I recently acquired a copy of “Encyclopedia of Sex and Gender – Men and Women in the World’s Cultures” (1071 pages!) and this morning I was reading in the first chapter: Cultural Constructions Of Gender.
The topic is ‘Bipolar Constructs’. I can see that male and female conditioning to obey the old school, “girls in the kitchen and boys out doing the ‘man’s work’ is still so imprinted in the general subconscious. The house inside is still regarded as the woman / mother’s space and vice versa the male’s domain is outdoors.
I know that things are changing, that we are in some stage of shifting that stereotype. But the actual result and how people perceive those who attempt to go outside those old boundaries varies greatly. For example, look at the acceptance of lgbt culture as you go from one state to another or one neighborhood for that matter.
The book gives some interesting examples of multipolar gendered societies pointed out from aboriginal cultures around the world. What was allowed and recognized for males in shifting gender, was not allowed for women:
“morphological women did not cease being sociological women, while morphological
men might cease being sociological men.”
They define the distinct nature of ‘passing’, not that they referred to it that way, but that’s the way we think of this:
“In general, gender, as constructed in particular cultures, consists of both signifying elements and performance elements. A person assumes the signifying elements (e.g., clothing or hair style) and exhibits the performance elements. While biological sex is something a person has, regardless of behavior, gender is seen only when it is performed or signaled.”
When I say ‘passing’, I am referring to all people and how they are seen as fitting or not into their assigned gender roles. The point here is that we are still pressured into bipolar gender norms, no matter what. For example, if someone is transsexual, they are pressured by mainstream society and often a majority of their peers in lgbt sub-culture to ‘perform the gender’ they are transitioning to. Where does that come from? The subconscious tendency of gay society to ridicule those who do not ‘pass the performance test?’ Even the people who stretch gender norms are living with old school polarized gender baggage. As another example of this seeming anomaly of subculture policing of gender – In the documentary “Boy I Am”, the lesbian community questions the rationality of transmen who they say may be just escaping the difficulty of living as a woman. So the policing and dissolution of freedom of gender expression is not restricted mainstream critics. Gender benders get it from both sides of the fence. In my view, the most important aspect of this signifying elements vs. performance elements is how societies control the performance end of things, and that that control amounts to the dissolution of fundamental human rights to freedom of expression. Robert Ganshorn points this out in a comment over at an article by Mercedes Allen at Bilerico:
I hope she will have support from her friends and family, but she has always thought of herself as an African girl and to have this made so public is devastating in an African culture. Much prestige comes from motherhood in an African rural culture and that door is now closed to her. She must feel awful and I wish it could have been handled in a manner that would have been more culturally sensitive.
The fact is that mainstream, counter culture, gay culture – you name it, everyone is busy eroding the personal freedoms of the individual.
I think that the reason Caster S. has been hounded by media so much is that it sells copy. It’s a hot subject on two counts: transgenderism and the genetic / hormonal makeup and modification of same in the performers at olympic level. I am staying away from that particular story because I just feel sorry for her, and something inside me just won’t take part in the trans sub-culture blogworld discussion. Not only that, but the bloggers tend to jump on the story the same way mass media does, mimicing the very same lemming-minds they are supposed to be differentiating themselves from. One blogger after another goes down the same path, opinionating on the freedom of someone else to express themselves.
I feel that there is just so much work to do at the basic level of gender expression in culture and society. Mt expression of my gender is a HUMAN right. Expression of the person; the person, in the republic, granted freedoms by constitution – this is my own unalienable right.
“Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” This is said to be one of the best known sentences in the English language. It is also something that United States citizens are entitled to under the Declaration. In my country the Bill Of Rights guarantees me freedom of expression “imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used”. So if I use my body to express myself, it is allowed and guaranteed by law. My body, my choice. These rights are being taken away by the general public, by police refusing to uphold them, by politicians refusing to pass legislation which supports them, by medical professionals refusing to recognize them. Where are our human rights?
The rights we retain are woven into the daily practice of the citizens and the officials of the republic. Where are those threads of freedom? Is the carpet worn bare? Is it even there under our feet any more?
Who will stand up at the town meeting to argue and defend our rights to freedom of expression and speech? Who will write down their observations and arguments of what is being taken away, stand in the street and hand out their papers when the government has already demonstrated that rights can be wiped away in one motion such as the USA Patriot Act?
The passage I quoted above on the ‘enforcement’ by society of unwritten gender laws, can be easily be modified to represent the reality of rights and freedoms in the Americas by substituting the word ‘freedom’ for the word ‘gender’:
“In general, freedom, as constructed in particular cultures, consists of both signifying elements and performance elements. A person assumes the signifying elements (e.g., in citizenship) and exhibits the performance elements. While rights and freedoms is something a person has in the written laws of a republic, freedom is seen only when it is performed or signaled.”
And so it is, that those who perform their freedom, are the ones who going against the general acceptance of society, that freedom is not universal. The performance of freedom of speech, and freedom of expression has been struck down by the police at the 1999 WTO demonstrations in Seattle, the 1997 APEC Summit demonstrations in Vancouver and the Summit of the Americas demonstrations 2001 in Quebec City. Expression of freedom is being taken away. Our freedom in North America is being eroded, and when society takes away my freedom to express my gender, it is condoning the dissolution of their own freedom of expression.
Freedom of expression has exploded on the internet in the last 15 years. Does that constitute freedom of speech, freedom of expression – yes, to an extend. But what is the conventional domain of the woman? The household. And where is the internet – the new bastion and proving ground of our rights and freedoms – where is it located. Indoors. People walk their freedoms throught the internet halls every evening, it helps them sleep better. But who walks their freedom of expression outdoors, in the conventional world of the male? Who polices and upholds the Charter Of Rights? Who polices and enforces the unwritten laws of expression dictated by culture and media, and what weapons do they use?
Who enforces the freedom of expression by law in the townships of South Africa, where a woman can be summarily raped and stoned to death for wearing a pair of jeans? Nobody. Who enforces the freedom of expression by law, when a woman who is seen to be a lesbian in South Africa is ‘correctively raped’ by a gang of men, while authorities look the other way? Nobody. Who in that same instance is enforcing the laws of culture? Where does freedom truly exist? It exists in the performance elements. People are expressing their gender identity, taking the freedom that is given them by law, and they are being slain in the streets. The signifying elements of freedom: citizenship in the republic, a few cards in your pocket – what are they worth, when the true power of law is in the hands of general popular consensus, which is programmed into people’s minds, controlled by media? What will you do when they come for you and your children?
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