Cupid, po and psych
Mar. 15th, 2007 12:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
imomus
I was browsing the other day -- as you do -- in the Routledge Companion to Feminism and Postfeminism. The book is laid out like an encyclopedia, so I turned to the definition of postfeminism itself."Some argue that postfeminism participates in the discourse of postmodernism, in that both seek to destabilise fixed definitions of gender, and to deconstruct authoritative paradigms and practices. In Introducing Postfeminism (1999), Sophia Phoca traces the origins of postfeminism back to the split within the MLF in Paris in 1968, when members of the po et psych group publicly rejected the feminist struggle for equality with men. Instead, theorists such as Julia Kristeva and Hélène Cixous argue in support of difference, and draw on psycholanalytical theory in order to maintain that the feminine subject differs fundamentally from the masculine subject. They also emphasise the fluctuating and multiple nature of that subjectivity."
That interested me for lots of personal reasons. First of all, Sophia Phoca is the sister of one of my oldest friends. (She's also, allegedly, the inspiration for Jarvis Cocker's famous song about the girl from Greece with "a thirst for knowledge".) The year she published Introducing Postfeminism, we went to a huge millenium New Year's party at Gilbert and George's studio and she pushed me up against a pillar and kissed me passionately. We were all wildly drunk, and it didn't seem to matter that both our partners were hovering nearby. They were wildly drunk too. Later in the evening we all got in a big rugby scrum with Gilbert and George and their handsome, epicene Malaysian assistant. So, anyway, all this floated through my mind as I read the rather dry passage. If this sort of simply divine decadence was postfeminism, well, count me in.
In Sophia's book the origins of postfeminism are described like this: "The first shift between feminism and postfeminism was marked by the following event: Paris, 6 March 1968 -- International Women's Day. Members of the group psychanalyse et politique (later re-named politique et psychanalyse, or po et psych) marched through the city carrying placards reading 'Down with Feminism'."
But "postfeminism does not mean that feminism is over. It signifies a shift in feminist theory... In the shift from feminism to postfeminism, women have begun to celebrate difference rather than equality."
Yesterday, walking past the Queer Activist Centre just a few doors down from my house, I saw an interesting poster. Above an image of an attractively ambivalent girl-boy, the headline ran "I am neither man nor woman! There are more than two sexes." The text below explained:
"Many newborn children cannot have a gender clearly assigned. They're designated "intersexuals" and often operated on in early childhood. These operations are usually medically unnecessary and become part of the discrimination these people are faced with. Like all other humans, they're faced with the obligation to be male or female from birth. Everyone is arranged accordingly and treated and handled accordingly. The purpose of this project is to bring these processes into question."
The poster linked to a website campaigning for "more genders".
I wonder what would happen if there were 12 official genders (administratively, linguistically, medically) instead of just two? Would one of them still dominate, with the others ranged around it? Would the tweenies all get on with each other, or would it be like Old Labour -- endless infighting based on "the narcissism of minor difference"? In his great book "Distinction", Pierre Bourdieu (in the words of Anton Blok) explains Freud's idea: "social identity lies in difference, and difference is asserted against what is closest, which represents the greatest threat. An outline of a general theory of power and violence should include a consideration of the narcissism of minor differences, also because its counterpart -- hierarchy and large differences -- makes for relative stability and peace."
Recently I went to a swimming pool (I won't say which one) and paid extra to use the sauna. The first time I went all was normal -- the two rooms were empty. But when I came back an hour later, the two rooms were inexplicably full. This was men-only day in the sauna, and when I pushed open the door to the first sauna, it
snapped shut again. Something was blocking it. I went to the other sauna room, but there were no free seats. So I returned to the first cabin and tried again to go in. A big muscleman looked angrily out at me and again snapped the glass door shut in my face. I had a dim impression of something going on, a huddle of men off in the hot darkness to the left. The penny dropped -- something sexual was going on inside. I left them to it. Let the boys have their fun. Sure, I was being kicked out of the sauna I'd bought a ticket for. But to complain to the authorities (who might well be in on it, or turning a blind eye) would be homophobic and would get a whole lot of people in trouble. Not least, me.
