I went to film school for a couple of years. It was a fantastic experience. My absolute favorite class was Screenwriting 101 and I have one memory that stands out over all the others.
There was this kid in the class. Real artsy, you know? The type of kid who watches foreign films with subtitles and then tells you trivia about the meaning of foreign words.
“The film is called ‘Yi-Yi’ because the Chinese word ‘yi’ means ‘one’ but the written form of ‘two’ is just two ‘yi’s, because the movie is about a child’s perspective on things that adults take for granted.”
Anyway, artsy kid in a beginner’s screenwriting class. We’re learning about beat structure and the three acts and the hero’s journey and save-the-cat and the kid is like, “Why do I need to learn all this? These make boring, paint-by-numbers movies. I want to make artistic films. I want to break the rules.”
And the professor says, “You have to learn the rules so you can break them effectively.”
And this is one of the most deep, profound statements I have ever heard. It is so applicable to so many things.
Have you ever heard of Alma Deutcher? If you haven’t yet, you have to check out this 60 Minutes interview she did when she was 12 years old. She’s sitting at a piano and the interviewer draws four random notes out of a hat and puts them in front of her. She stares at them for a moment, then plays them in order a couple of times. They sound weird together. Dissonant. And then she sits silently for about a minute. Finally, she puts her hands on the keys and plays a complete, original etude based around those four dissonant notes.
Alma Deutcher is a musical prodigy. Well before the age of twelve, she had such a firm grasp of chords and arpeggios — that boring crap I refused to learn in piano lessons because I only wanted to play actual songs — that she could take four notes and make them into a piece of art in a minute. She knows the rules, up, down, front, and backward. The rules are rules for a reason. The rules allowed her to turn noise into art effortlessly.
Tim Minchin is an Australian comedian who also happens to be an astounding pianist. He wrote a song called F Sharp which broke the rules. He played the piano in the key of F Major and sang the lyrics in the key of F Sharp. It sounded terrible. But it was funny. He knew the rules and broke them to be funny.
But my point isn’t any of that. My point is that we live in a time when a lot of prominent intellectuals are my classmate from film school: deconstructionists. Deconstructing the things we’ve always taken for granted is a great tool for understanding them better.
[But say there is] a fence or gate erected across the road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.”
G. K. Chesterton
The things we take for granted tend to be taken for granted for a reason. If you want to start breaking the rules, you should understand the rules first.
Deconstructing Gender
One of the most important things that the deconstructionists have set their sights on is the incredibly diverse and variable combination of biological and sociocultural traits we call “gender.”
To start from the beginning, humans are a sexually dimorphic species. We reproduce by combining genetic material from two critically different categories of individual, called male and female.
The technical distinction between male and female is that males produce small, mobile gametes called sperm while females produce large nutrient-containing gametes called eggs.
For categorizing humans, we often discuss other markers like genitalia and chromosomes. And for some individuals, gametes, genitalia, and chromosomes do not line up in the standard binary formation. If you take the most leftwing statistics possible, only 98% people are unequivocally biologically binary, while right wing statistics say 99.98%. The maybe-as-high-as 2% of people who diverge from the binary are called “intersex.”
The divergences this minority of individuals experience can range from Klinefelter syndrome, in which men are born with an extra X chromosome, to ovotesticular disorder, in which an individual is born with both ovarian and testicular tissues in their gonads. We can argue about the role of gender in the identity of various unique intersex individuals, but 98-99.98% of the time, biological sex is completely unambiguous. And, despite ambiguity, almost all (if not all) intersex individuals are still biologically binary based on gametes. Even individuals with ovotesticular disorder only produce eggs or sperm, not both.
All that being said, the deconstruction of gender didn’t start with the intersex question. It started with the transgender question.
Transgenderism isn’t a new phenomenon. There was a Roman emperor named Marcus Aurelius Antoninus who reigned from 218-222AD. According to contemporary accounts, Emperor Antoninus wore wigs and makeup and insisted on being called the Queen. Yoshizawa Ayame was a 17th century Japanese kabuki performer renowned for playing women on stage (women were banned from performing kabuki in 1629). Unlike many onnagata (actors specializing in female roles), Ayame also lived as a woman off-stage.
