How Gender Abolition Would Lead People to Conform More to The Traditional Gender Roles
Imagining a Genderless World & Its Relation to Women in STEM
Imagine a world where the concept of gender never exists, what do you think would happen? Would there still be a pay gap between different sexes? Would male-characterized people still prefer to do industrial labor over housework? Would female-characterized people are still less likely to work in STEM fields?
I think most would.
Before I present my argument, I would like to talk about the “Scandinavian Gender Equality Paradox”. This study is based on the hypothesis that in a country with more gender equality, more women will work in STEM fields. Yet, the result revealed the opposite.
Researchers have a theory for this. They think that because life satisfaction is higher in gender equal countries and people feel more secure in a society, women feel they can do what they really like and are less driven by economic interests. Another explanation is the long legacy of women’s exclusion from science in the past especially in Europe and North America, this is why women try so hard to catch up because the culture is so against women in STEM.
To be more precise, it states that women in a country with more economic welfare and gender equality do not associate “Women in STEM” with more wealth or power, and therefore do not pursue STEM fields for that reason. The only women working in STEM fields are driven solely by sheer interest and this study shows that only a minority of women actually do have an interest in science and engineering.
This study concludes that the more a society strives to equalize gaps between the two sexes, beyond the rights of every individual, the difference between men and women becomes equally larger.
This may seem confusing and you may be wondering, “How does pushing a gender equality agenda politically lead to more gender inequality?”
But let’s look at history. Why do we even have gender roles? It doesn’t make sense now, but it did then. We divided roles based on our sex because it was the easiest way to develop physical and behavioral advantages through sexual dimorphism.
This happens to most species in the Animalia Kingdom. Some, like hyenas and most insects, have larger females and these females are the one who lead, hunt, and gather food. Female and male bonobos are the same size, but the oldest female leads the group. While some, like lions and gorillas, are male-led.
However, this division of roles based on sex is no longer relevant to humans because after the industrial revolution, major strength is no longer required for most jobs and therefore many industrial jobs can be done by either sex.
Still, it is a product of over 300,000 years of evolution, so the trend won’t go away in just hundreds of years even though it is no longer needed. The division is not simply played out by social construct, but is also coded in our genes. Both play the role.
Keep in mind that social construct is also a product of evolution. It is trying to maintain a structure of what female and male Homo sapiens should be doing, it does not understand that our ability to build advanced technology means we no longer need that structure.
So even without a gender construct, most female-characterized people would rather opt for a profession in a traditionally female-oriented area like care-taking or communication and vice versa. They would be more comfortable in traditionally feminine fields and therefore won’t feel the need to pursue fields they don’t actually have an interest in just because they want to feel powerful.
Hence, the abolition of gender would lead people to conform more to the traditional gender roles. Yes, it’s a paradox. The absence of gender as a concept would make the role division between sexes even more evident. This is genetic, without the influence of social pressure.
“Then what about people whose interest does not align to the majority of their sex?”
Yes, they exist, outside the influence of social pressure. They are a minority, but they do exist. This is why sex-based discrimination at work brings difficulties for people who does not conform to the majority to do what they want.
We should understand that our hormone levels are not binary to our sex. For example, some female-characterized people have higher testosterone levels than others and therefore have more interest in male-oriented fields. Or maybe it could be an interest they develop socially over time, people who had more exposure to tools and less to people in their childhood would obviously have more interest in tools. There are also people who fall somewhere between female and male characterization and their interests vary.
But let’s face it, gender is not something that can easily be abolished because this social construct already has a long history in our culture despite its arbitrary nature. Especially in Abrahamic culture, considering how we associated gender with sex. The fact remains that the majority of people conform to the concept of a man or a woman.
When we reach gender equality, the statistics for women in STEM will be significantly lower in every country, and there is nothing wrong with that. We don’t have to push women into doing something they aren’t interested in just because it pays more when they already have enough money to support themselves. Perhaps even more women will choose to be a stay at home mom and feel empowered by it.
This doesn’t mean that feminism is fruitless, because the idea of feminism should not be about pushing women into male-dominated fields, but rather giving women choices and eliminating discrimination against women who choose to be in a male-dominated field. Because the truth is, the gender pay gap is not simply about women having less interest in higher paying jobs like STEM, but also because women are less likely to be chosen or accepted into STEM, even when they do want and qualify for it.
There are, and always will be, women who are genuinely interested in STEM and we should encourage them to pursue what they want.
The bottom line is that it’s not enough that women can be comfortable in their womanhood and that men can be comfortable in their manhood, everyone should be able to comfortably do whatever they want regardless of their gender or sex. And that should be what feminism fight for. Not for more women in STEM, but for every woman to be able to do whatever they want.
If you have any counter-argument to this, I’d love to hear your opinion. DM me at @natgluons on Instagram, thank you and have a nice day.
