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Gender Civ (Jack Sanderson) - Coggle Diagram
Gender Civ (Jack Sanderson)
Theory
How did we get here?
Schiebinger, "Mammals"
Linnaeus called mammals "mammals," loosely translating to "of the breast." Why did he do this? Consciously, it was probably just because breasts are characteristic of mammals. But Linnaeus coined this term during an ongoing debate about the domestic role of women, and Linnaeus himself was a major proponent of women nursing their own children. In all likelihood, this affected his decision, highlighting how gendered ideas can deeply influence science, which we might hope is a purely objective field.
Why this category: Schiebinger traces through a historical example to prove a universal truth: gender runs deeper than we might think.
The entrenchment of gender norms runs deep in society and science.
Engels,
The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State
Modern society is patriarchal. Why? Before there was private property, families were generally matrilineal. Once the agricultural revolution occurred, however, fathers started wanting their children to be able to keep the father's goods. The only way for a father to guarantee a child was his own was through the enforcement of monogamy, and so monogamy became the norm. Sex love—which many people attribute to the invention of monogamy—therefore only started long after economic conditions brought about monogamy.
Why this category: Engels largely focuses on how we got to our current state, interested in the role that economic motives played in bringing us to where we are.
How is it now?
Beauvoir,
The Second Sex
"What is a woman?" (3). It is not some concept enshrined in a "Platonic heaven" (3), it is not just biology. It is an "Other", an object, existing in opposition to the subject: man. Womanhood is a situation, in that it is not produced innately, but only within this situational opposition to man. Situations, though, can change, which is important to remember to see a way out of a misogynistic society. Womanhood has not "always been like that."
Why these categories: In the introduction to
The Second Sex
, Beauvoir tries to pin down exactly what she wants to figure out about women in (her) today's world. She throws away some theories, raises some questions, and proposes the ephemerality of the current gender setup, serving to outline the rest of the book.
West and Zimmerman, "Doing Gender"
Gender is not something that is achieved, but something that is
done,
and it has a looser connection to sex that many realize. Somebody's genitalia does not determine how people see them if they perform all the acts associated with the opposite gender, which causes others to place them in the opposite sex category (which is complicated, but perhaps it is the socially assumed sex that derives from the observation of how they do gender). In fact, we always presume that "others are displaying it [their sex category] for us, in as decisive a fashion as they can" (134). Therefore, gender is a situated doing that is doing individually, but constituted only through situational interactions.
Why this category: West and Zimmerman here aim to get rid of the idea that gender is purely an expression of one's sex in favor of a more accurate and nuanced description of exactly how gender relates to one's sex (a socially-determined biological criteria) and, more strongly, to one's sex category.
Weeks, "Social Construction of Sexuality"
Sexuality is not some biological essence, but a product of social and historical forces. Sexual categories like "homosexuality" only emerged at specific historical moments, challenging the notion that sexuality is some unchanging concept. To understand sexuality, therefore, we need to examine its relationship with power, discourses, and other social conditions that define sexual norms and identities throughout time.
Why these categories: Weeks uses historical examples to highlight that today—as always—what we understand to be "sexuality"/"sexualities" is/are not set in stone.
Earlier texts that highlight the non-essentiality of sex, gender, and sexuality—concepts that often seem unquestionable and foundational to society.
Wittig, "One is not Born a Woman"
"Woman" is a political class created by "men" to oppress "women." Lesbians therefore escape this oppression in that they are not defined in opposition to men, and uniquely so: lesbians have individuality/subjectivity (existing outside the classes of women/men) but also community (this shared existence outside of these classes). This subjectivity with community ought to be extended to everyone, which requires a "whole conceptual reevaluation of the social world" (250). How will we do this? Wittig does not say.
Why these categories: Wittig does not like the idea of "woman" as some sort of class worth keeping, and is taking aim at feminists who believe that celebrating womanhood is the way out of misogyny. Wittig then argues that we need to complete reevaluate our social systems in order to truly abolish the class of "woman."
