Jag ser Lukas Moodyssons Vi är bäst! på bio. I dessa tider får man ta tillfället i akt och knalla iväg till biografen när det inte är skramligt actionäventyr på programmet. Jag gillar filmen, och är oenig med HBL:s filmrecensent att den är för snäll. Jag blir glad av den och det känns inte suspekt att vara glad (som att filmen skulle ha manipulerat mig). Men en sak stör mig. Efteråt diskuterar jag med min kompis på den där ena väldigt gubbiga men mysiga baren i centrum (det är alltid lite dubbelt att gå dit, jag gör det i alla fall). Filmen handlar om ungar som spelar i punkband. De har just börjat spela och är fulla av glädje och frustration över musiken. Gott och väl. Sen förs ett alltför bekant narrativ in: ungarna blir kära (eller snarare: bestämmer sig för att bli kära), och formatet är: "tjejer blir kära i killar, tjejer strider om killar, killarna splittrar tjejernas gemensamhet". Att det finns en scen där saker tar en lite annan riktning gör det lite bättre, men att ha den här trötta klichén med och fokusera så pass mycket som man gör på den är trist. Det finns inget intressant eller särskilt kritiskt med hur det hela ställs upp. Det går enligt regelböckerna. Redan när jag börjar se scenen vet jag hur den ska sluta, och så där håller det på när ämnet avhandlas.
Jag och min kompis diskuterar vidare. Uttryckssättet "att bekanta sig med det motsatta könet" nämns. Om det är något som enligt mig innehåller en hel historia av trötta och unkna saker, är det bruket av detta uttryck, "att bekanta sig med det motsatta könet". Man utgår från att det finns något slags grundläggande skillnad som uppdagas i barns möten med Det Motsatta Könet, och att människolivet mer eller mindre går ut på att meditera och gruva sig över denna numinösa skillnad. Vad som händer, i själva verket: i uttryck som "att bekanta sig med det motsatta könet" är det en skillnad som skapas, befästs och upprätthålls. Och framförallt är det en mystifiering av kön och mänskligt liv, en produktion av tvåkönsmodell som lyfts upp som nåt slags metafysisk sanning om livet: manligt och kvinnligt, bara att "utforska". Lusekoftan på, god tur, liksom. Det perspektiv på andra människor som följer av "att utforska det motsatta könet" är att personer egentligen inte är något i sig själva, de är ju ändå bara representanter för den eviga sanningen om Könet. Och att den där jävla metafysiken beskrivs i ett språk som växlar från upptäcktsresa till romantik till "ja men så är ju män/kvinnor, det måste vi kvinnor/män leva med och stå ut med". Kort och gott, pudelns kärna, hallå alla författare/regissörer/andra (om ni inte heter Jelinek och kan hantera det där medelst molotovcoctails): om det är något man ska LÅTA BLI är det att "utforska det motsatta könet". Det gör livet så mycket tråkigare och hemskare än det de facto är.
Ja, redan tanken om "motsatt kön" finner jag ytterst suspekt. Är det helt riktigt på riktigt handen på hjärtat nån som identifierar sig med det där snacket om "det motsatta könet", där ni skulle tycka att sådant prat säger något belysande om hur världen är eller om människorna ni relaterar till i era liv? Man kan också fundera på hur idéerna om två motsatta kön förutsätter en tanke om heterosexualitet (som naturligtvis också förvandlas till en metafysisk regim).
Snabbgoogling på "det motsatta könet": "saker vi inte uppskattar hos det motsatta könet", "Vad attraheras du av hos det motsatta könet?" (alltså monsterfniss: jag ser framför mig nåt slags Frankensteinfigur: det motsatta könet liksom), "klä sig som det motsatta könet", "otillåtet att vara ensam med det motsatta könet", "homosexuell p.g.a dåliga relationer till det motsatta könet?", "Vill prova att vara av det motsatta könet för en dag". Osv. Och den bästa: "kan man vara nära vän med det motsatta könet?" Sen finns det tydligen en bok som heter Myten om det motsatta könet. Låter lovande.
Showing posts with label gender. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gender. Show all posts
8 December 2013
9 May 2010
Att vara man är att vara intressant
Jag är trött på att gubbar är allt som hörs, syns, finns.
Jag är trött på att själv upprätthålla den här tendensen på tusen olika sätt. På senare tid har det slagit mig hur nästan samtliga av de samtal och diskussioner (IRL, på bloggar, i böcker och tidningar) som handlar om människor som är överintellektuellt knasiga, drastiskt äventyrliga, lite crazy, formidabelt samhällsutmanande - handlar om män. Det kan vara en hüttesvärmande Heidegger, eller Calle Linds blogg (En man med ett skägg) om (för det allra mesta, när vi inte ser en randanteckning om Lill-Babs eller Zarah Leander) gubbar i alla kategorier som i någon bemärkelse genom sitt liv och leverne förkroppsligar det intressanta och det skojiga. Det rör sig om exemplar som Lars Berghagen, Snoddas, Henning Sjöström eller Ingmar Bergman. Tänk också på varelser, döda och levande, som Hemingway, Hunter S. Thompson, Pete Doherty, Thorsten Flinck, Lars Norén, Wittgenstein, Jackson Pollock, Göran Persson, Ebbe Carlsson, Bukowski, Morrissey, Nalle Wahlroos, Jörn Donner. Vad de här har gemensamt är att de som personer spelar huvudrollen i historier om drastiskt, excentriskt eller komiskt beteende.
I de här diskussionerna finns det i och för sig ett kritiskt element. Ofta tycker jag att det är roligt att prata om de här sakerna (eller läsa Linds blogg) eftersom det är just intellektualism och gubbig självupptagenhet som på ett avslöjande sätt framstår som komiska här. Samtidigt finns det flera saker som gör att allt det här står mig upp i halsen just nu.
Det som stör mig mest här är hur manscentrerade dessa diskussioner blir, totalt uppslukade av män som beter sig si och män som beter sig så. Kvinnor figurerar så gott som aldrig i dem. Här kan man tycka att vad fan, ska man börja hålla koll på att könsfördela sin diskussionstid nu också. Det är inte det. Snarare handlar det om att mitt i all den här übermedvetna ironiskheten (som alltid är självironisk samtidigt) tycks det finnas ett slags suddighet som omger den roll kön spelar. Jag skulle nämligen säga att kön spelar en roll, men det sägs sällan ut. Varför är det så att det är just män som diskuteras på det här sättet? Hur kommer det sig att många av diskussionerna samtidigt uttrycker en form av beundran och fascination för de här mansfigurerna; outsiders, introverta neurotiker, losers, våldsbrukare, hopplösa revolutionärer, nervvrak, konstnärsegon, maktfullkomliga magnater, självupptagna as, extravaganta finsmakare, hämningslösa exhibitionister, pantade existentialister eller pompösa tänkare.
Förstå mig rätt: jag är själv någon som ofta tycker att de här gubbarna föranleder många ögonblick av stor komik. Men samtidigt undrar jag vem jag själv blir genom den här fascinationen.
