Radical feminist writer and blogger Meghan Murphy has written several posts over the last couple of weeks about how awful I am. I don’t really have much interest in responding in kind, but I did want to talk briefly about one argument she makes in her most recent piece, in which she accuses me of believing that gender is real, rather than a construct.
Berlatsky says feminist critique often involves a critique of “femininity,” which is true… Though he doesn’t quite get why. He writes:
Is femininity a tool to devalue women? Or is the devaluation of femininity a tool to devalue women? Wearing high heels doesn’t necessarily make you a dupe of the patriarchy. It could mean you’re a super-powerful rock star, and you want to show that femininity can be strong, too.
He seems to see femininity as innate, here. As though, to critique social constructs is to critique something essential about females. But “femininity” is an idea — a set of characteristics (invented and reinforced by a patriarchal society). It says “woman” means “delicate,” “passive,” “pleasant,” “accommodating,” “pretty,” “nurturing,” “irrational,” and “weak.” Feminists say women are not “naturally” any of these things. So no, femininity isn’t about “strength,” despite the fact that women are “strong.” And this is because femininity and femaleness are not connected in any material way.
What’s interesting to me here is that Murphy claims to be undermining femininity even as she reifies it.
My point, in the bit she quotes, is that there’s nothing innately weak, or innately debased, about wearing high heels. Wearing high heels is coded feminine, and is therefore seen as weak, or wrong, or silly, or stupid. But both the decision to code high heels as feminine, and the insistence that femininity is weak…those are cultural choices, not some sort of absolute truth. And pushing back against either of those assumptions — by arguing that high heels don’t have to be feminine, or arguing that high heels, as “feminine” espression, don’t have to be weak — is effectively challenging the innateness of femininity.
Murphy starts out by saying she thinks femininity is a construct too. But the construct is for her awfully real looking and solid. First, she insists that femininity has to mean nurturing, irrational, weak; it can’t mean anything else. And second, she seems oblivious to the possibility that particular gendered expressions are only feminine by convenience. She doesn’t mention any gendered expressions at all in her paragraph, presumably because everyone knows what the signs of femininity are. Murphy’s “constructed” femininity thus has both a stable meaning and a stable expression. It’s solid enough, in short, to serve as a way to police women, who are dupes and tools of the patriarchy if they express themselves in certain ways deemed artificial and constructed.
Murphy thinks she’s getting out of patriarchal thinking by de-naturalizing gender. Patriarchy insists, in her view, that gendered differences are true; by insisting that gendered differences are not innate, she paves the way for women’s liberation. But in fact, she simply replaces the binary male/female with the binary natural/artificial—and that binary is used to police and chastise the same people as ever. Note that it’s femininity here which is seen as artificial: a patriarchal trope if ever there was one. Feminine gender expression is seen as false, frivolous, weak, debased; male gender expression (in Murphy’s piece, and in general) is seen as unmarked, unremarked, and natural. The artificiality of femininity is supposed to free women from patriarchal expectations, but really it just repeats the same old patriarchal prejudices. Feminine gender expression isn’t real. That’s what patriarchy says, and Murphy cosigns it.
In contrast, maybe a better way to approach gender expression is to admit that we don’t really know what’s artificial and what’s natural, or even what those words mean in the context of human behavior. The most human thing about humans is they use all those artificial tools, like language; humans are most natural when they’re most artificial, and maybe vice versa. As long as there is a “wrong” “artificial” “weak” gender expression, it seems likely that it will be attributed to women, and used to denigrate them. So, why not just stop policing people’s gender expression altogether? As long as an individual’s gender expression isn’t hurting or impinging on others fairly directly (like, when masculinity is used as a lever to get people to shoot each other), people should be given leeway to express their gender as they wish without being told that they’re dupes or artificial or monsters or failing feminism. Because it doesn’t make much difference if you’re censuring people in the name of biological truth or the one true feminism—especially when it’s so often the very same people who end up being censured for performing their gender wrong.
Julia Serano said most of this better than me in her book, which you should buy.
even without reading it, tho — that’s a pretty good title for a post
I should chuck it all and write headlines for a living…
It looks like you’ve called out Murphy for not being dialectical enough… That is, she sets up her thesis and antithesis but fails to deliver on a synthesis (which is that natural and artificial aren’t actually opposites, but that each contains the other). That’s some good Frankfurt school jiu-jitsu!
I haven’t read the Murphy, but her comment that femininity and femaleness aren’t connected in any material way strikes me as super odd. If there isn’t a material connection, then we have no way to explain how gendered performances perpetuate and/or challenge what a society defines as female. If that’s the case, why worry about gender expression at all?
That’s an interesting point. I guess I would say not that there is no material connection, but that those connections are fairly arbitrary. Though…I mean, Shulamith Firestone (grandmother of radical feminism) actually says they are *not* arbitrary, and that the connection between female oppression and childbirth is biological. She basically calls for more artificiality (like, say, birth control, or test tube babies.)
I presume Murphy knows that…? She must have read Firestone, I’d think.
I think I might have misinterpreted what you both meant by “material.” When I read material I think of the embodied experiences and expressions through which we experience culture, ideology etc. These experiences and expressions can be highly arbitrary (fashion) or connected to something less amenable to change (biology), but they’re all material. Maybe I’m misinterpreting you here, but I think you’re saying that Murphy thinks there’s no natural connection between femaleness and femininity, where we take natural to be something primary to culture. Anyway, I should just go and read the Murphy, as I’m picking apart her quote without any real context.
This was very helpful in clearing up my own thoughts. Thanks.
In this moment two things come to mind:
One, while raising a little girl, I was immediately struck by how quickly she chose interest and exterior identities (and how they change over time). Every time she incorporated into her own identity and interest something I would guess are defined as feminine, I would get worried for a sec (am I not the feminist father I had intended to be). But ultimately she has been influenced by external forces (like her parents before her), but when it comes down to her passions her independent choices brake free of any real gender bias (like her parents). We really need to trust each other’s ability to decern for ourselves as we become more aware of external influences (which are there, but can be disarmed).
