Gender issues are seen more and more in the mainstream these days and unsurprisingly they set men against women, offer no clear definitions and simply promote confusion. Yet, if we wish to be more aware or more conscious as human beings we need to understand these gender.

Furthermore, gender issues affect us all as an important component of self understanding. We can also benefit from learning to communicate better with our partners and the other 50% of the population.

Darren Christopher Deojee has spent over 20 years studying the topic and presents the knowledge he has gained through his extensive experience in this interview. Many topics are addressed in this episode, but the topic is so big that we could not cover all the issues.

Gender Basics

Gender is generally considered to be the behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits typically associated with men and women. According to Chris there are two biological sexes with three main categories of orientation – towards same sex (homosexual), towards the complementary sex (heterosexual) or both (bi-Sexual). He says that generally orientation denotes gender, and orientation can be towards the masculine or the feminine or both. However he considers there to be two bonafide genders indicated by orientation. Orientation is in turn determined by preference.

Just some of the Gender Issues

* Feminism (in all its forms).

* The call for equality between the sexes including equal pay.

* The growing number of claimed ‘genders’ and the pressure to recognise them.

* Children being told that they cannot trust their genitals to determine their sex/gender!

* Gender violence.

* Relationship breakdown and high rates of divorce.

* Is something wrong with men?

* Feminised men and masculine women.

* The lack of male role models.

* Communication problems between men and women and people in general.

It is a subject in which I have little experience, but Chris did a great job of enlightening me during our conversation. I hope you get the same light bulb experience from listening to this conversation.  He did make one correction after the interview to his explanation of gender saying that gender is orientation to “the two Bona fide genders of masculine and feminine.”

The Interview

These timings are approximate for the Youtube video. For the Podcast add 25 seconds for the intro.

05:00 – disinformation and revisionism due to confirmation bias

* 05:10 – Intersectionality: oxforddictionaries.com defines it as “The view that women experience oppression in varying configurations and in varying degrees of intensity. Cultural patterns of oppression are not only interrelated, but are bound together and influenced by the intersectional systems of society. Examples of this include race, gender, class, ability, and ethnicity.”

* 07:05 – behavioural preferences referred to as genders (adding confusion).

* 07:53 – Gender as something stable and fertile

* 08:55 – Gender as orientation

* 09:00 – A third sex (intersex/hermaphrodite). This concept is something of a bow to political correctness and it is being used to muddy the waters and create the illusion of a spectrum of genders.

* 10:10 – whatever you feel these days can now be defined as a gender (?)

* 10:20 – There are many preferences (could be called fetishes) but there are 3 main categories of orientation: 1) Heterosexual; a man or woman attracted to the complimentary sex, 2) Homosexual; a man or woman attracted to the same sex, 3) Bisexual; a man or woman attracted to both sexes.

* 10:40 – Attraction denoted orientation; Orientation can be used to describe gender

* 11:10 – Gender is not fixed

* 11:35 – Masculine and feminine as characteristics of the sexes