Well, it has certainly been a revolting couple of days here at Twisty HQ. The righteous indignation emanating from every cranny, including the cranny I at this moment inhabit, is making my boob scars itch.
One thing is clear: I can’t stop people from having stupid ideas.
I can’t even stop myself from having’em. And here are a few on the subject of feminist revolution, the promotion of which, by the way, despite the occasional foray into sport corsets and the hypocrisy of Oprah Winfrey which are the result of my fun but ultimately obfuscatory fascination with the existing false patriarchal “reality,” is ultimately the goal of this blog. A brief explication of a relevant facet of my current working theory of feminist revolution may help clarify why I believe that both those who advocate an exclusionary woman-born-woman view, and the transactivists calling bullshit on what is by any definition bigotry (as well as every other living human being), are all targets of the same deeply entrenched, deeply corrupt paradigm.
In summary:
Patriarchy derives its precious bodily fluids from enforced binary sex roles. The ultimate result of this binarism is an oppressive heteronormative matrix. Within this matrix, binary gender, which functions, with its attendant phallogocentric mythology, as the rationalization for a system of domination and submission, is artificially fixed.
For example, woman, as a concept, relies for its meaning not on invisible chromosomes doled out at conception by Mother Nature, but on a cultural understanding of preexisting conditions of heteronormativity, patriarchy, romantic feelings about aching ovaries, pseudoscientific notions focusing to the exclusion of all else on genitalia, etc. The context of patriarchy is necessary to define woman.
The thing is — and I believe this is the reason feminism is dead in the water — not all humans who identify or are identified as women, regardless of chromosomes or extant genitalia and despite the ubiquity of misogyny in all its colorful guises, share a common, unified experience. For example, the dominant culture identifies me as a woman because I am clearly not a “man.” However, I currently experience this “womanhood” from the decidedly non-universal perspective of a privileged, educated, middle-aged, mostly celibate, skinny, honky American dyke with no sex organs, no estrogen, no nuclear family, a limp, and a faint mustache. A thousand other apt descriptors (I’m funny, I don’t “bleed”, I don’t do housework, I’m not “good with kids”) differentiate me from the universal “woman.” What am I really? Just a mutilated woman? A spinster aunt? Why not a trans man?
Why, indeed, must I be any “thing” at all?
In a post-revolutionary society, the core development that, above all else, must obtain is the dissolution of these oppressive binary sex roles. This must extend to the dissolution of biology as a determining factor of identity.
Without the patriarchal binary sex role paradigm to enforce my status, I would be just what I am. Not woman. Not man. Not “something in between.” I would be merely a realized consciousness delimited by organic matter. So would you.
This is what I mean when I say that gender can not survive the revolution.
FIRST!
Ooops — though I was at Perez Hilton’s site for a moment.
I don’t know if I agree that gender can’t survive the revolution. A patriarchally-enforced, binary system of gender based on biology - sure, that can’t and shouldn’t survive the revolution. But gender in general, gender as an expression of self that is freely chosen and detached from biology and patriarchy - well, I rather like that. I rather love being a butch, having my gender be very self-directed, self-conscious, and central to my identity; I don’t know how much I’d enjoy the revolution without my butch identity. But maybe it’s just a sentimental attachment, who knows.
Either way, I appreciated reading this.
So, would it be too huge a simplification of a desired outcome to say:
I’m me. This bag of skin and bones around me is temporary, albeit occasionally convenient (and occasionally troublesome… a conversation starter, I guess). When I rent a car, and it has a CD player, I’ll use that. The fact that there’s a CD player doesn’t define me, it’s just a piece on the board of the game of life.
I’m all for it, and have been without knowing it all my life. And I think that the sexual side of life would still be a functional reality, just not a central reality.
With gender eliminated, sex can become far less central to our lives. Maybe some of us could drop it altogether. I can see sex being as important to my life as it is to my body; in other words, one small, inconsequential piece of my life that is used more often for eliminating excess fluids than oppressing women, oops, I mean sex.
I especially would like to see love freed from the prison of gender relations and sex. Because I love you, dear Twisty, and it will never matter to me what gender you are.
Jack, the thing is, gender would have no post-patriarchal meaning. The need for expression — in the sense that it is used to identify an individual within an oppressive hegemony — would itself become obsolete, since we would already be what we mean to express.
Believe me, I realize this is difficult to conceptualize. When I read Shulamith Firestone the first time, and she told me that art would also disappear as a consequence of feminist revolution, I about had a heart attack.
I’m more prone these days to knitting than to Deep Thoughts. But I believe that just as the patriarchy vigorously enforces a strict binary model of gender, it prefers a binary model of argument. In other words, the patriarchy says nuance is for sissies.
In the highjacked lipstick thread, did we not see variations on the theme of “if you don’t understand/don’t agree with me you must be a [bigot, asshole, running dog of the patriarchy]”?
Now, if I opine that what Twisty has written here is more articulate than most of the 200 comments in the lipstick thread, is someone going to accuse me of being a koolaid-drinking Twisty sycophant?
Nah, I get that, Twisty, I see how it makes sense. Yet something in me still rebels against it. I guess I see my gender as an almost cultural thing. Maybe not cultural in the same way that my Puerto Rican identity is, but similar.
Actually, I think that my gender is more similar to my being a person of color or a queer person than to me being Puerto Rican. Perhaps, in a post-racist and a post-heterocentric world, the terms would be obsolete. Yet there’s something in me that would still want to hold onto them, because of the kinship, solidarity, strength, comfort and joy they’ve brought to my life. Does that make any sense? This is why I say that it might be sentimental, though I feel like there must be arguments out there for why gender etc will and should still be there after the revolution. Maybe I’ll try to dig some up.
As for art disappearing? Oh HELL no. I don’t care how much sense it might make (I’ve never read such theories), you can’t rob me of art! I refuse! Yet I’m curious. Care to elaborate a bit?
I agree with everything you said there, Twisty. Here’s the thing though, with respect to woman-only spaces. Women *are*, in fact, oppressed and subordinated — all gender is is a mechanism of subordination; that’s all it is — on the basis of having been born female. Come the revolution, I agree, gender, as we have known it — i.e., as a subordinating mechanism — will be meaningless. But the revolution won’t be made without women, those of us subordinated on the basis of our sex, making it. We know men aren’t going to give up power without a fight– they never have until today, they fight us tooth and nail today, they have the power today. To make revolution, I think we’ve got to make times and places to gather out from under the noses of those who are vested in our subordination and in maintaining gendered power. It’s not about biology, chormosomes, bleeding, or anything else. It’s about being classed, sorted, as inferior on the basis of being female.
Heart
That’s why it’s called human rights.
Sometimes, the particulars of the freedom struggles of purple polka-dotted interfeminized left handed carpathians get in the way of that larger issue.
Hi, I’m Jane. This is my first time commenting at IBTP. The enormous thread Twisty referred to as “referendum on transgenderism†has generated a lot of heat here and in the feminist blogosphere in general, and I just wanted to briefly chime in.