Two, when she (or people) define these traits or codes that identify gender…I always think, “well I have my own moments where those are traits that are applicable to me.” Iit’s as if there is an argument against individuals making individual choices and ignoring that each of us are full complex people. It seems entirely in opposition to feminism and the purpose of all the struggle.
I think there are three aspects to “femaleness” (don’t know what to call it) that need to be addressed separately. The first concerns Secondary Sexual Characteristics (presenting as female) and the myriad affectations or ‘ways of being’ that a given culture associates with being a woman. The second is the value accorded to those associations and presentations. The third concerns genital reproduction, child bearing and birth, breast feeding, etc. People with uteruses have a very unique labor power that is wildly devalued by society. Feminism would ideally be fighting all three fronts, though it rarely does. Generally one is considered more important than the other, and the three are often conflated. But there is definitely, imo, a material component to Feminism. Genuine “labor power,” baby. And I think child birth has been horribly manipulated for the convenience of men who want to make money and punch a time clock.
Have you read Firestone, Nix? I think that that’s more or less where she’s coming from; she thinks that biological differences (child bearing, basically) are at the basis of gender inequity (and I think she’d say at the basis of other inequities as well, which she sees as based on the blueprint of gender inequity.)
I wonder if you could map your three types onto Lacan’s imaginary/symbolic/real? Real would be the biological act of labor; imaginary would be characteristics viewed as female; symbolic would be value given to those characteristics maybe? I think that works—though not sure I know my Lacan well enough to do much more with it than suggest there might be parallels.
No. I hadn’t even heard of Firestone. And I hadn’t heard of “Radical Feminism” (that I tracked) until I was on Twitter as a SW. I’m familiar with Dworkin, Mackinnon (I’m actually a bit fascinated by MacKinnon), SdB, and the whole “Feminist Contentions” crew. In my preteens I read Steinem, Friedan, Faludi, Woolfe — all the Middle Class White Woman’s stuff, very 80s. I figure that’s related. Otherwise, my own Feminism is a hodge-podge that I can easily trace but isn’t linear.
But if Firestone’s argument is that the subordination of women is a consequence of bio child birth, I would very much disagree with this. I would point to Engels’ “The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origin_of_the_Family,_Private_Property_and_the_State.
I think female biology (XX) could be a strength and does not innately lead to oppression, at all. I would also argue that giving birth is a unique and specific sexual act still very much within the sexuality continuum. I think its a misunderstanding that it’s cut-off or alienated. I wish I liked this society enough to reproduce it. Giving birth and child rearing must be mind-blowingly amazing. But, alas…
Yes. I think that Lacanian overlay works. I need to think about it more…
Was reading about her on Wikipedia. I guess she used Engels but links the patriarchy to the biology of pregnancy. Huh. I’m really suspicious of pregnancy and child-rearing haters. I get it. I totally get it. But a lot of the oppressiveness is the way family and kinship is structured. To object to motherhood across the board seems… self loathing.
Further, I think this is a horror story that’s been sold to the uterine kind because pregnancy looks and sounds scary just like illness and death and, quite frankly, sex. But it’s gotta be 100 times more amazing than any psychedelic trip. Just from a hormonal standpoint, experientially, I’m curious. We could tell different stories about the whole process. We could make it an adventure, I feel.
I’m not pro test tubes or colostomy bags. It’s cool that we have them as tools/options. But I think the way we bring people into the world and care for them, as well as the way we say goodbye and dispose of them, says a lot about a culture. And the horror and fear at fluids, I’d say that’s pretty non-feminist. Actually, I’d go further and say it’s “precious” and phobic and materiality-hating.
Firestone I don’t think hates maternity…just feels that it’s the biological basis for hating women. She’s very much an advocate for children’s rights, for example.
Women at the Edge of Time seems very Firestone like; kids raised in test tubes, everyone of every gender gets to be mothers.
I’d be down for voluntary surrogacy, extended kinship lines, and everyone can mother.
This was great, Noah. I’ve always disliked the idea that gender is 100% a social construct (not least because of the way this erases transgender women’s experiences).
My first foray into feminism happened as an adult, when I noticed the incessant nitpicking over women’s gender expression via dress codes/presentation expectations. Women’s exterior gender expressions (no matter what they are) always seem to carry the risk of being deemed too “distracting” or “unprofessional” in the office. Men’s gender expressions never seem to be policed in this way. Simply being a woman, with any expression, will inevitably rub up against someone else’s ideas about how a woman should be. I’m struggling with what I believe about “choice feminism” right now, but I definitely agree that how a woman expresses her gender and/or sexuality cannot be “anti-feminist” if it is her choice.
Did you see Katherine Cross’ piece on choice feminism?
http://feministing.com/2015/05/07/choice-feminism-time-to-choose-another-argument/
There was good piece in Tits and Sass too
http://titsandsass.com/the-imaginary-choice-feminist/
I hadn’t seen that – I really really enjoyed the Cross piece. She expresses the type of nuance I was hoping to find. Thank you for pointing me towards her!
Seems like the Firestone case is largely based on De Beauvoir, who often gets ignored in these discussions, but who is a pretty interesting/important figure in the history of feminism theory. Here’s the weak bit:
“So, why not just stop policing people’s gender expression altogether?”
I mean…this would be ideal perhaps, but society, mass media, pop culture, discourse both patriarchal and opposed is constantly in the business of policing gender expression. “Why not?” seems like a good idea, but isn’t super likely. So, if the case here is to try to get feminists to “stop policing”–then you’re just kind of leaving it to the non-feminist discourses to do the policing. Maybe that’s preferable than policing from all sides, but it’s not getting rid of gender policing writ large.
Like, obviously I’m not going to solve the world’s problems in a blog post. Feminists are committed to improving things for women, supposedly. They should do that by devoting themselves to end policing of gender, rather than simplying policing gender from a slightly different perspective. Utopia is unlikely to occur anytime soon, but if you claim to be working to reduce oppression and harm, it seems to me like you should try to move towards goals that will reduce oppression and harm.
@eric b.
