What is GENDER?
. • the characteristics, traits that differentiate men and women — behavioral, aesthetic
. • what it takes to be good at being a man/woman
. • it’s a relational category — gender is not a euphemism for “women”
. • includes value judgments, positive and negative, associated with masculinity
and femininity
• things other than people can be ‘gendered’ — an outfit, a color (blue/pink), a sport
the analytical concept of gender was introduced in the 1970s to indicate the social roles, characteristics, and values assigned to males and females in a given society; gender understood as historically and cross-culturally particular
gender is social, not natural, not fixed in nature — biological or cosmological
important implication: gender hierarchy, patriarchy, is thus social, not natural —
not inevitable
sex/gender system of difference (sex = biology + gender = social norms) nature/culture
this meaning of gender has entered public, commonplace understanding
in this class, we will use ‘gender’ to mean social, cultural expectations and actions; and ‘sex’ to refer to physiological characteristics
HOWEVER, it’s important to note that the sex/gender system has been challenged theoretically
we won’t be talking about gender as simply the cultural elaboration of fundamental differences, given in nature, between women, as a whole, and men, as a whole
and we’ll begin on Monday with a discussion of why the sex/gender system, while useful, is inadequate for the task of understanding what it means to be a man/woman
readings for Monday, by biologists, will explain why — come to class with a few sentences, drawing from the articles, with at least 2 arguments about the analytical limits of the sex/gender system
NOW let me ask — What is, or what do we mean by, SEXUALITY? (as opposed to sex difference) 1
sexual desire, as an aspect of human nature (hormones, bodies as well as feelings, thoughts) sexual acts, practices, behavior — what people do sexually — within social relations, relations that may be characterized by hierarchy, inequality sexual orientation — personal identity (gay, straight, bi) based on the gender of one’s generalized object of desire
“sexuality” has to do with all of these, how desire, practice and identity are bundled together, in various ways
SO, in this course we’ll seek to make sense of:
1) variety in what it means to be, to live as, man/woman, historically and cross culturally
readings will focus largely on the
masculinity and femininity — traits, characteristics, objects associated with men/women — do not mean the same thing everywhere, and are not valued in the same way everywhere
moreover, what it means to be woman/man differs not just based on social, cultural context, but on one’s relative position within society
in
SO, we’ll talk about differences w/in as well as b/w cultures, societies
2) variety in sexual desires, practices — and how and why they are socially
accepted or stigmatized again, incredibly varied around the world — from sexual modesty of Muslim women in
3) reproduction of symbolic and structural inequalities between men and women what is patriarchy? how does it work? is the
gender is an economic, as well as a social, emotional relationship
4) homophobia and heterosexism — social pressure to conform within binary systems of identity
5) sexual violence, misogyny (including internalization of psychological violence) 2
6) resistance: gender bending: sex change surgery, cross-dressing, hermaphrodism challenge gender binary m/f? or reinforce it in new ways?
malleability and infinite variety of human behavior — and different ways this behavior is bundled into a sense of identity, attached to morality, used to legitimate social inequality
this class is cross-listed with anthropology — I’m an anthropologist — and we’ll focus (though not exclusively) on an anthropological approach to study of gender and sexuality.
what is this?
starting point is CULTURE
encompasses both the things people make, do, believe and is a frame of reference — the conceptual vocabulary through which we perceive things,
that gives meaning to what we make, do, believe
we don’t just HAVE culture (traditions like Mexican quinciñera or male circumcision), we THINK and DO culture — it’s the WAY we give meaning to things
EX: it’s not only the Barbie™ Doll that’s cultural, but what we do with the Barbie™ Doll —
dutifully dress it up for a
or hack off its hair and stick pins in its eyebrow?
Culture dictates and reproduces social norms. But it also provides opportunities for subverting, resisting, messing with social norms — especially important to recognize how this works in terms of gender: dominant cultural norms, expectations are important, but even more important is how individuals interpret those norms, bend the rules of those norms, in their everyday life
gender and sexuality, like culture more generally, are both codified by tradition, and also improvised in daily life
SYLLABUS
This is a CI course — communications intensive expected to come to class, having done the reading, ready to discuss classes will integrate lecture and discussion, with occasional group activities
3 papers, at least 2 will be re-written with my comments in mind; only second will be graded
3
choice of possible paper topics, or some flexibility in answering prompts
writing tutor — handout — meeting required before 1st draft due the more you work with her, the better your writing will get — may or may not affect grade (which will also be on your critical and creative thinking)
books and other readings on MIT server includes a novel (Middlesex — start reading early) and two ethnographies (anthro research)
start with general conceptual tools
1) talk about relationship b/w gender and labor — economic relationship 2) sexuality and different configurations of sex/gender 3) reproductive politics — religion, race and nationalism
QUESTIONS?
ATTENDANCE and INTRODUCTIONS (what do you anticipate from class?)
for MONDAY — first readings are on MIT server
bring in 1-2 paragraphs (typed or legibly hand-written) with arguments about the analytical limitations of theorizing gender as the social elaboration of biological sex difference
Is sex to gender as nature to culture?
ATTENDENCE
last time, introduced gender as an analytical concept
social roles, activities; aesthetic appearances; stereotypical characteristics, cultural
meanings associated with being men and women
even if sex difference seen as given in nature, gender is culturally variable and historically changing
concept of “gender” was meant to stress social/cultural origins of gender inequality
This alignment of sex/gender with nature/culture gets us into loops about what counts as nature and what’s culture, and about what “nature” and “culture” mean.
The so-called “culture wars” often have to do with arguments about “nature”, what’s “natural” behavior — and therefore something that should be accepted, not judged (we’ll discuss arguments about sexual identity, gay marriage). OR, “natural” behavior could be subject to medical “treatment.”
want to avoid the “naturalistic fallacy” — that what’s natural is good, or inevitable (this is a cultural belief)
readings for today are both by biologists who challenge our assumptions about the “nature” of women and men
Let’s FIRST go through their arguments
SECOND assess the analytic limitations of sex/gender as theoretical framework
FINALLY ask where that leaves us, terms of how to think about what gender is, or might be
Ruth HUBBARD (Harvard professor emerita) begins article, “On Women’s Biology” by arguing that women’s physique, in contrast to men’s, is a social construct and a political concept, not a scientific one.” What does she mean?
biology is “socially constructed” (doesn’t exist ‘in nature’ as such, in and of itself)
Rather,
1) biology is perceived, interpreted, described through cultural lenses
2) culture also actually shapes biology
dialectical relationship nature/culture, can’t cleanly separate them
becoming more obvious: GM foods, IVF
examples: !Kung menstruation patterns
do not menstruate until 18 yo (high activity levels, diet); get pregnant, breastfeed
1
intensively for 2-3 years; repeat cycle until menopause at late 30s/early 40s
so: shorter reproductive span, 4-5 kids w/out contraception, few menstruations
in US, girls who are athletes delay or stop having period
generally speaking onset becoming younger, high fat diet but also, perhaps, due in part to growth hormones in meat, milk
what does it mean to say that women’s biology is “socially constructed”?
not that it isn’t “real” — have real effect, creates real muscles, etc.
indeed, Hubbard wants us to attend to the material effects of cultural ideas of gender
but biology is not destiny (contra Freud, who said “anatomy is destiny”)
biology and society, nature and culture continuously reshape one another
think about how women’s bodies have changed through time, varied according to other social categories
a lot of work goes into producing gendered bodies — effort to tame unruly secondary sex characteristics — plucking, shaving, dying hair; voice training
“we need have no ideological investment in whether women and men exhibit biological differences, aside from the obvious ones involved with procreation. .. we cannot know whether such biological differences exist because biology and society (or environment) are interdependent and cannot be sorted out” (128).
Q: what did you think of her arguments? about men’s and women’s relative strength, height differences — search for “natural” limits?
socially sanctioned childhood activities create gendered bodies — AND the marked categories of the “tomboy” (girls who like sports) and the “bookworm”(boys who don’t)
_______________
_______________
we focus on the uneven ends, rather than the overlap
“We need to pay attention to the obvious contradictions between stereotypic descriptions of women’s biology and the realities of women’s lives” (127)
examples?
“Sex differences are interesting in sexist societies that value one group more highly than the other” (129).
and it’s amazing how durable are commitments to biologically based difference
2
— beyond procreative roles
bottom line: biology is not a stable thing in itself; it doesn’t ground culture. Therefore sex difference cannot really ground gender (if it provides justification, this connection itself is not inevitable).
BUT, for now, we DO have ideological investment biological difference -- why?
“biological differences b/w women and men are used to rationalize the stratification of the labor force by sex; they do not explain it” (124)
NATURALIZATION
Anne Fausto-Sterling, biologist at
in “The Five Sexes” she argues that humans do not all fall naturally into neat binary categories of male/female
F-S says that there are not simply two sexes. Why?
sex is not just one thing; there are many different variables that go into making it:
GENES: X and Y chromosomes
HORMONES: estrogen, androgens
GONADS: ovaries, testes
GENITAL: clitoris, penis
SECONDARY: hair, breasts; (BEHAVIOR, gendered)
(note that sexual orientation —orientation of sexual desire— is yet another matter)
These don’t always line up in individuals; there is a spectrum.
estimated 1 in 2,000 babies born with ambiguous genetalia, making it difficult for doctors to pronounce automatically “it’s a girl” or “it’s a boy”
So here, Fausto-Sterling suggests “at least” a five-sex model, naming three intersexed categories:
herms: so-called true hermaphrodites, who possess one testis and one ovary in same organ
merms: male pseudohermaphrodites, XYs who have testes and vagina and clitoris (do not
menstruate)
ferms: female pseudohermaphrodites, XXs who have ovaries and aspects of male genitals —
clitoris and penis similar organ
(note, however, that even these more complex binary correspondences only work if one ‘sex’ is taken as the model for the other; where, for example, is the vagina in this model?)
3
in a later article, she says 5 sexes aren’t enough — new classifications based also on hormones rather than anatomy of gonads and genitalia (problems of classification) HANDOUT 1
and note that one of these conditions, Progestin-induced androgenization, is iatrogenic, meaning induced by medical treatment of the body
Intersex could be culturally valued, it HAS been valued historically (and is, elsewhere, other cultures, as we’ll see), but it isn’t (here). Doctors think they’re doing a favor to children and parents in modifying intersexed individuals.
medical and legal institutions have worked to preserve appearance of dual system
well intentioned, about “fitting in” — but this is a concern b/c modern “Western culture is deeply committed to the idea that there are only two sexes.”
commitment to unambiguous binary gender difference AND HETEROSEXUALITY
these are institutionally fundamental to western societies
organizes inheritance, who can marry whom, paternity, hereditary titles, eligibility for
professions, draft registration (earlier, voting rights), anti-sodomy laws
sports: Olympics, between 1968-2000 female athletes had to prove they’re female;
chromosome tests, DNA – dozens have failed (excuses made for pulling out)
majority disorders XY but androgen deficiency – no advantage
“if the state and the legal system have an interest in maintaining a two-party sexual system, they are in defiance of nature” (21)
if we didn’t suppress these differences, what might that mean for society?
we’ll read later about the Intersex Society of America, against sex reassignment surgery, also Middlesex (protagonist has androgen insensitivity w/ 5-alpha reductase deficiency)
SO, what are the analytical limitations of sex/gender formulation?
1) binary sex difference isn’t natural either — sex is not a natural, binary, clearly dimorphic category of difference — rather, we force a range of natural differences into binary categories and take pains to stage dimorphism (tall women not pairing up with short men)
i.e., binary “sex” difference is not given in “nature” — so it cannot be a natural underpinning for gender or anything else
4
we read gender onto sex, not from sex
2) experientially, gender (being a man or woman) isn’t reducible to sex difference — not enough to talk categorically about “women” on one hand and “men” on the other
what it means to be a woman or a man — even to have a “male” or “female” body — has to do with various historical, cultural and social factors
corset wearing upper-class woman prohibited from working and her domestic servant — different bodies, different strength, different health
class, occupation, race, ethnicity, religion (attitudes toward sensuality)
AGE — physical/cultural/emotional manifestations of masculinity/femininity different when 14 than when 24, 54, 74
be aware of the force of binarisms, but also the work that goes into appearance of binarisms
readings for Wed — if gender isn’t just rooted in biology, how do we get it? gender acquisition through cultural means
gender acquisition
turning to sociological and anthropological approaches to the study of gender: think about how gender as a source of individual identity intersects with gender as a social category, set of relationships
how do individuals learn gender — that they ARE gendered (have a gender) and how to live up to expectations for what this means? how do ideas about gender get reproduced — and transformed — from one generation to the next?
recognition that gender is learned behavior beginning from 1950s insight of Simone de Beauvoir, “One is not born, but rather becomes a woman” (or man)
BUT this can fall back into sex:gender dichotomy — we are born “in nature” but develop “through culture”
WE want to keep in mind caveat learned from biologists, that “nature” and “culture” are NOT entirely separate, independent domains — i.e., to talk about “culture” begs for consideration of the physiological or supernatural/divine (both of which can be aspect of “nature” — “human nature”) — as Ruth Hubbard demonstrated, culture is not just thought and enacted, but embodied
how is gender learned? and how does it come to be embodied? to shape our bodies?
1) socialization, by
A) example (mimicking)
B) elicitation (how children are treated, rewarded/punished)
2) ritual — formalized laying out of cultural principles, norms for behavior, aesthetics, etc.
baptism, debutante ball
in any culture, these are related to local theories of human nature, including scientific and religious ones
readings for today, from A World of Babies — posing the question, “what if Dr. Spock lived in
explaining socialization in terms that are consistent with local, cultural ideas of natural processes (material and divine) and of personhood
Q: what did you find interesting in these pieces, reading them together?
themes:
relationship to spirit world
• Do babies have the devil in them, or are they divine?