It seems a lot of women feel that Twisty should have shut down the thread or silenced some of those commenting. I, for one, am glad that she didn’t because I read the entire thread, and I thought it was enlightening. As unsexy as it is to be ignorant, or to have been ignorant, until I read the thread I had no idea, for example, that transphobia was an issue for feminists, and I also had no idea “trannie†is basically a slur. I understand that some of you who are more versed in feminist theory or transactivism or in the politics of blogging may not share my (green) perspective.
Even more enlightening, to me, was the reaction to the thread in the blogosphere, especially over at the Women of Color Blog, where excellent criticism of the language used on the thread at IBTP was published. In fact, the criticism also became a conversation about the relationship between transphobia and racism. (Clearly, exposure to does not equal acceptance of when it comes to feminists, critical thinkers that we are.) For example, a little ways into the thread on her blog, brownfemipower wrote, “The thing is, trans women are not the only ones who’ve ever had their experiences as women contested by a white majority…I’m not counted as a ‘real’ woman, and nobody in my [Chicana] community is. We are the bargaining chips that can be traded in to the nation/state so that white women can keep their precious right to choose and their precious female identities in their safe spaces.â€
To me it seems that the definition(s) of “woman†is central to both threads, including the idea that some individuals are “more woman†or “less woman†as defined by the patriarchy or the white majority or the het majority, etc. Twisty, who favors “the dissolution of these oppressive binary sex roles,†offered: “Why, indeed, must I be any ‘thing’ at all?â€
What I want to know is, why didn’t the word androgyny appear anywhere in the 250 comment thread?
It seems to me the English language (tool of the patriarchy that is often is) fails often to provide words for experiences that are essential for feminists. When one or two or five English words won’t cut it, I generally think that poetry (which pushes on the language’s boundaries) is necessary. An excellent feminist poet named Stacey Waite recently won the Main Street Rag chapbook (short book of poems) competition for her book Love Poem to Androgyny. Basically, I recommend that anyone interested in the conversation read the whole book, but also, here is the title poem:
Love Poem to Androgyny
by Stacey Waite
I don’t know why I love you.
I don’t know why you leave me
whenever I am face with my own body.
Outside the dumpsters are lifted
and emptied. I slide the white shirt
over my head. Last night I had
the coward dream again, the airport,
Sante Fe, gunshots echo off
the women’s bodies. I stand
in the lines of men who have to watch.
We all love you to begin with.
Then something happens. We become
a mother who races down concrete steps
to cover our daughter, riding her bike
topless, with a plaid blanket. All these years
you have been my skin though I’m afraid
to say sometimes I don’t love you at all.
Sometimes, it is a man I love.
In the beginning was the word and the word
knows us. We don’t always return the gesture.
As Twisty implies, the world itself is an infinitely rich and complicated, both in terms of gender and virtually every other attribute we use to make sense of it.
We human, however, are limited in our ability to comprehend pretty much anything. So, as a matter of cognitive necessity, we create categories that approximate some aspect of the truth, on average, but can’t possibly capture the real complexity of existence. Categories like “male” and “female” (or for that matter, “Republican” and “Democrat” or pretty much any other artificial dichotomy) are actually pretty useful approximations. But they become oppressive when you think they capture the complexity of reality.
My interpretation of the wisdom in what Twisty writes is that the oppression of patriarchy comes from believing that the dichotomy is real. Being limited beings, we need to make dichotomies, or we couldn’t think at all. But to avoid oppression, we need to be constantly aware of the fact that any dichotomy is only an approximation, and in many cases a poor one. And that many of the generalizations based on the dichotomy will be flat-out false, and oppressive when applied as policy.
Twisty has written before that patriarchy will never be eliminated. Whether that is so or not, we will never eliminate thinking with dichotomies, because we can’t live without them. What we can hope for is increased humility about what truth they have.
Well… I think gender is very real. But it isn’t true. There’s a difference. Gender is real in terms of its consequences in the real world, in human lives. But it isn’t “true” in the sense that it would exist apart from patriarchy. There’s nothing “essential,” in other words, about gender. It’s a weapon used to apportion power to one class of people (men) by subordinating another class (women).
Heart
And of course, there, in a nutshell, is the issue which some of us take with theories around transgender. Instead of working for the elimination of gender, transgender theories treat gender as though it really *is* true, as though it is something in the head, in the chromosomes, in the genes, in the jeans, as though it is something people are “born with,” or can’t help wanting or having, when in fact, gender has to do with coercion and subordination on the basis of sex. Eliminate gender, the sky’s the limit, we are all free to live, present, act in any way we want to without having to “identify” on the basis of gender.
heart
Heart, why do you (and others) think the idea of gender wouldn’t exist at all if not for the patriarchy? It seems to me it is possible that it could still exist (altered?). (I mean this question sincerely rather than as bait.)
jane awake, the answer to that question would fill many books. One very short answer is, what has been said about women for millennia, and about men for millennia, is not true. Women are not “naturally,” as a class, any of the things women are said, under patriarchy to be. Women are forced to be certain things under threat of punishment. The same is true for men. Men are not “naturally,” as a class, any of the things men are said, under patriarchy, to be. They are forced to be certain things under threat of punishment if they aren’t. Those of us who have spent some time in communities which are as nonpatriarchal as it is possible to get in American culture (still patriarchal, because it is so far inescapable, but much less so) find out that left to ourselves, women do everything men do and everything women do and everything in between. They cook, they build, they are carpenters, engineers, electricians, cooks, nurturers, strong silent types, loud, quiet, everything. They also look every kind of way: short, tall, fat, thin, muscled, flabby, short hair, long hair, bearded, big bellies, small butts, big butts, small bellies, big boobs, no boobs. In contexts in which gender is not coerced or forced on women, its signifiers disappear. It begins to become meaningless.
Heart
So what you mean is that “gender as defined by the patriarchy” would be eliminated if the patriarchy is eliminated?
I felt such a sense of calm, freedom and relief while envisioning the post-gender world Twisty describes here.
It’s like taking off tight clothes, binding bras, and high heel shoes at the end of the day, and swimming in a warm ocean - no, not a “naked woman” in the water, but just a being, in water, going forth.
It is very easy to imagine it. Very natural.
But, no art??
I don’t get that at all.
There would still be things to talk about in such a world, I would think. There would still be ideas. There would still be the satisfaction and necessity of “aesthetic distance” to describe our experience here on earth. Those things tend to lead to art.
Right?
I think patriarchy created gender for the specific purpose of subordinating a class of people. Apart from patriarchy, I don’t think there would be any such thing as gender.
Heart
One issue, which will be impossible for us to decipher, is the role of several million years of patriarchy. Based on the time scale this appears that it really would have biological consequences, and how do these relate to gender? That said, I salute TF here- she can do what she wants, but I think she is usually more subtle than she thinks she is- what is a ton of bricks to her appears opaque to others. I know TF likes to play with ideas and imply them, and I think it is possible to discern their meaning consistent with this post here, it is just that a lot of people, and she bears no responsibility for answering them, were taking her meaning differently. Thus I really appreciate this post.
