Reading Notes: Gatens, "A Critique of the Sex/Gender Distinction"

[rax]

I've often opened up trans 101 kinda talks with making the sex/gender distinction in a cursory way in order to ground the conversation; the instructor I'm working as a grader/assistant for also did this in her Sex, Gender and Pop Culture class. It's become a very common thing to bounce around not only academic circles but "lay genderheads" or something --- and from reading Meyerowitz (which I didn't take notes on, sorry) I can see that it's a relatively recent construction in some senses, maybe 1950s?, that was put in place in part to support various social constructionist theories that were coming to the forefront at the time. I've heard a couple of people express discomfort with it but haven't previously seen a good explanation for why; perhaps this paper will be that explanation! It's from 1983 and comes with a warning of such, so it may lack some context I have.

Gatens claims (correctly, I think) that drawing a line between sex and gender comes out of, or at least is used most often by, groups with leftist political goals --- "Marxists, homosexual groups and feminists of equality." I mean, go team I guess, but it's an interesting point.

"What I wish to take to task in these uses of gender theory is the unreasoned, unargued assumption that both the body and the psyche are postnatally passive tabulae rasae." Oh, this argument. Yeah, most people I know are so over this one. It's very easy to see where the trans identity disrupts existing feminisms here:



Aaaaanyway. Gatens finds the "solution" of "reprogramming" to remove patriarchal brainwashing to be ineffective and kinda creepy and I, with reservations, agree. I guess maybe in 1983 people weren't yet doing a good job of saying "there are social factors and there are biological factors and we're created in part by the intersections between them?" (Even one of the readings for the Pop Culture class was trying to claim that David Reimer would have been perfectly happy growing up as a woman in the 1990s when there was less sexism, which WHAT THE FUCK NO.)

"the biologically normal but psychologically disturbed individual (for example, the transsexual)" ... *sigh* Stoller claimed that it was all social factors that made people into transsexuals, specifically failure to separate from the mother. Then a bunch of feminists went and cited his work as proof that there was no intrinsic gender identity. The assumptions made in order to leap to these conslutions are implicitly "rationalist" and "ahistorical" according to our author. And there's also this whole assumed mind/body divide which we already know to be problematic (and "a problematic" to boot).

"Concerning the neutrality of the body, let me be explicit, there is no neutral body, there are at least two kinds of bodies, the male body and the female body." As a random aside while I'm letting the itch in my teeth subside, I've been reading, for another class, Making Sex, which shows that historically, from the Greeks until the 1600s at least, the common conception of the human body was a one sex model, with women just being imperfect forms of men whose bodies were structured slightly differently because they lacked heat or vital energy or something. Obviously this perspective didn't bring about women's equality but it did cause difference to be viewed differently.

"The fact that menstruation occurs only in (normal) female bodies is of considerable import for this essay. Given that in this society there is a network of relations obtaining between femininity and femaleness, that is, between the female body and femininity, then there must be a qualitative difference between the kind of femininity 'lived' by women and that 'lived' by men." ... "The 'feminine male' may have experiences that are socially coded as 'feminine' but these experiences must be qualitatively different from female experience of the feminine. His experiences are parasitically dependent on the female body, more particularly on the maternal body, by a process of identification." Offensive as this reads (and... is, as far as I can tell), I think she has an important point. I don't think it's (somewhere between "almost ever" and "ever") OK for women's events to exclude trans women, say, but I think that has more to do with treatment of marginalized groups than with the lack of Any Difference Whatsoever. After all, if I had a trans women only meetup for whatever reason --- I dunno, a support group or something --- I wouldn't be cool with cis women showing up. Obviously something about the experiences is different, no? In a broad-scale categorical sense? That there exist cis women who never menstruate, can't give birth, and so on doesn't mean that there exist trans women who can, and with those aspects of the "female" body being coded so importantly by society, well, grargh, I feel dirty even making this argument. I'm gonna move on. But I think there's something there.

Here's something I'd seen before but want to mark out in my head as interesting especially if I decide to rock furry stuff in my paper: "Schilder maintains that both 'phantom limb' and hysteria can be understood only if we take into account the fact that all healthy people are, or have, in addition to a material body, a body-phantom or an imaginary body... The imaginary body is developed, learnt, connected to the body image of others, and is not static." This brings me back to Jay Prosser's Second Skins which I don't have time to reread right now but is an amazing book.

The section called "transsexualism reconsidered" doesn't reconsider transsexualism at all. It's barely a page long. Lame sauce.

I should look into Firestone's "cybernetic communism" mentioned in this essay. It sounds like it's problematic in terms of taking the male as the base role and encouraging everyone into it but it could be an interesting read.