1
• nature/nurture — both cultures recognize interplay; indeed, doesn’t make sense to try to separate them
personality and character shaped by day of birth
Ifaluk: spirit world is ever-present — in procreation, in whether infant will survive
• how to teach infants, small children proper behavior?
emphasize managing emotions (without apparent distinction b/w boys/girls), although for different reasons — similar practices can have different meanings
Barrie Thorne’s social psychology piece on gender socialization in US
Thorne takes up the questions (from Euro-American cultural perspective)
• “what’s in children’s nature”?
• how is gender learned, how does gender socialization happen?
observations in a co-ed pre-school class
found that kids internalize adult expectations and reproduce them amongst themselves
BUT they internalize these only to an extent — we can see dichotomies in kids’ interactions, but we can also see them bridging the divisions — sex play, gendered play, is more fluid than is often represented by toy stores, parents, teachers
parents’ insistence that they didn’t make their kid stereotypically boy/girl — if I didn’t try to ideology is never totalizing — masks fissures, tensions, contradictions, exceptions
much of it has to do with adults seeing what we expect to see, not noticing — or according social significance to — behavior that challenges norms
insight: we should look for gendered practices, not gender roles — see distinction?
how individuals use gender creatively, strategically v. how gendered individuals act or behave (phrasing question that way inevitably leads to overgeneralization)
let’s talk more about RITUAL
Rites of Passage
ritualized occasion of transition from one status, social position, age to another
can be seen to happen at a variety of scales
2
paradigmatically in “life crises” – such as? pregnancy, childbirth, death, marriage
adolescence (Mead)
3 phases of a rite of passage (from Victor Turner, elaborating Van Gennep):
1) separation
physical separation of individual from rest of society
symbolic separation from past
2) transition (the liminal period; margin)
“betwixt & between”
neither old status nor new one; statusless, identityless
“no longer classified and not yet classified” – nonperson
this is the stage he elaborates — gaining of secret knowledge; training
often symbolic cleansing / rebirth (bloodletting)
3) (re)incorporation
return to society, but in new position, with new status & new obligations & rights – new roles
e.g., birth (transition for mother to certain kind of female adulthood; also for baby)
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
1) re-narrate Ifaluk birth as a Rite of Passage — what elements fit the 3 stages?
2) what “rites of passage” are used to frame transitions related to gender/sexuality in the
what are defining rituals in “making” a boy/girl? or graduating to adult man/woman?
what do these rituals say about “what’s in children’s nature”?
3) what other rituals teach lessons about appropriately gendered behavior, values?
sum up: learning gender — as an aspect of child socialization — happens not only with reference to ideas about biology (sex) — but ideas about cosmology, procreation, what it means to be human; basic moral values; notions of personhood
is individualism or communalism stressed?
is being nurturing seen as gendered, or not?
infant care practices reflect this set of beliefs — directed at protecting the life of children, but also to guide children toward becoming accepted members of their societies
eg: co-sleeping or separate beds/rooms — reflects moral values — developing
individualism, independence, or reflecting sense that isolation = loneliness and that can lead to illness
ALSO, we can’t talk about becoming a boy/girl, man/woman without specifying becoming an Ifaluk man/woman, Balinese man/woman — a ‘high status’ Balinese man/woman. Etc.
TUESDAY — start to put this in a historical frame, and link personal categories of identity — girl/boy — to political categories of social groups — women/men
read first 125 pages of Middlesex, plus articles
gender and status in agrarian societies
last time we talked about modes of gender acquisition: socialization, ritual — ways that
kids learn there’s a significant distinction between girls and boys — put in different clothing (especially for important occasions), ritualized differentiation (counting off boy/girl for dodgeball). And they learn that to be a good girl/boy often means not acting like the other — “big boys don’t cry” (meaning that girls do); girls should sit with their legs closed (meaning boys don’t have to).
if gendered rituals make meanings explicit, the power of gender socialization (as opposed to formal ritual) lies in its implicitness, often glossed as “common sense” — “just the way things are” without explicit reason given: share a sense of what is meant by “boys will be boys”, “be a good girl”
while powerful, kids internalize gender lessons only to an extent
there’s often a gap b/w social reality and ideology
definition of ideology: official story told, retold, to articulate and, perhaps, explain status quo, often inequality; dominant norms, values sedimented in our institutions, ritualized in public events, elicited by others
in patriarchal societies, gender ideology buttresses male prestige
i.e., masculinity often more valued than femininity; gender-neutral = masculine rather than feminine, like “tomboy”
and, as we’ll start to see in our readings, gender ideology can also reinforce other forms of social inequality: racism, class hierarchy
BUT ideology is never totalizing, never complete story — again, masks fissures, tensions, contradictions, exceptions
much about gender ideology ‘evidenced’ in childhood has to do with adults seeing what we expect to see, not noticing — or attaching social significance to — behavior that challenges norms — AS we’ll see in Middlesex
SO, to understand gender, cannot merely ask “how men/women act or behave” (assuming that there is a meaningful difference) but rather at how individuals use gender ideologies creatively, strategically — or, perhaps, self-destructively
this is an argument Jane Collier makes
p. 101; “To understand conceptions of gender, we cannot look [merely] at what
men and women are or do, but rather must ask what people want and fear, what privileges they seek to claim, rationalize, and defend.”
and how they use gender to do so
1
this week and next we’ll study historical shifts in gender ideology -- and ways that people have maneuvered within those ideologies to make status claims, in European/American societies
reference HANDOUT (factors affecting gender roles) — use it to assess not so much degree of gender inequality — more/less patriarchal — but primary ideological reasoning for gender inequality in different cultures and societies
beginning with subsistence base — economic system (h/f; agrarian; chattel slavery; market capitalism) points to labor and resource allocation as basis of social inequality
next couple classes we’ll look at rise of capitalism and how that affected gender and sexual relations
today we’ll talk about early modern agrarian Europe (
pairing Jane Collier and beginning of Middlesex, which is historically and culturally well-researched
looking at handout, we should be able, on basis of readings, to say something of agrarian
1) subsistence base — contributions to material needs of group
productive labor; division of labor
2) distribution & exchange of goods & services
3) child-rearing
4) sexuality
5) symbolism & ritual
6) extraordinary events (who deals, and how, with unexpected crises, illness, etc.)
…
one key site where these factors intersect is
FEMALE CHASTITY (premarital virginity + marital fidelity)
WHY, according to Collier, do we often find a preoccupation with female chastity, sexual modesty, in agrarian societies? (also pastoral ones — where subsistence based on herding cattle, camels, etc. — middle east, east
Collier: “To question the chastity of a man’s mother is to question his right to the status he claims as his. In such a world, women’s bodies appear as gateways to all privileges… The status and reputation of a family thus rest on the degree to which its women are protected from penetration—by women’s own sense of sexual shame, by being locked away, and/or by the courage of family men in repelling seducers” (101)
this exemplifies one way in which gender is a vector of social status, and therefore, of inequality/hierarchy — this is Collier’s thesis
2
definition of status of an individual = rights due to and duties expected of one; person’s position relative to others (usually hierarchical in some way) in same society
2 basic types of statuses, having to do with recruitment
ascribed: assigned to individual, often (not nec.) from birth (e.g., lineage)
achieved: gained through special effort or choice; requiring special knowledge, skill,
qualities (e.g., occupation) and that are regarded as responsibility of individual
do you think gender is better viewed as an ascribed or achieved status?
some statuses can be either ascribed or achieved — marriage (arranged or chosen)
agrarian societies tend to emphasize ascribed statuses (clan, age, arranged marriage)
how does Collier explain this?
capitalist societies clearly based on ideal of achieved statuses (educational degree, occupation, chosen marriage)
how are differences and inequalities explained?
statuses, whether ascribed or achieved, imply roles -- refers to the dynamic aspect of status; what people do and how they do it, what relationships with others they engage in, as person of particular status position
all statuses must be maintained through proper performance of roles
Collier is describing a shift in ROLES attached to PROPER WOMANHOOD
we’ll continue discussion of this historical shift tomorrow
“The Woman Question”
Collier writes:
“To understand, gender, we must understand social inequality. And, if gender conceptions are idioms for interpreting and manipulating social inequality, then we should expect notions of femininity and masculinity to change when one organization of inequality gives way to another.” (101)
Collier is writing about 20th C rural
Ehrenreich and English ALSO write that shift in subsistence base was accompanied by shift in the idiom in which people understood inequality — haves and have-nots — AND thus also understand gender, sexuality, marriage, etc.
E&E frame discussion of the shift in gender ideologies with a shift from agrarianism to market capitalism in 19th C England and
how would you phrase “The Woman Question”?
what are women to do/what are women good for, when wage labor reorganized how people thought about work
wage labor is different from all previous labor relations (products of labor could be sold; laborers could be sold (slaves, indentured servants); but not labor itself)
wage labor = idea that E can buy W’s labor for X amount of time, and by extension all products of that labor for duration of that time.
Requires the idea that a worker is “free” to SELL his own labor; that is, need sense that a person OWNS his own labor power (productive capacity) (as if property) and thus can sell this belonging for $ wages.
as opposed to the vision of a person as a “dependent”; who is not free to dispose of his/her labor because dependent on the support of another person (indentured servant, apprentice, tenant farmer, slave — AND in 19th C, woman; legally “belonged” to father and then husband [classic patriarchy])
what did wage labor system do that was so significant for how we think about social relations?
1) notion that get paid what labor is “worth” — different kinds of labor are “worth” more than others — we’re deserving of what we have because we’ve earned it — achieved status — if we aren’t successful, it’s our fault; don’t have what it takes (ideology)
2) wage labor introduced division between paid and unpaid work — qualitative difference between work done in household and work done in market (unlike agrarian)
this is significant — work that doesn’t earn wages suddenly “worth” less
today, tendency to see & accept symbolic and structural separation b/w different kinds of labor — in market society:
1) productive labor
in market economy, labor that generates wages, income = purchasing power to meet basic needs – commercial transactions in market society
and other kinds of labor that people do, but are not seen as “productive” in same way
2) reproductive labor — making and raising babies; physical and emotional labor of feeding and nurturing; socializing good citizens and future workers and members of ethnic/religious communities
sustaining people on a daily basis: cooking, cleaning, feeding, sexing (conjugal right of sexual servicing), taking care of sick and elderly
3) work of status enhancement (middle classes) — promote social worth and prestige of families and husbands. Raising well-adjusted children and be smart consumers. Stay at home mom has become symbol of middle-upper class status.
4) “kinwork” and “community work” — maintaining kin networks through sharing work and resources; also writing letters, arranging family events and parties, emotional support. Narrator in Middlesex: “Didn’t my mother quiz me on uncles and aunts and cousins, too? She never quizzed my brother, because he was in charge of snow shovels and tractors, whereas I was supposed to provide the feminine glue that keeps families together, writing thank-you notes and remembering everybody’s birthdays and name days.” (72)
Often extends into community: church and community activism (from PTA to party politics).
Easy to think of separation b/w 1 and 2-4 as “natural” or “logical”:
Domestic capitalist market
Private public
Unpaid paid
Love money
Family co-workers/bosses/employees
Reproduction production
Women men
(note that activities that move from domestic to public sphere acquire an exchange-value and can shift from women’s to men’s work: cooking —> chefs)
HOWEVER, these separations, dualisms are NOT “natural”, old or inevitable.
the apparent separation of public/private spheres when it comes to qualitative difference in kinds of labor is very recent.
this is the framework in which “The Woman Question” emerged in the 19th C
immigrant stories like Desdemona’s in Middlesex also enacted the woman question – symbolized by her having to dump her silkworms, the basis of her livelihood, at
now, let’s return to Collier’s thesis — which E&E are in agreement with…
“To understand conceptions of gender, we cannot look at what men and women are or do, but rather must ask what people want and far, what privileges they seek to claim, rationalize, and defend. To understand, gender, we must understand social inequality. And, if gender conceptions are idioms for interpreting and manipulating social inequality, then we should expect notions of femininity and masculinity to change when one organization of inequality gives way to another.”
in GROUPS: evaluate hypothesis: that ideas about g/s are related to ideas about labor
using Collier, Middlesex, E&E and handout as guide: correlations b/w mode of subsistence (agrarianism v. industrial capitalism) and the rest – making generalizations — and discuss
…
social reproduction
Rayna Rapp is clearly in dialogue with Jane Collier, Ehrenreich & English
but while Collier and E&E concerned with how gender ideology changes with economic transformation, Rapp is doing something different: she’s looking at gaps between the ideologies of capitalism and the more or less objective realities of how capitalism works on the ground
Q: what are the ideologies of capitalism that she goes after?
success is NOT all about achievement — ascribed status, inheritance, is still relevant
brings up Q of the roll of FAMILY in MODERN SOCIETY
Rapp addresses this question by first distinguishing “family” from “household”:
households = “entities in which people actually live”, but also “the empirically measurable units within which people pool resources and perform certain tasks” — related to the distribution of resources.
households (as Rapp puts it) pool resources and “are the basic units in which labor power is reproduced and maintained”, and therefore fundamental to wage labor economy
and family? relatives (by birth or marriage)
“the family is the normative, correct way in which people get recruited into households” (170) [nuclear family]
Family, particularly marriage, thus provides opportunities for reproducing and also crossing class lines —> household with higher or lower status, more or less resources — esp. for women: marrying “up” or “down”
Q: why especially important for women?
Fredrick Engels, noting these things in 19th C, argued that for modern middle class women, MARRIAGE is a relationship of SLAVERY, “the crassest prostitution”
in Engels’ view, in marital ideal under capitalism: women service men (sexually as well as domestically), in return for having material needs satisfied (he brings home the bacon)
marriage is relationship of economic exploitation; husband = bourgoisie; wife = proletariat
BUT people themselves don’t see this as exploitation.