But there will always be sex, unless the human race is to be extinguished.
The definition of feminine relies on lipstick, gentleness and high heels.
The definition of woman relies on having some sort of uterus when born. Bleeding is paradigmatic of womanhood, even if it was only when she was born. Obviously a woman doesn’t bleed for her whole life, but only a woman can be amenorrheac.
You can’t be 10% of a woman, or 50% or 100%, either you are or you aren’t, and whether or not you actually reproduce doesn’t decide it.
Twisty, sorry, but you’re a woman.
saltyC - some people who are non-trans women don’t have uteruses and have never bled.
Also, where in the hell do you get off telling someone who they are or are not? Can you get any more disrespectful?
Yes, but those are the women who don’t have uteruses and have never bled. They don’t know they don’t have uteruses and won’t bleed until they are nearly adults and have lived all of their formative years in the understanding that they do and will. This is an experience specific to those born female.
Heart
Beard, I really dig your comment.
Heart, it just seems to me that gendered/genderless could potentially be as false a dichotomy as masculine/feminine clearly is. It seems to me that even without patriarchy there could be manifestations of gender (and by “gender” I do not mean “lipstick, gentleness and high heels”).
Perhaps genderlessness is the only way to completely defeat patriarchy, and perhaps that is the reason why patriarchy (as many of you have said) won’t ever be entirely defeated. I don’t profess to know for sure. I keep trying to imagine a world with absolutely no manifestations of gender.
Twisty: I agree with you emphatically, and I’m really glad you’ve said it. I’m also glad you haven’t censored the hate comments. They make horrible, and yet educative, reading.
Biology doesn’t prescribe binary sex roles, anyway. Biology doesn’t prescribe anything, seeing as it is the study of the natural world, not a religion, and not the media. I didn’t get my oar in when some bigoted fuckards were blethering on about how you couldn’t join their feminist gang unless your chromosomes matched their woefully underresearched, deterministic and speculative ideas of how biology might work. I’ve said this before here, but it needs saying again:
There is no biological definition of sex.
Nor, for that matter, is there a biological definition of gender, and incidentally this argument might be a lot clearer if everyone stopped using the word ‘gender’ as a synonym for ’sex’.
There are currently considered to be approximately six or seven indicators of sex, and the poor old Olympic Committee are having a hell of a time trying to decide who can compete as men and who as women. They put their chromosome testing kit away in the 1980s, by the way, because it was so hopelessly inadequate. Now, it saddens me that some trans people (note: some) actually reinforce sex and gender stereotypes. But a charitable person might allow that trans people are trying to deal with their complex identities within a rigid and repressive system, and perhaps a few of them are going to get things a bit mixed up occasionally. Hardly a reason to condemn a whole group of people who, like everyone else, are oppressed by the patriarchy. Moreover, there are plenty of trans people who have a subtle, tolerant, sophisticated and inspiring understanding of sex and gender.
In the meantime, I want nothing to do with any form of ‘feminism’ that involves singling out any group of people, turning them into pariahs, ridiculing them and hating them. As far as I’m concerned, the creation and belittlement of underclasses is the exact opposite of feminism.
Why, indeed, must I be any “thing†at all?
This sounds like you are saying you are a “thing” by being defined as a woman. Defining something is not the same thing as devaluing it. Definitions can also be the ties that bind people, communities and ideas together.
The need for expression — in the sense that it is used to identify an individual within an oppressive hegemony — would itself become obsolete, since we would already be what we mean to express.
The human condition is one of constantly expressing, educating and identifying oneself.
You can have my sense of expression when you pry it from my cold dead fingers.
Catherine Martell has mentioned the distinction between gender and sex. Sex would survive the destruction of the patriarchy. Gender would not.
It makes me uncomfortable to read of people’s expectations of Twisty; that she moderate more stringently, that she explain every personal detail of her life to sustantiate her opinions, etc., etc. Just because one opens a restaurant, doesnt mean they are responsible for the stink of a certain patrons farts. i mean, sheesh.
My understanding of the expression of gender is that it is not two-fold, it is four-fold : solar-feminine, lunar-feminine, solar-masculine, and lunar-masculine.
I blame the patriarchy that two of those four manifestions are (basically) denied expression. I feel that if we were able to move freely among our solar and lunar expressions, transgenderism would be a rare phenomenon indeed.
Just to clarify, when I used the word “gender” in my posts, I meant gender and not sex. I do know the diffence, after all, and so I hope my questions and statements stand.
Dear Twisty:
J’accuse! You have so totally been hitting the postmodernism sauce! “Phallogocentric mythology” reeks of it. I’m surprised you can stand up.
So in place of expression of gender or the expression we call “art” we would have various non-gendered, non-art decorations?
And Jack might decorate as “calm strength” instead of “butch”?
And Miss Patsy would decorate with “stupid, unfunctional shoes,” instead of “feminine high heels?”
yrs, B. Dagger Lee
Ha, ‘phallogocentrism’ is a pomo word, c’est vrai, but it’s perfectly crumulent all the same. No reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Heart:
You point out that what women have “naturally†been said to be is an ideology of the patriarchy, and in fact not “natural.†Let’s unpack the phrase “theories around transgender,†from one of your comments. Which theories around transgender? Whose theories? Where? When?
Then you go on to state, “Instead of working for the elimination of gender, transgender theories treat gender as though it really *is* true, as though it is something in the head, in the chromosomes, in the genes, in the jeans, as though it is something people are “born with,†or can’t help wanting or having, when in fact, gender has to do with coercion and subordination on the basis of sexâ€.
You state this as a fact, and it’s not, it’s your opinion.
Most of the theory I’ve read (Judith “Jack†Halberstam, Judith Butler, Leslie Feinberg, Kate Bornstein), posits that gender is non-essential, not fixed in the genes, chromosomes, and is not in-born. They—and I—posit it as a complex, developed emotional stance and expression developed through time, epiphany, awareness and other factors.
yrs, B. Dagger Lee
P.S. jane awake rules!
Thanks, Twisty. I remember figuring out a basic version of that when I was about 15, and wishing I knew other people who thought the same way. (Small, working-class towns in more or less the middle of nowhere aren’t usually the place to find thinkers of those thoughts.) In all the years since then, I’ve basically looked for people who–as best they can, given the patriarchy–have reached a similar thoughtspace.
Maribelle: “The human condition is one of constantly expressing, educating and identifying oneself.”
Currently, perhaps (if one has the money). But if the species survives long enough to undertake the revolution, all that expressing, educating, and identifying will have long been accomplished. The goal, according to Firestone’s argument, is total domination of nature through brilliant understanding of science, a society in which a thing, once thought, becomes real, and culture itself becomes obsolete. We’d be like those giant brain-things on Star Trek.
