RESTORED: 3/25/22
People who are born different, in any way, be that deaf, blind, unable to walk, unable to determine their sex, whatever the factor that makes them different, believe that they are normal. And their life is normal for them. But, they want to be seen as normal by everyone else. That is a fact. Most loving people do their best to make them feel accepted, even though they really don’t understand what their are going through. Trouble is there are a LOT of people who are not loving in this world. BUT, forcing the rest of society to turn their back on TRUTH just to accommodate those who are different is wrong. Seriously, should we all be made deaf, blind, paraplegic so that those who are will be normal???
The MAJORITY OF people are not confused about their gender. The MAJORITY OF people do not deny there physical attributes to fit some foolish fantasy brought on by societal conditioning. Males and Females are BORN different. It is not something that they learn. It is in their genes. NOT their brains, as scientists have proven. THEY DON’T THINK they are males and females… THEY KNOW! They are CREATED male and female. Each having unique and valuable qualities, though different. There is a perfect balance in the sexes placed there by an ALL KNOWING GOD!
There is an enemy, who HATES what GOD created. Who has been working hard for thousands of years to destroy the human race. Satan and his followers started perverting ALL SPECIES from the day they set foot on MT Herman.
Even a child can see that boys and girls are different. Unfortunately, what is obvious to most children and adults became the object of heated controversy in the 1970s, when a goofy new idea took root. A small but noisy band of feminists began insisting that the sexes were identical except for their reproductive apparatus, and that any uniqueness in temperament or behavior resulted from patriarchal cultural biases. It was a radical concept that lacked any scientific support, except that which was flawed and politically motivated. Nevertheless, the campaign penetrated the entire culture. Suddenly, professors and professionals who should have known better began nodding in agreement. No doubt about it. Males and females were redundant. Parents had been wrong about their kids for at least five thousand years. The media ran with the notion and the word unisex found its way into the language of the enlightened. Anyone who challenged the new dogma, as I did in a 1975 book titled What Wives Wish Their Husbands Knew About Women, was branded as sexist or something worse.
The feminist movement then took a new and dangerous turn. Its leaders began trying to redesign the way children were being raised (which is why the issue is of concern to us today, all these years later). Television talk-show host Phil Donahue and dozens of wanna-bes told parents day after day that their daughters were victims of terrible sexist bias and that their sons should be raised more like girls.There was great urgency to their message. Things had to change immediately! they said.Donahue’s feminist girlfriend and later wife, Marlo Thomas, coauthored a best-selling book at about the same time titled Free to Be You and Me, which the publishers described as “the first real guide to nonsexist child rearing.” It urged boys to play with dolls and tea sets and told them they could be anything they wanted to be, including (no kidding!) “grandmas and mommies.” It featured dozens of poems and stories about role reversals, such as a mother nailing shingles on the roof, building new shelves in the family room, and working with cement. Meanwhile, Father was in the kitchen making breakfast. Every effort was made to teach kids that fathers made great moms and mothers were pretty tough dudes.2The book sold several million copies. And the movement had only just begun.
Germaine Greer, author of The Female Eunuch, was even more extreme. She said the traditional family had “castrated women.” She believed mothers should be less nurturing of their daughters because to treat them gently and kindly would reinforce sexual stereotypes and make them more “dependent” and feminine.Greer also insisted that children are better off being raised by institutions rather than parents. It is difficult to believe today that her book offering those and similarly outrageous views also soared to the top of all the best-seller lists. That illustrates just how culturally dominant radical feminism was at that time.
Perhaps the most influential of the early feminists was Gloria Steinem, founder of the National Organization for Women and editor of Ms. magazine. Here is a sampling of her perspective on marriage and child rearing:
We’ve had a lot of people in this country who have had the courage to raise their daughters more like their sons. Which is great because it means they’re more equal. … But there are many fewer people who have had the courage to raise their sons more like their daughters. And that’s what needs to be done.
We need to stop raising boys to think that they need to prove their masculinity by being controlling or by not showing emotion or by not being little girls. You can ask [boys] … “Whatif you were a little girl?” They get very upset at the very idea they might be this inferior thing. They’ve already got this idea that in order to be boys they have to be superior to girls and that’s the problem.
[Marriage is] not an equal partnership. I mean, you lose your name, your credit rating, your legal residence, and socially, you’re treated as if his identity were yours. I can’t imagine being married. If everybody has to get married, then clearly it is a prison, not a choice.6 (Steinem married in 2000.)
All women are supposed to want children. But I could never drum up any feelings of regret.7
Think for a moment about the above quotes from Steinem, Greer, and the other early feminists. Most of them were never married, didn’t like children, and deeply resented men, yet they advised millions of women about how to raise their children and, especially, how to produce healthy boys. There is no evidence that Steinem or Greer ever had any significant experience with children of either sex. Isn’t it interesting that the media (to my knowledge) never homed in on that incongruity? And isn’t it sad that these women were allowed to twist and warp the attitudes of a generation of kids?
Of major concern to the feminists was what they considered to be the “sexism” in children’s toys. As with so many issues during that era, it was Germaine Greer who was most vocal. She said, “So where does the difference [between the sexes] come from? If it’s all bred into us by people like toy makers, who steer boys toward these trucks, girls to the dolls, and by teachers, parents, employers—all the wicked influences of a sexist society—then maybe this is a social problem that needs to be fixed.”
Great pressure was exerted on companies to “fix” the problem. I remember being contacted during that time by an attorney who asked for my help in defending the Sav-On drugstore chain. The corporation had been sued by a feminist attorney, Gloria Allred, representing the parents of seven little girls who, they insisted, had been emotionally damaged by their lack of access to certain toys in one of the stores. Allred said with a straight face that great harm was being inflicted on these children by the presence of two signs, Boys’ Toys and Girls’ Toys, placed eight feet above the aisle.9 A psychiatrist then testified (and was handsomely rewarded for it, I’m sure) that the youngsters had been deeply and irreparably wounded by Sav-On’s “discrimination.” No one asked why the parents of the children didn’t simply take them to another store. Still, Sav-On caved in and agreed to remove the “gender-related” signs in their stores.10
Retailers of toys were thereafter put on notice that segregation of merchandise by sex was not to be tolerated.They got the message. For more than two decades, Toys “R” Us implemented a “gender-neutral” approach to marketing as demanded by feminists.It was not successful. Finally, the company administered more than ten thousand customer surveys to learn more about the preferences of children. It turned out that boys and girls were interested in different things.What a surprise! Armed with that information, executives at Toys “R” Us decided it was politically safe, at last, to display the toys in separate sections called Boys World and Girls World. This return to a traditional approach brought a storm of protest from the Women’s Reproductive Health Initiative and the Feminist Karate Union.11 The company stood firm and other toy retailers followed suit. It made no sense to do anything else.
Christina Hoff Sommersaddressed the flap over toys in her outstanding book, The War against Boys.She reported that Hasbro Toys tried to accommodate feminists by producing a new dollhouse designed to interest both boys and girls.That way they could sell twice as many units. There was, however, a slight miscalculation in the way children would respond. Girls tended to “play house,” using the plastic structure in the traditional way. Their dolls got married, arranged toy furniture, had babies, and did the things they had seen their mothers doing.The boys played with the dollhouse too, but not as anticipated. They catapulted the baby carriage off the roof and generally messed up the game for the girls.12 Back to the drawing board.
Well, the unisex movement prevailed until the late 1980s when it fell victim, at last, to medical technology. The development of noninvasive techniques, such as magnetic resonance imaging and PET scans, allowed physicians and physiologists to examine the functioning of the human brain in much greater detail. What they found totally destroyed the assertions of feminists. Men and women’s brains looked very distinct when examined in a laboratory.Under proper stimulation, they “lit up” in different areas, revealing unique neurological processes. It turns out that male and female brains are “hardwired” differently, which, along with hormonal factors, accounts for behavioral and attitudinal characteristics associated traditionally with masculinity and femininity. It was these sexual benchmarks that feminists attempted to suppress or discredit, but they failed. Still, you have to admire their ambition. They tried to redesign half of the human family in a single generation.
In this next video they talk about the claim that men and women are EXACTLY the same. FEMINISTS have no idea what NORMAL women want. I am a woman and I personally don’t want to be a boy. I have no interest in joining the military, or competing with Men on a physical level in any sport or physical activity. I enjoy being feminine and I love the traditional roles of Mom, and wife. I am not interested in being with a man who wears a skirt and is frail and pale and soft. I don’t want a man who wants to wear women’s clothes and be a MOMMY.
In my opinion what is wrong with the world today is that MEN are no longer MEN! We can’t make men who behave badly become better men by making them into women. Feminizing the male population will not solve any problems. It only creates MORE problems. Men or women who behave badly are men or women with a spiritual issue. Morals and conscience come from the spirit and cannot be changed by legislation, by diet, by social construct, by environment or by anything other than a restoration to right standing with the Creator. You can deny that all day long…but it is a fact. Without a belief in a Creator, there are no boundaries. Without boundaries there is no society. Everything breaks down. Only GOD can change a heart! Only God can change a person, from the inside out.
Author argues there is a movement to eliminate gender in book ‘Sex Scandal: The Drive to Abolish Male and Female’ #Tucker
The swedish schools have had a gender neutral program since 1998. The kids in this next video have been raised “gender neutral” according to their parents, but it appears to me that the parents are pushing their attitudes onto the kids. The two children were both born male.
With recent victories for the trans rights movement and more young people defining as something other than “male” or “female” than ever before, VICE host Amelia Abraham goes to Sweden – the world’s most forward thinking country when it comes to questioning gender – to find out what it’s like to grow up without the gender binary. In Sweden, the gender neutral pronoun “hen” has been in the national dictionary since 2015 and is now commonly used by most Swedes, the Swedish government’s school plan has since 1998 forbidden enforcing gender stereotypes, and government funded gender neutral kindergartens with gender aware teachers has made it possible for families to raise their children without a set gender identity, something that often sparks controversy in the foreign press. Amelia spends time with one of these gender non-conforming families, mapa (mom and dad) Del LaGrace Volcano who was born intersex (both male and female), the children Mika (5) and Nico (3) and their grandma Margareta. She visits Mika and Nico’s gender aware kindergarten to find out what the teachers and the other kids make of Mika’s gender expression.She also meets the founder of Sweden’s gender-neutral kindergartens, Lotta Rajalin, to learn how they go about deleting gender norms from education, as well as psychiatrist Dr Eberhard who is against Sweden’s attitude to gender in kindergartens.
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One thing clearly demonstrated in this next video is how the education system has been using our children in their experiments and working to undermine the family and family values forcing our children into their idea of who they should be. We need to reclaim our children. It is time to dispense with public education and go back to bringing our children up in the way they should go. spacer
Is the way we treat boys and girls the real reason we haven’t achieved equality between men and women? Dr Javid Abdelmoneim aims to find out by taking over a primary school class. The Good, the Bad & the Messy – our channel features documentaries and shows about stories of modern parenting. Through a mixture of original & archive content, we explore a range of captivating subjects; education styles, complex relationships, food habits, the challenges of large families…
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I am sorry, but this person pronoun preference thing is just a tool they use to draw attention and make demands. I have seen some of these people rant and rave, throw things and destroy property because some poor kid accidently used a pronoun they did not like. Come on! This is childish and unexceptable. No one needs to be that sensitive. If they are that sensitive they need to stay home. Have you seen the list of Preferred Personal Pronouns that already exist now? Oh my GOD! That is ridiculous. They expect the whole world to not only memorize that whole list, and know how to use it, they have to remember who uses what pronoun on first meeting! GET OUT OF HERE! Can we get back to REALITY??
If they find it so intolerable to be called by the normal pronouns, let them agree on ONE that can be use to apply to anyone who is neither Male nor Female. I don’t think anyone would have a problem with that. It should be easy enough to get the majority of people to make that work. BUT, these demands are way out of control.
In this video, they mention “HEY GUYS” as being offensive. I grew up in the Northern States and up where I come from “HEY GUYS” has always been gender inclusive. It covers everybody. I am a female and if some said Hey Guys in a meeting, at a party or a family gathering, I would assume it included me.There is no offense, unless one takes offense. You can make an issue out of anything, if that is what you want to do.
They, Them, Theirs? The Push For Going Gender-Neutral In The Workplace. (CNN Money) — They. Them. Theirs. These pronouns are becoming increasingly important in the workplac…. #They#Them#Theirs#The#Push#For#Going#GenderNeutral#In#The
This next video clearly demonstrates the absolutely ridiculous, ludicrous and offensive law BILL C-16 which can be used to fine you and/or put you in jail. It also demonstrates how devastating this can be in the workplace.
So called trans people who are claiming they are neither male nor female are demanding special rights and privileges that allow them to take away your right to free speech so that they can feel better about themselves.
Influencers like Jordan Peterson and Richard Burgess would do well to learn why all this gender nonsense has appeared in our time, and how we can move on to the next stage of our evolution in a more dignified way.
