A Strained Relationship
In recent decades our society has struggled to find a way to articulate the distinctive gifts of the masculine and feminine, while still affirming the equality of women and men.
To some extent this has been the result of the readjustments needed to account for the shift from a smaller communal-type society to a ‘mass society’, for adaptation to the patterns of economic, social, political, family and personal life to take into account the greater participation of women in the public sphere, and an aspiration for a genuine and thoroughgoing equality of men and women.
However, this process of readjustment has been made more difficult by what many have called the ‘sexual revolution’, which is still ongoing. This has involved much deeper conflict and turmoil in relations between the sexes, and this has had profound effects on society and culture, as well as economic, family and personal life.
It has been a difficult time to raise the question of the complementarity of men and women.
The whole topic has been sufficiently contentious that people have generally shied away from addressing it. The very concept has been rejected by some, as if it was only a left-over from an older attitude that wanted to deny women an equal place. Others have moved on to an even more radical agenda.
Getting Beyond Simplistic Ideas
I believe it is time to look again at the question of complementarity, not in any apologetic way, but wholeheartedly so as to do justice to the distinctive and beautiful gifts that women and men can be to each other.
It is important that we get beyond simplistic ideas of the differences between the sexes, and find more sophisticated ways of understanding and articulating how women and men complement each other.
Unity through Difference
Although there are many difficulties affecting the relations between the sexes, we need to clarify what it is that constitutes the good of complementarity. If we only see the problems, the very notion of complementarity will tend to disappear from view, to be replaced by the notion of difference.
Yet complementarity is not the same thing as difference. Complementarity is difference with a purpose.
The essence of complementarity is that difference can be the source of deeper unity. It is not about how to get along with each other in spite of our differences, but how to become more through our differences.
Something Beautiful
In recent times the notions of masculinity and femininity have been viewed mainly through the lens of practicality and social roles. This is only part of the reality of complementarity. Feminine and masculine are also attractive to each other. There is something deeply beautiful about the differences between the sexes that goes beyond the physical and draws men and women towards each other in a desire for spiritual communion.
Approaching the Topic
The general notion of complementarity refers to the way that two things can have attributes that are able to combine to produce an outcome beyond what is readily achievable, or even possible, by each on its own. The sexual form of reproduction of organisms is the most obvious example.
When applied to men and women complementarity refers to the way that the distinctive gifts that generally characterise each sex can combine so that ‘the whole is more than the sum of the parts’. This applies most obviously to procreation, but it also applies across a range of attributes, some more obvious, others less so.
Notwithstanding its significance, any discussion of complementarity at the present time is complicated by conflicting views on its nature, its relevance, and even its existence. Some of these difficulties are not fundamental but are more about wanting to ensure that simplistic ideas are not used to improperly limit people's lives.
They are about how complementarity is best conceived, not about whether it exists.
How do you talk about it?
The differences between men and women are in some ways simple and obvious and in other ways subtle and elusive. As one might expect, the more directly physical attributes show the most obvious differences, but things like emotional differences are harder to characterise. It can be quite difficult to come up with a set of concepts that does justice to the complexities and subtleties involved, so we tend to fall back on a few generalisations. So people will say things like, ‘Men act from the head, and women act from the heart’. Or ‘Women are more emotional than men’.
Although some people nowadays are reluctant to acknowledge such differences, most people still seem to hold some general idea along those lines, but without being able to express it with sufficient clarity to go on and say much more about it. People have been deterred from making simple comments from fear of sounding simplistic.
We feel as though the common generalisations have a basic truth to them, yet we struggle to find a way of expressing it or explaining it that won't seem to diminish the commonality, and importantly, the equality, that also exists between men and women.
I’m an Individual
This feeling is accentuated these days because individuality is given so much prominence. We are keen to highlight how someone is special as an individual, but not so keen to highlight what would put someone in a category.
There is more sensitivity in our times about seeming to label someone or ‘put them in a box’.
