Can We Be Both Equal and Different?

"Imagine a world partnership model of socialisation, where women and men's differences are honoured but there is no hierarchy." Dr Sharon Moloney

I heard Dr Sharon say this in an interview recently. She made clear in one sentence what I've been thinking about for years!

It's easy to find the binary everywhere. Dark and light, internal and external, them and us. We seem to sort the world this way naturally.

(And to be clear, this piece speaks to the binary of male and female specifically, with full respect for those whose experience of gender sits outside it, or without gender at all.)

When it comes to men and women, the last few decades have been quite the ride. Yes, for women's own bank accounts and voting rights, which were hard fought for.

However, that progress came with a cost. It seems that the push for gender equality got quietly coupled with sameness, as though the only way to be valued equally was to be treated as though we were the same.

Either equal, or different. Another binary in disguise.

Both can be true

In Taoism however, both can be true. There must be light for dark to exist. There must be them for us to exist. The sun rises because it sets. We die because we live. Opposites in Taoist thought are not enemies, they are two halves of the same whole, each giving the other its meaning.

Chinese medicine often asks us to suspend our rational beliefs in this way, to allow that two things can be true at the same time.

Yin and yang were never equal in the sense of sameness. They were equal in value, while remaining entirely different in nature. One is not more important than the other. Each simply does something the other cannot.

Perhaps that is the model we have been missing. Not women becoming more like men to be taken seriously, or men and women flattened into interchangeable roles to prove fairness.

Rather, two different natures each fully honoured, neither ranked above the other.

I feel such enthusiasm when considering people can be both different and equal.

If something here speaks to you, you can work with me in person at my clinic in Preston and at The Yin Palace gatherings in Melbourne, or online through my qigong community and Rage Rising. The Three Treasures Pathway is offered both in person and online.

With Love,
Anny 🌹