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ahunter3Continuing from More Repositioning Part One...
As I said, I started off positioning the things I wanted to say about myself and gender and sexual orientation as contributions to feminist theory. It was a good fit and except for some nuances of what to emphasize and how to formulate my descriptions, I didn't have to tuck away much of what I was inclined to say in order to position it in that way.
One potential concern with that positioning was that I — a male — was intending to participate in formulating feminist theory.
Remember that this was in 1980. My impression of feminists was that they were sick and tired of the unfairnesses that women had to tolerate in our society, and in their anger they were being quite blunt and honest in speaking out about it and about what they wanted to see changed. They wanted men to listen: as the Helen Reddy song "I am Woman" put it, "I am still an embryo with a long, long way to go until I make my brother understand". I didn't expect them to take any male's word for it that what he had to say was something they should heed; I expected a cautious and perhaps cynical wariness, but I thought my material itself would not only ring true with them but fit into their overall theory like a missing puzzle piece.
Feminists in 1980 were only just putting behind them a phase in which they'd often been hostile and condescending to women immersed in traditional roles. Like the marxist left caricaturing the wealthy, some early feminists (including, by her own later admission, Robin Morgan) had said things about wives and mothers and girlfriends and obedient subservient secretaries and cheerleaders and whatnot that they, by this point, in 1980, regretted, for being divisive instead of seeing and SAYING that all women were in this situation together. At the same time, though, they were also saying similar things about MEN not being the enemy either! The movement that had begun as a movement for women's equality now saw itself as being good for men as well because the social system based on women's oppression made for an unpleasant and oppressive and disempowering world for individual males too — even if most men couldn't seem to see that. So with that understanding already out there and on the table, I felt that I should not have to establish as a principle that feminism was something that I personally could have a stake in, and could proceed to show that I had been listening to them, understood what they'd been saying, and had something to add, a contribution not an argument against or an excuse for what they were complaining about.
But feminism never distinguished between defining itself as the movement against patriarchy and sexism and defining itself as the movement for the concerns of women. It's one thing (in my opinion) to say as an activist against patriarchy that all women are oppressed and are therefore allies and not enemies even if they don't see matters that way themselves, and another thing to decline to establish that trying to dismantle patriarchy is what you're up to, first and foremost. Feminism produced real tangible social change for women, establishing something considerably closer to parity with men, and in doing so gave more women more of a stake in the system. That (again, in my opinion) gave rise to an "identity politics" form of feminism in which the goals of feminism were loosely defined as the promotion of women's interests. One place this manifested itself was in the university environment, which is the venue I'd gone to to pursue my attempts to contribute my views to feminist theory. And by 1992 it had been made apparent to me that I could not actually contribute more than a marginal and ancillary bit of new material: at best, my role as a male "doing feminist theory" would be limited to choosing which views already espoused by feminists to chime in in agreement with. And even THEN, I would need to be careful of disagreeing with all feminists in my immediate vicinity and siding with the views of feminists whose theories I had only read in books. That may seem unduly mean-spirited of me to say it that way, as if I'm accusing feminist women of being unreasonable and unlistening, but the alternative would require THAT THE MAN IN THE ROOM TELL FEMINIST WOMEN THAT THEY'RE DOING FEMINISM WRONG. Think about it. Think about the ramifications to feminism if feminists are being asked to consider a male to be speaking with authority equal to their own on the topic of feminism itself. I never cared for "identity politics" but I had to admit that women need to be the authority within their own movement.
So this positioning wasnt going to work. I didn't know what to do INSTEAD, so it kind of derailed me for awhile.
Now I'm drawing from the theories and understandings coming out of the gay and lesbian liberation movement and that of transgendered people — queer theory, gender theory. It is a repositioning, a reframing of what I was saying before, although under the hood the ideas are still basically the same ideas.
• These are theories that say that it is not fair if different people are not treated with the equivalent or corresponding interpretation of their behavior instead of being castigated for being different; it is again a fairness issue but rather than condemning the viewing of people differently depending on their identity, it condemns an insufficiently diverse array of different responses; it starts with an identification of categorical differences officially recognized, for which different responses exist (men; women) and then demands that people in other categories (gay; lesbian; transgendered; bisexual; intersex; genderqueer; asexual; etc) be freed from the confinement to that small array and extended their own separate and equal understandings.
• It is, therefore, very much an embodiment of identity politics. Hence, I am defining myself first and foremost as a categorically DIFFERENT person, and demanding consideration for my CATEGORY. I'm a male, that's my sex; I'm a girl, that's my gender; I'm attracted to female people, that's my sexual orientation; hence I am not a man nor a woman as conventionally defined, nor am I straight or gay as conventionally defined, nor am I even transgendered as opposed to cisgendered, as THAT is traditionally defined.