This whole insane subject of gender fluidity is totally off the charts nowadays, and I would really prefer to just look the other way. It all makes me feel very old and old-fashioned. But since my 14-year old daughter is addicted to the YouTube channel of an extremely articulate young man, we’re going to get into it.
Richard Burgess of Vegan Gains on YouTube brings up some really valid points in his clip from 2016, called Gender Neutral Pronouns vs Vegan Gains. I know he doesn’t appreciate criticism, but I wish he would watch his language because our kids are watching. He also shouldn’t call other people stupid. But we’ll make an exception when he says it about the “Social Justice Warriors”, who are really lacking something very basic in their human makeup (“they think being offended is an argument.”)
I appreciated Richard’s clear explanation of the astonishing facts surrounding this issue. For instance, how the Social Justice Warriors are trying to get the upper hand through new legislation, namely the Bill C-16. “This bill makes it illegal for you to refer to someone using a pronoun that they don’t approve of. Under this new law that would be considered hate speech. If you refer to someone as ‘he’, when they prefer to be referred to as ‘she’, you’d be put in the same category as a Holocaust denier.” He goes on to explain that if you make the mistake of calling them by the wrong pronoun, you would need to pay a fine, and if you refuse, you can face spending time in jail. And it gets better. If the SJW’s want to be referred to by some pronoun they just made up, you have to comply or pay a fine, and can go to jail for not paying.
“They’re not just restricting you from using certain words, they’re forcing you to use certain words and change your use of language. And this has never been done before to protect any minority group, in any other social justice movement. No one ever banned the word ‘nigger’ so why do these trans people need special rights and privileges, that allow them to force you to use their use of language, when no other group has been granted that right before? It sounds very suspicious to me that a minority group wants to be granted special privileges that grant them power over others. That sort of sounds like something that would happen in an autocracy. But since this law is being passed to protect trans people from discrimination, we should ask ourselves if laws like Bill C-16 actually protect trans people from discrimination.”
Richard Burgess
I also read about rising cultural icon Jordan Peterson, a fellow Canadian. His rise to fame has been almost entirely based on the absurdity of these idiotic pronouns, which he refuses to use. The controversial Canadian professor and self-proclaimed free-speech warrior recently made headlines again for threatening to sue Cornell University assistant professor Kate Manne for defamation after she criticised his best-selling book, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos.
To Each His/Her/Whatever Own
Now if all this doesn’t make you wonder, what is it about our messed up society that we are even having so many discussions about such ridiculous things? And yes, you can be whatever you want to be, that’s fine. Butforcing other people to behave in a certain way, so that you can pursue your way of life, is simply wrong. Yet it seems to be a very powerful weapon for keeping the negative social energy flowing.
Even though we may appreciate the intellect and debating powers of these two men, I feel compelled to introduce some heavyweight insight from the world’s foremost Kabbalist, Michael Laitman, who explains why all this is happening. In a nutshell , we have reached a place in our evolution where our souls are yearning for something higher than what we have in this world.
But as long as people do not discover this new source of filling, they will continue to search for new ways to feel fulfilled in this corporeal world we live in. But in order to get the genuine satisfaction they seek, it is necessary for humanity to rise up to a higher level. At a higher level of our consciousness, we function above the human ego, which is the main problem for all the problems we see in the world today. At this higher level of connection we are in perfect harmony and in perfect sync with nature surrounding us.
“The growing gender neutrality movement of our times is a glaring symptom that we must fulfill our lack of spiritual identity. The war of the sexes that is all over the headlines, also demonstrates the strong need for reconciliation between the male and female elements within each of us. Every attempt to harmonize the male and female elements on the earthly level alone will fail.”
A Man and Woman Form a Perfect Vessel for Reception
I’m not going to get deep into the wisdom of Kabbalah that I’ve been immersed in for two decades, but I will explain some basic gender related concepts. The foundation of all our social evolution is all laid out in the bible, with the key to our happiness coded into those biblical stories we all grew up hearing about.
The wisdom of Kabbalah is a science for deciphering the code and making sure that all of humanity can benefit from it. This is why Kabbalah is above all religions and faiths in our world. The entire spectrum of study is based on the relationships and interactions between male and female characters. We were created this way so that the connection between a male and a female would form the perfect vessel for receiving the light.
“Our female element is the part in us that desires to receive pleasure. The male element is the ability to receive pleasure in a way that benefits others. When one develops spiritually, these two aspects grow within him or her and achieve one unified action: receiving and giving full pleasure to the entire world. For “the human is the inclusion of male and female, and the world cannot be built, if male and female are not both present” (The Book of Zohar).”
Michael Laitman
You know how we say men are from mars and women are from venus? It’s true. We are built completely opposite to each other, but together we form the perfect vessel for receiving all the abundance nature has in store for us. Whoever wants to receive all the abundance should not waste their time debating all this nonsense, but should rather focus on finding a suitable spiritual partner for the spiritual path humanity is about to embark on.
And I would like to emphasize this point once again here, that you can be in any kind of adult relationship. As long as one partner represents the giving element and the other represents the receiving element, you are on the spiritual path. As a couple, any two souls can create a vessel for the light. All this is on the condition that you do not try to change other peoples’ behavior to suit your way of life. That is a big no no.
First Language in the World Was Not Gender Neutral
The original biblical language, and actually the first language spoken in the world was my country’s language, Hebrew. I’ve been living in Israel since the age of 12 so I’m fluent in Hebrew, and actually started learning it in Jewish school in Canada. It’s a pretty hard language to grasp, you now why? Because it’s all based on male and female nouns, verbs and adjectives, which can be extremely confusing. But when you start studying Kabbalah, you understand why the original language the code was provided in, is gender specific.
In the days of Babylon Hebrew was the only spoken language until the ego intensified slightly and some people decided to build the Tower of Babel. They thought it would bring them closer to God but all it did was create division in society. Sound familiar? This happened thousands of years ago and remember, our ego is constantly intensifying. Today we still have not discovered what we need to do with all this excess energy — so in the meantime we are using it in a negative way. If we understood how to arrange relations between males and females properly we could actually fix all the problems in our world.
So the moral of the story is — there are no shortcuts on the path to the next stage of our evolution. We must form a perfect connection between us in order to be in perfect sync with the force that created us. We may have formed all kinds of division in our society over the years, but we learn to rise above them once you get on the spiritual path. When we rise to a higher level of consciousness, which is where our real evolution takes place, we will see how we are all equal. We all have our special role in this process and it is above all these divisions we see with our eyes.
At the end of the day, the human soul has no gender — we are all broken parts of the common soul that have to find their way back to the mother ship.
“While remaining in the physical body, be it male or female, along with its sexual tendencies whatever they may be, the spiritual-self develops above the biological sex. In that state, the masculine and feminine elements which exist within each and every one of us come to complete each other harmoniously.”
Michael Laitman
What am I recommending? Ideally, we will all start focusing on our spiritual identity. We will transform our personal development into a platform for helping all of humanity move forward to a better place.
There is really only 1 Rule for Life As An Antidote to Chaos, and that is Love Thy Neighbor as Yourself. We need to rise above the human ego and learn to love others as much as we love ourselves. This is the key to realizing our true potential and making the world a sustainable place. This is also our legacy to the next generation who will surely not mess up the planet as much as we did.
We have the method to bring our world back into balance and Israel must share this method with the world. This is Israel’s role in global affairs and the entire purpose of its existence.
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“The Gaze”, is a publication from Breaking Rainbow production. This gives LGBTQ writers and artists a platform to tell stories, voice opinions and expose their artwork.
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I can’t believe that there is ANYONE stupid enough to think that Gender Neutral Bathrooms, bathrooms shared by every kind of gender confused, gender bender and females and males, is a good idea. That is just asking for all kinds of trouble! Public restrooms are already scary enough for most people. NO ONE wants to trapped in a small area with some pervert! That is not implying that all those who are dealing with gender issues are perverts, but a pervert can be ANY GENDER! DO WE REALLY NEED TO ADD TO THE RISK??
I known grown men who were already afraid to use a public restroom before all this nonsense started. GOD HELP US ALL!
Toman Sasaki is among a new wave of young Japanese men bending gender norms. He wears nail polish and makeup, but does not regard his look as feminine. “Regardless of sex, we believe we can live however we like,” he said.
To Watch This Video on New York Times Webpage:CLICK HERE
This next video should give you an idea of what happens when the demons move in after one begins to rebel using gender neutral clothing and makeup.
SUBSCRIBE to Barcroft TV: http://bit.ly/Oc61Hj A YOUNG PERSON from London dresses like a genderless monster, and says they ‘don’t mind people being scared’ of them. Jazmin Bean has been into alternative fashion since becoming a teenager. Jazmin’s look revolves around extreme contact lenses, eerie doll-like makeup and sinister props. Jazmin, who is agender and prefers the pronoun ‘they’, also wears a binder to give the appearance of a flat chest. Jazmin is currently working on making their own makeup brand for those also in the alternative community. The Londoner dresses as their mythological persona most of the time, but sometimes they have to tone down their look due to harassment. Fortunately Jazmin has supportive friends and family who love their look. Click here to follow Jazmin on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jazminbean/ Video Credits: Videographer / director: Marcus Hessenberg Producer: Shannon Lane, James Thorne Editor: Beth Angus
Tonight, on That’s Bizarre, Fun Toys for Kids That Will Shock You and You Can Buy Them Right From Amazon. Most kids today, get toys like the Avengers or some stuffed animals, but what you’re about see, will be the most astounding toys, in the world. So let’s get ready to check out what’s weird, right now.
Fun Toys for Kids That Will Shock You on Amazon:
1. The Handitaur Soft Vinyl Finger Puppets by Toy Zany and Archie McPhee 2. The Mercedes Children Ride-On Car with R/C Parental Remote by Moderno Kids 3. The Fantastic Gymnastics Board Game by Hasbro Gaming 4. The John Deere Tractor Engine by Theo Kline 5. The Rocket Fishing Rod by Goliath
╚═► Voice Over/Narrator: DHS
2 years, 8 months ago
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Toys and games that connect to your wi-fi or smart home network are just as vulnerable to hacking as any other device in your home. 2 years, 10 months ago
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Excerpts only here. TO VIEW THE ENTIRE SLIDE SHOW:CLICK HERE
These sensational toys gained attention in the 70’s, 80’s, 90’s, and in the recent years as well. They can either be funny or offensive for adults but simply entertaining for innocent children who haven’t the slightest clue. Creators and manufacturers sometimes go below the belt when they come up with really odd ideas that are totally inappropriate for their market. So get ready to see 20 of the most outrageous, shocking and just wrong toys ever made for children.
Jesus Robot
Bandai created a God-Jesus Robot toy in the 80’s, which function is similar to a Magic 8-ball. You ask a question and it would give you an answer.
Jibba Jabber
The Jibba Jabber doll that looks wholesome at first. What it does is create a noise when you shake its long neck. Problem is it would not shut up unless you press the neck harder. Kind of like a strangulation tutorial.
God Almighty Action Figure
The toy is equipped with its own AK-47 which “God” uses to smite everyone and everything that gets in the way. Talk about playing God. Most people find it offensive instead of inspiring as it goes against what is written in the Bible.
Dora’s AquaPet
Dora is harmless and wholesome. The problem is where you put her. The Dora’s AquaPet toy may be unintentionally kinky but you judge and tell us that this does not look like a sex toy.
Kabba Kick
In Japan, there’s this toy called Kabba Kick. It works by putting the toy gun to the head and pulling the trigger, after which a pink hippo’s feet would pop and kick — kind of like a Russian Roulette. And that’s suicide 101 for your children.
Pole Dance Doll
This is an oldie but goodie! Pole dancing can be fun and sexy, but for adults. For kids, it’s definitely something controversial. If this was a part of a toy collection that runs along these lines, you might stumble upon a macho pimp and prostitute doll in the Kids’ Toys department, too.
Shape Shifter Punisher
The Shape Shifter Punisher toy looks cool until it casts its wrath on its enemy and pulls a machine gun from his crotch.
STD Plush Toys
Maybe it has something to do with Science but the STD Plush toys went overboard and made it a little too dirty for the kids to enjoy. They do need to know about STDs to protect them but not when they are 4 or even 10 years old! Worse, the toy company made it look fun.
Pee and Poo
Very young kids need toilet training, sure, but what would they do with pee and poop dolls? Wouldn’t it look really nasty to see your kids talking, hugging, or even kissing them?
E.T. Finger Light
Kids and avid fans of E.T. can ignore the weird shape of E.T.’s finger but mindful individuals have one thing on their mind the moment they see it. Oh, it lights up too!
Poo Dough
For those with penchant for donuts, a donut making set would be fantastic. But a poop donut maker is a different story. These people would probably see donut in a different light after playing the Poo Dough toy.
