Gender Cant
Feb. 16th, 2007 10:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bcholmesI was having dinner with a friend of mine on Saturday. We were sitting in the Thai place, near Spadina and Bloor. The friend was someone I've known for many years, someone I'm close to. I think of him as bright, intelligent, extremely astute with respect to social politics and discourses of difference.
At some point in the evening, I found myself in the middle of a lengthy debate about the meaning and utility of gender-based generalizations. And I find myself interested in trying to wrap words around some of the things that were going on in my head, then.
This is not a story about the friend who didn't get it. This is not a kvetch about someone saying or believing something that bothers me. The story I'm interested in exploring is the story of how certain types of conversations are easy and other types of conversations are not.
In Moral Politics, George Lakoff talks about the way we understand certain arguments in terms of key experiential metaphors. It is better to be healthy than to be sick. It is better to be rich, than to be poor. It is better to be sensible than careless. And so on. So, if you're trying to make a particular political point, it gives the point a bit more oomph if you tap in to some of these experiential metaphors. Here's an example: If you don't like socialized health care, then bring up the national debt and you liken spending on social programs to people who buy all kinds of stuff on credit cards when they can't afford the payments. Suddenly the argument "connects", because you're tapping in to an experiential metaphor of fiscal carelessness.
But Lakoff's "experiential metaphors" all rely on binaries, and, well, binaries have seldom done right by me. I suppose the story that I want to tell is the story of my search for conversational connection in places where I feel I suffer its lack.
In this write-up, I'm relaying the major beats of the discussion, mostly to describe the area that we covered. I'm not so much trying to pick apart his position as I am interested in finding/articulating a clarity in my own position. (There is a part of me that's aware that maybe "simple messages" are, by their very nature, something that will always marginalize people at the fringes; I'm trying not to presume that, however).
Over the weekend, my friend was visiting. On Friday night, and throughout the day on Saturday, he would litter his conversation with statements like, "Men can hang out in silence in a way that women can't" and "They say that the average woman uses 10,000 words a day whereas men use 2,000." The big discussion happened when I told my friend that I felt that he was repeatedly expressing a rather unnuanced view of gender, and that surprised me, given all I knew about him.
His first counter-argument was that, as an activist, he viewed it as his responsibility to take a true and accurate assessment of things as they are. Later in the discussion, he would distance himself from the words "true and accurate". My feeling on the matter was that, in discussions where gender-based generalizations occur, it was mostly pointless to talk about truth, and more pointy to talk about utility. What use does the speaker get out of using this "Gender Cant", and whose interests are being served by the repetition of those messages? (And, importantly, who is rendered invisible in these discussions).
At another point in conversation he argued about the value of "averages". He argued that when he says, "the average man... " or "the average woman...", that there was some innate value to that. That it had to describe something meaningful. I used the standard counter argument about the average person having one testicle and one ovary, but that average didn't really describe very many actual people.
It was around here that he invoked the idea of identity as a central, organizing facet of activism. For my part, I can't hear that without immediately thinking about Riki Wilchins: "It is a seduction of language, constantly urging you to name the constituency you represent, rather than the oppressions you contest; it is through this Faustian bargain that political legitimacy is purchased."
And then we started talking about the Audre Lorde's maxim of the Master's Tools. And we both seemed to acknowledge that activism involved an ongoing negotiation with ambiguity; that it was generally utopian to believe that you could throw aside all of the master's tools and still accomplish much in the society in which we're forced to inhabit.
A point that I'd made a few times in the evening related to nuance. Most of the time I raised objections, I articulated that I felt that his statements lacked nuance. One of his responses to this point was that nuance wasn't always something to strive for. He told me that he had a rather unnuanced view of cars: "Cars are evil. Full stop," he said. And I thought, but didn't say, "Ah. Good versus evil. There's the binary again." (I have this almost uncontrollable urge to speak with a Ricardo Montalban accent: "Binary! Binary, you're still alive... my old friend?")