Som Aase Berg visar i flera av essäerna som ingår i Uggla är det ingen som beundrar den kvinnliga varianten av de här typerna. Rättshaveristen, gnällkäringen, grogghaggan, fylletanten, hysterikan. (Det finns en rätt stor feministisk diskussion om hur könat outsiderskapet är - kanske någon vet en referens.) Visst, det skämtas om Kikki Danielsson, men är hon föremål för den form av fascination som en megalomanisk Thorsten Flinck utövar? Nä du. Det är hon inte. Finns det män som ägnar timmar åt att återberätta Courtney Loves livshistoria? Inte så många. Det enda motexempel jag kommer på är det intresse som på senare tid riktats mot divor av olika slag. Den kvinnliga divan tillåts vara plump och bitchig (och könsutmanande), och hennes liv börjar i likhet med den manliga outsidern att betraktas som en outsinlig anekdotkälla.
Jag vet inte exakt hur jag ska förstå hela den här grejen. Är kvinnor tråkiga och trista propra varelser? Ja, det har man ju hört förr. När kvinnor beter sig överdrivet är det motbjudande och pinsamt - inte existentiellt hisnande eller kittlande subversivt. (Eller finns det motexempel? Margaret Thatcher för vissa?) Kvinnor drillas till självhat och -förakt; att passa in, att vara till lags och till tjänst. Alltid med ett sött leende. Män drillas till att uppfatta sig själva som genier, framtida ledare, samhällsförändrare. Alltid med ett varggrin eller en ironisk grimas på läpparna.
Det finns ett helt språkbruk för beskrivningar av den manliga outsidern och tokroliga överdrivaren. I själva verket handlar de flesta filmer och böcker om de här mansbilderna. Däremot saknas det här språkbruket nästan helt för kvinnor. En man med ett skägg (bloggen som ofta tematiserar lustiga gubbar) vore smått obegriplig som kvinnlig variant. "Bitterfittor emellan?" Det låter väl som en sån där tycka-synd-om-sig-själv eller må-dåligt sida, va? Kvinnlig, och därför solkig och kletig, solidaritet och inkännande dela-med-sig-empati. = Offermentalitet. "Det är så jobbigt att leva i partriarkatet buuu-hu." You get the point. (På vilket sätt vore En man med ett skägg annorlunda om K. Lind könats annorlunda?)
Tänk på det: varför finns det en drös filmer om manliga revolutionärer som Che Guevara eller manliga losers som Woody Allen eller skälmaktiga cassanovas? Det är sant: i marginalen finns det representationer av kvinnor som på olika sätt ifrågasätter samhället eller kanske ännu: människor som genom sitt agerande (också det besinningslösa) utmanar ett könsförtryckande samhälle (försöka spåna exempel....wating.....processing request....). Men det intressanta som jag försöker peka på är varför manliga urspårare blir kultfigurer för både män och kvinnor, medan det samma knappast gäller för figurer som Valerie Solanas eller Jane Campions film An angel at my table. Det är en del kvinnor, skribenter, komiker och andra, som leker med bilderna av bitterfittan och grogghaggan (Aase Berg bland dem). Och de gör det oftast jävligt bra, roligt och samtidigt kritiskt. Men har du nånsin hört en man göra det? Skulle du få för sig att driva med Simone Weil? Kanske finns det ett grabbgäng nånstans som snöat in sig på Ayn Rand.
Finns det en manlig rädsla att skämta om kvinnor? Kvinnor är ömtåliga, känsliga varelser som inte pallar för skämt? Jag kan förstå vad en sådan rädsla kan handla om, men jag tror inte att den saknar problem. Grundproblemet som jag pratar om handlar ändå om den enorma synlighet män och gubbar har och hur intressant allt som män gör verkar. Också de skräckblandade anekdoterna riskerar att ha sitt finger med i skapandet av en värld där det finns bara män som pratar och handlar och där kvinnor blir varelser som vänder sin uppmärksamhet och beundran mot män.
Vill jag ha "fler kvinnliga förebilder", lite kvinnliga representationer, beundran av det kvinnliga geniet? Äh. Det handlar inte om det. Det handlar om hur vi pratar om saker och människor och vilket slags uppmärksamhet som uttrycks och den anda det görs i.
Slutligen: Är det självupptagna aset verkligen så spännande att man måste skriva femvolymsverk om hans karaktär? Varför är män så hejdlöst intressanta?
Jag är trött på att själv upprätthålla den här tendensen på tusen olika sätt. På senare tid har det slagit mig hur nästan samtliga av de samtal och diskussioner (IRL, på bloggar, i böcker och tidningar) som handlar om människor som är överintellektuellt knasiga, drastiskt äventyrliga, lite crazy, formidabelt samhällsutmanande - handlar om män. Det kan vara en hüttesvärmande Heidegger, eller Calle Linds blogg (En man med ett skägg) om (för det allra mesta, när vi inte ser en randanteckning om Lill-Babs eller Zarah Leander) gubbar i alla kategorier som i någon bemärkelse genom sitt liv och leverne förkroppsligar det intressanta och det skojiga. Det rör sig om exemplar som Lars Berghagen, Snoddas, Henning Sjöström eller Ingmar Bergman. Tänk också på varelser, döda och levande, som Hemingway, Hunter S. Thompson, Pete Doherty, Thorsten Flinck, Lars Norén, Wittgenstein, Jackson Pollock, Göran Persson, Ebbe Carlsson, Bukowski, Morrissey, Nalle Wahlroos, Jörn Donner. Vad de här har gemensamt är att de som personer spelar huvudrollen i historier om drastiskt, excentriskt eller komiskt beteende.
I de här diskussionerna finns det i och för sig ett kritiskt element. Ofta tycker jag att det är roligt att prata om de här sakerna (eller läsa Linds blogg) eftersom det är just intellektualism och gubbig självupptagenhet som på ett avslöjande sätt framstår som komiska här. Samtidigt finns det flera saker som gör att allt det här står mig upp i halsen just nu.
Det som stör mig mest här är hur manscentrerade dessa diskussioner blir, totalt uppslukade av män som beter sig si och män som beter sig så. Kvinnor figurerar så gott som aldrig i dem. Här kan man tycka att vad fan, ska man börja hålla koll på att könsfördela sin diskussionstid nu också. Det är inte det. Snarare handlar det om att mitt i all den här übermedvetna ironiskheten (som alltid är självironisk samtidigt) tycks det finnas ett slags suddighet som omger den roll kön spelar. Jag skulle nämligen säga att kön spelar en roll, men det sägs sällan ut. Varför är det så att det är just män som diskuteras på det här sättet? Hur kommer det sig att många av diskussionerna samtidigt uttrycker en form av beundran och fascination för de här mansfigurerna; outsiders, introverta neurotiker, losers, våldsbrukare, hopplösa revolutionärer, nervvrak, konstnärsegon, maktfullkomliga magnater, självupptagna as, extravaganta finsmakare, hämningslösa exhibitionister, pantade existentialister eller pompösa tänkare.
Förstå mig rätt: jag är själv någon som ofta tycker att de här gubbarna föranleder många ögonblick av stor komik. Men samtidigt undrar jag vem jag själv blir genom den här fascinationen.
