Amy Kasch

Philosophy & Feminism

Short Paper
4/23/08

A Genderless Society: Addressing the Obstacles

With the development of culture, humanity imposed the concept of gender upon

biological sexuality as a means of organizing society. Childbirth restricted women as a

consequence of reproductive biology, allowing the familial unit to emerge as a center for the

economic exchange of women for political gain. This system caused distinct views of masculine

and feminine to appear that grew to be seen as “natural”. The idea of the “exchange of women”

and its imposed gender categories remain present in our modern society, regardless of the fact

that they cease to serve an organizational function. As a solution to this oppressive system,

anthropologist Gayle Rubin suggests the need for a completely genderless society, in which

biological sex is the only distinction between men and women. Rubin sees the elimination of

gender as a moral necessity to create equality between biological sexes; however, she fails to

address the difficulties in establishing such a society, as it would require an abandonment of

humankind’s habituated ways of relating to one another through social stereotypes. A genderless

society may in fact be essential, yet in order for it to be attained the obstacles of initiating such a

drastic social change need to be specifically addressed.

Rubin sees gender as a product of the sex/gender system created by culture and imposed

by societies. Rubin defines a sex/gender system as “the set of arrangements by which a society

transforms biological sexuality into products of human activity, and in which these transformed

sexual needs are satisfied” (Rubin, 13). Gender, from Rubin’s perspective, is completely

unnatural and wholly the result of cultural implications: “Gender is a socially imposed division of

the sexes. It is a product of the social relations of sexuality” (Rubin, 23). To Rubin, gender was

created as a way to define relationships between the sexes and to fit their seemingly “natural”

differences into some form of categorization. Rubin argues that sex/gender systems are the source

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of female oppression and that our current system needs to be reevaluated and reconstructed in a

way that eliminates gender altogether: “Subordination of women can be seen as a product of the

relationships by which sex and gender are organized and produced” (Rubin, 23). Rubin explains

the development of our current sex/gender system as a product of the non-modern kinship

systems that have historically organized sexuality in economically and politically meaningful

ways.

Kinship systems are ways of organizing societies in which social connections are crucial

for survival due to a lack of resources and technology. In such systems, men are responsible for

the exchange of women between families as a means of developing relationships and status

within a social construct. Men marry off the women in their families strategically so as to gain

connections and resources through others: “As long as the relations specify that men exchange

women, it is men who are the beneficiaries of the product of such exchange—social organization”

(Rubin, 21). Women on the other hand, have no choice in the matter and have fewer rights in

themselves than men have in them:

It would be in the interests of the smooth and continuous operation of such a system if the
woman in question did not have too many ideas of her own about whom she might want
to sleep with. From the standpoint of the system, the preferred female sexuality would be
one which responded to the desire of others, rather than one which actively desired and
sought a response (Rubin, 25).

And, so, through this social construct out of which our current sex/gender system developed,

women are forced to give up their autonomy to the opposite sex.

Although kinship systems no longer serve any functional purpose in our modern society,

the ideas behind them still remain apparent in our everyday practices: “Our sex/gender system is

still organized by the principles of kinship, despite its entirely non-modern character” (Rubin,

33). Women are no longer as bound and restricted by childbearing, yet typical practices in our

culture continue to hinder their autonomy: fathers “giving away” the bride at wedding

ceremonies, women taking their husband’s name when married, and often times the woman’s

parents paying for the cost of a wedding ceremony, a similar concept to a dowry that may exist in

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kinship systems. Although the literal act of exchanging women and the practice of arranged

marriages no longer exist in our modern society, the roles of the man as the exchanger and the

woman as the exchanged still remain prevalent: “The asymmetry of gender—the difference

between the exchanger and exchanged—entails the constraint of female sexuality” (Rubin, 25).

Women continue to be objectified and subordinated by the patriarchal structure of our current

sex/gender system, regardless of the lack of purpose such a system seems to serve.

Due to the fact that our current sex/gender system no longer serves any necessary

function yet continues to oppress women and allow them to be dominated by the opposite gender,

Rubin proposes the elimination of gender entirely. For Rubin, abolishing the concept of gender is

a moral necessity if we are to establish equality between the biological sexes and end the

oppression of the feminine. However, Rubin argues that even without gender, we need some form

of societal organization and that there will always exist parameters and restrictions on people that

allow for the functioning of a cooperative society: “Any society will have some systematic ways

to deal with sex, gender, and babies” (Rubin, 18). She acknowledges the need for some sort of

sexual organization, yet she argues the insufficiency of the systems developed thus far: “It is

important to maintain a distinction between the human capacity and necessity to create a sexual

world, and the empirically oppressive ways in which sexual worlds have been organized” (Rubin,

18). Although Rubin addresses the need for ways of organizing sex and understands that some

form of such an organization is necessary for societal function, she does not address the extreme

moral challenge embedded in the proposal of eliminating gender.