We don't want to inadvertently seem to diminish someone by categorising them. Yet at the same time people have become more preoccupied with questions of ‘identity’, and such identities also become rallying points around which people gather to gain more support in those things that they feel make them special.
This points to the inescapably social nature of human beings. Yes, each of us is a unique individual, but we also have a lot in common. Even as we try to emphasise what makes us individual we find we need communal support in that individuality.
One of the ways this happens is that women seek support to help them affirm and value their feminine identity, and men seek support to help affirm them in their masculine identity. People will still try to find ways to do this, even in a time like ours when the very notions of masculinity and femininity are challenged.
What type are you?
Being a man or woman is one dimension of what it is to be human. In order to understand the differences between men and women then we need to consider them in relation to the other dimensions of what it is to be human. Even before beginning a more detailed examination it is reasonable to anticipate that we will discover different layers of explanation.
We won't expect one interpretive framework to account for everything.
Personality Types
Let us begin by considering how you might characterise a particular individual. Although there are things we perceive as unique about any individual, we also perceive patterns among people, so that we have a sense that there are ‘types’ of people.
We recognise that people habitually adopt particular ways of being, even though they have a wider range of behaviours they could exhibit, and sometimes do.
Nevertheless it is a matter of common observation that people differ in ways that can be considered types. There has been a whole development of thought about ‘personality types’ that explores such patterns.
How much can types tell us?
Observation is one thing but explanation is another. We might observe characteristic patterns, but it is harder to say what gives rise to such differences. A similar thing happens with the masculine and feminine ‘types’. So people will tend to make general observations of the type mentioned earlier. Yet it is also difficult to say exactly what gives rise to the various patterns we observe regarding the differences between men and women.
There is a further difficulty. Whereas we might identify numerous personality types – the Myers-Briggs approach, for example, has sixteen – yet there are only two types when it comes to male and female. This means that it is harder to clarify what it is that makes half the people on the planet different from the other half.
From this some might conclude that there would be little to gain from even trying. How much significant commonality could there be between several billion men compared to several billion women?
On the other hand it might be easier to discern such patterns in large numbers than in individuals.
No one wants to be ‘type-cast’
One of the difficulties that arises in any attempt to ‘type’ people is a concern that over-simplifications will come to be treated as determinative. This becomes apparent very quickly when people react to any signs that they are being dismissed as a mere instance of a type. People can have a tendency to latch onto the first few insights they have in a field and treat them as ‘gospel’, and then proceed to make decisions and treat people as limited to a simplistic stereotype.
People often react nowadays whenever anyone proposes that men and women are different in some particular way. We have become highly sensitised to such things, and the main social coping mechanism we seem to have developed is to only recognise self-chosen ‘typing’.
So it is considered alright for individuals to define themselves but objections are raised, often vehemently, if anyone else tries to categorise them.
This occurs notably in relation to race or sexual identity, but it also occurs in less sensitive areas. Have you ever participated in a personality-type exercise? Although it can be helpful, it can also raise misgivings.
Who wants to hear smug comments to the effect, ‘Oh, so you're a type XYZ. That explains a lot.’?
It is the same with gender. Who wants to be dismissed with, ‘She’s only a woman’ or ‘What did you expect? He’s only a man’? No one wants to be denied something based only on prejudice. However, this is a general failing of human nature. We will pick up on any distinction and turn it into a division. Any pretext will serve the spirit of discord.
Yet if we try to get rid of distinctions we also get rid of what makes us special. Denying the distinction between the sexes won’t stop people denying each other’s dignity. There’s always another way to do that.
Things to Keep in Mind
Layers of Explanation
The first thing we need to keep in mind then is that types are necessarily a simplification. Every person is unique. Yet this uniqueness does not preclude similarities. We are all different, yet we all have much in common.