But I wonder what would happen if, as my local Gay and Lesbian Centre advocates, there were 12 or 24 genders? First of all, in that parallel world, would I still be a straight male? Perhaps I'd take advantage of the free-for-all to identify as a "twee femio nipposexual" or something. I would certainly have a different feeling towards musclebound macho gay males who slam doors in people's faces. The narcissism of minor difference would apply. No longer the magnanimous "straight" using his benign sense of normality and centrality to fuel "tolerance", I might well have lodged a complaint. Bourdieu was right: hierarchy and large differences do keep things stable.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-15 12:19 pm (UTC)Oh, Momus.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-15 12:30 pm (UTC)I read all your post's and some times get baffled but here is something i can comment on. With regard to your swimming pool/sauna part of the post. why would it be homophobic to complain about someone having sex in a sauna? i know if it was a straight couple doing it id complain. there are specific saunas for this kind of activity in every town or city no matter how big or small so id have been kicking off especially as someone was dictating even your entry into the sauna area. what if you had wanted to join in or have a look or something?
sometimes i think that people can be too pc if you know what i mean and sometimes you just actually have to turn round and say that's not on.
does that makes sense?
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-15 12:35 pm (UTC)Because context changes everything. I'm a straight man, and a liberal. I feel bad complaining about gay behaviour. Sure, too PC, if you like. But I wouldn't feel that way if I shared the same minority status they did -- if, for instance, there were 24 recognized genders. And I wonder if the campaign for "More Genders!" has taken this sort of thing into account? Freud's "narcissism of minor differences" is obviously an extension of "sibling rivalry".
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-15 12:32 pm (UTC)Will come back later to reply to this post with a clever macro.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-15 12:56 pm (UTC)Plurality and difference are good not for their own sake, but because there are a lot of microworlds which require different skills and adaptations. And because contexts change, and different skill sets might be required in the new context. The kind of equality where everyone is playing the same game according to the same rules is a precarious monoculture which not only makes losers of a majority of people, but endangers the whole species by reducing difference, and therefore adaptability.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-15 12:59 pm (UTC)The censure bar is hilarity, though I wish you´d MSPainted some towels onto them or something, for extra funny.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-15 01:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-15 01:06 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-15 01:18 pm (UTC)I'm very skeptical about the idea that hierarchy and large differences keep society stable. That might be true in the short term, but in the long term forcing people to identify with broad, ill-defined categories creates major conflicts whenever people disagree on where the boundary lines ought to be drawn. It's not the size or accuracy of the categories that causes conflict, it's the act of forcing people to identify with a group rather than themselves. An ultimate atomization of identity, an understanding that all people are unique unto themselves would be more fruitful in creating a stable society.
That's my two cents... :D
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-15 01:27 pm (UTC)Example: I was lousy at all school subjects except English. If there were just one class in school, I would be a loser. But I was able to specialize in English, and in that microworld I could be a winner. This is only made possible by divisions and categorization and groups.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-15 01:48 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-15 01:57 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-15 02:02 pm (UTC)The internet would be a good example - instead of getting the whole world talking, people just former smaller and more exclusive groups. Instead of all the geeks going to the sci-fi convention together, they form groups online dedicated to specific shows -"f*ck off you Trekker - it's Babylon 5 fans only". If there were 12 genders, would the 11 others all shut you out of the sauna?
Muslim-bashers in the UK are forever claiming that multiculturalism just leads to smaller groups, each trying to outdo each others as victims, and claim we now have "plural monoculturalism".
I worry that, the more big difference we celebrate, the more small differences people will find to get narcissistic about.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-15 02:08 pm (UTC)private rooms
Date: 2007-03-15 03:30 pm (UTC)Disagree. I find the internet to be a place of wild inclusivity (with some exclusion, private groups and such, yes).