Som Aase Berg visar i flera av essäerna som ingår i Uggla är det ingen som beundrar den kvinnliga varianten av de här typerna. Rättshaveristen, gnällkäringen, grogghaggan, fylletanten, hysterikan. (Det finns en rätt stor feministisk diskussion om hur könat outsiderskapet är - kanske någon vet en referens.) Visst, det skämtas om Kikki Danielsson, men är hon föremål för den form av fascination som en megalomanisk Thorsten Flinck utövar? Nä du. Det är hon inte. Finns det män som ägnar timmar åt att återberätta Courtney Loves livshistoria? Inte så många. Det enda motexempel jag kommer på är det intresse som på senare tid riktats mot divor av olika slag. Den kvinnliga divan tillåts vara plump och bitchig (och könsutmanande), och hennes liv börjar i likhet med den manliga outsidern att betraktas som en outsinlig anekdotkälla.
Jag vet inte exakt hur jag ska förstå hela den här grejen. Är kvinnor tråkiga och trista propra varelser? Ja, det har man ju hört förr. När kvinnor beter sig överdrivet är det motbjudande och pinsamt - inte existentiellt hisnande eller kittlande subversivt. (Eller finns det motexempel? Margaret Thatcher för vissa?) Kvinnor drillas till självhat och -förakt; att passa in, att vara till lags och till tjänst. Alltid med ett sött leende. Män drillas till att uppfatta sig själva som genier, framtida ledare, samhällsförändrare. Alltid med ett varggrin eller en ironisk grimas på läpparna.
Det finns ett helt språkbruk för beskrivningar av den manliga outsidern och tokroliga överdrivaren. I själva verket handlar de flesta filmer och böcker om de här mansbilderna. Däremot saknas det här språkbruket nästan helt för kvinnor. En man med ett skägg (bloggen som ofta tematiserar lustiga gubbar) vore smått obegriplig som kvinnlig variant. "Bitterfittor emellan?" Det låter väl som en sån där tycka-synd-om-sig-själv eller må-dåligt sida, va? Kvinnlig, och därför solkig och kletig, solidaritet och inkännande dela-med-sig-empati. = Offermentalitet. "Det är så jobbigt att leva i partriarkatet buuu-hu." You get the point. (På vilket sätt vore En man med ett skägg annorlunda om K. Lind könats annorlunda?)
Tänk på det: varför finns det en drös filmer om manliga revolutionärer som Che Guevara eller manliga losers som Woody Allen eller skälmaktiga cassanovas? Det är sant: i marginalen finns det representationer av kvinnor som på olika sätt ifrågasätter samhället eller kanske ännu: människor som genom sitt agerande (också det besinningslösa) utmanar ett könsförtryckande samhälle (försöka spåna exempel....wating.....processing request....). Men det intressanta som jag försöker peka på är varför manliga urspårare blir kultfigurer för både män och kvinnor, medan det samma knappast gäller för figurer som Valerie Solanas eller Jane Campions film An angel at my table. Det är en del kvinnor, skribenter, komiker och andra, som leker med bilderna av bitterfittan och grogghaggan (Aase Berg bland dem). Och de gör det oftast jävligt bra, roligt och samtidigt kritiskt. Men har du nånsin hört en man göra det? Skulle du få för sig att driva med Simone Weil? Kanske finns det ett grabbgäng nånstans som snöat in sig på Ayn Rand.
Finns det en manlig rädsla att skämta om kvinnor? Kvinnor är ömtåliga, känsliga varelser som inte pallar för skämt? Jag kan förstå vad en sådan rädsla kan handla om, men jag tror inte att den saknar problem. Grundproblemet som jag pratar om handlar ändå om den enorma synlighet män och gubbar har och hur intressant allt som män gör verkar. Också de skräckblandade anekdoterna riskerar att ha sitt finger med i skapandet av en värld där det finns bara män som pratar och handlar och där kvinnor blir varelser som vänder sin uppmärksamhet och beundran mot män.
Vill jag ha "fler kvinnliga förebilder", lite kvinnliga representationer, beundran av det kvinnliga geniet? Äh. Det handlar inte om det. Det handlar om hur vi pratar om saker och människor och vilket slags uppmärksamhet som uttrycks och den anda det görs i.
Slutligen: Är det självupptagna aset verkligen så spännande att man måste skriva femvolymsverk om hans karaktär? Varför är män så hejdlöst intressanta?
4 July 2009
gender trouble
Last night we went to J's local bar. It's a karaoke bar, you see, and I hadn't been there, and J has praised it ongoingly throughout the years. He sang Folsom Prison blues. Well I know I had it comin' / I can't be free. We had a couple of drinks and then we left. When we were already walking on the street, a big, burly man hollered at us: "so what are you? a man or a woman?" J and I looked at each other and laughed. Who was he addressing? We grabbed a pizza while the man must have dwelled deep in contemplation.
**
My sister told me the following story: A party ("kalas!") to celebrate my aunt's 70th birthday. The local restaurant. Steak and brown sauce. Our relative K is already wobbling around, visibly befuddled by drink. He was a business man, but he is probably retired now. He lives in Stockholm and he talks like Vanheden (de ska va lite stil, serrö). He approaches my cousin, who is rarely seen in the Villige. My cousin had lots of kids. Basically, I know nothing about her except that she has a bunch of them kids. Our dear K has a look at the new baby "It's so hard with them, it's so hard to see what they are. Is this is a boy or a girl?" My cousin snaps: "OF COURSE YOU CAN SEE IT'S A GIRL! She wears a dress and she's got a pink ribbon in her hair!"
**
I've been given a gender neutral Hong Kong name. Mar Leeman. The name bears the promise of martial arts skills and cool stuff in general. I'd love to mar the landscape.
**
My sister told me the following story: A party ("kalas!") to celebrate my aunt's 70th birthday. The local restaurant. Steak and brown sauce. Our relative K is already wobbling around, visibly befuddled by drink. He was a business man, but he is probably retired now. He lives in Stockholm and he talks like Vanheden (de ska va lite stil, serrö). He approaches my cousin, who is rarely seen in the Villige. My cousin had lots of kids. Basically, I know nothing about her except that she has a bunch of them kids. Our dear K has a look at the new baby "It's so hard with them, it's so hard to see what they are. Is this is a boy or a girl?" My cousin snaps: "OF COURSE YOU CAN SEE IT'S A GIRL! She wears a dress and she's got a pink ribbon in her hair!"
**
I've been given a gender neutral Hong Kong name. Mar Leeman. The name bears the promise of martial arts skills and cool stuff in general. I'd love to mar the landscape.
3 August 2008
Don't ask, don't tell
The latest edition of The New Yorker features an article about the US army's "don't ask, don't tell"-policy. After he died, in Iraq, Alan Rogers got some attention for his activism. His former colleagues, who held Rogers to be a respectable M.I major who devoted all his energy to the army, weren't too happy about the revelations of this part of Rogers' life:
“To a person—I really mean every person in the office was completely surprised,”Hardy told me, referring to Rogers’s private life. Hardy’s officemates knew Rogers as an easygoing college-football enthusiast and a capable volleyball player—their team captain, last June, at the annual office picnic. “ ‘The first openly gay soldier to die in Iraq,’ ” Hardy said, recalling Pilaud’s Wikipedia entry. “We’re, like, ‘Hold it. If it’s a surprise to all of us, that can’t count as the first openly gay soldier to die in Iraq.’ And we just felt there was an agenda that wasn’t Alan’s.” Hardy said that he did not know who had made the Wikipedia edits, but he mentioned a recent article in USA Today in which a soldier’s mother expressed some unease about the specificity of the instructions her son had given her in the event of his death—which friends should speak on his behalf, what songs to play at his funeral. “Nowhere—and I read the will—did Alan leave any piece of paper that said that,” Hardy told me. “He did not make any moves to be remembered as a gay soldier. Nowhere in those phone calls home did he say, ‘Let everyone know that I died a proud gay officer.’ ” Of course, being a proud gay officer is tantamount, under the current military policy, to being a retired gay officer with no pension.
