Pecking order again...

It's curious to me how we can be told something and know it is true, yet not really "know" it until the proper experiences occur. I can know something is hot, say a stove burner, but I won't really "know" unless I touch it. This shows a distinct difference between our thinking and our knowing. Thinking is but a smidgeon of our total self. Thinking alone cannot comprehend reality.

All my life gender has been an issue that I have spent a great deal of time observing and studying. I assume it is an issue for everyone, although some are more or less aware of it than others. I spend almost all of my time with females because I wish to understand them. You don't come to understand females by hanging out with males. To me this is common sense. All my life I have been told boys should act one way and girls should act another. I hear this, I think it, but it was never actually true.  I have never been good at not being true to myself.  Being told I must be a certain way because I am male when I clearly feel/think/want to be another way has always been a serious issue in my life. Being raised to differentiate I have always thought in those terms: males and females. It never clicked like when I touch something hot and "know" it, to "know" there are no real social differences between males and females; until recently.

It took a highly social environment to realize this truth. The real truth is, there is no difference socially between males and females. There is a difference in anatomy, in biological make up, but socially there is no difference at all. The human being as a species is as diverse as can be. There are as many gay men as women, as many feminine acting men as masculine acting females.  I could go on and on with the list; there is a complete and diverse spectrum. And while it is true that we can point out all kinds of differences between genders I could also show that all of them are culturally imposed and they owe nothing to our evolutionary self. Gender identification starts early in children, before they are even able to realize they are even doing it. Your gender identification started before your memory developed. You were running on auto pilot without knowing it. People do it to their children without even knowing they are doing it.  Most quite purposefully enforce gender identification on children. It is a plague to human life.

A phenomenon that my friends and I discuss often when we are talking about females is the hating that goes on amongst females. Some females immediately know what I am saying, but some do not see it.  Or should I say they have not paid attention to it happening to them. Most do it and never give it a single thought.  Most hate and don't even realize why, they often think it is the silly superficial reason in their thoughts instead of giving it deeper thought.  It is hard to realize how limited thinking reallyl is on a day to day basis.  Anyways, one of the rules to social dynamics is that all women hate other women on a certain level. But why is this? Like I said, some women refuse to see it though.   I have noticed when I bring this up to some females they say it is not true. They would say that they have female friends that they do not hate and that do not hate them. Yes, this is true. But this doesn't change a thing. Of course females are going to have female friends that they do not hate…that is, until a guy or girl comes around that they both want sexually.

Guys do it too. And this is when I noticed what was really going on. I started paying closer attention to when and how the guys do it.  Males do it exactly the same as females.   They do it when they feel threatened about their significant other, this is when it is most obvious. If a guy feels secure about the girl he is with there won't be any relational aggression, but as soon as there is competition, speaking in psychological terms, he begins to act just like a female. Just like a female?

I think this distinction is the most difficult part of the conversation. With my opening claim, one cannot say something is female or male when both do everything equally. But coming out of the old way, I still find myself using the same old definitions. For example, when coming out of Christianity one finds himself saying god is a he even after learning there isn't a god. It is quite annoying but it shows how ingrained certain ideas and the language used to describe those ideas really can be. Some ideas, after the initial "knowing" take years to undo. Such is life.

So why is this happening? Why do all women seem to hate each other? Why do men suddenly become the same way if they are threatened by competition for their mate? It is called pecking order. We are exactly like the rest of the animal kingdom. Have you not seen the mating displays of other animals? The social happenings of animals that are competing for mates? Psychologists use a term called relational aggression; a non violent way to take power from one for one's self; causing others to lose social value. I know a lot of people who are stuck in this simply because it is all they have ever known.   It is all they ever will know.

But does it matter if they know or not? It is unavoidable regardless. Awareness of it does not make it go away, there is no fix for it, there is no cure. Pecking order is part of being a human animal. We are primates after all. No matter where you go, or what you do, if other people are around, the phenomenon of pecking order is occurring. It is in all of nature, even plants.   It doesn't stop when you get married.  It doesn't stop when you get old, or sick.  It doesn't stop if you go into a coma.  If you are alive and breathing you are pecking for order. 

There is no difference between guys and girls socially; there is only a difference in where guys and girls are within the social network and the way in which they have been incultured. Here in America females are pretty much from birth taught that they are secondary, that their mates will be a certain way and are thus permanently locked in a fight for a top seat in the pecking order; i.e. the female with the best male. Most I know do not even know it is going on they are so unaware.

For a better understanding of gender in America I strongly recommend reading "The Dance of the Dissident Daughter" by Sue Monk Kidd.  It is a thoroughly researched book, well written, that approaches the issue from a woman's perspective.   A woman who was most of her life a Christian, a Baptist no less.  It is amazing in its ability to open ones eyes.