Buter, "Performative Acts and Gender Constitution"
Gender is
performative
in that it is constituted in everyday social acts. "The act that one does, the act that one performs, is, in a sense, an act that has been going on before one arrived on the scene. Hence, gender is an act which has been rehearsed, much as a script survives the particular actors who make use of it, but which requires individual actors in order to be actualized and reproduced as reality once again" (527). Gender consequently is only real to the extent that it is performed (528). To move beyond this, we need to abandon the idea that gender
expresses
something and understand that its grounding is, in reality, wholly arbitrary.
Why these categories: In their essay, Butler dissects
why
gender is continually reinforced, generation after generation. They then move to (briefly) proposing ways out of such a system of gender that is often incorrectly understood to be expressive of something real.
TallBear, "Beyond Settler Sex and
Family"
The nuclear family and modern sexual monogamy is a product of settler colonialism and was developed in part to displace indigenous peoples, who had a very rich and diverse kinship structure, with a heavy relation to sexuality. For them, sexuality was a form of relation to and distribution of power, not something simply fixed. "Sexual monogamy can in one interpretation be seen as hoarding another person’s body and desire, which seems at odds with the broader ethic of sharing that undergirds extended kinship." (157) Promoting a return to kinship requires everyone working as a collective: "Decolonization is not an individual choice." (152).
Why these categories: TallBear's work touches on the history of different modes of thinking about sexuality, the current oppressive sexual regime, and a number of reasons why we should be interested in returning to one of the older modes found in indigenous Americans.
Rubin, "The Traffic in Women"
"We cannot dismantle something that we underestimate or do not understand. The oppression of women is deep; equal pay, equal work, and all of the female politicians in the world will not extirpate the roots of sexism. Lévi-Strauss and Freud elucidate what would otherwise be poorly perceived parts of the deep structures of sex oppression. They serve as reminders of the intractability and magnitude of what we fight, and their analyses provide preliminary charts of the social machinery we must rearrange." (198) The oppression of women is far deeper than most people realize, being maintained by social systems as basic as kinship. This is necessary to understand before seeking a way out.
Why these categories: Rubin traces the history of kinship systems and psychoanalysis to highlight just how deep misogyny runs in modern society.
Rubin draws from Engels in her historical analysis.
Foucault,
The History of Sexuality
Sexuality was never repressed beginning in the Victorian era. Rather, it became discussed everywhere, though generally in a roundabout way. Through this invention of sexuality, the state's power shifted from being over
death
(the power to take lives) to being over
life
(the power to create life, or biopower). Despite this, many people think that expression of and engagement with sexuality fights back against the state's power, as the sexual repression hypothesis is still common knowledge. Unfortunately, sexual expression falls exactly in line with where the state exerts its power today. Power is thus no longer centralized, but diffuse throughout our lives, inextricably embedded in concepts that initially seem orthogonal to power's operation.
Why these categories: Foucault is interested in how power operates in modern society, and the history of how we got here (hence the book's title:
The History of Sexuality
).
Jackson, "Sexual Necropolitics"
While Foucault conceived of biopower primarily as the power of the state to
create
life, over some people the state yields it more in the form of
necropower
: the power of the state to disallow life to the point of death. Of particular pertinence here is the US prison system—known for its many flaws—and where improvements to prisoner quality of life risk being applied only to those who meet the biopolitical criteria (white inmates), while those falling under the necropolitical criteria (Black and other minority inmates) get left out. Worse, almost all these improvements require more state intervention, despite the state being the cause of most of the prison system's problems.
Why these categories: Jackson here aims to nuance Foucault's theory of biopower on the lines of race, across which the state often differs in its application of its power. This more nuanced necropolitical theory helps us better describe the discriminatory problem in today's society, and points us to a way out.