I wondered: does he generally reduce activism to a "good rebellion versus evil empire" dynamic?
And at one point in the evening, I realized something about opposition. Or, rather, I think I always knew the thing I realized, but only then articulated it to myself. If I oppose something, like racism for example, I mean that I think that racism should play no role in a future society, and I would like to help move society toward that future. I mean that organizing social structures around race is kinda flawed, and I want no part of it (although I generally recognize the importance of medium-term stuff like affirmative action).
When I oppose the gender binary and/or the articulation of "truths" based on gender, my opposition doesn't take the same form, and I don't mean the same thing when I oppose it. I don't, for example, buy in to the "everybody's really bisexual" argument. And so long as people use gender as a basis for filtering potential lovers, gender will organize a certain part of society. What I suppose I mean is that those "truths" are out-of-balance, and my opposition is based in pushing something back to the right place.
One of the things I said toward the end of the conversation related to marking out my own safe space. I said that I believed that there were real, fruitful uses one could get out of Gender Cant. Some of those things could possibly even describe "truth". But I believe that our society is inundated with messages that attach more importance to gender than I believe is warranted. And I resist the entrance of many of those messages into the spaces that I occupy. What's more, Gender Cant is used against people like me. My primary experience of Gender Cant is as a weapon used against me, and I'm not really thrilled about sitting back and smiling politely when it's used in my presence.
That's a very contextualized message. Much of it is about me, and my view on the world, and my subject position, and it probably doesn't generalize to other people (not even other trans people). It's an untidy, complicated message, and it's hard to figure out how to voice it using Lakoff's experiential metaphors, where binary, global experiences seem to be necessary prerequisites.
At some point in the evening, I found myself in the middle of a lengthy debate about the meaning and utility of gender-based generalizations. And I find myself interested in trying to wrap words around some of the things that were going on in my head, then.
This is not a story about the friend who didn't get it. This is not a kvetch about someone saying or believing something that bothers me. The story I'm interested in exploring is the story of how certain types of conversations are easy and other types of conversations are not.
In Moral Politics, George Lakoff talks about the way we understand certain arguments in terms of key experiential metaphors. It is better to be healthy than to be sick. It is better to be rich, than to be poor. It is better to be sensible than careless. And so on. So, if you're trying to make a particular political point, it gives the point a bit more oomph if you tap in to some of these experiential metaphors. Here's an example: If you don't like socialized health care, then bring up the national debt and you liken spending on social programs to people who buy all kinds of stuff on credit cards when they can't afford the payments. Suddenly the argument "connects", because you're tapping in to an experiential metaphor of fiscal carelessness.
But Lakoff's "experiential metaphors" all rely on binaries, and, well, binaries have seldom done right by me. I suppose the story that I want to tell is the story of my search for conversational connection in places where I feel I suffer its lack.
In this write-up, I'm relaying the major beats of the discussion, mostly to describe the area that we covered. I'm not so much trying to pick apart his position as I am interested in finding/articulating a clarity in my own position. (There is a part of me that's aware that maybe "simple messages" are, by their very nature, something that will always marginalize people at the fringes; I'm trying not to presume that, however).
Over the weekend, my friend was visiting. On Friday night, and throughout the day on Saturday, he would litter his conversation with statements like, "Men can hang out in silence in a way that women can't" and "They say that the average woman uses 10,000 words a day whereas men use 2,000." The big discussion happened when I told my friend that I felt that he was repeatedly expressing a rather unnuanced view of gender, and that surprised me, given all I knew about him.
His first counter-argument was that, as an activist, he viewed it as his responsibility to take a true and accurate assessment of things as they are. Later in the discussion, he would distance himself from the words "true and accurate". My feeling on the matter was that, in discussions where gender-based generalizations occur, it was mostly pointless to talk about truth, and more pointy to talk about utility. What use does the speaker get out of using this "Gender Cant", and whose interests are being served by the repetition of those messages? (And, importantly, who is rendered invisible in these discussions).