Ever heard of Stormfront, the white supremacist group? I am not a nazi. I showed up there and joined up and antagonized those poor kids for a couple days. Theirs is a public forum, they could not kick me out, well, they could, but I was only there a couple days so they didn't get around to it.
You can just show up places where they don't expect you and fuck with their preconceptions.
I love it, you can be anyone you want. Yah there are private groups but they quickly become boring and insular and wither off the branch.
Re: private rooms
Date: 2007-03-15 05:23 pm (UTC)Re: private rooms
Date: 2007-03-16 11:23 am (UTC)I've done stuff like that (though not on Stormfront - I've never been able to face looking at it). Don't you find though, that it's pointless arguing with 25 people who all think the same thing, when you have the opposite viewpoint? I'd love to think that I'd sown a seed of doubt in the minds of pro-war capitalist types, but they probably just reckoned I was a nutter.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-15 01:45 pm (UTC)My imgagination has no sex/gender. I resent and reject all and everything that would claim that all my thinking/imagining is always based from only one perspective of my being---my genitalia.
Thank you.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-15 01:53 pm (UTC)I think the Campaign for More Genders would broadly agree with you, but would say that the connection between genitalia and gender (a cultural construct) is an arbitrary one, and that instead of trying to escape gender all together, we might be comfortable if there were 12, 24, 36, 48 genders.
Personally speaking, I would say that my imagination very much does have a gender. It's sexual, and distinctly hetero male.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-15 02:15 pm (UTC)See, I don't buy into any of the "cultural constructs" of gender, at *all*. I mean, this is NOT the fifties with Robert White and Betty CRocker, and hasn't been, for ages.
On the other hand, I *know*, from experience, that Nature can't be denied in regards to sexuality. (not denying that people have choices to go beyond this, of course.) This became most clear the day that I walked through a grocery with my 2 month old son, and my breasts started spurting milk at the sound of another infants' crying.
Now, that was Nature dictating a response from my being, not *me*. heh ;)
And I should clarify my response; I don't necesarily always shut off the fact I'm a woman/female/inadvertantly milk-spurting-being when it comes to imagination, but I'm just not *bound* by it.
my clitoris is my penis
Date: 2007-03-15 03:18 pm (UTC)Ahhh but that's you. My imagination is absolutely tied to my gender. About half the time. The rest of the time, I pretend to be male. So my imagination is female sometimes, male sometimes, but never or rarely gender-neutral.
But that's me!
Ps. welcome, and count your click opera blessings you showed up after I sobered up, I was terrorizing this place this time last week!
Re: my clitoris is my penis
Date: 2007-03-15 04:41 pm (UTC)Recant
Date: 2007-03-15 05:12 pm (UTC)In the bathtub this morning I reflected on my imagination's terrain. Here's the breakdown, and I note the gender I think is at play in each case.
15% men that interest me / female
15% sexual fantasies / female
15% save the world fantasies / neutral
15% get off the planet fantasies / neutral
10% art / neutral
10% art / female
10% language / neutral
10% what's it like to be a guy / male
So that tallies to 40% female, 10% male, 50% neutral.
You were right! At least partially, for me.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-15 02:30 pm (UTC)Not only would reporting the shenanigans in the sauna not be homophobic, just the opposite -- declining to report it was utterly homophobic. (Not to mention, immoral.)
Why?
Because you're holding this group to a lower level of behavior than you would yourself or people like you. It's condescending & patronizing. You're treating them like naughty children rather than adults. The fact of the matter is that most communities have behaviorial standards, and having sex in a public place usually is one of these taboos.
Also: Would you have "let the boys have their fun" if there was a 9-year-old girl in the huddle of men? Oh wait, you didn't bother to find out, did you?
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-15 03:33 pm (UTC)I also don't believe consenting adults having sex in public places is immoral. But clearly the presence of a 9 year-old girl -- or a non-consenting adult -- would have changed the whole situation, yes.