Since its debut in 1959, Barbie has grown to be the most lucrative franchise for toy manufacturer Mattel. Despite their popularity, critics say the dolls perpetuate an unhealthy body image and gender roles. But Mattel has been trying to reinvent Barbie. They now include more body types, skin colours, and hair textures. The company is also tackling gender stereotypes with its new line, which it hopes will boost sales too. #Mattel#Barbie#GenderNeutral
Professor of Media and Communication, Head of the School of Creative Industries, University of South Australia
Disclosure statement
Jason Bainbridge does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Amid a downturn in global toy sales, Australia’s Toys ‘R’ Us stores going into voluntary administration and closure of the firm’s American and UK arms, a quiet revolution is under way in the toy world. The gendered distinctions of the infamous pink and blue toy aisles are starting to break down.
Toymakers such as Mattel and Hasbro are no longer explicitly marketing some of their lines (including dolls) to girls or boys. And retailers like Target, Toys ‘R’ Us and Kmart are responding by replacing pink and blue toy aisles with gender-neutral “kids toy” aisles.
This blurring of gender lines around toys is emblematic of a broader societal shift driven by ideas of inclusiveness, metrosexuality, genderless athletic wear, and the rise of celebrities like Caitlyn Jenner who challenge fixed gender identities. Last year Mattel unveiled a range of new Ken dolls, including one with a “man bun”.
The global rise of Lego, the world’s number one toymaker, has demonstrated the importance of the traditional pink and blue toy aisles from a marketing perspective. It has long dominated the blue boys’ aisle as a construction toy and targeted the girls’ aisle with its successful 2012 Lego Friends line, characterised by pink and purple blocks. Lego also licensed brands such as Star Wars, Marvel and DC Superheroes and developed more diverse ranges of products such as board games, computer games, DVDs and accessories.
But, in August 2015, American Target stores announced they were creating gender-neutral toy aisles, following a similar move by Toys ‘R’ Us and online retailers such as Amazon. Around this time, parents complained that the lead character in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, female jedi-in-training Rey, was hard to find in stores. Rey appealed to both (traditionally) male Star Wars fans and female ones.
With a strong female protagonist such as Rey, Star Wars merchandise tended to be sold in its own “destination” section of stores rather than gendered toy aisles. Similarly, the costumes of the sinister silver stormtrooper Captain Phasma, played by Gwendoline Christie, were sold “for kids” rather than demarcated for girls or boys. The Disney Store then went on to classify all Halloween outfits, lunchboxes and backpacks with the gender-neutral label: “for kids” – though its online store still stocks a Princess line aimed at girls.
The recent Netflix series The Toys That Made Us opened the curtain on the toy industry, interviewing toy designers and marketers. It showed that while toy companies do have girls’ and boys’ manufacturing divisions, they are happy to challenge gender stereotyping if it can create different markets, leading to larger profits. Furthermore, the way boys and girls like to play was more similar than might be assumed.
Take the action figure, for instance. Starting with G.I. Joe in 1964, it was in part conceived because boys were observed “secretly” playing with Ken dolls. This led to the development of an entire market that was essentially dolls for boys (marketed with a focus on action and poseability), including the evergreen Star Wars line and, throughout the ’80s, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe.
Similarly, when girls were observed “secretly” playing with He-Man figures, Mattel and cartoon company Filmation created girls’ action-figure line She-Ra, based around He-Man’s sister.
More recently, Mattel produced DC Super Hero Girls, a line of action figures and ancillary products. (Mind you, it is also worth remembering that the apotheosis of the pink girls’ aisle, Barbie, was modelled on the highly sexualised French doll, Lilli, a three-dimensional pin-up marketed to businessmen.)
Play patterns
While girls’ and boys’ manufacturing divisions continue to exist in larger toy companies, most manufacturers would now prefer to talk about play patterns rather than gender.
Manufacturers are increasingly talking about play patterns rather than gender.Shutterstock
The introduction of new markets around collectors, nostalgia and replica models and new product types such as vinyl toys and limited-edition art toys are also shifting the focus from gender roles toward collectability, role play and display potential. Increasingly, the focus is on adult consumers rather than kids. (Peter Pan syndrome, adults who never want to grow up. My generation and every one that followed were raised on humongous doses of Peter Pan throughout our growing years.)
New modes of play offered through construction toys (like Lego) and digital content (like computer games, apps, AR and VR) continue to blur gender lines (or you could say, cross boundaries. Boundaries established by GOD!). Indeed, ever since Samus Aran ended the original Nintendo Metroid game by taking off her helmet to reveal she was a woman, digital toys have been actively eroding gender distinctions. Even as they are criticised for their highly sexualised designs, the game characters Lara Croft and Chun Li can equally be celebrated as progressive.
Still, there is a long way to go in eliminating gender assumptions about children’s toys. Beyond the category of action figures, make-up and fashion-related play is still explicitly marketed to girls, while train sets, construction toys and model kits will generally still have boys pictured on the packaging.
Most online retailers (Amazon aside) similarly demarcate girls’ toys from boys. This is because their own research suggests the majority of shoppers on their sites still search for products by gender. Such data are concerning as this may point to a deeper problem more rarely acknowledged: that the gendered stereotyping of toys is driven as much by consumers (including parents) as by manufacturers and retailers. (Well, duh, driven by the ones spending the money.)
As a developmental psychologist, I think Mattel’s gender-neutral dolls play an important role in better reflecting how kids see themselves. But it’ll take more to ensure that feminine traits are equally valued.
BY MEGAN K. MAAS—THE CONVERSATION5 MINUTE READ
Parents who want to raise their children in a gender-nonconforming way have a new stocking stuffer this year: the gender-neutral doll.
Announced in September, Mattel’s new line of gender-neutral humanoid dolls don’t clearly identify as either a boy or a girl. The dolls come with a variety of wardrobe options and can be dressed in varying lengths of hair and clothing styles.
Mattel says it’s responding to research that shows “kids don’t want their toys dictated by gender norms.” Given the results of a recent study reporting that 24% of U.S. adolescents have a nontraditional sexual orientation or gender identity, such as bisexual or nonbinary, the decision makes business sense. As a developmental psychologist who researches gender and sexual socialization, I can tell you that it also makes scientific sense. Gender is an identityand is not based on someone’s biological sex. (Sounds more like Scientism than legitimate science to me. Also, sounds like he is speaking for the NWO Agenda)That’s why I believe it’s great news that some dolls will better reflect how children see themselves. (more honestly, how the elite want children to see themselves.)
Unfortunately, a doll alone is not going to overturn decades of socialization that have led us to believe that boys wear blue, have short hair, and play with trucks, whereas girls like pink, grow their hair long, and play with dolls. (I don’t know what rock he has been living under, but for the last 50 years, guys who want long hair wear long hair, guys who want to wear pink wear pink, girls who want to play foot ball play football, girls wear pants most of the time. Left alone to do what THEY want to do, most people find their way just fine. We don’t need an agenda shoved down our throat. )More to the point, it’s not going to change how boys are taught that masculinity is good and femininity is something less—a view that my research shows is associated with sexual violence.
PINK GIRLS AND BLUE BOYS
The kinds of toys American children play with tend to adhere to a clear gender binary.
Toys marketed to boys tend to be more aggressive and involve action and excitement. Girl toys, on the other hand, are usually pink and passive, emphasizing beauty and nurturing.
Around the turn of the 20th century, toys were rarely marketed to different genders. By the 1940s, manufacturers quickly caught on to the idea that wealthier families would buy an entire new set of clothing, toys, and other gadgets if the products were marketed differently for both genders. And so the idea of pink for girls and blue for boys was born. Today, gendered toy marketing in the U.S. is stark. Walk down any toy aisle and you can clearly see who the audience is. The girl aisle is almost exclusively pink, showcasing mostly Barbie dolls and princesses. The boy aisle is mostly blue and features trucks and superheroes. (Seriously, pink and blue colors to diferenciate between boy and girl might be new, but girls have ALWAYS played with dolls and cooking toys and dress-up, and boys have always played with building blocks, vehicles, and weapons. WHY? Because what you play is what you become. Girls were preparing to raise families and keep a home and boys were training to provide for those families and protect them.)
BREAKING DOWN THE BINARY
The emergence of a gender-neutral doll is a sign of how this binary of boys and girls is beginning to break down—at least when it comes to girls.
A 2017 study showed that more than three-quarters of those surveyed said it was a good thing for parents to encourage young girls to play with toys or do activities “associated with the opposite gender.” The share rises to 80% for women and millennials. (That is because in today’s society most women have to work at a job, and many of them have to provide for their families on their own, so it is good for women to develop interests in things that could provide a living.)
But when it came to boys, support dropped significantly, with 64% overall—and far fewer men—saying it was good to encourage them to do things associated with girls. Those who were older or more conservative were even more likely to think it wasn’t a good idea. (HELL NO, it is not a good idea to feminize boys! Boys are meant to be protectors and providers. Who wants a man who is frail and weak and wears a dress? You know who wants men to be weak and prissy?? Someone who wants to take control of the world! Prissy men in skirts and heels don’t put up much of a fight.)
Reading between the lines suggests there’s a view that traits stereotypically associated with men—such as strength, courage and leadership—are good, whereas those tied to femininity, such as vulnerability, emotion and caring, are bad. (I don’t know anyone who thinks that feminine traits in a woman are bad! Ya, feminine traits in a boy, now that is bad! Boys can be kind and nurturing without giving up their masculinity. Great fathers on TV like Father Knows Best, Andy Griffith, My Three Sons, no one would consider those men feminine or wusses… but they were nurturing and kind.) Thus boys receive the message that wanting to look up to girls is not okay.
And many boys are taught over and over throughout their lives that exhibiting “female traits” is wrong and means they aren’t “real men.” Worse, they’re frequentlypunishedfor it—while exhibiting masculine traits like aggression are often rewarded. (I don’t know what world you live in, but if my brothers got to aggressive they got punished. I never saw my dad punish my brothers for showing emotion or crying. I call BS!)
HOW THIS AFFECTS SEXUAL EXPECTATIONS
This gender socialization continues into emerging adulthood and affects men’s romantic and sexual expectations.
For example, a 2015 study I conducted with three coauthors explored how participants felt their gender affected their sexual experiences. Roughly 45% of women said they expected to experience some kind of sexual violence just because they are women (who did they interview? Feminists?), whereas none of the men reported a fear of sexual violence, and 35% said their manhood meant they should expect pleasure. (In today’s society, I find it hard to believe that NONE of the men feared sexual violence. I have known countless men who were molested as children and/or young adults. Some by women and some by men. I find it hard to believe that boys don’t have some anxiety about going into public restrooms or basements or parking garages.)
And these findings can be linked back to the kinds of toys we play with. Girls are taught to be passive and strive for beauty by playing with princesses and putting on makeup. (so, is that what you want to instill in our boys?? You want them to be passive and focused on their looks?) Boys are encouraged to be more active or even aggressive with trucks, toy guns, and action figures; building, fighting, and even dominating are emphasized. (growing up I played with guns and speared mice and played sword fights with my brothers. My sister was very aggressive! Yet she and I both turned out to be very independent but feminine and managed to work and raise our children.)A recent analysis of Lego sets demonstrates this dichotomy in what they emphasize for boys—building expertise and skilled professions—compared with girls, like caring for others, socializing, and being pretty. Thus, girls spend their childhoods practicing how to be pretty and care for another person, while boys practice getting what they want. (for most women, caring for others comes quite naturally, and does not have to be taught. Boys, naturally gravitate towards engines, racing cars, fighting games, etc. No one has to tell them or teach them to enjoy that.)
This results in a sexual double standard in which men are the powerful actors and women are subordinate. (You obviously never me the women in my family, we were NEVER subordinate. Feminine yes, and we were all married but we had our own character and opinions and contribution to the family.) And even in cases of sexual assault, research has shown people will put more blame on a female rape victim if she does something that violates a traditional gender role, such as cheating on her husband—which is more accepted for men than for women. (Rape and cheating on your spouse are SPIRITUAL issues, and have nothing to do with gender. They have everything to do with sin, rebellion and demonic influence.)
A 2016 study found that adolescent men who subscribe to traditional masculine gender norms are more likely to engage in dating violence, such as sexual assault, physical or emotional abuse, and stalking. (In today’s society, escalation of violence is a two party issue. Women today are just as likely to become violent and to escalate an argument as men. When men are very angry, and they are met with aggression, their natural response is violence, unless they are guided by the Holy Spirit. If you think that gender neutral training will end violence… YOU ARE REALLY AN IDIOT. Women can be extremely violent. I have seen that many times. Demons are no respecters of gender… They are perfectly happy to use anybody that gives them entrance.)
TEACHING GENDER TOLERANCE
Mattel’s gender-neutral dolls offer much-needed variety in kids’ toys, but children—as well as adults—also need to learn more tolerance of how others express gender differently than they do. And boys in particular need support in appreciating and practicing more traditional feminine traits, like communicating emotion or caring for someone else—skills that are required for any healthy relationship. (Men are naturally caring and loving people. Sometimes I think that men have more emotions than women, but women are designed to use them differently. Men love their families very deeply, they love their country very deeply, that is what gives them the strength to stand and fight when needed.)
