomboy (she must have a high ‘level’ of yang!); the quiet, uncertain teen boy asking for assistance as a bit of a sissy; the single older man patiently and gently caring for his frail parents as effeminate; or the high achieving business woman as cold and un-nurturing. We criticise tough or aggressive women as butch or nasty; we dismiss emotionally expressive or unambitious men as not real men. 

We know them, we see them, but we don’t say, ‘Wow, both men and women are actually quite varied hey? Maybe a division into two categories of masculine or feminine traits doesn’t make sense…’ 

Instead, we mock the person who doesn’t fit the dichotomy - the ‘mental box’ in our heads. For some reason, WE need that dichotomy to be true so much that we stigmatise and make life hard for those who don’t 'fit in the box’, to the point that many people hide their real selves. 

So here we are - a false dichotomy based on a true dichotomy.

We divide humans biologically as male or female, which leads to a few role differences for men and women (like breastfeeding is a female role, etc). A true dichotomy. We then use this as the basis for dividing all human traits and behaviours as masculine or feminine. A false dichotomy.

We impose this false dichotomy on people, and we ignore evidence that it is not true and not how the world is really. And we discredit people who we can’t ignore, rather than wondering if our dichotomy is actually that sound.

Just what the yin-yang cautions us to guard against.

The false dichotomy of a masculine/feminine split of human traits blinds us to human complexity and human wholeness. And, I would add, to the necessary components of human well-being as well.

Yin-yang is a wonderful reminder that we humans get very attached to false dichotomies, and we tend to think there are only two options. There may well be other ways to think about people altogether.

Making more 'boxes' based on sex and gender is not helping.

Many young people in the process of establishing their gender identity are looking at this dichotomy of masculine/feminine and saying, ‘Not for me’. However, they don't challenge the falseness of the dichotomy itself; they react to the two categories as though they were real boxes, only not suitable boxes for them.

Source: pd4u

Some suggest new gender categories, perhaps a ‘trichotomy’ of masculine, feminine and androgyne. Or a group of five if you to add agender (none) and genderfluid (all). A ‘quintochotomy’? Some prefer non-binary, which seems to reinforce the assumption that a binary (true dichotomy) exists, even if you individually are outside it. It makes a dichotomy of binary vs non-binary people. Pangender - more than one gender - because we all know those gender categories (mental boxes) are real things, right?

I could go on. But I won’t.

I don’t think an array of more and more gender categories is helpful, particularly when many of these new words for new categories are a mixed up mash of bits of words for ‘traditional’ gender traits categories (feminine/masculine) with social gender roles (man/woman) with alignment with gender identity (like cis/trans) with sexual attraction (like hetero/homo/bi/a) with biological sex (i.e. male/female). And more.

These words don't so much create clarity or a new life for those proposing them, but a continuation of a false dichotomy with some added new confusion. 

Pick a box! If you want to live in a box!

Source: Jeri Dansky

Reacting against the gender dichotomy of masculine/feminine by creating additional categories still leaves us stuck in mental ‘boxes’ (just more of them) for human traits and behaviours. Those boxes are still defined by the alignment or conflict of a person's traits and behaviours with their biological sex. This can never actually reflect reality because that's not how human beings are.

I understand it’s hard to talk about something as deeply internalised and personal as one’s gender identity, more so if a person has gender dysphoria. But this proliferation of gender category words doesn’t make it any easier. Words with no shared meaning float around, confusion results, and those who don’t understand the issue in the first place are likely to turn off. Or mock the words, the ideas and the people altogether.

Young people are rejecting the gender dichotomy because it is stifling and inadequate to talk about human diversity and complexity. I think this is good. Some young people who feel conflicted about their gender identity think there’s something wrong with them, so they need to find a new category for them.

It’s actually the idea there are two categories of human traits and behaviours, being masculine OR feminine, which is determined by biological sex that has something wrong with it. 

I want to suggest we do what the yin-yang symbol actually says and reflect on the fact that humans create dichotomies for ease and convenience. 