23 July 2008
man-sized agony: on the idea of "the crisis of masculinity"
Today I read it again. 'Finnish boys and young men are miserable'. Their mental health are, it is stated, worse than 'we' (?) used to think. "Grown men and knowledge about boys are needed in ordinary life, in schools and in health care. We should learn more about the needs of boys, about their development and what torments boys and in what ways they express that they don't feel good." (HBL, 22.07). This is a piece of advice from expert doctors at "Befolkningsskyddet" (at their home page translated as "Rescue services"). Provided we give this a very charitable reading, I would agree with it: the gender matrices of masculinity are fucked up and of course that is something that afflicts people, all of us, in one way or other. But I suspect that is not, at least not mainly (mabye they would talk about "destructive gender roles" or something) that they are talking about. Observation nr. one: They are talking exclusively about boys.
The doctors seem to say that boys have peculiar problems of a psychological nature of which we need to gain empirical knowledge, so that they can be dealt with. (There is another charitable reading I will say more about later: that we look away from the way masculinity is oppressive, not only to women, but also to men.) It's time to talk about things that we normally keep quit about, they most probably suggest (the insufficient, sublimating state of vittuperkelesaatana). The first part of the quoted sentence, "Grown men [....] are needed in ordinary life, schools and in healt care." Why do they put it like this? Well, it might not be too far-fetched an interpretation if we take them to say that there is something about grown men, their sex/gender that makes them more insightful with regards to the troubled minds of young males. From this can be derived a pretty essentialist idea about sex/gender, according to which these are something we, in a very simple and concrete sense, have. Thus: males have their peculiar problems, and guys are, because they are male, more well-prepared to understand the nature of these problems (and perhaps take appropriate action? - "role models").
Girls and women have, for a very long time, been the object of psychologizing and diagnoziation. One might even go as far as proposing that some ways of talking about "women" and femininity are internally related to talking about something as a psychological tic, a diagnosis or a psychological phenomenon. (Do I have to mention examples? PMS, hysteria, self-indulgence, "empathy", "tears come so easily for women....") Well, are we seeing the same development, but a male set of psychologisms? Yeah maybe. But the interesting thing, of course, is how these "psychologisms" are used. "Boys with psychological problems need understanding from other men." Well - what might be the point of saying such a thing? "Little Teddy is prone to act aggressively. His dad, who is a baseball player, will teach him a few things about turning his aggression into something creative. After all, boys will be boys." In this example, Teddy's anger, gushes of rage or what it might be, is treated as something that does not express anything about him, about his life, his relation to others. No: aggression is some sort of force that may be directed against different objects, some of which are more socially accepted than others (it's much nicer to be a baseball player than a serial killer).
The assumption here seems to be that there is a "male nature" that needs to be understood (and the next assumption is that males have a direct access to this understanding). The folks from "Befolkningsförbundet" claim that "there is a lot of pressure in growing up to be a man. You are either a winner or a loser. These models may be prohibited by means of recognitions of [boys'] need for help." Again: if we opt for a charitable reading, we may give these doctors credits for talking openly about the way people are crushed under stupid gender patterns. But there is still something in the article that makes me doubt whether they would say this. I hint a trust in "the good masculinity".
The common idea (and I don't necessarily want to ascribe this to the doctors in question), anyway, is that there is a lot of anguish because males are confused. Why? Because of the changing gender roles. It is no longer (here we go again) socially accepted for men to treat women as house slaves and sex slaves, thus, they must adapt into something else - but what? The problem is, many would say, that there is no clear model of what to be "as a man". Males are confused because there are too many masculinities. And hence the psychological crisis of young boys (but according to this argument, grown-up men would be in no better position to offer guiding to their juniors). You might ask why I am critical of this way of talking about "men in crisis". One reason (and it is a weighty one for me) is that social acceptability, combined with some hypothesis about "male nature", seem to be presupposed here. As if the main purpose in life for men - the way to harmony & happiness - is spelled a solid masculinity. Well, folks, if you ask me, that is fluff. One may be confused about what kind of person one is, about what kind of person "one should be". But I would say that a part of this confusion is that one is worrying about being "a particular kind of person". Instead of, you know, living the best one can.
At present, I am reading Paris-Dakar by Jens Liljestrand. It is a good book precisely because in it, Liljestrand questions the idea that there is a form of untainted, absolving masculinity in which troubled men takes comfort during hard times. His point seems to be that men are tormented by masculinity, that masculinity is a hang-up, a ghost, a false escape. In a next to perfect pitch, Liljestrand goes through the gendered clichés. In one of the short stories of Paris-Dakar, the author presents the respectable man who is seen as boring among his friends but who is good at organizing stuff. When he can't even hold on to that picture of himself, his entire existence is breaking down. Liljestrand's stories are packed with men who "feel miserable". But to use the psychologistic language that I referred to above would not fit the perspective he writes from. The pain he masterfully depicts is not dissolved by pointing at the dream of a solid masculinity. The problem is, I agree, Identity. But the book provides an argument against it. Every form of it. Identity is the problem (sickness unto death, if you will).
The doctors seem to say that boys have peculiar problems of a psychological nature of which we need to gain empirical knowledge, so that they can be dealt with. (There is another charitable reading I will say more about later: that we look away from the way masculinity is oppressive, not only to women, but also to men.) It's time to talk about things that we normally keep quit about, they most probably suggest (the insufficient, sublimating state of vittuperkelesaatana). The first part of the quoted sentence, "Grown men [....] are needed in ordinary life, schools and in healt care." Why do they put it like this? Well, it might not be too far-fetched an interpretation if we take them to say that there is something about grown men, their sex/gender that makes them more insightful with regards to the troubled minds of young males. From this can be derived a pretty essentialist idea about sex/gender, according to which these are something we, in a very simple and concrete sense, have. Thus: males have their peculiar problems, and guys are, because they are male, more well-prepared to understand the nature of these problems (and perhaps take appropriate action? - "role models").
Girls and women have, for a very long time, been the object of psychologizing and diagnoziation. One might even go as far as proposing that some ways of talking about "women" and femininity are internally related to talking about something as a psychological tic, a diagnosis or a psychological phenomenon. (Do I have to mention examples? PMS, hysteria, self-indulgence, "empathy", "tears come so easily for women....") Well, are we seeing the same development, but a male set of psychologisms? Yeah maybe. But the interesting thing, of course, is how these "psychologisms" are used. "Boys with psychological problems need understanding from other men." Well - what might be the point of saying such a thing? "Little Teddy is prone to act aggressively. His dad, who is a baseball player, will teach him a few things about turning his aggression into something creative. After all, boys will be boys." In this example, Teddy's anger, gushes of rage or what it might be, is treated as something that does not express anything about him, about his life, his relation to others. No: aggression is some sort of force that may be directed against different objects, some of which are more socially accepted than others (it's much nicer to be a baseball player than a serial killer).
