liberating the sexes

Masculinity and femininity
On a perfunctory basis, both these terms seem to incorporate a lot of different meaning along with creating different identities as well. There are two ways of looking at this issue, one could personify the traits that are believed to be easily visible and we end up with the physical, morphological divisions.
Such an approach leads us into distinguishing these traits by projecting an image that appeals to some and is looked down upon by others, it is then followed by behavioural attributes that are then tossed around to assuage the wounded pride of some, caress the egos of others, we thus have an entire list of terms like male chauvinists, chivalry, male bashing, male ego and why not let me add the entire bandwagon of feminists to the list as well.
Also this is not meant to exclude the few bodies that are trying to champion the cause of men as well who have been at the receiving end of some female behaviour, which I don’t think would come under the ambit of femininity per se.
Masculinity or femininity is more abstract than what people make of it, it is more circumstantial, more invisible, more intangible than one would like to believe. It is said that circumstances bring out the true traits within us, how we react is more of a measure of the circumstances we have been exposed, at the end we feel comfortable with definitions that stereotype behaviour, it can then be controlled, manipulated and presented, this is classical human behaviour, not being able to define things makes us feel queasy and hence we have literature that tries to eke out a definition for both these ‘traits’.
I refer to them as traits as it is little more than an expression of the true self, the spirit within. For instance, bravery or for that matter sheer guts, risk taking/ entrepreneurial spirit is something that is associated with males or something that has to have a masculine element about it, let us look at the way we caricaturise brave females like Joan of arc or a Rani Laxmi Bai, they are referred to as people who fought as brave as a male, here the effect is to portray bravery as masculine and timidity as may be some feminine quality. Am not being a sexist when I say this, but it is yet again contexts that are defining the way we are made to look at things. Females can be as brave as males and even more than that as well, why are they benchmarked against them for that matter. Bravery or for that matter most attributable male features could as much be feminine as they are masculine.
We therefore need to deal with these themes on a more abstract level rather than subscribe to normative definitions that are arrived at as a measure of convenience or simply to typify certain behavioural traits as male or female. We need to understand that neither of these traits are patents of either sex. Let me take this one to another level , if masculinity or femininity as it is defined mostly morphologically and casually, I stand to subscribe to it for a minute, then where do I place trans-genders, bisexuals, gays and lesbians, we would need to evolve new jargons for them as well, come on that is the least we could do for the equality sake that we are so obsessed with.
If we are to speak about equality, then the first thing we need to do is to quash these very stereotypes that are based on perceptions rather than actualisations. Things that intend to define and constrain need to be addressed first, as these are the very things that form the basis of our arguments or respective positioning on these issues. Gender parity needs to be brought out from the world of definitions to the real world.
Rejection of the current mode of thought process that seeks to straitjacket observable behaviours and make it the birthright of a single sex need to be addressed, questioned before we go ahead with liberating the sexes. Liberation from these very definitions could indeed be a first step.