There’s something to be said for policing expression – and something to be said against it – but separately, there’s also the question of whether you’re doing it right.
“But “femininity” is an idea — a set of characteristics (invented and reinforced by a patriarchal society). It says “woman” means “delicate,” “passive,” “pleasant,” “accommodating,” “pretty,” “nurturing,” “irrational,” and “weak.” Feminists say women are not “naturally” any of these things. So no, femininity isn’t about “strength,” despite the fact that women are “strong.”
Assumption: either the fact that it was supposedly invented by “patriarchal society,” or the fact that it isn’t “natural,” or both, proves that femininity can’t be a source of strength – none of which is self evident.
Noah points out that Meghan Murphy, in the linked article, is concerned with women being traditionally feminine, but silent on men being traditionally masculine. One might add that Murphy’s position of course precludes recommending that men adopt aspects of traditional femininity.
This does make for an interesting continuity from Beauvoir to Firestone to Murphy’s piece – a lot about changing the behavior of women, little about changing the behavior of men. (Perhaps an inheritance from anti-colonialism, which of course wasn’t very interested in changing the whites’ behavior; it wanted to change the colonized people’s behavior in order to get the whites out.) e.g. Extensive recommendations for abolishing the nuclear family and socializing child care in order to liberate mothers, as opposed to the maybe simpler method of making the fathers do more of the work (the goal of recent reforms to state child support in countries, most radically Sweden). (This of course does nothing for the burden of pregnancy, but then, recent studies show women tending to fall behind men in professional advancement not when they become pregnant, but rather when they take some time off after the child is born.)
My responses to noah berlatsky
http://animalfemme.blogspot.co.za/2016/06/on-white-feminists-and-construction-of.html
http://animalfemme.blogspot.co.za/2016/04/critiquing-femininity-on-berlatsky-and.html
I responded to this particular piece in http://animalfemme.blogspot.co.za/2016/04/critiquing-femininity-on-berlatsky-and.html
I responded to Meghan Murphy — and her enthusiasts — attacking Noah Berlatsky in: http://mistressnix66.tumblr.com/post/122976476569/an-open-letter-to-meghan-murphy-fwiw-from-an#.V2CKbpErLIU
You won’t kill the big papa by accepting him as the standard-bearer and arbiter of values. On the contrary, in fact.
Hi Nix 66. I will have a look at your post. Note that I absolutely have not accepted berlatsky as standard bearer or arbiter of values. Why I responded to him specifically is because it’s been unbelievable to me to see this man establish himself as some feminist authority, chastising women who don’t do feminism his way, and then see women attack each other to defend him. So I felt convicted to respond.
I don’t think you have accepted Berlatsky as standard-bearer, and you should not! However, Meghan Murphy might be making a far more decisive/exclusive attempt to hold such a role, and that’s no less a problem.
I look forward to your response upon reading. Please take all the time you need.
Hi Nix :) first off I want to thank you for sharing your story of sexual harassment- I can really appreciate the bravery it takes to talk about that. The way your colleagues and Chair treated you was utterly shameful and very disturbing to read about.
I also really appreciate the opportunity to engage with someone more experienced and educated than myself, and I thank you for taking the time to respond to me. I have a different perspective from you, but it’s always enriching to be challenged in a thoughtful and respectful way. Moving on to your post, the key lines that stood out for me were:
“I’m finally going to profit off of the very thing that has been harming me my entire life.”
“If I use my sexuality to extract cash from men, I’m a victim. But if male sexuality is aggressively thrust upon me, that’s somehow my fault. It honestly feels to me like my limited agency within this jackass culture is completely inverted, and whatever I say about myself will be turned upside down by those who “know better” than me, about me.”
“I got into sex work to capitalize off of what was always and already my objectification.”
“But this is a capitalist society. And I do seem reduced to my sex no matter how smart or competent I might try to be.”
From these lines I extrapolated (and correct me if I’m wrong) the theme of subversion. What I understood you to be saying was that, within a capitalist, patriarchal society, female sexuality is confined to a box marked “For male consumption only”. This means, not only do women experience male sexual entitlement (such as that of your colleagues) but we also have the ways in which we express our sexuality constantly policed. I think it is to this policing you refer in part when you state, “It honestly feels to me like my limited agency within this jackass culture is completely inverted, and whatever I say about myself will be turned upside down by those who “know better” than me, about me.” To put it another way, because our sexuality is framed as a male commodity, whatever we do with it is interpreted through the lens of that framing. We are never viewed as agents, and always as objects. So, when it comes to sexuality, we can’t win. We’re damned whatever we do and we’re damned whatever is done to us. How do we empower ourselves in this situation?
The solution to that question I perceive in your post is to subvert this box which confines us, this framing of our sexuality as a male commodity, to take that patriarchal assumption and use it to our own advantage. I’m here thinking back to when you said, “”I got into sex work to capitalize off of what was always and already my objectification.”
And this is where I (and I think Meghan Murphy) would (respectfully) disagree. What I learnt from feminists like Meghan is that subversion consists in reforming (or, as it’s usually phrased, “transforming”) existing structures. Radical feminists, however, believe in DISMANTLING the existing patriarchal structures. Together with those radical feminists, I would argue that to truly “reclaim” our agency, we must first free it’s expression from the box within which it is contained and controlled. Simply reforming that box, or capitalizing on it, doesn’t eliminate the walls which seal us off from a full and authentic expression of sexual agency. As long as we are unable to operate outside those walls, the true significance, degree and power of our agency is dictated by the parameters set by the box in which we are confined. Moreover, because the framing of female sexuality as male commodity is so deeply entrenched, we tend to internalize it, so that, both consciously and subconsciously, this framing tends to infiltrate and colour our sexual expressions. Therefore, to truly be sexual AGENTS, we must first deconstruct the framework whereby we are cast as sexual OBJECTS, rather than working within this framework. What I believe at this point is that, to truly change the meaning of our actions within the context of a given environment, we have to first change our environment. Or, to put it like this, as products (to a greater or lesser degree) of our society, changing ourselves requires changing our society. And I think sex work, and the concept of subversion, doesn’t act to change society but acts within the framework of the established paradigm.