The assumption here seems to be that there is a "male nature" that needs to be understood (and the next assumption is that males have a direct access to this understanding). The folks from "Befolkningsförbundet" claim that "there is a lot of pressure in growing up to be a man. You are either a winner or a loser. These models may be prohibited by means of recognitions of [boys'] need for help." Again: if we opt for a charitable reading, we may give these doctors credits for talking openly about the way people are crushed under stupid gender patterns. But there is still something in the article that makes me doubt whether they would say this. I hint a trust in "the good masculinity".
The common idea (and I don't necessarily want to ascribe this to the doctors in question), anyway, is that there is a lot of anguish because males are confused. Why? Because of the changing gender roles. It is no longer (here we go again) socially accepted for men to treat women as house slaves and sex slaves, thus, they must adapt into something else - but what? The problem is, many would say, that there is no clear model of what to be "as a man". Males are confused because there are too many masculinities. And hence the psychological crisis of young boys (but according to this argument, grown-up men would be in no better position to offer guiding to their juniors). You might ask why I am critical of this way of talking about "men in crisis". One reason (and it is a weighty one for me) is that social acceptability, combined with some hypothesis about "male nature", seem to be presupposed here. As if the main purpose in life for men - the way to harmony & happiness - is spelled a solid masculinity. Well, folks, if you ask me, that is fluff. One may be confused about what kind of person one is, about what kind of person "one should be". But I would say that a part of this confusion is that one is worrying about being "a particular kind of person". Instead of, you know, living the best one can.
At present, I am reading Paris-Dakar by Jens Liljestrand. It is a good book precisely because in it, Liljestrand questions the idea that there is a form of untainted, absolving masculinity in which troubled men takes comfort during hard times. His point seems to be that men are tormented by masculinity, that masculinity is a hang-up, a ghost, a false escape. In a next to perfect pitch, Liljestrand goes through the gendered clichés. In one of the short stories of Paris-Dakar, the author presents the respectable man who is seen as boring among his friends but who is good at organizing stuff. When he can't even hold on to that picture of himself, his entire existence is breaking down. Liljestrand's stories are packed with men who "feel miserable". But to use the psychologistic language that I referred to above would not fit the perspective he writes from. The pain he masterfully depicts is not dissolved by pointing at the dream of a solid masculinity. The problem is, I agree, Identity. But the book provides an argument against it. Every form of it. Identity is the problem (sickness unto death, if you will).
24 April 2008
A queer community?
I understand less & less about what is going on in the world, what people talk about, about what they say is important to them. I understand less and less about myself, my own whims, reactions and inclinations. I don’t understand this gender shit, I don’t understand this sex shit. And most of all, “homosexuality and heterosexuality”, “male” and “female” - What’s that? I try to express my exasperation, but I’m sure it will come out confused, pathetic, or self-important. But, hell, I'm tryin'.
A friend talked to me about a couple we both know. They are getting married? Yeah? Good for them! The church doesn’t allow a ceremony for them. They have the wrong body parts. A few ribs, a few organs, a few misplaced pieces of flesh. Sorry, I forgot. She lost her job? Oh, fuck, that’s bad. (Isn’t that kind of procedure forbidden by law? Well, you see, there are some traditions, you have to understand….)
My uncle asks me the same question, over and over again, “do you have a boyfriend yet?” My friends talk about their trouble with men who perceive them as “motherly caretakers”, rather than lovers. We speculate over an acquaintance; straight or gay? I get pissed off about hanging out at a bar that’s nothing but flexing, machismo muscles and mini-skirts. “Signals”. “The Game”. I read the newspaper. “Woman killed by partner. He stabbed her five times and shot himself in the head.” On and on it goes.
“You don’t even know what genderqueer means, do ya?”
Recently, I watched a documentary about three “girls” who were uncomfortable in their “gender roles”, with their bodily shape. They called themselves “genderqueer”, a concept that was supposed to designate a place in-between. One of the “genderqueer” worried about how s/he was to come out as genderqueer to his/her mum. The mum lives in another city, far away. The first time around, s/he just couldn’t speak her/his mind. S/he went to visit her mum a second time, during which s/he sat down with her parent, with the intention of explaining all – why s/he dressed “as a boy”, why s/he was not merely a “lesbian”. Mummy had a hard time understanding, and the kid blurted out; “you probably don’t even know what genderqueer means, do ya?” Poor mummy shook her head, smiled confusedly. Awkward silence. The kid says nothing about relations with other people; she talks about her identity, and other people become relevant only as far as they are the ones who perceive her/him as something; genderqueer, a lesbian, a girl, a boy.
The scene had a ring of tragedy & comedy at the same time. It was so utterly unclear what it was that the kid tried to tell his/her mommy, and it was just as unclear in what way mommy would’ve “understood”, in a proper sense, so that the kid would’ve been satisfied and felt comforted. “Genderqueer”, for this person, clearly offered the hope of functioning as a liberating concept that signifies freedom from the binary gender system. A magic door. But the problem is that concepts do not save us. The introduction of a concept, in itself, does nothing. The real question, I suppose, is: in what way can the binary gender system change, and what does it, at the bottom line, mean for us to change?
I don’t intend to say that the kid’s ordeals were illusory. Far from it; something was bothering him/her, and it had to do with gender and what it means to be a particular body, to be a particular person. But new identities on the identity market do not do the job, and this was hinted at in worrying ways by what the persons in the documentary said and did (getting a sex change operation, worrying that it will not “do the trick”, that one’s problems will go nowhere). Identities, that’s taking comfort in something that is somehow independent of oneself, no matter the fervour with which identity is claimed to be the most personal, the most individual. Identity: something one claims (lays claims on), appeals to, tries to uphold, or something that is ascribed to one by somebody else (“you’re that kind of person!”). Clinging to an “identity” means that one wants to settle down an idea of who I am, an idea that is allowed to live a life of its own. A solitary, pseudo-social, notoriously collective, life.
The branded heart
It’s obvious that heterosexuality is much less of an ideology than homosexuality has become. Nobody confesses their heterosexuality; nobody comes out as a heterosexual. There’s no outspoken heterosexual bar (even though, in reality, most places are designed to fit ideas about “male” and “female”), there’s no band that presents their music as “heterosexual music”. “Homosexuality”, the idea about sexual preferences, can be traced back to a bunch of 19th century psychiatrists & physicians, and this also, I suppose, signifies the birth of “heterosexuality” of the shape that we are familiar with. The idea that there are sexual variations, and that your inclinations will (pre)determine your choice of partner is ingrained in many aspects of our thinking ("I don't think about you as a man - you know I'm not..."). A form of language that has shook hands with the language of market economy, but also with the language of biology (“signals” and “predetermination of behaviour”). Throw in some liberal ideals about rights and democracy, too. This was not the birth of gender oppression, but it’s possible to talk about particular forms of gender oppression. “Gender history” is interesting; reading historical accounts of how concepts such as “butch”, “gay” and “queer” have evolved have, for me, proved very rewarding. One gains a perspective on things, on change, and how change has been perceived (what things are considered as changes).
It is, of course, of interest that “male homosexuality” has been a far more visible phenomenon than “lesbianism” – in the Catholic Church, in contemporary media, in the stereotypes of “queers”. But these historical accounts seem to make it no easier to understand in what way these concepts are used, what they express and disclose. But I suspect you agree with me that it is quite telling, that a concept such as “bi-curious” is, at least among some people, launched as a concept that is fully intelligible as an expression of curiosity, immersing in a sea of multiplying experiences.
