Opposites

We often use opposites to help us understand concepts. When an idea is contrasted to its antithesis, the differences become more stark and our understanding of the differences augments. The end result is a crisper definition of the particular thing we were contrasting.

The Yin Yang is a great example of this. It contrasts light and dark, female and male, order and chaos, chocolate and vanilla, Star Wars and Star Trek, to show the dualism of the universe. There is a little light in dark and a little dark in the light; they are opposites but compliment each other because they are opposites. I’m not trying to be all “Team Buddha,” it’s just a good example of the dualism by which most of us tend to see life. Howzabout an example?

Let’s play a game. I will say a word and you identify it’s opposite.

Black. Up. Left. Far. Heaven. Man.

I have done this little quiz with many people. Their answers are as follows:

White. Down. Right. Near. Hell. Woman.

Most of these answers are obvious. Inherent in each of these antitheses is the negative of it’s thesis. But you could also say the opposite of down is “not down” and you would be right. This second answer, while not as descriptive is, in a way, more accurate. It includes nuance which “up” doesn’t necessarily carry, particularly if a word doesnt have only one opposite.

This is true of the last word in the quiz: man. The opposite of man is not woman. If it were, this would mean any character trait we identify in man would find its negation in woman. If a man is strong, brave and sacrificial, woman would have as its definition weak, cowardly and selfish. Conversely, if we describe woman as beautiful, gracious and gentle, then man would be ugly, stingy and harsh. This is obviously untrue.

But what is not self evident is that woman and man are not opposites of each other. I think most people subconsciously think the two are opposed, and use the other sex to help differentiate their owns sex by way of opposites.

My daughter and I had an interaction like this this morning. I asked her the above questions and she responded with the opposites listed, as most people I have asked have. She was surprised when I said she was correct on all accounts except the opposite of man. She got that one wrong. The opposite of man is not woman, it is “not man.”

This isn’t semantics; it is bedrock, foundational truth and it matters. If a young woman assumes man is her opposite, then whatever character traits she strives for, strength and courage will not be among them. If they are, she will think she is taking on masculine character traits. To be strong is to be masculine. The same is true as a young man. If he sees gentleness as a typical feminine trait, and female is his opposite, then he will avoid gentleness or perhaps assume femininity along with the gentleness.

The truth is there are two opposites to man and two for woman. Just as a car may drive on a road that is bordered on either side by ditches, so man and woman each have a central definition which find their opposites in the ditch on either side of the road.

For a man, his strength it central to his identity. A man taking sacrificial responsibility over those things which God has entrusted to him is a man with both hands at 10 and 2 on the wheel, straddling the median of the road. If that man takes his strength, fills up his head with it and decides to abuse others, he veers off into the weeds on the right. This man is brash, unthoughtful, abusive, and would load his concealed carry more than load the dishwasher. On the other hand, if he rejects his strength, becomes afraid of it and takes shelter in the anonymity of effeminacy, where nothing depends on him, he gets stuck in the mud on the left. This man hides behind effeminacy so his strength will not be called upon. On either side of the road he finds his opposite.

Women are the same. On the double yellow are the women who hold their beauty as stewards and understand they uphold civilization in their strong, gentle, and nurturing hands. The family is the brick that builds civilization and the woman is the center of the family, tying a man to his future through marriage and channeling his strength to provide for a family. On the right side of the road is a trench where women abscond with their beauty, abuse it and try to control others by means of it. These woman hoard God’s beauty and pawn it off as their own, doling it out for the price of worship to any foolish man who walks down the alley. To the left are the women to reject beauty, disdain the life giving spirit that is unique to the females, not just in childbirth, but the birthing of order and civilization which God intends through the sex. On either side of the road she finds her opposite.

I have carved out some fairly broad categories here. If one takes issue with it they are not necessary off base. Obviously life is more complex than this, but we would not be doing ourselves any favors if we rejected the obvious majority for the sake of the nuanced minority.

This is something that is not talked about. Worse, it is not talked about because it is assumed that the answer is already known: woman is the opposite of man. If we continue with these specious antonyms we will further delude ourselves in understanding the role God has given each sex and how it is defined.

Since a book could be written on this, and there are many applications to our lives and our culture, I leave you with a dangling question mark. What problems may arise in a society when men and women are assume they are opposites? Might we, for example, say gender is more of a continuum to avoid the unpleasantness of such harsh opposites?