I doubt the men themselves would have thought I was less homophobic reporting them than not reporting them.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-15 04:11 pm (UTC)I notice you were able to still categorize some "alternative" behaviors like rape as being unacceptable. Could not a person's consent be irrelevant in an environment were all moralities are equal?
You say rape is bad, but theft of services and public sex are OK. The next person could say that murder is forbidden but rape is OK. A third person could say that murder, rape and public sex are immoral. Who is to say which is the legitimate philosophy? Well, other than society! Oh, that.
But the "horizontal" argument was just a red herring, wasn't it?
But to complain to the authorities (who might well be in on it, or turning a blind eye) would be homophobic
You said nothing about how you didn't care about being denied the use of the sauna because the dudes subscribe to an alternative morality. Your primary concern was to not be branded a homophobe by reporting illegal behavior of gay dudes.
Clearly in your mind there is a hierarchy, where one standard of conduct is good for the public at large while giving gays a more permissive set of rules.
My point is that being more permissive to one group does not support them, it degrades them.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-15 04:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-15 05:45 pm (UTC)momus puppet: for a number of reasons, my intuitive reaction to this behavior is to give it space, and blog about it. give space, blog, give space, blog. blog blog blog. if we keep giving space, and blogging, we'll make the culture better.
you puppet: for a number of reasons, my intuitive reaction to this behavior is, or would have been, to report on it, and chastise those who partake in it, and those who do not report on it. Report, chastise, report, chastise. if we keep reporting, and chastising we'll make the culture better. let us ennoble through chastisement! much better than to degrade through tacit approval. Otherwise somebody might accidentally see people having sex, or worse, be denied the right to something they deserve because they paid for it. Ugh! Those thoughts make me sick! Better reach for a pedophilic hypothetical twist to end the conversation with a clean sweep!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-15 06:32 pm (UTC)Your second point is basically the "asymmetrical multiculturalism" argument. Using that phrase, conservatives have accused liberals of having a double standard because they don't treat everyone equally, regardless of race. The hypocrisy is supposed to be that everyone except white people is encouraged by liberals to express their ethnicity. If whites do it, it's called fascist.
I don't think this is hypocrisy, and my reason (as usual) has to do with binaries and context. When the dominant part of a binary (the "it", in the case of multiculti: white, in the case of gays: straight) asserts itself, on top of already being structurally assertive, that's too much. A sort of unequal treatment can level things out. It's a bit like affirmative action, I suppose. And yes, it can be patronizing. It's a second best option to total diversity, in which no group would be dominant. But that's, as yet, a dream.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-15 02:50 pm (UTC)And it might not have to be a distinct idea of separate genders anymore either... not 10 or 12 but a lot a lot more. Seems as our conceptions get removed from the physical truth of genitalia, you're moving away from gender distinctions towards a vaguer idea of sexual difference. Why move away from the physical truth of genitalia? Because there's a huge amount of cultural baggage (science is still cultural baggage) telling us that the locus of sexuality is in the sexual organs. This has to be revised, squarely. Ultimately the focus on genitalia will always privilege the "normal" and encourage the somewhat non-normal to do their best to "pass".
Of course, opposing the gender binary creates a binary, but there's a difference between a simple man/woman binary and a more complex binary where one opposing side is a binary and the other is something polymorphous. The difference is a binary. Maybe we should start talking about that binary--the binary between the binary between men and woman and the binary between men/women and the sexually weird!
chart: [man v. woman] v. [(man v. woman) v. (sexually weird)]
this means something!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-15 03:39 pm (UTC)For instance, if you turn up at the swimming pool and it's "Masochistic Avant Gardeners-only" day and you're a "Twee Femio Nipposexual", you have to prove it with a biometric card or a sworn statement, otherwise you could just cheat.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-15 03:58 pm (UTC)And it might not have to be a distinct idea of separate genders anymore either...
so in my future, "cheating" on ones "gender" would be totally fine.
