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Gender in Feminism

Summer DaysEarlier this year, Cardiff University had to vote whether to cancel a planned lecture by Germaine Greer at the request of their woman’s officer Rachael Melhuish, who advanced a threat of ‘No Platform’ against the second-wave feminist icon. The issue at task was Greer’s view on transgender women, namely that they aren’t women at all. Melhuish takes this as transphobia, hence bigotry, and hence pushed for censorship. There’s much that could be said about this incident, but here I want to take it as an opportunity to consider one of the essential clashes of gender concepts within the feminist movements.  

For the most part, I’m reluctant to talk about gender in public. Despite all the great achievements of the feminist movements since the original fight for suffrage in the nineteenth century, we have now reached a point in time where all discussion of gender is dominated by feminist voices. This is a more important point than is usually considered. While we have certainly not reached a time where anything that could be called gender equality is the norm, we no longer live at a time when all power relations are resolutely male. If we accept ‘male’ and ‘female’ as the unfeasibly broad categories that they are, there is both male and female power at work in our world. While that has always been the case in some sense, I don’t believe it is unfair to say that ‘female power’ has never been greater than it is right now. That is certainly a cause for celebration for anyone for whom equality is an ideal to aspire to. It is also a sign that feminism – itself also a rather excessively broad term – is in dire need of reflection upon its own situations.

What I hope to present here is only a rather minor contribution to the discussion. To be frank, I could not hope to eclipse the intersectionality critique in its importance for contemporary feminism, and it is worth briefly explaining the thrust of this cluster of arguments before I develop my own. The stepping point for intersectionality is Kimberlé Crenshaw’s 1989 legal theory paper “Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex” that argues that you cannot understand what it is to be a black woman solely in terms of being black and being a woman, because the intersection between these two categories has its own experience – one that Crenshaw suggests can be more significant than either of its supposedly constituent elements. This has lead to a long overdue recognition that feminism was largely a set of movements driven by middle class white women in affluent nations who were frequently imposing their ideals upon women whose situation was radically different. I do not believe the significance of intersectionality has come even close to being addressed at this time.

We come, then, to the start of my concerns. The stated objective of contemporary feminism is attain equality for women, and I shall trust that this claim is not in dispute, which of course it could be. But there are two vast problems with this mission statement that create complications for the feminist movements, namely the concepts of ‘equality’ and ‘women’. The problems of taking ‘equality’ as an ideal are discussed in my book of moral philosophy, Chaos Ethics, and I will not pursue this point here beyond saying that any attempt to make some set of beings equal is necessarily founded upon other beings being excluded from the set. This does not make equality a non-viable ideal, but it requires more careful understanding than is usually provided. What I instead want to pick up here is the other horn of this beast, ‘women’, or more broadly ‘female’. Because feminism as it is often presented now requires this concept to be strongly construed – and that is a source of significant problems.

It is vital to appreciate why I insist on talking about ‘feminist movements’ and not ‘feminists’: feminism is an umbrella under which radically different perspectives shelter, and umbrellas are objects that all too conveniently turn into weapons when wielded in rage. It therefore matters greatly which feminist movement or movements we are talking about when we make claims about feminism. A significant number of people who identify as feminists take a deconstructive view on gender, which is to say that they claim that the importance of gender is overemphasised, that male and female humans share more in common by virtue of being human than they are distinct by having different genitalia and hormonal patterns. On the deconstructive view, it is a mistake to put too much faith into the concept of ‘male’ and ‘female’ (or any equivalent term) because to do so is to artificially endorse, empower, or (as the scholars like to say) reify terms that lead us astray from the true basis of our potential equality – that we are all human. This view has significant support from those scientists who claim to speak for gender, although this in no way closes the issue since the sciences thankfully lack this kind of authority to silence voices.

But elsewhere in the feminist movements, a vast number of people who identify as feminists take a strict view on gender, with firmly construed concepts of what it is to be ‘female’ (sometimes with the additional assumption that what is not ‘female’ is ‘male’), a position that is diametrically opposed to the deconstructive view for evident reasons. This becomes particularly clear when dealing with the questions raised by transgender people, that is, those who have lived their lives under conflicting influences of both male and female gender identities, and (in many cases) have participated in medical and surgical interventions to ‘reassign’ their gender. This word ‘reassign’ is clear evidence of a strict view on gender: it makes rather less sense to ‘reassign’ a gender on most deconstructive views. (I put this term in scare quotes because I question the unstated assumption here about the power of doctors, not to question the logic of transgender experience, an issue tied up in the usage of the term ‘cis’ that must wait for another occasion.)

