Gender's Role

 GENDER

There possibly couldn't be a touchier subject now a days than the subject of gender.  If you look it up, sex is defined as referring to your biological identification as a male or female where as gender refers to males and females as social creatures or gender being based off your environment and the conception you have of yourself.  If you look on Facebook you can choose from at least 58 genders.  I don't know about you, but that seems to be pretty confusing.  Why and how did there grow to be so many?

If you look at it biologically there are distinct differences between men and women.  For example men have more grey matter in the brain where women have more white matter.  Statistically, women tend to have better communicative skills, are more relationship oriented, ask more questions, and are more sensitive to nonverbal cues.  Men tend to have better spatial and quantitative abilities, tend to be more violent, and more likely to try to solve problems on their own.  A caution to these statements though.  This not to say that men cannot communicate well or that women cannot make good architects.  This merely means that MORE women than men seem to have these qualities and visa versa.  In reality we are much more alike than we are different.  

And that's where stereotyping comes into play.  How many of you have heard something along the lines as this:  "Oh that guy is super sensitive, and dresses really nice.  He must be gay!"  Now riddle me this, when did the way a guy dresses, or the career he chooses to peruse determine his sex orientation or who he is attracted to???  For some reason we have conjured up this idea that just because someone has certain "male" or "female" characteristics, they must identify themselves with that one particular attribute.  It is not uncommon now for parents to allow their small children to choose their gender and to start them on hormonal medication, based on just these few characteristics.  The American College of Pediatricians has come out and said that, "Conditioning children into believing that a lifetime of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex is normal and healthful is child abuse." 

Could our distorted ways of thinking and treating others be negatively affecting those we love more than we thought?          

We are all humans.  It's about time that we treat each other as such.  Love is the answer to everything.  But remember that "real love does not support self destructive behavior." 

For further information on same sex attraction I invite you to visit mormonsandgays.org