I was walking down the street to have dinner at a cheap restaurant when my brain, without my voluntary approval, took my fingers towards the Instagram application on my mobile phone. At the top of my feed, I saw Virginia Woolf asking the above question to all the virtual characters on the internet. I immediately dropped the mobile into my pants pockets and began reasoning out. I regret not having to look at the comments under that post, which I am sure, would have comprised perspectives ranging from astronomical analysis of asexual reproduction to the invention of toilet seats. Humans on the internet are funny when asked about their opinion. In real life, we tend to be critical of our words but in the virtual world, we are always shedding skin off our bodies like a mature snake. As the internet is unbiased towards the sex of a human and robots, the comments are as superfluous as a river flowing downwards as waterfalls. You can’t differentiate a man from a woman until he/she reveals herself. Both these characters are interesting to one another if they happen to share a common point of interest and also it would be more interesting for a man to know that a woman is on the same path as his. 

Man and Woman: How and why are they attracted to each other?

Let’s try to imagine a planet called Redbo, far across the galaxy in a place where the course of evolution is extremely abnormal from the conception of a normal person on earth. (BTW, Immanuel Kant says, it can’t be denied until disproven) Here, instead of two sexes- like male and female on the planet Earth, there are five sexes- each anatomically different, and a baby is produced by the mating of all these sexes, at once or in a cycle. The interesting part would be that the baby may arise from any one of the parents- where each act as a donor and a receiver. The parent happens to be formed by chance and the baby may not carry the sex of the parent as it can belong to any one of the four parents. Well leaving no space for natural selection to converge the number of sexes into one or two due to equal probability of occurrence of sex of any parent, there can always be a way for new sex to emerge due to genetic drift or mutation taking us further into sixth sex. It would be different to comprehend the psychology of these beings let alone their societal structure, politics, and religion.

A male human wants a female human to reproduce and vice versa, but on Redbo planet that is not the case, each sex seeks four other sexes to produce an offspring- that may belong to his race with the probability of one out of five. Evolutionary biology simply wouldn’t agree with this dilemma as it would act against the organism’s self-interest which may over a period of time abandon itself from reproducing due to frustration and lack of motivation. Let us consider this, what if their temporal stability is too high to abandon this mating activity and the reward after each sex- just like masturbation, would increase its capacity and fill it with hope for a renewal of its kind?

Each sex would find not one as attractive, but it would find all four opposite sexes as attractive at once. What can we derive out of this crazy scenario is that, if we consider each sex as male, all the other four together would act as female leaving no doubt that their mode of thought would be similar to ours. As Friedrich Hegel proposes a theory that a thing or thought could not be separated from its opposite, this attraction between sexes may be as universal as the attraction between opposite poles of a magnet. Hegel’s assertion doesn’t end here, as we go on to look at societal trends we find that the inverse of Dialectic ideas bears one of history’s greatest manipulation of thought by words leading to Feminist movements that seem silly as they demand change in the simplest language which is as significant as their fight to equality. 

Dialectic Thinking: Influences and conception of sexes.

It is common for most of us- at a certain point in our lifetime, either after being highly educated or extremely ignorant, we feel ourselves to be the center of the universe. This absolute self-centric thought abolishes radicalism and invigorates false notions regarding reality. The main reason for this unrealized folly is that at that moment we carry nothing to compare and quantify ourselves. This mode of thought where we consider a picture of growth about nothing but that thing itself is anti-dialectic. Now by introducing anti-dialectic reasoning, I got a fair chance of bringing forth Dialectic Thinking.

Good is often associated with bad. Sky with the land. Water with fire. Light with darkness. Knowledge with Ignorance and many more. This kind of thought where one thrives with change about the opposite's perspectives is Dialectic. In simple words, glancing at a change from different points of view.

A man can be judged not by isolating him from the world- as he does himself with a self-centric notion, he can be better analyzed both psychologically and physiologically when we bring in nature- i,e DNA, and nurture- i,e environment, into the picture. Scientists do this all the time when it comes to finding fundamental laws- they can predict the weather, scramble through the events that lead to the formation of the earth, learn of changing minds, and even crack the secret of our languages- it's all dialectic in nature.

But societal standards are a completely different issue. They aren’t absolute to write a mathematical formula, and nor are they subjective so that we could imagine their demise with their owner. They are intersubjective.

I tend to believe in what others believe in, otherwise, I would end up a wretched creature with no destiny to assign to myself. Money, for example. There is no absolute value for it, but I accept it as it provides me with food from the market. These non-universal standards are many a time interpreted by disassociating important factors with sex too. It's non-dialectic to consider a Man as a male, as it can be both male and female. It is non-dialectic to assume a female to be shy and weak disregarding the context. When we read the word person, the probability of imagining that person to be a male is greater than that of a female. Language being the major influencer tends to turn our minds from nearing multi-sex dimensions in a word.

This mode of thought is one of the reasons that has made the female section of society something of a rarity- like the hidden roots of lotus in a pond. Whenever a male watches these roots come out of the water, he is triggered to examine them with all his curiosity, while the root itself is inconsiderate of getting examined. Thus, women are more interesting to men, than men are to women.

As I went too deep to showcase my analogy, which is welcome to be criticized and commented on, I have forgotten to consider the bulk behavior of humanity against the individual level. Humans in masses can be predicted, with accuracy unfolding at increasing numbers- as it has led to the development of the psychohistory of Hari Seldon in the famous saga of Foundation, but prediction at the individual level is difficult. Among trillions of neurons, it is hard to track the synapse through which the message passes, creating innumerable states of mind out of our reach. Collectively humans are given two purposes. One by DNA and the other by the Chaos around.

