Why we need to talk (more) about Masculinity if we want to achieve Gender Equality
It is undeniable that there has been a lot of progress in terms of talking about gender and acknowledging it as a social construct, rather than framing it as something innate or simply biological. In 2015 an entire SDG has been devoted to achieving full gender equality and eliminating all forms of harmful practices stemming from GBV. A clear link between gender equality and peace has been identified and substantiated by a wide amount of evidence. And yet, despite the global efforts, no country in the world has achieved full gender equality.
Massive strides have been made and yet, sometimes, it feels like we are still running in circles, like a cat biting its tail. We have torn down many walls, but it appears that there will always be a last door that refuses to open: the invisible door put up by those who do not even acknowledge the problem. Despite the massive evidence, so many (mostly men, but also women) tend not to see this thing we call the patriarchy. And whenever someone tries to talk about it, they refuse to do so and prefer to shut down the conversation with some more or less aggressive form of gaslighting or dismissal. It is infuriating. It is draining.
“Fish don’t see the water they swim in”.
How can we change that? How can we create safe spaces to have open conversations about gender? And by this I don’t mean homogeneous spaces made up by people who identify themselves as peers, but open, heterogenous spaces made up by men, women, and non-binary persons, homosexuals and heterosexuals that can express themselves in non-defensive conversations.
I guess one way is to go back to the basics and bring back the talking to the fact that gender norms are social norms. So what are social norms?
Well, according to sociologists, social norms are informal rules that govern behavior in groups and societies. This means that our choices and actions are often interdependent and based on the reciprocal expectations that are dictated by the underlying norm applying to a specific context. In other words, norms have no realities other than in our shared beliefs that others behave according to them (empirical expectations) and that they expect us to behave according to them (normative expectations), and that if we don’t, we will face some sort of sanction or repercussion (most commonly, shame).
With this in mind, when we talk about gender inequality we are talking about a power imbalance that has been entrenched in societies around the world for centuries, from milder forms to most extreme ones depending on context and time.
What does this power imbalance stem from? Well, it stems from gender norms, which refer to the rules of behavior around our gender identity (which has historically been associated with sex), that is our “script” or “mental schema” of what it means to be a man or a woman. This “script” (again with more or less contextual variations) has commonly attributed specific characteristics and roles to men and women. For instance, women have been commonly associated with compliance, communion, care, submission; while men have been associated with agency, strength, assertiveness. “The carer” versus “the provider” has been the prevalent narrative.
But where does this script come from? How did it come to form as part of our shared mental schemas? The answer of sociologists to this is that schemas (as the cognitive structures that represent our knowledge about particular phenomena) and the subsequent rules of behavior (norms) are formed by recurrent observation.
In the case of gender, let’s say we consistently observed the division of labor between men and women, whereby men acted as providers outside the home and women only engaged in nurturing and domestic activities. Well, I guess it feels quite natural to develop beliefs about the attributes of different roles (including inferences about character traits, skills etc.) from this consistent observation. There is nothing strange about this.
The trap though lies in the mental biases and errors that compound such scripts and make them so hard to change, despite the fact that the initial pattern or observation that triggered them is no longer current. The first bias is the one that leads us to perceive social categories as natural, instead of artificial, assuming that members associated with the same categories share some underlying and immutable characteristics. In other words, this is how we stereotype. We also tend to believe that what people do reflect who they are and we like to explain behaviors as due to internal factors (intentions, personality etc).
“That’s what power does, it makes itself invisible and unquestionable.”
This is what makes gender norms and stereotypes so hard to change. A woman is supposed to be compliant because that is her essence (instead of a social construct derived from observing a behavior due to external factors and circumstances). If a woman is not compliant, she is an outcast, a rebel, a subversive element that needs to be excluded, crushed, shamed.
