Race, religion, gender and the cruelty of segregation

 I'm fairly certain that little more has to be added to the topic of racial segregation: this is a situation where the social concept of 'race' is taken and used to discriminate against the people who find themselves in one of those groups. Got qualified as 'coloured' or happen to be Irish? Sucks to be you. Happen to be Japanese or Chinese during certain parts of US history? Bad choice.

Yet this is just one level of segregation, if not the most well-known and infamous. Yet things get much more confusing and distressing when an individual belongs to multiple of these groups simultaneously. Happen to be the child of coloured and white parents? Good luck figuring out which of these two worlds is least likely to accept you. What is your identity even?


During the Dark Ages in Dutch history, i.e. until the 1960s, segregation based on one's affiliation with a specific church (Reformed, Catholic, etc.) or political system (e.g. Socialism) was the rule of the day, called 'verzuiling' (pillarisation) [1]. Children growing up in these dark times could only play with children from the same group ('zuil' in Dutch), and adults were only permitted to marry within that same group.

This led to tragic stories where some lovers were unable to get married or even meet up in public, simply because their parents went to different churches. Each of these groups had their own churches, schools, soccer clubs, radio stations and so on. The only way to exist within this system was to either adhere to it and belong to one group, or to find oneself essentially cast out of society. What is your identity even?


The cruelty here lies in the absolutism of these identities. You have to be part of exactly one of these groups, and that is the only option that exists today, tomorrow and at any point in the future. You can try arguing with it, but the existence of these groups, and the way that society expects individuals in these groups to behave is something which changes only very slowly and only under immense pressure.

This leads us to the other form of segregation and associated discrimination. The one based on gender (biological sex). For the longest time in human history, most societies have treated women (i.e. female humans) as being not only distinct from men (male humans), but considered the former to be inferior, infantile and thus to be kept away from anything involving responsibility, such as participating in a democratic process.

During the 19th and early 20th century, suffrage movements advocated for women to be treated as equals to men. By the late 20th century this had essentially happened in most countries, but it left intact the two pillars of man and woman. How can there be true equality if these pillars exist, and the individuals in it are treated as being different from those in the other pillar?


Even more so, watch what happens when someone does not fit into either group, as is the case with intersex people. In my own experiences as a hermaphroditic intersex person (a person who is a true hermaphrodite), these pillars in society are disheartening to say the least. Having lived in either pillar for years, it's hard to see the point of the division of public utilities like restrooms and dressing rooms, as well as sections in toy stores and clothing stores into 'men' and 'women'.

What is your identity even?

To belong to the 'coloured' group, you must be from a coloured family. To belong to the 'white' group, your parents must be white. To belong to the Catholic pillar, your parents must be Catholic. To belong to the 'male' group, you must be in possession of male reproductive organs. To belong to the 'female' group, your reproductive organs must be of the female type.

What if you're from mixed race parents? What if your parents are from the Catholic and Reformed pillars? What if you have both male and female reproductive organs?


Society's answer to the first two dilemmas was to demolish the institutions behind them as 'racist', 'discriminatory' and 'unethical'. What society's answer to the latter dilemma will be still remains to be seen. To this day the 'fixing' of this last dilemma is usually performed surgically. Just remove either set of reproductive organs and the problem is gone.

That this 'fix' is about as ethical as colouring a mixed-race child's skin tone lighter or darker depending on the choice made by the parents or a doctor seems to be a comparison that society is still more than happy to avoid.


Maya


[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pillarisation