Tag Archives: UC Berkeley

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Why then, can one desire too much of a good thing?

What have we done? Have we become so transfixed with definitions –differences– we have forgotten where we started? Where we want to go? Has the clarity for which we strived, opacified as it cooled? Sometimes the more encompassing the definition, the less useful it becomes.

I suppose that coming from the putative dark side -that is to say, the male portion of the equation- I am credentialed merely with Age and a world view encrusted with a particular zeitgeist; I come from an era of binaries, albeit with categories that allow for shades -rainbows which do not seek to define the boundaries where one colour fades into the next. They allow a melange without, I hope, troubling themselves with the constituents. Or am I being hopelessly naïve?

The more I am engaged with the issues of gendered literature, though, the more I suspect I have been misled all these past years. I have, of course, been aware of the lengthening gender acronym -LGBTQIA…- that threatens, like the the old lady who lived in the shoe in that Mother Goose rhyme, to outgrow its useful home. In its quest to include and define each shade of  difference -as laudable as that may seem on first glance- it threatens to fragment like shattered glass: useful to nobody as a container. I am, rather oddly, reminded of the advice of the Indian philosopher, Jiddu Krishnamurti, who felt that we should not attempt to categorize, or name something too finely -God, in his example: the name confines and overly limits the concept being promulgated.

The dangers of over-inclusion surfaced when I attempted to read an essay by Georgia Warnke, a professor of political science at the University of California, Riverside, published in Aeon: https://aeon.co/essays/do-analytic-and-continental-philosophy-agree-what-woman-is

‘The famed online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy offers separate articles on analytic and continental feminism (although with a separate article on intersections between the two). The article on analytic feminism notes its commitment to careful argumentation and to ‘the literal, precise, and clear use of language’, while that on continental feminism notes its interest in unveiling precisely those ‘non-discursive deep-seated biases and blind spots … not easily detected by an exclusive focus on the examination of arguments’. A few minutes of reflection suggested that neither my vocabulary nor my intellect may be up to the task, but I ploughed on, nonetheless -still curious about the subject.

‘The article on analytic feminism emphasises the importance of the philosophy of language, epistemology and logic; that on continental feminism the importance of postmodernism, psychoanalysis and phenomenology.’ Whoa. What was I asking my obviously non-postmodern brain to assimilate? It was only when I stumbled upon ‘we can begin with a core feminist question: namely, who or what are women? Who are the subjects to whose freedom and equality feminist philosophers are committed?’ that I sensed a meadow just through the trees and across the creek.

There have been waves of Feminist philosophy, ‘Yet for later feminists, references to sex and gender have served primarily to highlight differences between different groups of women, and to underscore the difficulty of defining women so as to include all those who ought to be included, and to exclude those who ought not.’ For example, take genetic sex. If a woman is restricted to somebody who possesses two X chromosomes, then what happens to trans women -or those who don’t see themselves as binarily constrained? Or those who have various abnormalities in the functioning of their hormones which might force them into a different category?

Is it all down to chromosomes then, or can we also include what they look like -or feel like, for that matter? The question, really, is about definitions it seems -equally applicable to the gendering of both chromosomal sexes. ‘When we turn to gender and define women as those who conform to certain socially and culturally prescribed behaviours, roles, attitudes and desires, we run into similar quandaries. Women possess different races, ethnicities, sexualities, religions and nationalities, and they belong to different socioeconomic classes… Such differences can give rise to different concerns and interests… For example, if emancipation for upper- and middle-class white American women who were historically discouraged from working outside the home involves the freedom to take on paid work, for American working-class women and women of colour who historically needed to or were required to work outside the home, emancipation might involve precisely the freedom to care full-time for one’s own family.’ I have to say, that’s a good point -I had not even considered that before. So is there anything that gendered women have in common?

One commonality, suggested by Sally Haslanger, a professor of philosophy and linguistics at MIT, is oppression. ‘To be a woman is to be subordinated in some way because of real or imagined biological features that are meant to indicate one’s female role in reproduction.’ In many ways, this can be inclusive of trans women, etc., but the problem point is somebody like the Queen of England: ‘if one is not subordinated at all or at least not because of presumptions about one’s biological role – perhaps the Queen of England – then one is not a woman according to this definition.’

There have been other attempts at inclusively defining a woman, of course. Simone de Beauvoir (the woman who was close to Sartre) felt that gender was a result of socialization, whereas Judith Butler, a professor of comparative literature at UC, Berkeley, saw it as ‘the imposition of a set of behavioural and attitudinal norms. She suggests that, as such, it is an effect of power.’ An interesting corollary of this, though, is that ‘the challenge turns out to be that women are themselves effects of power, so that emancipation from relations of power and subordination requires emancipation from being women.’

At this point, I have to say, I was beginning to feel like a kitten chasing its own tail. The arguments and counterarguments seemed self-defeating: lofty rhetoric full of sound and fury, yet signifying nothing, if I may borrow from Shakespeare’s Macbeth.

An attempt to escape from this paradox was suggested by Butler herself: ‘by replacing emancipation with what she calls ‘resignification’, a process of taking up the effects of power and redeploying them.   Although women are effects of power, this power is never accomplished once and for all but must be perpetually reinforced and, moreover, we reinforce it in the ways we act as gendered beings… But we can also behave in ways that undermine this supposed naturalness. We can poke fun at our gendered ways of acting and we can act differently. Drag performances, for example, can camp up stereotypical feminine modes of behaviours and by doing so demonstrate their performance elements.’

