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What does 'separated and unique" mean when taken out of the abstract and put into actual practice? What does it mean in terms of how femininity is associated with girls and women and masculinity is associated with boys and men? Have you thought through the practical damage it can do to individuals in a dualistic system? how does this damage refract back through the practical into the abstract?

Broken down:

The yin yang is an abstract symbol, meaning that it is not directly tied to any physical object or item or being. The latter is also known as "actual practice" or part of the "practical" sphere; when I use the term practical, it's nearly always referring to a specific event or object and the issues around that. The terms "separate" and "unique" are likewise abstract. What I am asking in the first sentence is for you to take those abstract concepts - your internalization of those things - and bring them to a practical, nuts and bolds, object level.

For example - if you are working from a yin/yang theory of the world, then you can claim cold is one and hot is the other, yes? Two separate yet connected things. However, at the practical, observable level, the concepts of "hot" and "cold" are both relative (meaning that as your standard of hot changes so does your standard of cold) and they simply describe how quickly molecules are moving within a given substance - and their oppositionality abruptly disappears.

One of the weaknesses of having a paradigm is that you often impost the abstract concept onto things and ignore evidence that your concept may be missing part of the story, if not all of the story.

Working from a basis, then, where we accept that conceptual opposites are often not oppositional at all, lets focus on a specific duality - that of masculine and feminine.

First of all, you need to establish what are the characteristics of masculine and feminine and why they are opposite. For example, aggression is historically (in a fairly broad cultural spectrum) associated with "masculine" and nurturing is historically (ibid) associated with "feminine". We'll focus on these two characteristics since they are fairly consistent and wide spread, but this can be done with any characteristics given to either term.

If aggressive == masculine == male, what does that hold for men? What does that determine about the spectrum of emotions and actions they feel they can participate in and still remain male and masculine?

If nurturing == feminine == female, what does that hold for women? What does that determine about the spectrum of emotions and actions they feel they can participate in and still remain female and feminine?

If aggression is set up oppositionally to nurturing, what does that say about our conception of these two ideas? How does it frame how we view, say, a woman killing someone in defense of her children? How does it frame how we view a man gently and lovingly teaching his son competitive kickboxing?

And lastly, if being nurturing is feminine/female and aggressive is masculine/male, then how does this effect relationships between the two?

If male and female are opposites, and nurturing is feminine, how will this effect how an individual who wishes to be masculine (as most men do) behaves toward other people? If male and female are opposites, and aggression is mascuine, how will this effect how an individual who wishes to be feminine (as most women do) behaves toward other people?

You will probably find that the aforementioned assumptions and dualities does a lot of damage, for example by obscuring communication between men and women and by leading to physical violence (I happen to think male on female domestic violence - the act of a man showing his masculinity + love by being possessive and abusive, is well informed by the association of masculine with aggression and non-masculine with nurturing). If you don't... um, I dunno. But I think you will.

This practical experience of the duality in action will effect how this duality is conceptualized - for example, some men will associate "evil" with "female" in order to settle "good" with "male" and thus also raise violence and war up as something good. Since love and sex are both nurturing, this demands that both love and sex have an aggressive component in order to remain "masculine" and thus something "men" can participate in.

So in that way, the abstract alters the practical which then alters the abstract further.

Now comes the tough part.

Start answering the questions. Then, when you see things on the news about men and women, think about these questions. When you read studies, or books that say men and women can't clearly communicate, think about these questions.

(For bonus points, substitute "male" and 'female" for "white" and "black", then consider how setting up a duality like that makes anyone in neither of those categories invisible.)