Now we return to the opening point: the attempted exclusion of Germaine Greer from the people worthy of respect on purportedly feminist grounds. I am far from the only person troubled by this; Zoe Williams expresses the problem with admirable brevity. In terms of the concepts of gender, however, feminist movements who decide to ally conceptually with transgender people must use a strict view since the forms of life described by this term are ones in which such strict concepts of gender are required to make them coherent. On the deconstructive view, it simply cannot matter sufficiently that any given construal of gender is of a certain character that you would have to recognise yourself as governed by the wrong gender concept and need to identify with the other gender concept, since there are always more than two concepts of gender on this perspective. The kinds of experiences entailed in transgender identities are only available to people operating with strict gender concepts. One consequence of this is that to take on the issues of transgender people is to risk enforcing strict gender conceptions that at least some feminists would rather we did not take so strongly or uncritically.

So which strict gender concepts are we expected to adopt? It’s far from clear, and trangender people are no better positioned to answer this question than anyone else. Those on the deconstructive view recognise a panoply of different strict gender concepts and, generally speaking, deny any of them has any coherent force or authority. Where, then, does the deconstructive view leave transgender people whose existence has been transformed by experiences of specific, strict gender concepts? Germaine Greer thinks transgender women are ‘not women’, because that’s what her strict gender view means to her; Rachael Melhuish presumably thinks transgender women ‘are women’, or her attacks on Greer make no sense, and Melhuish comes from a background of recognizing and advancing the intersectionality critique. This strongly suggests to me that intersectionality is not an answer to any problem but merely a question that we have not yet become skilled at answering, and answering it in this specific context might well be about working out how the deconstructive view and the myriad strict views of genders can interrelate without being explicitly opposed to one another.

Here is where the problems of feminism cross into the problems of equality, and cease to be the exclusive purview of feminists. Indeed, issues of equality – and of gender – were never exclusive to feminism, and intersectionality is the wake up call that should have made that clearer than it still is. We are a long way from any plausible possibility of decommissioning feminism as no longer necessary, but we are always a little too close to instituting a perverse kind of Feminine Empire under a mis-wielded banner of equality. That such a metaphorical empire would not be the most powerful institution of its kind is hardly an argument in its favour. Rather, as Zoe Williams points out, any attempt to move in such a direction merely empowers the existing status quo. With every kind of movement, you have to be careful where it is that you are moving towards.

Feminist movements in general (and individual feminists like Melhuish) are not mistaken in thinking that action in support of transgender people is needed, but they are gravely mistaken if they think failing to respect other feminists, like Germaine Greer, is honourable conduct. One can disagree with the views of a person without having to target them for censorship, and one can respect a remarkable pioneer in the history of feminism for fighting a difficult political battle at a time when it was far, far, more challenging to do so without ever coming close to accepting every aspect of her worldview without question or challenge. If Greer’s views on some topic are misguided, we owe it to both her and ourselves to debate her on the topic.

If we’re all going to live together in some kind of equality, we must be open to negotiating what equality means, for it cannot be calculated in advance, much less enforced by any arbitrary faction. In this political challenge, every concept of gender, race, and identity should be perpetually open to re-negotiation. That state of affairs can only be fostered by open discourse, it can never be advanced by censorship. The moment it swings the other way, we have all lost.

The opening image is Summer Days, an acrylic painting by Julia De Sano that is for sale here. As ever, no copyright infringement is intended and I will take the image down if asked.

Debate and commentary is always welcome, but please try to remain polite to all participants regardless of their perspective.

Comments

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I don't find these ideological squabbles very helpful to the problem of female genital mutilation in Egypt or drivers' licenses in Saudi Arabia. That isn't meant as a criticism of your piece, more a pragmatist's perspective on the challenge of actually getting things done. Bitching at white feminists for not taking race into consideration sounds to me like bitching at Martin Luther King for not taking anti-Semitism into consideration. When I hear of this kind of thing, I am unavoidably reminded of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. If you're arguing over who is allowed/required to talk about what while female literacy rates in rural India are still under 50%, you have taken your eye off the ball.

Hi Ernest,
Thanks for your comment, although I feel you have missed the point of this piece. The 'challenge of actually getting things done' seems to me a way of ducking the issue at hand - it presupposes that what needs to be done can be pursued without a willingness to discuss the issues with the people concerned. There are grave dangers here, as I discuss in "Chaos Ethics" and Isabelle Stengers addresses in "Cosmopolitics".