Yes, within patriarchy, we’re all whores, but truly changing what that means requires going to the source – changing the ink which wrote the dictionary, not just “reclaiming” the words which came out of it.
One last thing I’d like to add. You wrote, “How the hell is it that I’d be better protected from sexual assault taking my clothes off as sensually as possible in a designated area for money than as a PhD student at Northwestern University interacting with colleagues? ” and I would just reply, I think this is part of how patriarchy works – “play our game voluntarily and we’ll grant you a degree of ‘protection’.” It’s about subtly coercing us into participating in male dominance.
Anyway, sorry for this long and poorly worded response. I just want to end by saying I fully respect you as an individual within the sex industry, whether or not I reject the industry:)
____
Minor edits at K.F. Morton’s request, 10/13/18, NB
“play our game voluntarily and we’ll grant you a degree of ‘protection’.” <= So, that's what I was doing at Northwestern. That is literally the only reason to go to a name brand school. The promise of protection. And that name brand? There be your patriarchy and capitalism. (Racism, too!)
No one has ever told me sex work would be "safe." The notion that sex workers are in any way "protected" socially — is screamingly hilarious. I like what Tilly Lawless shared here https://vimeo.com/149091814
Here's what I want to understand, though: Why does Meghan Murphy go after sex workers and trans folks? Have you ever heard of anyone being oppressed by either class? Why doesn't she go after Northwestern or Berkeley or Harvard or Stanford, etc., etc., etc.? All these schools actively protect sexual predators and hang victims out to dry. There are public records acknowledging ongoing problems at all these schools and many more besides. Why doesn't she direct her ire there?
If Meghan Murphy is not, herself, an agent of patriarchy, how come her biggest bugbears are the classes most oppressed already?
Sex work most certainly isn’t safe either socially or otherwise. That ‘protection’ is an illusion used to influence women, and I should have qualified that statement. I also just want to clarify that i wasnt saying that kind of “play our game…” manipulation only happens in sex work. Of course it happens in academia. It happens everywhere women and men interact.
Regarding Megan Murphy, I disagree that she’s going after sex workers. She’s critiquing the industry. I think it’s crucial to note the distinction between critiquing a system and attacking the people within it. I think there’s this common misconception that radical feminists hate or look down on sex workers, but we wouldn’t be critiquing this industry if we didn’t care about the women we believe it hurts. I think a lot of criticism of Meghan Murphy has been based on misrepresentations of what she has actually said. For instance, regarding her article on Laverne Cox. That’s what got her labelled a transphobe and yet, in the article she is simply critiquing the way laverne Cox was objectified and made the point that, ” f women or transwomen were truly allowed to love themselves, I doubt they’d be spending thousands and thousands of dollars sculpting their bodies in order to look like some cartoonish version of “woman,” as defined by the porn industry and pop culture.” I simply don’t agree that expressing such sentiments constitutes going after transpeople. As for why she hasn’t gone after northwestern, harvard, etc, I can’t say. But I don’t think that her choosing to focus on other concerns, or critiquing multi million dollar industries, makes her an “agent of the patriarchy”. I think she’s done a lot of work to further the interests of women that should be acknowledged.
1. When she goes after “the industry” she goes after how we feed ourselves and pay our bills. If you want people to not do sex work, address the reasons why they’re doing it in the first place.
2. Right. MM went after Laverne Cox. Not the beauty magazine, not the advertising agencies, not the products sold. In a world in which this (https://youtu.be/PTlmho_RovY) is the norm, she went after a Black trans woman. Actually ***the*** Black trans woman, because Black trans women aren’t represented in beauty magazines, except for that one time. And MM attacked it.
1. I don’t think Meghan Murphy ignores those reasons. I do absolutely think that addressing sex work can’t effectively be done without addressing broader inequality within society. Of course, we need to change the structures that create the contexts within which women choose to join the industry. But as I said, I don’t think Meghan ignores that. I do think she is fighting for women to have other options.
2. Critique isn’t attack. Laverne Cox is a public figure and as such will sometimes be subject to critique. I don’t agree that what Meghan wrote constituted an attack.
At this point I just want to state that, although I respect, support and defend Meghan Murphy, I’m not her spokesperson. I’m not in a position to have a long discussion about her motives and position. I support her, and I’m going to leave it at that. Thank you for engaging.
“hat’s what got her labelled a transphobe and yet”
That’s not really accurate. Trans women have been criticizing Murphy’s treatment of them for years. She also hangs out online with Jonah Mix, who upfront declares that trans women aren’t women, and generally buys into the Janice Raymond line that trans women are dangerous rapists who threaten women.
Okay, so how has meghan murphy treated transpeople then? What specific incidents are you referring to? As for Jonah Mix, I’ve never seen him advocate the position that transpeople are dangerous predators. And if he disagrees that transwomen are women – why does that make him and everyone associated with him transphobic? I also happen to share the perspective that transwomen are not women. I certainly believe they should be free to dress and present however they wish, and I’m opposed to violence against transpeople. But, as a female, I think it’s crucial to acknowledge that biology has been the basis on which the categories of man (impregnator) and woman (childbearer) have been created, and that the socialisation and experiences of females and males, however they may identify in terms of gender, differ in important ways . Yes, I’ve read Julia serano. Yes, I know intersex people exist. I was a gender non conforming child who developed my own perspective due to the issues I myself faced with regards to gender identity. If you would like to read my story, and my perspective on gender identity, here’s a link
http://animalfemme.blogspot.co.za/2016/04/gender-identity-manifesto.html
” I also happen to share the perspective that transwomen are not women.”
Uh huh.
Jonah often portrays trans women as dangerous aggressors, dismisses discrimination against them, and generally treats them the way patriarchy always treats trans women—with disdain, fear and hate.
Denying that trans women are women is the very basis of the bathroom bill in NC, which is being used to stir up hate and violence against them.
Tina Vasquez has a great short discussion of the way feminism has failed trans women here, if you’re interested.
