Gender is like a field of sheep
I spent a long time struggling to work out what I thought about gender, and even longer working out how to explain it to others. Happily this sheep metaphor appeared in my brain at some point. It goes down pretty well! Hope you enjoy it too.
Imagine a big countryside landscape. There are grassy fields, woods, hills, lakes, rocky parts, shady parts, all sorts. It's a place where sheep live. In the landscape, there are two big pens with wooden fences, and a lot of sheep in each one. Both pens are on grassy fields, and are in quite different places. One pen is the pen that 'boy sheep' have been put in, and the other is the pen that 'girl sheep' have been put in.
The different parts of the landscape represent different ways of doing gender and sex, encompassing biological, psychological and social parts (gender and sex are just blurry areas on this bio-psycho-social spectrum). Maybe one lake represents having dyed pink hair and playing the bass guitar. Maybe one part of the field next to the girl pen represents watching football with your lady friends, talking about skincare routines and how much of a legendary shagger you are. One side of a stream can be the 'I have boobs' side, and the other can be the 'I have no boobs' side. And maybe there's an 'ambiguously boobed' island too.
Most of the sheep seem quite happy in their pens, but its hard for them to know if they're really happy there or just making do. It's impossible to know really, when they don't feel able to try anything else. "That's just how it is," they say.
To me, my aim is to open all the gates to the pens. If sheep want to stay there, they're welcome to. If they want to wander a bit, they can. If they want to live somewhere else, that's ok too. Maybe they're confident it will be their home forever, or maybe they're just going with the flow.
Just outside the boy pen is a he/they sheep. He quite likes the area in general, but likes having a little wander. Sometimes he's in the pen area, sometimes he's not. Some people know them as them.
We can still use the labels 'boy' and 'girl' to refer to rough areas, but now they are like points on a map rather than boxes to be in. You can say 'I'm going to head off in the direction of girl for a bit and see what it's like over there. Wanna join?'.
Parent sheep can look at their kids and be like, "ok I think it will like being in this area", but be willing to let it explore for itself.
Some sheep like being by themselves in their area, and others like being in big groups. Some like a bit of both.
As a bonus, this metaphor can be applied to anything where you're trying to move from strict, fixed labels to a free, exploratory, curious alternative. Try it with:
- Relationship styles
- Jobs
- Political affiliations
- Religion
- Aesthetic preferences
- Sexuality
