The Western world has
considerably changed. My country has considerably changed. We have apparently become
convinced, for the most part, that sex and gender no longer matter, that the feminine and the masculine are the very
same.
In February 2013, the UK and France
passed a law to change the institution of marriage which was initially supposed
to be a contract binding together a man and a woman, the two elements necessary
to the creation of another human being, male or female.
Now, marriage is no longer the
union of a couple, but of pairs too. Yes, semantically it makes a difference,
at least in the French language. A couple is a combination of two different
elements, (often masculine and feminine) and a pair a combination of two
similar elements (pair of scissors, pair of trousers, and so on.)
Therefore, from now on, French
law considers that gender no longer has relevance, that masculine and feminine do
not exist, and that two women and two men are just the same as a man and a
woman. And this, despite the fact that science will never prove, not even support
such claims. Now, you marry one person to another person, regardless of their
sex, regardless of their gender.
There is no differentiation
between the sexes and between genders, they are all the same. However they are
still highly unequal. Women are
still paid less for the same work, are still doing more housework than men and
still surfer more violence than man (and that just the most cliché and basic social
injustices).
I would have loved for all these
government to be less demagogic and more pragmatic. What do we really need to build
equality between the sexes? Same-sex marriage? That’s what you think? For all
that I know, such useless law does not even strengthen equality between two men
and two women. Instead, I would have loved to see them claim back the rule of
law, the active implementation of all the brilliant laws that have been made to
enhance gender equality, to protect the oppress, to share the wealth and promote
social justice all these laws that still remain poorly enforced. Now, we
can more about silly and useless laws that for months distract our parliaments
from the real issues, while also taking away the attention of the general
public from what really matters. What’s wrong with us?
On top of it, it makes me feel
that children are now even more considered as items and mere merchandise in our
societies. I am saying this because I have
never been a big fan of growing humans in test-tubes in order to merely give
satisfaction to the individualist humans who cannot accept the fact they cannot
have children. As if people were saying “It’s my right to have children and no one can take this away from me...”
Here goes the claim of the selfish individualist, the empty consumption-driven individual
who makes up our “modern” and “civilized” societies.
But let us get back to the
implications of the confusion around same-sex marriage... On the one hand, the
government, and (apparently?) a majority within Western society, consider that
sex and gender no longer matter, that despite being male and female, it is in
fact all the same, even though they remains highly unequally treated across societies
and cultures worldwide.
However, on the other hand, other
parts of society, often the conservative parts of society, the right-winged
parts of the society and the religious parts of society have a problem with
this and refuse to accept that sexes and
genders are the same. These parts of society also reveal interesting facts.
Indeed, these various conservative
parts are also the ones that call Muslims backward and unjust to women, and who
want to see Muslims shackled and prevented from expressing their identities and
from performing their acts of worships and other rituals. Yet, Muslims are considered
as highly conservative regarding same-sex marriage, thus having more in common
with those who reject them.
Conservatives believe that a
family unit is composed of a couple
able (or not) to conceive children without a third person entering the unit. They
believe that a man and a woman give balance to a family unit. In France in
particular, when a couple gets married they receive a “livret de famille”, a family notebook, which proves that marriage is more than a civil union/partnership,
it is the foundation of the family unit.
The usual argument against this
claim is that a pair of men or a pair of women may be fitter to raise a kid
than a man and a woman. Of course, all humans regardless of their sex are
different (psychologically and intellectually for instance) and some may
completely fail as parents. But that’s really not what’s important here, and
not what I am here to discuss.
The point I am trying to make
here is that those who have been fighting Muslims for voicing out loud their
belief that men and women are different, are now in the streets claiming the
very same belief as Muslims. Indeed, please remember that French Muslims, and
most Muslims in the West, consider that men and women are not the same, but they are equal. They can reach the
very same intellectual level, the very same spiritual level.
Nevertheless, even though they may
even experience the same range of emotions, or the psychological problems, we
all know that, for the most part, men and women have different ways of
experiencing, of feeling, of coping, etc. And that is due to physiological and
biological mechanisms which are uncontrollable parameters, as well as due to the
way the society we grow up in constructs us and upon which we have hardly any
control, especially as a child.
To conclude, what I would like to
stress is that Muslims and many non-Muslims in the West have more in common than
they assume, so please, just stop the hate on both sides. In addition, it is
important for me to clearly voice that I do not believe men and women are the
same. They are not and will never be, gender sameness should be considered a myth. However, men and women deserve to be treated equally, but I am referring to an
equality that acknowledges and respects their differences.
