Why gender identities make gender equality impossible

Gender equality has been a staple of societal evolution for at least a few hundred years, as women increasingly demanded to be treated equal to men. This included the right to vote, to own property and to decide upon their own reproductive choices. It also meant a push for women to take on jobs that were previously limited to only men, with these days gender quotas being an all too common sight.

Yet this push for equality between the sexes appears to have been completely misguided, as it ignores the much newer concept of gender identity. This takes the existing concepts of femininity and masculinity and puts them into a coherent whole, defining an individual as having either a feminine or masculine brain. This means that a person either has predominantly feminine traits or masculine traits, and thus people with a different gender identity can never be considered to be ‘equal’, as a distinct identity by definition excludes the possibility of equality.

Within the context of conservative policies, this reinforces the concept of the ‘atomic family’ to give children a suitable role model befitting their sex, and preferring either men or women for certain jobs. A feminine gender identity for example makes someone more suitable for jobs where empathy and a caring attitude are required, such as teaching and nursing, whereas a masculine identity would make that person more suitable for tough decision making (e.g. business and government) and more violent occupations, such as the military and police.

Within the context of certain liberal policies, the existence of gender identity would similarly enforce such outcomes like the segregation into ‘suitable jobs’, which is something that is already visible with the movement commonly referred to as ‘third-wave feminism’. In this movement, the concept of gender equality has been abandoned, and instead the superiority or inferiority of specific gender identities for certain tasks are reinforced.

Both of these policies embrace gender inequality, with the only noticeable distinction between the two being the argument about whether or not gender identity is linked with one’s biological sex or not, and whether medical intervention in the case of a perceived imbalance is warranted.

The crucial problem with both policies is of course that even after thousands of years of intense philosophical discussions and countless studies covering a wide range of scientific applicability and thoroughness, there exists no formal definition of ‘feminine traits’ or its corollary ‘masculine traits’. Although hormones like testosterone and progesterone can amplify certain feelings, ultimately the evidence for social gender roles and with them the idea of a ‘gender identity’ to be based on anything more than the effects of nurture is flimsy to non-existent.

Especially the ‘brain mosaic’ studies as performed by Daphna Joel et al. using fMRI scans reinforce the concept of humans as individuals, with unique brains that just happen to inhabit a body with a specific geno- and phenotype. In light of the many dark centuries in which ‘white’ humans would ascribe various qualities to other human races (including some other ‘white’ humans) with absolutely no supporting evidence, it would certainly seem pertinent to question the concepts of ‘femininity’ and ‘masculinity’.

Is gender identity the altar on which we wish to sacrifice human equality?

Maya