Gender and roles are incredibly interesting to me. In my blog titled "Real Men Don't Have Penises" we looked at the differences in gender and how similar both genders actually are. In Vikter's Q&A blog titled "A Stay At Home Dad's Tale" we looked at a real life story of someone who has made the transition to a contradictory gender role.
As we go through life, our bodies produce hormones. The secretion volumes of thos hormones dictate our gender level as we grow older. The sex steroids (androgens, estrogens and progestogens) interact with vertebrae steroid hormone receptors to determine our genders. Hormonal balance is a tough thing as we age since our hormones are an ever evolving cocktail.
The yin and yang is a concept in Chinese philosophy that all things are inseparable and contradictory opposites. I believe that yin and yang is a wonderful representation of gender in you and I. As our male dominant side decreases, our female dominant side must increase to make up for the decrease in it's opposite. This is no new revelation and Chinese philosophy can see many things as these polar opposites.
- Hot & Cold
- Female & Male
- High & Low
- Positive & Negative
- Good & Evil
- Life & Death
- Sun & Moon
- Love & Hate
- Submissive & Dominant
- You & Him
And of course the literal definition of the light & dark sides. (Star Wars reference, anyone?)
The Yin side of this equation represents the fairer sex or the light side of the balance. As the female or yin side decreases, so must the yang side increase to create a wholeness. This means as you explore gender roles with your male counterpart, his retreat from the male role to the female role means that you must also retreat from female to male. …
