Gender Is Not Sex: Guys Cook In The Kitchen -By Hassan Idris

While reading a book by the Nigerian Defence Academy, Kaduna state titled” studies in Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration”, I read a part on Gender, equity and DDR participation: A theoretical insight. The emphasis was on analysing Feminist Security Studies (FSS) and seeking to centralise gender as a category of analysis in exploring the politicising of security policy and practice; drawing attention to the gendered politics of everyday practice of security at both the national and international level. The catchy and interesting thing was the theories used in analysing the issues at hand. Theories like: essentialist theory, constructivist and post-structuralist theory. As a student of Sociology who has been exposed to a lot of theories, I find constructivist theory more interesting for me.

Our society has constructed a lot of social realities for us that we have little or no option but to accept. Just like Durkheim said “the society is sui generis” and it’s a social fact that has and will influence us and shape our behaviours.

The argument of the constructivist is based on socio-cultural construct and that individuals only learn how to behave properly through a lengthy socialization process by the society and though, considering sex as biological markers of identity and behaviour and gender as social construction by the society. Sex and gender are two different things: sex is a biological predisposition of being a man or a woman while gender is a society and socio-cultural construction. An individual can be male by sex but female by gender. A clear example I can give is the cross-dresser, Bobrisky.

Somedays back as a graduate from Ahmadu Bello University Zaria-Nigeria who has lived in the school Hostel and has been cooking food by myself, I decided to sweep the compound and assist my younger sisters in cooking in the kitchen. My sister’s friends who came visiting saw all these and were saying” look at a man sweeping and cooking at the kitchen, aah my sister this is bad na why are you letting your brother cook na? Cooking na for girls ooh! ” This made me laugh that even some of the women have been so socially and culturally entrenched into this socio-cultural construction and I decided to demystify and deconstruct this socio-cultural controversy.

The sex of a person does not determine whether a person should cook food, sweep or not. It’s the society that tabled down that a certain gender should behave and act this and that way. There are societies where men do the cooking and the women are the breadwinners of the family and these are all socio-cultural construction. Outside socio-cultural construction, It’s never a bad thing if a man cooks or sweeps. It’s romantic self! My brother, help your mothers, sisters and wives in the kitchen if you can. You won’t die!
Bye!

Hassan Idris.
Sociologist & Poet.
Benue, Nigeria.