The Roots of Gender: Defining Femininity and Masculinity
Just as Rand grounded the conclusions in epistemology, ethics, politics, and art in the statement "man is man," so the conclusions in sexuality - specifically determining masculinity and femininity - should be based on the statements "man is man and woman is woman." Rather, just as the conclusions in philosophy were based on man's nature, so the conclusions for sexuality must be based on the nature of man and the nature of woman.
Our current cultural mantra is that gender and sex are irrelevant to each other. Gender, most psychology books preach is the sexual psychology of a person, i.e. masculine or feminine, and is completely irrelevant to biological sex, i.e. male or female. Hence, a woman can be masculine, feminine or both and a man can be masculine, feminine or both.
By definition, this is illogical. If any so-called feminine trait can rationally exist in a man (meaning as objectively appropriate to), it is, by definition, not a "feminine" trait. The same is true in reverse: if any so-called masculine trait can rationally exist in a woman, it is not, by definition, a "masculine" trait. [This is not to say that if a woman so chooses to adopt a trait, it is by definition feminine or vice versa, but if that trait can appropriately and rationally exist in her - it is not a "masculine" trait.]
It is popular to believe that there are various "masculine" and "feminine" traits that exist - any of which can exist in a man or woman. Usually, any trait that is "strong" is taken to be "masculine," and any trait that is "weak" is taken to be "feminine." Hence a plethora of traits that can and do exist in both women and men - from logic to competition to emotion to nurturing - are assigned as masculine or feminine traits.
This view that masculinity and femininity are floating abstracts, unrelated to women or women, is a very much in vein with Platonic philosophy. Plato believed there was the world we live in now, and then there was another, more perfect world - where truth, morality, perfection, etc. exists. Therefore ideas are divorced from reality; behaviors divorced from man -femininity is divorced from women and masculinity is divorced from men. It is in the Aristotelian vein to keep behaviors related to human beings - femininity related to women and masculinity related to men.
Femininity is in fact not only exclusive to women, it is designed based upon the nature of a woman. Femininity - the "ought" of what a woman should do - is based on the nature of a woman, i.e. what a woman "is." The same is true for masculinity. Let us now do something very unpopular: define the "is" of men and women.
The nature of the woman, the reason for her existence as a woman differentiated from a man, is she is the sex capable of child-bearing. The nature of the man, his differentiation from a woman, is he is the sex capable of fertilizing the woman.
This is not to suggest that all sexual interaction must be done with the intent to procreate. This is not to refer to the process of child-making in any manner whatsoever. This is to suggest defining what makes a person a man as opposed to a woman. That difference, at its most essential level, is the woman is the child-bearer and the man is not.
The difference between men and women is not "mere genitalia." Of course, women have a vagina and men have a penis. But this is not where the differences stop as far as bodily composition is concerned. A woman's child-bearing capability does not just affect her genitalia but her whole body. This is not true for other animals. For instance, a female pit bull's body is not centrally designed any different from a male's. A female pit bull is still trained to fight like a male pit bull; the rest of her body is not affected by her child-bearing capability. But a human woman is completely differentiated from a man in her entire bodily composition -from her neck down. The difference between men and women is not just gonads, but the entire physicality of their two different bodies.
Men, who do not carry the responsibility of child-bearing, are designed for one purpose: mastering reality. Men's bodies are taller, bigger and more muscular than a woman's. They have less body fat, a high center of gravity, and broad shoulders. Their entire design has one central purpose: efficacy.
Women's bodies, on the other hand, are not designed solely for efficacy. A woman's body is smaller, shorter, and less muscular than a man's. It has a layer of body fat to protect her and a low center of gravity. She has supple breasts, wide hips, and even monthly periods. The central design of a woman's body is not efficacy: it is child-bearing.
Femininity and masculinity are the conscious, chosen behaviors of men or women to act in accordance to their nature as men or women respectively.
Being a man or a woman is one thing - it is completely automatic. Being feminine or masculine is another. Being a male or female is a physical concrete; being feminine or masculine is a chosen behavior. Gender is in fact an adjective - a chosen behavior by a person - but a rational person would act in accordance to reality therefore a woman will choose to be feminine and a man masculine. It is possible to act irrationally; therefore, gender is not intrinsic.
It is in, particular, femininity as chosen by women that has been not only assaulted, but almost completely rejected by women themselves - so this is now what we will discuss in detail.
Femininity is not such bogus things or traits such as "chaos, dependence, emotion" or even "nurturing, relationships, cooperation." Femininity is the woman who embraces, love, and relishes in the fact that she is a woman.