Critiques Foucault, or at least believes his account of power to be incomplete.
Mohanty, "Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses"
Western feminists often view third-world women as some sort of monolith, uniformly oppressed, uneducated, victimized, etc. This is a kind of "discursive colonization" which uses women's experiences in the West as an implicit norm, reinforcing Western cultural imperialism. It is only through "context-specific differentiated analysis" that feminist theory and practice could "acquire significance" (347).
Why these categories: Mohanty takes issue with the current state of Western feminism an dits one-dimensional view of women in non-Western countries. As a replacement, she calls for others to be more nuanced in their analysis of non-Western feminism.
Mohanty may take issue with TallBear's account of indigenous sexuality on the grounds of it being more homogeneous than is probably accurate.
Where should we go?
Zhen, "Economic Revolution and Women’s Revolution"
(In early 1900s China) Women depend on men financially through the practice of marriage. If one looks at this fact a certain way, this is no different that prostitution: the selling of one's body for money. Marriages are thus not about love: "instead of naming this kind of transaction [marriage] 'the [gender] relationship between men and women,' it is more accurate to name it '[class] relationship between poor and rich.'" (102-103). If we want marriages to be about love, then, we ought to abolish money.
Why these categories: Zhen is primarily interested in calling for the tight coupling of a women's revolution with an economic revolution, as for her, you cannot have a women's revolution as long as money is a concept.
Tight coupling of gender and economics.
Thrasher, "Seeking Sanctuary, Embracing Exile: Queer
Life on the Run"
Thrasher's life had been thrown for a loop when he failed to get tenure and was essentially blacklisted from other academic jobs in the United States, forcing him to leave the country. This constant state of being in motion and never getting to settle downis shared with many other oppressed groups throughout the world, notably including Palestinians. We might then ask if always being in motion can serve as a new definition of queer.
Why this category: Thrasher proposed a new definition of queerness.
Practice
How did we get here?
Roberts, "The Failure of Dobbs"
Roe v. Wade only offered narrow protection for the most privileged women, and did not address the criminalization of pregnancy and families applied to some marginalized groups. Now it offers nothing, and the adoption system is currently too broken (and rooted in slavery) to be the solution.
"Although there are obvious distinctions between exploiting the reproductive labor of enslaved women and prohibiting abortion, there is also a profound resemblance in the denial of autonomy caused by compelled pregnancy" (181)
"The rhetoric of saving babies is a guise to justify expanding the government’s power to regulate individuals, families, and communities even beyond what is currently permitted by the criminal legal system" (185)
Why this category: Roberts is concerned primarily with practical matters of reproductive justice, and in this piece specifically, the connection of the current lack of reproductive justice to slavery.
Same author!
How is it now?
Sappho,
If Not, Winter, Fragments of Sappho
Fragment 94: Sappho again is weeping after a lover (woman) left her. "Sappho, I swear, against my will I leave you" hurts the same as "it's not you, it's me" (but 2500 years before today—this lover was ahead of their time). Sappho takes it gracefully in the moment, saying to remember the good times they had: "and on a soft bed // delicate // you would let loose your longing".
Why this category: Sappho elucidated the (at the time) current pangs of an early queer heart.
(At least partly) Stories of forbidden love.
Fausto-Sterling, "The Five Sexes"
There are at least three intersex sexes, and as many as 4% of people may be intersex at birth. We've known about intersexuality for a long time, but in the past 50 years they've become to be deemed as "freaks", with science (surgery) being the necessary tool to make them "normal." Instead of this disciplinary role, Fausto-Sterling argues, science should simply serve to make life better.
Why these categories: Fausto-Sterling traces the history of intersexuality going back to Medieval Europe through the origin of its taboo-ness in modern society. She then proposes a reframing of how science serves society to help address the problems caused by the current way we treat intersex people.