Q: Why did/do women say they do what they do in the home?
1
E&E and Rapp make this argument —
Because they LOVE their husbands/kids.
Because they take pride in their home (role well performed)
Even because it’s their “destiny.” (God or nature)
They don’t say it’s because their labor is exploited and they’re living under conditions of oppression. (until 1970s)
that’s because of ideological separation of public / private spheres
work / household
for money / for love
Engels: economic and sexual exploitation of women hidden by the ideology of romantic love (marriage for love as achieved status) and by the description of women’s domestic and sexual labor as wifely and maternal duties, not “work”
After all, what does “home” signify, symbolize in the modern world? (E&E)
It’s a space where LOVE rules. Under modern ideology of gender and family, domestic labor is one way in which women have expressed their love.
This ideology is what E&E call “the romantic solution” — buttressed by scientific “experts” finding in women’s psyches and biology source of innate nurturing, fragility, etc. — keep them (if ideally possible) out of mean, cruel market and in protective cocoon of home.
Like all ideologies, this story masks a very different reality:
A) class difference — working class women didn’t have luxury of staying home; their bodies and psyches were different, but this evidence wasn’t brought into calculation of women’s “nature” (theorized from middle class norm)
B) constructed nature of domestic/public — what people do for love and for money — not so separate as we like to think
as RAPP shows, this division is an ILLUSION: Domestic/work is false distinction
domestic labor is absolutely crucial to capitalist economy; HOW?
PLUS beyond unpaid domestic labor, household site of informal economy:
money lending, coupon-cutting, leaving kid with neighbor during emergency
NOT incidental, or outside, of capitalist production; fully integral to capitalism.
It is crucial to the reproduction of the labor power of employees.
2
“It is women who bridge the gap between what a household’s resources really are and what a family’s position is supposed to be” (175)
contemporary examples? still gendered?
SO, both authors suggest, because families are dominant means of recruiting household members, and household economies are part of market economies, family relationships can and do involve economic exploitation — Q: What do you think? was Engels right?
most famously, women’s “double day” or “double burden”
doing shopping, housework, childcare, cooking on top of full day of paid work
most heterosexual 2-parent households, men doing more of this, but NOT 50%
(especially not in households where there’s no hired help)
it’s not just doing the dishes or doing the shopping, but making the shopping list;
mental inventory of what’s in the pantry, anticipating running out of TP or
Tylenol
not just driving kids around but knowing when they’re due for doctors or dental
apts, making the play dates, researching day care centers, etc.
in theoretical terms, feminist scholars have understood this labor in terms of:
social reproduction — both Rapp and Nakano Glenn
recognizing the economic contribution of domestic labor
1) includes physical reproduction & daily maintenance of individuals (keeping labor
force strong)
2) but also reproduce class divisions generationally
family is also mechanism for social reproduction in so far as we learn class dispositions as part of our socialization — including class-based gender acquisition
these dispositions are called cultural capital (Pierre Bourdieu)— language/accent, aesthetic tastes, values, knowledge of Culture, exposure to class-inflected lifestyle that we inherit, alongside economic capital, that facilitates some people’s “success” in capitalist economy. it’s the kind of thing that can make or break a job interview
so here’s another spike in the myth of strict meritocracy — we don’t all start as blank slates, with nothing but our God-given ability and own industry; not just economic assets, but also cultural assets
Q: What do you envision for yourselves, your families/careers? What do you expect?
[we haven’t even begun to take into account two-mommy or two-daddy families]
“The Family Question” — recent NY Times article on ivy league women dreaming of
3
becoming stay at home moms…
Do you see it as an either/or choice — career or family?
putting it that way only makes sense given public/private split!
Why aren’t we talking about men? Or are we?
Is fatherhood today equivalent to motherhood? should it be?
why is it when m-c women want fulfilling career and kids, we’re “wanting it all”
when for m-c men — at least straight men — it’s totally the norm, assumed, unremarkable?
from Nakano Glenn (456): “In the traditional middle-class household, the availability of cheap female domestic labor buttressed white male privilege by perpetuating the concept of reproductive labor as women’s work, sustaining the illusion of a protected private sphere for women, and displacing conflict away from husband and wife to struggles between housewife and domestic.”
i.e., “Rather than challenge the inequity in the relationship with their husbands, white women pushed the burden onto women with even less power.”(446)
As Nakano Glenn importantly notes:
When we ask the government/employers for things like childcare provisions, we have to ask — who’s going to be working in these childcare facilities? and what will their lives be like?
And this is what Romero addresses — “Who Takes Care of the Maid’s Children?”
Q: what social/psychological repercussions from this piece did you find most interesting/surprising? unfamiliar? Or what struck a cord?
ambivalence — damned if do/damned if don’t — all decisions about having/not
having kids, pursuing/not pursuing career
problem of ideology of choice and achieved status — assume people have lives they have b/c of choices they’ve made — hold people accountable for life paths — motherhood, analogous to career, as achieved status; also fear others will judge us
What can we learn from this, analytically?
from Nakano Glenn (455):
When feminists perceive reproductive labor only as gendered, they imply that domestic labor is identical for all women and that it therefore can be the basis of a
common identity of womanhood. By not recognizing the different relationships women have had to such supposedly universal female experiences as motherhood and domesticity, they risk essentializing gender—treating it as static, fixed, eternal, and natural. They fail to take seriously a basic premise of feminist through, that gender is a social construct” — interlocks with other systems of inequality (Collier)
Do you really get what she means when she says: “to represent race and gender as relationally constructed is to assert that the experiences of white women and women of color are not just different but connected in systematic ways” (457)?? example?
race makes a difference to white women, too, their experience of gender
gendered labor
we’ve been looking at intersections between the so-called public/private spheres — social reproduction happens in these intersections — as does the formation of gender as a mode of social reproduction
racial-ethnic gender formations are overlaid, too, by class
structural reasons — history of discriminatory hiring practices, unequal pay scales, uneven quality of public education in communities that differ widely in terms of income
but also, more subtle means of socialization, ongoing gender acquisition into adulthood
women and men become gendered — take on “masculine” and “feminine” characteristics — in part through segregated labor practices (including mothering and unpaid domestic work)
this, in part, is why what “femininity” and “masculinity” means will vary for women and men who are structurally divided by class, race, ethnicity.
TODAY we’re looking at the OTHER side of the equation:
How might we think differently about paid labor market when we look at it as being systemically connected to households?
Kath Weston (147): “Occupational settings, no less than households and families, are loci for the production and reproduction of gender in the
GOVERNMENT LABOR STATS (overheads)
In 2002, women's labor force participation rate was 59.6 percent. In other words, 59.6 percent of women age 16 and over were working or actively looking for work.
Women comprised 47 percent of the total labor force (male and female) in 2002.
= not too many self-identified “housewives” or “homemakers” out there
what jobs were they doing?
most in “pink-collar” jobs — #1 is retail service (full-time; not including temps)
NOTE: government recently announced it was going to stop collecting gender-related occupational data
Many of you have a grasp of the history behind this: women’s employment has tended to be looked upon as either “desperate” – immigrant labor — or “supplemental” to a head of
1
household’s breadwinner’s wages — justifying, not explaining, low wages
this is what calls for “comparable worth” – equal pay for equal work— meant to redress
but did you catch Glenn’s critique (end of article) of “comparable worth”?
buys into myth of meritocracy:
assumes jobs have objective worth based on measurable skills, education,
productivity
but what about emotional skills of nurses, caregivers — not formally “skilled”?
racial divide often at skilled/unskilled divide — comp worth doesn’t address this
comp worth also neglects to consider structural obstacles to entry into skilled
jobs/professions — “pink collar work” where aren’t comp men’s wages
Glenn says if we support comp worth, need to do it alongside support for “living wage” — better pay for ALL less valued jobs — social security taxes for domestics
readings for today go even deeper — address cultural assumptions that make “merit based” pronouncements seem fair — that make today’s wage differentials/gendered career paths seem rational — a matter of personal “choice” rather than bias
BUT choice ≠ desire, what people would want ideally; often settling for something,
“choice” is often a pragmatic compromise
just because career paths today tend to be “chosen” rather than “forced,” doesn’t mean things are equitable, fair; that we’ve solved the problems
what Rosalind Williams calls “gender bias” in occupational tracking far more subtle than “gender discrimination” — and is more enduring, since can’t be legislated against
similarly, Kath Weston recognizes that notion of “discrimination” glosses rather than explains how committed men in the trades are to the idea that it’s a man’s job — and their genuine surprise to see women be good welders or auto mechanics
Let’s turn to
Kath Weston — anthropologist, director of women’s studies at Harvard, author of first research-based book on gay families (Families We Choose, 1991)
she argues that ideologies of gender, and work ability, still do help keep women out of the better paying, unionized skilled trades — even after gender discrimination in hiring made federal offence.
2
HOW? What’s her argument?
“Our society describes people in general and job applicants in particular as possessors of inherent ‘traits’ of character and competence—traits that incorporate cultural notions of gender, race, class, age, and what it means to be ‘able-bodied’.”
what working-class gendered assumptions are made about job-related traits? (141)
women have “manual dexterity”, “patience”
men have “physical strength,” “mechanical aptitude,” “aggressiveness”
JOBS, in turn, are described as having “requirements” intrinsic to the work itself
“heavy” v. “light-duty” work in trades
microelectronics as delicate, requiring small hands
matching of “the right person for the job” appears to be objective — when subjective preconceptions are embedded in depictions of both applicant and job
BUT in “heavy” work, do men actually lift engines?
is welding sheet metal (“delicate”) less hazardous than other trade work?
and don’t’ men dominate surgery? (even with electron microscopes?)
At the same time, that women/men do particular kinds of work reinforces certain stereotypes. Makes the connection between women/being a woman and nursing (care giving), doing piecework sewing or stationary microscope work (to manufacture computer chips and small electronics) seem self-evident.
Weston: “gender permeates not only the bodies and identities of workers, but production itself” (139) but this is metaphoric, cultural — not essential, inherent to the job itself
Weston importantly argues:
“Persons do not possess gender-typed qualities so much as they use symbols to fashion presentations of self that incorporate gender.”
i.e., there’s a lot of work that goes into the appearance of difference b/w heavy/light labor
exaggerated acting the part — carrying tires instead of rolling them; unnecessary safety risk
being extra ‘macho’ in ways that make doing the work of a tradesman seem antithetical to “being” a woman.
Conceptually, not unlike sense that men “are taller” than women b/c straight couples tend to pair up that way.
3
And women who do make it into the trades? How do they get in? How are they coached?
“blue collar dress-for-success program” (142-43)
these are signs of the ability to do the job, recognition of what job entails; not evidence of actual skill (degree, experience)
meaningful gender differences aren’t essential; they’re learned, adopted, adapted, elicited
“The conceptual links between gendered traits and job requirements are so powerful that they can influence what men on the job see when they watch a woman work” (142)
Weston concludes: “Fighting occupational sex segregation begins by disentangling gendered displays and notions of gendered capacity from labor performed” (148)
what if we apply this to white collar work like banking (
women blocked from upper end of banking positions not only through infrastructural obstacles (“glass ceiling”) but because the jobs themselves are gendered masculine in subtle ways that make women’s presence incongruous, unthinkable, if not destabilizing
examples from McDowell?
it’s also masculinity, too, that’s a performance
compulsory heterosexuality limits masculinity
what if we apply Weston’s insights to the sciences like physics, professions like engineering?
how is gender enacted in MIT culture, pedagogy?
excerpt from Rosalind Williams’s Retooling — prof in STS and former Dean of Students
not merely intellectual capacity, but STYLE of thinking, reasoning
“one sometimes hears the complaint that women students ‘just’ get good grades, without necessarily being creative and entrepreneurial” (201)
4
women faculty do a disproportionate amount of uncompensated “service work” — asked to serve on committees — either because ‘better’ committee members, or as token representatives — as soon as their hired; doesn’t count in tenure decisions
hard/soft sciences? (heavy/light labor)
how does occupational gender discrimination work today, when anti-discrimination laws are in place?
not through direct exclusion, but
1) by perpetuating conditions that retain assumption that ideal worker has a wife
(reproductive labor) — so women “choose” not to accept faculty positions at research universities if they’re interested in having kids
work/family issues are huge
on MIT engineering faculty: 1/2 women faculty have kids; 4/5 men have kids
2) being underappreciated — not having your achievements recognized (as in trades)
3) Susan Hockfield: “the tyranny of low expectations” — letters of evaluation reflecting expectations, stereotypes, rather than reality — always described as a ‘woman scientist’
next time: gender and agency — important theoretical pieces that may offer tools in revising your papers
gender, power and agency
last time, Weston importantly argued:
“Persons do not possess gender-typed qualities so much as they use symbols to fashion presentations of self that incorporate gender.”
And yet, in everyday practice, many jobs are strongly associated with either men or women
“The conceptual links between gendered traits and job requirements are so powerful that they can influence what men on the job see when they watch a woman work” (142)
what women conceive as calculated troubleshooting procedure can be otherwise read as lack of initiative, “natural aptitude,” or proper style
women’s inability thus becomes self-confirming
the same can be said of racial stereotypes — Nakano Glenn
history of “servitude” traded on racist stereotypes that black women and other women of color were “incapable of governing their own lives and thus were dependent on whites—making white employment of them an act of benevolence” (444)
but lot of work went into to fabricating appearance of dependency — such as?
calling domestics by first name, or Anglicizing name, or using generic ‘Maria’
giving domestic’s family cast-of clothes, leftover food
using back door
Yet, at the same time, women and men also make use of gendered stereotypes in ways that can enhance their positions.