” I think it’s crucial to acknowledge that biology has been the basis on which the categories of man (impregnator) and woman (childbearer) have been created,”
So does this mean that women and men who are sterile aren’t men and women, then?
Re: your piece about your own gender identity. People have very different relationships to their gender and sexuality. If I told you that your questioning of your gender identity as a child meant that you were *really* trans, that would be incredibly insulting. Similarly, your experience of feeling alienated from femininity and then embracing your body doesn’t mean that that’s the one, right, true experience, or that people who have a different gendered experience are wrong or deluded.
You don’t know your body except through language and ideology. What’s the body in your essay? It’s the word, “body.” Jonah Mix’s dream of getting outside ideology is a nightmare insofar as it means he’s got to hate people who he imagines threaten his relationship to his manhood. The shorthand for that is “toxic masculinity.” It’s a familiar dynamic, but a depressing one.
” “’Don’t define me by my body’ has a noble sound, until you come to see the alternative is definition by the far greater weight of vicious and suffocating stereotypes…When we are defined by our bodies, the whole width of human experience remains open. A man who is a man by his body can dress, speak, move, and live and love as he would like. Yet when we turn our backs on the body, even in pursuit of something more, what we have to rest on is nothing but the hollow stereotypes of a full humanity. I understand the urge to be separate from the body; if you had asked me at seventeen, I too would have demanded others not define me by the mass of blood and bone I call my home. Yet, in retrospect, my life has largely been a struggle for the opposite: To be grounded in something real and solid, beyond the whims of patriarchy and its suffocating hold…There is freedom in the body. There is freedom in the wondrous adventure of a human life, unyoked from the search for which box will fit you. I hope for the day when I am not a Man, because the whole pernicious lot of gender has been done away with – but until that day, I’ve stopped giving chase to a manhood I don’t want or any other sense of self I’ll never have. What I chase now is something perhaps more elusive, but ultimately more real: A human being, somewhere in this body.”
His connection to his male body means he is connected to truth and virtue. And to stay connected to truth and virtue, he has to run around the internet denouncing those people who have a different relationship to their bodies—and as it happens, those people are the same people patriarchy always denounces. He’s outside ideology, except that manhood means virtuously smiting the same “deviant” people who men always smite in the name of virtue and truth. He wants to be grounded in something real and solid, which means attacking folks whose existence supposedly threatens his natural relationship to masculinity, who are, again,the same people that Ted Cruz thinks threaten his natural relationship to masculinity.
Masculine panic is feminism now, though, I guess, as long as its couched in the tones of a humble seeker.
“There is freedom in the body.” LMAO.
What’s his stance on disability? Poverty?
Jonah and I are living in very different “homes.” But that’s cool, cuz I know both of us are gonna die and be devoured by our environment in the end, and he so totally does not.
He should pay me to teach him Bataille.
One day, when he’s an old man, someone will pay him to write about how he’s coming to terms with his own mortality and people will find it really profound.
I wish I was kidding.
Sterile women are still measured according to their failure to live up to the patriarchal expectations placed on them to reproduce. They are still socialized a certain way. I was here talking about the roles we are assigned based on the perceived capacities of our bodies, not stating that these perceived capacities are therefore always present when perceived – it is the way our bodies are interpreted, not their actual capabilities, that underlies the way we are socialized and treated. Someone born with a vagina, whether she eventually turns out to be sterile or not, will still be raised with certain assumptions and will be assigned a certain position. Also I never said my experience was the only one. I said it had given me a different perspective from yours. Also as far as your quotes from Jonah Mix, I disagree with your interpretation. I never read that quote to mean the body conveys truth and virtue – quite the opposite, I read it to mean that if we accept that the body does not, in and of itself, convey rigid identities, qualities, or ways of being, we are free to conceptualise ourselves in a vast number of ways without feeling that our personal attributes must somehow align with our bodies. Hence a transwoman ccan be free to conceptualise themselves as “feminine”, without feeling they need to physically be a female/woman. From what I have read, I believe Jonah Mix denounces masculinity as much as I do. But I really don’t want to discuss what other people, such as Jonah Mix and Meghan Murphy, have said, because as I have mentioned already, I’m not anyone’s spokesperson. So all I will say is that I do not believe womanhood consists in feeling a certain way. I believe “womanhood” as an inner essence is a myth. I believe that females face a unique form of oppression that is based on our femaleness not femininity, and that femininity is part of the ideological mechanism whereby our oppression is justified and perpetuated. I believe that persons who identify as being feminine, such as transwomen, cannot claim to share the same experience as persons who are female, for the above reason. I didn’t come to this position through some fear of femininity, but though the desire to better understand my own identity and the time I spent thinking through that. I am totally happy for transwomen to dress, behave, etc, however they wish to, but I want a recognition that they are not females however feminine they may be. Being a female, moreover, is not just the possession of certain biological attributes, but specifically possessing a certain political position in society. And I do think, berlatsky, that as a female, I am in a far better position than you to be stating this. You have no way of knowing, or quantifying, the experience of being female. I have already stated all this on my blog, so I will just say that anyone interested in my position can follow the links I have posted in above comments. For now I will just add that I do not, in stating there is a distinction between sex and gender identity, dismiss transpeople as being liars or delusional. As I said – however anyone wants to live, if it brings them peace and does not cause harm, I am happy for them to live that way. Transgendered people may experience their identities as they do for a variety of different reasons and I do not dismiss trans people. But I do think we need to acknowledge the way biological attributes lead females – be they masculine or feminine – to be segregated, socialized and treated in a certain way. The way we feel about ourselves is not the issue here. It’s the way our society is structured to determine our futures based on physical markers. And I think, if you forget everything else I have said here, this is is the one thing I would want you to remember- I have experienced my life a certain way, not because I felt a certain way, but because I was born with a vagina. the fact that I have a vagina has played a crucial role in the way I was treated and perceived and the things I experienced. It doesn’t matter how I, personally, identify. I have been shaped through the experiences that came with being born in a certain body. And that’s why biology matters. Whether or not sex is a spectrum. Whether or not some people are more masculine or more feminine.
