I was reading about Madeleine Lim, a Singaporean lesbian film-maker here when i spotted this nettlesome analogy among the comments that followed:
“… Should we mix the man and the woman’s role?
What is the man’s role?
What is the woman’s role?
Should we mix the sun and the moon’s role?
What is the sun’s role?
What is the moon’s role?
Can the two roles be interchanged?”
First of all:
Lesbians and gays don’t necessarily adopt “opposite” roles from that of their gender [with reference to traditional roles and gender]. This person probably has never seen the wide gamut of lesbians and gays. Just this assumption alone shows ignorance about sexual orientation and sexuality. But this assumption is still forgivable, given that the most salient among us are usually masculine lesbians and effeminate gays.
But then comes the deplorable analogy:
The sun and moon cannot be mixed even if you want to… simply because one is a mass of rock and another is a ball of explosive gas. If you want to liken the sun and moon to women and men, in effect, you are saying that one of them is inhuman. But women and men are capable of majority of each other’s roles [with the exception of child-birth and impregnation, nothing comes to mind at this point]. Haven’t you heard of women in leadership and male nurses? [This is Anj's very nice way of expressing that this analogy is stupid.] Now this is not forgivable… because it reeks of selective amnesia in spite of exposure.
People who believe in rigidity of roles tend to believe in race/class segregation. E.g. They might think that certain races are better than others or if you are of a certain faith, you are superior. Of course, these delineations work to their advantage more often than not. [Not surprising now, is it?]