Scary, I know. Who besides me can imagine a life where nobody spends 40 hours a week running around dominating things, and then on weekends writing sarcastic little competetive (linkage! linkage!) blog posts to express what a horrible life it is?
B. Dagger, thanks for the love. I hope you read that Stacey Waite poem I posted [Stacey teaches queer theory and sexuality and representation at the University of Pittsburgh and introduced me to Kate Bornstein (in person!)] because it seems like no one else did. The whole book (Love Poem to Androgyny) is frikken great.
jane awake, I did read that the Waite poem, thank you, I like it. Is there a typo in the second stanza, first line? Should it be “faced” instead of “face”?
As it happens, I’m reading Dworkin’s “Woman Hating” right now, and in the last two chapters she writes about androgyny. I would quote from it, but I haven’t fully formulated my thoughts on it.
yrs, BDL
B.Dagger Lee said, “Most of the theory I’ve read (Judith “Jack†Halberstam, Judith Butler, Leslie Feinberg, Kate Bornstein), posits that gender is non-essential, not fixed in the genes, chromosomes, and is not in-born. They—and I—posit it as a complex, developed emotional stance and expression developed through time, epiphany, awareness and other factors.”
I agree with this generally, but Butler et. al. don’t do enough questioning (in my opinion) about just how much that complex development of emotions and expression is FORCED and how none of an individual’s gender “expression” (or, “performance,” if you like) exists outside of patriarchal, enforced heteronormitivity. I’ve only read Butler and Bornstein, granted, but they and other queer theorists fall far short of examining in any meaningful way how gender functions to maintain a system of oppression that, on the whole, privileges men at the expense of women.
If we accept that gender is innate and innocuous and bears no socially political meaning, then transsexuals ostensibly seem to be those who are challenging gender norms most, but I ask (completely in earnest, as I have not come to any firm, set understanding of this issue) why then must the body match the gender “identity?” Isn’t a “trans” identity moot if gender is simply expression? And further, isn’t the decision to surgically alter to the body to “match” one’s gender “expression” an absolute confirmation of binary gender norms? That women are THIS and men are THAT and the plumbing must fit?
Rather, aren’t we ALL transgendered? Isn’t any little girl who would rather play with trucks and grow up to be a mechanic transgendered? Isn’t any guy who wishes he could cry at sappy movies transgendered? At what point do we think it warrants a name change and surgery?
If gender is more artistic expression and less a tool of systematic oppression, why is it that gender is such a primary signifier of who has power and who does not? Who rapes and who is raped? Who beats and who is beaten? Do those who were lucky enough to be born with penises and an innate desire to express themselves in a masculine way just get together and decide to pull one over on the rest of us?
Ugh, “innate” was not the word I wanted to use but rather “individual” in my previous post, so please excuse the mistake. A necessary distinction, given the topic I was attempting to address.
But Twisty! Without gender how will I know which bathroom to use?
Yes, it should be “faced.” Thanks for catching that, BDL.
I absolutely can not resist posting just one more poem (seriously, I won’t do it again) from the aforementioned book here:
Letter to Brandon Teena
by Stacey Waite
I become a man by accident at the Pirates game:
I have an interesting name and Will I buy her a beer?
I shift in the hard blue seat, #216. This isn’t the first time
Pittsburgh has made a man out of me. The stadium lights
are white warnings and this woman’s thick thigh
pressed over the plastic arm of 216. Charlie Hayes
has been traded again. Who are you rooting for?
she asks. The sky has made its mind up and won’t rain.
I know what it’s like to make love to a woman
with your clothes on—your hips quivering
with the fear of she knows what I am.
I know what kind of men we are,
parting her finger from the belt buckle
as if to say this kind of revelation
isn’t at all necessary.
For you, there was gunfire and the moon was a white tear.
And who will believe us that deception is only
a matter of cutting through the red tape?
Through the Liberty Tunnel, she changes the radio stations.
Do I mind?she asks. I keep imagining my car scraping
the concrete walls of the tunnel. I might be in the O.R.
when the nurse presses the ice pack over this woman’s lip
and say, Your friend, she’s going to be alright. For me,
there’s never any turning back and I’ve got a hunch
even desire is a kind of murder. What do you think of that?
Do you think I should have left her there in centerfield
and counted my other blessings?
jane awake: I apologise. When I said “everyone” was using gender as a synonym for sex, I should have said “some people”. No offence meant.
You can’t be 10% of a woman, or 50% or 100%, either you are or you aren’t, and whether or not you actually reproduce doesn’t decide it.
Twisty, sorry, but you’re a woman.
We can all go home, argument over. The science has been dropped on us.
“Without gender how will I know which bathroom to use?”
Various places in Europe have only one bathroom, with lots of toilet cubicles with full-privacy doors, and shared sinks for washing your hands afterward. I don’t recall whether they had urinals or not, and where they were, if so.
It does reduce the utility of the bathroom as a place to discuss your dates with your same-gender friend, but that’s probably a reasonable sacrifice. Eliminate the patriarchy, and save on plumbing and construction costs as a bonus! What’s not to like?
B.DaggerLee: Then you go on to state, “Instead of working for the elimination of gender, transgender theories treat gender as though it really *is* true, as though it is something in the head, in the chromosomes, in the genes, in the jeans, as though it is something people are “born with,†or can’t help wanting or having, when in fact, gender has to do with coercion and subordination on the basis of sexâ€.
You state this as a fact, and it’s not, it’s your opinion.
Most of the theory I’ve read (Judith “Jack†Halberstam, Judith Butler, Leslie Feinberg, Kate Bornstein), posits that gender is non-essential, not fixed in the genes, chromosomes, and is not in-born. They—and I—posit it as a complex, developed emotional stance and expression developed through time, epiphany, awareness and other factors.
In other words, most of the theory you’ve read posits, just as I said in what you quoted up there, in less flowery language than your own, that gender is both real and true. That is, in fact, a gender essentialist position. That is the view that there is something “essential” about gender, there is something “natural” about it, it is something all people “have,” to the point that if they “have” the gender that doesn’t match the sex patriarchy has assigned to it, they need surgeries, hormones and massive patriarchally ordained fixes to make sure that the gender they developed through “time, epiphany, awareness and other factors” matches the biology patriarchy has assigned to that gender.
Which was precisely my point. Transgender theory is about *more* gender, not the elimination of gender. Some of us believe that gender is not going to survive the destruction of patriarchy, because, in fact, it is about subordination and only subordination.
Heart
No sweat, Catherine.
Well I have read the BrownFemiPower thread and am now re-evaluating my position in light of angles made clear there that I had not considered before.
I thought Twisty was being too defensive at first, but now I see the reason in the protests.
“Well I have read the BrownFemiPower thread and am now re-evaluating my position in light of angles made clear there that I had not considered before.
I thought Twisty was being too defensive at first, but now I see the reason in the protests.”
I’d like to hear what you have to say.