Q: To what extent does the strategic use of gendered stereotypes reproduce structural inequalities, symbolic basis of women’s subordination, limits on choice for both women and men? To what extent does the strategic use of gendered stereotypes lead to the exercise of individual choice, personal agency?
this brings us to a key debate in social theory over the relationship between social STRUCTURE and individual AGENCY
to what extent are our actions determined by social norms, peer pressure, institutional constraints (e.g., even in societies that value achieved status, the status of the family one is born into still matters)
Abu-Lughod and Kandiyoti — rethinking the relationship between power (male dominance) and “resistance” (women’s agency)
1
context for these articles: scholars in the 60s and 70s began to look for examples of how subordinated groups resist dominant power structures, not necessarily through overt rebellion — civil rights movement in US, peasant uprisings in colonial states — but through everyday acts of subordination or a re-interpretation of dominant symbols
ex: “queer” as appropriated by groups who had been stigmatized by this as a derogatory label; same with “black power”
inspired by Michel Foucault: “where there is power, there is resistance” — people aren’t completely bonked over the head by ideology, aren’t completely passive in their own lives even if politically and economically subordinated
corrective to some socialist feminist analyses that reduce love to ideology (Rapp?) “false consciousness”
not coincidentally, perhaps, both authors writing about women in Muslim Middle East
why do you think this might be? why perhaps especially important to rethink women’s “resistance” — and how to identify resistance — here?
Let’s start with Kandiyoti’s “patriarchal bargain”
what does she mean by this?
Foucault: “every form of power and domination engenders its own forms of resistance”
patriarchy (or better, male dominance) works differently in different places
women’s accommodation to male dominance has thus meant different patriarchal bargains
women’s agency will look different in different contexts — isn’t necessarily going to be about “choice” (chosen marriage, right to choose abortion, etc.)
“classic patriarchy” (see Ehrenreich & English) = law of fathers
for women, what was the classic patriarchal bargain?
exercising power as mothers of sons, rulers of daughters-in-law
generational, kin-based power
Ernestine Friedl (1967) (anthropologist who worked in rural
“the appearances of [male] prestige can obscure the realities of [female] power”
precisely because women have been denied public prestige, they are free to maneouver behind the scenes to affect outcomes, often through manipulating men — what Abu-Lughod calls “kin-based power” — characterized here as the quintessentially feminine trait of “cunning”
2
transformations in local power relations will upset patriarchal bargains — may lead women, depending on patriarchal bargains, to adopt seemingly conservative attitudes about change
ex: returning to the veil —
new opportunities for women to work outside the home, but need to demonstrate
adherence to virtue of feminine modesty — veil allows for modesty in public spaces, allows new social actions to be incorporated into older values — signals that women are still worthy of respect, protection (expression of old values in new social reality — social change isn’t all or nothing)
the veil itself isn’t a symbol of women’s oppression — in fact, many women experience
it as just the opposite!
they pity the western woman objectified as sex symbol by strange men
GROUPS: brainstorm patriarchal bargains in other readings, in the
today
strategic use of gender-typed qualities that might give women short-term gains but long-term, could reinforce subordination?
Abu-Lughod — “the romance of resistance” — picks up where Kandiyoti leaves off
inverting Foucault: “where there is resistance, there is power”
resistance against social power (including male dominance) can tell us about how power works
Bedouin of
women cover for other women (secrets, silences)
resistance to arranged marriages
“sexually irreverent discourse” – poking fun at male prestige through belittling
manhood, sexual basis of male dominance
oral poetry that conveys the sentiments that violate sexual codes of modesty —
romantic love
but, again, times are changing — poetry is being recorded almost exclusively by men;
as the Bedouin are more sedentary, they’re more dependent on cash income and
consumer goods
how are women accommodating male dominance within a new consumer society, when
they are losing occasions for reciting poetry?
generational resistances: negligees, nail polish – to please husbands sexually
3
how is this interpreted by older Bedouin women?
how is this interpreted by Abu-Lughod?
parallels with other readings?
with Collier — shift in how gender is used to claim status positions: from
modesty to attractiveness
and Weston — strategic use of gender-typed characteristics
control and the self
we’ve been talking about how gender-typed qualities — reckless courage, multitasking, nurturance, etc. — are not innate to women and men, but neither are they merely learned by women and men (acquired through socialization) — they are also strategically USED by women and men.
moreover, people use gender-typed qualities in ways that both conform to dominant expectations (making them appear self-evident) and that challenge dominant expectations
what we see here is a tension between accommodation and resistance
between internalization of norms and misidentification of norms (seeing norms
and not a counter reality)
therefore, individual acts of resistance can turn out to reproduce old structures of dominance, or even produce new ones — Bedouin women buying negligees
what people themselves think isn’t the end of the story of social analysis
1st Q: How is it that ideology works so well?
how do people internalize as “common sense” the assumptions, stereotypes, values that underwrite social inequality, including gender inequality, racial and class inequality — and, how are some people able to resist or retool “common sense” assumptions?
why is it that women often contribute to their own symbolic and material subordination? and sometimes even find pleasure and pride in those things — the fashion magazines, the dieting, double day of housework done for “love” on top of one’s “real” job?
initial thoughts at this point?
today’s readings address these questions through the topic of food, eating
the aphorism, “you are what you eat” is really a metaphysical truism — not just that our bodies are shaped, in part, nutritionally, but that our eating philosophies embody particular notions of selfhood — a notion of SUBJECTIVITY
what do we mean by subjectivity?
Collier’s article traces a shift in subjectivity — from viewing success as a
matter of inheritance (ascribed status) to personal achievement
it’s a shift in conceptualizations of selfhood, human potentiality, giving
meaning to one’s actions
1
what kind of subjectivity does Counihan see American college students enacting through their food rules?
we embody the principle of achieved status through our relationship to food
thin = self-control, moral superiority — higher social status (and economic)
fat = lack of self-control, lack of pride, moral inferiority — lower socioecon status
eating is a way of incorporating cultural values
are these shared values gendered? do they play out differently to produce gender?
not that all men/women eat differently, but styles of eating are gendered
do we see a tension here b/w agency and subordination/power and resistance?
Gremillion: slender, fit body = autonomy and success for women, it also implies dependence on others’ approval (perhaps especially men’s)
it also sorts out a hierarchy among women and girls
the article on anorexia demonstrates the logical conclusion of the values, cultural ideas embedded in our food rules
Helen Gremillion
ethnography of food rules in an eating disorder clinic (attached to research university; patients come from the same demographic pool as Counihans’ students)
let’s start with the story of 16 year-old Maude — exaggerated version of the discourse of Counihan’s students:
“Maude talked to me about the link b/w weight loss and her creation of a unique and independent identity, which she equated with her ability to achieve (in school and in other activities). For Maude, losing weight was no effort at all. But the effort it took to keep up with all her activities at increasingly lower weights balanced out the ease of losing weight… Maude implied that she kept losing weight so that she could continually test her ability to achieve. But, at the same time, she said that this balancing act was ‘no big deal.’ It was important to Maude that her achievements felt natural to her identity, not like a test.” (397)
2
so, for Maude, extreme weight loss didn’t reflect distorted body image (didn’t see herself, or fear herself, as ‘fat’), but an endless form of body work that displayed achievement
achievement for women about self-control, not power; do you agree?
“Bodies are imagined as resources for fitness and health, and the fit body is an icon for achieving individualism, productivity, and ‘self-actualization’ within late capitalist consumer culture in the contemporary United States” (385)
Gremillion’s thesis: anorexia is not so much a pathology, but logical conclusion of dominant cultural values — extreme response to embodying contradictory messages of feminine fitness — meaning both physical fitness and social/moral fitness
understand? what do you think?
relationship b/w consumption and production?
would you agree that this is a particular problem for women?
now, Gremillion goes further to argue that psychiatric treatment of anorexia contributes to the anorexic subjectivity — sense of self — because it operates within the same cultural logics that produce anorexia in the first place
HOW? examples…
repercussions for emphasis on achieved status: we — particularly girls/women — both ARE our bodies (objectified as numbers, body parts, sensuality, reproductive capacity) and must continually WORK ON our bodies (to demonstrate control, status, demonstrate fitness for masculine workplace)
So, we’re at the end of the first thematic section of class — gender and labor
not only have we looked at the importance of gender in the workplace, in negotiating paid and unpaid labor in the domestic sphere — we’ve also talked about how, in a capitalist market-based society where status is imagined as being based on personal achievement, there’s a lot of work that goes into achieving what I call in my book gender proficiency — to produce gender-appropriate bodies, cultivate gendered subjectivities
NEXT TIME we’ll begin adding to this discussion the very crucial element of sexuality — beginning with the history of the very idea of sexual orientation, or sexuality-based identity — important readings
how does sexuality complicate gender, and vice versa?
history of modern sexual identities
we’re shifting our focus from how people learn and make use of gendered attributes, and both participate in and resist gender-based forms of power, to think about sexuality — how sexuality is, and isn’t, part of the making of manhood and womanhood
did this strike you as a surprising statement? If so, why?
SO, what IS “heterosexuality” that we can say is a recent invention?
an identity based on the object of one’s desire, as classified by gender
in contemporary understanding, one can “be” a heterosexual and not actually have
“had” sex with anyone
same with “a” homosexual
heterosexuality is also the “norm” against which homosexuality defined as deviant
this is a RECENT and culturally specific way to think about persons, and about sexuality
to recognize this is not to say it’s right/wrong, good/bad way of thinking — simply that it’s
a cultural construction
there are have been and are many different ways in which people have viewed sexuality, attached “it’ — doing various kinds of sex — to identity, various kinds of people
e.g.: ancient Greeks (Socrates and co.) categorized as active/passive sexual subjects
what was important was whether one took active or passive position —
penetrator/penetrated
obviously gender is relevant, but not in same way as homo/heterosexual orientation
men could be either active/passive (lust was roving); women only passive
the Sambia of Papua New Guinea (read about soon) practice ritualized fellatio (oral sex) — young male initiates ingest semen of older men as a “rite of passage” to adult manhood — they recognize pleasure afforded older men, but view the act of fellatio in terms of younger men ingesting semen, “making men” in a rather literalist reading — here “homosexuality” isn’t at all what we imagine it be
heterosexuality and, corollary, homosexuality, are recent: an identity based on the gender of the generalized object of one’s desire. origin story begins in 19th C, with — again — rise of industrial capitalism;
Katz joins Collier and Ehrenreich & English in his theoretical framework: new political-economic systems create new categories of person and claims to hierarchical status positions, and the ideologies to justify them
1
SO, according to Katz, where, and when, are we, historically, on the eve of heterosexuality?
Early Victorian era, of first half of 19th C — early capitalist economies emerging out of household production
the reigning sexual ideology is “True Love” in which sexual desire is domesticated; proper womanhood and manhood are based on “purity,” meaning that desire is channeled into proper (marital) procreation
in pre-capitalist society, having children meant gaining “extra hands” to help around house and fields; sex was valued b/c it led to more children, increased household stability
this agrarian PROCREATIVE ETHIC of SEX was incorporated into early social relations of capitalism, industrial capitalist value of production
Protestant work ethic was applied to people’s sex lives:
the body is about work (both men and women) — expressed through sexuality [rather than, say, modern preoccupation with fitness] — proper body is not about pleasure
penis/vagina seen as instruments of production
producing heirs, workers, property (slaves)
part of the new dichotomy of publie/private space and sexual division of labor in society was extended to (was seen to mirror) sexual division of labor in marriage:
if men: production; women: reproduction
men’s bodies: production; women’s bodies: reproduction
Q: How, then, did married couples (middle classes) experience sex/love in marriage?
seems that many internalized sense that legitimate “natural desire” was FOR procreation,
through this proper manhood and womanhood were expressed
sex was an aspect of marital/civic duty
ideology of sex wasn’t organized around pleasure
(especially for women, whose natural desire supposed to be directed at maternal, rather than sexual, love)
ideologically, sexuality subordinated to gender identity
2
sexual morality revolved largely around where “it” took place
domestic, procreative sex good
ANY public sex, sex for pleasure, or money, or w/out possibility of procreation bad
this was early Victorian morality
BUT, as we’ve seen, in urban settings the rise of industrial capitalism wedges a division b/w home and work, private and public spheres. As capitalism took hold, production moved out of the home.
The home became site for consumption rather than production; children no longer “extra hands” to help but “mouths to feed” — as a Greek grandmother put it to me.
The fertility rate goes down dramatically.
Without a “procreative imperative,” when having children is not so essential to economic success (and in fact, too many children can create poverty!), people start to talk differently about sex.
Sex starts to be separated from procreation (this will be more fully accomplished with modern birth control), and is begun to be talked about on its own terms, for pleasure.
Site of consumption rather than production — what Katz calls the PLEASURE ETHIC of sex
By late 19th C, the erotic became the raw material for a new consumer culture. Sex enters into the new commoditized entertainment industry: newspapers, magazines, books, plays talking about sex in ways that thrill and excite.
IN CITIES: restauraunts, bars, clubs bath houses open, catering to consumers who seek sexual pleasures (including flirtation) in public spaces. And men had easier access than women to such public spaces, and more disposable capital with which to purchase pleasures.
but, as Katz writes, this new openness about sexuality, sex for pleasure, commoditized sex ALSO provides new means for
classifying differences between “normal” and “abnormal” desires
famously in
3
living, remember)
shortly after the book’s publication, Wilde was put on trial for “gross indecency”
Importantly, by end of 19th C sexual morality, propriety was classified on the basis on specific acts — NOT on entirety of individual identities; persons not classified by sexual “orientation”
“gross indecency” referred to sexual relations of varying degrees among men, but these men were not “homosexuals” — not only were many married to women (including Wilde); all men were thought to have insatiable sexual needs and roving lust
why was sex between men thought to be a problem, then?