Think of the example of some of the first feminists: the so-called witches, women who were breaking schemas and had to be burnt at the stake for it. Or think of the second-wave feminists and their being name-called “feminazi” or men-haters. The examples are many but the underlying concept is that when someone comes in and threatens the predominant stereotype, challenging people’s identity (their self-schema), well, this often triggers a reaction whereby people then to conform even more and cast away the subverters as “exceptions”.
Take Phyllis Schlafly, the American conservative who fiercely campaigned against the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment to the US Constitution. Phyllis surely identified herself with the typical “good wife” and “good mother”, accepting and maybe even finding satisfaction in her domestic role of serving her husband and caring for her children. But she was also a writer and activist, whose activities spanned well outside the home. So why would she (and many other women behind her) so fiercely oppose the ERA?
I believe it is because everything she came to identify herself with, the rules that she had to accept and that shaped her life decisions and behaviors, were being challenged. And when we build our decisions based on the identity that we construct (or accept to be constructed upon us according to the prevailing social schema) and this identity suddenly gets threatened, we shut down, build defensive walls to prevent the ground from crumbling beneath our feet. We do everything we can to avoid facing the reason we made certain decisions and behaved a certain way, rejecting the doubt or the possibility that maybe that trait we came to make ours, it is not innate and in-born in us, that maybe we could have been different. We could have been someone else. And that can be terrifying.
So how can we escape the trap of being relegated into exceptions or even nature’s mistakes when we try to subvert the prevailing rules of power imbalance? How can we change the idea of what it means to be a woman?
It is clear that it’s not enough to talk about the “witches” stories, or the “Morganas”, the Audre Lordes and the Betty Friedans (though that surely helps). Women who are too atypical and therefore often get tagged as minor sub-categories. The goal would be of course to normalize being a “Morgana” in the sense of allowing everyone to self-identify into whatever they want without incurring in repercussions or shame dictated by social constructs (where what is socially acceptable has to be distinguished from what is ethically and morally acceptable).
It’s also not enough to talk about the Michelle Obamas and the Jacinta Ardens, or other women achievers who are also seen as “good wives” and “good mothers”(though that surely helps). We need to talk about their husbands too! We need to talk about husbands like Doug Hemoff, Kamala Harris’ husband (and with what a glorious feeling I write this — someone’s husband instead of someone’s wife!). Men who make the step to share responsibilities (which is of course much easier to do if you’re rich, but anyways), men who are willing to make one step back when needed, to allow their wives to shine and achieve. Where are these stories? We need them! We need more of them!
If we don’t share more of such examples, the schemas and the attached gender norms will change, but only by adding and attaching new characteristics, traits and roles onto women (working-woman) without subtracting existing burdens (cook, laundry-maker, child-carer etc.). Which is what has been happening and it is where we are now in most of the western world at least.
Representation matters.
We need to change the idea of masculinity and what it means to be a “man” as well (together with the idea of gender itself). There can be no gender equality without a shared responsibility and acceptance of the burdens.
In summary, if you’ve reached the end of this article (and I hope I have not wasted your time), here is my final point.
We need to accept and create more awareness on the fact that gender is a social construct. Its associated roles and characteristics are not innate. We have to start by detaching ourselves from this assumption and change our language, everywhere.
There’s an interesting book that triggered my mind on the topic. It’s called “The underground girls of Kabul” by Jenny Nordberg and documents the “bacha posh” (which literally translates as “dressed like a boy”) of Afghanistan, children who are born as girls but their “sonless” parents raise and treat as if they were boys until they hit puberty, in order to gain higher social acceptance (a practice rooted in another social norm: “son preference” — maybe a topic for another article). Anyways it’s a very interesting and thought-provoking book that I recommend reading.
Maximizing exposure and making space for words like gender fluidity and non-binary gender are key if we want to open that last door.
As feminists and advocates for gender equality, we need to work and advocate in the broader terms and expand to the whole gender arena, not just the women’s one. We need men allies and we need men to call out on other men that perpetuate power imbalances. And we need to work with non-binary allies as well and make space for them.
In the end it’s about gender equality, and by that we should mean all genders.