“5, perhaps as much as 10, percentage of the population is homosexual.” Empirical science, carefully moulded statics pies (they will not feed us, though). What the hell are we talking about here? There’s something that’s really mystifying about this way of speaking about “sexualities”. I know people have been oppressed, that there is violence, that there is injustice. My own hunch is that violence has merely been sublimated into “rights”, “identities” and “preferences”. Gay discos for queers. No tears for queers. There are specially designed commercials that will fit the queer audience, the queer need, the pink wallet. The queer does n longer lurk in the dark corners of the park, or the dark corners of the mind. Nowadays, you can bet you’ll be able to find a queer priest, a queer soldier, a queer politician. There’s visibility. But, now, what is it that has become visible, the focus of public attention? It might be – a brand. Just like McDonald’s, Wärtsilä or Benotton. This is a brand to be worn as a badge on your heart or on your sleeve.
What does the community think?
But is this all there is to “the gay community”, a flag-waving lobby group, a bit like a tobacco company, or Amnesty, or Senior Citizens of Wichita? Isn’t there a place for support, recognition, and understanding? A place where heterosexist violence is smashed? Isn’t there a lot of friendship and love out there that is not ruled by the kind of identity obsession I’ve pondered upon above? Yes, of course. But there’s something about this sense of community, of having something in common, that makes me slightly queasy. Can oppression be shared in solidarity? What is false solidarity, defined by the oppressive system? I’m reading a text by Pat Califia, “Gay men, lesbians, and sex: doing it together” and it alerts me to some interesting questions. Califia talks about how she breaks with many ideas about “the lesbian”. She has sex with gay men. But she still insists upon calling herself a lesbian. She talks about having kept a “clean record” up until she started fucking gay men, but later in the text, this is something she criticizes the gay community for; a sense of purity. Her descriptions are, however, beautiful. She talks about the notion of a biological sex being of little or no importance. Her point is that sexual labels tell us next to nothing. The essential thing is how we live. She writes: “Gay people have responded to persecution by creating our own mythology.” But she also writes, and here is where I start to wonder what she means: “I now feel that having sex with women really is a choice for me.” Califia talks about a sense of queerness that is not limited to a particular gender/sex constellation.
But queerness is still a concept that seems essential to her. There’s a lot of open questions here, no doubt. I am far from clear about what I think about the idea about "a queer community", a "sense of belonging". I read too much Kierkegaard, too much Solanas. That makes me suspicious about things. Solanas says: fuck gender, fuck sex, fuck the bourgeoise family, fuck "liberal rights", fuck the state, fuck money, fuck religion, fuck work, fuck this rotten world. Kierkegaard, in essence, says the same thing, but his tone of voice is slightly different, but his ideas are no less overwhelming than Solanas'. (I read Purity of Heart at the moment - good shit.)
PS. Speaking of queerness - this blog has received an unprecedented number of visitors since I published the John Wayne entry. Everybody wants to look at pictures of Wayne, apparently. During the last few hours, I've had visitors, interested in Mr. Wayne, from Manchester, Ohio, Toronto, Warsaw, Milwaukee, Paris and Rome. John Wayne-fans around the globe, unite. But instead of interesting details about John Wayne, I wrote a boring personal note. Ha!
A friend talked to me about a couple we both know. They are getting married? Yeah? Good for them! The church doesn’t allow a ceremony for them. They have the wrong body parts. A few ribs, a few organs, a few misplaced pieces of flesh. Sorry, I forgot. She lost her job? Oh, fuck, that’s bad. (Isn’t that kind of procedure forbidden by law? Well, you see, there are some traditions, you have to understand….)
My uncle asks me the same question, over and over again, “do you have a boyfriend yet?” My friends talk about their trouble with men who perceive them as “motherly caretakers”, rather than lovers. We speculate over an acquaintance; straight or gay? I get pissed off about hanging out at a bar that’s nothing but flexing, machismo muscles and mini-skirts. “Signals”. “The Game”. I read the newspaper. “Woman killed by partner. He stabbed her five times and shot himself in the head.” On and on it goes.
“You don’t even know what genderqueer means, do ya?”
Recently, I watched a documentary about three “girls” who were uncomfortable in their “gender roles”, with their bodily shape. They called themselves “genderqueer”, a concept that was supposed to designate a place in-between. One of the “genderqueer” worried about how s/he was to come out as genderqueer to his/her mum. The mum lives in another city, far away. The first time around, s/he just couldn’t speak her/his mind. S/he went to visit her mum a second time, during which s/he sat down with her parent, with the intention of explaining all – why s/he dressed “as a boy”, why s/he was not merely a “lesbian”. Mummy had a hard time understanding, and the kid blurted out; “you probably don’t even know what genderqueer means, do ya?” Poor mummy shook her head, smiled confusedly. Awkward silence. The kid says nothing about relations with other people; she talks about her identity, and other people become relevant only as far as they are the ones who perceive her/him as something; genderqueer, a lesbian, a girl, a boy.
The scene had a ring of tragedy & comedy at the same time. It was so utterly unclear what it was that the kid tried to tell his/her mommy, and it was just as unclear in what way mommy would’ve “understood”, in a proper sense, so that the kid would’ve been satisfied and felt comforted. “Genderqueer”, for this person, clearly offered the hope of functioning as a liberating concept that signifies freedom from the binary gender system. A magic door. But the problem is that concepts do not save us. The introduction of a concept, in itself, does nothing. The real question, I suppose, is: in what way can the binary gender system change, and what does it, at the bottom line, mean for us to change?
I don’t intend to say that the kid’s ordeals were illusory. Far from it; something was bothering him/her, and it had to do with gender and what it means to be a particular body, to be a particular person. But new identities on the identity market do not do the job, and this was hinted at in worrying ways by what the persons in the documentary said and did (getting a sex change operation, worrying that it will not “do the trick”, that one’s problems will go nowhere). Identities, that’s taking comfort in something that is somehow independent of oneself, no matter the fervour with which identity is claimed to be the most personal, the most individual. Identity: something one claims (lays claims on), appeals to, tries to uphold, or something that is ascribed to one by somebody else (“you’re that kind of person!”). Clinging to an “identity” means that one wants to settle down an idea of who I am, an idea that is allowed to live a life of its own. A solitary, pseudo-social, notoriously collective, life.
The branded heart
It’s obvious that heterosexuality is much less of an ideology than homosexuality has become. Nobody confesses their heterosexuality; nobody comes out as a heterosexual. There’s no outspoken heterosexual bar (even though, in reality, most places are designed to fit ideas about “male” and “female”), there’s no band that presents their music as “heterosexual music”. “Homosexuality”, the idea about sexual preferences, can be traced back to a bunch of 19th century psychiatrists & physicians, and this also, I suppose, signifies the birth of “heterosexuality” of the shape that we are familiar with. The idea that there are sexual variations, and that your inclinations will (pre)determine your choice of partner is ingrained in many aspects of our thinking ("I don't think about you as a man - you know I'm not..."). A form of language that has shook hands with the language of market economy, but also with the language of biology (“signals” and “predetermination of behaviour”). Throw in some liberal ideals about rights and democracy, too. This was not the birth of gender oppression, but it’s possible to talk about particular forms of gender oppression. “Gender history” is interesting; reading historical accounts of how concepts such as “butch”, “gay” and “queer” have evolved have, for me, proved very rewarding. One gains a perspective on things, on change, and how change has been perceived (what things are considered as changes).