1) morally, it demonstrated a lack of self-control (and was unmanly in this regard — not True Manhood)
2) socially, it posed an ideological threat to the newly normative manhood based on a “breadwinner” model of supporting a dependent wife and kids — he’s spending his $ in the wrong places
Wilde (and his book) also constituted a social “problem” because it — attraction and sexual contact between men — was becoming more and more visible
What was happening, according to historian Jeffrey Weeks and others, was that urban capitalism opened up the possibility for men with means to live independently, without wives — outside of the heterosexual imperative, “as” homosexual men
Not only were industrializing cities creating population centers where men could meet and socialize, there were also settings where men could LIVE quite well without marrying,
b/c of consumerism: they can go to a tailor, bakery, laundry, restaurant, live in a hotel with a chambermaid — pay women and men to do the kinds of tasks wives were doing out of “love” and domestic duty
So, cities like
This openness, visibility, led to the criminalization of sodomy — acts of anal and oral sex — as recently as the 1960s, anti-sodomy laws on the books in all 50 states
OVERHEADS from mid-80s; and from 2003 — eve of …
November 2003 Supreme Court on a 6-3 decision reversed a ruling from 1986 that states could punish homosexuals for so-called “deviant sex.” The 2003 ruling enshrined for the first time a broad constitutional right to sexual privacy
4
the early 19th C openness of homosexual desire — public performance of sexual preference — also led to the invention of “homosexuality” as something that one WAS —a kind of person; i.e., not only new sexual “lifestyles,” but “identities”
John D’Emilio: “Only when individuals began to make their living through wage labor instead of as parts of an interdependent family unit was it possible for homosexual desire to coalesce into a personal identity — an identity based on the ability to remain outside the heterosexual family and to construct a personal life based on attraction to one’s own sex” (19405)
Remember, earlier in agrarian settings — Desdemona and Lefty in Middlesex — when men (like women) had to get married in order to live, men’s sexual affairs with men (more or less hidden) had not made much difference to their standing or place in the community — status ascribed through kin connections
but once “homosexuality” became an alternative to marriage — in the sense of being a way to live — then it also became an “alternative” in the sense of the meanings marriage had by then acquired [gay marriage wasn’t on the table until quite recently, remember]
If, as Rayna Rapp suggested, marriage was one point at which a man and a woman’s place in society was established [marrying up or down], and determined “who” they “were,”
then homosexuality — as an alternative to marriage — also became a statement, a symbol, of what a man “was” — who he was in terms of his place in the social and moral world — an independent figure who would not be tied down to marriage, free of obligations (and status) to heirs
these were gradual developments: Katz notes that the 1901 edition of the OED did not include entries for either “heterosexuality” or “homosexuality”
the words were first used by psychiatrists to categorize sexual development and desires — “heterosexuality” was at one point used to refer not to opposite-sex attraction but, logically, to “psychical hermaphroditism” — multiple attractions; might today be called “bi-sexual”
By the turn of the century, the “norm” still lacked a name
eventually (1910), Freud posited what we’ve come to call heterosexuality not only as “natural,” but as mark of “maturity” — “homosexual” attraction for Freud indicated
“arrested development”
Only in 1930 did the word “heterosexual” first appear in New York Times
Katz writes: “The heterosexual category provided the basis for a move from a production-oriented, procreative imperative to a consumerist pleasure principle—an institutionalized pursuit of happiness”
now heterosexuals could still be procreative — and enjoy sex too — and be normal!!
5
Katz: the heterosexual idea was not only created, but “created as ahistorical and taken-for-granted”
it was, in other words, naturalized — first through science (began as scientific term) and then through religion — when religious persons today talk about heterosexuality being ancient, they’re simply wrong; sex between men and women, yes — but also homosex — as acts
what about women loving women in this history? well, Queen
in US this has been more common in working-class communities (including African-American communities; Ma Rainy and blues singers) and also upper class communities (world-traveling great aunt with her “companion”).
Why? middle-class women (white) have been most dependent on marriage, men’s incomes
But then, just as heterosexual/homosexual dualisms becoming established mode of thinking about human sexuality [with male sexuality as unmarked norm], WWII breaks out and social patterns are rearranged.
What does Allan Berube argue about the significance of WWII to this history?
saw mass movement of men and women — particularly of independent women from small towns to cities to fill manufacturing positions [Rosie the Riveter] — gave women the opportunity to break out of domesticated gender-defined roles as daughter/wife/mother and get to know themselves and other women on their own terms.
there were also women in the military, in the Women’s Army Corps (WACS)
and in the military lesbian relationships were tolerated — good for morale, sense that without men it wasn’t surprising or distressing for women to hook up — in eyes of officers, didn’t necessarily make the women “homosexual” as such, which was then defined in terms of “addiction”
note that act and identity here are differentiated
WWII also contributed to the medicalization of sexual identities — medical/psychiatric interviews to “screen” for homosexuals — first time most of these young people had thought about their lives in terms of sexual identity
ultimately, Berube argues that WWII did for lesbian communities what capitalist urbanization did for gay male communities at end of 19th C — only this time there was a vocabulary to name same-sex relationships.
6
1940s, emergence of bars that catered to lesbians — even in such unhip cities as
BUT then, as Katz and Berube write, the end of the War brought the re-domestication of women — a “cult of domesticity” and the baby-boom births.
1950s return of a PROCREATIVE ETHIC to replenish national population; not only redomesticaton of women, but reimposition of heterosexual normativity for both men and women
1950s were difficult times for gay men and lesbians
after war ended, military “witch-hunts” against lesbians and gay men, leading to thousands of courts martial and dishonorable discharges
in popular discourse, homosexuality pitied as being “sterile” — to be homosexual was to reject the procreative ethic in favor of a pleasure ethic
[again, remember that at turn of the century men with desire for men were married
and often with children — and still today in many parts of the world]
heterosexual men and women also began to feel oppressed by expectations of early marriage and responsibility to family
[
But then, during the 1950s, a new ideology of masculinity emerged to challenge the idea that men must marry and support a family to be a “real” man — new ideology of masculinity most available to, and directed at, middle class white men
Most clearly articulated by latest edition to the industry of commoditized sexuality in 1950s — PLAYBOY
How do we read Playboy magazine in this context?
What kind of man was Playboy initially intended for?
1st issue of Playboy™ hit the stands in December 1953. 1st centerfold — famous nude calendar shot of Marilyn Monroe — is legendary. What’s less well remembered is the first feature article — “Miss Gold-Digger of 1953” —it was an attack on money-hungry women who tried to trap men into working to support them; it was also a diatribe against alimony
OVERHEAD: Hugh Hefner’s opening editorial/manifesto from first edition
vision was to offer men new ways of consuming status:
7
not the family station wagon but the racy sports car
So, why the air-brushed photos of untouchable women-as-objects?
consuming these photos to reinforce (for himself and others) heterosexuality
for the male marriage resister who doesn’t want to risk being labeled homosexual
also consumed by married men who aspire to the bachelor image
escape from the ball-and-chain wife you have to support
you can be a single man, interested in sex, and not be gay
this was the real message of Playboy
And what about women?
for women in mid-century, being unmarried didn’t first and foremost stigmatize them as lesbian; rather, “Old Maids” (assumption: can’t catch a man, not that didn’t want to)
women’s sexual desire still deemed secondary to their sexual appeal to men;
women’s sexuality, in other words, perceived in terms of men’s implicitly hetero-sexuality
SO, how did real wives deal with porn-consuming husbands?
what’s Maxine Davis’ advice in The Sexual Responsibility of Women (1956)?
“healthy” sex life is now one of women’s marital responsibilities — very 20th C
women advised to bring romance and sex-as-entertainment into the home
What we’re also seeing here is more enduring compulsory heterosexuality for
women than for men— and until more recently, compulsory marriage
this phrase from ADRIENNE RICH, “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence” (1980)
Adrienne Rich came of age in this era (50s); married and had 3 sons, which she found to be an alienating experience
argued that compulsory heterosexuality has been felt more strongly by women than men b/c women have been economically dependent on men, led to believe no alternative to marriage
[note the white middle-class bias here, argument based in part on her own experience]
8
MORE RECENTLY,
homosexuality — at least domesticated version — becoming mainstream
NY Times lists same-sex commitment ceremonies in Sunday Styles section, renamed “Weddings and Celebrations”
and WOMEN’S SEXUALITY more analogous to men’s
women can be single and lesbian or straight; not “Old Maids”
women’s sexual desire, pleasure, organism, generally viewed as important
nevertheless, does the pleasure ethic of sex still have a gender double-standard?
1
• How strong do you see the divide b/w straight and gay as KINDS of sexuality? any differences beyond preferred gender?
other ways of conceiving gender/sexualities
first, I want to underscore the point that not only are identity categories oversimplified, individual identities are not necessarily stable — may not plot on graph as single dot
this is why anthropologists like Weston talk about the uses of gender, gender-typed qualities: men and women make use of both femininity and masculinity
does it make sense to speak in similar way about sexuality? uses of sexuality, sexuality-typed qualities?
readings for today:
Gilbert Herdt
well-known anthropologist, studied Sambia in Highlands of Papua New Guinea in 1970s, with return trips throughout the 1980s; now heads Human Sexuality Program,
his work addresses
1) the role of ritual in gender/sexuality
2) the multiple ways gender/sexuality can be interrelated
3) distinction b/w sexual acts and “orientations” (as identity)
according to Herdt, the Sambia can be said to have a sex/gender system — strong binary oppositions between male and female, accompanied by a strict gender division of labor — but they do not not have an equivalent sexuality/gender system
instead, male sexuality and female sexuality not equivalent categories
female = natural and heterosexual (orientation, acts)
male = cultural and sequentially bisexual (first homosexual, then heterosexual)
first, notable that they regard females as more naturally “complete” — less in need of ritual elaboration (seemingly different from European traditions)
why?
“ritualized male homosexuality” — secret rites, hidden from women (they don’t know)
if blood makes femaleness, semen makes maleness and must be ingested,
culturally acquired through initiation rituals
FILM CLIP
for all he narrates rituals as “men making men” or “masculinizing men” there’s quite a bit of feminine imagery!
1
indeed, sex-segregated initiation rites and male homosocial/homosexual events are infused with feminine elements — gender isn’t absolute difference in ideology here
semen = mother’s milk (“when the semen falls into my mouth, I think it’s the
milk of women” — easily identified as homosexual experience?)
penis = flute; breast = flute
flute is animated by female spirit [male body is vessel; again, seeming inversion]
and the ritualized insemination necessary to make “real” men prepared to
survive heterosexual encounters with women for procreation!
ritual embodies contradiction (ideology is never seamless)
ultimately, what’s ritualized here is male prestige, rather than sexual orientation or essential gender differentiation
Annick Prieur’s Mema’s House
let’s get a handle on the terminology:
joto = (passive) homosexual, prefers men exclusively and usually passive role
jota = feminine passive homosexuals (“queens”)
vestida = jota who consistently dresses as woman
core of these definition is preferring passive role, in keeping with feminine presentation — ideological link b/w position and appearance
femininity in man suggests wants to be penetrated
masculinity suggests wants to penetrate
mayate = masculine men who penetrate jotas + also have sex with women
(external label — they would simply call themselves ‘men’; acts ≠ identity)
tortilla = mayate sometimes takes passive position with men, sometimes active
bisexual = tortilla = internacional = alternating active/passive roles
[implicit — if take active role with men, then will also have sex with women]
buga = term used by homosexuals who designate men they think only have sex with
women; only penetrating role; also used to describe manly men, macho
Annick Prieur’s Mema’s House
an ethnography of contemporary
first, aside from my book, this is only full-scale ethnography we’re reading; it’s
an example of the kind of study that is behind many of the articles we’re reading
so it’s worth talking a bit about what it is that anthropologists do — research methodologies
what is the sense that you get from Prieur?
participant-observation — not quantitative studies, but qualitative sense of how people think about what they do
“thick description” (from Clifford Geertz) = observations plus multiple meanings held by those observed plus meanings discerned by the anthropologist within theoretical and comparative context — doing a cultural “reading” of multiple meanings, where those meanings come from, and what implications they have for behavior.
any impact on research the fact that Prieur is a woman?
in
active/passive position + gender performativity, the projection of gendered codes
how does this case complicate American notion of “sexual identity”?
“preferring men” has different meaning, different implications for
identity
appearance
gender system
Prieur addresses the common question: What causes homosexuality?
Q: what do you make of this question itself? useful? what does it assume?
is the homosexuality/desire of jotas same as that of mayates?
is the homosexuality/desire the same between lower and middle class men in
what’s interesting anthropologically is how people themselves, in different cultural settings, construe identities based on sexuality, gender, race (which we know scientifically is not a valid category of biological differentiation), etc.
1
Prieur surmises complex combination of biological, cultural and social factors that crystalize into self-perceptions and identities depending on cultural context
Personal Origin Stories — the stories they tell about themselves to explain who they are
what is a common narrative among the jotas?
innate tendencies — dolls, dressing in mother’s clothes, fascinated by
penises
early sexual abuse (age 6-8), possibly triggered when adults recognized
their “homosexual or feminine tendencies”; discovery: “liked” it
how might we understand, interpret this?
“patriarchal bargain”?
classic patriarchy = law of fathers (manliness often = abuse)
see Marta’s story
what can we discern about the cultural context in which this story makes sense?
ideology that all men are potentially homosexual — indeed, percentage of Mexican men who have sexual experiences with other men is significant, probably well over 50%— notion that if they try passive role they might like it, and then they’d have to come to terms (according to jotas) with this self-realization — tortillas who deny taking passive role are “repressed homosexuals” — jotas are essentializing this identity based on pleasure/practice — not so much a matter of choice or preference, but “born that way”
do mayates confirm this?
no — more constructivist view — fear that they may learn that they like it (not inevitable)
what’s particularly problematic for the mayates about this? why the apparent denial of passive pleasure among the tortillas?
homosexual desire (defined as passive) = feminine gender characteristics
homosexuality is strongly linked with emasculination, not being a man
active bisexuality (penetrating men) not marked as ‘homosexual’ but also is not
an open identity — neither accepted nor stigmatized, but hidden
not “closeted” because not attached to inner sense of authentic self
in
with men exclusively and claim homosexual identity (gay) — no “popular class” Macho Men, hypermasculine gay men with built physique and cropped hair
in
opposite is the case in the
what did you make of the jotas relationships with their families?
