Over the last 2000 years, biblically, politically, and even emotionally, the female of our species has been ignorantly deemed to be less than a man. At the D’0asis student community of the HAN Bachelor of International Social Work, there is no woman without the male and no man without the female.

Connection
But those are just 2 polar opposites of a larger spectrum of gender and sex. For our students, how you identify is far less relevant than just feeling accepted. Life should be more about connection than segregation.

(Hu)man
Since September 2022, D’0asis has introduced various workshops, ranging from thought-provoking sessions to taboo dialogues about topics  relevant to what it means to be a human. Or is a hu(man) really about being a man? Then maybe, we should talk about a person, which again has the male role of being a son. How far can we take the ‘words’ before we are threatened by the connotation of one gender and/or sex? Is there a right way or is everything just wrong?

Weak? Really?
On the other hand, why is being a woman considered weak in the first place? For decades, after puberty kicks in they need to function through the biological reminder of their ‘duty’ according to some members of our society’s views, while for some men, a papercut is the end of the world and the flu paralyzes the senses for others, barring covid of course. And that’s just the biology of being a woman versus the stigmatization ALL women experience. Nevertheless, at D’0asis, we believe these false and ignorant stereotypes should be unlearned, even though the words mentioned above have been labeled as positive and negative due to history. Or should we say his-story?

Changes
While some may claim that the wokeness of our current worldview is the reason these debates appear endless, isn’t it possible that the constructs of male, female, man, woman, human, or person is not just about being? Before the 1930s, pink was to celebrate a baby boy, and blue was for a girl. Before colonization, indigenous cultures placed less emphasis on gender than on one’s primary role in society, including up to 5 gender identities. Wokeness can be extreme, but ideally, awareness is the reward to be gained.

Being as reality
All in all, for some people, labels help us define ourselves, but maybe just being should be the goal.
When we wake up every day, do we say: “Yes, I am a woman. OMG, I am male”? There may be exceptions to this, but the average individual awakens each day hoping for the best. They possibly just want to be seen, accepted, respected, and appreciated. At D’0asis, these sensations are what we want our students to experience every day. Labels and constructs are not our priority, just people. Women have been wrongly labeled as being weak as much as men have been mislabeled as being strong. And everyone in between are not outsiders, they are just being. We are one people just trying to survive in a world that wants to tear us apart. Just be.