Herein lies, to date, the most controversial of my essays. While everything is political, this topic is one such that the politicisation of gender is one of the hottest topics of the 21st century. Gender is so incredibly politicised and at the same time, so incredibly personal to anyone speaking about it, which led it into realms of discourse reserved to confined conversations. Especially when the conversations start to veer from what is deemed “acceptable” to what is not; a contradiction in which an academic discourse could be limited by the society’s constraints of propriety, one of the taboos of the modern age.
Somehow, gender as a discussion can define some political assumptions; for example, being a feminist will somehow place you as left-leaning, which, while true, since feminism is a political movement, it does show how much politicisation is occurring to the point that equal rights for women had to have a place on the political spectrum. This is not a treatise on how gender should be depoliticised. It is certainly clear that historical accounts would benefit from feminism as a political movement as opposed to not.
For example, without suffrages pioneering for women’s rights, it would not be possible for women to have the same worker’s rights as men. Conformity is political, and to protest for the right to be compensated fairly for work is deeply political, although this time it is a protest on discrimination based on gender. Gender is political because it enacts conformity to the common people; you must behave in a certain way to achieve a certain position in society, that is, you must be feminine to achieve the position of a woman in society. It is soft control masked with pretty colors and romanticism. Again, not a criticism towards femininity, but to comply with the enforced is a result of politics. Hence, you require a political movement to defy this conformity, this is where feminism was born as a movement.
Western soft power in gender performance #
Globalisation is defined as the process by which businesses or other organizations develop international influence or start operating on an international scale. Globalisation is best understood with examples: a song by Rihanna plays on the radio off the coast of Vietnam; pho noodles with chilli powder in western Wisconsin, or baguettes in Kedu, Indonesia. Globalisation is often lauded as a modern innovation. You can now experience the products of another country thousands of miles away in your home. But globalisation permeates in a lot more ways than not, and oftentimes, it is Western soft power that wins the race. Take myself, for example. I write in English in anticipation of a global audience, a western, modern language that has been adopted as an international language. Speaking English is no longer indicative of an English origin; you could be Argentinian and speak fluent English. I like to wear jeans and a T-shirt, and jeans weren’t popular as casual wear until James Dean wore it in a 1955 movie Rebel Without a Cause, a distinctly American actor in a distinctly American movie, and I believe you, dear reader, has put on a pair of jeans at least once in your lives. The concept of western exports being divorced from its “western-ness” normalises the western aspect as the default.
Gender performance does not escape from this fate; pink as an indication of femininity is a result of globalisation; the idea has permeated all countries to agree that specific, light, rosy color to be indicative of the female gender. But where did it all start? Theory says it started with Marmie Eisenhower, former First Lady of the United States from 1953 to 1961.
Again, a western country, despite pink being a prominent color in Mexico without much associations to femininity. Look at a United Nations meetup; most men wear suits, a male gender performance, using a garment with western origins. They signal their maleness with suits, and signal their conformity of using western formal wear. On rare occasions, you might see a middle eastern prince wearing a thawb, but this remains as an exception to the rule.
It is a permeable, obvious thing once noticed, but without proper observation, it becomes easy to accept things as is, to conform. You know what gender you are, and you would like to present as that gender. This leads to certain decisions being made in the morning, whether it is a conscious choice or an unconscious one. Your mind does not exist in isolation; your choices are influenced.
Western soft power ensures that the global view of gender follows the early 19th century conservative western ideal. The woman is the soft, nurturing head of the house, while the man is the productive and benevolent patriarch who provides and works. Non-western cultures could have a differing view; the Minangkabau ethnic group from western Indonesia, for example, posits that a matriarch spearheads the family and is the gender allowed to inherit land, while men are unable to inherit. Some cultures even do not subscribe to this binary view. The Bugis culture from south Sulawesi believes in the concept of five genders.
This conservative western ideal permeates into multiple cultures and erases the cultural presence of third genders or intersexuality. Even ancient Middle Eastern literature posits a presence of mukhannatun or feminine men, as an argument against Islamic values being entirely sexually dichotomous. Native American beliefs acknowledge the presence of two-spirit. Thailand was a country that was never colonised due to its strategic location and the strength of its former kingdom. Due to this, it became the first Southeast Asian country to legalise gay marriage and its long reputation for being a safe haven for transgender individuals is not an empty claim.
Who stands to benefit? #
Historically, deeming the Western as the default has its roots in colonisation. Racial politics before modern times benefited colonising powers economically by considering the people they colonised as “other”, allowing them to cut down on labor costs. Equally, by considering women as “lesser” through false rationalisations such as “women can live off their husbands” or “women are less capable” to justify a gender wage gap. Policy can support this framework and is only overturned by modern feminist movements. Even when it was overturned, the reality is that it is not consistently applied.
The strict dichotomous gender binary of male/female outside a reproductive context benefits a capitalist worldview. In a typical heterosexual marriage dynamic, the man works, then the woman stays at home -- in order words, performs the shopping. The man provides and the woman consumes. It benefits the economy. The current feminist push for women to work equally benefits the economy, increasing the workforce. Colonisation and the economy are very intimately intertwined. The United Fruit Company, a now defunct multinational company originating in the US, was strongly involved in Honduran and South American politics, and history lessons in Southeast Asia will mention other western-origin companies abetting colonisation: the Dutch-origin Dutch East India Company operating until 1799 and English-origin East India Company operating until 1874.
What role do people outside the dichotomy play? Opting out of conventional reproduction could harm the birth rate, ergo the economy, but you could equally say that the economy benefits from people outside the binary; especially in the modern era where every gender is expected to perform labor and consumption. In communal living situations where a “family unit” is not limited to only the father, mother and children, but includes aunts, uncles, and further relatives as participants in child-rearing, strict gender roles aren’t as necessary. You could technically be any gender and raise children, outside the reproductive part at the start. While different gender roles are imposed by the older family figures to socialise the young, both men and women can perform acts of nurture.
Decolonisation as an active act? #
If strict gender ideals are a colonisation byproduct, rejecting it would be an act of decolonisation. To decolonise gender means to accept non-western ideals of gender and return to the roots of culture before Western influence. Strict, binary gender is argued to be non-traditional as opposed to traditional, and was introduced as a western soft power with roots in colonisation.
How can we move on with this information? Indeed, there is some difficulty in finding impactful acts towards uprooting centuries old thinking, especially when the system has embedded it worldwide, with limited cases of successful nationwide decolonisation that focuses on the specific aspect of gender. Besides, while the binary gender is a western soft power construct, traditionalism is not an entirely perfect solution. Female gender roles could suffer under traditionalism, and female genital mutilation is a traditional act. Decolonisation must be done with conscious efforts to balance the rights of everybody involved. While human rights itself might be a new concept that may not entirely be traditional, it is not a bad thing to accept the concept. Just so gender roles can play some benefit, it must be understood that we need to recognise how deeply colonisation has permeated modern society.