It is a fact that, regardless of unambiguous biological sex and regardless of culture, some individuals have the undeniable experience of being the gender opposite of their sex.
OPPOSITE.
While the combination of biological and sociocultural traits that compose the concept of gender is incredibly diverse and variable, being transgender inherently relies on the categories being binary, based on sex.
But, the deconstructionists have asked, if gender is an incredibly diverse and variable combination of biological and sociocultural traits, why should they be crammed into binary categories?
Their new version of gender is explained by the Gender Unicorn or the Genderbread Person.
Instead of two categories, there are 5 spectra:
- Sex, with Male and Female at either end and the various intersex conditions in between
- Identity, which can be Man or Woman at either extreme or any combination of non-binary, fluid, or queer in between
- Expression, which not only has the range from masculine to feminine with androgynous in the middle, but an individual can express differently as they see fit from occasion to occasion.
- Sexual interest, which can be heterosexual or homosexual, but also bisexual, pansexual, or asexual
- Romantic interest, which can sometimes diverge from sexual interest. (Some people are emotionally drawn to women even though they have no sexual interest, some people are sexually attracted to men but wouldn’t pursue a relationship with one.)
With this framework, no individual is put into a simple box, they have the tools and the opportunity to explore where they find themselves along each spectrum.
Creativity
The root of deconstructionism is creativity. If you have four walls and a roof around you, they can keep the wolves and the snow out. But they can also be a prison. One definition of creativity is being sensitive to the risk that structure can hold you back. For the extremely creative, every box is a prison, no matter how useful it may be.
Remember that movie Office Space? Jennifer Aniston is a waitress at a restaurant that requires employees to decorate their uniforms with a minimum of 15 pieces of “flair” to show their creativity and individuality. For some people, that would allow you to be amazingly expressive. For others, it’s still far to stifling. Meanwhile, for Aniston, it was nothing but extra work. So she picked 15 random things and slapped them on so she could get on with her real job.
I identified very deeply with Aniston in that situation.
When I was a kid, teachers were obsessed with creativity. They encouraged us to personalize our name tags, backpacks, cubbies, all that stuff. And I always hated that. I’m more creative than the average person, but even I don’t feel the need to express myself all the time in every possible way.
For example, I was in my mid-20s the very first time it occurred to me that my appearance has an actual impact on the way people perceive me. That is when I decided it was worth the bare minimum effort to look decent.
I still don’t care about style and fashion, so I’ve settled pretty comfortably into a completely unoriginal but respectable aesthetic of short hair, trimmed beard, v-neck t-shirts, and jeans.
The fact that I care so little about fashion does not detract from the joy that some people get out of it, and likewise the obsession that some people have with fashion does not require me to share in their passion.
Have you ever struggled to find something to watch on TV?
In the days of my grandparents, there were 5 channels. In my day, there were 800. Now we get 20 streaming services, each with 50,000 titles available 24/7. More options is objectively better. But there is a tradeoff.
The more options there are, the more work it takes to make a decision and the more likely that you will fail to make the best possible decision. While my grandparents never got to watch exactly what they wanted, they also never struggled to choose what to watch.
And they never had to wonder if they were missing out on something better.
The Rough Draft
Imagine you are standing in the middle of nowhere. You can’t see, hear, smell or feel anything in any direction. What do you do?
It’s tough to make a decision with nothing to go on.
Now say you can see a city in the distance. What do you do? Suddenly, it’s pretty clear. You go towards the city. It’s the only place there is.
But wait, is the city a post-apocalyptic hellscape full of murderous scavengers or a glowing utopia of singing children and chocolate fountains? The fact is, even without the details, you can make a decision. Because you have to. Because you’re not going to get the details until you do.
