Exploring the Social Imagination

Friday, May 6, 2022

Who Ja Wanna be When You Grow up in the Social Imagination...

       How to Choose What You Want to Be when You Grow Up: 13 Steps

      Yes, it’s possible for men to become pregnant and give birth to children of their own. In fact, it’s probably a lot more common than you might think. In order to explain, we’ll need to break down some common misconceptions about how we understand the term “man.” Not all people who were assigned male at birth (AMAB) identify as men. Those who do are “cisgender” men. Conversely, some people who were assigned female at birth (AFAB) identify as men. These folks may be “transgender” men or transmasculine people ~ Source: [https://www.healthline.com/health/transgender/can-men-get-pregnant?fbclid=IwAR07V-q5LYLG95TZRt3E1NEac4PPwHuMbpXOAbV21gCTpdoT4Iuqozg4DSo#TOC_TITLE_HDR_1].

      Society has traditionally taught us that there are two genders: man and woman. We’re told that those who are assigned male at birth are men and those who are assigned female at birth are women. But gender isn’t an either/or scenario. It’s a spectrum. Ultimately, the concepts of gender and sex are socially constructed. This means that we as a society assign sex and gender to people based on socially agreed-upon characteristics. This doesn’t mean that body parts and functions are “made up” — it just means that the way we categorize and define each of these things could actually be different.Gender identity is your own personal understanding of your gender and how you want the world to see you ~ Source: [https://www.healthline.com/health/sex-vs-gender?utm_source=ReadNext#gender-identity].

Sure, it sounds open, loving, tolerant, inclusive... but is gender identity really based on your own personal understanding? After all, you/we live in a social imagination and who you are and are not matters. 

Let's look at the above texts and try to make some sense of this argument... 

1- Yes, it’s possible for men to become pregnant. While its possible for men to declare that they have become pregnant in the meaning that a biological male goes into the office and announces "we're pregnant",  he, as a participant (with a female) in the biological creation of a baby, is affirming and confirming that and thus allows him to declare that he is 'pregnant'. However, can a man have a baby, as in conceive and give birth as a biological, psychological and spiritual male? No! 

2- We’ll need to break down some common misconceptions about how we understand the term “man". First, there are no misconceptions unless you are able to first show how the so called misconception became common place and why it is still considered as such. And, what evidence shows that it should be changed. In the social imagination, being fair, you would also have to show data confirming that a majority of social actors agree that the current understanding of  the term 'man' is wrong which no one does. 

3-  Not all people who were assigned male at birth are men...Conversely, some people who were assigned female at birth are women. In order to address this statement, we have to find out who did the assigning and why. Let's say that we did find out. Babies were biologically assigned because they had a majority of certain physical markers that could describe their sex- male or female. Yes, some think gender is not sex (body parts). Some say gender is fluid and has to do more with personality. 

Sure, we could agree that some men have a more nurturing or mothering or feminine personality and visa versa. Women could have a personality that might be more bold or aggressive, and fatherly, or masculine. But, in order to really agree on that, we would have to deconstruct those adjectives in order to understand them when applied to understanding what terms like 'man/woman' are. 

4-  Gender is a spectrum. Ultimately, the concepts of gender and sex are socially constructed. In order to agree on that, let's use the wordage from the above... 'we as a society assign sex (there's that word assign... what does that mean? Well, just as I said above it means we would have to go all the way back to med school) and we assign gender to people based on socially agreed-upon characteristics. Mmm...This doesn’t mean that body parts and functions are “made up” — it just means that the way we categorize and define each of these things could actually be different. Different like how? Gender identity is your own personal understanding of your gender and how you want the world to see you... Oh, Really?

Sorry, gender is not a spectrum. We cannot categorize and define each of these things as possibly different... Either its a girl or a boy in all forms and thoughts and character. If we cannot agree on that, we cannot pretend we do and we cannot say that they could be different. In fact, agreeing that a girl is a female based on her physical attributes, thoughts and character and a boy is a male for the same reasons is how we have been socially constructing sex and gender for thousands of years.

A stable society, needs certain things to be either black or white. We have to know what something is or  is not. I know who I am and who I am not. You may not agree but then I cannot force you to agree either. However, in order for things to go well for all of us in the same soup of life, we will have to agree on quite a lot in those terms: black or white (this is not about skin color). 

So, if I am wearing a dress in public you can be sure I am a girl/woman. And, if I wear a man's suit, you can be sure I am a boy/man. Your mind likes images to be easily identifiable; its how your brain works for your own safety and mental harmony that you automatically search for markers that confirm what you know or don't know.

If I am fully pregnant (9 months) with a maternity dress on, you can be sure I am a fertile female woman, a soon-to-be mother, a wife and not a man. If I smoke a cigar in the waiting room of the OB wing of the hospital in my suit, pacing, and fiercely pulling at my tie, you can be sure I am a male, a man, a father, a husband and not a woman.  

I say that because those images tell us and have told us about society for a long time. Those images instruct us as to what we can expect from such gendered social roles; and even more, we know what we can expect from such male-female sexual encounters... that being, children which grow into people which again create more people which creates a society in a place over time. 

Sure, there could be a man inside the 'pregnant' woman's head and visa a versa... they could both be acting out who they imagine or feel that they are; and if they are good at it, believe it, they could convince many people. But, believe me, if that baby is born on the floor of the emergency room, everyone there will know who is who and who is not regardless of who they say they are or who they wanna be or wish they were in the social imagination. 

Gender is not fluid. Society can be as some days are commi ce comme ca..  but if we want to live and survive we need crystallization or crystal clear definitions of what things are and are not... as most things in the social imagination require clear definitions in order for agreement to happen; especially, since in agreement we find truth ... some things just necessarily have to be concrete.  

 

Gender understanding...  "Fool me once, shame on you... fool me twice, shame on me!"

 

 

 

*PS. Can you make the argument that it doesn't matter what gender you are? Sure, but why make it an argument to begin with if it doesn't matter.

 

 


 


 


1 comment :

  1. God created man in His image, He made them male and female ~ Genesis 1:27, Genesis 5:2 and Mark 10:6.

    ReplyDelete