WHAT. Gatens just called "class" and "power" "hobby-horses" that get in the way of looking at real feminism. Madam, I think we are done here.

Comments

[hebinekohime]

Stoller claimed that it was all social factors that made people into transsexuals, specifically failure to separate from the mother. Then a bunch of feminists went and cited his work as proof that there was no intrinsic gender identity.

How strange. I would've thought that that kind of Freudian psychoanalytic interpretation would be rejected as patriarchal by feminists.

[chagrined]

Right click, save as on that lolcat, ftw.

WAIT IS IT THE RETURN OF THE PROBLEMATIC? AHHHHH. (I wonder if these ppl were all buddies or something.)

Oooh, interesting. I really need to start on with that Making Sex. Possibly to take a break from all this week's somatechnics stuff.

With the paragraph where you felt dirty making an argument, I think maybe what is different is power? And in some circumstances, violence (with a broad definition of violence here). Like, in being excluded from events/spaces, I often thing of the (admittedly easy) bathroom example, where on the one hand you have, say, a specific cis woman saying "I feel slightly uncomfortable with these trans women in my bathroom" at the most minor, or maybe saying "I am psychologically triggered by these trans women in my bathroom" at the most major. So then, the other side would be trans women forced to use men's bathrooms, and the spectrum of possible violence they'd be subject to as a result, being much more likely to occur/be more severe. I have tried to think about such situations as the power the groups have and the potential for violence being done in either circumstance. Anyway I also found your thoughts about body differences interesting, hmmm idk. I think there are definitely differences in people's embodiment but there are also limited spaces people can occupy. In a world of limitless resources maybe everyone could have their own personal bathroom everywhere they went, tailored to their own needs (ha, to carry on the bathroom metaphor). But because there are limited resources (of those and other types) spaces need to be available to people in ways that are maybe the most conducive minimizing violence and power exercised over others. And to bring in disability studies, say, you have people with many different body characteristics & impairments and you're never going to be able to design an accessible space/thing that will work for everyone (particularly b/c sometimes there are conflicting accessibility needs, etc.). And people keep striving toward making spaces as accessible as possible (or at least people w/in disability rights do, I mean), but when someone comes upon a space that they have to use in a certain way, in order for it to be as accessible as possible, the ppl who can already access the space, with that power, are in no position to start complaining when the space is changed to become more accessible. (Though of course they do; never mind that they have steps/etc. built for them, instead of needing to climb in a window, b/c who needs stairs and doorways, anyway?) Ummmmm anywho this kinda got off on a ramble. I'm loath to go back and read what I was writing at the beginning and possibly I make no sense! But there it is! Some thoughts.

Oh lol I just got to your last sentence there after writing that whole paragraph above. HahahahahahahahahahaHA.

[bossgoji.livejournal.com]

Yeah, this whole thing is just... gah. That highly intelligent people can make points like these without any consciousness that what they are doing is DEEPLY bigoted is rather disheartening. And it has made my exposure to feminism rather rocky, because nobody can seem to agree what the fuck it IS or what its goals should be. I'm not sure which hand I should be watching, if that makes sense.

[ebenezer.livejournal.com]

I found particularly interesting your paragraph starting with "The fact that menstruation occurs...". It seems that you are concerned with the question of exclusion ("treatment of marginalized groups") and the asymmetry intrinsic to desiring those like you to be accepted as fully-qualified women and simultaneously desiring the benefits of safe places to support you and those like you in becoming fully-qualified women.

Arguably, this is not quite the same as the desire to displace an entrenched regime with your own regime, immutably distinguished or not ("four legs good, two legs better!"). Perhaps the challenge is more akin to the sense of security shared by combat forces fighting a common enemy, in which the terror is so great that quite nearly compelled to form extremely special, extremely selfless bonds with each other. Perhaps these bonds offer some insight on a critical aspect of humanity: why we need problems, not only intellectual and physical challenges on a personal level but also great and terrible problems to be faced with our fellow people -- problems that, were they too small, would be insufficient to satisfy our need to become truly human.

I thought about a recent book, _WAR_ by Stephen Junger, which might be useful as a reference point.

[lotusbiosm.livejournal.com]

I think it gets very sticky trying to figure out what biological experiences are essential to the female condition, since we all have different bodies and different experiences within them.

I do agree that there's something different about the experience of cis and trans women, in the same way that there's something different in the experience of someone born in the USA and someone who moves here. But I would never say that someone who's gotten their citizenship isn't a "real American", so too would I not claim that a transgendered woman isn't a "real woman", regardless of the body they were born in (or currently inhabit).

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the macro. The macro was necessary.