This point is especially important in the case of, say, drivers licenses in Saudi Arabia, since having US feminists dictate moral certainties to Saudi Arabian women is precisely the kind of failure that the intersectionality critique points to. I'm afraid I became far more sceptical of the motivations of certain folks who identified as feminists when their apparent bigotry against Muslims motivated them to support the US-led invasion of Iraq... something went catastrophically wrong there with the notion of 'getting things done'.

Earlier feminists, like Germaine Greer, were always against war as a solution. Indeed, I concur with Dr. Greer's assessment that "all modern warfare is carried out at the expense of civilian populations." This, to me personally, feels like a more important issue than anything that you mention. Whatever I think about literacy in India is dwarfed by the indiscriminate murder of mothers, husbands, sons and daughters in a seemingly endless robotic apocalypse conducted by the CIA. Perhaps this is just me, but it seems like if there ever was a case where we should all band together to 'get something done' it ought to be in stopping this atrocity being done in our names.

Personally, I support women in Saudi Arabia via Amnesty International. What I like about this arrangement is that it is the women in Saudi Arabia who get to decide what they need, and it is not in my power to attempt to enforce anything upon them. That leaves, for instance, questions of gender still open to negotiation - which is quite a key point here, since while Saudi Arabian women would certainly like better treatment by their government, they are keen to stress that Islam is their closest ally in attaining this, and Islamic perspectives on gender are very different to our own. This is a point that seems to have been lost by at least some feminist movements. As long as it has been lost, I feel there is enormous need for the intersectionality critique to be taken seriously.

Where we are perhaps in agreement is in the overall premise of this piece, that turning on the feminists who allowed contemporary movements to get where they are today is not in any significant way 'getting things done', and that the questions surrounding transgender people (while important in their own right) might not be the most serious gender-related issues at this time.

Many thanks for wading in!

Chris.

Feminism as it is mostly practiced is a political movement and as such has all of the blind spots that political movements do.

Solving women's global issues through the spread of feminism is like solving war through the spread of pacifism. Both feminist and pacifist ideology are thinking systems that preach to the choir and do very little to build bridges with problem-makers.

Feminism as it is practiced in your example of Ms. Melhuish vs Ms. Greer is exactly the kind of magical thinking meant completely invalidate one's opponent. It is diametrically opposed to the values of equality which Feminism is supposed to stand for!

Hi Chris/Doc Surge,
Thanks for your thoughtful comment. There is a fine line involved in discussing this topic - one reason I'm wary about wading in - since I would never want to imply that we would be better off without the feminist movements. But we have hit a point whereby we need to be more willing to discuss the associated issues since the movements can paralyze themselves when they get caught up in bottlenecks like the one I describe here.

It is interesting to hear you compare feminism to pacifism... I have been a pacifist for part of my life, but I was influenced in changing from that position by Peter Gabriel's remark that pacificism is a luxury that only those of us in the wealthier nations can afford. Now my position is more nuanced, and far less certain. I view that as a gain. I still want peace, but - as you intimate here - I no longer expect that we can get there solely through a hardline stance such as pacifism. (That said, I do feel that if, say, Palestinians had adopted the practices of Ghandi they would have not dug themselves so deeply into their hole).

The general problem you point to here - of systems that can only talk to themselves - is a growing crisis of our time. As long as the movements cannot align, the status quo remains in effect, with all of the problems that entails. A lot of my work in philosophy is engaged in the (potentially intractable) problem of how to encourage dialogue in cases where people's metaphysics (what I call 'mythologies') do not align. The most famous clashes of these kinds occur around religion. The point of this piece was to show how it also occurs around gender.

All the best,

Chris.

Hi Chris/Spiral,

The values of Feminism and Pacifism are worth fighting for, but I refuse to fight under those labels because they get in the way! There comes a point in every social movement that labels need to be cast off and new ideas be invited for renewal. Otherwise corruption sets in.

Such corruption shows up in Feminism when agendas get promoted at the expense of values being practiced. I had a colleague tell me that I was a Feminist because I believed in equality for women. What if I don't want to be a Feminist? Don't I have a choice in the matter? Why can't I be aligned in this one value but not need to be part of her mind-camp? The core Feminist values of tolerance and equality of plurality did not get practiced here!

I think you have appointed yourself a noble cause. To build dialogue between intractable sides is the only way of reducing tensions and problems. The way to such dialogue is to focus on our common humanity. I have toyed with the idea of forming an interest group that makes the question of 'human nature' central to channeling such dialogue. Perhaps this is something that would interest you?

