Gender and spirituality – Lent 2025: Day 21

A profound insight I had late last year came when I chanced upon these words in The Economist, written by a male journalist. "I won life's lottery by being born male". A week later, I watched Lany poniedziałek, a film co-scripted by Moni. Set in rural Poland, it draws a sharp divide between male and female teenagers, their behaviour and worldview. 

Suddenly I had profound insight. What if sex differences are not only biological and social – but metaphysical?

I don't wish to stray into gender politics here (patriarchy, feminism, trans rights etc), but I do want to consider the soul. Is there such a thing as a male and female soul? Is consciousness flavoured by sex?

I dismiss the notion of God as male ('Father', 'King', 'Lord'). This is bunk; patriarchy writ large. The authors of the Bible probably did not even give a second's thought as to which sex to assign to their Supreme Being – to them, it was clearly male. This is the result of attributing personhood to God, a category error in my view. A narrative that politicises spirituality for the sake of social control. (Just take a look at Leviticus 15:19-30!)

Sex determination systems in living organisms that reproduce sexually differ, with mammals and other animals producing gametes that are either ova or sperm. Females are more conscientious, bearing more responsibility. A female cat is a better hunter than a male cat, because her offspring depend upon her to feed them between being weaned and becoming independent. Males are more prone to risk-taking, especially in adolescence and early manhood as they fight to establish themselves on the status hierarchy. Females have to endure menstruation, childbirth and menopause.

So – my metaphysical question is – are souls assigned a sex? If so, why? And when? Forever? I ask this in particular in the context of survival of consciousness and the possibility of reincarnation. All of my many exomnesia (or xenomnesia) dreams and flashbacks, anomalous qualia memories of another time and another place, have had a masculine flavour. None felt like the recall of the experience of being female. 

Is there something to this? Some profound, universal spiritual truth? Yin and yang? Two opposites that ultimately form One? How? By dilution over time? Or is does this happen at the End of Time?

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