That’s just how the human brain works. We can’t make decisions based on the complete truth because it isn’t possible for a person to know the complete truth. So when we meet a new person, we use observations about sex, race, height, weight, clothing, body language, and so on and combine it with our incredible but flawed internal sense of statistics to form a rough draft in our minds of who that person is. We make decisions based on our rough drafts. And as we get to know people better, we edit to bring the draft closer and closer to the unreachable truth of who that person really is.
For example, women don’t know anything about car mechanics. So if you meet a woman, she probably isn’t going to know anything about car mechanics. If your car breaks down, don’t call her. But if she happens to be in the car with you, it might be worth asking. And if it turns out that her dad was a mechanic and she was doing oil changes in elementary school, remember that. Next time your car breaks down and she’s not there, give her a call.
We denounce prejudice and discrimination rightly, but we have to be careful not to go too far. A society with no prejudice and discrimination means that police may not discriminate between those who follow the law and those who don’t, the hungry may not discriminate between food that is healthy and food that isn’t, and women may not discriminate between men who are worth sleeping with and men who aren’t.
When we denounce prejudice and discrimination in a balanced way, we encourage people not to discard their drafts but to get more comfortable with editing.
One way to think about it is that the left hemisphere of the brain specializes in order and the right hemisphere specializes in chaos. Like the two halves of the brain, order and chaos are both natural, necessary, and healthy. To find balance between the two, think of the rough draft as your order, your stability, a firm foundation. To edit the draft is your chaos, your flexibility, a way to strengthen your foundation.
The world is an ocean. The rough draft is your ship. Without a rough draft, you are at the mercy of the waves. If you refuse to edit, to trim the sails and set your heading in line with the waves, you are picking a fight with reality itself. And, one way or another, you will lose.
Archetypes
The human mind is built on symbolism. Our earliest understandings of abstract ideas always came by associating them with something concrete. We conceive of nature as a mother because it, too, gives us life and nourishment. We learned to be more flexible by telling a story about a blade of grass bending in the same wind that broke a mighty oak tree. And when men wear the skins of wolves, it not only keeps them warm but imbues them with the spirit of a great hunter.
Children progress from existing as beings of pure instinct to understanding in pure symbolism until their early 20s when the mind is fully formed. At that point, humans become just barely capable, with extreme effort, of separating some symbols from the abstract ideas they represent.
Children have an incredible tool that they use to develop their identities: they play pretend. Children create characters based on the archetypes they encounter in the world and act out those characters in order to investigate what kind of a person they want to become.
When I was young, my favorite movie character was Aragorn. So I created a self-identity as a ranger. I wore a cape and carried a wooden sword whenever I was able to. Then I grew up.
At the age of 20, I went on a tour of Europe with a bunch of young adults. As young adults, there were a lot of alcohol-fueled late-night adventures. I got the nickname “ass-man” because I would always hang out at the back of the group and make sure no one got separated and left behind. I don’t carry a sword anymore, but I took on the spirit of Aragorn and became a protecter and defender in real life.
That’s what growing up is. You take on a character, distill it down to what it really means to you, and eventually leave behind the symbols you don’t need anymore.
Little boys grow up with their mothers, and Mother is a powerful archetype. Many mothers wear dresses and makeup, so taking on a mother character often involves little boys playing with dresses and makeup. Most boys grow up to learn that the reason they wanted to emulate their mother was because of her compassion and care for the people around her, and that dresses and makeup are ultimately meaningless symbols of that ethic. Some boys continue to value dresses and makeup as adults, but until their minds are fully developed, they are simply incapable of making such a distinction.
To say I carried a wooden sword as a kid does not do justice to my passion. I studied the different fighting styles of longsword, rapier, and katana. I memorized sword fight choreography from movies, pausing frame by frame until I got the moves. In high school, I was writing my own choreography while collecting about a dozen steel swords. In hindsight, swords were a symbol of the skills and strength to defend the people I care about. And the moment I started living in the real world and was confronted with the fact that swords have not been that for a couple hundred years, a 10-year obsession simply dissolved. I still know the difference between a shamshir and a kilij, but I have barely touched any of my swords since high school.