Although Rubin's idea of a genderless society may be necessary for the moral reform of

sexuality to occur, there are numerous obstacles in the way of its achievement. People in society

are defined by the social stereotypes developed about them; they live by structuring their lives

around restrictions put upon them, and through this they "know" where they fit in. Stereotypes

give people excuses to act a certain way and allow them to formulate goals and ideas that fit into

the particular mold of the society they live in. A genderless society would be difficult to attain,

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simply because throughout the course of history and in cultures existing today, people have

grown accustomed to being defined by their positions in society.

Relationships between sexes are shaped almost entirely by the contrasting ideas and

expectations a given society has for the masculine and the feminine. In our modern society, male

and female stereotypes have been established in such a way as to compliment each other and

promote heterosexual relationships. Males are generally expected to be strong, protective,

confident, and reserved, while women are often visualized as weak, vulnerable, modest and

emotional. Additionally, opposite genders are generally attributed separate familial roles: women

are associated with housework and childcare, men with manual labor and outside careers.

Abolishing these stereotypes would leave people confused as to how to relate to the opposite

biological sex, and a great deal of work needs to go into preparing our male dominated society for

such a drastic change.

Rubin declares that gender is unnatural by explaining that the division of labor between

the sexes is a taboo against the sameness of men and women: “The idea that men and women are

two mutually exclusive categories must arise out of something other than a nonexistent ‘natural’

opposition. Far from being an expression of natural differences, exclusive gender identity is the

suppression of natural similarities” (Rubin, 24). Rubin claims that because of this, both sexes

would flourish in a genderless society, yet she overlooks the fact that people seek ways to

distinguish themselves from others for personal definition. The current mindset in our culture is

dependent upon institutions such as marriage, which give people contexts to define themselves

within; in order for gender to be eliminated, such institutions need to be evaluated and

challenged.

A general assumption in our culture is that the ultimate goal of dating throughout young

adulthood is to find a life mate and eventually settle down. “Starting a family” seems to be a

somewhat expected destination of growing up for many people, and this concept has existed

throughout history due to the necessity of separation of labor and the lack of sufficient resources

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available to human societies. Because concepts of marriage and family and even heterosexuality

are so ingrained in our culture as “normal”, to eliminate gender would be to eliminate these

concepts, something that would shake the very foundation of our society’s existence.

Men and women find stability and comfort in discovering ways to distinguish themselves

from one another, and for the social restriction of gender to be eliminated entirely, men and

women either need to develop other ways to separate themselves or get rid of the need for

distinction altogether. Abolishing gender would require men and women to realize that there is

sufficient similarity between the sexes and that many of the differences that contribute to their

self images are merely social constructions: “Although there is an average difference between

males and females on a variety of traits, the range of variation of those traits shows considerable

overlap” (Rubin 24). Exclusive gender identity requires men to repress their “feminine” traits and

women to repress their “masculine” traits and is in fact restrictive rather than natural (Rubin, 24).

For the possibility of a genderless society to be considered, men and women need to break away

from the stereotypes that confine them and allow themselves to be defined separately from their

sexes.

Rubin describes the ideal, sexually autonomous society as “an androgynous and

genderless (though not sexless) society; in which one’s sexual anatomy is irrelevant to who one

is, what one does, and with whom one makes love” (Rubin, 36). Perhaps for such a society to be

achieved, men and women need to cease relying on one another for the division of labor in order

for new images and ideas about each sex to be independently developed. The ingrained idea of

the necessity of the institution of marriage would need to be driven out of the collection of

societal norms. With separately originated female and male identities, not socially constructed to

promote heterosexual union for societal function, perhaps the restrictive categories of gender

could in fact be eliminated and Rubin’s morally necessary, sexually equal society could be

attained.

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 Works Cited

Rubin, Gayle. "The Traffic in Women: Notes on the "Political Economy" of Sex." The Feminist

Philosophy Reader. Comp. Alison Bailey and Chris Cuomo. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2008.

13-41.