Femininity is more than the woman who is pretty, wears high heels, or dresses in skirts. One can easily name a host of attractive women who dress in heels and skirts who are not feminine. Yes, make up and dressing nice are a part of it, but only to accentuate, highlight, and idealize those features which make her a woman.
Femininity, by definition, can only rationally exist in women. Men cannot (rationally) revel in the fact or act in accordance to a nature as a women for obvious reasons.
Masculinity, of course, is defined as a man who embraces the fact that he is a man and acts in accordance. I am refraining from discussing it here for I discuss it in excessive length in my article on masculinity, and also - most men are not in denial of who and what they are as men.
Don't let anyone fool you by saying that any given other culture did not have, say, women who wore make up, therefore make up is not a feminine trait, or more importantly - that there is no objectively definable "feminine" traits. Makeup is merely a concrete - only one possible application of a woman who is acting in accordance to her nature and embracing herself as a woman. What matters are not the concretes of femininity that are materialized, but the standard: femininity is objectively defined as a woman who embraces her nature as a woman and acts in accordance.
A feminine woman embraces and does not deny the fact that certain limitations exist to her because of the fact that she is a woman. Which brings me to the single most primary trait in defining a feminine woman: hero-worship.
Hero-worship is fundamentally derived from what a woman is and what a man is. The child-bearing, less efficacious woman looks up to and admires the stronger, leaner, more efficiently designed male.
Let me make a note regarding the notion that intellect, not physical capabilities matter. Man's intellect is, indeed, the source of all wealth valuable to man. However, there is no mind-body dichotomy. Man's mind initiates and the body acts. The body must be used to materialize what man's mind created. A sound body, physical coordination, and technical competence are necessary in living life on earth. Imagine governing a farm, mining for gold, sailing across sea, winning a war, or even performing heart surgery, without a functioning, coordinated, highly efficient, and sometimes even strong body. It is not because of a lack of heroism or intellectual ability that women are less capable of negotiating reality, but of a lack of instruments to implement what her mind creates. As such, men should be, properly, regarded, as Ayn Rand says, the "dominant," i.e. more efficacious, sex.
Hero-worship is fundamentally grounded in the metaphysical natures of men and women. The man, uninhibited by the "burdens" of child-bearing becomes the dominant sex. His sexuality becomes wrapped up in his heroism, and a woman's sexuality becomes wrapped up in admiring him, because this is, after all, what has allowed civilization to exist and to prosper. Sex is a celebration of life. Life is the standard of erotica.
This does not imply that a woman should become a victim - a Rapunzel in distress - in relationship to a man. What is implied is that a woman's sexual nature is derived from hero-worship. A man who is stronger, taller, more efficacious than she is will excite her. Being in his presence will make her feel feminine.
This is not to say that a man will thus want a dumb, dependent, victim of a woman to be by his side. A man still, first and foremost, loves a woman for her virtues. But the relationship he has in contrast to her is different. Whereas the woman looks up to and exalts the man, the man looks at her, in all her greatness, with a cooing, affectionate warm eye. It is not an upwards or downwards glance that he gives her, but a level-headed admiring one. His sexual pleasure should not come from looking at her efficacy (although he should have the knowledge that she is competent), but in his own efficacy and his ultimate reward for his efficacy as the ability to be with a rational, honest, virtuous woman.
I often hear the argument that since men are, by nature's gift, more efficacious than women - why should one worship this? If it comes easier to them than to women, shouldn't one admire the person with the bigger struggle more?
When one begins to analyze this logically, however, you can see how absurd this is. If you owned a business and there were two machines being presented to you to buy, one of which ran extremely efficiently, almost effortlessly, and another one that required a tremendous amount of energy and strain to run at the same rate, which would you buy? In Atlas Shrugged, Rand makes a philosophical point: pain does not matter. What matters is not the struggle you have to endure to gain something, but the pleasure you receive upon gaining it. What matters are results not effort. Pleasure, ease, and ability should be regarded higher than pain, difficulty, and weakness.
Hero-worship is the primary quality that makes a woman feminine. A woman who revels in, appreciates, and loves men - embracing both who she is as a woman and the nature of men - is the hallmark of a feminine woman. Nothing else, in comparison, matters in determining if a woman is feminine or not, including a woman who may play sports, become an engineer, and a host of other things thought of as traditionally masculine.
It is the woman who rejects hero-worship in particular, which is, at its most fundamental level: a woman who is in denial of her nature as a woman, and tries to outcompete men that becomes an unfeminine, sexless brute.
