In a post from late last year, I said, “We’re stuck with the gender binary, and honestly, as someone who bases their identity on that binary, would I even want to get rid of it? What is a woman if there are no men?”

Legitimate question, and one I’ve been thinking about. Maybe the answer to “What is a woman if there are no men?” is more about identity and belonging than it is about gender. When I was a child, I didn’t consciously think, “I should be a girl.” What I thought, or more accurately, what I felt, was that I should be with the girls. Wherever they were, whatever they were doing.

When I saw a group of girls talking in the classroom or on the playground, I wanted to know what they were talking about. I felt like I should be part of that conversation. Later in grade school, when they separated us for gender-based health classes, I was worried that the girls were learning things I should know. That was still grade school, but I already knew what the world expected of me; it had been made painfully clear. Yet I still worried, I mean really worried, that I was missing out on information that I was going to need when I was sent off with the boys to learn about penises and football.

That was in 1969 or 1970, so it may be outdated. Maybe I’m outdated. Maybe now, health class is just health class, and everyone learns about our bodies all together in the same room at the same time. Though I kind of doubt that, what with the world and its puritanism being what they are. But I don’t doubt that the world would be a better place if schools taught boys about vaginas and girls about the dangers of the penis and the people attached to them.

Anyway, if I imagine a world without a strict gender binary, what I envision is that those of us who feel a sense of belonging to a particular group would simply become members of that group, and no one would question it. It’s only that binary lens that makes us question which box someone belongs in, and causes the disconnect, dissonance, or general sense of unease that many seem to feel when they have to brush elbows with someone who has the audacity to exist outside of those boxes.

Because the world is the way it is, though, we all have the outlines of those boxes imprinted on our psyches, even trans people (can you imagine?!). It’s not easy to leave our preconceptions of what should be at the door, because they are such a fundamental pillar of our society. Of all societies everywhere. We can’t agree on anything else—the best kind of bread, what “nice weather” is, what color was the man who created us—but we all agree that men are superior to women.

The fact that I even have to think about any of this is a byproduct of the conditioning we’re all subjected to. I mean, would I think about it anyway? Maybe. When I’m sitting alone and the sun is coming through the window and I can see the dust floating in the air like a dirty little universe, sure, I might. But in that imaginary world without a gender binary, none of these important questions in my life, these things and ideas that impact my life every day, would matter.

We don’t live in an imaginary world, though, so we think about stuff. I mean, some of us think about stuff. The world would be a nicer place if we all thought and considered, and questioned the conditioning that we’re subjected to. And that we continue to saddle our children with. But most of us never have. Do you know anyone who hasn’t read a book since they were in school? So do I. Now there’s something to think about.

In the long-dead societies we revere as thinking people, like, say, the ancient Greeks, there were indeed a lot of smart people walking around. At the same time, though, most Greeks were still illiterate rag and bone collectors scrounging for a piece of hard bread and a cup of water that wouldn’t kill them. And as smart as they were, the (men) thinking all those philosophical thoughts were profoundly ill-informed, knowing virtually nothing about the world they lived in.

Are we objectively smarter than the ancient Greeks? Do we know more about the world we live in? Yes. Do we use that knowledge in a way that benefits all people? No. Knowledge has always been a weapon. Or maybe more accurately, the withholding of knowledge has always been a weapon. Used to keep ‘the many’ quiet and make them believe that all they’re entitled to are the crumbs of ‘the few.’

Well, this has taken a turn I never intended. Do you ever wonder, “How did I get here?” I do. But it’s all the same ball of yarn, isn’t it? Why so many men have an unnatural, unjustified hatred for women is not a mystery; it’s a requirement of the world we’ve created and continue to reinforce with generations upon generations of ignorance and fear.

Which only proves that knowledge of a situation doesn’t necessarily make things any better. But if we can see clearly, at least we can understand where we are and then do what we have to do to get by.

At the risk of repeating myself (oh, Hannah, we’re way past that -ed.), remember that love is the binding force of our universe, a universe made up of nothing more than particles and waves. But look how those particles and waves have come together to make us! We will survive.

WRITTEN BY A HUMAN