The Human Condition: An Introduction

More Human Than Human?

This is my archival essay–but since I am getting into some hard research and facts, I want this piece to be more casual and easier to digest. I also stole this idea from a classmate. Anyway, let’s talk about sex: cis-men and cis-women for the sake of length and time. Please note, the assumption of the sex of the people within the statistics may not coincide with orientation or actual identity.

Moving forward, I wanted to look into the challenges between male and female within societies–and noticed that one paper I started reading really sparked my interest. The title of said paper is, “The Second Sex and The Third Force” by Dr. Elizabeth M. Drews and wow does it cover a lot. Earning her doctorate in psychology, Dr. Drews has conducted research in the mid 1900’s from gender studies, oppression, education, ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds–and how those all affect one another.

Her writing style is really significant as she leads with a lot of language that causes one to ask questions. The first few pages of the essay explain how girls may be more proficient in school and social settings than men from childhood to adulthood–how mental illness may affect women differently and how to meet the needs of women on a vague and broad standpoint. However, there is no mention of what country, ethnicity, or background these “girls” and these “boys” come from that she’s comparing and contrasting.

This is highly intentional. First, Dr. Drews has conducted a lot of research on these different backgrounds throughout her lifetime–but she also dives into it in the essay. Her tone is equally as important as it’s casual, easy to read, and acknowledges that this specific essay, which is held as an archival work in the JFK Library online and in-person, is a major draft. Yet, this draft is a very well-written.

Regardless, the main question I had while reading was is there really a difference in intelligence based on male and female sex hormones and organs? Is discrimination really relevant when it comes to male vs female in intelligence, mental health, and social awareness? The comparisons and contrasts were so broad, stating simply that only “girls” were doing better academically but with no reference to what information. Does being human–and having a difference in skills and intelligence–really reflect sex?

That’s when I realized that the beginning is purposefully broad to make the reader question those things—is it based on ethnicity, socioeconomic status, home life, school structures, and just so much more? It’s not based on sex at all–there’s excuses to make women a second-class citizen despite some research proving that a female child might perform better statistically than a male child. It’s just sexism.

Now, that entire statement and question seemed silly, right? My mind should’ve automatically gone to sexism based on the title–but I don’t ever see the big picture right away. I thought about how the information may be relevant. 

The paper then goes into life expectancy between India and “Englishman” (meaning colonialist super countries like England and/or the United States) stating that life expectancy (I’m assuming somewhere around the 1950-60’s) was half that of the Englishman for an Indian man—highlighting the difference between the countries/people/ethnicities before stating that half of the adult population in the world cannot read and that over half the children in the world do not go to school. 

This also made me think–what’s the definition of “school” across the world? Learning arithmetic? Edgar Allen Poe? Geometry? Or doing taxes? Learning to survive in society (based on the definition of said society)? And why does the standard need to meet what white imperialists think school should be?

This goes far beyond mental health, abuse, or sex–this is a human issue. What seems harsh for one society may seem gentle or fair to another. A woman of Asian descent may think that several hours, days, and threats will perfect her young daughter’s piano playing skills while a woman of United States descent may think that a child should only play the piano if she wants to.

And who’s to say who is wrong?

The result may stay the same—the child learns to play the piano and feels a sense of pride for learning it and playing it. 

Now, we could go into the cultural differences and the mental condition of children. For example, many individuals from India do not believe in “mental health issues” whereas there’s a mental health epidemic happening in the United States and England (comparing India to the Englishman).

No one is wrong–that’s the human condition of the society, but why is there such prejudice against sex, gender, race, ethnicity, religion?

Women

One of the things Dr. Drews mentions is that women may be the key to solving world issues–and I have to wonder if that’s actually true? She states that the female sex has better communication skills, sensitivities, and concern for human beings (pg 6) that women are better fit to potentially solving–or meeting a lot of needs to world issues. 

In some ways, I could agree that I do think gentler, sensitive people are able to adequately argue for human rights across the globe and discuss solutions–but I don’t think it boils down to sex hormones and organs. I’ve met a lot of cis-men/male identifying people that are more empathetic than a lot of women I’ve met. 

However, the challenge that Drews describes is making sure that there is specifically a woman–or, in my argument: person–with fully met needs and then society gets its needs met to create a functioning relationship. Meaning the woman–person–has to be well taken care of before she or they can even begin assisting the issue in meeting those needs of society.

This is where the essay seems like a perfect draft to me. The woman–person–probably cannot have their needs met without society being able to provide it and would need its needs met to provide for the woman, but she’s supposed to be the heroine from Drews’ perspective. 

Mental Health

As I’m running  out of time in this essay, I’d like to introduce some last few points. This will more than likely be the piece I expand on the most as there is so much more I need to read and say–however, this essay by Dr. Drews not only talks about women and how there’s some sort of cyclical relationship between the needs of society and the needs of a woman to make a positive impact, there’s also the mention of the beginning of the mental health movement.

According to Drews, this movement has created a more respectable society. The mental health movement began in the early 1900’s, around the time that Drews was born, and starts to become a prominent feature during Drews’ research.

I think–and so does Drew–that mental health is really the first step to improving the human condition. It’s not based on sex–it’s really based on individuals. Acknowledging the root of potential traumas and mental illnesses and assisting in the relief of the illnesses may actually be the first step to solving issues around the world.

It could be a woman that creates that change–her needs being met from mental health awareness–or it could just be anyone who has had their needs met to be able to assist and help society be better.

What that means, according to Drew and her colleagues at the time, a mentally stable individual (stated as man to describe humanity) states, “[he] is variously described in psychological terms as mature, self-actualized, fully-functioning, and productive” (pg 7). 

Maturity is such a loose term so I’m surprised that was a requirement. No matter the definition, maturity changes based on age, society, and circumstance so I found this to be particularly interesting.

Self-actualization is another thing. There’s a really fine line of self-actualization and being too self critical or being too ignorant. This is a really important factor to happiness and being a respectable person, in my own personal opinion–just because it leaves no guesswork to one’s self on whether they are good enough or not if they are able to become aware of their own faults and mistakes and learn from them in some way or another. 

Fully-functioning is curious to me, however; we could describe “functioning” in a thousand different ways. Purely being alive can be described as functioning–lungs are filtering the air and doing respiration, cells are duplicating, nerve-endings are doing what they need to, blood is flowing, etc. Although, I know that’s not what is intended in this definition so that’s not exactly an accurate description to me. 

Productive is another thing. Is getting through the day productive enough? Even if it’s just waking up and managing to keep breathing? Or to brush your teeth and take a shower even if that’s all the energy one can muster? No, it probably means in work, social relationships, and self-needs. Then what meets that level of productivity? Getting there, clocking in, receiving a paycheck, going home—get in bed—do it again tomorrow?

This essay is perfectly and purposefully vague–it’s to raise questions and cause this need to dig deeper. There’s a lack of definitions everywhere just to make you think. But it all comes down to: what is needed to improve the human condition?

It’s to look past sex, look past trauma, and get right down to the needs of the individual. Food, water, shelter, social relationships, and mental health awareness.