I knew that title would get your attention. It is an interesting hormone and widely blamed for so much that is wrong in the world and with humanity: war, climate change, environmental destruction, violence and sexual violence against women, social stupidity, crime, the Conservative Party, to name but a few. And I agree. I mentioned in my most recent post that I am taking a gender studies course and this is getting me to think more rather than less about what it means to be a man, or if it means anything, or even if it even matters. I think I subscribe more to the it doesn't matter category.
I remember having a conversation with a friend about ten years ago, someone whom I would describe as being very stranded in his gender. I casually mentioned that to me my sense of gender identity doesn't matter to me. I don't think of myself in terms of male, or not male, simply as a person. He did not like this very much and insisted that he could never imagine his identity without his masculinity being at its very heart.
But for me this has never been the case. Gender to me has always been more or less like an accessory, but I can say this because I appear to be androgynous. This isn't to say that I am a woman in a man's body since I am not and do not suffer from gender dysforia. In other words, I am comfortable having a male body. I think I would also be comfortable having a female body. I in fact know that I would be comfortable although I'm not entirely sold on the trade off of having to endure monthly bleeding in exchange for being able to get pregnant. And there is also the social garbage that comes with being a woman, which is to say, having to Put up with Men's Shit, or, the other PMS.
On the radio this morning I listened to an interview with a novelist, a woman, who insists that testosterone causes all wars. Now I will agree that it is a contributing factor but the sole cause, I don't think so. It was under Margaret Thatcher, the famous Iron Lady who claimed to do her ironing as a hobby, that Britain for the first time since World War II declared war on Argentina over the sovereignty of las Malvinas, or the Falkland Islands.
I was raised by a physically violent mother. My father seldom hit he. He had other, more insidious ways of expressing disapproval. She was a strong woman with a short fuse, but I would hardly say she was overtly masculine. And for a while she seemed to be hitting or beating me almost daily.
Anyone reading this will now understand why I don't believe that violence is an exclusively male purview.
I'm not going to bore anyone with statistics or studies, the many that confirm that violence is a primarily male phenomenon. For me it is chicken and egg. Men are violent because they have almost always wielded the power. Can't have one without the other. Will we be blessed by a new thousand year reign of peace, good will and flourishing love among the people and all the nations should women hold the reigns of power? Well, this hasn't happened yet and it might be worth a try even though I still have my doubts.
I don't see testosterone as being the problem, but power, unrestrained, undisciplined and blind self-aggrandizing power. We are not prisoners of biology, genetics or hormones, but we are prisoners of our own laziness, ambition and selfishness. Women and men need to see each other and ourselves outside of the defining marks of gender. This doesn't mean we forget our gender, and it certainly doesn't mean that we don't celebrate it. What we need to do is forget about the small details that differentiate us and learn to focus anew on the humanity that we all share in common, work with that and build on that.
And please let us ignore that dreadful book about men being from Mars and women from Venus. (and really, by the way, men are from Uranus) The author is himself hardly what I would call a paragon of stereotypical masculinity. Rather I think he would look very good in drag: dress him in a nice wig, floral pattern afternoon dress, pearls and heels and handbag that match and he would very convincingly pass as a sweet Anglican church lady on her way to a strawberry tea.
Speaking of John Gray, I have my own theory: As a marriage counsellor he found that husbands and wives were not recognizing or accommodating their traditional gender differences because of one little statistical flaw: he was establishing his ridiculous findings only on those whose marriages were troubled enough that they would be seeking help from him. His findings have absolutely nothing to do with the many more married couples who have sound and healthy marriages, not necessarily because they accommodate each other's Mars and Venus differences, neither because they have no gender distinctions, but because for most couples it simply does not matter. They have found or almost found their soul mate. They could be different as night and day or they could be psychic twins inhabiting different bodies.
I am not dismissing entirely that there could be biologically based gender differences. What I am saying is that these things do not matter. Let each person grow in her or his particular direction and they will flourish. We will still have manly men and girly women. We will also have others who do not inhabit stereotypes and do very nicely just the same because we are free to be ourselves.
When someone asked me once if I was dressing up for Halloween I replied, sure, I'm going as a lesbian. I didn't even wear a wig.
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