[kiya]

Two brief points while I buzz through:

One of the problems I have with the "cis women and trans women have Very Different Experiences" thing is that, barring the explicitly reproductive-organs stuff (and my sister, who is trans, gets cramps too, anyway), my experience of the whole thing has next to no similarities with the stuff that a lot of the radical feminists type who make this argument call Essential To Girlhood. It gives me this weird mental glitchspace. "Being a woman is about This and this is why trans women can't be in our clubhouse." "... I can't be in your clubhouse either. ... not that I wanted to be because you scare the fuck out of me."

Two, my phantom body has a tail and wings. But somehow this sort of thing gets elided in common discourse... ;)

[plymouth.livejournal.com]

Two, my phantom body has a tail and wings.

And mine has blue hair. Fortunately that's one that's easy to actualize. And if I had the ability to surgically create a tail that worked I would quite likely do it but I'm not sure that's the same as my phantom body actually having one. I do wonder what the difference is - why you end up with "this SHOULD be there and isn't"* wheras I end up with "I'd like to have that there but am totally OK with not having it". Actually, that's not terribly different from my feelings about having a penis - I'd like one but am OK with not having it. If I had to have my breasts removed I'd be a little annoyed for a while but I'm pretty sure I'd adjust to it quite rapidly. Sometimes I think about getting rid of them just for a change. I think my "phantom body" is actually quite amorphous.

* Apologies if this is a poor translation of how you actually feel about it. I'm just extrapolating from what you said, not trying to put words in your mouth and feel free to tell me I got it wrong.

[kiya]

I'm actually somewhere in between, but I have things like an inability to sleep on my back because it feels like I've been Trapped and occasional 'can't fit the... oh, right, I can, forgot that bit of my body is imaginary.'

[eredien]

lilairen, does this mean that your B&W icon here isn't just pinging the, "gee, that looks like a pictogram of a flying/leaping dragon-type creature to me" circuit in my head because I have that circuit? Is it actually, like, a dragon-type creature? Have I totally been socializing with you for two years without realizing you have a tail and wings?

Gah.

[kiya]

It's a pictogram of a hawk, actually; my standard net-handle is 'Darkhawk' and I've been using that symbol to sign things (like pottery) since high school.

... so arguably kind of related, though not directly.

[eredien]

Ah, I see that now. The tail-curve always kind of threw me.

Plus also my own perception of "what dragony things with wings and tails should look like,"

[eredien]

I do wonder what the difference is - why you end up with "this SHOULD be there and isn't"* wheras I end up with "I'd like to have that there but am totally OK with not having it".

Hm. For myself I know that I found that difference when I resigned myself to the fact that the technology isn't really there yet for giving me what I want in a way that would be functional (ie, wings). I view it as the difference between "this should be there and isn't," vs. "this should be there and isn't, but I'm okay with that."

It might also just be a philosophical difference. A resignation, a settling, vs. a failure to settle or resign. (Yes, this is somewhat controversial, but it's another way to see it).

[scwizard.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's (somewhere between "almost ever" and "ever") OK for women's events to exclude trans women, say, but I think that has more to do with treatment of marginalized groups than with the lack of Any Difference Whatsoever.
I'm confused. Are you saying that it's not ok for a women's event to exclude a trans woman because trans women are a marginalized group?

[spacehawk.livejournal.com]

I think she's saying that it's not OK for women's events to exclude trans women, and the reason it's not OK has to do with the treatment of marginalized groups, not because "there is no difference in the lived experiences between cis and trans women.")

[rax.livejournal.com]

Right. Trans women are a marginalized group of women; having a cis people group reinforces the dominant paradigm, where having a trans person group does not. (There are questions of what happens to genderqueer people, and what constitutes trans, and things can get a little thorny, but that's the basic take I think applies most of the time.)

[spacehawk.livejournal.com]

"Schilder maintains that both 'phantom limb' and hysteria can be understood only if we take into account the fact that all healthy people are, or have, in addition to a material body, a body-phantom or an imaginary body... The imaginary body is developed, learnt, connected to the body image of others, and is not static."

Etheric body, yes, of course. "Imaginary" body? Hell no. WTF is up with that? Just because this aspect of my anatomy is not physical does not mean I cannot and do not feel real physical sensations when one touches it, or that any of this is "imaginary".

Just ask anyone I've dated.

Also, although the etheric body may be more able to shape-shift in this or that context, no, it is not "learnt" and "connected to the body image of others". More WTF.

[waywind.livejournal.com]

It seems to me that in this context, "imaginary" doesn't mean fake, but something which is both generated by and perceived with the "mind's eye." The "imaginary body" described is natural and necessary for a person to interact with the world. As such, it is real, although it doesn't directly reside in subjective reality, more in the interface that must be made between that reality and our perception of that reality.