Masculinity and femininity are not real things in the physical world; they are creations (ideas) of the human mind.

When an idea a dichotomy no longer serves us, we could stop using it.

I think the idea of human traits and behaviour as a dichotomy of feminine or masculine no longer serves us.

My argument is that this dichotomy itself is false, does not represent human complexity, and is an inappropriate and unhelpful lens to consider human traits and behaviours. 

The biological sex of a person does not determine if they have the traits of nurturing or ambition, for example. We have ample evidence of this in the diversity of human beings. It just determines if we let them express it. This restriction causes misery - for the minority who rebel against a presumed gender category, but also for the many who repress core parts of themselves because those traits are 'in the wrong box'.

Source: Yoni Freedhoff
Don't pigeonhole me!

Likewise, dividing people's traits and behaviour into any number of categories based on their alignment (or not) with their biological sex (dichotomy, trichotomy, quintochotomy, even a centochotomy) doesn’t reflect reality. It doesn’t help us make sense of each other or the world.

Men and women are diverse, nuanced and variable. And they don't fit neatly into real or mental 'boxes'.

It amuses me that along with our human propensity to impose mental ‘boxes’ onto other people, each of us loathes the idea of being ‘stuck in a box’. The resistance to being stereotyped and limited (not just related to gender) is so ubiquitous that have a saying for it: ‘Don’t pigeonhole me!’

I think it's time to take the glare of the spotlight off biological sex and gender altogether.

How else to think about human traits and behaviours?

In the article on Gendered adjectives, I challenged the idea that human traits and behaviours can be usefully categorised in any set or direct relationship to biological sex at all. It was a short cut, but it's now a tired and unhelpful idea.

Okay, given the yin-yang symbol tells us that we humans need our short cuts to thinking, we know that we will inevitably simplify the world with categories. But we could try to find categories that are more helpful, that more closely reflect the way the world is, that allow us to understand ourselves and other people better.

More helpful and realistic categories of human traits and behaviour are those that are related to what is important for human wholeness, meaningfulness and well-being - the need of each of us for competence, relatedness and autonomy. 

Instead of feminine and masculine traits suitable to be exhibited by one biological sex only, I suggested the three categories based on these human needs - instrumental, connective and expressive traits and behaviours - which every person needs to be able to exhibit.

We will still be men and women. There are inherent biological and physiological sex differences. We can also still be masculine or feminine if we want, but not use this as the primary way we define our identity.

Men would no doubt express their instrumental, connective and expressive traits differently from women. But then, each man would express these traits differently from other men.

To start, we need to stop insisting that the true dichotomy of biological sex is a justifiable basis for a false dichotomy of traits and behaviours as masculine or feminine. 

If we did, we could dismantle or at least lower the unbreachable walls we have built around human traits and behaviour as ‘traditionally appropriate’ for either men or women.

Men and women are diverse, nuanced, varying, and complex. Human wholeness and well-being start with appreciating this complexity, even if it makes us uncomfortable sometimes.

If we recognised and changed our short cut thinking, we could then be whole people in the true sense of the beautiful yin-yang symbol.


Footnote 

* Off-line feedback was that I had neglected to consider secondary sexual characteristics that are determined by biological sex, but which do not exist in a true dichotomy. I accept this criticism, and I'm still thinking about how to reconcile this feedback. I plan to write about this in the future. 

Images, used under Creative Commons Licences

• Yin-yang symbol: Dessy92: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Yin%26Yang_trasparent.png [CC BY-SA]
• Male/female sign: 123Freevectors [CC BY-SA]
• Man and woman inside yin-yang: Kelsey Gagnon at Rampages [not specified, found under CC image search]
• Triple yin-yang: pd4u  [Kopimi]
• Container: Jeri Dansky https://jdorganizer.blogspot.com/2007/09/15-lego-storage-options.html [CC BY-NC-SA]
• Pigeonholes: Yoni Freedhoff [CC BY-NC-ND]