I’ve been mulling over berlatsky’s comment about sterile people, in response to my assertion that society creates the categories of “man” and “woman” on the basis of reproductive capacities.this is a really common point brought up, both in discussions about a feminist analysis which sees patriarchal oppression rooted in the control of female reproduction, and in arguing that there is no shared basis of oppression/experience of womanhood common to all women. I think it’s worth noting that A) patriarchy begins with the emergence of private property, and the importance of establishing paternity to control the distribution of resources. This is why females must be socialised a certain way, taught to be passive and “pure” and monogamous, because this allows men,having framed female bodies as (re)production units, to control reproduction in theit own interests. This is why female biology underlies, but does NOT innately cause, patriarchy. B) this doesn’t mean sterile women AREN’T socialised in the same way as fertile women, because their sterility isn’t a fact that immediately presents itself at birth. Moreover, when women are identified as sterile, they do have certain different experiences from women who are fertile. Does that mean they cease to be women, or that the category of “woman” can therefore no longer be used to describe biological females but must be opened up to accept all those who identify as women? I don’t think so. Rather, I think that, while women may experience their oppression in different ways under patriarchy, the basis of that oppression, and importantly, the role initially assigned to all females at birth, that of production unit, remains at the core of our experiences, however they may differ. Sterile women, for instance, are cast as being “faulty”, as having failed at womanhood. But they could only be deemed to have failed at being women had they first been explicitly defined as women – so that, not only does this construct of womanhood continue to define how they are treated, but it’s assignation to them in infancy can be said to have played a crucial role in the formation of their identities as females.
@Nix66 I haven’t read through all the comments but I notice where you commented “But if Firestone’s argument is that the subordination of women is a consequence of bio child birth, I would very much disagree with this. I would point to Engels’ “The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origin_of_the_Family,_Private_Property_and_the_State.
I think female biology (XX) could be a strength and does not innately lead to oppression, at all…” and that pretty much says it for me.
That’s a lot of assumptions there.
Like, what is your basis for the assertion that patriarchy begins with private property? There’s plenty of evidence that pre-capitalist societies can have gender discrimination, and a fair bit that harem formation is one of the earliest human social structures.
And of course women are still discriminated against if they’re sterile. That was my point initially. All these words to say that discrimination is socially constructed, and then to desperately back and fill so that you can yourself discriminate against the folks you don’t like.
Gender identities have both biological and social components. No one, not you, not me, can tease apart how those work for any given individual. Rather than trying to tell people how they should experience gender, maybe it would be more useful to listen to marginalized people when they tell you that your construction of gender doesn’t match their experience, and that your insistence on telling them how they experience their gender contributes to the prejudice against them, despite your insistence that it does not.
That applies not just to trans people, but to black women, sex workers, and lots of other folks who feminism, for all its virtues, has not necessarily served well.
The idea that patriarchy, at least in its modern incarnation, emerged with private property, is hardly new or original. Of course, it’s hardly the only theory, and I’m open to the idea that there are alternative explanations. What compels me is the link between the emergence of patrilineal societies and sexism, and the relationship of patrilineal societies to the development of industrialism and capitalism. I do think that, to quote John Zerzan, “society is integrated via the division of labor and the family is integrated via the sexual division of labor. The need for integration bespeaks a tension, a split that calls for a basis for cohesion or solidarity. In this sense Testart is right: “Inherent in kinship is hierarchy.” [13] And with their basis in division of labor, the relations of kinship become relations of production. “Gender is inherent in the very nature of kinship,” as Cucchiari points out, “which could not exist without it.” [14] It is in this area that the root of the domination of nature as well as of women may be explored.
As combined group foraging in band societies gave way to specialized roles, kinship structures formed the infrastructure of relationships that developed in the direction of inequality and power differentials.” The idea that gender discrimination existed on a meaningful scale prior to the advent of agriculture isn’t one I’ve seen evidence for. There’s a book called “woman the gatherer” by Frances dahlberg you might check out.
When you say, “All these words to say that discrimination is socially constructed, and then to desperately back and fill so that you can yourself discriminate against the folks you don’t like.” I don’t understand what you mean when you charge me with backing and filling. Anyway, this is not about me discriminating against folks I don’t like – I never indicated dislike of transpeople, so your assertion is an unsubstantiated attempt to frame my position as based in prejudice rather than a philosophical difference.
Then, regarding your assertion that gender has a biological basis, I would quote from my blog piece, ”
It is meaningless to argue that any combination of factors influence the development of gender traits, if the degree, form, or even fact of the influence of each factor cannot be demonstrated.. In Serano’s own words, “…one can never truly peel away the biological from the social or environmental…” This is very convenient for Serano, but if we cannot discern the difference between biological and social influences, if we have no concrete measurement of their respective influence, then we cannot quantify their influence nor deconstruct the ways in which this influence may or may not play out..
Third, if any given person’s gender identity is merely an individualized collection of various biological, cultural and psychological traits, why call it gender at all as opposed to individual self-perception? What makes gender distinct from broader or general personality and sense of self within Serano’s framework? It’s all very well to say that gender represents a complex interplay between various factors, but there must be some fixed criteria for “masculine” and feminine”, and indeed for “gender” , if there is to be a meaningful dialogue over these concepts. Serano doesn’t seem to provide a measurable definition of terms.” So, I think the crucial question is, what exactly is gender?
I also want to state that I’m not telling anyone how they should experience gender, so why are you misrepresenting me like that? What is my insistence on telling marginalised people how they experience their gender? Where did I insist on saying that anyone either does or should experience gender a certain way? I never said that. Please respond to actual points I make. Also – I happen to be a marginalised person in relation to you, being both female and disabled. Maybe you should listen to me a little bit instead of misrepresenting what I say and my position.
You’ve said that trans women aren’t women. That’s telling marginalized people that their experience of their gender is incorrect. It’s also the main way discrimination and violence against trans women are perpetuated.