If you are trying to understand a particular individual it is helpful to think in terms of layers of explanation. That is, there is no one kind of measure involved. Let us consider a few of these layers:
Male or female
Particular biography
Personality type
Cultural background
Family background
These are just a few of the ‘layers’ you have to consider. No one layer explains everything but each layer can contribute something to understanding a person. Let's consider these layers as they might affect matters of complementarity.
Family Background
Take family background as an example. Someone might have grown up as the only boy in a family of girls. Or vice versa. One was brought up by parents who encouraged the development of distinctive markers of masculinity and another was brought up by parents who discouraged this. One had no father or father-figure. Another had no mother or mother-figure. Then there is the order in which a child is born into the family, or whether he or she is an only child. All these different circumstances have some effect.
Personality Type
Take personality type. Males and females are represented across a whole range of personality types, and when trying to understand a particular trait someone exhibits you might learn more from personality difference than from male-female difference. It also depends on the particular theories and how they have conceptualised the different types, and how adequately they allow for male-female difference.
Cultural Background
Take cultural background. Someone might have grown up in a culture in which social roles, traits and behaviour of men and women are highly formalised and consistent, or in one where there is greater flexibility in these things.
A Blend
There are many other aspects of these and other layers of explanation. Put them all in a blender and this is what we're presented with on first glance when trying to clarify the nature of complementarity. The task then involves sifting through all this and trying to identify the key dynamics that operate to give rise to whatever it is that is the core nature of masculinity and femininity.
So when we ask, 'What kind of a thing is complementarity?' we are trying to identify one of the important layers of explanation involved in the fuller quest to understand what it is to be human.
How much can be explained from that perspective is an open question.
A Weighting of Probabilities
The second thing to keep in mind is that most of the attributes typical of men or women are not absolutes but involve a weighting of probabilities. You could compare this with being right or left handed. If you only look at things abstractly you might conclude – people have two essentially identical hands, so why should they use one more than another? Or one for some things but not others? Yet in practice almost everyone adopts a clear preference for using one hand for roles such as fine motor skills, and another for supporting roles such as holding things steady.
Men and women have most of the same attributes, and if you consider them in the abstract you might wonder why they are not more similar. But in practice men and women tend to have and develop a range of typical preferences.
We have been living through a period when male-female difference has been treated as mainly problematic, and so a widespread view has developed that such differences should be minimised. However, in another setting it might be better to maximise the differences. This possibility receives little attention these days, and we will consider it at more length elsewhere.
A Convergence of Factors
The third thing to keep in mind is that the masculinity and femininity that shape a sense of self and of cultural forms are not simple phenomena but are better thought of as two different zones of convergence of a multitude of factors. When considering the weighting of probabilities then it is not a simple weighting of one factor but the summation of varied weightings of many different 'strands' that come together to form a characteristic masculine or feminine 'type'.
Seeing things in this way can help in avoiding a simplistic view. Not every man has to have the same weighting on all the different factors to still have a recognisably masculine character. The same goes for women. There is scope for great variety which nevertheless results in a characteristic pattern of convergence.
Nature and Nurture
The fourth thing to keep in mind is this.
It is not a question of nature or nurture, but nature and nurture.
We should not expect to find simplistic phenomena, nor to find any easy way to attribute things to one or the other. If we begin from the presumption that both nature and nurture are involved in all human phenomena we can help to avoid simplistic conclusions.
This does not mean that there are no strong influences from one or the other direction. Some of the effects arising from hormonal differences, for example, can lead to marked differences. The difficulties arise when we think of these only in a deterministic fashion.
Potential and Development
The fifth thing to keep in mind is that any human attribute may be more, or less, developed. Being male or female confers some basic attributes, but various of these potentials might or might not be cultivated so as to become more developed. We need to take this into account when comparing men and women.
It would be misleading to compare someone who was well developed in an attribute with someone in whom that same attribute was undeveloped, as if to disprove its relevance to differences between the sexes.
For example, women are generally held to be more nurturing than men, epitomised in women’s role with babies and infants. A particular woman might not have developed this much due to lack of opportunities, or simply from not having experienced motherhood yet. Yet she might be quite capable of developing it once the opportunity arises.