2
easier for families to accept homosexual tendencies than feminine presentation — WHY?
we’ve been talking about gender — what it means to be proper man/woman, what’s read as masculinity/femininity — but what about patriarchy? male domination (as Prieur says)?
by being improper men in displaying passive femininity, reinforces idea that proper masculinity is active, aggressive, dominant — exception proves the rule
in reducing femininity to sexual passivity, ideology perpetuates male dominant view of proper womanhood; but this is reductive, fictional — women’s subjectivities are not reduced to passive sexuality
however much jotas make of their feminine gender identity, Annick Prieur demonstrates through ethnographic observation that their gendering is more complicated than their own depictions suggest — HOW?
they’re not women (can lead to health problems, violence, disillusionment)
they’re not entirely not masculine — examples of how they operate in the world
in ways that are coded masculine?
physical toughness, fist fights
competitiveness (whose breasts bigger, better, etc.)
what does femininity boil down to for them? passive role in sex, ability to attract
manly men — exaggerated feminine appearance — not just feminine signs, but feminine signs of sexual availability — far from a feminist understanding!
embrace certain aspects of feminine suffering — for beauty, if not for children
physical fighting, masculine competitiveness, messiness
• gender is not straightforward matter of personal “choice” (class makes a difference)
• vestitas, in fetishizing or parodying feminine sexuality, can be seen more to reinforce
dominant gender stereotypes (dualistic model) than to challenge them
transgender
let’s start with a question that Anick Prieur asked: what aspects of gender/sexuality are “problematized” in a society — particularly meaningful and therefore most under surveillance, scrutiny, critical observation — morally laden, and thus either hidden or carefully performed?
the term comes from Michel Foucault, French social theorist discussed on pp. 126-27
Foucault wrote about ancient Greeks (Socrates, Plato), arguing that for them sexual desire or preference (in men) was matter of taste (like wine or beer) — taste preference (for women or men) was not problematized, not “an issue” — wouldn’t get on Jerry Springer, wouldn’t occur to someone to think it was important to understand the origin or source of homosexual desire — it would be like asking what is the Origin of a preference for Coke versus Pepsi? would such a study be funded? of course not. who cares?
what was problematized for the ancient Greeks was the amount of sex (moderation in all things) someone had and whether they took the active/passive position (a problem only for men)
according to Prieur, in contemporary working class urban
if you try it, you might like it — and then you’ll be a different person than you thought you were, less of a man — all men have potentiality for homosexual preference [classic homophobia: fear of one’s own desires] (female homosexuality not so problematized, b/c women share passive orientation)
SO, Q: what’s “problematized” in terms of gender/sexuality in the
as revealed in US “coming out” narratives (personal origin stories)
in proliferation of sexuality-based categories: lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer
in proliferation of sex/gender categories: intersexual, transsexual, transgender
this is what your papers ask you to address…
today: transgender, transsexualism
what do transgender and transsexualism each refer to?
following Heyes:
transgender = “living a gender” one is not “perinatally assigned” — ascribed by
virtue of sex, as in sex/gender system (“or that is not publicly recognizable within Western cultures’ binary gender systems”) — sustained consistently as a life
1
historical example: Billy Tipton, jazz musician (not discovered until after death)
Brandon Teena
transsexual, transsexed = anyone who undergoes or hopes to undergo physical
interventions to bring sexed body more closely in line with gender identity
“transitioning” usually refers to transsexualism — taking hormones, applying for operation
together, “trans people”: gender they feel, identify with ≠ sex of body born with
implies transitioning b/w binaries within the sex/gender system
“crossing and mixing” body markers, gender markers, sexualities
have you heard these terms used in slightly different ways?
transgender also used as akin to “queer” — as resisting binary categorization altogether, become another kind of umbrella for transsexual, transvestite, cross-dresser, drag queen, intersexual, androgynous, feminist men — those who opposes sex/gender restrictions in the way Heyes writes about
but this runs risk of becoming so inclusive as to lose meaning
transvestite/cross-dresser: many varieties
vestitas, drag queens — might use implants, but not trans (either sexual or gender)
strategic cross-dressing as man to be able to have life denied to women (in Civil
War, in theater — Victor/Victoria) — not strict identification as other
dressing up for fun, for excitement (often married men who are straight;
performance)
trans terms are recent enough that their meaning is not fixed — be sure to define
explicitly what you mean by such terms in your papers
let’s talk about transsexualism — having or hoping for bodily modifications
FTM & MTF
today it is treated as medical condition: Gender Identity Disorder or Gender Disphoria (similarly to how homosexuality was pathologized in the DSM as late as 1970s)
not a “choice”
contrast to transvestites or drag queens, which are seen more as lifestyle “choice”
and not medically regulated
adolescent or adult needs psychiatric evaluation to proceed with transition beyond cross-dressing, living as other gender — receiving hormone treatments, surgical adjustments
2
FILM: YOU DON’T KNOW DICK
what does transitioning entail socially?
origin/decision stories of transsexual persons? compare w/ jotas?
what do personal origin stories do…
at a personal level, subjectivity? — self-definition
like jotas: “These people work to become what they think they were born
to become” — resisting victimization, claiming a “home” (Heyes)
even if label is imperfect, necessary to have a sense of self
at a social level, ideology? — often reinforcing status quo — keeping people in their places
Heyes argues against a strong “feminist critique” of trans lives — did you manage to discern what this feminist critique comprised?
summed up by quote from Janice Raymond, “What good is a gender outlaw [Kate Bornstein title] who is still abiding by the law of gender?”
rather than challenging binaries (feminist goal), read as reinforcing binaries
Did we see evidence of this in the film, or was this argument complicated?
intersex
handout: http://www.marchofdimes.com/professionals/681_1215.asp
recall Anne Fausto-Sterling: about 1 in 2000 infants born with ‘ambiguous genetalia’ and 1 in 400, 5 sex-related characteristics do not correspond neatly according to binary model of difference
more variety than even “5 sexes” — hormonal as well as anatomical patterns
our Q: what are various ways in which culture-bearing humans have interpreted and lived with this natural ambiguity? and why?
a) cultures have accommodated the ambiguity
hermaphrodite (hermes + Aphrodite)
1) hijra in
subsume a range of sex/gender nonconformists
including intersexuals but also what in west would call eunuchs (castrati),
homosexuals, transsexuals, transgendered persons
anthropologist Serena Nanda interprets hijras in the conceptual, cultural context of Hinduism
the hijra is marginalized, but recognized — there’s a conceptual space for intersex
2) guevedoche (‘penis at 12’)
= the hereditary genetic mutation that
in US, are there ways of accepting ambiguity?
“queer” identity — not based on shared essential identity but on shared nonconformism — “queer nation” or “transgender nation”— not in thrall to binary sex/gender distinction in which biology and cultural identity and behavior viewed as both categorically different and ideally congruent
more commonly (mainstream US),
b) rejecting the ambiguity of intersex
we have no social category to accommodate ambiguously sexed individuals (except pornographic freak shows, like in Middlesex — commoditization!)
"hermaphrodite" is not one of the options available on a birth certificate
1
not only modern US: ancient Spartans practiced infant abandonment
WHY today insistence on 2-sex model of gender difference? clearly defined binaries?
as Fausto-Sterling noted, our institutions, laws presume 2 genders
did you read Bill Beeman’s
marriage law is one thing at stake
Q of marriage defined constitutionally as “between a man and a woman” — is that such an obvious statement? what about intersexuals? transsexuals? how WOULD the law define man/woman today, with ISNA and other groups to raise the question of definition?
begs Q of how, as a society, we should approach intersexuality
protocols established in 1950s that doctors would do sex determinations without seeking permission or even really knowledge of parents — idea being that gender acquisition would go more smoothly if no ambiguity
Cheryl Chase speaks of sex “determination” in both senses of the word…
but this “determination” based not only on “facts” but on technological ability — 90% “determined” female b/c easier to “make a hole than a pole”!
gender identity is a complex INTERACTION of biology and culture (Hubbard) — not just one informing the other
John/Joan case, overseen by Dr. John Money (the inspiration for Eugenides’ Dr. Luce)
‘Joan’ grew up to identify as ‘John’, transitioned to masculine persona
had phalloplasty, married a woman [Rolling Stone story on MIT server]
for the general medical community, what would count as a “successful" sex assignment or reassignment?
often adoption by the intersexed person of the gender role corresponding to the sex assigned by the health care workers + "heterosexual" sexual orientation
not only is equivalence b/w sex/gender at issue, but heterosexuality as normative
note that the identification of heterosexuality is contingent upon what gender the person was assigned by the medical professionals during infancy
what are the cultural/ideological underpinnings of this scientific protocol?
2
Q: is this rational modern science? or patriarchal culture? or can we separate the two?
Cheryl Chase and the ISNA
from the website (isna.org):
“The Intersex Society of North America (ISNA) is devoted to systemic change to end shame, secrecy, and unwanted genital surgeries for people born with an anatomy that someone decided is not standard for male or female.
We have learned from listening to individuals and families dealing with intersex that:
* Intersexuality is primarily a problem of stigma and trauma, not gender.
* Parents' distress must not be treated by surgery on the child.
* Professional mental health care is essential.
* Honest, complete disclosure is good medicine.
* All children should be assigned as boy or girl, without early surgery.”
1) what do you think about routine sex assignment surgery on infants? pro/con
2) what do you think about current transsexual “treatment” of “gender dysphoria”?
NOW: are your arguments concerning intersex and transsexualism philosophically, logically consistent?
transgender/transexual support based on essentializing gender identity — body
is malleable but sex/gender should match up
sex-assignment surgery on infants ALSO based on sex/gender matching —
in this sense conceptually consistent w/ transsexualism
but what about intersexual activism (Chase)?
based on essentializing biological sex
gender should be malleable — and sex/gender system itself challenged
at least in long term; in short term, advocating ‘choosing’ a gender identity
support of transsexualism is consistent with a major criticism of sex assignment surgery of intersex infants — informed consent — ascription, not achievement, of embodiment
begging question of usefulness and limitations of appealing to “nature,” natural “fact” to legitimate social formations — it’s a political and cultural, not strictly logical, argument
MIDDLESEX: what did you make of Eugenides’ fictional account? helpfully – through fiction – get at experience?
do western sexual identities travel?
are our categories and assumptions about the meaning of sexuality, developed in the
US/Western Europe, applicable to non-western settings?
or do they obscure our understanding of sexuality elsewhere?
can insights from other cultural settings be brought back to shed light on the possible limitations of our own assumptions about sexuality, gender, identity here in the
Anick Prieur’s book offered our first pointer — men having sex with men doesn’t have the same meaning in terms of identity, gender, sexuality in
Swarr and Nagar’s article on experiences of women in same-sex relationships in
according to Swarr and Nagar, what are limiting assumptions of western feminism, regarding lesbianism?
western feminism tends to view lesbianism first and foremost in terms of desire —
in the “west” there’s an increasing emphasis on external expression of inward feeling, as captured in “coming out” narratives — but in Third World contexts (or rural, working class contexts of US) this can be overshadowed by NEEDS — economic survival, social survival (including threat of violence)
western theorizing of sexuality has focused on the INDIVIDUAL — as unit of analysis
valuing of autonomous individual authoring her own destiny (achievement)
but in many parts of the world, local ideology cannot separate individual from FAMILY, CLAN, COMMUNITY — shared resources, shared status, shared survival strategies
this contributes to subjective experience of even something as “private” as sexuality
they write, “we seek to reconceptualize desire itself not as innate or inherent but as emerging in conjunction with processes such as development, neocolonialism, apartheid, and liberalization” (495)
from reading, can you explain what they mean by offering example, illustration of “how the politics of intimacy, sexuality, and access to resources intertwine in everyday lives”?
stories of Geeta and Manju in
what “take home messages” did you get from this article?
• even poorest women in most patriarchal settings are not bereft of sexual agency — they too have emotional lives — not just prerogative of the privileged
1
• complexity of identity questions — not just “intersectionality” (gender / sexuality / race / class), not just carving identity into different slices of pie
• problem w/ identity politics: experience isn’t strictly based on who we are
also our personalities, our family relationships, our luck in love – things
that are never given demographic boxes
“extending intersectionality” means reconceptualizing “difference” with reference to material and emotional specificitites — from struggles over rights (do women have full citizenship? is homosexuality legally recognized?) and resources (can women have exclusive access to money they earn?) to intimate relationships (family support? economic strings attached [jotas]? friendships, emotional support?) — sorts of relationships “people enter into with or without labels”
“sex for money” in Papua New Guinean Huli, Holly Wardlow
terminology: from prostitution to sex work to sexual networking & survival sex —
what different meanings implied in these terms?
sex work emphasizes labor component (safe, legal, fairly paid)
income-generating activity rather than totalizing identity
reducing stigma
but still embedded moralization: if “work” then has to be acceptable, even
perhaps virtuous (especially if supporting kids)
of course, even these caveats can’t be generalized
again: can’t assume that similar-looking practices (women and men having illicit,
hidden, one-off sex after which man gives woman some money) mean the same things in different places
in Wardlow’s interpretation of Papua New Guinean Huli “passenger women”, economic factors — scarcity, poverty — alone cannot account for or fully explain commoditized sex
these women aren’t exchanging sex for money strictly out of economic necessity
why, then?
resistance against restrictive feminine roles tied to reproduction
anger and revenge against male kin who do not behave
again, use of personal narratives to illustrate how identities are produced through combination of broader social forces and idiosyncratic personal factors
2
Ogai’s story
2 of 18 were women whose fathers killed their mother or older sister; wanted to make themselves unmarriagable so fathers wouldn’t profit from their bridewealth
HOW does the PNG case help us realize the cultural logics behind common interpretations of prostitution/sex work in the
what are assumptions of our cultural logic?