Now that struck me as ingenious -like ancient Greek theatre undressing the powerful for all to understand how much we all share in common. And anyway, my head was spinning by the time I reached that stage in the essay; I needed something to hold fast to -some sort of solution.

Maybe the suggestion about how drag performances demonstrate the foolishness of our stereotypes about sexual roles is a very apt observation. And yet, remember, we are, all of us, together in this world; we need only step back a bit to see how little official definitions matter. After all, whatever -or whoever- each of us thinks they are is all that matters in the end, isn’t it?  We are such stuff as dreams are made on… Aren’t we?

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Talking Heads

It has lately been brought to my attention that I speak differently than a woman. That wasn’t really a surprise, or anything -I mean, of course I do. I also dress differently, but that’s not what’s being pointed out -it’s just my speech, apparently. And yet, apart from the obvious pitch problems that I find myself unable to efficiently modulate, it was never my intention to discriminate. And I don’t want to stand out in a crowd -or, for that matter, create one either.

In fairness, though, the issue seems to stretch back into antiquity. Women have always spoken differently than their male companions: things like indirect or tentative answers, use of past tenses, or using questions as non-commands: the “Do you think we could…” or the “I was wondering if you’d mind if…” These, instead of “I want you to…” or “Have it on my desk before you leave!”

I have to say, I’ve never thought of gendered dialogue in those terms before, although they’re often readily apparent if you listen for them. I gather that not many other people have noticed, either -until recently, that is. In fact, it would seem that one of the first linguists to notice and study it was University of California Berkeley Professor of Linguistics Robin Lakoff (now Emerita) who published a book Language and Woman’s Place back in 1975.

I suppose that we habituate to things that seem commonplace around us, things that have always been the way they are until somebody, a stranger maybe, wonders about it.

We have grown so accustomed to the difference that when it is employed by the ‘wrong’ side, the disparity is glaring -and for some, annoying. Irritating. It’s almost as if there is a class structure in play with one side expected to behave deferentially to the other. And if they don’t, there are repercussions: assumptions of undeserved usurpation of authority, frequently alluded to in hurtful, gendered epithets, or sexual innuendoes. There are, it would seem, glass ceilings in both communication and social structures.

I have to admit that I first heard about this in a CBC Ideas podcast. The host, Paul Kennedy was interviewing Dr. Laura Hare on her PhD thesis about female speech patterns in the original text of the Hebrew bible (Old Testament). It would seem that women then used words and language patterns that were deferential to men. Probably the most flagrant example in that text of a female crossing the boundary by using decidedly male language was Queen Jezebel. She, of course, was characterized as evil and killed. The very fact that an important woman had violated convention no doubt contributed to her story being included in the Bible -as a warning, perhaps; certainly not as a role model.

But her example merely opens the curtains on a previously dark room. A solitary prisoner escaping from Plato’s cave.

*

You can learn a lot about yourself on a bus you know. Conversations are sometimes inevitable, although uninvited. I had managed to find a seat next to a window on a rapidly filling bus when an elderly lady plumped herself down beside me guarding an enormous blue canvas purse that she held prisoner on her lap. She wore a long, fading red coat and her greying hair, although at one time likely bobby-pinned in place, was now in regal disarray.

I tried not to notice, but the dimensions of the blue sack demanded a considerable overlap into my space. The woman, though, seemed not to notice its trespass and proceeded to rummage about in its innards on exploratory dives, surfacing every so often both for air, and to warn me off.

Finally, when I felt something hard in it knock me in the waist, I felt I should at least acknowledge her search with a forgiving smile. But she was unrepentant, and grilled me with suspicious eyes.

“That’s quite a purse,” I said, more to break the ice than anything.

“It’s where I live,” she muttered after a more thorough raking with her cold brown eyes.

I thought her metaphor delightful and broadened my smile, but that only hardened her expression. “I’m sorry,” I managed to say under the unremitting glare of her face. “I didn’t mean to…”

“Forget it,” she mumbled and dived back into her purse again like an otter. This time she seemed determined to find whatever it was and constantly knocked something against my leg.

I tried to move strategically out of the way of her constantly moving fingers, but they continued to gnaw away at something inside the bag no matter my efforts to escape. Finally, my patience wearing thin, I sighed and stared at the moving blue creature that seemed intent on encroachment. “I was wondering if perhaps it might help if we traded seats, ma’am,” I said as politely as I could.

She stared at me for a moment, considering the offer. “No, you stay there… or, actually, just squeeze over towards the window for a moment so I’ll have more room to search,” she added imperiously. No please, or thank you; I had been effectively commodified. Livestocked.

I didn’t like the way she said it, but I was on a bus, and trapped in a window seat that had only a limited squeeze range. “I’m not sure I have much room left. Do you think you could try turning the bag over, or something -redistribute the contents maybe…?”

I watched her eyes drift towards me like crinkled leaves floating on a slowly moving stream. “I’m looking for something, mister,” she said, impatiently. “Just be patient.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…”

“I’m getting off at the next stop anyway,” she interrupted. “Pull the cord for me, will you?” she added, pointing to the little wire running loosely above the window.

I did what I was told, of course -anything to get the lumpy bag off my leg- and for the first time she smiled. “It’s a big heavy bag,” she muttered grumpily as she gathered it into a more carriable form.

“Hope I didn’t get in your way too much,” I said, trying to sound conciliatory, and thinking she had perhaps made a feeble attempt at apology. “I hope you find what you were looking for…”

She got to her feet, her smile now a sad remnant on an aging face lined with hardship, and I watched her hobble to the door, trying to manage the unmanageable bag as best she could.

It occurred to me then just how differently we speak to each other across the divide, although I’m not sure which side I’m standing on anymore…