Re: it hurts my feelings when you don't include me
Date: 2007-03-15 03:19 pm (UTC)It hurts my feelings when you exclude me
Date: 2007-03-15 03:23 pm (UTC)I was incensed! I insisted on being allowed inside, just like I insisted on being allowed inside the Jack London adult theatre the other day.
Jiffy Lube would not let me go inside. I cried "Burning Man is about inclusion!!!! You cannot keep me out!"
Door guy (BIG BEAR) explained that having a chick inside might inhibit some of the guys. That kinda made sense so I left without further hubbub.
As for Jack London adult theatre, well, unescorted women are not allowed inside. I thought that was because they thought I might get hurt, not knowing I had a knife strapped to my ankle.
I insisted on going inside the theatre. Security arrived. I threatened to call the cops (I have friends on the force), then the ACLU.
I never got inside the theatre, I got tired of the fight, but I still think it not right that I cannot go into that theatre without a MAN at my side. Fuck that. Maybe I *will* call Anthony Romero.
Re: It hurts my feelings when you exclude me
Date: 2007-03-15 03:25 pm (UTC)oof I deleted and resubmitted my comment while you were writing this! Sorry the flow is messed up.
Yes, I know now that that is the reason, to discourage prostitution. But the management of the theatre did not explain that to me at the time, they just kicked me off the premises. It was later, talking with friends, that I realized the prostitution aspect of the situation.
Next time I'm going to ask the bouncer to go in the theatre and ask if anyone inside wants a female companion. That should get me inside.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-15 05:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-15 05:40 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-15 06:41 pm (UTC)Robert
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-15 07:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-15 06:59 pm (UTC)b) I think I might have to make the Sauna Love Fest into my desktop background. That, in conjunction with a burly gay man slamming a sauna door so as to not allow interruption to the sexfest.... very funny.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-15 07:16 pm (UTC)The results in this alternative future is that the word "change" gets thoughts of indeceny and taboo attached to it. Women in the Middle East use the drug to escape the veil, but if they can't prove to the authorities that they were indeed born male they get put to death. In China, families use the drug on children born female when they need a male. The process that occurs when you take the drug is now called shifting. Male prostitutes (in the business against their will) are forced to take it when a client wants a female (and vice-versa).
Another interesting development that occurs though is that some humans have developed this sense that allows them to tell the difference between people who have changed their gender with the drug, and those who haven't changed - but having this trait comes with a price. In the short story, Gaiman shows this with the example of a person whose job it is to exclude those who have changed their gender, and gets nearly beaten to death.
The doctor who created the drug dies as a rich and forgotten man in his 90s, of cancer. He refused to take his own miracle drug (he found out about the side-effects with test subjects).
12 or 24 genders?
Date: 2007-03-15 08:23 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-15 08:54 pm (UTC)But in general I'm confused by when people use the terms "sex and "gender".
They're sort of used interchangably or when someone is making a distinction between the meanings ("gender" being an identity, a gramatical state) they don't always make this clear to start with.
So with all these obviously intersexed individuals, it still confuses me a bit as to whether they mean "about 12 or 24 classifiable GENDER IDENTITIES" or "literally distinct SEXES".
Oh, Chromosomes! Oh, Momus!
Oh, Chromosomes! Oh, Momus!
Date: 2007-03-15 10:56 pm (UTC)It's all about meaning and use - gender is the meaning, sexuality is the use.
it's not difficult, especially when you look look me!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-16 01:52 am (UTC)Anyway, this has nothing to do with anything, but I keep repeating this silly tagline in my head, brought on by the recent Momus-Marxy catfight:
MOMUS, MO FUSS!
A few billion points of light
Date: 2007-03-17 08:16 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-20 11:40 pm (UTC)He's having terrible trouble mapping the fields, because the police database recognises three genders, whilst the NHS database recognises five.