• The existing body of social-political understandings towards the groups thus far identified includes most of what I want extended to my situation: that we not be regarded as pathological departures from a healthy norm, but are just as valid as healthy identities; that there are attitudes affirming and celebrating our characteristics that previously applied only to certain other groups, and we want in on that way of being thought of and viewed; and, by extension, since there's no end in sight for the length of the list, there should be a moratorium on hostile rejection of any manifestion of personality and behavior pertaining to sex and gender, NOT because we are all the same and NOT because social forces have (necessarily) created our differences, but because unless the behavior can be argued to be undesirable behavior for ANYONE to engage in, it may be a valid, sexy, pleasant, etc, configuration for someone and your own personal distaste for it as manifested in a person of this or that sex or gender or whatever is just your own personal taste.
• Just as in positioning it as feminist theory, there are things that I am basically de-emphasizing in positioning it as gender / queer theory. Feminist theory considers that there is a social force or institution in place that is embodied by the sex role socialization forces, and considers itself to be a direct and frontal challenge to that. The identity politics of gender and queer theory, at least on the superficial level, would have it that the world could continue ticking along basically intact except more fairly and pleasantly if we cease to stigmatize and ostracize and view as pathological those who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, intersex, asexual, genderqueer, and so forth. I don't think that's true; I think there are indeed societal institutions and social structures that depend for their ongoing existence on the conventional categories and the shaping and stigmatizing forces that maintain them. I think, in other words, that it's a radical and fundamental change and not just a plea that people who are harmlessly different shouldn't be treated bad just because they're different.
• That should not be taken as a claim that queer and gender theorists do NOT consider themselves and their issues to involve radical change; they DO! It's more that feminism as an actual movement has been inclined to pay real attention to feminist theory, to the extent that people involved in the movement have had their own thinking informed by feminist theory; but gay lesbian bisexual trans and etc people, in my experience and in my impression, do not study queer and gender theory and integrate it into their thinking to the same degree. And perhaps because of that there is a higher percent of folks who consider themselves to be a part of what folks call the LGBTQ community or even "movement" but whose understanding or vision of social change in that sphere mostly involves more tolerance, equality, anti-discrimination laws and policies, and other aspects of inclusive fairness.
————————
Index of all Blog Posts
As I said, I started off positioning the things I wanted to say about myself and gender and sexual orientation as contributions to feminist theory. It was a good fit and except for some nuances of what to emphasize and how to formulate my descriptions, I didn't have to tuck away much of what I was inclined to say in order to position it in that way.
One potential concern with that positioning was that I — a male — was intending to participate in formulating feminist theory.
Remember that this was in 1980. My impression of feminists was that they were sick and tired of the unfairnesses that women had to tolerate in our society, and in their anger they were being quite blunt and honest in speaking out about it and about what they wanted to see changed. They wanted men to listen: as the Helen Reddy song "I am Woman" put it, "I am still an embryo with a long, long way to go until I make my brother understand". I didn't expect them to take any male's word for it that what he had to say was something they should heed; I expected a cautious and perhaps cynical wariness, but I thought my material itself would not only ring true with them but fit into their overall theory like a missing puzzle piece.
Feminists in 1980 were only just putting behind them a phase in which they'd often been hostile and condescending to women immersed in traditional roles. Like the marxist left caricaturing the wealthy, some early feminists (including, by her own later admission, Robin Morgan) had said things about wives and mothers and girlfriends and obedient subservient secretaries and cheerleaders and whatnot that they, by this point, in 1980, regretted, for being divisive instead of seeing and SAYING that all women were in this situation together. At the same time, though, they were also saying similar things about MEN not being the enemy either! The movement that had begun as a movement for women's equality now saw itself as being good for men as well because the social system based on women's oppression made for an unpleasant and oppressive and disempowering world for individual males too — even if most men couldn't seem to see that. So with that understanding already out there and on the table, I felt that I should not have to establish as a principle that feminism was something that I personally could have a stake in, and could proceed to show that I had been listening to them, understood what they'd been saying, and had something to add, a contribution not an argument against or an excuse for what they were complaining about.
