sapphireblu
I'm really not an academic feminist. At all.
And I see exactly where you're coming from in your post.
There is no doubt the patriarchal systems are prevalent, and have always been. Backed up by any ideology they can get their hands on, including religion.
The feminist theory is that women are oppressed for their biological labour, emotional and sexual labour.
Which sounds like some kind of mad conspiracy to non-feminists. But is quite easily backed up by laws where women were property, and had no autonomy over their own bodies, etc. Social transgressions and disobedience were all severely punished.
So you have the reason they want to dominate (women's abour) and how they dominate (laws, religion) and the ever present threat of violence as the leverage.
I absolutely agree that sex drive is behind a lot of it. And testosterone, apparently, is the culprit.
Creating a higher libido and a more risk seeking attitude.
All of which gives them the opportunity to create a culture where they are entitled to women and women are subordinate.
And in return they will protect us. Which just sounds like the biggest protection racket ever!
It's feminism, I believe, which looks at ways to redress this. Radical feminism would like to dismantle the entire system, which would be an uphill struggle given the socialisation/'nature due to hormones' of men. But that's no reason not to embrace the theory.
Meanwhile, we can, absolutely address the socialisation of men and women. And are.
Hence all the equality laws.
That's the paperwork.
And then there's the culture.
Claiming that men and women are innately completely different isn't just a fact of idle speculation. It's used and exploited, over and over.
In major ways and subtle ways.
Cry like a girl.
Because only girls cry, and crying is weak. And weak is bad.
Women's work.
Drive like a woman.
We just end up being thought of as lesser than.
We are barely out of the times where but she's a woman^! carried a whole host of negative connotations.
Well actually, we are still in it. You just can't say it out loud. Much.
So addressing the reinforcement of men as leaders or heroes and women as decorative and compliant needs to be done on the most basic level. At school. And in homes.
Studies have shown that identical behaviour is judged differently when displayed by a male or female. Even in utero.
A strongly kicking baby, for instance. If it is known it is a boy, people tend to say oh you've got a footballer there. But if it's a girl, they say oh she's going to be trouble!
I understand why gender neutral is becoming a thing. It's trying to dismantle the highly gendered, consumer society that has emerged over the last 20 years or so.
When women are buying two pushchairs because the pink one they had for their daughter doesn't suit now they've given birth to a son, it's crazy. It just means Mothercare gets to sell two prams.
So in terms of consumer goods, I think gender neutrality is a good idea. It stops children being pushed into a gender box, that's dictated by retailers.
I can understand people wanting to be treated as gender neutral. So much of our treatment of others is based around our expectations based on their sex.
(I don't think we should be blind to their sex. Men commit 98% of all sexually violent crime. We have to be able to acknowledge that.)
I did meet somebody, who identified as gender neutral or non-binary, and I honestly could not tell if they were male or female. It gradually dawned on me as they continued to talk and gesticulate.
But I had an initial moment of recognisable panic which I later analysed. And was very humbled to realise it was because I didn't know how to treat them.
So I have absolutely no trouble believing that we send subconscious and subliminal signals all the time to each other and to our children. So a concerted effort to not do that, sounds like a good idea to me.