For example... shoot, I can't remember where I read this, but there was an incident where a man had a sharp spike pierce his boot. While the spike was being removed, he was in a lot of pain, despite his attempts to act tough. When they took off the boot, it turned out that the spike had only gone between his toes. He wasn't injured, but he'd believed that he was, and as such, he had experienced genuine pain.

"Learnt"... perhaps the basis of this one is on the mirror box (https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Mirror_box), and tactile illusions such as the rubber hand trick (http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16809-body-illusions-rubber-hand-illusion.html), both of which show that visual information can temporarily re-shape a person's imaginary body.

I don't get the "connected to the body image of others" either. I don't even have a guess.

I'd like to learn more about this "imaginary body" concept, though. It's really intriguing, since it approaches the concept from a different angle than spiritualist handbooks about higher planes.

[spacehawk.livejournal.com]

What you are saying appears more like this (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081202115148.htm). I mean, the author could be talking about this, in which case the use of "imaginary" sort of makes sense. I understood the author as talking about something which is not "imaginary" at all, and which I find personally very offensive to call "imaginary", since it's as "imaginary" as any part of my physical body.

I think the problem is that phantom limb pain is due to what I am talking about, and not to the "imaginary" body as described in say, the article I linked. If someone doesn't have a fully conscious experience of their etheric body, however, I can see how these things can be easily mixed up.

[ff00ff.livejournal.com]

Why do these people seem to make so many positive assertions about how our minds relate to biology when they seem to have such a childish understanding of biology?

[circuit-four.livejournal.com]

I guess maybe in 1983 people weren't yet doing a good job of saying "there are social factors and there are biological factors and we're created in part by the intersections between them?"

I think you'll find that for all instances of the year XXXX*, people weren't yet going a good job of saying "there are A and there are B and we're at the intersection between them." Check back in 7990 years and maybe we'll have worked this whole "non-dualism" thing out. :)

I mean, seriously. There is no major human ethical or social debate this does not remind me of. Nature vs. nurture. Theist vs. atheist. "The fetus is a sacred little gift from god from the moment of conception" vs. "the fetus is an objectified cluster of cells." Erich Fromm called this "simplism" and in the process rendered me the first really serious intellectual heartbreak of my adult life. Our species always fucks things up this way, and the philosophical techniques for escaping these easy mental constructs are... not in vogue at this time. -.-

[hebinekohime (from livejournal.com)]

Check back in 7990 years and maybe we'll have worked this whole "non-dualism" thing out. :)

Nah, we'll just be up in arms about Y10K.

[eredien]

at least two kinds of bodies

I love how she left open the possibility of more types of bodies only to dismiss them as imperfect copies of one of the two "types." You brought up the "women were viewed as imperfect copies of men" argument--in fact, the way that a lot of gender/sex/feminist theory talks about transgendered/trassexed or intersexed people seems to be the way that men talked about women for centuries: "well, you're just an imperfect copy of this 'real' body." Now we have two 'categories,' 'the male body' and 'the female body' to make that argument with instead of one, but that's not really an improvement. All this time passed, and we're still worrying about who has the most generative, Aristotelean essence, except we've moved from essence being seated in the spirit to the essence being seated in the genitals and the sex hormones and the chromosomes.

"The fact that menstruation occurs only in (normal) female bodies is of considerable import for this essay. Given that in this society there is a network of relations obtaining between femininity and femaleness, that is, between the female body and femininity, then there must be a qualitative difference between the kind of femininity 'lived' by women and that 'lived' by men." ... "The 'feminine male' may have experiences that are socially coded as 'feminine' but these experiences must be qualitatively different from female experience of the feminine. His experiences are parasitically dependent on the female body, more particularly on the maternal body, by a process of identification."

Wow, um, does this mean that cis women without regular menstrual cycles or with, say, hystorectomies, are also both "abnormal" also parasitically dependent on 'the maternal body,' too, since menstruation (and and implied ability to carry a pregnancy to term) defines female normality?

I wish we could get rid of this concept of "normality" and put "normalities" in its place. In some sense, I think that it is inevitable to have a cultural baseline for "a normality," but I do not think that inevitable baseline is as useful as people think it is. In some senses, I think that what conservative political and humanist thought pushes back against is this very notion--"without the idea of a single baseline normality, how would we measure ourselves against a societal standard?"--but I am becoming less and less impressed with the idea that we need to, or it is desirable to, have everyone measure themselves against one single societal standard rather than at least a multiplicity of normalities.

On the other hand, then we get back into the "a multiplicity of normalities doesn't fix the idea that there is a 'normal' in the first place, it just makes more of them." See para. 1.