Gender neutrality represents the absence of gender, not the tolerance of different gender expression. If we emphasize only the former, I believe femininity and the people who express it will remain devalued.
So consider doing something gender-nonconforming with your children’s existing dolls, such as having Barbie win a wrestling championship or giving Ken a tutu. And encourage the boys in your life to play with them, too.
(I think God knew exactly what he was doing when he made man and woman. He endowed each gender with very specific traits and characteristics for a purpose and when we work together according to HIS Plan, everything works great!)
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This whole idea of unisex, Androgyny, or gender neutrality is nothing new. I remember in the 70’s when they were pushing the Unisex clothing and hair I though it was ridiculous and I mentioned it to my parents. My Dad said they have been trying that same thing off an on throughout history.
Androgyny is back, heralded by recent runway shows at Gucci, Saint Laurent, Givenchy, and more
Nic Screws
In January, Gucci’s menswear runway collection was an eye-opener. It wasn’t because the brand had just fired its nearly decadelong creative director Frida Giannini in December, or even because new designer Alessandro Michele had pulled the clothing together in less than a week in his new role.
It was because the men on the runway looked … like women.
A model at the fall 2015 Gucci show in Milan wore the brand’s floppy-bow, silk blouse.
Photographer: Victor Virgile/Getty Images
In fact, some of them were women—an increasing trend in menswear shows. Models of both genders—waifish male models and boyish female models alike—were wearing silhouettes, fabrications, and items of clothing that traditionally appear in womenswear collections. Michele’s deliberately ambiguous outfits featured massive pussycat bow blouses, shrunken jackets, and low-slung, wide-leg trousers—on willowy models with matching soft features and lengthy, undone hair.
And just like that, this change in creative direction became symbolic of an industrywide trend—and Michele the movement’s unofficial leader. A shift toward androgyny has been building over the past two years, and with Gucci’s new experimental take, it has hit its stride. (It’s worth noting that the recently slumping Gucci just reported its first sales growth in two years, a 4.6 percent increase for the second quarter of 2015—up from a 7.9 percent decrease in the first quarter.)
(I can only speak for myself, but I HAVE NEVER CARED WHAT THE “FASHION EXPERTS” said or did. I don’t follow trends. I wear what I like to to wear and have always. People who have to have someone tell them what looks good are sheep! I have NEVER liked anything on the runway. I always thought those designers must hate women. I thought their clothes always looked terrible on women.)
Gender-bending is nothing new in fashion or pop culture. But in large-scale, high-end fashion, the theme has not been conveyed as loudly or as frequently since, well, a young Mick Jagger, David Bowie, and Marc Bolan toyed with feminized looks in the late 1960s. But today, thanks to a troupe of contemporary designers—such as Rick Owens and J.W. Anderson—this theme of gender-neutral dress has been reimagined.
American Androgyny
“The concept of androgyny comes up from time to time in fashion,” says Nancy Deihl, director of the costume studies MA program at New York University. “In modern fashion history, two of the most notable examples are in the 1920s and in the late 1960s into the 1970s.”
Deihl notes that both were periods of social upheaval, which reflected an empowered youth culture. (Times of REBELLION and youths are ALWAYS rebellious.)
“The post-World War I generation and the ‘baby boom’ that created the young population of the 1960s represent times when young people had a lot of economic and cultural influence,” says Diehl. Hello, millennials. (Times of prosperity, when children are over indulged. When people are fat and forget GOD.)
The subcultural music scene has had a huge influence over the direction of men’s dress; Mick Jagger in the late 1960s and Kanye West in a women’s Celine blouse at Coachella in 2011.
Photographers: Peter Sanders/Redferns (Jagger) and Chelsea Lauren/WireImage (West)
“Androgyny is certainly not a passing trend, but one that is going through another cycle with a new generation,” notes Tom Kalenderian, executive vice president and general merchandise manager for men’s at Barneys New York.
Like Diehl, Kalenderian points to music subcultures as a source of unisex movements past and present, (Musicians who openly worship Satan, whose hero is Alleister Crowley, and who live a rebellious lifestyle with no morals.)but also to a small cadre of before-their-time fashion designers. Rudi Gernreich, who after the turn of the last century began dressing women in men’s suiting, was one such oracle. “Costume designers often appropriated Gernreich’s vision when designing costumes for science fiction flicks, often proposing men and women in futuristic outfits that were quite similar, as an assumption of what was to come in the next millennium.”
In the future, in other words, artists imagined that in the 2000s, clothes would just be clothes. Another pioneer in androgyny was Larry Legaspi, who designed space-age costumes for such musicians as Kiss and Patti Labelle in the 1970s. (No, they were actually bringing this AGENDA into Fruition, by design, young rebellious teens always emulate their idols.)
The Mass Market?
These days, this mantle is carried by successful, high-end designers such as Hedi Slimane at Saint Laurent and Riccardo Tisci at Givenchy, who favor traditional feminine elements such as capes, skirts, and tights in their menswear runway collections. But does this translate to mainstream sales?
Lace and ruffles were huge themes at menswear shows such as Burberry Prorsum spring/summer 2016 (left and far left) and Gucci fall 2015.
Photographers: Tristan Fewings/Getty Images (Burberry) and Victor Virgile/Getty Images (Gucci)
“Gender play on the runway doesn’t just attract a customer who wants an androgynous look, but also a consumer who likes smart clothing with a forward-thinking story,” explains designer Charles Harbison, who is known for showing his womenswear collection on both female and male models. (Beyoncé is a fan of the young line, having worn one of his creations to the Adidas Originals x Kanye West show in February—another unisex and coed-casted collection.)
Department stores are now toying with devoting floor space to unisex clothing; in January, Selfridges launched the Agender Project—a curated section of the store showcasing the retailer’s gender-spanning lines, such as Nicopanda, Comme des Garçons, and Gareth Pugh. The experimental floor closed its run in April.
According to Kalenderian, clients at Barneys New York have long followed changes in the market, as they are always “looking for the next thing.” He also notes that the men’s sales floor at Barneys has not shifted its presentation to make way for androgyny specifically, as the store tends to group by designer and level of formality.
The Challenge of Fit
Harbison, the designer, is a self-confessed “male customer [who] shops off the women’s rack to find more interesting silhouettes and embellishments.” He says that through his own collection, he hopes to offer more men that same experience. A large challenge is fit; as much as style might translate across genders, body shapes usually don’t. (WHY? Because men and women are not the same!!)
“Fit can make unisex apparel difficult for consumers, and the silhouettes can remain a bit fixed … to appeal to the body shapes of men and women,” Harbison explains.
Designers such as Baja East address this issue by creating androgynous clothing that is loose-fitting and comfortable, an offshoot of the high fashion “athleisure” movement. The quality of the materials, and the drastic departure from what men and women both have to wear to work, add to the appeal. It’s an escape from the restrictive norm.
Irish designer J.W. Anderson is known for his ladylike menswear designs.
Photographer: Tristan Fewings/Getty Images
And consumer habits about gender traditions are getting broken down at younger and younger ages—a new string of startups are attempting to obliterate the barriers between clothes that are designed for young boys vs. those designed for young girls. In 10 years, a college student’s idea of what is “masculine” or “feminine” clothing is likely to be drastically different.
In Pop Culture
As always, public tastes are dictated in large part by celebrities; movie stars, musicians, and athletes have a large say in how younger generations shop and dress. For every Bowie and Jagger in the 1970s, there is a Jared Leto or Kanye West wearing a skirt on stage in 2015. But don’t expect to see NBA or NFL stars getting into the androgyny arena quite yet.
“The Kanyes, Pharrells, Jared Letos, and one of my favorites, Lapo Elkanns of the world are gents I love seeing push androgynous boundaries,” explains Rachel Johnson, a stylist who dresses such pro athletes as Amar’e Stoudemire and Victor Cruz.
She notes that “there is an inner confidence that guys [like Elkann] exude. You see the blurred lines in the colors, silhouettes, accessories, and hairstyles they rock. If you are this kind of guy, I’m all for it. But if you have to ask, or aren’t sure, then you are likely not this guy.”
NBA basketballer Russell Westbrook is known for his adventurous sense of style–which sometimes teeters on the edges of feminine.
Photographers: Pierre Suu/Getty Images (left) and Bryan Bedder/Getty Images (right)
The next two years will see this trend increase, according to Barneys’s Kalenderian. “Clients are receptive,” he says. “Ultimately it is more about beautiful clothes that are rare and special. It is more of a sidebar note that these clothes are stylistically less rigid than what we perceive to conform to a definition of masculine vs. feminine.”
Sorry folks but your are being duped. These “stars” are all controlled by their masters and where what they are told to wear. They not only answer to their Human Masters, but they and their Human Masters answer to their ruling Demons. They come right out and tell you that….DON’T YOU LISTEN?? But, you are already lost because you WORSHIP these IDOLS. Why do you think they call them IDOLS and “STARS”?? They are ruled by the Stars which are Fallen Angels! You follow them like little puppy dogs. You do what they do, wear what they wear, buy what they sell and worship them with your time, your praise and your MONEY!
New shops appear in New York City every day, but Phluid Project, which recently opened its doors on Broadway, is different. One of the first gender-fluid boutiques in the world, Phluid Project sells clothing for men, women and everyone in between. Both the clothes and the mannequins here are gender-neutral, and as an added selling point, its store owners say the prices are more than affordable. Elena Wolf visited the one-of-a-kind store, where no one feels out of place. Originally published at – https://www.voanews.com/a/new-york-cl…
Clothing companies American Apparel, Zara, and Gap have all launch gender-neutral clothing lines. Though many do not believe that are very groundbreaking in their approach. People are taking to Twitter to criticize the clothing. One Twitter account user stated, “so ungendered clothing means ugly sweatshirts for skinny white people?” They are not only criticizing the clothing, they are also models. Models that advertise gender-neutral clothing buy larger brands are always pale white and very, very skinny. http://fusion.net/story/318264/gender…http://www.wochit.com
#celinedion#genderneutral#newworldorder Celine Dion released a commercial for her new gender neutral clothing line for children. The commercial promotes genderless tops, dresses and sweats for little boys and little girls // Celine Dion Commercial // Celine Dion Clothing Line CELENUNUNU
SEXUAL EQUALITY IN MAO’s CHINA
In the Chinese the Daoist philosophical doctrine of yin-yang (阴-阳) dualism. Essentially, this holds that the universe is composed of two binary forces, each of which simultaneously supports and contradicts its opposite. Consequently, both yin and yang are best understood in contradistinction to each other. Yang is generally associated with positivity, energy, heat, life, light, strength, activity, and masculinity; whereas yin is associated with negativity, stasis, coldness, death, darkness, weakness, passivity, and femininity. Within this framework, all things in the universe contain both yin and yang, but in different measures. For example, every man contains a little bit of yin, but he is mostly composed of yang—the more yang a man possesses, the manlier he will be.
(U)nderstanding this binary reveals that portrayals of women in propaganda do not in fact liberate women or promote gender equality.18 Feminine yin was still subjected to masculine yang in Maoist China. As such, it is important to understand that the Party’s 16 Howard Chiang, After Eunuchs: Science, Medicine, and the Transformation of Sex in Modern China (New York: Columbia University Press, 2018), 200-1. 17 Chen Xiaomei, “Growing Up with Posters in the Maoist Era,” in Evans and Donald, 118. 18 Anchee Min, Red Azalea (New York: Random House, 1994). Min’s memoir recalls her story as a sent-down youth to Red Fire Farm where she engages in a lesbian relationship with Yan, her Party Secretary. She also tells the story of a woman who once disguised herself to look like a man in order to enter a public bathhouse where she would massage the “sun instrument” of strangers (page 229).8 declaration of gender equality simply meant that all genders were not equal to each other, but that all sexes were in fact only equally free to be masculine.
Indeed, if we accept that gender is a socially performed construct, then we also have to accept that a particular society can construct their conceptions of gender to have a reified binary essence and that they will perform those genders according to social expectations. If so, then it is also important for scholars to study the gendered power relationships of that
community as though they were an essentialized binary because that is how they have been constructed. This is the case with Chinese history. In China, xingbie refers to sexual differentiation and reproduction, but in order for Western historians to successfully consider aspects of gender, then, we ought to frame our historical analysis philosophically within the Daoist paradigm of yin and yang.
(T)he CCP’s conception of gender is primarily based in the Daoist philosophical doctrine of yin-yang(阴-阳) dualism. Essentially, this holds that the universe is composed of two binary forces, each of which simultaneously supports and contradicts its opposite.