With respect,

Chris

"Rachael Melhuish presumably thinks transgender women ‘are women’, or her attacks on Greer make no sense, and Melhuish comes from a background of recognizing and advancing the intersectionality critique. This strongly suggests to me that intersectionality is not an answer to any problem but merely a question that we have not yet become skilled at answering, and answering it in this specific context might well be about working out how the deconstructive view and the myriad strict views of genders can interrelate without being explicitly opposed to one another."

Surely the simpler explanation is the sociological one? That in practical, real life terms, intersectionality operates as a sort of apologetic to be deployed when it is useful, and kept in the cupboard when it is not?

Your interpretation reminds me of religious apologetics as well- you're presuming that these concepts are capable of being harmonized, and that apparent contradiction just suggests a greater need for efforts at determining how to harmonize the ideas at issue. But perhaps the apparent contradiction is actually just a contradiction.

The usual pattern in religious apologetics is that an "apparent" contradiction is discovered between two passages in a holy text, the apologists insist that it cannot be an actual contradiction because it just can't, and the apologists develop an explanation for how the passages can be harmonized. And nothing recommends the harmonizing theory as true other than the fact that if no harmonizing theory is true, a true contradiction has been discovered, and that is unacceptable. If new harmonizing theories are developed that are more politically or ideologically acceptable, there is no barrier to swapping out the old for the new. Any will do as well as any other.

That would seem to be a fair description of the real world way in which this cultural movement functions. See, for an easy example, the rise and fall of the gender bread man.

Chris/Doc Surge:
Thanks for extending our discussion here. I never fancied myself as a diplomat, I just sort of woke up and found myself doing it. :) What got me started was the failure to communicate between Christians and Positivists, but there's no end to the contemporary issues that can, at least in principle, be addressed by my general methods. Of course, nobody might listen. I try not to let that discourage me! ;)

All the best!


Patrick:
Thanks for sharing your thoughts here. You say:

"Your interpretation reminds me of religious apologetics as well- you're presuming that these concepts are capable of being harmonized, and that apparent contradiction just suggests a greater need for efforts at determining how to harmonize the ideas at issue. But perhaps the apparent contradiction is actually just a contradiction."

Your use of 'actually' implies some privileged perspective that we could switch to in order to find out what's 'really' going on. But that's precisely the reason that these issues remain muddy: no such gods-eye-view is available to us. In its absence, as you later recognise in your comment, we have tremendous freedom of movement within our thought. To put this another way, you cannot simultaneously defend the validity of 'actually a contradiction' at the same time as 'any will do as well as any other'; these claims are built upon rival premises.

My presumption that concepts can be harmonized is based on my premise that all human thought can be understood via abstraction. That premise might be false, but I haven't found a countercase yet! :) That the 'apparent contradiction' is functionally a fault line has little bearing on whether it could or would be resolved, and is less my concern. My interest is in bringing the issue into a different light.

Your description of apologetics, in my view, better describes the way fans of science fiction franchises such as Star Trek deal with the inconsistencies of their 'texts' than it does my analysis here. That says something about the changes in the interests of nerds in the last few centuries. ;)

Best wishes,

Chris.

"Your use of 'actually' implies some privileged perspective that we could switch to in order to find out what's 'really' going on. But that's precisely the reason that these issues remain muddy: no such gods-eye-view is available to us. In its absence, as you later recognise in your comment, we have tremendous freedom of movement within our thought."

Your response is incompatible with this earlier statement:

"This strongly suggests to me that intersectionality is not an answer to any problem but merely a question that we have not yet become skilled at answering"

If you adopt the "tremendous freedom of thought" perspective in which we can accept harmonizing interpretations of belief systems or texts for no other reason than that we desire harmonization for reasons of our own comfort, then it is not coherent to discuss your inquiry into these belief systems or texts as "answering" any questions.

Save perhaps our own question of how we might best shelter ourselves from the psychologically troubling possibility that our initial assumptions, the ones we are engaging in harmonization in order to protect, may be wrong.

Hi Patrick,
The imputation that pursuit of harmonious configurations between different people's beliefs is pursued for our own comfort is presumably what undergirds your comparison with apologetics. This is not my motive. I am pursuing what might be called metaphysical diplomacy. I would be happy to expand upon this point, but I get the sense you're not actually that interested in it.

Thanks for sharing your views!

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