Many moons ago, I awoke from a fever dream with the sudden and baseless desire to create a Tumblr account.  So I did.  I’m not sure why I took this action; maybe it was the result of many of my friends having accounts on this website.  Peer pressure has always been a convincing argument, so we’ll go with that.  Right, so upon the completion of the details of my account, it occurred to me that I’d likely not be using this account for months to come.  Turns out I was right- I’ve not utilized the account since its creation, and only now, due to my sudden realization of the utility of a blog and my growing distance from the portrayal of society, am I utilizing it again.  Coincidentally, I have once more awoken from a fever dream.  Some things don’t change.

Right, so I promised a rant, and I don’t like making promises I can’t keep, so I suppose we can get to that now.  So as of late, I’ve noticed more and more events of social injustices occurring around me and culminating in the back of my mind, endlessly evolving and aging in a manner similar to that of fine wine.  Up until now, these have mostly been wasted with their expression in the form of disappointingly primal teenage angst.  As such, I’ve decided to actually make use of my experiences and offer what audience may come my point of view on the subject.

Now, this subject is a lot like the long-running racial inequality issues that surrounded my parents and their parents alike, but different in that it’s from the point of view of a high school student.  That, dear reader, is the ever-present subject of gender-related issues.  In some manner, I’ve been affected by all sorts of biasing issues, but none of these have laid the biggest footprint on myself (as well as virtually every individual in this society) as bias of individuals based on their gender.  Granted, I make every attempt to be as unbiased as possible, but having been the conscious owner of a penis for nearly 17 years, there’s going to be some inexplicable bias here and there, try as I might to avoid making such mistakes.  So, I’ve kept you waiting long enough- let’s get on with this.

For as long as you or I or anybody can remember, there have been traits associated with genders that have just been accepted and passed on through generations.  To me, this is not a matter of truth and experience so much as it is putting meanings to words, and basing these definitions solely on the worst perceptible habits shared by multiple members of the same sex.  Put in perspective, this makes exactly as much sense as organizing the food pyramid based on how good a food group tastes rather than its nutritional content.  Were the food pyramid to be grouped in that manner, society would likely have not met the advancement it has today due to issues that would arise from such a mistake being made.  The same goes for these gender issues, except unlike chocolate versus cabbage, there is no clear winner; in fact, both parties fall just as hard onto their faces in the scheme of it all.  On one side, we have the men; vitriolic, abusive, perverse, and corrupt.  On the other, we have women; scheming, controlling, volatile, and caustic.  You, the reader, know that there are some men and women who fit into these molds, but you also are aware that very few people you know fit these completely; granted, they likely will share some of the qualities they are portrayed to have, but that is far more a matter of individual personality than gender.  Of course, every so often, the tables will turn completely and we will have men and women who fit their counterpart’s negative mold!  Once again, an issue of individuality.

Thanks to the worst portrayals of these characters and their recursion in some of our individuals, the molds have stuck; the media will fuel this further by giving us immediate access to deceitful and cheating men and unnaturally passive-aggressive women.  However, the media makes no attempt to explain that these characters are not representative of their genders- these characters are simply some of the most distastefully marketable iterations of people you could meet!

Granted, there is some sad truth in these characters that reflects us, even if it is a manner of how our own genders will play by their own rules or how obviously these aspects of our psyches will shine through.  But in no way does this represent the population of either gender!  Were we not to have any form of individuality, these might just be true, but individuality is exactly what sets us apart from one another.