In one of the other links you posted to your site, you dismiss black women’s criticism of mainstream and radical feminism on the grounds that gender is more important than and should subsume discussions of other oppressions (you seem to have taken down that article? If you’ve reconsidered that position, that would be great.)
“there must be some fixed criteria for “masculine” and feminine”, and indeed for “gender” , if there is to be a meaningful dialogue over these concepts. Serano doesn’t seem to provide a measurable definition of terms.” So, I think the crucial question is, what exactly is gender?”
I understand that you feel there must be some fixed criteria. Unfortunately, there isn’t. Masculine, feminine, and gender are all cultural constructs, informed by biology, but not nailed down to any one meaning within our own culture, much less within others. There is no one answer to what gender is, just like there’s no one answer to what race is. You don’t need solid definitions to enforce identities and perpetuate oppressions. Nor do you need solid definitions to organize around common oppressions.
You’ve got a list of what can and cannot be done if we don’t have solid definitions. This sounds logical, but is empirically nonsense. There is no good definition of comics, but people talk about comics without any problem. We don’t really know what gravity is; doesn’t stop scientists from analyzing it. Gender is an ad hoc concept which, like many ad hoc concepts, profoundly shapes people’s lives and experience of the world. Insisting that it has to be connected to bodies or strict boundaries is an analytic error, because that’s not how gender works, and never has been.
Here is something i actually said: “For now I will just add that I do not, in stating there is a distinction between sex and gender identity, dismiss transpeople as being liars or delusional. As I said – however anyone wants to live, if it brings them peace and does not cause harm, I am happy for them to live that way. Transgendered people may experience their identities as they do for a variety of different reasons and I do not dismiss trans people.” Yet, you are implying that I A) dislike transpeople (” and then to desperately back and fill so that you can yourself discriminate against the folks you don’t like”), B) am telling people how to experience their gender (“Rather than trying to tell people how they should experience gender, maybe it would be more useful to listen to marginalized people when they tell you that your construction of gender doesn’t match their experience”) and C) that I am telling people how they do experience their gender (” and that your insistence on telling them how they experience their gender contributes to the prejudice against them, despite your insistence that it does not”). All I have said is that I disagree transwomen share the experience of being female. That’s not equal to telling anyone how to experience their gender – I said they can do whatever brings them peace. It’s not equal to telling them how they do experience gender – I’m saying they don’t experience being female, not that they don’t experience a feminine gender identity. The whole point I have made is that gender identity does not equate or define the experience of being a woman, so however you identify, and however you experience that identity, is irrelevant to me – I’m not talking about identities but material realities. I’m a female, saying, I don’t believe a male bodied person can claim to share my experiences, however that person experiences their identity (I don’t necessarily know how they experience their identity, but I don’t need to know to say that they can’t claim to possess and understand MY reality). Womanhood is not an identity. But you, as a man, seem to be suggesting that I, as a woman, am not entitled to my own understanding of my own reality. And there’s a term for that, berlatsky – male arrogance.
In one of the other links you posted to your site, you dismiss black women’s criticism of mainstream and radical feminism on the grounds that gender is more important than and should subsume discussions of other oppressions ”
If you actually read that article, it was about black women’s criticism being Co opted and twisted to justify misogyny. I didn’t dismiss it. You’re misrepresenting me again. Where did I say gender subsumes discussion of other oppression? Bullshit misconstrual.
Then about transwomen, read above comment. “All I have said is that I disagree transwomen share the experience of being female. That’s not equal to telling anyone how to experience their gender – I said they can do whatever brings them peace. It’s not equal to telling them how they do experience gender – I’m saying they don’t experience being female, not that they don’t experience a feminine gender identity. The whole point I have made is that gender identity does not equate or define the experience of being a woman, so however you identify, and however you experience that identity, is irrelevant to me – I’m not talking about identities but material realities. I’m a female, saying, I don’t believe a male bodied person can claim to share my experiences, however that person experiences their identity (I don’t necessarily know how they experience their identity, but I don’t need to know to say that they can’t claim to possess and understand MY reality). Womanhood is not an identity.”
Finally, gender is a system whereby non physical attributes are attached to people on the basis of physical markers. If you want to argue it’s internal and biological, you must have proof. I wonder how exactly gender does “work” in your framework.
I’m sorry, that’s a lot of shilly shallying, and condescending shilly shallying at that.
Denying that trans women are women, again, is the main way in which things like the NC bathroom bill are justified, and in which hate and violence against trans women are organized and directed.
If your understanding of gender requires you to discriminate, condescend, and encourage violence against others, then that’s a problem. You’re entitled to your own understanding of your own reality. But you’re not entitled to your own bigotry.
The parsing and weaving about “identity” and “reality” is especially disingenuous. They can experience their identity how they wish, but your “reality” means you’re the gatekeeper of authentic femaleness. That’s a formulation that’s been used at various points to exclude trans people, lesbians, black woman, and others from feminism. It’s ugly, and it remains ugly, no matter how much you insist that there’s no hate in your heart.
Do you support the NC bathroom bill, by the way? Should trans women be allowed to use women’s bathrooms, in your view?
Accusing me of encouraging violence is a serious accusation berlatsky. Extremely serious. You cannot point to any statement in which I have encouraged violence and I suggest you retract that immediately.
I’m not the gatekeeper of authentic femaleness (there’s no such thing in the strictest sense, but there is such a thing as the oppression of females based on female markers). I do have a right to say this oppression is a reality, the way it affects me is a reality, and male people do not experience it in the same way.
You ask me about the bathroom bill but I have no interest in engaging with you further. It’s clear you will only misrepresent me and make disgusting allegations such as my alleged promotion of violence.
I didn’t ask you to engage here. You came to the site. And of course you’re welcome to leave.
I’m sure you don’t want to talk about the trans bathroom bill. I am not surprised even a little bit.
Feminist prejudice against trans women, such as you are exhibiting here, absolutely gives cover to, and encourages, violence against trans women. If you don’t want to be accused of encouraging violence against trans women, the easiest thing to do would be to not encourage discrimination and prejudice against trans women. Or, alternately, you can proclaim your innocence and indignation and convince no one. Your choice.