Simply by denigrating eroticism as “spiritual pollution,” the CCP empowered people’s erotic drives by recasting sex as an act of rebellion.45 Much like the Junior Anti-Sex League of George Orwell’s 1984, the Chinese under Mao were expected to sublimate their sexual instincts into building the socialist state.46 As such, the very act of expressing sexual desire became bourgeois, individualist, and counterrevolutionary.47
Mao and the state became the sole object of adoration in the lives of the population. In the early 1950s, even showing affection for one’s children became a symptom of “divided loyalties,” although the Party relaxed this attitude by the mid1960s, just prior to the onset of the Cultural Revolution.50 Anything that demonstrated a sense of individual will was considered bourgeois, and was therefore immoral at best and criminal at worst. Falling in love from a chance meeting was a sign of depravity.51 After all, love was selfish, selfishness was individualist, and individualism in a communal
society was bourgeois. Every action was political, and nothing—not even one’s personal thoughts and emotions—was private.52 Even suicide was criminalized because it put the individual will over the will of the people.53 What is more, throughout Chinese history, suicide was a “traditional gesture of [political] protest” and was hence construed as a lack
of faith in Mao and the Communist Party.54
The CCP’s portrayals of women in posters are significant for two reasons. First, they illustrate the phrase that “whatever men can do, women can do too,” which was 19 frequently expressed during the Mao era.4 As part of the CCP’s efforts to enforce gender equality, it was effective to show women performing tasks that have been traditionally performed by men (figures 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, and 1.6). Second, women were widely accepted as the most oppressed victims of the Chinese feudal order.5 Therefore, by depicting “liberated” women performing tasks that had previously been denied to them, such as
engaging in scholarship, mining, or fighting in the army, the Party was able to illustrate its contrast to Old China because it had “modernized” and turned previously suppressed groups into productive members of society.6 Perhaps the most common example of “modern” women performing conventionally “masculine” jobs is the female tractor driver (nü tuolajishou 女拖拉机 手). Before the communist takeover in 1949, society expected women to confine themselves to the private world of the home where they would cook, clean, and weave.
Men, on the other hand, were expected to participate in more public spheres such as farming and combat. Both were assigned different tasks, and both were associated with different technologies: society linked women to the loom and men with the plow.7
5 Mao Zedong, Mao Zhuxi Yulu [Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong] (Beijing: Waiwen Chubanshe, 1966), 228-9. This passage in The Little Red Book was from a report by Mao in March 1927 on the peasant uprisings in Hunan. In it he explains that Chinese men have historically been oppressed by three authorities: political authority, familial authority, and religious authority. In order to liberate men, all three of these factors need to be eliminated. Women are also oppressed by these three authorities, but they also must contend against the fourth authority of the patriarchy.
Images of women driving tractors were vital to the Party’s endeavor to overthrow the old paradigm (figures 1.3 and 1.4). Indeed, the female tractor driver was so important to the
Party’s conception of “modernity” that Liang Jun, one of China’s first female tractor drivers, was depicted on the reverse side of the 1962 one yuan RMB note.8 By obliterating the boundary between “men’s work” and “women’s work,” the Party tried to abolish the hierarchical boundaries that kept women oppressed.
The same tactic which allowed the CCP to showcase their technical and social modernization also gave them the 0pportunity to highlight their efforts to liberate China’s ethnic minorities from their “backward” feudal traditions.9 An article published in the People’s Daily in January 1960 told the story about a Tibetan woman who came to China to learn tractor driving despite the Tibetans’ supposed superstition that women could not work the soil without incurring the wrath of the gods who would wreak havoc on the land by killing yaks, poisoning the harvest, and causing widespread disaster. This woman learned her craft and heroically went home to Tibet to help liberate her people and to represent socialist modernity.10
Source: MAO’S WAR ON WOMEN: THE PERPETUATION OF GENDER HIERARCHIES
THROUGH YIN-YANG COSMOLOGY IN THE CHINESE COMMUNIST
PROPAGANDA OF THE MAO ERA, 1949-1976
The above PDF is full of interesting information on how the communists used propaganda to try and destroy religion, tradition and social norms. It is a good read.
Gender-neutral language, also called gender-inclusive language, is the practice of using words that don’t give an idea of someone being female or male. For example, the word “fireman” gives the idea that a person in that work is male. An offer for a job as a “cleaning lady” gives the idea that only a woman should do the job. The gender-neutral alternatives are to say “fire fighter” and “janitor,” respectively. Then it is easier to see that these jobs can be done by a person of any gender. Gender-neutral language is important in feminism, because changing the way that people talk can help make sexist ideas less common. For example, the sexist idea that some jobs should only be done by people of certain genders.
Gender-neutral language is also important to many people who have non-binary gender identities. For one reason, this kind of talk helps fight against nonbinary erasure, which is the common but wrong and sexist idea that there are only two genders. Since gender-neutral language doesn’t give the idea that a person is male or female, it can also apply to people who identify as other genders, outside of the gender binary. Non-binary people can ask to be talked about in this way.
tā. Verbally all gendered pronouns sound the same, and so they technically can be gender neutral.
Titles
先生(xian sheng). A gender neutral term to refer to a teacher, a new acquaintance with whom you are unfamiliar, or anyone with whom you are not on a first-name basis, though it is usually masculine-based.
师傅(shi fu). A gender neutral term, though it is usually masculine-based, conveying respect to someone if you don’t know their name, and it means “master.”
老师 (lao shi). Standard word for teacher.
博士(bo shi). Standard word for professor.
老板(lao ban). Standard term for one’s boss (say at work).
同学 (tong xue). Standard term for one’s classmates
Family Terms
孩子 (hai zi). Standard gender neutral term for child.
家长 (jia zhang). Standard gender neutral term for parent.
Professions
服务员 (fu wu yuan). Standard word for server and/or gender neutral term for waiter/waitress.
Romantic
对象 (dui xiang). Term that means one’s romantic partner. It is gender neutral.
配偶 (pei ou). Term that means one’s partner in marriage. It is gender neutral.
Generations of Wang Ying’s family farmed the misty mountains of Liangshan, one of China’s poorest regions. But now, the 14-year-old girl lives on her own as the sole caretaker of her two younger siblings. They are among an estimated 9 million “left-behind children” raising themselves
During the Chinese Cultural Revolution, Mao’s famous political slogan ‘The times have changed, men and women are the same’ (时代不同了, 男女都一样) asserted that men and women were equal in political consciousness and physical strength. However, the slogan’s seeming emphasis on gender equality misconstrued the concepts of equality and sameness. In-depth interviews with former ‘sent-down’ youth illustrate how state rhetoric appropriated a discourse of women’s equality to silence women and depoliticize gender as a political category. For urban sent-down youth, gender inequality was absent from public discourse, and conflict between the sexes was concealed by a state discourse that constructed class struggle as paramount. Gender as a category was credited with solely political and pragmatic meaning and was utilized as a means for the communist government to achieve its own political and cultural utopia.
One of the first things a student learns when studying Mandarin is the third person pronoun, tā. This was originally written 他 , with “human” radical (a radical is a part of a Chinese character that imparts some semantic or linguistic information), and it stood for feminine, masculine, and neuter—“he,” “she,” and “it.”During the early 20th century, however, some bright folks—undoubtedly in emulation of European languages—thought it would be a good idea to introduce gender into the Chinese writing system, so 她 (with “female” radical) came to be used for the feminine and 它 (with “roof” radical) for the neuter. I always thought that rather odd, because no attempt was made to differentiate the three forms in speech, only in writing, hence 他, 她, and 它 were still all pronounced tā.
Well, it’s not quite right to say that no attempt was made to differentiate the three forms in pronunciation, since there was a half-hearted effort to introduce yī for feminine and tuō for neuter, but it didn’t catch on.
In any case, beyond 他, 她, and 它, there is also 牠 (with “bovine” radical) for animals, a character with a “spirit” radical, for deities, and so on. All of these were, and still are, pronounced tā.
In recent years, however, there has been an attempt to get rid of the gender distinctions for the third person pronoun and go back to a genderless stage.What is most curious, though, is the manner in which this is being done, namely through Pinyin, the system by which Chinese characters are transcribed into the Roman alphabet. In other words, 他, 她, 它, 牠, and others— all pronounced tā—are now being replaced by the actual letters “ta”!
As an example of how this is being done, let’s look at this interesting notification from the Renren Network, one of a few Chinese Facebook clones that have been more or less popular with younger Chinese.
Here’s a screen shot from Renren:
It’s noteworthy that some native speakers feel the need to resort to Pinyin in order to avoid indicating gender. My guess is that they do so, rather than simply junking all the concocted gendered forms of the third person pronouns and going back to genderless 他 (“he, she, it”), because the characters seem somehow to be palpable and eternal.Once they come into existence, it’s hard to let go of them.Which is why dictionary makers and font designers have to contend with tens of thousands of characters, even though the vast majority are completely obsolete.
A version of this post originally appeared in Language Log.
On 28 April 2017, the first single, ‘Action’ (xingdongpai), of the newly formed Chinese pop group FFC-Acrush (Acrush in short) was released in Beijing. In the music video, five androgynous young people dance and sing like K-pop male idols. Yet, long before the song’s release, the band had already sensationalised Chinese cyberspace for their cross-dressing personasin public appearances and promotion. As the first Chinese ‘boyband’ formed by five young, handsome, masculine Chinese girls between 18 and 24 years old, millions of Chinese female fans have gone fanatic for Acrush members’ androgynous beauty, despite their cross-gender impersonation.
This might seem confusing at first glance. The group refers to itself as a ‘boyband’. Its members’ looks and performances are often marketed as good exemplars of female fans’ ‘husbands’ (laogong). Yet, at times, the members emphasise to the media that they are ‘gender-neutral-style’ (zhongxing feng) girls. Meanwhile, during interviews and interactions with their fans, these female idols also often reject gender pronouns and any explicit discussions about their sexual orientations. This ambiguity surrounding the band’s gender and sexuality has attractedglobal media attentionin the past two months. However, the appearance and wide popularity of this band in Mainland China, as well as its ambiguous queer play with female masculinity and homosociality, should not come as a surprise to Chinese audiences.
In mid-2000s’ Japan, there was a famous ‘boyband’, Fudanjuku, comprised of several cross-dressing females who were otaku (people with great interests in anime, cosplay, games, and similar cultures).In early 2010s’Taiwan, a similar ‘gender-neutral’ music group, Misster, with five tomboyish girls was formed. Acrush’s K-Pop androgynous style might also have been influenced by the Korean cultural wave that has flooded Mainland China since the late 1990s.
More importantly, the Mainland Chinese entertainment industry had already manufactureda number of well-known tomboyish female idols over the last decade, most of whom rose to stardom after the success of the 2005 Chinese reality singing competition show, Super Girl(Hunan Satellite TV, 2004-2006). In its 2005 season, the unexpected popularity of the show’s tomboyish winner, Li Yuchun (Chris Lee), led to a surge of female celebrities with cross-dressing performances and masculine personas in Super Girl and Mainland showbiz in general.
Nevertheless, despite seemingly serving as a feminist or gender-liberating trend, the Mainland’s commercialisation of this ‘gender-neutral’ style might have quite different sociocultural implications than those of the culture of gender neutrality in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Gender-neutrality is often linked to lesbian visibility and queer female subjectivity in Hong Kong and Taiwan’s mainstream societies, both of which have more openly-out celebrities and better sociocultural atmospheres for gender and sexual minorities. For example, the competition for selecting the group members of Misster was held in a lesbian bar in Taipei in 2009, which already divulges the band’s lesbian undertones. The band leader, Anna Dai, is also a famous tomboy lesbian celebrity in Taiwan. In contrast, none of the tomboyish Super Girl celebrities have ever come out of the closet.Some of them have experienced waves of lesbian rumors online, which either were denied by the celebrities’ agents or greatly damaged their music careers.
The kind of female masculinityepitomised by Acrush often represents either a unique form of fashion or beauty, or a distinctive young woman’s personality in a cosmopolitan China.Gender-neutral female celebrities are often expected to combine desirable masculine and feminine gender traits, yet are not self-identified lesbians or queer women. In fact, whenever this style is closely associated with lesbian sexualities in the off-screen world, celebrities will either downplay or deny this ‘abnormal’ possibility. Although their cross-gender personas often invite fans’ queer readings and fantasies, these queer practices are only limited to playful imaginationsand do not necessarily reflect any real-world erotic desires or queer identities of either the fans or the celebrities.
In this sense, the commercialised ‘gender-neutral’ phenomenon in Mainland China might suggest a more worrying mainstream cultural trend for LGBTQ groups. By becoming entertaining elements in sensationalised commercial media, the implied gender and sexual nonnormativitiesin the Mainland ‘gender-neutral’ style have, to a certain extent, already lost any sociocultural and political significance for gender and sexual minorities. During this queer sensationalism of the Mainland entertainment industry, celebrities can ‘perform’ transgressive gender identities and intimacies without seriously disturbing and menacing heteronormative structures in the real world. In other words, all that is related to queer desires and voices becomes a fictional play on screen to entertain the nation.
