sex and gender
More comments now included!
I was in middle school in 1993 when Delphy wrote this article, so I was not exactly aware of the prevailing feminist theories, but when I took my first women's history class (that basically amounted to a women's studies course) in high school I feel as though I already had a sense of the division between sex and gender, the malleability of both categories, the play of androgyny, etc. As I read especially the first half of Delphy I felt as though I was reading theory from my Intro to WoSt. This article seems then to be speaking down to feminists in some ways, rehashing things we already know and claiming that: "They [feminists] all want to keep some elements of gender." Even if a claim could be made about ALL feminists, does Delphy consider herself a feminist? If so then her statement is already false. Beyond the parts of Delphy's article that were automatically off-putting to me (like accusing Derrida's followers of being clones) I found her overall point to be useful.
I like watching C-SPAN a lot. They cover all the things going on around the capitol and that includes press conferences of various NGO's and citizen lobbying groups on a myriad of issues, including feminist or women's organizations. I have been struck, the few times that I've seen these press conferences, at the declarative language that comes out of the women speaking. They are speaking for all women in this country. While I understand first hand the positive impact that such organizations can have in the political process, it still bothered me that they were on national television declaring the needs and priorities of "women." In many ways Delphy is right, many feminists do essentialize sex and gender; they have to in order to organize around the category of woman. Delphy is also right in saying that the ultimate goal should be to denaturalize sex as dichotomous, but when working in a place where there are actually people who think of certain people as being lesser than others, it is mighty difficult to go in there and work for denaturalization o sex. I saw Phyllis Kahn try on the floor of the State House of Representatives and people laughed at her. It was during the debate on HF 7 (the anti-gay marriage amendment). She stood up and said This language is quite ambiguous! It says marriage shall be between one man and one woman. But there is no definition of man and woman. What about intersex people, what about people who do not fit in the traditional dichotomy of male-female? She addressed the question to the Republican side of the aisle. One Republican female member responded by yelling that Kahn should know a woman when she sees one.
Okay... I liked what Richard had to saw on many different topics: the ways that art gets co-oped by mainstream culture in order to desperse its revolutionary potential, the empty courting of plurality by mainstream culture in order to placate the 'others' in society, the fact that we can't simply get rid of masculinity in order to solve our gender hierarchies, and a myriad of other things. While I very much loved readingthis book with all its language play and eccentric grammar with spiraling sentances, I don't feel changed after reading it. PerhapsI was just in a sour mood after Delphy, but when she started out tlaking about the revolutionary new critique I had high expectations.
the one part that stood out however, was the section about artists. Before I started this book I write my final paper proposal and it was basically about many of the things she talked about in this article. I am a dancer and took a class i nthe dance department call Philosophy and Aesthetics of Dance. We talked about many of these same issues and one of the key ones I took away from that class was: how ideas of quality are never politically neutral. Many people have argued that each person has their own tastes in art and that's okay. Of course it is. But I think people often view that quality judgement as not effected by politics. People don't usually think, I don't like this painting because it's too revolutionary or it challenges my white privilege; but just because it's not concious doens't mean it's not happening. This is a very simplistic way of putting it but, those quality judgements are alway grounded in some sort of politcs.