Not agreeing with male opinions = prejudice. Sure. Anyway, I should have known not to engaged with a blatant misogynist. Goodbye Berlatsky.
No; perpetuating stereotypes and hatred equals prejudice.
Neither of which I have perpetrated, for the record
People who perpetuate prejudice and hate very rarely admit that’s what they’re doing. Trump’s not a racist, I hear. He says so himself.
You can take a big step towards convincing me of your good will in this area by just saying, without caveats, that you don’t support the NC trans bathroom bill, or others like it. I’d still think your arguments point towards justifying discrimination, but I’d be happy to hear that some trans exclusionary feminists are interested in pushing back against the worst extensions of their rhetoric.
Hi K.f morton… I just want to say that the 2 comments you made last night/early morning at 2:36 and 2:42 I agree with.
“gender is a system whereby non physical attributes are attached to people on the basis of physical markers. ”
Sometimes gender’s a system whereby physical attributes are attached to people on the basis of nonphysical markers. If someone’s dressed a certain way, people make assumptions about their bodies. That’s gender, too.
I’ve tried to present much more masculine to get men to leave me alone in public and it has never worked. Like, I tried to believe it was my short skirt and eyeliner. It wasn’t.
So does this have to do with assumed sexuality? Cuz while no one has called me a man, I’ve been called dyke an awful lot. Both with short skirts and eyeliner, and also no make-up and long shorts.
It doesn’t make aggressive men go away, though. In fact, generally, the less available a woman is the worse it seems to get. I’ve heard this from other women, as well.
(I like this Onion piece: http://www.theonion.com/article/deformed-freak-born-without-penis-34732)
Yeah; I wasn’t saying that dressing a certain way would reduce harassment. But when people see someone who they view as a women, however that person is dressed, they tend to assume the woman is cis.
The thing is…I think(?) trans women would be harassed in a similar way, probably even if someone recognized them as trans (maybe especially if they were recognized as trans.)
Totally agreed. Passing is about survival, and that’s why I don’t object to trans women simply being women in terms of any public self/citizen. Genitals and chromosomes aren’t anyone’s business. Why would anyone need such an accounting? But being a cis-girl and growing in this way, being groomed as cis-girls are groomed, is its own thing. Having said that, even cis-girls suffer from different demands and expectation depending on class, skin color, religious inheritance, and even likes/dislikes and personalty, etc.
Like with Laverne Cox, MM’s critique seemed to be she wasn’t brave or counterculture or revolutionary enough. She should be bucking the system more. While I do feel that way about many Feminists, I very much disagree with that in terms if Ms. Cox, and think that is a very unempathic and unthoughtful judgment. More, it’s not true! For Laverne Cox to pass openly in a beauty magazine *is* revolutionary, counterculture and very, very brave.
It’s a big problem that MM chose her, of all people, for such a critique. Further, femme and coiffed is a perfectly fine self-expression.
No one reads souls. :/
Whoops! Sorry. I misread you, Noah.
I think trans women get treated the same way. They’re way more objectfied in SW by cis-men and even gender fluid men (of which there are many) than I am… which is bleak, man. Totally bleak.
SW s one of the few jobs a trans woman might be able to do and be out. And yet, their murder and suicide rates are much higher than with cis. Square that if they’re not white.
So, a dude wanting a complete other… I’ve had lots of white guys who want an uber tall black domme t-girl…
and they call me to tell them about it. :/
I reject this biz now, mostly, but man is it more popular than you might think.
Now, on the one hand: Trans women SWers matching this description are in higher demand, perhaps. I mean, “exotics.” Having said that, the fucked up thing about SW rates is that societal judgment sometimes (often? idk for sure) trumps desire/demand. And of course, they are more objectified. So you can be in high demand but not command the rates you should get because the television and advertsing agencies do not recognize you as officially desirable. But the tv is NOT a good indicator of the range of desires that people have. Indeed, tv and pop culture is nothing if not piss poor in it’s representation of desire. This is one of the reasons I do love the Adult Industry. We see and honor more beauty than civilians. We at least recognize it and are conscious. We know how many cis people are turned on by trans people. Or how gross acts can be flipped on their head. So, we’re not nearly as constrained by pop culture. Thank goodness.
And often, a white, slender, able-bodied cis domme like me, is the entry point into even considering hiring what the client is actually after. It’s treated like “the great taboo” (er, one of ’em), like climbing Everest or spelunking in hell.
See how fucked up that is? See what that says about class and race and gender and hierarchies?
The knowledge I’ve gained being in this biz is priceless to me. Also, it is very, very hard to accept and integrate. It’s heavy and painful, frankly, as genuinely fascinating as I *do* find it. I do actually want to know, though. I’d much rather know.
(my job is kinda like spelunking in hell. ok. bye, now.)
I would like all of these if I had facebook powers here…
http://animalfemme.blogspot.co.za/2016/07/on-male-feminists.html
I identify as a feminist because many of the thinkers who are most important to me are feminists. Since you asked.
To anyone reading this comments section who is interested in the perspectives I’ve put forward and would like to learn more, the links I’ve posted are no longer available at animalfemme.blogspot.co.za, but at cliticalperspectives.blogspot.com. The posts relevant to this particular article include:
https://cliticalperspectives.blogspot.co.za/2016/07/on-bloody-vaginas-and-femmephobia.html
https://cliticalperspectives.blogspot.co.za/2016/07/on-male-feminists.html
https://cliticalperspectives.blogspot.co.za/2016/06/berlatsky-meets-bigot.html
https://cliticalperspectives.blogspot.co.za/2016/04/critiquing-femininity-on-berlatsky-and.html
Thanks!
Interesting videos on the topic of gender and gender identity are available here :
https://cliticalperspectives.blogspot.co.za/2016/10/must-see-vids.html
See also: https://cliticalperspectives.blogspot.co.za/2016/10/some-myths-about-radical-feminists.html
K. F. Morton asked me to post this for her.
“Comments and links posted during 2016 no longer all represent my beliefs. I would specifically like to distance myself from radical feminism”