“But Twisty! Without gender how will I know which bathroom to use? ”
Don’t worry, Tanya. In the future, we will all be equipped with intestinal nanobots that totally digest the completely digestible future-food; no waste, no bathrooms!
… to the point that if they “have†the gender that doesn’t match the sex patriarchy has assigned to it, they need surgeries, hormones and massive patriarchally ordained fixes to make sure that the gender they developed through “time, epiphany, awareness and other factors†matches the biology patriarchy has assigned to that gender.
Heart, I think that you and others are making a whole lot of assumptions on transgender theory and politics and are backing those assumptions up with little knowledge or evidence. There are many different variations of each, just as there are many different variations of feminist thought and politics. There is by no means one monolithic transgender line of thinking.
The trans and genderqueer community to which I belong, on both social and activist levels, certainly does not feel that anyone “needs” to have any sort of body modifications or “fixes” to make their bodies match their identities. Rather, we believe that people must have the right and ability to do so, if that is what makes them feel more comfortable in their bodies. In fact, the organizations and communities to which I belong strongly assert that there is no one way of being trans or genderqueer that includes a set medical trajectory for “fixing” oneself.
It really pisses me off to hear a bunch of non-trans-identified folks questioning trans people’s choices about identity and transition. It’s so easy to preach all high and mighty about defying gender categorizations when you happen to be in the non-trans majority.
No, not in “other words†because the “other words†you go on to write are the opposite of my words, which are again, and in my other words, as follows: most of the theory I’ve read posits, with a more academic vocabulary, that “gender†is not “real†and not “trueâ€.
The theory I’ve read, and referred to above, is not gender essentialist and posits that it is the patriarchy (or the “phallologocentric mythologyâ€) that claims there is something “essential†about gender, that the patriarchy claims there is something “natural†about gender, and that the patriarchy enforces—with violence and the threat of it—rigid boundaries around these “natural†and “essential†categories. Crossing these boundaries, whether as a dyke or a transwoman or transman is punished—often murderously, or by punishing speech, according to my theorists of gender.
That said, I have no doub that there are transgendered people who believe that they are becoming “authenticâ€, “natural†or “real†when they have sex-reassignment surgery; they are individuals and have their own philosophies and ideologies in life. I have no doubt that there are trans people who are gender essentialists. But not the theorists I’ve referred to above, and not the transpeople I know.
Again, when you write “transgender theoryâ€, who are these theorists? Who are you talking about?
I refer you also to the last chapters of Andrea Dworkin’s “Woman Hating,†wherein her ideas about androgyny seem to encompass and honor both the ideas and realities of transvestites, transsexuals, transgendered people, intersexed people, homosexual people and some heterosexual people, and to posit these peoples as capable of being androgynes, or gender dissidents.
yrs, B. Dagger Lee
My last comment was directed to Heart and in the interim, Jack has said it more clearly and concisely, thanks.
yrs, BDL
I have been chewing on this all day. Two cents (which, with inflation is not much, certainly not enough for nanobots):
If patriarchy is all powerful and the root of gender, such that we all are expressing our “gender” in response to the environment, then a “gender” non-essentialist view of transgender experiences by definition would define it as some sort of personality response to our environment, just different than the those in the “cis.” I think that luckynkl’s view would be an extreme of this, expressed as offensively as possible, while my understanding of Heart’s view is somewhat in between. I don’t want to be in the position of equating sexuality and gender, but for the sake of argument, let’s consider them to be analogous (not homologous, mind). I do hold that sexuality is biological in nature, with some indeterminate room for fuzziness. If transgendered individuals describe their experiences in the identical terms as GLB persons, how can we tell the difference? Obviously, those on the “cis” side of gender will of course have a hard time describing how they feel about their own gender, because if you happen to fall within certain prescribed lines, you just don’t think about it, but do you fall into those lines because they are prescribed? For a ton of behaviors, the answer is of course yes. I don’t know about gender.
This being said, as long as actions are those of tolerance and acceptance, theory becomes academic (until the nanobots are in place). I don’t write off theory completely, but if and when the pieces of the patriarchy fall away, so will the various dominoes. If the gender one refuses to fall, it will be impossible to know if it is a last strong/stranglehold of the patriarchy or an actual thing, albeit we would presume to be much fuzzier/broader than the tiny box currently allowed.
For the love of Goddess, can we please discuss the Bonobos now?
At least the Bonobos don’t come here and tell the women how unkind and uncaring we are….and how we have pissed them off by not being what? Motherly enough? Agreeable enough? Subordinate enough?
Jack says: “It really pisses me off to hear a bunch of non-trans-identified folks questioning trans people’s choices about identity and transition. It’s so easy to preach all high and mighty about defying gender categorizations when you happen to be in the non-trans majority.”
You’re pissed? Join the crowd. I was born pissed. But calling a bunch of us ‘all high and mightly’ will get you nowhere…on society’s caste ladder to the stars, you need to skip us and head to the top and direct that anger where it belongs…the rich white hetero boys.
Or if that doesn’t make you feel better, I guess you could start your own blog and entitle it: I Blame the Feminists.
I thought the spamulator would love my use of the word “nanobot.” Maybe it loves it too much. Maybe my comment spamulator=the first coupling that will bring our nanobots to fruition.
“You can’t be 10% of a woman, or 50% or 100%, either you are or you aren’t, and whether or not you actually reproduce doesn’t decide it.
Twisty, sorry, but you’re a woman.”
I must have missed the post where Twisty treated us all to an upskirt shot. After all, this is the internets — for all we know, Twisty could be a 15-year-old boy impersonating a radical feminist. Stranger things have happened.
But more to the heart of your comment, what to say about people who have female sex organs, but XY chromosomes? Or ambiguous genitals? Or a uterus and ovaries, but a penis and male secondary sex characteristics? Or XXY chromosomes? Or both testicular and ovarian tissue?
If you either are or you aren’t, what about these people? Enlighten us, Salty: Do they count as women, or are they out of the club? Where do they fit in your either/or categories?
Jack and B.Dagger Lee, why the term “transGENDER,” if transgender isn’t about gendering, and making sure people can present in ways that are “gendered,” whether they have surgery or not? Bottom line, it is still as I’ve said: some of us want an end to gender because gender has always been about subordination. You both seem to believe there’s a place it’s important for us to make for gender so long as gender is not attached to biology (although you want people to be able to attach their gender to the biology patriarchy has always attached it to if they feel like they need to.) Why is it important, in your minds, for people to present or identify in ways which are gendered? How will this bring us closer to the end of patriarchy? Why is it important for people to have the right to make their bodies match the gender patriarchy has connected that gender with?
As to Andrea Dworkin, I think what you’re saying there is misleading, B.DaggerLee. What Andrea Dworkin said in Woman Hating is that wanting to have a body other than the one you are born with, believing you are in the “wrong body,” is a medical emergency created by patriarchy and patriarchy ought to immediately make provision for the medical emergency patriarchy has created. She then goes on to say, recalling from memory now, but I’ve read this recently, that feminism must then move forward to *end gender*. A huge focus of Dworkin’s work was ending gender, as opposed to continuing to have to deal with the medical emergencies created because patriarchy enforces and imposes gender on people. When Dworkin talks about androgyny, she is talking about an end to gender. Not the creation of many new genders which are variations on the old binary. Not making peace with some notion that gender is unavoidable. For Dworkin, gender was always about subordination.