But feminism never distinguished between defining itself as the movement against patriarchy and sexism and defining itself as the movement for the concerns of women. It's one thing (in my opinion) to say as an activist against patriarchy that all women are oppressed and are therefore allies and not enemies even if they don't see matters that way themselves, and another thing to decline to establish that trying to dismantle patriarchy is what you're up to, first and foremost. Feminism produced real tangible social change for women, establishing something considerably closer to parity with men, and in doing so gave more women more of a stake in the system. That (again, in my opinion) gave rise to an "identity politics" form of feminism in which the goals of feminism were loosely defined as the promotion of women's interests. One place this manifested itself was in the university environment, which is the venue I'd gone to to pursue my attempts to contribute my views to feminist theory. And by 1992 it had been made apparent to me that I could not actually contribute more than a marginal and ancillary bit of new material: at best, my role as a male "doing feminist theory" would be limited to choosing which views already espoused by feminists to chime in in agreement with. And even THEN, I would need to be careful of disagreeing with all feminists in my immediate vicinity and siding with the views of feminists whose theories I had only read in books. That may seem unduly mean-spirited of me to say it that way, as if I'm accusing feminist women of being unreasonable and unlistening, but the alternative would require THAT THE MAN IN THE ROOM TELL FEMINIST WOMEN THAT THEY'RE DOING FEMINISM WRONG. Think about it. Think about the ramifications to feminism if feminists are being asked to consider a male to be speaking with authority equal to their own on the topic of feminism itself. I never cared for "identity politics" but I had to admit that women need to be the authority within their own movement.
So this positioning wasnt going to work. I didn't know what to do INSTEAD, so it kind of derailed me for awhile.
Now I'm drawing from the theories and understandings coming out of the gay and lesbian liberation movement and that of transgendered people — queer theory, gender theory. It is a repositioning, a reframing of what I was saying before, although under the hood the ideas are still basically the same ideas.
• These are theories that say that it is not fair if different people are not treated with the equivalent or corresponding interpretation of their behavior instead of being castigated for being different; it is again a fairness issue but rather than condemning the viewing of people differently depending on their identity, it condemns an insufficiently diverse array of different responses; it starts with an identification of categorical differences officially recognized, for which different responses exist (men; women) and then demands that people in other categories (gay; lesbian; transgendered; bisexual; intersex; genderqueer; asexual; etc) be freed from the confinement to that small array and extended their own separate and equal understandings.
• It is, therefore, very much an embodiment of identity politics. Hence, I am defining myself first and foremost as a categorically DIFFERENT person, and demanding consideration for my CATEGORY. I'm a male, that's my sex; I'm a girl, that's my gender; I'm attracted to female people, that's my sexual orientation; hence I am not a man nor a woman as conventionally defined, nor am I straight or gay as conventionally defined, nor am I even transgendered as opposed to cisgendered, as THAT is traditionally defined.
• The existing body of social-political understandings towards the groups thus far identified includes most of what I want extended to my situation: that we not be regarded as pathological departures from a healthy norm, but are just as valid as healthy identities; that there are attitudes affirming and celebrating our characteristics that previously applied only to certain other groups, and we want in on that way of being thought of and viewed; and, by extension, since there's no end in sight for the length of the list, there should be a moratorium on hostile rejection of any manifestion of personality and behavior pertaining to sex and gender, NOT because we are all the same and NOT because social forces have (necessarily) created our differences, but because unless the behavior can be argued to be undesirable behavior for ANYONE to engage in, it may be a valid, sexy, pleasant, etc, configuration for someone and your own personal distaste for it as manifested in a person of this or that sex or gender or whatever is just your own personal taste.
• Just as in positioning it as feminist theory, there are things that I am basically de-emphasizing in positioning it as gender / queer theory. Feminist theory considers that there is a social force or institution in place that is embodied by the sex role socialization forces, and considers itself to be a direct and frontal challenge to that. The identity politics of gender and queer theory, at least on the superficial level, would have it that the world could continue ticking along basically intact except more fairly and pleasantly if we cease to stigmatize and ostracize and view as pathological those who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, intersex, asexual, genderqueer, and so forth. I don't think that's true; I think there are indeed societal institutions and social structures that depend for their ongoing existence on the conventional categories and the shaping and stigmatizing forces that maintain them. I think, in other words, that it's a radical and fundamental change and not just a plea that people who are harmlessly different shouldn't be treated bad just because they're different.
• That should not be taken as a claim that queer and gender theorists do NOT consider themselves and their issues to involve radical change; they DO! It's more that feminism as an actual movement has been inclined to pay real attention to feminist theory, to the extent that people involved in the movement have had their own thinking informed by feminist theory; but gay lesbian bisexual trans and etc people, in my experience and in my impression, do not study queer and gender theory and integrate it into their thinking to the same degree. And perhaps because of that there is a higher percent of folks who consider themselves to be a part of what folks call the LGBTQ community or even "movement" but whose understanding or vision of social change in that sphere mostly involves more tolerance, equality, anti-discrimination laws and policies, and other aspects of inclusive fairness.
————————
Index of all Blog Posts
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no subject
Date: 2014-09-20 05:51 pm (UTC)Also, I think those wimins need a man to help them direct their movement. That's just funny.
K.