In addition to the degree of development that happens more or less inadvertently there is also the effect of intentional cultivation of certain attributes. As we noted earlier, particular cultures can give a greater weighting to some attributes than others.
For example, in some cultures men might have greater involvement with small children, and develop more of their capacity to be nurturing, while in another culture men might have almost nothing to do with small children. Both men and women have capacities they can develop more than usual even while recognising that one sex might have a more natural aptitude for it.
When trying to understand this developmental effect we could compare complementarity to intelligence. Everybody has some native capacity for intelligence. But how much a particular person develops this potential is another matter.
A fair amount of the application and associated development of intelligence occurs spontaneously from a child's natural curiosity, helped or hindered by the possibilities present in the child's environment. Yet as a society we don't leave it at that. We also establish educational institutions so that people have the opportunity and assistance to develop their minds.
Most societies throughout history did not leave the development of complementarity to occur merely inadvertently, but thought it sufficiently important to intentionally foster its development.
Some Unhelpful Attitudes
I am not going to try and explore all the ins and outs of these issues, but to seek a way forward that builds on the basic intuitions people have and tries to better clarify at least some next steps. Before we go on, I want to highlight a few attitudes that I think are unhelpful in this endeavour.
'The science settles it!'
Since there is so much disagreement around this topic it is tempting to try and find an impartial arbiter to come in and conclusively solve it. Some people like to put science forward as such an arbiter.
So they will use a kind of 'Gotcha!' argument that says, 'The science is in. That settles it.'
Some attribute of male and female biological difference will be advanced as settling the issue. The trouble is that there are few straight lines between biological realities and self conscious experience and the associated social and cultural realities. There is a great deal that can be learned from science, but it needs to be mediated through a more comprehensive perspective of what it is to be human.
'Difference means inequality'
The modern discourse about relations between the sexes has been shaped to a significant degree in relation to efforts to advance the social equality of women. In what has been a highly conflicted atmosphere there can be a tendency to reduce all questions about the differences between men and women to questions of justice. This has led many to construct a notion of gender based solely on the notion of justice. This presents a difficulty.
If gender as a category only exists due to injustice, then to the extent that such injustice is overcome the notion of gender simply disappears altogether.
Once equality is attained there is no difference. This mentality can lead to resistance to even considering the question of the complementarity of men and women. And what do you do when the injustices are basically overcome, yet men and women are still different? There is a temptation to keep seeing gender through the lens of injustice, and developing a more and more radical critique. But is that real? And where does it end?
'Men should be like this. Women should be like that.'
Another unhelpful attitude acknowledges the differences between men and women but casts it all in the light of obligation. Instead of seeing the differences of the other as an enriching gift, they are seen as something owed. This attitude is generally lop-sided, so that men and women fall into opposing camps involved in a stand-off. Each wants the other to be something they might not want to be, or don't really understand or appreciate, and so resist.
The openness they might have had is closed off by the very fact of the attitude of imposition.
Yet mutual openness could initiate a new and enriching possibility.
‘It’s all about the individual’
It is not helpful to be over-sensitive. Yes, each of us is unique, but that is not the same as saying you have nothing in common with other people.
If we only ever emphasise individuality we end up with an impoverished idea of what it is to be human. Being a member of a family and a community are just as important as being an individual.
It is not either individuality or community; it is both/and. This emphasis on individuality is not only a question of individual attitude, it can also become a dominant cultural value, and even an ideology. In the process it can also affect academic studies which exclude considerations of complementarity a priori. The conceptual constructs used might privilege individuality so that it unconsciously shapes the whole field of study.
Conclusion
So, what kind of thing is complementarity?
Complementarity is not something simplistic.
Complementarity is a multi-layered reality.
Complementarity is difference with a purpose.
Complementarity is about how to become more through our differences.
Complementarity is meant to enrich, not diminish the individual.