Could Androgyny Eradicate Sexism?

I realize that for this to even be an inkling of a plan, every human individual would have to commit to androgyny, or some form of it.

The other night I went out with a friend and her family for her birthday dinner. As we sat at the table, the waiter referred to me as "bud." I'm still unclear about whether he just thought I was a male, or a young boy (the more likely possibility). It was an enlightening experience when I realized that I wasn't offended in the least, and actually, it was my first "passing" for something other than my biological sex since I've come out as gender-fluid/queer, whatever you want to call it. If I can pass for a man, or even a boy, I think I'm okay with that. Unfortunately, things escalated in a negative way from there. One of my friend's family members commented on my androgyny, and claimed that at first, he "didn't know whether it was a boy or a girl." This is something I get a lot from small children, and I'm fine with that. If I can give children a reason to question their perception of gender at such a young age, I'm doing something no one ever did for me. I don't see that as a corruption of innocence, I see it more as a chance to grow, for them and myself.

But this was a full-grown man. And not just once. He referred to me as "it" probably five times in the first twenty minutes of this dinner.

While I have no problem with being called a woman, girl, man or boy, I most certainly do have a problem with being called it. It, to me, implies a lack of humanity. Or maybe sterilization - I usually think of how people refer to my dogs once they find out they're neutered and spayed. "It" is used to objectify, to denote "thingness;" I am not a thing, and as a Jewish, Latina, lesbian, woman, gender-fluid, student, retail worker - I am objectified enough on the daily to not care for being called "it." This very objectification is what often leads to violence - violence against women, violence against the disabled, violence against trans* and queer individuals, violence against those members of ethnic minorities. By making them seem less than human, we are saying it's okay to treat them as less than human, even though it isn't. The funny thing is, as an it, I still was treated better and seen more as "one of the guys" than had I been a she when I first arrived. I was involved in conversation, I wasn't carded for my drink, and I was shown "respect" by the waitstaff and even those I was in attendance with. I was invited to talk about football and relationships and alcohol. But what if I didn't want this? I didn't go into this new phase of my identity in order to steal male privilege, and I often feel uncomfortable if and when I receive it. But how can we rest on the boundary between male and female, between oppressor and oppressed, without stealing privilege or betraying our feminine roots, without being referred to as a thing?

I find it hard to bring any of this up in a normal conversation - normal being someone heteronormative, identifying within binary gender identities, someone who fulfills a hegemonic ideal - even when things like "it" do come up. For instance, I couldn't bring myself to ask this man to use gender-neutral pronouns, because would he even understand it or abide by it? At what level does it become necessary to demand a name, a personhood, a right to existing as someone more than it? What do I do if it isn't safe? What if I ask this person to use gender-neutral pronouns, and in his confusion and misunderstanding, he perceives me as that "thing" he unknowingly dubbed me as, and becomes scared of all that I represent?

I'm not at all saying that as one person, I have this profound effect on those around me. But the chances do concern me.

Could a universal state of androgyny solve this? In this sense, I don't mean androgyny as a complete eradication of gender necessarily, but rather embracing both masculine and feminine qualities and living in a dual body. What if we didn't have to choose between boy or girl, and what if the biological sex we are prescribed at birth had nothing to do with who we were? If there were no masculine "men" and "feminine" women, would sexism as we know it, cease to exist? What would the new order look like? We typically see things like this in futuristic literature, and it tends to lead to one of two extremes - dystopian chaos, or utopian bliss. Are these really the only options? In a world without solidified gender roles, do we really have to either collapse upon ourselves or head directly into a kind of paradise? Is there another option?

I find I am happiest when I am perceived to be someone in between the worlds of male and female. To know something about both oppressor and oppressed is to know something about the dynamics of the universe itself. I wear a yin-yang ring on my left ring finger, and I have every day for five years. It reminds me that there is always a duality in everything I do - even within myself. I am good and bad, male and female, holy and a sinner, wise and foolish, big and small. It also reminds me that I am a part of something much larger than myself. While I exist inside myself, and in my community, I also exist within a large student body, a city, a state, a country and a world. I am only as much of an individual as I allow myself to be, but even in this large groups, I am still singular and powerful in that individualism, as powerful as I am in a collective body.

There is a separate sort of privilege that comes with androgyny and fluidity, a special kind of knowing. If we could magically apply the concept of androgyny (and not just gender- or sex-specific, but even race-androgyny) to everyone, what would be left to fight over? We commonly identify our enemies by their differences, whether in appearances or behavior. If we saw no differences, and there was no way to define what is "normal" in either of these respects, what would the world be like? What would it look like? Would it be a mass of faceless people, or a crowd of individuals living fully as themselves, without the restrictions placed on them by their gender?