What underpins Mainland China’s queer sensationalist commercial culture is actually a distinctive Chinese understanding of female masculinity as a gendered continuum instead of as a signifier for queer sexualities.Jack Halberstam famously noted that female masculinity is more tolerated in women’s adolescence stage as a resistant against adulthood in the Western context. Yet, in both the traditional and modern Mainland Chinese contexts, even when produced by and displayed on adult female bodies, certain kinds of masculinity are not necessarily linked to subjects’ lesbianism, but merely mark an ‘aesthetic form’ or a form of ‘political adherence and moral power’. These cultural specificities of Mainland ‘gender-neutrality’ create a hierarchical, discriminatory queer pop culture that legitimises profitable female masculinities. Groups like Acrush do not explicitly unveil the lesbian identities and desires of celebrities and fans in the off-screen world, thereby aggravating the invisible and intelligible existence and unrecognised daily struggles of Mainland Chinese self-identified female gender and sexual minorities.
Jamie J. Zhaois currently a PhD student in Film and TV Studies at the University of Warwick, UK. She holds another doctoral degree in Gender Studies from Chinese University of Hong Kong. Her research spans a wide array of topics on Chinese queer entertainment, celebrity culture, and public culture. Her most recent publication can be found in the volume she co-edited with Maud Lavin and Ling Yang, ‘Boys’ Love, Cosplay, and Androgynous Idols: Queer Fan Cultures in Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan (HKUP, 2017)’. This article forms part of the IAPS Dialogue edition entitled “Queer Asia,” a conference held at SOAS University of London between the 16th and 18th June 2017 exploring LGBTQ+ issues in Asia. Image credit: CCWikimedia Commons.
Meet the mums and dads sweeping aside limitations society has placed on children based on their gender, allowing them instead to blossom outside the confines of an outdated category
Published: 12:00am, 23 Feb, 2016
From left: Christina Kotsamidis-Ventouras, Peter Ventouras and their children, Dimitri and Leonidas.
Christina Kotsamidis-Ventouras didn’t bat an eyelid when her younger son picked out a top with a pink motif from the girls’ section of a store during a recent shopping excursion in Hong Kong. She immediately bought it for him.
An early childhood educator, Kotsamidis-Ventouras takes a gender-neutral approach to raising her sons, Dimitri and Leonidas. They are encouraged to explore and celebrate all aspects of their personalities, not just what is expected by society.
“For my sons, no toys, colours, interests or activities are off-limits. Gender-neutral parenting – or gender-inclusive parenting, which is the term that I tend to use – is not about the avoidance of all things hyper boyish or hyper girlish in order to live a life of neutrality. It’s about destroying the senseless limitations society has placed around our children based on their gender and allowing them to develop and thrive without having to be squeezed into a box or category,” says Kotsamidis-Ventouras, who implemented numerous gender-neutral ideas in her classrooms before taking a career break to care for her children.
Leonidas Ventouras at his make-believe tea party.
According to Sophie Dunstone, a clinical psychologist at Southside Family Health Centre, the best kind of child-raising encourages exploration, imaginative play, positive self-regard and resilience that is not limited by gender.
“Gender is a part of identity. It contributes to a person’s sense of belonging and sense of self. Throughout child and adolescent development there is a continual process of both finding your individual self and how you belong to the group,” Dunstone says. “Difficulties arise when a parent is rigid, authoritarian and unresponsive to a child’s needs.” (In other words, parents should submit to the whims of children. Not “train their child up in the way they should go” as God commands. We know that by nature we are born in rebellion and it is the responsibility of the Parent to teach a child right from wrong. It is WRONG to encourage a child to have ambiguity about their sex. It is WRONG to all your child to CROSS DRESS to GOD that is an ABOMINATION! YOU as a PARENT will be held responsible for leading your child down a path to destruction! Why are we allowing GOD Hating psychologist to decide what is right for OUR CHILDREN? Children are not OURS, they belong to GOD. We have been given a responsibility and a priviledge to raise them, guide them and protect them from the EVIL influences of the WORLD!)
More liberal parents try to let children find their own comfort level on the gender spectrum although it’s hard to shield youngsters entirely from societal messages about typical gender behaviour.
Refusing to acknowledge gender at all is unrealistic,however, and possibly unhelpful in bringing up a child, Dunstone adds.
All the same, “If one was to look at the ubiquitous mass marketing of toys to children, gender roles are fairly apparent in packaging and messages to consumers. This is how toy manufacturers maximise making money,” says Timothy Stuart, founder of UnitBricks, a company making construction toys.
Having spent the past 15 years researching how boys and girls play, Stuart reckons young girls traditionally spend more time in dramatic play and areas of socialisation while boys spend more time in construction areas. Much of these patterns derive from peer play, he notes. (NO, it derives from their nature.)
“The problem is that gender-specific toys and experiences tend to limit a child to one specific role rather than allowing them to see the world is their playground. Multi-intelligent experiences enable children to see the world through their own lens rather than the one prescribed to them. I firmly believe children should be allowed to be anything they want to be.” (Certainly, children should be allowed to pursue any activity they choose as long as it is not immoral or illegal. But, they cannot choose their sex. It is determined by GOD, unless it is perverted by the enemy. I don’t know what world these psychologists grew up in, but it has always been my experience that boys and girls play together and often share toys. I had a tommy gun at age 3. I grew up with my brothers spearing mice and collecting snakes. We often would write our own plays and make our costumes and act them out. We play snowball fights and cowboys and indians. No one ever told us what we could or could not play. What world are these people imagining in their depraved minds? BOYS don’t like to play dolls, though they will sometimes condescend to play house with their sisters or friends. I often played with racing cars, football and hockey, boxing. But, I was very feminine and still am. Because that is in my GENETIC MAKEUP! However, dressing up in the clothing of the opposite sex is taboo! It is taboo for our protection. Once we begin to do that, it opens doors for spiritual influences we do not understand and cannot control.)
Timothy Stuart, founder of UnitBricks, with his wife Asya Egunova-Stuart and their son Oscar.
Amy Wong’s eight-year-old twins, a boy and a girl, have always had a variety of toys to share. From a very early age, her son gravitated toward toy cars while her daughter preferred princesses.
Although she feels it’s unnecessary to steer her children from stereotypical interests, Wong takes issue with the powerful influence that society and media have played in recent years in shaping children’s perception of gender boundaries. (“I am the LORD your GOD who sets your boundaries.” That scripture changed my life. It has been magically removed from the Bible. But, I KNOW it still exists… God showed me that I what was wrong in my life is that I did not have boundaries established to protect me. When I asked GOD to set my boundaries… my life changed. This fallen world has turned its back on GOD and now the boundaries are all gone. No one knows who should set them and where they should go. That is what happens when a nation turns its back on GOD!)
In particular, she recalls how her daughter refused to play with a Lego set because it didn’t come in a purple box and was meant for boys. (She can hardly blame that on the Toy Industry, what kind of parenting is she doing? She has no influence on her children? She can’t overcome that bias in her child’s mind? She has no tools to educate her child on her own? Her children are at the mercy of outside influences?)
“I totally blamethe media and society for this. Everything around us separates things into gender specific categories,” she says, citing items from toys to toiletries.
Amy Wong with her husband Mark Thatcher and children Ashton, Kira and Mia.
Sabrina Cruz, founder of Rainbows at Play HK, a supportive community of parents and children who want to enjoy gender-neutral play, argues that thinking of gender as strictly a two-option category is behind the times.
“This outdated view can be compared to trying to view the world in distinct racial categories without understanding that a growing percentage of the population is beautifully multi-ethnic. The same can be said for gender,” says Cruz, a mother of three, including a five-year-old son who enjoys toys marketed at girls. (You can deny the TRUTH of your sex all you like…it does not change who you are, even if you have surgery to remove the unwanted parts and create new ones… you are still the same person GOD created. The only thing that can change your nature is GOD. If your sexuality has been corrupted by spiritual influences, only GOD can change it!)
Social pressures can make parenting outside the boy/girl dichotomy a challenging task, says primary school teacher Karen Teoh.
She, too, faced a dilemma when her son Micah wanted to dress up as his favourite movie character, Queen Elsa from Frozen, for his fifth birthday party. (One has to wonder what kind of influence she has had on her son. What is her sexual bent?)
Karen Teoh and her son Micah. Photo: Edmond So
Micah likes many activities associated with boys, playing with buses and trains and shooting make-believe enemies with his friends, but he also has interests outside the prescribed gender roles, she says.
So when Micah decided to be Elsa, Teoh worried that other kids would tease him. “I explained to him that teasing was a possibility but that it was his birthday and he could be anything he wanted to be. He was hesitant at first but decided to fulfil his dream of being Queen Elsa,” she recalls. (she should have explained to him that there are reasons why boys do not wear girls clothes. Though Elsa is a hero figure, he does not need to emulate her in his attire. Instead of demanding that the world cow-tow to her sons fantasy inspired desires, she should help her son to learn to live in the REAL WORLD.)
Some of Teoh’s relatives, however, were horrified by her decision, suggesting that this would encourage the boy to be gay.
Dunstone refutes such thinking: “There is a considerable amount of research showing that sexuality is inbuilt and a separate issue to gender identity,” she says. (That young child does not have “Sexuality” at his age. Children do not think in terms of sexuality unless they are exposed to things beyond their ability to comprehend.)
Still, societal pressures can cause children to feel isolated when they don’t conform to gender norms, says Jason Lau, a stay-at-home father of two daughters, age nine and five.
“My eldest daughter is often teased by other girls because she likes to play tag and soccer with boys at school. The girls taunt her because she wants to be a pilot when she’s older. They tell her she’s not pretty and her voice is not ‘girly’,” Lau says.
Parents often organise gender-specific play dates and parties, which means her daughter to be excluded from social events with boys she is friends with.
“She often cries and says she hates herself. Boys and girls are biologically different so I get that divide. But the gender divide is nothing more than soul-destroying ignorance,” says Lau.
Kotsamidis-Ventouras is careful to help her children process the constant bombardment of messages delivered by media and society.
“When my son comes from school and says that the other boys make fun of him for playing with Shopkins [a toy line initially produced for girls] and stuffed animals, we have conversations about this,” she says.
“We engage in discussions which aim to empower, not conform. It’s not about avoiding situations where gender conformity or sexism is present; it’s talking about it when you see it – challenging and questioning things we see in society so that you raise children who are critical thinkers. A phrase that we often use in our home is that there are many different ways to be a boy or a girl.” (Mans wisdom is foolishness, these hyper-intelligent adults think they are smarter than GOD. FOOLS!)
There are so many factors contributing the sexual confusion these days it is impossible to cover them all at once. But, I guarantee you the forces that are behind this phenomenon are much smarter than you and determined to destroy all that is right and true. We have been affected by society, the media, our piers, the education system, the food we eat, the stuff that is in the air, the water and the ground, spiritual influences, our own sin nature. I could write for months and not cover it all. The food we eat today is hardly food at all, it is so full of chemicals. One thing that has really affected our sexuality is all the SOY products introduced through our food. There are so many hormones and other dangerous and noxious elements in our water supply from the over use of contraceptives and recreational drugs. There are many reasons for the sexual ambiguity today. But, the primary factor is SPIRITUAL! And whatever factors my come to play in it… GOD can solve them all.
https://www.undp.org › content › dam › china › docs › Publications › UN…
This publication has been translated into English from the original Chinese. If there is any inconsistency … 1.1 Research background and goals. 14. 1.2 Research scope … 7.12 Establish gender–neutral restrooms and other public facilities. 54.
A Cultural History of the Chinese Character “Ta (She)”—On …
I chose not to post this PDF here to preserve space, but I think it is a good read and contains some helpful information. If you would like to read it… click the link above.
Women take photos in front of a garden display to celebrate 70 years of the People’s Republic of China. [Kelly Dawson/Al Jazeera]
Beijing, China – Zhang Nuannuan kicked with such force from inside her mother’s womb that her relatives were certain she was a boy.
When the doctors announced the birth of a healthy baby girl, her father was so angry he went on a three-day bender.
Under China’s One Child Policy, the family had no choice but to funnel their hopes and financial resources into their only child, but as Zhang grew older and it became apparent that she was intelligent, funny and capable, her father warmed to his daughter.
Eventually, he agreed to fund her university education.
“He started to like me even though I was a girl,” said Zhang, who was born in 1990 and studies film in Beijing. “He said, ‘She’s one of the good ones, not like the rest’.”
The now-defunct policy has been widely criticised for a host of problems including gender-selective and forced abortions, and the creation of a dangerous population imbalance of an estimated 30 million “surplus” men.
Less discussed is the unintended boost it has given to gender equality in China: Zhang and other women born between 1990 and 1992 account for 50 percent of students in higher education, according to data released by the national Bureau of Statistics in 2017. Before the One Child Policy, it was roughly 30 percent.