Children need the opportunity to play with gender in order to distill it down to what it really means to them as individuals. Parents who punish their children for playing with gender make it more difficult to integrate their unique traits. Parents who believe the characters their children play are fully formed and indicative in every way of who the children will be as adults make it more difficult for the children to shed the unnecessary symbols.
Children are children. The way they behave and interface with the world is different than the way adults do. That’s why we don’t treat children the same way we treat adults.
Masculinity and Femininity
Human males and females are more similar than they are different. In general, gender stereotypes are wrong nearly as often as they are right.
These are the male and female bell-curves for height. There is a significant overlap; around 45% of women and 40% of men are between 5’5” (165cm) and 5’11” (180cm). But most women are shorter than 5’7” (170cm) and most men are taller. If you take a random man and a random woman, the woman will be taller than the man 3 or 4 times out of 10. But if you look at the tail ends of the graphs, you will see that there are plenty of women who are under 5’ tall but very few men, and there are lots of men over 6’4”, but almost no women.
That is how nearly all masculine and feminine traits work, from physical aggression and interest in mechanics to the love of beauty and the desire to care for living things. Almost every individual has many masculine and feminine traits. Around 1 in 10 men are more feminine than masculine and around 1 in 10 women are more masculine than feminine. But the most extreme form of masculine traits are nearly always found in men, and the most extreme form of feminine traits are nearly always found in women.
The tallest woman who ever lived was 7’7″ (231cm). But there are about 100 men who have been taller, the tallest of whom had more than a foot on her at 8’11” (272cm).
It’s a complicated science to quantify, but when you do, you can see that our incredible but flawed internal sense of statistics is actually on to something. Masculine and feminine traits do exist. Gender and sex are tied together for a reason.
I happen to have an overwhelmingly feminine personality. I love people, I prioritize relationships over work, I’m deeply compassionate, extremely agreeable, and prone to being brought to tears by drug commercials. I’m what you might call an “individual.” Neither my male biology nor my feminine temperament define me.
Gender could be conceived of as incredibly diverse and variable, but sex is still binary. And you only get to be one of them. In your search for identity, you can embrace your sex head on and live up the stereotypes, you can ignore it and find your own way in life, or you can pick a fight with the nature of the universe and see who wins.
I have complete respect for the fact that there are people for whom every fiber of their being is screaming out that their sex is wrong. But that does not change the fact that, for the vast, vast majority of gender non-conforming individuals, there is absolutely no reason to pick that fight.
There is no way for you to gain the opposite sex. All you can do is throw away the gift you were born with.
Reconstructing Gender
In many ways, gender theory is the continuation of the important tradition of Western individualism. Every individual is unique and deserves dignity and the opportunity to express themselves and thrive in whatever way is best for them.
In other ways, it’s a recognition that individualism can go too far. The ever expanding acronym for the community of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, Asexual, Two-Spirit, Agender, Demisexual, Polyamorous, Sapiosexual, Plus individuals is a way to offer belonging and inclusion as we slowly rediscover that being unique, taken to the extreme, means that we are alone. And alone is something that we cannot stand to be.
We are a paradox. A unique blend of stereotypes. An independent part of the oneness of the universe. The more we learn about ourselves and the world around us, the more we find ourselves repeating wisdom discovered thousands of years ago.
If you are born male, living as your society’s version of a stereotypical boy, then man, is most of the time, in most ways, going to give you your best possible life. If you are born female, living as your society’s version of a stereotypical girl, then woman, is most of the time, in most ways, going to give you your best possible life.
Some stereotypes are guaranteed to be wrong for you. But breaking a stereotype is not the same thing as an identity.
For the most part, stereotypes are nothing more than tools for you to use. You don’t have to explore every possibility in the world.
If you’re a guy and you want to try exercise for the first time, start with weights or martial arts. Chances are you’ll like it better than yoga or ballet. But if you’re a guy who likes ballet, do ballet.
If you’re a girl and you want to try exercise for the first time, start with yoga or dance. Chances are you’ll like it better than weights or boxing. But if you’re a girl who likes to box, then box.
Only when you understand the rules, when you can see the value they add to the world, are you able to break them and make the world better.
