Gender is Not Binary

he gender binary is the artificial division of the world into things that are "masculine" or "for men" and things that are "feminine" or "for women". One of the starkest ways to think of this is to consider the phrase "opposite sexes/genders" (as opposed to "different sexes/genders"), when both men and women are human beings with fundamentally many more commonalities than differences. The division is artificial in several ways: much of it is very clearly socially constructed. For example,...

 Science is Egalitarian

In the laboratory there are no fustian ranks, no brummagem aristocracies; the domain of Science is a republic, and all its citizens are brothers and equals, its princes of Monaco and its stonemasons of Cromarty meeting, barren of man-made gauds and meretricious decorations, upon the one majestic level!

 Humans are Equal

While we maintain the unity of the human species, we at the same time repel the depressing assumption of superior and inferior races of men. There are nations more susceptible of cultivation, more highly civilized, more ennobled by mental cultivation than others—but none in themselves nobler than others. All are in like degree designed for freedom.

 Herschel's Sister was Cheaper than a Male Assistant

Herschel made no bones about the fact that a female assistant, even his sister, would cost half as much as a male. It is possible to be indignant about this, but contemporary standards must be taken into account. Female domestic servants were paid £10 per annum, while a highly trained governess like Mary Wollstonecraft was paid £40 per annum by Lord Kingsborough in 1787. In fact a £60 stipend would have been handsome, exactly one-fifth of that paid to the Astronomer Royal. In Europe women ...

 The Disparity Between Mothers and Fathers in Raising Chil...

Women spend a whopping 39 hours per week performing work related to child care. Today’s dad spends about half that—21.7 hours a week. This is usually couched as good news, too, for it is triple the amount of time guys spent with kids in the ’60s. Yet no one would call this equal, either. It is also still true that about 40 percent of dads spend two hours or less per workday with their kids, and 14 percent spend less than an hour. This imbalance in workload—along with financial confl...