How is possible for a woman to not do something that seems so simple, logical, and common sensical as embracing and acting in accordance to her nature as a woman? Simple: deny, evade, and hate the fact that she is a woman.
Many if not most American women today reject femininity. The reason for this, in short, is: they hate being women. I wish I believed in God for I would ask them: why would God create a creature that he thought was inferior? But then I remember that the Judeo-Christian religion believes that all men are created in sin, in particular Eve: the first sinner, and am reminded why I do not like religion.
The main culprit in causing women to reject femininity has been feminism.
Feminists' professed goal is to attain equality for women. By equality, they mean equality of result not opportunity, e.g. women with the same high level jobs as men, where the average woman's salary is 1:1 with men, where women are in military roles, etc.
Presented with the fact that women are not metaphysically designed to be equal to men, feminists did what they logically had to in order to (attempt to) achieve this: deny and evade the "is" of what a woman is.
From Martine Rothblatt's The Apartheid of Sex: A Manifesto on the Freedom of Gender summarizing the conclusion of her book:
"This book shows that there is no socially meaningful characteristic that defines humanity into two absolute groups, men and women. [...] Genitals are as irrelevant to one's role in society as skin tone. Hence, the legal division of people into males and females is as wrong as the legal divisions of people into black and white races."
To a feminist, just believing there is a certain category called "male" and another female called "female" is an evil to be fought tooth and nail. Indeed, one can see why. If one were to embrace the "is" of women, certain natural conclusions arise from it. Who can deny that women are physically less strong than men? Recognizing the physicality of what men and women are, hence, had to not only be scoffed as unimportant, but denied altogether.
Feminists are like a virus, infecting the minds of millions of women - training them to hate being women, deny their bodily nature, and wish they were a man. The assault on femininity is obvious. I mentioned in the article before this that feminists have encouraged women to urinate in urinals and men to urinate in toilets. This is a clear-cut example of how an unfeminine woman behaves: by pretending that she can act as if she were a man.
A woman can still do a number of things considered masculine and retain her femininity. Many women, for instance, who play sports are still feminine. Whether or not they are feminine is a frame of mind. Generally the feminine woman who plays sports recognizes that men are stronger than she, and it doesn't upset her. The unfeminine woman is quite intent on being equal to men for she is denial of her nature as a woman.
The assault on womanhood is particularly virulent when one mentions that men are metaphysically stronger than woman, and that a rational woman would not only not deny this, but find it as a fundamental source for her desire for men.
A woman has two possible responses to the fact that men are stronger than she: reverence or jealousy. The current establishment is doing their best to sway the female response to the latter.
Ayn Rand said we live in an "Age of Envy." That is, an age where the good is hated for being the good. It is only in this culture where we can have women hating men for being good. It is one thing for a person to hate another for being virtuous, but for a woman to hate a man for being efficacious? A woman's femininity is hero-worship attacking a man's efficacy would be comparable to a man hating a beautiful woman for being beautiful.
A rational woman is not jealous of men's efficacy, and instead looks up to, admires, and loves it. She does not try to toy with her gender, to compete with men, but rather enjoys men. It is not the worst, but the best in a woman that reveres men for being efficacious and able. It reveals a state of tremendous psychological health for a woman to see greatness and give it reverence; it reveals a horrific state of psychological health for a woman to see greatness and become enraged with envy over it.
A woman who spends her life trying to outcompete men will necessarily become a sexless, joyless creature. It's quite logical to see how that would happen. A woman who tries to be "equal" to men will find she can only do it by denying, evading, and damning herself for being a woman. Nothing could be more destructive in destroying her sensuality.
The completion of an adult, morally achieved woman is not an eternal struggle to be like a man. This includes in particular trying to outcompete men athletically, which will never happen. A rational woman would focus on where she can become achieved - which is intellectual - and would embrace her nature as a woman, love men for their nature, and live a rational, joyful, sexual life.
There is one place in where I possibly disagree with Ayn Rand. Rand said a woman should not become the President of the United States, as if she did she would become a sexless, rationally revolting creatures. The reason is much as I outlined above - for if a woman was the top leader in the freest nation on earth, she would have no man to "look up" to. I disagree; a woman may perhaps be able to become a leader of a great nation without losing her sexuality. For an example of this, see Margaret Thatcher. A woman does not necessarily look up to the President as her hero. She very easily could look up to a different man as a hero: her husband.