At another point in conversation he argued about the value of "averages". He argued that when he says, "the average man... " or "the average woman...", that there was some innate value to that. That it had to describe something meaningful. I used the standard counter argument about the average person having one testicle and one ovary, but that average didn't really describe very many actual people.
It was around here that he invoked the idea of identity as a central, organizing facet of activism. For my part, I can't hear that without immediately thinking about Riki Wilchins: "It is a seduction of language, constantly urging you to name the constituency you represent, rather than the oppressions you contest; it is through this Faustian bargain that political legitimacy is purchased."
And then we started talking about the Audre Lorde's maxim of the Master's Tools. And we both seemed to acknowledge that activism involved an ongoing negotiation with ambiguity; that it was generally utopian to believe that you could throw aside all of the master's tools and still accomplish much in the society in which we're forced to inhabit.
A point that I'd made a few times in the evening related to nuance. Most of the time I raised objections, I articulated that I felt that his statements lacked nuance. One of his responses to this point was that nuance wasn't always something to strive for. He told me that he had a rather unnuanced view of cars: "Cars are evil. Full stop," he said. And I thought, but didn't say, "Ah. Good versus evil. There's the binary again." (I have this almost uncontrollable urge to speak with a Ricardo Montalban accent: "Binary! Binary, you're still alive... my old friend?")
I wondered: does he generally reduce activism to a "good rebellion versus evil empire" dynamic?
And at one point in the evening, I realized something about opposition. Or, rather, I think I always knew the thing I realized, but only then articulated it to myself. If I oppose something, like racism for example, I mean that I think that racism should play no role in a future society, and I would like to help move society toward that future. I mean that organizing social structures around race is kinda flawed, and I want no part of it (although I generally recognize the importance of medium-term stuff like affirmative action).
When I oppose the gender binary and/or the articulation of "truths" based on gender, my opposition doesn't take the same form, and I don't mean the same thing when I oppose it. I don't, for example, buy in to the "everybody's really bisexual" argument. And so long as people use gender as a basis for filtering potential lovers, gender will organize a certain part of society. What I suppose I mean is that those "truths" are out-of-balance, and my opposition is based in pushing something back to the right place.
One of the things I said toward the end of the conversation related to marking out my own safe space. I said that I believed that there were real, fruitful uses one could get out of Gender Cant. Some of those things could possibly even describe "truth". But I believe that our society is inundated with messages that attach more importance to gender than I believe is warranted. And I resist the entrance of many of those messages into the spaces that I occupy. What's more, Gender Cant is used against people like me. My primary experience of Gender Cant is as a weapon used against me, and I'm not really thrilled about sitting back and smiling politely when it's used in my presence.
That's a very contextualized message. Much of it is about me, and my view on the world, and my subject position, and it probably doesn't generalize to other people (not even other trans people). It's an untidy, complicated message, and it's hard to figure out how to voice it using Lakoff's experiential metaphors, where binary, global experiences seem to be necessary prerequisites.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-16 03:43 pm (UTC)In some ways, I think people repeat and buy into gender generalizations (particularly about relationships) as a kind of cop-out, a way of avoiding personal growth. If it's not "Men don't do this" but "I don't do this" or "My partner doesn't do this", that suggests something to consider trying to change rather than something to accept.
Isn't it people's personal experiences of not fitting into binary categories that can help them grasp the idea of transness and the value of avoiding generalizations? As an adult in 2007 in the society I live in, I would never call myself transgendered. But I have been frustrated and hurt by the generalizations and expectations placed on children and adults of my identified gender. That's probably not the kind of experiential metaphor you mention, but it's a very clear one for me.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-16 03:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-16 04:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-16 07:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-16 08:58 pm (UTC)(I've been finding myself playing with calling things "right" or "wrong" recently as it's not really my nature to depict things as black and white. It's kind of a hyperbole that is sort of fun and empowering -- and seems incisive -- but I would never use those terms in a serious argument.)