It is, of course, of interest that “male homosexuality” has been a far more visible phenomenon than “lesbianism” – in the Catholic Church, in contemporary media, in the stereotypes of “queers”. But these historical accounts seem to make it no easier to understand in what way these concepts are used, what they express and disclose. But I suspect you agree with me that it is quite telling, that a concept such as “bi-curious” is, at least among some people, launched as a concept that is fully intelligible as an expression of curiosity, immersing in a sea of multiplying experiences.
“5, perhaps as much as 10, percentage of the population is homosexual.” Empirical science, carefully moulded statics pies (they will not feed us, though). What the hell are we talking about here? There’s something that’s really mystifying about this way of speaking about “sexualities”. I know people have been oppressed, that there is violence, that there is injustice. My own hunch is that violence has merely been sublimated into “rights”, “identities” and “preferences”. Gay discos for queers. No tears for queers. There are specially designed commercials that will fit the queer audience, the queer need, the pink wallet. The queer does n longer lurk in the dark corners of the park, or the dark corners of the mind. Nowadays, you can bet you’ll be able to find a queer priest, a queer soldier, a queer politician. There’s visibility. But, now, what is it that has become visible, the focus of public attention? It might be – a brand. Just like McDonald’s, Wärtsilä or Benotton. This is a brand to be worn as a badge on your heart or on your sleeve.
What does the community think?
But is this all there is to “the gay community”, a flag-waving lobby group, a bit like a tobacco company, or Amnesty, or Senior Citizens of Wichita? Isn’t there a place for support, recognition, and understanding? A place where heterosexist violence is smashed? Isn’t there a lot of friendship and love out there that is not ruled by the kind of identity obsession I’ve pondered upon above? Yes, of course. But there’s something about this sense of community, of having something in common, that makes me slightly queasy. Can oppression be shared in solidarity? What is false solidarity, defined by the oppressive system? I’m reading a text by Pat Califia, “Gay men, lesbians, and sex: doing it together” and it alerts me to some interesting questions. Califia talks about how she breaks with many ideas about “the lesbian”. She has sex with gay men. But she still insists upon calling herself a lesbian. She talks about having kept a “clean record” up until she started fucking gay men, but later in the text, this is something she criticizes the gay community for; a sense of purity. Her descriptions are, however, beautiful. She talks about the notion of a biological sex being of little or no importance. Her point is that sexual labels tell us next to nothing. The essential thing is how we live. She writes: “Gay people have responded to persecution by creating our own mythology.” But she also writes, and here is where I start to wonder what she means: “I now feel that having sex with women really is a choice for me.” Califia talks about a sense of queerness that is not limited to a particular gender/sex constellation.
But queerness is still a concept that seems essential to her. There’s a lot of open questions here, no doubt. I am far from clear about what I think about the idea about "a queer community", a "sense of belonging". I read too much Kierkegaard, too much Solanas. That makes me suspicious about things. Solanas says: fuck gender, fuck sex, fuck the bourgeoise family, fuck "liberal rights", fuck the state, fuck money, fuck religion, fuck work, fuck this rotten world. Kierkegaard, in essence, says the same thing, but his tone of voice is slightly different, but his ideas are no less overwhelming than Solanas'. (I read Purity of Heart at the moment - good shit.)
PS. Speaking of queerness - this blog has received an unprecedented number of visitors since I published the John Wayne entry. Everybody wants to look at pictures of Wayne, apparently. During the last few hours, I've had visitors, interested in Mr. Wayne, from Manchester, Ohio, Toronto, Warsaw, Milwaukee, Paris and Rome. John Wayne-fans around the globe, unite. But instead of interesting details about John Wayne, I wrote a boring personal note. Ha!
2 January 2008
On feminism
Faux white-chocolat-because-you're-worth-it feminism is teared to pieces in this blog entry. I couldn't agree more with the following insight: "Stripped of any internationalist and political quality, feminism becomes about as radical as a diamanté phone cover."
For me, feminism is about revealing and elucidating things in ours lives, things we would rather leave unacknowledged. Feminism is about truth, how we perceive the world and ourselves. Perception of possibilities and of change. Feminism is not theoretical. Even though it might sometimes be difficult to approach gender issues, this difficulty is of a moral, rather than theoretical, nature.
Feminism is about scrutinizing why it is that a specific issue is gendered, why something has a gendered meaning. An example: think about the gendered pictures associated with the idea that motherhood is a major change in a person's life. Think about the following concepts and the images they conjure up: sassy, respectable, provocative, ugly, fag, breast, adolescence, hormones, fireman, lipstick, diesel motor. I don't intend to say that concepts have an inherent, fixed meaning. Neither are concepts simply the results of conventions ("well, I choose not to see it as gendered even tho' most would!). What I were rather thinking of is the way we talk about lipstick, brests, diesel motors and hormones. And what sense something has is to be seen against the background of a life*. Referring to Tarantino once again: in Death Proof he plays with the idea of what a professional stuntman looks like - and the pictures that don't seem to "fit in". One critic on IMDB bemoaned Tarantino's lack of realism by appealing to the contraction between "a bunch of girls" and "fung fu stunts"!
Some claim feminism to be beyond politics (Swedish politicians, sometimes, seem to think along those lines). For them, feminism is exhausted by the term 'equality'. I think equality has a role, but not an exhaustive one. Gender permeats our lives in ways that are not made visible if sexism and injustices due to gender are depicted as something that can be fixed by some institutional changes.
If we are ready to challenge how we understand gender, that means we have to challenge many other things as well. Gender is not a tidy box. Maybe that is what feminists have had in mind in coining the term 'intersectionality' but then again, why do we need a technical term for this simple fact?
One of the few texts that have really challenged me to think, shaken me, battered me, is Valerie Solana's SCUM Manifesto. Her text contains many layers and it is packed with irony, metaphors, references and jokes. It is nonetheless a serious text. Or: this is the way I read the text, you might read it differently. The SCUM Manifesto is a text about me and you and the world. Solanas is angry, analytic, witty, furious, sarcastic - but at the same time she is open for hope and love. If she has a thesis, it is this: being a 'woman' and 'a man' is something we've done to ourselves, it is something we have forced upon ourselves and upon others. She understands gender as a form of ever-lasting project by which we become the beings we are now. "The male" is dependent on "the female" - masculinity is "strenght" and "intellect" but behind all this are beings who want to masqurade themselves as "strong" and "intellectual" and doing this is, of course, a way of relating to others, the others being "weak", "female", "bodily". Solanas toys with gender concepts; on the surface she might resemble an essentialist, "men are weak, not strong", but what she is doing is, rather, taking the whole thing apart by means of a form of dialectical reasoning. Dialectical, that is, referring to the juxtaposition of concepts, put side by side. She discloses "femininity" and "masculinity" from a perspective of how these concepts make a difference. She is, as it were, rooting gender in a history of violence.