Heart
Grr. Won’t double post, instead I’ll just get angry with self for not using text editor. Goodbye serious comment, hello first drink of the night. If it does show up, it was somewhere up there.
Goodnight, Bert et al.
slade, the proposition that a person cannot bring arguement against a person standing in opposition on the claim that their comfort is more important than the first person’s survival based on the fact that other people hold more power than either person involved comes across a tad disingenuous.
But calling a bunch of us ‘all high and mightly’ will get you nowhere…on society’s caste ladder to the stars, you need to skip us and head to the top and direct that anger where it belongs…the rich white hetero boys.
See, slade, that’s the problem right there - it’s not only rich white hetero boys who have power and privilege. They’re also not the only ones who should be challenged and criticized. Most of us have power and privilege that needs to be acknowledged and dealt with, despite whatever oppression or lack of power we might also experience. Non-trans women most definitely have a certain kind of gender privilege over trans people of all genders - the privilege of being non-trans in a society that roundly hates on trans people.
Also, I already have a blog, and it has a great name, thank you very much. “I Blame the Feminists” would be a pretty stupid blog name, one reason being that I’m a feminist myself.
Why is it important, in your minds, for people to present or identify in ways which are gendered? How will this bring us closer to the end of patriarchy?
Heart - I think that if people think it’s important, for themselves, to present or identify in ways that are gendered, then they should be able to do so free of societal constraint. I don’t think it’s important that everyone be gendered, but I also don’t think that gender is inherently a tool or product of patriarchy (though it’s certainly caught up with it and often twisted within it.) I also don’t think that every single thing on earth has to bring us closer to the end of patriarchy. To me, the end of gender oppression includes both the end of patriarchy and the end of transphobia, in equal measures.
Why is it important for people to have the right to make their bodies match the gender patriarchy has connected that gender with?
I think it’s important for people to be able to make their bodies feel right to them. Sure, that feeling might be influenced by society, but come on - every single thing we think and feel is influenced by our society, for better or for worse. Your objection to trans people finding their own, comfortable gender identity is just as influenced by a society that believes that people should stick with the gender assigned to them at birth.
Catherine wrote: “There is no biological definition of sex.”
Actually, there’s a reasonable working definition of sex in the biological sense, but it’s quite removed from definitions of gender roles in human cultures.
In a sexual species, the female makes large gametes, and the male makes small ones.
Humans being the control freaks that we are, we’ve layered an awful lot of baggage over those gametes and the persons who may carry them.
Julie, if we are talking about simple organisms there are other aspects of sex in addition to making gametes, for example certain mating behaviors in insects are hard wired in specific neurons, and changing the sex of the neurons alone changes the behavior, regardless of the anatomy of the rest of the animal. That is just an FYI, not anything to be expanded.
Goodnight-
Jack, actually, I don’t object to anyone doing anything they need to do to be okay in the world, whatever it might be. I agree with Andrea Dworkin that patriarchy is obligated to address the problems patriarchy has created, including medically. At the same time, I also think that as feminists, we have to talk and think deeply about gender and its role in subordinating women. That’s not the same thing as criticizing anyone’s choices, even though it’s understandable that people hear it that way.
Heart
Hello, new blamer here -
Puffin wrote:
“B.Dagger Lee said, “Most of the theory I’ve read (Judith “Jack†Halberstam, Judith Butler, Leslie Feinberg, Kate Bornstein), posits that gender is non-essential, not fixed in the genes, chromosomes, and is not in-born. They—and I—posit it as a complex, developed emotional stance and expression developed through time, epiphany, awareness and other factors.â€
I agree with this generally, but Butler et. al. don’t do enough questioning (in my opinion) about just how much that complex development of emotions and expression is FORCED and how none of an individual’s gender “expression†(or, “performance,†if you like) exists outside of patriarchal, enforced heteronormitivity.”
I would like to add to this that the complex development of emotions and expression and an individual’s gender expression can not be completely separated from the body of said individual. I think arguing essentialist vs. constructivist theories of gender reinforces yet another false dichotomy and limits our ability to understand how gender functions as a system of oppression.
We may not be born gendered, but our bodies are not closed systems either. Our brains are incredibly plastic, especially early in life, and our experiences do change us on a physical level. Our experience of gender socialization then comes from the outside, but can have a very real and lasting effect on the structure of our brains (and other parts of our bodies as well, like pointy toed shoes fucking up our feet). In this way the construct of gender becomes essential to an extent.
At the same time, I also think that as feminists, we have to talk and think deeply about gender and its role in subordinating women. That’s not the same thing as criticizing anyone’s choices, even though it’s understandable that people hear it that way.
I absolutely agree that gender must be questioned and challenged thoroughly. I think that non-trans and trans people alike should take a look at how we approach gender, both on personal and larger political levels, and really examine what’s going into our choices and opinions about it. I also agree that gender, like sexuality, has been used for time immemorial to subordinate not only women but also anyone who doesn’t fall properly into the male/female dichotomy, like trans and genderqueer people.
However, I’m not of the camp that thinks that all sex is rape or is inherently patriarchal, nor am I of the camp that thinks that gender can only be oppressive and subordinating to women or anyone else. I truly believe that both sexuality and gender can be reclaimed and reframed in ways that are not coercive and are not about replicating patriarchy and oppression. Yes, given the society we exist in, we need to constantly check ourselves when it comes to playing out those oppressive tendencies. Yet I think it is possible to move gender and sexuality more and more away from domination and oppression, with the goal of eventually detaching them from those things entirely.
See, slade, that’s the problem right there - it’s not only rich white hetero boys who have power and privilege. They’re also not the only ones who should be challenged and criticized. Most of us have power and privilege that needs to be acknowledged and dealt with, despite whatever oppression or lack of power we might also experience.
Teh Patriarchy sez … MMM. DIVIDE AND CONQUER. YUMMY.
And while we analyze our feminist souls for original (and not so original) sin spots, The Patriarchy is throwing yet another kegger down at the local frat - and laughing at us for being so hairy and angry.
Teh Patriarchy sez … MMM. DIVIDE AND CONQUER. YUMMY.
Funny… this sounds so much like what white women told - hell, tell - women of color who spoke out against racism within feminist communities.
“Shut up and fight the real enemy, whilst we continue to ignore your issues and your lives and act in complicity with your oppression as women of color, or as trans people, or as genderqueer people. Because we’re all in this together, right, sisters?”
Arguments like that? SO OLD. SO TIRED. SO PLAYED OUT.