Velocci, "The History of Sex Research"
It's become clear that sex isn't as coherent of a topic as we think, and oftentimes certain indicators for sex can conflict with others! And yet, we still treat it as some coherent, easy-to-understand category: "even as scientific inquiry produced endless evidence that sex was neither straightforward to identify nor binary, sex continued to function as a foundational classification system for science and everyday life" (1345). Unfortunately, forcing scientists to work within a sex binary ultimately then influences which questions they ask and what answers they get, so it's high time we start actively moving away from the assumption of a sex binary.
Why these categories: Velocci diagnoses a problem and prescribes a solution.
Kincaid, "Girl"
Instructions for womanhood. Perhaps not as playful as might initially come to mind: "this is how to spit up in the air if you feel like it, and this is how to move quick so that it doesn’t fall on you;" "this is how to make a good medicine to throw away a child before it even becomes a child".
Why this category: these instructions are for how to operate as a woman
today
.
Use of repetition that—at times—can create great discomfort in the reader.
Spade, "Mutilating Gender"
The invention of transsexuality placed
limits
on the extent to which someone can alter their body. Many of these norms are arbitrary, and they are only upheld by gatekeeping doctors and psychiatrists. Trans people recognize this arbitrariness and teach each other how to game the system, but people should be more free to alter their bodies; the system shouldn't have to be gamed.
Why these categories: Spade is primarily interested in dissecting the current system for allowing or disallowing gender-affirming care, and calls for a new system that instead allows what is (perhaps) less arbitrary gender-related body alterations.
Forced me to sit digest their ideas because how how the piece was written, even if I didn't complete agree with them.
Roy, "Foreign Babies, Indian Make"
Surrogacy does not exist in a race/class neutral environment; there's always the problem of privilege and the commodification of the human body. The nuclear family (and the desire for genetically-related children) is driving a demand for commercial surrogacy in poorer countries, which ultimately reinforces the unequal power dynamic between the Global North and the Global South.
Why this category: Roy is bringing attention to what's becoming an increasingly big problem in the hopes that we can prevent it from getting worse.
There's a world outside of North American and Europe, and that world's problems are complicated yet should not be overlooked.
Mack and Smith,
Revolting Prostitutes
Some people (Erotic Professionals & friends) think that sex work is something women exclusively do for empowerment, and if you aren't doing it for empowerment, you aren't a real sex worker. Other people think that, necessarily, "it's not sex work, it's exploitation" (42). Both of these beliefs are rather harmful and ignore the fact that just like
any other job
, sex work is
just work
. Understanding this is key to understanding why sex workers deserve better job protections from the state, as their job is like any other.
Why these categories: in their work, Mack and Smith touch on the current state of attitudes towards sex work, the historical development of the Erotic Professional and the anti-prostitution feminist, and the rather simple way out of the conundrum.
Sometimes things
aren't
as complicated as one might think, and when they aren't, we should treat them normally (be it a surgery or a sex work job).
Berg, "Hustling in the Gig Economy"
The introduction of the late-capitalist gig economy significantly changes the traditional bourgeoisie-proletariat power dynamic. Workers can now work for themselves (which is good), but this often leads to
individuals
grasping at whatever advantage they can get, which ultimately
hurts
class consciousness. The gig economy also makes social analysis a lot more nuanced: some workers prefer the satellite industries to the primary industry, some don't; some prefer being their own manager, some don't.
Why this category: Berg sheds light on the current (surprisingly) complex dynamics of an industry that most people overlook.
Lorde, "A Litany for Survival"
"and when we speak we are afraid // our words will not be heard // nor welcomed // but when we are silent // we are still afraid"
"So it is better to speak // remembering // we were never meant to survive."
Why this category: Lorde abstractly yet vividly details the struggles that "we" (women? Black women?) face every single day.
Lover's Rock
Given that state hostility is the status quo for Black people, any place where they can experience joy is its own form of resistance. To this end, collective world-making can fight exclusion (similar to, for example, what the CRC, what Wittig calls for with lesbians, and Stephen Thrasher's new definition of queer).
