Inaugural Lecture Envisages a Genderless Society
Inaugural Lecture Envisages a Genderless Society
The School of Education’s Professor Shakila Singh’s inaugural lecture was entitled No Gender, No Violence.
Drawing on her research, Singh invited her audience to imagine a genderless world and its benefits. Gender-based violence has emerged as one of the most pressing ills of our time, sparking research into its causes, consequences and prevention.
‘Research shows that gender inequality and gender violence feed each other. Gender inequality is a key cause of gender violence and a major barrier to achieving gender equality,’ Singh said.
She argued that rigid, binary understanding of the concept of gender and its constructions contribute to the high levels of violence against girls, women and non-conforming individuals.
Gender is so deeply entrenched that it has come to be seen as natural and is used to explain almost everything. Singh stated that, while ‘a lot of hard work goes into addressing gender inequality and challenging harmful versions of masculinity and femininity, we need to challenge ourselves to think of a world without gender.’
She contended that degendering does not mean disregarding differences but rather acknowledging them and knowing that differences do not matter. It would reduce the socially constructed differences that create inequality.
Degendering involves recognising diversity by dismantling a rigid binary system comprising two opposite categories with unequal power and value that are at the heart of gender violence. Drawing on her research on gender and sexual violence in educational institutions, Singh noted that, ‘young people are entrapped within gendered and socially constructed discourses of romantic love which contribute to women’s commitment to forming and remaining in relationships, even if they are abusive. My findings also show that the dominant version of masculinity is an unsafe sexual identity which men must challenge. The overall findings show how dominant constructions of masculinities and femininities contribute to gender violence.’
The research highlights the need to disrupt notions of masculinity as being naturally dominant and femininity as being weak and submissive and challenge the ideas that perpetuate and promote gender norms that often result in and condone gender violence.
By dismantling the social divide between the sexes, society will be able to move towards gender neutrality and equality. Once it is understood that gender is socially constructed and not fixed, it will become possible to extinguish it.
Singh argued that, ‘dismantling gender would go a long way in reducing sexual violence which hinges on patterns of gender power.’ However, this is not an easy task as it is all that society knows. ‘It would mean thinking deeply about how our ideas about gender became common sense, and unlearning some of the fundamental beliefs that we were raised on. We need to pay attention to how we interact with one another, our language, how we raise our children, and what roles we attach to boys and girls. In a world without gender, differences are meaningless, and people would be encouraged to develop their full human potential. It would be a world where positive characteristics such as empathy, kindness, confidence, and assertiveness are encouraged, while those considered undesirable such as entitlement and aggressiveness are discouraged, and people who display them are helped to overcome them.
‘A world without gender would be a world with significantly less, if no gender violence,’ asserted Singh.
Words: Jennene Naidu
Photograph: Supplied
