Paper Title
GENDER CONSTRUCTIONS AND ITS LINKS TO GENDER VIOLENCE: ARGUMENTS FOR A GENDERLESS SOCIETY

Abstract
Gender violence is a serious concern worldwide.Considerable research shows that gender inequality is a key cause of gender violence, and gender violence is a major barrier to achieving gender equality. Gender is everywhere and used to explain almost everything. It is so deeply entrenched that we see it as natural.The notion of gender has been troubled ( Butler 1990), and clearly, gender continues to be trouble. Gender equality is a universal and uncontested goal. To trouble gender is to trouble the performance of gender-segregated roles and expectations within families, the marriage space, schools, workplaces, and the community, all of which are divided along gender lines. Gender is at the heart of systems of difference. However, difference itself is not a problem except when it is the basis for discrimination and inequality. In this presentation, I argue that a degendered society will be a society with less gender violence. I use theories of gender that see gender and sexuality in dynamic relations as multiple, provisional, and situated. I use theories that take gender as the social meanings assigned to biological sex, the characteristics that a society or culture defines as masculine or feminine. I draw on theorists such asCandice West and Don Zimmerman 1987, who explain that Gender is not something we have but something we do. My arguments are based on two research projects: The first was the project on Safer Learning Spaces – Addressing Gender Violence in Universities and Schools. The project arose out of the concern that the university was a place of gender and sexual violence for and by students. The study included a focus on the understanding and experiences of gender violence in the university community, intimate Partner Violence, sexual harassment, spaces for gender violence, homophobia, and fear of sexual assault. The findings add to the evidence that the main perpetrators of gender violence are men, and the primary victims are women and non-conforming men. Overall findings in this project emphasised how the dominant constructions of gender, versions of masculinities and femininities, contributed to gender violence. The second was a Project on alcohol use and gender violence at university. It arose out of the recognition of the strong links between alcohol abuse and gender violence - high incidents of alcohol being present in cases of gender violence. Alcohol drinking is a common activity among university students. It is critical, therefore, to identify and analyse the complexities of the alcohol-gender-violence nexus so as to avoid overly simplistic analyses of alcohol-related violence. While it may be a common understanding that alcohol causes violence, there is no clear evidence to support this. The findings in this project show how gender inequalities and unequal gender power resulting from dominant constructions of masculinities and femininities promote gender violence. If we continue to blame alcohol for any gender violence that occurs, then the culpability of the perpetrators remains hidden. The research pointed to the need for consciousness-raising of people of all genders to disrupt notions of masculinity as being naturally dominant and aggressive and femininity as being weak and submissive and challenge the ideas that perpetuate and promote gender norms that often result in and condone gender violence. While I acknowledge the complexity of intersectionality- how multiple identity markers, such as race, class, size, ableness, age, etc., interact to create patterns of oppression, what does it mean practically for us to work towards a genderless world? It would mean thinking deeply about how our ideas about gender became common sense and unlearning some of the fundamental beliefs we were raised on. It would mean that we pay attention to how we interact with each other, our language, how we raise our children, what roles we attach to boys and girls, what behaviours and emotions we encourage and discourage, and what opportunities we create. We must think about families, schools, universities, religion, work, and politics from a nongendered social order, without the divisions and hierarchies. I assert that a genderless society would benefit people of all existing genders and would reduce, if not eliminate gender violence. Keywords - Gender, Gender Violence,Degenderingsociety