Face it, Ms Kate - you probably don’t have a monopoly on oppression. Your dismissive tone especially suggests that you’ve probably got a whole bunch of privilege and the prejudice that goes with it. Trying to cover it up by pointing at the “real” enemy doesn’t make it go away. Being a woman or a feminist doesn’t give you a “Get Out Of Examining My Own Privilege Free” card. None of us get that card. Not a one.
I second Jack’s belief that gender doesn’t necessarily have to be oppressive to women or other groups. While I agree with Twisty that patriarchy is bolstered by enforced sex roles, I don’t think those roles have to stem from the existence or continuation of gender. “Woman†doesn’t have to be reliant on any cultural understandings to exist. What Jack is articulating about enjoying the existence of gender for reasons other than a fixed place in a patriarchy is something shared by too many women and men for gender to break down were the patriarchy to break down. Were the latter to happen, probably not in any of our lifetimes, unfortunately, I believe there would be enough non-patriarchically-imposed things about being a woman that would remain, for the concept of “woman†to maintain.
Twisty seems to be suggesting that being funny, no longer bleeding, being mostly celibate, not doing housework, etc., are tied to some universal definition of “woman.†Certainly such a specific definition would not survive the downfall of the patriarchy. However, what about other more nuanced aspects? The majority of women, post-patriarchy, might continue to have common ways of being entrepreneurial, being empathetic, moving in a certain way, having certain bone structure, being funny in a distinctive way, being creative in a way that draws from different areas. Not to mention, physiques that mostly differ from those of men. Certainly, there will continue to be some overlap. But a combination of traits will probably continue to be viewed as female. The hope would be that this grouping would not derive from patriarchy-centered “roles.â€
I would add to what Jack and octogalore said… that trans people, and ideologies that try to support and defend trans people’s existence and survival, are not necessarily in favor of enforced sex roles, the continuation of gender, or stereotypical ideas of masculinity and femininity. Of course, there are many trans people who do not bother to challenge these institutions… just as most people in general don’t bother to. Most people, sadly, are not feminist.
But to say that being pro-gender, believing in an essentialist model of gender, or relying on rigid, enforced gender roles is part and parcel of “transgender” is a stereotype. It’s simply not true of everyone or even most, even if it is true of certain people you’ve seen, read, or talked to. Until we understand that there’s far more to trans people and “trans ideology” (whatever that might be) then I don’t think we have a very good understanding of what “transgender” is at all, and shouldn’t be making definitive-sounding pronouncements about it. And there have been a lot of those around here lately.
Well, I have two jobs so I don’t have the time to study theory or contemplate this and that at length. When I was a kid in school my teachers all told me I should be a writer, but the right-wing war against working people and poor women put me in my place. So now as I approach 60 I work two jobs and the death of my youthful dreams of being pointy-headed and dazzling everyone with flights of verbal pyrotechnics are the least of my worries. Besides, now that I’ve had so many decades to begin understanding how far beyond my little self the brutality of our world stretches, who or what would I even be writing for?
So, as the Roches once sang, “When the sky falls down, we play on the ground.” I keep it simple now. I stick to the small sphere of things I have seen, felt, experienced in concrete ways. This is the reduced sphere from which I figure I can still comment with authority.
I was in the Ms bulletin board community as it was destroyed by the trans wars. Heart knows that because I assure you she knows me. The real women-born-women never had much use for me except as an audience. In some ways I identify with how women of color see the feminism of privileged white women. Except that there’s a twist on that because I am an impoverished white southern woman. That means I get to watch white liberals recalibrate their biogtry (at least in real life, real time daily ways) into an All People of Color Good, All Poor Southern Whites Bad stereotype that, like all shortcuts to actual observation, is fucked up most of the time.
I guess it gets down to the fact that I don’t fit in any of these damn categories. I’m woman-born-woman, but I’ve had no children and never been married. Say what the fuck you will, but women-born-women have buckets of bias toward mommyhood and married-hood and them of us that ain’t never done neither of them things are regarded as clueless children. As a het woman, I am prone to idealizing lesbians, thinking that if only I were gay, I would have a category, a place in this world. If I had time to do any of that contemplating some of you have the luxury of doing, I’m sure I would quickly realize the error of that particular little personal illusion.
In the Ms. bulletin board community I stuck up for the transwomen there, as least one of whom is still a treasured friend, because they were my friends. When the trans wars broke out I stuck up for them because they were my friends. Simple as that. When it comes to actually knowing scoobie squat about trans or gender queer theory, nada. I could understand astrophysics sooner than I could understand that stuff.
Anyway, this is sure to be disjointed, the ending is precipitate and awkward and (profound apologies and genuflections to Twisty) riddled with errors of syntax, grammar and spelling. But I gotta clean myself up and go to work because it’s Sunday.
Julie Stahlhut: “In a sexual species, the female makes large gametes, and the male makes small ones.”
Doesn’t work. Twisty, for instance, makes no gametes at all. At some point, she probably did, but the fact that she no longer produces large gametes does not render her unwoman. Many people do not make gametes, not only for reasons of surgery but in many cases because they were born that way.
All the factors we use to distinguish sex - gamete size, chromosomal profile, hormone production, anatomy, secondary development, behaviour, etc etc - are indicators. None is definitive in all cases.
After reading this thread, I can get to a definition of “woman” in my cultural here-and-now is “bleeds, or is pathologised for not bleeding”. It’s not perfect, but it’s close.
…. and for the pathologisation, you know who I blame.
In solidarity with Luckynkl, I ban myself. Have at fun at the kegger, boys. And, moderate this.
Octogalore: “Twisty seems to be suggesting that being funny, no longer bleeding, being mostly celibate, not doing housework, etc., are tied to some universal definition of “woman.†Certainly such a specific definition would not survive the downfall of the patriarchy. However, what about other more nuanced aspects? The majority of women, post-patriarchy, might continue to have common ways of being entrepreneurial, being empathetic, moving in a certain way, having certain bone structure, being funny in a distinctive way, being creative in a way that draws from different areas. Not to mention, physiques that mostly differ from those of men. Certainly, there will continue to be some overlap. But a combination of traits will probably continue to be viewed as female. The hope would be that this grouping would not derive from patriarchy-centered “roles.—
No no no! This is exactly what must go! “Difference”! I mean, difference from what? From men! You see how still you can’t imagine not being defined by men? It’s gotta go! It’s what the dominant culture uses to OPPRESS YOU.
I also ban myself, in solidarity with Lyckynkl.
Twisty: I guess the distinction I am making is: I don’t think being different from men would be oppressive in a post-patriarchy setting, and I do think there are differences that we can continue to celebrate. Why do you assume that pointing out distinctive aspects of women, which I continue to believe would largely survive the patriarchy, is my benighted way of defining women via a male template? Why not look at this as my pointing out features which are simply noteworthy. Comparing red to green doesn’t mean using a green standard. None of the features I mentioned are examples of characteristics the dominant culture uses to oppress – such as ones having to do with subordination or patronization. I’ve pointed out characteristics I believe give women various advantages: things that will hopefully aid in overthrow of the patriarchy and will continue as features of which to be proud. I do not believe that difference must be oppressive. I do believe that pretending the differences don’t exist robs us of various tools we have to combat the patriarchy.
