There certainly seems to be a great deal of confusion about basic terminology. Let’s see if we can un-muddy the waters a bit. This is taken from Trouble and Strife.
“Debbie Cameron: The purpose of today’s discussion is to try to cut through some of the theoretical and political confusion which now surrounds the concept of gender, and it’s probably useful to start by asking what’s causing that confusion.
Conversations about ‘gender’ nowadays often run into problems because the people involved are using the same word, to mean somewhat the same thing, but on closer examination they aren’t talking about the same set of issues from the same point of view. For instance, when we launched the T&S Reader at the Edinburgh radical bookfair, some women students came up to us afterwards and said they were very pleased we’d produced the book, but surprised it didn’t have much in it about gender. Actually it’s all about gender in the radical feminist sense–power relations between women and men–so this comment did not make much sense to us. Joan was initially completely baffled by it; I realised what they must be getting at only because I’m still an academic, and in the academy you hear ‘gender’ used this way a lot.
What’s going on here is that during the 1990s, queer theorists and queer activists developed a new way of talking about gender: it did have points of overlap with the older feminist way of talking, but the emphasis was different, the theory behind it was different (basically it was the postmodernist theory of identity associated with the philosopher Judith Butler, though I don’t think Butler herself would say that feminists had no critical analysis of gender), and the politics that came out of it were very different. For people whose ideas were formed either by encounter with academic feminist theory or by involvement in queer politics and activism, that became the meaning of ‘gender’. They believed what they’d been told, that feminists in the 70s and 80s didn’t have a critical analysis of gender, or that they had the wrong analysis because their ideas about gender were ‘essentialist’ rather than ‘social constructionist’.
We don’t believe that, and in a minute we’ll explain why. But first it’s worth doing a general ‘compare and contrast’ on the ‘old’ feminist view of gender and the newer version that came out of 1990s queer theory/politics.
‘Old’ gender ‘New’ gender What is gender? A system of social/power relations structured by a binary division between ‘men’ and ‘women’. Categorization is usually on the basis of biological sex, but gender as we know it is a social rather than biological thing (e.g. masculinity and femininity are defined differently in different times and places) An aspect of personal/social identity, usually ascribed to you at birth on the basis of biological sex (but this ‘natural’ connection is an illusion—as is the idea that there have to be two genders because there are two sexes) What’s oppressive about it? The fact that it’s based on the subordination of one gender (women) by the other (men) The fact that it’s a rigid binary system. It forces every person to identify as either a man or a woman (not neither, both at once, something in between or something else entirely) and punishes anyone who doesn’t conform. (This oppresses both men and women, especially those who don’t fully identify with the prescribed model for their gender) What would be a radical gender politics? Feminism: women organize to overthrow male power and thus the entire gender system. (For radical feminists, the ideal number of genders would be… none.) ‘Genderqueer’: women and men reject the binary system, identify as ‘gender outlaws’ (e.g. queer, trans) and demand recognition for a range of gender identities. (From this perspective, the ideal number of genders would be… infinite?) There are both similarities and differences between the two versions. For both, gender is connected to, but not the same as, sex; for both, gender as we know it is a binary system (there are, basically, two genders); and both approaches would probably agree that gender is about power AND identity, but their emphasis on one or the other differs. They also differ because supporters of the queer version don’t think in terms of men oppressing women, they think gender norms as such are more oppressive than power hierarchy, and want ‘more’ gender rather than less or none.”
Woo, that’s probably enough for part one. :)
9 comments
March 7, 2016 at 9:02 am
stchauvinism
Reblogged this on things I've read or intend to.
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March 7, 2016 at 12:24 pm
Miep
Yeah, it’s a good idea to explain this up front when talking to strangers. I use terms such as “enforced gender scripting” sometimes.
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March 7, 2016 at 1:39 pm
The Arbourist
@Miep
So much of post-modern discourse serves to obfuscate the definitions that are important in understanding the material reality we live in. :/
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March 31, 2016 at 5:35 am
Talking About Gender – Debbie Cameron and Joan Scanlon – Part 2 | Dead Wild Roses
[…] Did you miss part 1 here? […]
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April 3, 2016 at 11:48 am
roughseasinthemed
And now, I feel old.
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April 3, 2016 at 11:52 am
The Arbourist
@RSitM
I’m glad to see you back from your hiatus. :)
Feeling a bit on the old side today as well, but that has much to do with having a cold and not sleeping well. :>
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April 3, 2016 at 1:36 pm
roughseasinthemed
Too much to catch up on though after more than a month. Of which three to four weeks involved a vile cold … My Spanish neighbour said it was because I was wearing shorts :D
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April 3, 2016 at 1:53 pm
The Arbourist
@RSitM
By your neighbours reckoning I should be doomed then, as ‘shorts weather’ is anything above -5 degrees centigrade. :>
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April 3, 2016 at 2:07 pm
roughseasinthemed
It was quite funny. She was teasing us about wearing shorts, which are standard wear in our house (male shorts for both, does that make me GNC?) and blamed my cold on the shorts. So why hadn’t my partner caught a cold? Huh? Luckily we don’t often get into single (+) figures here, so all year shorts wear is easy. Trouble is, anything else feels sooooo uncomfortable.
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