Back to me for a second.  As stated earlier, I make every attempt to be unbiased.  In a world full of horror and corruption, I want to try my best to be the most outstanding person I can be- that said, I fail as often as anyone; I am not the best person I can be, but it’s never stopped me from trying.  I want to be the best person I can be so that this world may be better off when I have died than it was when I was born; that in somebody’s eyes, I can restore a glimmer of hope in humanity lost to the deceitful snakes who run our society; that I may make some lucky woman my wife and show her firsthand how wonderful our world could be.  I seek to spread the message of equality and love so that we can set aside our differences and all evolve and conglomerate to become an overall better human race.  I have friends who fit these molds.  I don’t love them any less for them (though I do still penalize them on occasion for it), as we’re all human.  I’m human, even though I do my best not to be; I am not comfortable with being a human myself, even though I accept it in others.  From your point of view, I could be the most devious combination of self-consciousness and self-righteousness.  You could be right, or you could be wrong, but you’re likely somewhere in between.  I don’t judge people based on their color, or their religion, or their class.  Everyone is a person.

Let’s take for example one of my friends.  Her name is Rose.  She’s one year my senior, enjoys the theater, is full of vitality and wit, and she can come up with some of the most entertaining conversations, provided you’re all right with a healthy dose of chaos now and again.  Now let me tell you something else about Rose: she is of African-American descent.  Do you see her any differently than I described her?  Does this affect who she is as a person?  Assuming you’re a well-rounded individual, the short answer is: of fucking course it doesn’t change who she is.  Skin color has no basis in who you are, except in the sense that it can affect your culture and family history.  The color if your skin is not decided by you upon conception, nor is your culture or family history.  It makes an absolutely minimal difference on who you are.  You have no decision or say in it; you are today who you were when you were born, albeit with more character and enhanced cognitive and motor skills.  The same goes for whether you are a man or a woman; hormones make a difference in your base personality, but you can be whoever.

The difference here lies in who we’re expected to be.  From a young age, we’re expected to talk to certain social groups and play with certain toys, evolving into diluted half-persons more based around chromosomes than character.  Boys have to hide their emotions in order to fit in with their peers.  Girls have to be fashionable in order to be socially accepted.  The fact of the matter is that we’re forced to be these people from a young age and not only shapes us for better or for worse, but it continues the lasting impression that we’re all the same.  We’re all just drones to one another.

Once again, I am a member of the male half of the population.  All my life, I have been not only as respectful as I could have been to women, but I transposed that same respect to men.  I wanted to be respectful to everyone, unless I could jokingly get away with ribbing my closer friends.  I wanted to see the good in everyone.  I still do my best to see people for their best qualities and not to judge them for it.  I have guy friends and lady friends.  They both crack caustic jokes at one another when they see fit, and these are often based on genders.  I crack no such jokes, opting instead to create a less biased brand of humor.  I guess you could say I’m not like those other men.

But wait- who are those other men?  And who are those women?  There are no such people.  “Those” is a weasel word in this case; those other men are all the same; those other women are all the same.  The fact is that ‘those’ people do not exist; we are not drones- we are individuals, who all think and feel differently.

Granted, we still have people who fit these molds; we have spiteful men who will hurt women and equally spiteful women who will hurt men, both with whatever means necessary and however they see fit.  These men and women operate on gender-based playing fields.  The fact is that these are not men and women- these are overgrown boys and girls who will never look beyond the division between boys and girls, looking to bring the two sides to common ground.  The fact is that these playing fields do not exist; that these are one field, and it is level all the way across, yet it is cluttered still with the hate of players who won’t play by the rules.  The fact is that men and women, on a psychological level, are not all that different from one another- we’re all individuals, but each of us is as well-rounded as the one before us.  So with these facts in mind, I ask you this final question:

In a world where we are taught this golden rule as children, this rule that tells us to treat others with respect, where so many of us test that golden rule and proceed to have it backfire or ignore it completely and fall on our faces, where so many of us grow to accept that we’re all different people, yet some of us are more different than others, where we all attempt to treat these people with the same respect, but so often fail to bridge the gap so that we are all scarred with the stigma of inequality and bias based on social groups, why do so many of us seem to grow out of respect at some point?  Why must we have a society and a correspondent culture that is so heavily based in the fault in our perceptions of one another?  Why must we endure all this madness-induced pain that is so frequently and consistently inflicted upon every aspect of not only my being, and not only your being, but the being of virtually every human who has graced this Earth yet?

Why can’t we all just get along?