Editorial

by Katherine Cummings

(The Gender Centre advise that this article may not be current and as such certain content, including but not limited to persons, contact details and dates may not apply. Where legal authority or medical related matters are cited, responsibility lies with the reader to obtain the most current relevant legal authority and/or medical publication.)

Humankind has from time immemorial made laws and rules of conduct, some of which (pitifully few) were based on reason and most of which were based in ignorance, prejudice and a wish to assert superiority (moral, military, social) over others.

Ignorant of the physical laws of nature they attributed supernatural qualities to phenomena such as thunder and lightning, pestilence and volcanoes. They fenced themselves about with rules which may have had sensible origins (such as dietary rules against eating shellfish or pigs) but no longer apply in administrations which control hygiene and food quality.

They attributed their own successes and failures to nonexistent deities and strove to placate these imaginary creatures by inventing ceremonials and taboos, sacrifices and penances.

The area of taboos alone is one of mindless illogicality and pitiful willingness to accept rules imposed by parents, guardians and governments without questioning their validity or their purpose in the real world.

Take the case of taboos. In virtually every society the world has known there have been taboos ... words to be avoided, relationships to be eschewed, parts of the body deemed improper. There are tribes where it is considered immoral for a man to speak with his wife's mother. There are cultures where breaking wind in a public gathering is so shameful that the culprit is expected to commit a painful suicide. There are words in our own society which are thought to be "crude", "dirty" or "obscene". Why?

Because that is the way things have been for a long time and because the elders of our society and those who feel they are authorised to set "standards" say so.

Any word is exactly as moral as any other, unless one lives by these strange and meaningless rules that attribute power to one set of words and not to others. Words may be appropriate or inappropriate, they may be arcane or obsolete through changing usage, but they do not have the kind of semi-magical power attributed to them by mindless convention.

It is deemed morally necessary to conceal some parts of the body in some places, or during some activities and from certain individuals. Exposure of genitalia and the mammary glands of women is frowned on in our society yet there are cultures in many parts of the world where nudity is accepted calmly, and clothing is seen as protection against the elements, or as decoration. Convention? Magic? Custom? Prescription? Lack of thought.

Nor are taboo laws immutable. A Victorian woman could not show her ankles without risking inflaming the baser desires of men. Why ankles and not elbows? Surely mankind has progressed past the point of giving way to uncontrollable passion in the presence of unclothed members of the opposite sex? Surely we can expect people who have accepted a set of laws of conduct to live by those laws and not fall back on the rapist's and homophobe's defence of irresistible provocation?

Part of the problem is the hangover of laws which were based on religious, rather than moral, motivation. Morality is not hard to distil. It basically comes back to the Golden Rule ("do unto others ...") and to Lemed Hand's aphorism ... "your right to swing your fist stops just short of my nose." Social justice goes further in recognising the self-evident truth that all men (and women) are created equal (leave aside the moot point of there being a Creator in the capital "C" sense), and in suggesting that a just society "takes from each according to his means and gives to each according to his needs".

Many of the injustices suffered by mankind also involve "pecking order", the notion that you can better yourself, if only in your self-esteem, by considering someone else to be your inferior. If humanity did not feel it necessary to compete rather than co-operate, many of the social and international conflicts which deny our common humanity could be resolved. We have one world and one human race (racism is an oxymoron). If we set out to help rather than exploit those cultures which lag in areas of health, education and welfare, we would become a just society and not just a society.

What does this have to do with us? It has everything to do with us because we are seen as lower in the pecking order than the non-transgendered. No matter how many laws are passed to assert our rights, the truth is that we will continue to be disadvantaged, denied goods, services and employment, refused basic human rights and the right to live without fear. We have made significant progress in the past century and the few years of the present one thanks to a few brave activists but there is much to do and it is our responsibility and our right to do it.

Polare is published in Australia by The Gender Centre Inc. which is funded by the Department of Community Services under the S.A.A.P. Program and supported by the N.S.W. Health Department through the AIDS and Infectious Diseases Branch. Polare provides a forum for discussion and debate on gender issues. Advertisers are advised that all advertising is their responsibility under the Trade Practices Act. Unsolicited contributions are welcome, though no guarantee is made by the Editor that they will be published, nor any discussion entered into. The editor reserves the right to edit such contributions without notification. Any submission which appears in Polare may be published on our internet site. Opinions expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect those of the Editor, The Gender Centre Inc.I, the Department of Community Services or the N.S.W. Department of Health.