Culture and Religion

A world view where the guide for society is based on human nature,
 not on ancient scriptures.  Home  or Topic Groups

This collection of essays, a brief view of life, could be used to teach an adolescent the basics about life.

Gender

A person's gender is either male or female, defined by body type. Only the female body has the organs required to conceive and deliver a baby and then feed the mother's milk to the infant after birth.


Society assigns some roles by gender, like man/male, woman/female. In a marriage (most cultures are monogamous): husband/male, wife/female.

These gender roles have evolved over human history.

Many cultures were or are dominated by men. In ancient times the wife was considered property of the husband. Everything the family possessed was controlled by the man. Only the husband could make binding decisions. Unfortunately the subservient role for the wife is an unequal relationship, which makes abuse a potential problem. Eventually, starting roughly in the 19th century, women began to force changes in the male dominated culture through public activism. Even 60 years ago a wife's place was at home while the husband was away at work. While this is still evolving (cultural changes can be slow) women are now often treated as equals to men.

Nature has many opposites, like dark/light, on/off, hot/cold, and even in personalities like introvert/extrovert, dominant/submissive.

A bar magnet has two ends, one usually called the north pole while the other is the south pole. The magnets follow a very simple rule: the opposite poles attract (N S) while the same poles repel (N N or S S). In many cases this simple rule does not apply also to many human behaviors.

When one develops a very close friendship with another they usually have the same gender.

A marriage is a commitment between two adults to share a lifetime together. Usually this is a man and woman, opposite genders. Together they can have children in a family. There are exceptions. Some people have their gender preference the same gender rather than the opposite gender. (This is usually called a same sex marriage)

Various studies have investigated behavior differences between genders. (here, here, here)
The US Constitution gives the federal government the authority to regulate interstate commerce (for the 'united states'). Over time the scope of these regulations has increased with the goal of all businesses being fair with all customers (i.e., no special services for only some social groups, or no denial of services to other social groups).

This goal can be stated simply as: no discrimination by class, ethnicity, gender, gender preference, race, or religion.

This goal can also apply to interpersonal behaviors. Another person can have a variety of reasons for behaving differently. People are complex. As a general rule it is important to tolerate, if not accept, these differences. However inappropriate behaviors like physical abuse or mental abuse (i.e. bullying) certainly do not have to be tolerated. This tolerance of those not like us is a worthwhile goal for society.


created - January 2018
last change - 01/10/2018
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