From the time we are born we are taught that we are one of two things. We are boys or we are girls, and there is no in between. Our most basic identity comes with many expectations. These expectations vary slightly across cultural and economic lines, but many stay the same. Boys are supposed to be strong, tall and enterprising. They are supposed to wear blue, play with action figures, never cry, and be sexually dominant and expressed. Girls are supposed to be weak, domestic and skinny. They're supposed to wear pink, play with Barbies, be polite, emotional, and sexually submissive and repressed. These expectations are created by the gender binary system and lead to a culture of patriarchy, where men control and oppress all other people in society. Besides the obvious oppression of women by this system, any man that does not fulfill the expectations of manliness, whether by choice or because he is gay or transsexual, is also a victim of violence and derision.

One of the most important things to realize about the gender binary system, is that it is based less in scientific fact than western religious tradition. Obviously there are some basic differences between men and women (women give birth), but there are many people who identify as neither as a man or a woman. Some of these genderqueer people were born intersex, but doctors choose a gender for the baby (generally by which surgery is easier). When the doctor chooses the wrong gender, the person must grow up as a woman in a mans body or vise versa. These transgender people are ignored by most of mainstream culture and the media, and are often face violence and discrimination in their daily lives because they do not fit inside the gender binary system.

The gender binary system naturally leads to a system of patriarchy, in which every other group of people are oppressed by straight men. This oppression shows itself in a number of ways, from the lower pay women receive, to the stereotypically flamboyant gay man seen in the media, but the worst and most important expressions of patriarchy is violence. The violence faced by gay men and women was showcased in the Laramie Project, a play about the violent murder of Matthew Shepherd, who was beaten to death by two homophobic bigots and left to die on a fence in Wyoming in 1998. Sadly, the murder of Matthew Shepherd is only one among many. Gay and transsexual men and women face violence and bigotry on a daily basis in every party of the country. In addition to the violence faced by gays and transsexuals, women also face an inordinate amount of violence all around the world.

In almost every culture, women are victims of violence and derision. They are often made second class citizens and denied even the basic human rights given to men. In many third world countries, the truly horrific practice of female genital mutilation is common practice. Genital mutilation is a vicious procedure, often performed with a sharp rock or rusty metal instrument, that often kills women, going beyond its goal of merely maiming them for life. Third world women also face the risk of another disgusting form of exploitation, sex slavery. Hundreds of thousands of women from Africa, Eastern Europe and Asia are sex trafficked every year. They are often promised high paying office jobs in Western Europe, and then during their transport to this fantasy job they are drugged and awake in brothels in Western cities. These women are victims not only of the horror of forced prostitution but also are faced with daily beatings, especially if they try to escape their enslavement. To compound the misery of these women, even if they do manage to escape, they are often deported back to their native country because they (obviously) did not enter the country to which they were brought legally. Many of these women cannot even build a normal life in their home country because they are rejected by their native culture for having worked as a prostitute.

However, the exploitation of women is not limited to some third world backwater. In the United States almost a third of women report being abused by a husband or boyfriend during her lifetime, and there are more than a half million cases of domestic violence every year. In 2004, almost 100,000 women reported being raped. The actual number is much higher, but many women are afraid or embarrassed to report their rape to the police. These terrible numbers do not come out of a vacuum. The culture of patriarchy, in the US and around the world, teaches men to treat women as objects, good for sex, cooking, cleaning and not much else. This attitude manifests itself in rape, sexual slavery and physical violence. From an early age men are taught that they are inherently different, and inherently superior, to everyone else, but patriarchy, and the resulting oppression, have deeper roots in the gender binary system.

Gender Binary is one of the most pervasive social structures in our society. Almost everyone subscribes to the belief that there are only men and women, and that they are irreparably different. This belief is enforced by the media, corporations, and the school system. The Media consistently not only recognizes gender, but pits the two genders against each other, whether in sitcoms or game shows. Corporations target many of their products at men or women. For example, cologne is for men, and perfume is for women; a man would never think of going out and buying perfume. However, perfume and cologne are the same thing: smelly sprays meant to cover the natural human scent. Young children in elementary school consistently get in trouble for acting the wrong gender. Young boys are punished for acting like girls by playing house or playing with dolls and not action figures. Though this may help them avoid trouble in the short term, in the long term it just reinforces the gender binary system that is the root cause of the problems mentioned above. The worst part of the gender binary system is that it functions as a positive feedback loop. The fact that the vast majority of people identify as male or female causes society to organize itself around these identities, which further reinforces the gender binary system in people's minds, causing it to become even more ingrained in society. The problem of gender binary is often ignored, even by feminists and gay activists, who prefer to believe something along the lines of "men need to be nicer to other people." However, the problem of patriarchy has its roots in a system that sets men and women apart, and allows men to believe that they are inherently different and superior. If we were able to eliminate the gender binary system, patriarchy would fall with it.

The gender binary system is such a basic part of our culture that it cannot be eliminated by legislation, only through a cultural change in the view of gender. Gender should be similarly viewed to the Kinsey view of sexuality. Kinsey's scale goes from 0 to 6. A 0 means that the person is completely heterosexual and 6 means that a person is completely homosexual. Most people fall somewhere in between. A gender spectrum would be based on the same notion, that there are people who identify fully as men or as women, but many people, such as effeminate men, fall somewhere in between. Since such a system would not divide the population into two distinct and completely separate groups, it would make it impossible for one group (men) to take power and authority over the entire spectrum. The spectrum would also eliminate repressive gender roles and allow all people to act and live in a way that fulfills what they want to do with their lives, without having to be beholden to a set of societal expectations.

Though the elimination of the gender binary system, and with it the repressive system of patriarchy is a seemingly impossible goal, any concrete steps taken to end patriarchy and eliminate gender is a step in the right direction. Every straight man who learns to cook or be a nurse, every gay man who physically stands up for himself, every woman who takes on a leadership role is helping to combat gender roles and stereotypes and helping to build a more equal society and world.