1) women = sexually desirable objects (men’s desire is active force)
2) sex as a commodity — object of desire men willing to purchase, and from other side,
act of sex = compensable labor (“oldest profession”) in which men are purchasers
public/private — sex for $ ≠ intimate, emotional
why don’t these cultural logics help make sense of PNG situation? not applicable?
ideology of desire
men are the objects of desire — cultivate beauty to attract women
women, not seen as naturally beautiful, must often resort to magic to attract men
what about the men? what are they paying for?
sometimes nontraditional sexual practices would never ask of wives
more, paying for ‘modern’ masculinity — men are resisting sexual taboos,
based on procreative/kinship ethic
passenger women say that when a man offers $ for sex, evidence that he’s so
consumed with desire that he’s overcome his fear of women and their vaginas — out of gratefulness rather than contempt — which women read as their “vanquishing” of men
with these cross-cultural comparisons in mind, return to Q:
what’s problematized around gender/sexuality in contemporary US? what are the questions asked of ourselves and of each other? assumptions within which current debates about gender/sexuality — from sexual identity, to transgender, to commoditized sex — are articulated?
sexual violence
let’s start with article by Lori Heise, who is writing about the pervasiveness of sexual violence against women and children, “gender-based violence”
first, she argues for the importance of statistical research, making visible such incidences
and it is endemic — especially wife abuse/partner abuse (also incest, child sexual abuse)
b/w 1-5 to 1-7 women in US will be subject to “complete” rape in lifetime — obviously begging Q of definition — but still!
repercussions for family planning/contraceptive promotion
HIV-AIDS prevention
when condoms are targeted at women, often assumed their “choice” to insist men use them, BUT…
that said, Heise acknowledges hazards of exposing the reality of violence, the pervasiveness of gender-based sexual violence — what are these? (p. 423)
1) promoting image of victimization of women; all sex bad, no pleasure (esp. for women)
woman as passive
2) feeds essentializing sterotypes men=aggressive
if universal, then biologically based = “natural” = “good” or, at least, “inevitable” (more on that later)
Q: her strategy in response?
the anthropological veto (Peggy Sanday)
but are there flaws with this strategy?
flaw: anthro veto (LIKE universalist claims) assumes that sexual violence is something that could be located in any society — that is, it’s not culture bound (after all, isn’t it all over the place?)
Q: are there alternative arguments? what might be a better response to the hazards?
1
ask: are these characterizations of violence actually the same thing everywhere?
1st, think about the question, why does violence (in general) occur?
myriad of reasons — revenge, fear, hatred, misunderstanding, marking difference, conquest, political ends, material gain
why does sexual violence occur?
it’s striking how many theories focus on a single cause, assume universality of occurrence and meaning
ex: it’s a natural outcome of male sexuality [active, aggressive] (e.g., A Natural History of Rape: The Biological Basis of Sexual Coersion = men rape when the costs are low and they can get away with it b/c it’s a byproduct of evolutionary biology and reproductive success)
note: so much of technology, social “progress” is directed at modifying, controlling nature, it’s interesting that nature seems suddenly “uncontrollable” when it comes to socially contentious issues
flip side:
constructivist argument:
it’s a political outcome of socially constructed male sexuality (men rape because they are taught they are naturally aggressive, it bolsters their masculinity)
thus Heise: “it is partly men’s insecurity about their masculinity that promotes abusive behavior towards women”
feminist activist mantra: rape isn’t about sex, it’s about power
what do you make of this position, Heise’s analysis generally? criticisms?
overgeneralizations may undermine political-moral efforts to eradicate violence
a better way to think about the pervasiveness of sexual violence might be to look at
HISTORY and cultural context
militarized mass rape
“gender-based” violence is also often race/ethnicity-based or religion-based
rape, as di Leonardo points out, is rarely if ever just an act between a man (generically speaking) and a woman (generically speaking) — but b/w white man and black woman, or Serb man and Croat woman — specificity is important
reducing rape to something boils down to man v. woman has hampered theorizing
2
sexual violence (including thinking sexual abuse of males)
rape in/after American slavery
what did you make of Di Leonardo’s essay?
can’t analyze away our subjective experience
“knowledge does not necessarily command emotion”
fear is shaped by cultural forces — myths, stereotypes — we don’t always have
analytical command over — or at least not until after the fact of initial flood of
adreinaline
conversely, “individual experiences shouldn’t change well-thought-out-opinions” — at least not necessarily — like Foucault refusing to theorize from his personal belief about the source of homosexual desire in individuals
pitfalls of “identity politics,” appropriateness of “speaking from experience”
how should we move back and forth between social science analysis and personal experience? when is one relevant to the other? (pedagogical challenge)
importance of attending to personal experience
importance of not eliding personal experience and social analysis
de-essentializing sex/gender/kinship; querying motherhood
moving to final topic: from thinking about sexuality — as desire, behavior, identity, and various constellations of the 3 — to reproductive politics — not unrelated stories
helpful transition is to recall the history we traced (Katz) of contrasting sexual ethics:
procreative ethic of sex — sex is productive of babies, producing babies is good, therefore — in this way — sex is good
pleasure ethic of sex — sex is pleasurable, can be thought of and valued apart from procreation
the pendulum swings of sexual ethics (agrarianism to capitalism; post WWII baby boom to Playboy™ & 60s sexual liberation) has been matter of emphasis, not absolute difference — not mutually exclusive; both available for rhetorical appeal — certainly today:
pleasure ethic today bolstered by increasing visibility of homosexual lifestyles — straight people don’t want to miss out on pleasure part — but increasing “abstinence-only” sex ed new voice for procreative ethic (more in couple weeks)
sex can be procreative; sex can be pleasurable — it’s often neither
what we’re talking about are reigning ideologies of what sex “is” and should be, how people expect to experience it, and why we should value it — its significance as a component of “human nature”
missing from this distinction (Katz) is how these competing ethics have been differentiated by – and used to differentiate -- not only along an axis of sexuality (while many heterosexuals were committed to procreative ethic, homosexuals carved out alternative identity based on a different attitude toward sex, pleasure ethic) but also of gender — among heterosexuals (once we get that category), procreative ethic has been applied more consistently to women than to men — women’s “natural” sexual desire said to be aimed at procreation more consistently than men’s
these sexual ideologies have flip-flopped frequently enough in recent history — even your lifetimes — not difficult to realize that sexuality — how people experience themselves and others as sexual beings — is historically and culturally produced, shaped
however, it may be more difficult to view motherhood in the same way — as ideologically produced, “socially constructed” — but it’s true
sexuality, motherhood, marriage, The Family (capital letters) — these are all pieces of the same puzzle — elements that some have depicted as the “foundation of society” or, alternatively, as the “foundation of civilization” — a particular, exhaulted, type of society
1
But as Collier, Rosaldo and Yanagisako point out, “most of our talk about families is clouded by unexplored notions of what families ‘really’ are like.”
“Confusing ideal with reality, we fail to appreciate the deep significance of what are, cross-culturally, various ideologies of intimate relationship, and at the same time we fail to reckon with the complex human bonds and experiences all too comfortably sheltered by a faith in the ‘natural’ source of a ‘nurture’ we think is found in the home.” (first page)
in other words, when we hear about families, we often stop thinking!
Why?
C, R,Y suggest that b/c family has been on private side of public/private division (itself illusion, but with real effects for how people act) — as a society we’ve failed to grapple with the complexity of what goes on in the name of the family, in the name of love
not merely a matter of law, but of culture — we don’t want to see legal officials make random checks of domestic settings (which of course they do when families are receiving state support) — aren’t a lot of checks on what happens in families
Adrienne Rich wrote in her article on “compulsory heterosexuality”: to believe that intimacy is part of what a family/marriage is has also meant we often limit our search for intimacy to the family – can be an inhospitable place in patriarchal societies (law of fathers) for women and children
of course family can also be inhospitable place for gender/sexuality non-conformists — boys who like to dress up, girls who refuse to sit still or who are overweight, etc., coming out to parents often most difficult hurdle — stakes are high
[then again, our belief in the sanctity of the home as space of privacy has also served — eventually — as a basis for legitimating homosexuality — anti-sodomy laws struck down as unconstitutional, infringement on privacy]
In any event,
we need to closely examine what we mean by these terms — not just sexuality, but family, marriage, motherhood, fatherhood — not take their meanings for granted — recognize they are not transhistorical ‘things’, but products of particular social, political, economic histories — and therefore subject to ongoing cultural & legal interpretation
To see them otherwise, to see them as universal and fixed (as early anthropologists did), is to miss the specificity and maleability of our own definitions and understandings
2
from article: Bronislaw Malinowski, considered a “father” of British social anthropology, did ethnographic research in the
Malinowski argued in 1920s that yes, family = human universal, he was arguing against 19th C social evolutionists with their progress narrative of human cultural evolution (Europeans at apex; for them, the family not “natural” but as cornerstone of “civilization” — evidence of western moral superiority)
Malinowsi’s cultural relativism was well-intentioned
BUT undermined by fact that his argument rested on ethnocentric assumptions: that
family = nurturnance
basically, he argued that since we “need” nurturance, and families = nurturance, thus we have families — it’s a functional definition
functionalism theoretical framework characteristic of early British social anthropology
for Malinowski:
basic human needs: are met through social institutions
nurturance family
procreation kinship system
sustenance subsistence tech, division of labor
shelter housing design
organization law, political systems
difference = cultural variation in ways humans meet basic needs (hunting/foraging v.
agriculture? patrilineage v. matrilineage?)
similar to how gender in 70s was seen as cultural variation of biological sex difference —
cultural elaboration of gender difference was a social “need” more or less functioned same way everywhere
for Malinowski, “family” mapped onto:
1) distinct and bounded group distinguishable from other such groups
2) group located in physical space — hearth and “home”
3) shared affective bonds, particular set of emotions
family = conflation of genealogy/household/emotional intimacy
Collier et al. point out that this is informed by Victorian public/private division
it’s ethnocentric to claim “they’re just like us” when argument based on reading our institutions and values onto their practices
similarly, as we’ve seen, sex/gender system itself to some extent ethnocentric: implies 2-sex model of binary gender difference
(other cultures recognize other possibilities — perhaps 3rd sex/gender, perhaps blending of binaries)
3
problem of functionalist thinking: “because a social institution is observed to
perform a necessary function does not mean either that the function would not be performed if the institution did not exist or that the function is responsible for the existence of the institution” (73)
just because we can describe it, “see” it, doesn’t mean that’s what’s going on
SO, instead of asking, is The Family a human universal? Need to ask: What do we mean by family? (is there A Family?)
Instead of assuming all mothers are by definition, or by nature, nurturing and loving, we have to ask: What does nurturance look like? Does it look different under different circumstances? What is mother love? What makes a mother?
Instead of assuming all children better off with biological mothers, or that they “need” both a father and a mother, we need to ask: What do we mean by “real” mothers? What distinguishes fathering and mothering? Is what makes a “good” father similar to “good” mothering, or different? Are both equally nurturing? If a woman who isn’t biologically related to a child can mother, can a man mother?
remaining readings for today are about 3 quite different ethnographic cases that raise similar questions, engage similar issues — questioning assumptions about “real” motherhood and “real” families
1) selective maternal neglect of poor women in Brazilian shanty towns (Nancy Scheper-Hughes)
2) mothers of children with disabilities in upstate NY, struggling with status as “real” mothers (Gail Landsman)
3) transracial and international adoption (Christine Ward Gailey)
each of these cases calls into question common assumptions among Americans about the meaning and experience of motherhood — as definition and lived reality
have to understand this in context of wider meanings of personhood, love, agency, marriage, family
divide you into 3 GROUPS to collectively analyze these case studies
• what assumptions that you held (or see as commonly held) were revealed to be
assumptions? overgeneralizations?
• how do gender, sex (action), sexuality (identity) come together in this case — or not?
• what do we learn about families, mothering, nurturing — what these are/aren’t?— how
might case study push us to rethink general understandings about what makes a “real” family or counts as “real” mothering? — implications for current debates?
4
• other things you found interesting, challenging — agreed/disagreed with analysis
Scheper-Hughes
learning to mother means learning when to let go, but also when it’s safe to love
motherhood is ascribed, not achieved, status — if God wills
social production of indifference
mothers’ reactions to infant mortality not autonomously authored
tempered by indifference of State (barely registers these deaths, or lives)
and Church (which once celebrated child death and now wants to deny it
— while also withholding contraception and abortion)
motherhood is socially produced — not just “feelings” of “bonding” but shaped
by contingencies, necessities (poverty)
like feelings for another woman ≠ only understood in terms of desire
contrast with the social production of interest in US
a woman who chooses not to subordinate own interests to fetus is “unnatural”
Landsman
social production of interest — if a woman follows prenatal advice, should have control of outcome — motherhood is achieved status, in our control….but not
rites of passage lacking with non-normal infant — not “real” mother
shows social construction of motherhood — rituals do help constitute it
failing that, these mothers go on to be super-achieving mothers
“learning” from child, not just teaching it
Gailey (white mother of a black child who had been abused by foster parents)
“adoption is the result of two violations of natural motherhood [in US]: procreation without marriage and nonprocreation within marriage. So the
• often, “natural motherhood” script not extended to birth mothers in adoption,
transformed into “bad mother” — sexually active, able to procreate, but unable or unwilling to nurture; irresponsible; portrayed as victim (raped?)
myths of mothers who give up child for adoption
in reality, 2% unmarried births —> adoption; women who give up babies
for adoption higher education and class aspirations than women who keep
• other side: similar to mothers of children with disabilities (especially “difficult
to place kids”) — the harder the child rearing, the more they become “real”
parents — achieved motherhood — thrilled when they “earn” affection of child
contrast to international adopters more likely to “return” child for “failing to
5
bond” — entitled to immediate love a child (paying for it!?)
ironies of how placements are made?
