Where are Femininity and Masculinity from?

Opinion Piece by Hien Mai Tran

Although the two terms may have originated from the two biological sexes, I think their representations, ie character traits, possess more transcendental significance and are not at all determined by our biological sex. While gender expressions vary from culture to culture, I think we, as a species, have quite similar notions on which traits fall under the femininity umbrella and which the masculine one. That is, we may disagree on “what is a man/woman supposed to be like?”, yet we could quite agree if I say sensitivity belongs to the feminine side and possessiveness the masculine side. Still, it’s not possible to categorize every trait into these two groups. Therefore, I shall introduce the A group, and it can either be the “a” in “asexuality” or “arbitrary”. I came up with this from a recent chat with my friend, where he tried to make sense of how our femininity/masculinity determines the people to whom we are attracted. He maintains that the more masculine you are, the more feminine the person you feel attracted to is. Some people (magically?) have such a balance between these two sides that they don’t feel the need to be with anyone else, they’re fine loving themself (the grounds here is that humans need love). That was where I sparked an objection: But it would be equally plausible to say they have neither a feminine side nor a masculine side to love themself. And I recalled something I have read about metamorphosis in clownfish. They are all born males and live in groups consisting of dominant males and females. When the female dies, the dominant male changes sex to become the dominant female and another becomes the dominant male. It is the environmental condition that triggers this differentiation. I won’t go into the mechanism, but this metamorphosis gives me some hints about the development of femininity and masculinity. My hypothesis is that they are not born into us, but developed. Since something as tangible as testes and ovaries can just transform into a living body, why can’t character traits? I know it’s obvious that our character traits alter constantly, but what I’m trying to establish here is that they are determined solely by the environment and not genetics. What happened was that we were born with only traits that belong to the A group, then the environment shapes our femininity and masculinity.

But what is it that ensures the development of femininity and masculinity? The fact that we are social animals, that is we need each other’s company to prosper. I realize how these traits are merely our reactions to the world, ie you are sensitive or possessive toward something, in short, you need an object to form any trait. Therefore, one begins to shape their femininity and masculinity when they come in contact with other people. Yet it is easy for humans to project positive/negative connotations onto a character trait, leading to one suppressing the side deemed to belong to the other sex (cf. C. G. Jung’s ideas of the anima/animus), which can in turn affect the development of your traits as well. What I’m trying to say is that the development has to do with the environment, that is how people around you perceive gender roles and not your genetics. I have another (work-in-progress) idea about how love can really amplify your character traits. Do you get more sensitive or possessive toward your loved ones?

Although my hypothesis is not carefully developed yet, I hope this little fragment of thought makes (some) sense to you. There are still plot holes, inevitably, but you can consider those free spaces to voice constructive criticism.