The sexlessness of a female does not come from a woman who choses a certain profession, but the woman who is in denial of her nature, and many women in all different professions fit this bill, and indeed, this includes some female leaders such as Hillary Clinton and Janet Reno. But so as long as a woman still cherishes who she is as a woman and adores and appreciates men, she can remain sexual - especially if she regards her duties as a leader as a service to her fellow people and nothing else. However, Rand said she was opposed to a female President of the United States not Prime Minister of England. And, indeed, there was one person more powerful than Thatcher during her reign: Ronald Reagan.
I do not believe feminists main interest is to create successful, independent women, but to create sexless women, which in the end causes gender warfare, breaks down the family, etc. and a host of other things as part of the feminist/communist agenda. If they really cared about female independence, they would be preaching those things that lead to success: reason, independence, diligence. Especially in a capitalist world, those things a woman lacks in comparison to a man simply do not matter. But they do not preach these things, instead they preach women try to behave like men and pretend as if they are not women. What can his accomplish except to de-sexualize women? Their agenda is obvious.
Indeed, as far as sexuality goes, nothing is more alluring to men than a women who embraces her femininity, i.e. loves and embraces the fact that she is a woman. A sexual woman is not just one who is not in denial of her nature as a woman, but fully embraces, plays it up, accentuates it - she has a heightened sense of her femininity. Even having ideal characteristics is not as powerful in alluring men as embracing femininity. The attitude is more important than the physical. Whether it be flipping hair, retaining a soft, feminine figure, or allowing a man to dominate you in bed, these things will allure men. And, vice versa, a man who embraces his masculinity - embracing, highlighting and accentuating those things that make him a man will allure women.
Also, nothing is more powerful for a woman's sexual enjoyment than to embrace the fact that she is a woman. Nothing - no great position, no great mechanical move, no great CD, lotion, or anything of the sort - is as powerful in allowing a woman to climax as embracing her femininity, i.e. acting in accordance to the fact that she is a woman.
Femininity is something that naturally rises from the nature of women, and masculinity in men. A woman's body - curvy, supple and beautiful - complements and gives rise to femininity. A man's body - strong, lean, and muscular - complements and gives rise to masculinity. Those trying to gender bend these roles - turning women into masculine brutes and men into passive wimps - are assaulting reality, sexuality, pleasure, and fun.
The recipe for erotic heterosexual sex is quite simple and universal: masculine man and feminine woman. Those trying to destroy it are those trying to destroy sexuality altogether. Some try to destroy it as they hate sexuality, others because they hate heterosexuality. Indeed, homosexuals tend to be some of the loudest advocates of subjective gender roles. The reason I propose is as follows.
In all relationships, a couple polarizes themselves into a masculine role and a feminine role. For heterosexuals, how that polarizes is obvious. But for homosexuals, which involve either two men or two women together, it is not. At some point, a man will have to behave feminine and a woman will have to behave masculine. Gender bending is a natural part of their lives. A woman must act outside of her nature as a woman at some point and a man must act outside of his nature as a man.
As a conclusion, let me offer an example of a group of people who denied gender roles, i.e. denied the metaphysical design of men and women.
I offer an example of when a large group of men and women tried to deny gendered roles, during the Sexual Revolution. I take this from Andrea Dworkin's account in Right Wing Women. In it, she describes the men and women, who came together in opposition to the Vietnam War. They boasted they would develop a new kind of sexual credo - with men and women being "partners," in "brother-sister relationships" instead of in gendered roles. Here is what actually happened. I apologize for the language, but the snip was revealing enough to be included.
Precisely in trying to erode the boundaries of gender through an apparent single standard of sexual-liberation practice, they participated more and more in the most gender-reifying act: fucking. The men grew more manly; the world of the counterculture became more aggressively male-dominated. The girls became women--found themselves possessed by a man or a man and his buddies (in the parlance of the counterculture, his brothers and hers too)--traded, gang-fucked, collected, collectivized, objectified, turned into the hot stuff of pornography, and socially resegregated into traditionally female roles. Empirically speaking, sexual liberation was practiced by women on a wide scale in the sixties and it did not work: that is, it did not free women. Its purpose--it turned out--was to free men to use women without bourgeois constraints, and in that it was successful. One consequence for the women was an intensification of the experience of being sexually female--the precise opposite of what those idealistic girls had envisioned for themselves. (bold mine)
This is a group of people who wanted "equal," relationships, in which they were completely blind to whether the sex was a man or a woman. After trying to live up to "brother-sister relationships," (i.e. genderless), these men and women dwindled into far more extreme, more abusive, more wicked gendered roles. The women became absolutely submissive; the men absolutely dominant. The male-female interaction of the man and woman did got get squashed, instead it grew wildly and untamed.
Once again, it is proven: reality to be commanded - must be obeyed.