“difficult” children — older, survivors of abuse, w/disabilities — placed
with single parents, black parents, interracial parents
the kids who need the most help placed with people with fewest resources
WHY?
stratification of social reproduction — reproducing class status from one generation to the next
What do we learn from the juxtaposition of 3 cases?
visualizing the fetus
today’s articles address the relationship between a pregnant woman and her fetus.
how that relationship is experienced by pregnant women and represented by others is obviously fraught in this country because it’s become so tied up in abortion politics
today I don’t want to hash out the abortion debate itself; rather, want to see if we can ferret out some of the assumptions that underlie how abortion is debated in this country — as a debate over relative rights
with Roe, legal status of abortion is framed in terms of individual rights: legally, right to privacy b/w woman and her doctor. more popularly, “right to choose” whether to carry a pregnancy to term — but this is misleading, b/c in legal terms it’s a “negative” right — free of government interference, not a “positive” right of access
3 states have only 1 abortion provider (including S.D.)
criminalizing abortion has NEVER ended its practice – legal abortion doesn’t mean abortion v. no abortion, it means safe, medically regulated abortion v. unsafe, unregulated abortion
but to argue against the “right to choose”, anti-abortionists have championed “right-to-life”: pitting one set of rights against the other and reframing issue of “life”
more, the language of individual rights pits mother against fetus — makes abortion seem obviously antithetical to motherhood, a sign of the rejection of maternal values and nurturance [see Faye Ginsburg’s Contested Lives]
roughly 20% of all pregnancies in US end in abortion (13% in miscarriage)
abortion rate dropped in the 1990s (under Clinton) — reasons? (not stronger maternal values)
better contraceptives available
morning-after pill available
stronger economy (21% women having abortion give reason of insufficient
resources)
framing abortion question as matter of rights of woman against rights of fetus is not inevitable; this is makes sense only within a particular cultural logic
right to life movement and commercialized ultrasound emerge from (and reinforce)
same shift: referring to fetus as separate and distinct from woman
1
this is not to say that women shouldn’t do ultrasounds — or enjoy them!
but it’s important to recognize unintended conceptual implications of what we do
it’s not evil that people buy all pink for girls/all blue for boys, but it can contribute to enduring belief in fundamental differences — including capacities — between boys/girls
next Monday we’ll discuss a counter example for thinking about abortion — what it is and what it means — from my research in Greece
FIRST, let’s talk about what Rosalind Petchesky has to say about the power of fetal images and their relevance to abortion in the US. This important article was published 20 years ago, before the technology was so routinized
she’s not arguing that ultrasound, or other repro technologies, absolutely ‘bad’ — rather, she’s interested in the cultural assumptions that make them thinkable, and the social factors that inform their use, interpretation, meaning
how did this campaign begin? where did the idea come from?
NE Journal of Medicine article in early 80s suggesting that early fetal ultrasounds resulted in “maternal bonding” and possibly “fewer abortions” — based on 2 isolated cases, not scientifically controlled for — basically, the article simply forwarded the hypothesis
but the National Right to Life Committee jumped on this, made The Silent Scream featuring a 12 week-old fetus being aborted “from the victim’s point of view” — but is it?
what does Petchetsky say in her analysis of the film?
it’s the view from the camera, from an outside observer — neither from the perspective of a fetus or pregnant woman
fetuses can’t speak or scream.
this is obvious
what’s less obvious is the more subtle transfer of meaning — of what it means to be a person who can scream or speak or has a name or has rights — a social person — to a fetus, a potential person. Anticipating personhood.
anticipated personhood seems to go hand and hand with anticipated motherhood:
2
if self-sacrifice is expected of mothers, then shouldn’t it be expected of pregnant women? nurturance now begins at conception — producing the “perfect baby” (blaming self for ‘defect’ in fetus/baby, as we saw in Landsman’s article)
in pro-life rhetoric, fetus portrayed as both helpless victim and autonomous, heroic individual
fetal images are the perfect symbol for this duality — HOW? what meanings are read from this? what analogy does Petchesky make?
fetus as free-floating — no pregnant woman in sight, just hanging on cord
abstract individualism (homunculus)
spaceman fetus — floating in space, daring, brave, but fragile
it’s powerful in pro-life rhetoric — making fetal personhood, after all, is requisite for fetal rights — more, makes it seem self-evident — but only because we read visual images literally, as reality — objective representations, as if the camera extended our own subject position, access to object — brings viewers and object into same reality
BUT, pro-life use of fetal imagery is selective, somewhat misleading
90% of abortions happen w/in first trimester (up to 12-14 weeks), only 1% after 20 weeks (Massachusetts has a 23 week limit)
but the most common “public fetuses” are late term
at 12 weeks (limit for “on demand” abortion), the fetus is just over 2 inches long — the head is the same size as rest of the body
also, picturing an intact fetus is misleading
even when late-term abortions are performed they’re generally therapeutic, when
fetus had, say, a skull that wasn’t fully formed or other massive defect OR when there’s some medical emergency regarding the woman — it’s NOT elective; very late abortions are nearly always performed on women who want that child
amniocentisis can only be done between 18-20 weeks, some as early as 16 weeks (though with increased risk of miscarriage)
level-2 diagnostic ultrasound (to screen for ancephaly, spina bifida) at 20 weeks
we can think about how this context of cultural representations of fetuses and their relationship to pregnant women might help us understand Linda Layne’s ethnography of pregnancy loss (which she prefers to ‘miscarriage’, which suggests women mis-carried, did something wrong — like in Landsman’s article)
Layne’s article puts ultrasound in context of social aspect of pregnancy, other things
3
done, consumed, made to “make real” not the pregnancy, but the coming of a child — buying stuff, choosing a name, having a shower, etc.
when childbirth is a rite of passage, pregnancy is a liminal stage when preparations are made for new statuses; ritual is important
ultrasound is becoming a ritual of pregnancy
“being prepared” is a mark of “good mothering” — contrast w/ N S-H
“personhood is actively constructed during the course of a pregnancy” (199)
parts of body that are used indexically — hair, handprints/footprints — indicating babies, not fetuses
different/similar to citation of fingerprints in pro-life poster?
symbols of humanness, uniqueness — INDIVIDUALISM
physical tangibility of ultrasound images — not necessarily of own fetus, even from book to mark something measurable — measurability and realness (if easily misleading)
Q: What do you make of commodification of ultrasound imaging? (Fetal Fotos, Inc.)
Fetal Fotos was founded almost a decade ago by a board-certified obstetrician. Our exclusive, unsurpassed prenatal imaging techniques help you bond with your baby using the best systems technology has to offer. The limited medical study we conduct offers extra reassurance. It is truly an experience to treasure for a lifetime.
BUT people are using it differently, too — facilitating the bonding not of mother and child, but older kids and child, deployed father, etc.
Q: does routine ultrasound challenge cultural support for the legal status of abortion, other reproductive politics?
Q: does legal status of abortion based on woman’s right to privacy/choice complicate the experience of pregnancy loss?
next week, different cultural context in which abortion is not black/white issue either politically or personally; where abortion is consistent with “real” motherhood
class # 21: gender and citizenship
today I want to expand the parameters of our analysis to think about how nationalism and the interests of state governments help to construct gender, make sexuality meaningful in particular ways
juxtapose two articles by anthropologist Rhoda Kanaaneh (who grew up in a Palestinian family in
1) “Boys or Men?” — discusses how masculinity is informed by state citizenship,
nationalism; there’s a common analysis of the militarization of masculinity
BUT the case of Palestinian Israelis presents interesting complication —
here, where there’s popular opposition to the state, a critique of state
collaborators (Arab soldiers volunteering to serve in the Israeli army) is
carried out in a gendered idiom — militarism does not represent a valued
masculinity
2) in previous work, culminating in Birthing the Nation (2002), Kanaaneh presents an analysis, again from case study of Palestinian Israelis, of how state interests concerning population issues have been forwarded through the control of women’s bodies, through regulating their sexuality and reproductive capacity — a case of population policy being played out through reproductive politics (we’ll see another example next week, Greece)
let me talk generally, and then get into specifics of case of Arab citizens of
first, what do I mean by gendered citizenship?
citizenship entails the rights and obligations of a member of a nation in return for protection by a state what those rights/obligations have been has historically been marked by gender
example of gendered difference in citizenship?
suffrage — women got vote in US in 1920
military service has been expected of men but not women (exception of
Jewish citizens of
gendered citizenship plays out more subtly, too
human reproduction — family size, how desired family size is achieved (birth control), etc. — is of great political interest
It’s through being born into families that citizens are most often made
case study:
Maintaining a fairly consistent RATIO, 20 Arab/80 Jewish is important to the very notion of “
women have served states in two senses as symbolic “bearers” of the Nation: quantitative bearers of the nation’s children, and qualitative bearers of tradition
1) quantitative: birthing citizens, carry the perpetuity of the nation in their wombs
here, women’s civic duty is about producing numbers through reproducing,
birthing, new citizens — new workers, new soldiers for security (if mandatory
military service, size of army direct reflection of size of population)
pronatalism v. antenatalism (
Israel (Greece, Romania): pronatalist these states have presented women with awards for the patriotic duty of producing very large families — Mothers of the Nation— in Israel, awards to “Heroine Mothers” (10 kids) was stopped after it became clear that Arab women were winning most of the awards
Clearly, national projects are invested not just in sheer numbers of a population, but in generating the right SORTS of numbers, people, citizens
2) qualitative — reproducing the cultural traditions and values that bind together the nation, keep them unique, which women do by socializing children — nurturing specific cultural values — and by setting the good example
August Comte (writing in the early years of the
should serve as the repository of moral values, which will be preserved in them if
they stay out of politics and business. The image of Woman on a pedestal.
when public/private spheres separated, also gendered — had to do with rise of
nation-state, as well as wage labor and capitalism
Kanaaneh’s work: Palestinian citizens of
1) birth more babies to overwhelm the Jewish Israelis, just as they fear (quantitative) 2) have fewer children, educate them well, and present a stronger front in that way
(qualitative)
Kanaaneh calls this “the reproductive measure” — family size used as indicator of
how “modern”/”traditional” you are — not just economic class, but social outlook
in global context
Now let’s think about additional LEGACIES and CONSEQUENCES of these ideas In particular, real-life repercussions of women’s “role” as bearers of the nation’s children and traditions.
Kanaaneh: “women are considered markers of national boundaries, not only symbolically, but physically as well”
If women are charged with guaranteeing the perpetuation of the homeland, its
people and culture, there’s the problem that female bodies are permeable — in the
same way the national territory in war is vulnerable
physically: female bodies are permeable just as the national territory in war is vulnerable
this equation makes women particularly vulnerable to sexual violence during and
following war
symbolically:
women, like the land/nation, mark borders of “a people” and also seen as the
property of men that, like land, must be defended
military recruitment posters — nation as female
problem of gay men in the military? lacking wife/kids?
clearly, reproduction is politics
Susan Gal and Gail Kligman (The Politics of Gender After Socialism) argue that “public debates about reproduction make politics”
e.g., Kanaaneh’s “reproductive measure” — how “traditional” or “modern”?
abortion debate in the
what about MASCULINITY and state citizenship?
if women’s ultimate service to nation, civic duty, is to give birth to male citizens and sacrifice them as soldiers, men’s ultimate civic duty has been depicted as willingness to die for their country
military service = masculine citizenship
what’s the twist in Kanaaneh’s study of Palestinian soldiers in Israeli army?
masculinity is crucial to self-identity and labeling by others, but not the standard soldier masculinity — as member of minority population, joining the state army is seen as traitorous — figured as “immature” masculinity (“boys” seduced by guns)
role of state in framing rhetoric?
parallels in US history?
assimilation v. selling out — civil rights in US
RACE: African American military service during WWII (segregated regiments)
sparked 1950s civil rights movement (and anti-assimilationist movement of
Malcolm X)— grounds for contesting second-class citizenship
SO: gender is forged not only within economic relations, but within conditions set by states; government policies and nationalist rhetoric
Making Modern Mothers: Ethics and Family Planning in Urban
based on fieldwork I conducted in
how I set out, and with what questions…
can you explain the title?
what cultural changes do I track?
women evaluated on basis of sexuality —> mothering
motherhood as purpose —> achievement (consumerism)
controlling nature of sensuality —> controlling nature of fertility
questions, points of clarification?
discussion questions:
How do I use "ethics" to understand how gender operates, and has changed, in urban
How would you characterize the moral discourse of abortion in
How does family planning advocacy in
How is it that the Greek government, which professes nationalist concern over
In so far as motherhood is a “choice,” then, politicians see it as an either/or choice — you are a mother or you are not; if you are, might as well have many children.
Meanwhile, urban Greek women want the “choice” to have children and a career or employment.
not surprisingly, legalized abortion has not had the demographic effect the politicians hoped for.
The state politicians’ naive belief in the power of “rational choice” neglects the economic and infrastructural constraints on reproductive “choice.”
Rather than see the maternal pensions and legalized abortion in conflict with one another, viewed together we can see them contribute to a modern construction of women’s civic duty that is based on the liberal, western ideology of “choice” but which is nonetheless circumscribed by the notion that women’s ultimate civic duty, patriotic duty, is a maternal duty to produce new citizens.
No comments:
Post a Comment