di·chot·o·my /dīˈkätəmē/: Noun
- A division or contrast between two things that are or are represented as being opposed or entirely different.
- Repeated branching into two equal parts.
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NATURE/NURTURE
The nature/nurture divide is a false one, since the experience we have in our lives will change the physical structures of our brains or our production of hormones. There is no unchanging biological reality, free from history, just as there is no blank slate on which the finger of experience writes. Our genetic inheritance helps to determine how we filter and respond to experience, and our experience modifies how our genetic inheritance expresses itself.
- from Living Dolls: The return of sexism, by Natasha Walter
All parents are dichotomous; what we really want is a child genius who is perfectly normal.
- paraphrased from Chocky, by John Wyndham
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ATHEIST/AGNOSTIC
Atheism and agnosticism are not two mutually exclusive states of being. In fact, you’re either an atheist agnostic, or an atheist gnostic or a theist agnostic or a theist gnostic.
For more on that see The A Word, from Camels With Hammers at FTB, and Why Don’t All Theists Uncertain of God’s Existence Call Themselves Agnostics? also from FTB, and Since When Is Not Believing In God An ‘Agnostic’ Position? from Patheos
What’s the deal with agnosticism? is a video from The Atheist Voice explaining this same thing.
MAN/WOMAN
The idea of consistently and inflexibly gender-typed individuals is [under dispute]. That is, there are not two distinct genders, but instead there are linear gradations of variables associated with sex, such as masculinity or intimacy, all of which are continuous.
- from GENDER DICHOTOMY IS A FAIRY TALE WE HAVE BEEN TELLING OURSELVES TO SLEEP AT NIGHT, The Mary Sue
HETEROSEXUAL/HOMOSEXUAL
“Heterosexuality needs homosexuality, to be reassured that it is different. It also needs the illusion of dichotomy between the orientations to maintain the idea of a fence, a fence that has a right (normal, good) and a wrong (abnormal, evil) side to be on, or fall from. To the extent that we collaborate in seeing homosexuality as an opposite polarity (not part of a diverse range of human sexuality), we perpetuate this unhealthy, unrealistic, hierarchical dichotomy.”
~ Loraine Hutchins and Lani Ka’ahumanu, Bi Any Other Name: Bisexual People Speak Out
FICTION/NON-FICTION
“Fiction is truer than most of the nonfiction we read because in fiction one can stay closer to the facts. Novels are there as a social tool to bring the news and make readers understand that people are more alike than they are different. And while those differences can be significant, the only way we can really touch each other’s shoulders is through fiction. We only have each other.”
FEMINIST/HUMANIST
Since the backlash against feminism as a movement striving for female equality, quite a few women (in particular) are rejecting the word — most recently in the news is Susan Sarandon — saying that they’d prefer to be called a ‘humanist’, not a ‘feminist’.
Here’s the problem with that:
Humanism is not really an alternative to feminism. Humanism is a cultural and educational philosophy that defines mankind as capable of betterment through study and reason. In this case, a rose by any other name does not smell as sweet: Though there are various definitions of feminism, there really is no synonym, no other word that accurately describes [feminist] beliefs.
– Ellen Page and Toni Collette are feminists, but Susan Sarandon is not? from Ms Magazine