OK I now support transgender women’s right to inclusion. If Native American Tribes in Louisiana can recognize the Mardi Gras Indians as a First Nations people, then why not?
Face it, Ms Kate - you probably don’t have a monopoly on oppression. Your dismissive tone especially suggests that you’ve probably got a whole bunch of privilege and the prejudice that goes with it.
No, I’ve just seen a number of communities of justice, on line and in real life, get derailed from the prize they had their eyes on before they started attacking each other. This led to abandonment of common ground and central mission. One could solidly argue that the civil rights movement stalled because of this sort of thing. It’s patriarchal poison.
I do not deny that mainline feminism was founded and largely run for the benefit of urban, white, educated East-coast rich women. I find the “classic” feminists of the 60s to be highly irritating in that regard, and what they were saying had little or nothing to say about my life when I was younger. But the greatest strides of late have not been made on message boards founded as a safe place for ambidextrous multiracial bisexual Irish women living in poverty to air their issues when others just didn’t understand - they have been made because groups like NARAL e-mail women from all walks of life who would not get along with each other in the same chat room to write their congresspeople on a regular basis.
So go ahead and write your treatise on a critique of theory of feminist ichtyology from a left-handed lesbian perspective. I will be sorry to distract you in the coffeehouse when I yet again corner my state rep and US rep as they get coffee.
Twisty: I think we’re getting at an interesting and important distinction, between (a) the categories and dichotomies imposed by the specific patriarchal culture we live in, and (b) the fact that we can’t function without some sorts of categories and dichotomies to make thinking possible.
As I tried to point out above [12/30 11:37 am], while (a) undoubtedly includes much oppressive baggage that must be overthrown, (b) is an inevitable part of the human condition.
What we need to learn is the cognitive humility that recognizes that any given set of categories is a finite approximation of the infinite complexity of reality, and therefore cannot be ultimately “true”, however useful it might be on one occasion or another. Oppression comes from regarding those categories as representing “truth” (whatever that means).
For various purposes, you can plausibly be considered to belong to the categories “female”, and “cancer survivor”, and “superb prose stylist”. But none of them capture what you *are*, because you have infinite complexity. For certain categories, say “Austin tax-payer”, you might plausibly say, “technically correct but so irrelevant as to be misleading”. And, for each of those categories, you could also say, “Here’s why certain default inferences for that category don’t apply to my case, because I am an atypical member of the category.”
The same, of course, applies to each of us, in our own infinite complexities.
“What we need to learn is the cognitive humility that recognizes that any given set of categories is a finite approximation of the infinite complexity of reality, and therefore cannot ultimately be ‘true’, however useful it might be on one occasion or another. Oppression comes from recognizing those categories as ‘truth’.”
I think there’s generally more to oppression than that, but otherwise, very well put.
Have at fun at the kegger, boys.
Have fun at the rally. You might want to a few stretching exercises, as I hear saluting takes a lot out of you.
Hey Twisty, I totally did not know you were a lesbian. I must congratulate you on being “out”, as the kids say.
Ms Kate, you’ve said it better than I have been trying to express.
To me, the “categories” don’t matter. I don’t care if the most-heard voice of the (North American) feminist movement is of white, privileged folk. The fact that it’s being heard is what matters. There needs to be a unified effort, otherwise nothing would get done.
I look at it as a kind of government. There are all sorts of local councils, municipal boards, provincial bodies, etc. etc., but they are all under the umbrella of a federal entity, one that has the resources to communicate with all the groups, and that can lead a concerted attack against issues that concern us all.
I think over time, the patriarchy has come to expect that the feminist movement speaks for the rights of all the
disempowered groups. That rich white women do include the poor, the non-white, the unfeminists, the transfolk, the knitters, and the crocheters in their fight. I think that’s why they cling so hard to male privilege - they know that white feminists
are just the leading edge of the tidal wave, and that men are going to have to give up everything.
And a personal rant, as spoken by a Canadian woman of colour to American Radical Women of Colour:
Well excuuuuuse me, but you can’t speak for all women of colour. You can’t speak for Canadian women, the majority of whom are Caribbean in origin, who have different experiences of racism from yourselves. You can’t speak for Latin American women, who have always had their own voice, albeit unheard. You can’t even speak for African-born women, whose experiences are so long divorced from your own. And yet that is what I see in your blogs (I have been visiting,
observing, and learning). I see the same exercise of American-educated privilege that you accuse American white women of
using over the feminist movement. You’re being (!) inclusive. INCLUSIVE! The very thing that rankles you about the white feminist movement.
(And, just to be a bit more divisive and offensive…) As a Canadian women speaking to American women:
You are the most privileged women in the world. All of y’all have to take a step back, chill out, and, I dunno, listen to the United Nations sometimes.
(Yes, as Canadian, I am privileged-by-association. Even more so, because I have teh godless universal healthcare. But it still chaps my hide when I am “included” with the American feminist movement.)
Anyway, my final point:
Women need to fight for one’s individual rights, and for the rights of the group they most identify with. However, I would beg you not to do it at the expense of the larger goals of the feminist movement, such as access to birth control, equal pay, equal rights, the end of violence against women, etc. etc. - the sort of “umbrella” issues that affect us all, despite the unique facets of our own needs.
This is not to say “put up, or shut up.” It’s to say, fight like hell for your own particular stuff, but don’t dismiss the dinosaur of feminism out of hand just because it doesn’t whisper directly into your ear.
Gender is like race and money — an agreed-upon illusion that we use to make the machine go and nothing more. Whether the machine should go, should be brought to a grinding halt, or should be replaced with a much nicer-running one is another matter.
(Hint: Should.)
My state rep likes me because I have backed him up on environmental issues with public health info. This has, in part, resulted in forcing a couple of inappropriate projects into repermitting with the state.
Unfortunately, he’s pretty backward on LGBT issues.
Now, should I have gone and examined the priveges of education and age and married heterosexuality? Or was it totally inappropriate of me to respond to his return phone call when I weighed in as a constituent, and explain exactly why I thought it would be a good idea if he voted to table a constitutional referendum on gay marriage in the state legislature? (he did vote to table).
Removing heteronormative conceptions of marriage from our legal structure is, after all, feminist.
Instead of assessing and atoning for privelege, we should be assessing and using the priveleges we have - not against each other, but for larger goals. We don’t give them to ourselves and we don’t ask for them, but they are there.
Women would never have had the vote if men had not voted for them to have it. We may not like that, but it is true.
You know, I’m also seeing parallels here with the ritual thing. Gender as ritual. Where the problem is not that you do X but that for some reason, you feel the perverse need to make OTHER people do X or judge them as fucked up if they don’t.
I still feel that the tendency for people to be a little OCD and need ritual isn’t a problem, and I still compare that to my own little tic when