One of the things I'm known for saying (in discussions at work, anyway) is "There are no facts." Statements of truth are all automatically suspect in my world.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-17 04:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-16 11:11 pm (UTC)What I really wanted to say was that the article right under yours on my friends page was this one (http://krustukles.livejournal.com/318443.html), and it occurred to me that you might be interested. She touches on the "healthy at any size" argument and talks about fat as a metabolically active tissue, which I wasn't aware of.
She's the author of a women's weight training website that I like: http://stumptuous.com/cms/index.php.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-17 07:08 pm (UTC)I'm fascinated by this because I often say very much the same thing -- but what I meant by it is pretty much opposed to what he means. I say it when I want to resist stereotypes and simplifications. Because I think the degree to which many people rely on stereotypes and simplifications is damaging to fruitful interactions among people.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-19 11:07 am (UTC)I've seen all these articles of his where he does go ultra-binary, and his underlying metaphors theory does not remotely require binaries. In fact one of my reactions to reading PitF was to make a more conscious effort to notice when I used binary metaphors and try to replace them if they didn't fit well on closer inspection.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-23 09:08 pm (UTC)As a political moderate, my perspective is that evil is often the result of oversimplification from extremists at any end of a spectrum. The extremists (or "activists" if you will) tend to ignore the people who are hurt by their simplistic view. Whether it's religious conservatives or politically-correct leftists, the real world has shades of grey and special circumstances.
As for gender issues, what you are calling "Gender Cant" was, when I was younger, simply called "sexism": men are better at this, women can't do that, etc. It wasn't easy for my mom to find a school where she could study sciences back in the 1950s. The fact is that many social gender differences are (a) learned behaviors and/or (b) slight inclinations occurring on overlapping bell curves (men may on average be taller, heavier, and stronger, and yet there are tall women who can kick most guys' butts, and non-physical differences are even less definitive). Folks have been arguing against sexual stereotypes for decades (I've been reading family history about 19th-century arguments about voting rights). To the extent that sexual stereotypes are wrong because they unfairly restrict people's opportunities on the basis of something other than ability, it is equally wrong to express or apply similar stereotypes to transgendered people. As a general rule, sexism is a bad thing, and you're right to be reacting negatively to it.
I may not really understand your choices, but you're certainly a human being, and a human response is to assume you have some reasons for your cut hoices, and most rational people would not assume they knew more about your personal situation than you do.
The whole feminist movement in the 1970s was based on rejecting binary "truths" based on gender. My nieces and cousins have more opportunities today because earlier generations opposed past stereotypes.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-13 05:05 am (UTC)I completely agree with you about nuance, of course, and the problematicness (is that a word?) of binaries. (My favorite T-shirt is one I saw at a pride march once that said "Both/And: Reject dichotomies!")
But I don't have any good ideas about experiential metaphors for non-binaries, and I think you're right that it would be useful to have some.
I guess one of them is the basic color metaphor, phrases like "shades of gray" or "a spectrum." And for that matter, there's an easy political metaphor: "It's like how there's a range of political ideas, from the radical left to moderate left to centrist to moderate right to extreme right (not to mention libertarian, anarchist, etc)."
But I don't know if the person you were talking with would have agreed to that political metaphor; anyone capable of saying that cars are absolutely evil may just not see the world in shades of gray at all. It's possible that, from his worldview, anyone who (for example) isn't directly working toward a People's Revolution is by definition a radical right-winger.
So I think one problem with trying to find experiential metaphors for nuance is that different people may have different ideas about what things are nuanced and what aren't.
And really that's a problem with experiential metaphors in general. Going back to one of your first examples, I know who people who would much rather be "careless" (though they would probably call it "free") than "sensible" ("bound by the constraints of a stifling society").
So I think maybe the only thing to do is to try to find a real-world situation that the person does see as nuanced or as covering a range or spectrum, and try to use that as a metaphor.