Much of this can be attributed to a lack of male siblings, according to Jing Jiali, a professor of sociology at Beijing Foreign Studies University.
“Without a male child, the family’s investment is placed on the girl,” she said. “As a result, more female students are able to benefit from tutoring, expensive extracurricular activities, and then upper education.”
Zhang agrees. With a brother, she is convinced she would never have gone to university.
“Without the one-child policy, I would have been screwed,” she said bluntly.
Mao Zedong, seen on a tour of Beijing in September 1949 introduced a wave of reforms that benefitted women, but failed to address entrenched traditions. [File: AP Photo]
Widening gender gap
That such a draconian policy might have ultimately benefitted some women even as potentially hundreds of thousands of female infants were abandoned to die underlines the complexities of how women have fared in Communist-governed China.
In the years immediately after Mao Zedong established the People’s Republic in 1949, he banned the 1,000-year-old tradition of foot-binding, outlawed arranged marriages and polygamy, launched literacy programmes to benefit women, and invited women into the workforce.
Seventy years later, Chinese women contribute 41 percent of the country’s gross domestic product or GDP (as of 2017), according to a report by accounting firm Deloitte China.
But gender equality remains a distant goal, and conditions are actually worsening. For the fifth year in a row, China has slipped down the rankings of the World Economic Forum’s global gender gap index; its gender gap widening even as other countries narrow theirs.
Ranked 57th (of 139 countries) in 2008, China is now 103rd (of 149 countries). In terms of “health and survival”, it ranked last.
In some areas gender discrimination is blatant.
Nearly a fifth of postings for national civil service jobs listed a requirement or preference for male candidates; a trend repeated in advertisements for prestigious positions in other industries too, according to a 2018 Human Rights Watch report.
A study released by online recruiter Boss Zhipin earlier this year reported that Chinese women earned 78.2 cents for every dollar paid to a man, a drop of nearly nine percent from the year before.
Women work on unicorn stuffed toys for export at a workshop in China’s Jiangsu province. [File: Stringer/Reuters]
Discrimination
When Zhao Yilin, 29, applied for a job at a tech company in Beijing several years ago, one of the interviewing managers asked whether she expected to have children, noting that the job would require travelling.
“I knew I could do the job regardless of whether I planned to have kids, so it didn’t seem fair,” Zhao said. “In the end, I was honest. I said we planned to have children in the next few years.” She didn’t get the job.
According to an official party survey released in 2017, 54 percent of Chinese women report similar experiences in job interviews.
In the same year, online recruiter Zhilian Zhaopin found that instances of “severe” sex discrimination spiked for women when they were between 25 and 35; the years in which women are most likely to start a family.
And it doesn’t get easier as women get older. At 50, the mandated retirement age for women in some industries is 10 years earlier than for men, making it difficult for them to advance, and leaving them with little retirement income.
Nowhere is the gender gap more apparent than in politics. In 70 years, not one woman has ever been appointed to the country’s highest governing body, the Politburo Standing Committee. Among the wider 25-person Politburo, only one woman is included, and of 31 provincial-level governments, not one is led by a woman.
Members of a neighbourhood watch committee at the entrance of one of Beijing’s traditional “hutong” alleys. [Kelly Dawson/Al Jazeera]
‘Women’s work’
Some scholars have suggested that China’s opening up has itself been detrimental to women – but the reality is that Mao’s reforms failed to address entrenched beliefs about women’s place in society, according to Hui Faye Xiao, associate professor and chair of the East Asian Languages and Cultures programme at the University of Kansas.
“The state-mandated definition of work only means moving women outside the domestic realm, not men retreating inside to do ‘women’s work’,” Xiao told Al Jazeera. “This unequal gendered division of labour was not seriously questioned, which left a certain room for the return of male centrism in post-Mao China.”
In recent years, government relations with women’s rights groups have soured, with high-profile arrests of feminist activists and limits placed on the work of civil society.Online censorship of women’s topics has also increased.
Experts say that deterioration is tied to government efforts to stimulate a baby boom, motivated by growing concern about the economic effect of China’s ageing population and the low birthrate despite the introduction of the Two-Child Policy in 2015.
Rebecca Karl, a history professor at New York University with a focus on China, said that that “economic imperative” first emerged after the global financial crisis of 2008, and the government has since promoted messaging designed to “coerce women to return to the home so as to free up remaining employment for men,” she said.
Earlier this year President Xi Jinping called on women to “shoulder the responsibilities of taking care of the old and young.”
This shift is largely responsible for the drop in China’s gender index, Karl said. “Coming on the heels of a steady decline since the 1980s in women’s economic, social, and political positions – at all levels of the social structure – the post-2008 decline has been particularly precipitous.”
Two young women walk past a poster showing Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing. Xi said this year women should shoulder the responsibilities of taking care of the old and young.’ [File: Mark Schiefelbein/AP Photo]
Signs of hope
The shift has been accompanied by a pronounced change in the way state media describe women in the public eye, Beijing Foreign Studies University’s Jing told Al Jazeera; an idealisation of what she calls “middle-class female domesticity” and a growing emphasis on appearance.
In the past the focus would have been a woman’s achievements, Jing said. Today, it’s not uncommon to hear descriptions such as “the beautiful athlete” or “attractive official” when successful women are being discussed.
Nevertheless, activism has produced some change, from China’s first anti-domestic violence law in 2015 to improvements to the gender ratio of public toilets.
China’s own #MeToo hashtag also inspired a number of women to come forward publicly in 2018 with stories of sexual assault on university campuses and elsewhere – leading to the dismissal of several high-profile academics.
Lü Pin, who left her job at a state-funded women’s newspaper in the 1990s to become an activist, sees such wins as reasons for optimism.
“I’m not positive about our government, but women themselves make me hopeful,” she said.
“Women always find ways to resist – especially the new generation. They’re more aware than any generation before them. We just need time.”
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REUTERS/JASON LEE – How many Chinese men still want to see women.
In China, they say that there are three genders: male, female, and female PhD. “It’s a joke that means we’re asexual and not feminine enough,” says Deng, a 27-year-old sociology PhD candidate from China’s southern province of Hunan, sitting at a small metal table outside the main library at Hong Kong University.
Deng, who asked only to be identified by her surname, is one of over 100,000 Chinese women who have been branded as the country’s next generation of spinsters. According to their many critics, they are aloof, unattractive, self-important careeristswho, according to some Chinese academics and officials, threaten the country’s very social fabric by putting education before family.
Deng defies the stereotype. She is talkative, with a high, soft voice and a short bob that gives her a cherubic look. She is researching conditions at Chinese factories in the hopes of improving life for workers. One of her interviewees, a worker in the manufacturing hub of Guangzhou, was shocked to learn that she was working toward a PhD. “You’re not bad looking even though you’re a PhD,” Deng recalls him saying.
Today, more Chinese women are seeking advanced degrees than ever before. But as their numbers increase so do the criticism and ridicule leveled at them. It’s a worrying reflection, gender experts say, of increasingly conservative Chinese attitudes toward women even as the country’s citizens grow richer and more educated.
REUTERS/ALY SONG
Students at a graduation ceremony at Fudan University in Shanghai
Stereotypes about female PhD students are part of broader worries in China over the number of women becoming shengnu, “leftover women”— those who have reached the ripe age of 27 without marrying. “Women are seen primarily as these reproductive entities, having babies for the good of the nation,” Leta Hong Fincher, author of the book Leftover Women: The Resurgence of Gender Inequality in China, told Quartz.
But the derision towards those with or earning PhDs, who typically don’t finish their degrees until the age of 28 or later, is particularly vitriolic. “There is a media-enforced stigma surrounding women with advanced degrees,” Fincher said, and much of this manifests online in social media.
“Female PhDs are the tragedy of China’s leftover women.”
In a recent discussion thread titled, “Are female PhDs really so bad to marry?” on a popular Chinese forum similar to the question-and-answer site Quora, one user posted (link in Chinese), “They are unscrupulous, hypocritical, filthy, and weak.” A user of the Chinese microblog Weibo wrote in September, “Female PhDs are the tragedy of China’s leftover women.” In an online poll on Weibo last January, 30% of over 7,000 voters said they would not marry a woman with a PhD (Chinese).
Aside from being called the “third gender,” female PhD students have also been nicknamed miejueshitai or “nun of no mercy”after a mannish Kung Fu-fighting nun in a popular Chinese martial arts series. They are sometimes referred to as ”UFOs,” an acronym for ”ugly, foolish and old.” At Sun Yat Sen University in Guangzhou, where Deng does some of her research, male students refer to the dormitory for female PhD students as the “Moon Palace,” the mythical home of a Chinese goddess living in painful solitude on the moon, with only a pet rabbit for company.“It’s like it’s a forbidden place where a lonely group of female PhD students live and no man wants to go,” Deng says.
“Ignorance is a woman’s virtue”
Educated Chinese women weren’t always treated this way. In the early days of the People’s Republic, the Communist party worked hard to overturn old Confucian ideas about women.Mao Zedong famously called on women to “hold up half the sky,” by going to school and taking up jobs.
As a result, high school enrollment for girls reached 40% in 1981 (pdf, p. 381), up from 25% in 1949, while university enrollment rose from 20% to 34% over the same period, according to a 1992 analysis by the East West Center in Hawaii. As many as 90% of women were working in the mid-1980s, according to the same paper.
REUTERS/CARLOS BARRIA
Woman talk during a recording of a matchmaking television program in Shanghai.
Ever since China started dismantling its planned economy in the 1980s and 1990s, dissolving many of the state-owned enterprises that employed women, more conservative values have begun to resurface. Now traditional ideas about women are creeping back into Chinese society. “It’s like returning to the idea that ignorance is a woman’s virtue,” says He Yufei, 27, one of Deng’s classmates at Hong Kong University, quoting an old idiom used to encourage women to focus on their roles as mothers or wives.
Single women who undertake doctoral degrees are like “products that depreciate in value.”
Chief among these ideas is that no woman should occupy a position higher than that of her husband. According to Louise Edwards, a specialist in gender and culture at Australia’s University of New South Wales, a flood of soap operas, pop music, and movies from South Korea and Japan—historically patriarchal societies that never went through the kind of female liberation that China experienced—further reinforces this idea. “A PhD is the apex. It’s the top degree you can get, and by getting it you are thumbing your nose at the system,” Edwards said.
What is more, these traditional stereotypes happen to be convenient for the government at a time when China is facing a demographic problem. By 2020, Chinese men will outnumber women by at least 24 million, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. Some researchers argue that the concept of shengnu, ”leftover women,” was concocted by propaganda officials to pressure women into marrying as early as possible.
“The government is very concerned with all the excess men in the population who are not going to find brides. So it’s pushing educated women into getting married,” Fincher said. “The Chinese government doesn’t say anything about losing potential women from the workforce and that reflects their short-sighted concern with social stability.”
“They are already old, like yellowed pearls”
The PhD is a relatively new degree in China. Post-graduate programs were banned during the Chinese Cultural Revolution in the late 1960s. After that, the first PhDs weren’t awarded until 1982. Now, having expanded its higher education system in an attempt to become more globally competitive, China awards more doctorate degrees than any other country. It had 283,810 PhD graduates in 2012, compared to 50,977 in the US that year, according to government statistics.
Chinese women make up half of all undergraduate students and almost half of all master’s students, but they accounted for only 35% of the PhDs awarded in 2012, compared to 46% in the US. Young women outperform their male counterparts so much that some universities have started requiring higher test scores from female applicants.
“Although women are doing well in university, they usually stop at a master’s and there’s a reason for that. It’s partly because of this stereotype,” Edwards said.
REUTERS/ALY SONG
Graduates stand on the steps in front of the academic building at Fudan University in Shanghai.
It’s not just anonymous bloggers or male university students who deride women in higher education. In January, Chen Riyuan, an academic in Guangzhou and minor politician, said that single women who undertake doctoral degrees are like “products that depreciate in value.” The All-China Women’s Federation, a state-backed women’s group, infamously wrote on its website on International Women’s Day in 2011 that “by the time [women] get their MA or PhD, they are already old, like yellowed pearls.”
Some women, too, have internalized the belief that a PhD will torpedo their chances of settling down. “Many of my friends gave up their PhDs because they think they need to get a boyfriend,” said Meng Ni, a doctoral candidate at York University in the United Kingdom, who is studying the experiences of female PhD students in China.
The thankless road of learning
Women who decide to go for the top degree are choosing a hard path, either for their love of research or teaching, or in the hope of getting a decent job. “The job market is really competitive and many people think that with higher education, the more knowledge that they gain, they will be more competitive,” says Meng, the doctoral candidate at York University.
The hours are long and pay is typically meager—around 1,000 yuan (about $160) a month, plus a little extra for working as a teaching assistant or a residence hall monitor. Huang Yalan, a 25-year-old woman earning a PhD in communications at Tsinghua University in Beijing, lives in a small single dorm on campus and spends most of her day poring over articles on propaganda theory, her thesis topic. She sees her boyfriend only once a month. If she can find a job as a lecturer after she graduates she can expect a starting salary of between 3,000 and 6,000 yuan a month. It may be years, even decades, before she becomes a professor.