Why this category: McQueen aims to demonstrate the above facts that—while rather pertinent to today's society and how we should understand oppressed peoples' resistance—is rather non-obvious.
Community-building as a form of resistance.
Where should we go?
Nettleton, "Brave Sperm and Demure Eggs"
Online educational videos are full of gendered descriptions of the human fertilization process. These are obviously inaccurate as sperm and eggs do not follow social norms the way humans do, but they serve to reinforce gender norms at a very basic scientific level, highlighting just how entrenched social constructs can become in our lives. "Biological accuracy is sacrificed in order to perpetuate an enduring cultural narrative of male heroes and conquerers who win females as passive prizes and trophies." (41)
Why these categories: Nettleton first highlights a problem in today's pop science literature and proposes the solution to the problem (which is simply not doing the problematic gendering to begin with).
Roberts, "The Meaning of Liberty"
The government has quite a bad history with reproductive justice; it offers abortions, but doesn't provide financial assistance for them, and while it offers social support programs such as welfare, being on welfare often requires being on birth control. Women—and Black women specifically—simply deserve the right to have access to safe and effective birth control methods without being coerced into them, as well as support for the children that they
do
choose to have. Liberty
to
, not just liberty
from
.
Why this category: Roberts is setting the stage for reproductive
justice
, not just reproductive
rights
.
But I'm a Cheerleader
Why this category: this movie (I believe effectively) demonstrates the ridiculousness of some common reductive views of gender and sexuality by reducing many of the motives behind gay conversion therapy to an absurdity. The fact that the movie is so ridiculous is a pretty clear signal that we should probably move on from whichever norms call for such ridiculousness.
Both
How is it now?
Crenshaw, "The Intersection of Race and
Sex"
Traditional legal understandings of discrimination state that discrimination is, for example, on the basis of race, class, or sex. This "implies that the boundaries of sex and race discrimination doctrine are defined respectively by white women's and Black men's experiences" (143), leaving Black women completely out of the picture. Despite this, Black women do often face unique forms of discrimination, yet still deserve to speak on behalf of all women or all Black people. To square this circle, we need a theory of intersectionality.
Why "both": Crenshaw targets the insufficiencies of modern anti-discrimination laws and proposes a new, more nuanced way of thinking about oppression to address these insufficiencies.
With discrimination, the whole can be greater than the sum of its parts. To analyze the whole, therefore, we need intersectionality.
Combahee River Collective Statement
"It was our experience and disillusionment within these liberation movements, as well as experience on the periphery of the white male left, that led to the need to develop a politics that was anti-racist, unlike those of white women, and anti-sexist, unlike those of Black and white men." (17)
"There is also undeniably a personal genesis for Black feminism, that is, the political realization that comes from the seemingly personal experiences of individual Black women’s lives" (17)
"We believe that the most profound and potentially most radical politics come directly out of our own identity, as opposed to working to end somebody else’s oppression" (19)
There is something unique about the oppression Black women face that was inadequately captured by the women's and civil rights movements of the time.
Why "both": the CRC is recognizing a very pragmatic problem faced by Black women that theory has no answer to; while they don't propose as deep of a theory as Crenshaw to rectify this discrepancy, their work does practically address the issue.
Where should we go?
Gumbs,
Undrowned
"Identify" to "identify
with
." Many of our observations of marine mammals come from marine mammals in captivity. Our observations of humans are no different.
Why this category: Gumbs draws from the operate of marine mammals to illuminate a possible kinder future for humans.
We can learn more about human society from investigating mammals than you might think.
Color Guide
Yellow = Theory
Red = Practice
Pink(ish) = Both
Blue = Extra Connections
, some hyperspecific to two pieces (e.g., this author might critique another), others more general themes.
Sorry if it's rather messy (I tried my best to prevent the lines from overlapping the summaries)!