DNA dictates us to reproduce for our well-being, while Chaos warns us to reduce the entropy to be structured for better nurture. As a human is dealt with these two forces, a male has an equal responsibility as a female. Both their DNA is the same- chemically, and the chaos they witness is also immutable by the senses. As both of them fall into the race, a male, with his superior strength can mend the chaos and bring it to order while the female is reliant on its physiology and anatomy to attract a male by posing its necessity. The rarity of lotus roots incubated by human language and other societal constructs is well inculcated by females to get its deserved attention. This theory of balance between over-enthusiastic males and the rarity of females is what can answer the question in part.

History, World, and Culture in a nutshell.

The World:

We measure a country like it's an individual entity. People, according to this analogy are cells performing their duty, day after day, dying and taking birth in huge numbers, inconsiderate of a huge wave of change they are inflicting on the whole.

We defined some of these measures as GDP, GNP, average income, happiness factor, and much more. If someone were to ask me to rate the country's standing on the world’s stage based on one factor, I would go with the Infant Mortality rate.

The Infant Mortality rate is the number of infant deaths for every 1000 live births. How does this simple measure stand against the factors that involve complex mathematical determinants? It is simple but profound to get over this measure.

First of all, if IM is low, it doesn't just mean that deaths are low but involves factors that are far from a mathematician’s grasp. Some of which are,

1. Medicine: With the deployment of modern medicine we can experience Polio as a disease of the past. More than a historical disease that is mostly eradicated from Asia, it also taught us that it was not the invention that lacked but the infrastructure to reach its end customer.
2. Nutrition: By looking at the data it is not ill to say that this world under capitalism is far more prosperous and progressive than other forms of societal systems. We have access to many more things than we need, which include cheap nutritional food on our doorsteps from around the world, whenever we wish.
3. Women's Education: This, of all, is the most important factor. There's a quote that says, "If a girl is educated, it means the family is educated."

A women's mode of thought expands when she undergoes training of any basic kind. It takes sacrifice on her behalf to reduce the IM rate. It’s undeniable to say that women's contribution to society has been limited ever since we underwent the agricultural revolution. But before that, it isn't easy to conclude the role each sex played.

The History:

The meat was meat, doesn't matter whose arrow pierced the stomach of an antelope. The course of this unbiased strength with minimal exceptions changed when we decided to stand upright and use two of the limbs to grab hold of sharp weapons. This drastic change lent very little opportunity for women to explore as complications in childbirth got injected with consequences like a premature baby birth and a crazy number of death of both parents and the baby. Along with this misery, the baby needed extra care until it was able to work on its own. A baby thus absorbed most of the mental and physical strength which otherwise would have spent on association with men on extravagant things like society building.

This mode of watching history immediately takes us to the conclusion that Men always had a fair chance of conquering the world. But the conclusion doesn't end right here. Women, no less than men, were triggered to rule to the same extent as men. They had all the things that men fought for. This fair advantage made some of them as ruthless as men.

Not many women are on the list, but they too were equal- mentally, to men when it comes to ruling and rein over a part of the land. They used their minds while men employed armies. How could they rule as they were confined to household work all day long? To explain this in modern terms, all the gangsters who spread fear are nowhere seen on roadways with their dogs taking a walk in the city market. They hide like rats undergoing hibernation and never come out. So were the women who used mental facilities. One may try to contradict this by claiming extraordinary physical strength inherent in men, but we need to remember that most of the gangsters today aren't as strong as their bodyguards, but they are the BOSS. Whenever there was a female who happen to gain an upper hand within a small group of individuals, she was destined to be noticed and criticized by men making her more interesting than ever. If there are men who are careful about a woman, they are either afraid or attracted to her. She is interesting because she is acting like him.

The Culture:

Cultural influences are as strong as the foundation of the Eiffel Tower. As I am from a rural area in India, I can go about its attributes without fear of being ridiculed as a ‘false-overseer’. In India, women in abstract form are prayed to with devotion and fear while those sitting beside them, having food and sex, are seen as inferior. This too has a deep emotional impact on all generations. A bachelor visits a women’s home as if she’s a car model to be inspected. A man has a greater choice in pursual of his education, friends, and job and has enough independence to select his own woman. Whereas a woman, no matter how educated, is under prejudice. The constriction of choices and their overcoming by a woman is seen as an act of rebellion which for most men is interesting and not acceptable. An interesting woman is the one who is at the edge of breaking rules. Whenever there is a woman at the highest level of any bureaucracy, the news arrives in our ears as a miracle. Till now, we often hear the news saying “First women to achieve this or that.”.

This culture of seeing a woman as a feeble creature is fast evolving and widespread use of social media is bringing in pictures of the new world where women can be whatever they want. The moment the Millennials take over the role of parents and grandparents we could witness all the prejudices to be hindered as either nonsense or superstitious. Men and Women both would be interesting.

Conclusion:

Virginia Woolf wasn’t just asking a question for herself, she was questioning her surroundings and choices that made her interesting. Even though many men were doing the same as herself- writing extraordinary stories, she became an interesting person because she was not a man.

If there’s something permanent in this world, it would be inanimate objects like stardust that make all the living. These biased ideas are things destined to be washed away against the tides of advancement and conscious cultures.

We need to cut off the influence of words and culture to see the beautiful picture that says that we are all interesting enough to be celebrated.

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