“They think… that studying and pursuing a higher academic degree is a man’s path.”
“I’ve never felt discriminated against for being a female PhD, but people are curious because they think a woman’s obligation is in the home or that studying and pursuing a higher academic degree is a man’s path,” Huang said.
For others, the prejudice has been more obvious. He, 27, says that she was turned down by a professor at a university in Beijing because he wanted to supervise only male students. And many Chinese academics aren’t interested in supervising female PhDs or hiring them once they graduate. Women held fewer than 25% of academic posts in the country in 2013, according to a Times Higher Education survey.
A 30-year-old graduate who asked only to be called Carrie, and who graduated with a PhD in communications this year from one of China’s top schools, Fudan University in Shanghai, said she was shocked when the first question a recruiter asked was whether she would have a child within a year. “I was so angry, but I had to control it. This is just how it is,” she said.
What’s bad for women PhDs is bad for China
Discouraging women from getting jobs or education hurts any country’s economy, and especially China’s. The country faces a rapidly aging population and a labor force that is expected to start shedding as many as 10 million workers this year. The working-age population, which has been shrinking since 2012, fell by almost 4 million last year. Two neighboring countries with similar demographic problems, Japan and South Korea, have both launched public campaigns to get more women in the workforce. China has initiated no such campaigns.
“TRENDS IN CHINA’S GENDER EMPLOYMENT AND PAY GAP”
Data from China’s National Bureau of Statistics show a widening gap in nominal earnings for men and women between 1989 and 2009.
As a result, China’s female labor-force participation, once among the world’s highest, has been ticking downward. The proportion of urban women in the workforce fell to 60.8% in 2010, compared to 77.4% in 1990, as more women choose to stay home after having a child. On the World Economic Forum’s gender equality rankings, China now ranks 87th out of 142 (pdf) countries, just below El Salvador, Georgia, and Venezuela. The pay gap has also widened: One study found that between 1995 and 2007, women’s earnings, as a proportion of men’s, had fallen from 84% to 74%.
The fact that women are underrepresented in academia may also help explain why they are absent in policy-making circles and ultimately the government, where half of the members of the most powerful decision-making body, the Politburo Standing Committee (PSC) have PhDs. The percentage of women of ministerial rank or higher has remained below 10% since 1982 (p. 139). No woman has ever been nominated to the PSC or to lead the party.
But women PhDs are fighting back
For all the prejudices, women PhDs are quickly catching up with their male counterparts. From 2004 to 2012, the number of female PhD graduates increased 19-fold. In
When I would read the following scripture as a young adult, I found it very odd that God would have to tell men not to dress like women, I thought a man would not be caught dead in women’s clothes. Women in our generation did seem to be pushing that boundary quite a bit, not only wearing pants but pants styled like men’s pants with crotch zippers, and wearing mens’ shirts and sweaters. I wondered why.
Now I see that GOd was trying to keep us from falling into the trap. God knew that if we are not diligent to maintain the delineation, we will get lost and begin to blur the lines until we are overcome by demonic spirits who were given entry by our disobedience and rebellion.
Deuteronomy: 22:5
The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the Lord thy God.
In the following Scripture, GOD lays out his boundaries for sexuality. He is very clear!
Leviticus 18
1 And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,
2 Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, I am the Lord your God.
3 After the doings of the land of Egypt, wherein ye dwelt, shall ye not do: and after the doings of the land of Canaan, whither I bring you, shall ye not do: neither shall ye walk in their ordinances.
4 Ye shall do my judgments, and keep mine ordinances, to walk therein: I am the Lord your God.
5 Ye shall therefore keep my statutes, and my judgments: which if a man do, he shall live in them: I am the Lord.
6None of you shall approach to any that is near of kin to him,to uncover their nakedness: I am the Lord.
7 The nakedness of thy father, or the nakedness of thy mother, shalt thou not uncover: she is thy mother; thou shalt not uncover her nakedness.
8 The nakedness of thy father’s wife shalt thou not uncover: it is thy father’s nakedness.
9 The nakedness of thy sister, the daughter of thy father, or daughter of thy mother, whether she be born at home, or born abroad, even their nakedness thou shalt not uncover.
10 The nakedness of thy son’s daughter, or of thy daughter’s daughter,even their nakedness thou shalt not uncover: for theirs is thine own nakedness.
11 The nakedness of thy father’s wife’s daughter, begotten of thy father,she is thy sister, thou shalt not uncover her nakedness.
12 Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy father’s sister: she is thy father’s near kinswoman.
13 Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy mother’s sister:for she is thy mother’s near kinswoman.
14 Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy father’s brother, thou shalt not approach to his wife: she is thine aunt.
15 Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy daughter in law: she is thy son’s wife; thou shalt not uncover her nakedness.
16 Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy brother’s wife:it is thy brother’s nakedness.
17 Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of a woman and her daughter, neither shalt thou take her son’s daughter, or her daughter’s daughter, to uncover her nakedness; for they are her near kinswomen: it is wickedness.
18 Neither shalt thou take a wife to her sister,to vex her, to uncover her nakedness, beside the other in her life time.
19 Also thou shalt not approach unto a woman to uncover her nakedness, as long as she is put apart for her uncleanness.
20 Moreover thou shalt not lie carnally with thy neighbour’s wife, to defile thyself with her.
21 And thou shalt not let any of thy seed pass through the fire to Molech, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I am the Lord.
22 Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.
23 Neither shalt thou lie with any beast to defile thyself therewith: neither shall any woman stand before a beast to lie down thereto: it is confusion.
24 Defile not ye yourselves in any of these things: for in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out before you:
25 And the land is defiled:therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants.
26 Ye shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments, and shall not commit any of these abominations; neither any of your own nation, nor any stranger that sojourneth among you:
27 (For all these abominations have the men of the land done, which were before you, and the land is defiled;)
28 That the land spue not you out also, when ye defile it, as it spued out the nations that were before you.
29 For whosoever shall commit any of these abominations, even the souls that commit them shall be cut off from among their people.
30 Therefore shall ye keep mine ordinance, that ye commit not any one of these abominable customs, which were committed before you, and that ye defile not yourselves therein: I am the Lord your God.
Not only does GOD make it very clear what kind of sexual relations are allowed and what kind are not, but he makes it very clear that there should be no ambiguity or confusion about sexuality. He commands that everything be done to keep the delineation between the sexes very clear and evident. He also makes it very clear that EVERYONE, ALL PEOPLES who do not know GOD are inclined to do those things which are abominations in His sight. It is only by being in right standing with GOD that we can be cleansed of this unrighteousness. ALL people, who do not know the LORD are subject to the SIN Nature and at the mercy of the Fallen Ones.
It is not loving, kind or lawful for Children of God to embrace the lifestyles and sexual preferences of those who are lost and living in sin. We certainly do not hate them. We certainly would never bully them or make fun of them. We should be praying for them, and witnessing to them so that they might be saved. That is something the DEVIL and his followers do not want. That is why they are making it unlawful to witness, or share our faith. They don’t want anyone to get saved!
Deuteronomy 22:5 has two prohibitions wrapped into one verse. The purpose of this Q&A is to determine the meaning of this verse. Here is the verse.
A woman shall not wear man’s clothing, nor shall a man put on a woman’s clothing; for whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD your God. Deuteronomy 22:5 (NASB)
Can Men Wear Women’s Clothing?
Women Shall Not Wear Men’s Clothing
The first part of the verse prohibits women from wearing men’s clothing and from using a wide variety of items normally associated with men. Unfortunately, the English translations of the verse are inadequate. Notice that the Hebrew word that is translated as “clothing” in the first part of Deuteronomy 22:5 is כְלִי־ or keli. This Hebrew word means more than just clothing (see Exodus 22:6; Leviticus 11:32; 13:49).[1] Keli includes ornaments, weapons and other symbols that are uniquely characteristic of men.[2, 3] That is, God is prohibiting women from wearing men’s clothing and appearing as men. For example, women cannot wear men’s clothes, wear men’s hairdos or wear men’s watches, medallions or other male artifacts. God is referring to a habitual pattern of life.
Men Shall Not Wear Women’s Clothing
The second part of the verse prohibits men from wearing women’s clothing too! But the Hebrew word for clothing in the second part of the verse is שִׂמְלַ֣ת or simla. The word is different from the word translated as “clothing” in the first part of the verse. Simla refers to women’s clothing explicitly.[4] This means that men cannot wear women’s clothing! The meaning of the word is narrower than keli.
An Abomination To The LORD Your God
The last part of the verse is a warning that “whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD your God.” This statement helps us understand that this command from the Lord our God seeks to maintain the sanctity of the distinction between the sexes which was established by the creation of man and woman (Genesis 1:27).[4]
Conclusion:
Deuteronomy 22:5 prohibits men from dressing like women and women from dressing like men. God warns us to maintain the distinctions of the sexes that He created. This means that men must not wear long hair and women must not wear short hair like a men (Is it wrong for Christians to cut their hair?). Women are to dress like women and men are to dress like men. This does not mean that man cannot wear some article of clothing temporarily, such as wearing a woman’s coat to stay warm or vice versa. This does not mean that it is wrong for a woman to be bald if she loses her hair due to chemotherapy.
What God is prohibiting is an intentional blurring of the difference between men and women. Men are not to be transvestites or dress as woman for comical reasons. Men are to look like men and women are to look like women.
The answer to a previous question, “What does God say about men wearing earrings?” applies directly to your question. You may want to read it before you proceed.
Can Men Have Long Hair?
In an answer to a previous question we found that scripture prohibits men from looking like women and women from looking like men. This principle is applied to any practice that blurs the appearance of the sexes. For example, scripture says men can have long hair so long as it is not as long as women’s hair. Today most women wear their hair just above the shoulder. If we apply both principles together, they would indicate that men should keep their hair shorter than “just above the shoulder.” As culture changes, men and women need to avoid looking like the opposite sex. That is God’s principle! The priests were commanded to not shave their hair nor to grow their hair too long.
They must not shave their heads or let their hair grow long, but they are to keep the hair of their heads trimmed. Ezekiel 44:20 (NASB)
We are not sure what is meant by “grow long.” From 1 Corinthians 11:14-15, it appears that women had the longer hair.
Conclusion:
The principle in scripture is that men and women should avoid looking like one another. What a man and woman can wear will change as the culture changes.
My final thoughts
There has never been a country that has worked harder or employed more tools to change gender perceptions than CHINA! They are famous for Propaganda and employed it heavily to promote gender equality. Yet they were unsuccessful in changing they way that males and females are perceived by others or how they perceive themselves. Why? Because GENDER cannot be affected by outside sources of any kind.. even the most invasive surgery.
Gender and our perception of ourselves in general is a spiritual issue. We are affected spiritually by one of two sources, GOD and the ENEMY of our Soul. If we are right with GOD, all is well, we have peace and we have direction. If we are not right with GOD we are under the rule of Satan and his followers. We have no peace, we have no truth, we have confusion!! GOD is not the author of CONFUSION… SATAN IS!
Always remember that Satan preys on our weaknesses. Sex is one of the easiest places for him to find a foothold in our lives.
15 Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.
17And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.
ALL this insanity about people’s sexual “identity” and their right to be treated the way they see themselves is just another expression of sin. It is about individual people who put their own SELF above everything and everyone. They say they are trying to “find themselves” or that they are only being “true to themselves”. But, if you truly want to find yourself, turn to GOD. Surrender to HIM. Make HIM Lord in your life. He created YOU. He knows what makes you tick. He knows what will truly fulfill you. You will NEVER fill that void inside, until you turn to HIM! You were created with a purpose. You will be amazed at the great things that you will do and the joy that you will find when you allow GOD to work in and through YOU!
God wanted so much for you to understand this truth that he repeated it multiple times in His Gospels. THE GOOD NEWS!
John 12:24
24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.
25 He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.
26 If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my Father honour.
King James Version: Mark 8:35
Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.
35 For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s, the same shall save it.
36 For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
37 Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?
Matthew 10:39
Good News Translation
39 Those who try to gain their own life will lose it; but those who lose their life for my sake will gain it.
King James Version
39 He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.
Matthew 16:25
Good News Translation
25 For if you want to save your own life, you will lose it; but if you lose your life for my sake, you will find it.
King James Version 25 For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.
Luke 9:24
Good News Translation
24 For if you want to save your own life, you will lose it, but if you lose your life for my sake, you will save it.
King James Version 24 For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it.
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![Women take photos in front of a garden display to celebrate 70 years of the People's Republic of China. [Kelly Dawson/Al Jazeera]](https://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/imagecache/mbdxxlarge/mritems/Images/2019/9/27/12857ed86b1646e599c6dd5bc212d067_18.jpg "China women still battling tradition, 70 years after revolution")
