The January 2017 issue of National Geographic is a special one entitled “Gender Revolution.” On p. 3, Gloria Steinem is quoted as saying “I suppose getting rid of the idea of gender [is the most pressing issue today]. You know living in India was a revelation because I came to understand that there were old languages that didn’t have gender—that didn’t have “he” and “she.” The more polarized the gender roles, the more violent the society. The less polarized the gender roles, the more peaceful the society. We are each unique and individual human beings. We are linked: we are not ranked. The idea of race and the idea of gender are divisive.”
According to The National Geographic Society, which is, by its own account, a scientific organization that promotes and searches for truth, both in the biological and social spheres, Steinem is “one of the world’s leading feminists.” Her advice to boys and girls is to “trust the unique voice inside them.” And, apparently, that “voice” will tell them if they are a girl or a boy, regardless of the appearance of their sex organ or what dad and mom thought they were at birth. But how reliable is it to ask a 9 year old if they are a boy or a girl if the advantages of one over the other seems significant?
National Geographic has an agenda: it is overtly evolutionary in all respects, casting aside any ideas of creation unless, of course, unless they are presented as myths and unscientific stories. They want to be on the cutting edge and the matter of gender is certainly acerbic through our society.
The magazine is therefore quite beside itself to speak authoritatively on “gender” as a social construct and that it has nothing to do with the way God made us. In their view, we decide to be men or women, almost despite the chromosomes we are born with. Our gender decisions can be altered by culture and, I might add, politics. For it is political suicide to suggest that God made men and women and that it is our race (another forbidden word) that has decided men can be women and women can be men, or that swapping is comprehendible.
How can Steinem be quoted as an expert on gender and “old languages”? Her observations are naïve and incomplete. We lived for years with a group of people that she would probably call primitive and who had only one third person pronoun for “he/she/it” in their language The word is ipu in one dialect and nipu in another. But there was no difficulty in knowing the gender of the referent. If I heard “nipu is pregnant,” I knew it was a woman; if I heard “nipu went to get firewood in the bush,” I knew it was a man. The gender was clear by the context in which the pronoun occurred. Further, the Kewa (of whom I am referring) of the Southern Highlands in Papua New Guinea were not the peaceful people that their pronouns should have made them. The Kewa are part of a large family of languages and none of them were peaceful, but all had just one third person, singular pronoun.
My example will not show up in National Geographic because it does not fit the gender agenda—and of course I am not famous, and who cares about examples from a layman? I think, however, it is the lay person—the “common man” (to use an expression that is necessary, rather than the “common humankind”)—knows what I am talking about. There is, indeed, such a thing as “gender” and it is obvious even in the LGBTQ community, which classifies themselves according to their “particular” gender roles.
This conclusion is obvious and sometimes even funny. Some time ago we were watching “Wheel of Fortune,” the so-called “America’s Game” in which a man referred to his male “husband” in the audience. However, when he went to the bonus round, Pat Sajak, the host, did not hold his hand, like he always does with a “woman” when he leads “him” to the spot where contestants stand. In other words, Pat did not treat him like he did a “woman”, even though he was, supposedly, the “wife” of the other “man” in the audience. Shame on you Pat!
We now have transsexuals who want to decide who they are before they go to a public bathroom. If they have decided they are a “girl”, even though they have male sexual organs, they can go with the girls. The government under Obama even stepped in: all public toilet facilities—including those in schools—have to be designated as “boy/girl”. And I would imagine the shower facilities in schools will have to follow suit. Churches will be next.
This is what happens when we ignore the fact that God created men and women, not in-betweens or imply that He was confused about gender. He knew what he was doing, even if our culture and National Geographic do not.