Pictures of gender, life and politics are thrown into her conceptual mill and after grinding (we are grinded!), we will not be able to return to being "daddy's girls" or "strong men" anymore. She writes about gender as a form of self-deception and her project is, in a way, to make us stop deceiving ourselves, to make us see the world as it is. Her manifesto can be compared to Nitzschean ideas about self-deception - there are a lot of similarities here. The difficulty of reading Solanas is quite the same as the problems one encounters when reading Nietzsche. They share the same kind of brutality. And many times such a brutality is exactly what is needed. But at other times the rampage of brutality is all too invincible when facing another person.
The changes she envisions are not easy; they are violent and hard. But it is up to the reader to interpret what the nature of "violence" here is. Solanas digs in a heap of (bull)shit, but she comes out alive - or does she? Do we? Can we? Read the manifesto here.
* Sorry, this is a Wittgensteinian cliché I cannot resist employing here.
For me, feminism is about revealing and elucidating things in ours lives, things we would rather leave unacknowledged. Feminism is about truth, how we perceive the world and ourselves. Perception of possibilities and of change. Feminism is not theoretical. Even though it might sometimes be difficult to approach gender issues, this difficulty is of a moral, rather than theoretical, nature.
Feminism is about scrutinizing why it is that a specific issue is gendered, why something has a gendered meaning. An example: think about the gendered pictures associated with the idea that motherhood is a major change in a person's life. Think about the following concepts and the images they conjure up: sassy, respectable, provocative, ugly, fag, breast, adolescence, hormones, fireman, lipstick, diesel motor. I don't intend to say that concepts have an inherent, fixed meaning. Neither are concepts simply the results of conventions ("well, I choose not to see it as gendered even tho' most would!). What I were rather thinking of is the way we talk about lipstick, brests, diesel motors and hormones. And what sense something has is to be seen against the background of a life*. Referring to Tarantino once again: in Death Proof he plays with the idea of what a professional stuntman looks like - and the pictures that don't seem to "fit in". One critic on IMDB bemoaned Tarantino's lack of realism by appealing to the contraction between "a bunch of girls" and "fung fu stunts"!
Some claim feminism to be beyond politics (Swedish politicians, sometimes, seem to think along those lines). For them, feminism is exhausted by the term 'equality'. I think equality has a role, but not an exhaustive one. Gender permeats our lives in ways that are not made visible if sexism and injustices due to gender are depicted as something that can be fixed by some institutional changes.
If we are ready to challenge how we understand gender, that means we have to challenge many other things as well. Gender is not a tidy box. Maybe that is what feminists have had in mind in coining the term 'intersectionality' but then again, why do we need a technical term for this simple fact?
One of the few texts that have really challenged me to think, shaken me, battered me, is Valerie Solana's SCUM Manifesto. Her text contains many layers and it is packed with irony, metaphors, references and jokes. It is nonetheless a serious text. Or: this is the way I read the text, you might read it differently. The SCUM Manifesto is a text about me and you and the world. Solanas is angry, analytic, witty, furious, sarcastic - but at the same time she is open for hope and love. If she has a thesis, it is this: being a 'woman' and 'a man' is something we've done to ourselves, it is something we have forced upon ourselves and upon others. She understands gender as a form of ever-lasting project by which we become the beings we are now. "The male" is dependent on "the female" - masculinity is "strenght" and "intellect" but behind all this are beings who want to masqurade themselves as "strong" and "intellectual" and doing this is, of course, a way of relating to others, the others being "weak", "female", "bodily". Solanas toys with gender concepts; on the surface she might resemble an essentialist, "men are weak, not strong", but what she is doing is, rather, taking the whole thing apart by means of a form of dialectical reasoning. Dialectical, that is, referring to the juxtaposition of concepts, put side by side. She discloses "femininity" and "masculinity" from a perspective of how these concepts make a difference. She is, as it were, rooting gender in a history of violence.
Pictures of gender, life and politics are thrown into her conceptual mill and after grinding (we are grinded!), we will not be able to return to being "daddy's girls" or "strong men" anymore. She writes about gender as a form of self-deception and her project is, in a way, to make us stop deceiving ourselves, to make us see the world as it is. Her manifesto can be compared to Nitzschean ideas about self-deception - there are a lot of similarities here. The difficulty of reading Solanas is quite the same as the problems one encounters when reading Nietzsche. They share the same kind of brutality. And many times such a brutality is exactly what is needed. But at other times the rampage of brutality is all too invincible when facing another person.
The changes she envisions are not easy; they are violent and hard. But it is up to the reader to interpret what the nature of "violence" here is. Solanas digs in a heap of (bull)shit, but she comes out alive - or does she? Do we? Can we? Read the manifesto here.
* Sorry, this is a Wittgensteinian cliché I cannot resist employing here.
15 August 2007
"One is not born a woman...."
Two of my closest friends became parents today. I don't have many friends who have kids, so this will be interesting. I don't know much about kids, nor about the institutions surrounding birth. Do people say 'congratulation!'? That I am asking this type of question is, of course, a hint of my own confused perspective (as to the subject matter of kids and giving birth to them, in general). But of course I am glad for them and it perhaps doesn't matter what exact words one comes up with.
An interesting thing is that when I announced the news to other people, their first question was, in many cases: "a boy or a girl?" I don't know, perhaps I read too much into this question. But it gives me the creeps. As if "boy or girl" was a primary, decisive question, as if it has to do somehow with a form of life. As if this kid already, newly born, embodies a form of life. I don't like that.
Because of course this has nothing to do with genitalia - the question would be unintelligible were it not for the different things "boy" and "girl" mean (in this rotten world). But in this case, it is very unclear what meaning "girl" and "boy" is given - in other words: why this piece of information seems so interesting (In a way, of course, it is clear that "males" and "females", given the present world, will be confronted with problems and situations that sometimes differ in kinds - but I have no idea what to do with this perspective - do you?).
And now: "one is not born a woman, but becomes one". - Well, given your 'body' (this is problematic), are you destined to become a woman or a man? What a saddening perspective! Do I know how to reject the question? Did I say something intelligent? No, damn sure I didn't (My mind is as slow as my heart).
I shouldn't be thinking about these things, but I am. Bah. Sometimes I am prone to think that it is so unfair that we live in this world, and not another one.
An interesting thing is that when I announced the news to other people, their first question was, in many cases: "a boy or a girl?" I don't know, perhaps I read too much into this question. But it gives me the creeps. As if "boy or girl" was a primary, decisive question, as if it has to do somehow with a form of life. As if this kid already, newly born, embodies a form of life. I don't like that.
Because of course this has nothing to do with genitalia - the question would be unintelligible were it not for the different things "boy" and "girl" mean (in this rotten world). But in this case, it is very unclear what meaning "girl" and "boy" is given - in other words: why this piece of information seems so interesting (In a way, of course, it is clear that "males" and "females", given the present world, will be confronted with problems and situations that sometimes differ in kinds - but I have no idea what to do with this perspective - do you?).
And now: "one is not born a woman, but becomes one". - Well, given your 'body' (this is problematic), are you destined to become a woman or a man? What a saddening perspective! Do I know how to reject the question? Did I say something intelligent? No, damn sure I didn't (My mind is as slow as my heart).
I shouldn't be thinking about these things, but I am. Bah. Sometimes I am prone to think that it is so unfair that we live in this world, and not another one.
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