I particularly enjoyed how our three readings - Fausto-Sterling, Levy, and Myhre - built not only off each other, but also off of the commonly held conceptions that most hold with regards to gender. Fausto-Sterling begins her piece by discussing how the second-wave feminists viewed gender; to them, the social institutions that we have constructed around gender, "themselves designed to perpetuate gender inequality," in fact "produce most of the differences between men and women" (3). Yet, as Levy points out, these social constructions are not only played out between men and women, but also can be seen occurring within the lesbian and transgender communities as well.
I was quite intrigued by Levy's observations for several reasons. There is a commonly held belief that in lesbian couples, there always is the butch partner and the more feminine partner: think Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi, Melissa Etheridge and Tammy Lynn Michaels. However, as Levy's observations reveal, there is a clear sentiment amongst butch (and boi) lesbians that femmes are inferior. Acting like a man, as the bois are described as doing these days, is looked upon favorably, but what I believe is very telling is the use of the term 'boi' to begin with. These new generation of lesbians appear to be acting in many ways like stereotypical men, yet they clearly see the need to separate themselves from heterosexual male. Instead, by calling themselves "boys", they appear to be stepping into a role that they can claim their own and dominate. Additionally, Levy points out, "the confusing thing, of course, is why somebody would need serious surgery and testosterone to modify their gender if gender is supposed to be so fluid in the first place" (127).
Fausto-Sterling I believe would suggest that 'butch flight' occurs because regardless of how fluid these lesbians claim to be, we still are extremely offset by "bodies that are so unruly" and that "blur the borders" (8). This clearly can be seen in Mhyre's anecdote about her hair and rejection of 'feminine' upkeep. As Mhyre points out, her presence perhaps troubles onlookers the most because we are unable to categorize her into the social constructions that define gender. As Fausto-Sterling discusses, gender has always represented social forces that mold behavior, and when these behaviors are rejected but the gender is not parted with entirely, it leaves the onlooker extremely uncomfortable because we cannot place her presence into the precise category of woman, or butch lesbian, or transsexual, etc. But perhaps what disturbs those who hear Mhyre's story the most is that she is not a woman trying to play down her 'feminine' qualities and appear more manly. She simply is presenting her body as she is, leaving one to consider the role of gender as a social construction and the attributes we have always been told are associated with our own gender.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I think that Jordan makes some really strong points, especially in regards to how even when thinking of lesbians people need to label one of them as "feminine," and she is therefore inferior. All three of the readings seem to address the need that our society has to classify people as either “male” or “female.” In each of the chapters the authors address this idea and explain that people are fascinated with this categorization and often fail to see sex as something that can occur on a continuum. This inability to do so often results in singling people on a daily basis if they do not fit this mold as we saw in the Listen Up chapter, and it can even affect a person’s life on a larger scale as we saw in the example of the Olympic athlete who had her past accomplishments taken away from her in Sexing the Body.
ReplyDeleteOne aspect of these readings that I found most interesting was the part where Levy discusses transsexuals. I did a presentation last semester in my Gender, Power, and Violence class on transgender people and one of the aspects we talked about was how there is a biological basis for why these people see themselves as a different gender. In our presentation we showed a clip from The Real World where one of the cast members is a transsexual and has recently had an operation to change her sex organs. Similar to the point made in all of these articles, the other cast members are so curious about her “status” that they even go as far as making a joke while she is in the room because they are unsure of whether or not she is a male or a female. This once again highlights the obsession that we have with categorizing the socially constructed behaviors that people need to perform based on their gender. Lastly, I am not sure how much I agree with Levy’s argument about everyone’s obsession with acting like a boy because I do not think that transsexuals are necessarily choosing to be like men. She writes, “Women are invested in being ‘like a man,’ and in the case of FTMs, women are actually becoming men (Levy 138). I think that this argument does not hold true because there are also male to female transsexuals and I think that their choice to change their sex is more biologically based than socially based.
I think Jordan's discussion of Levy in her post is the most valuable. The point that Levy makes in her text questioning hormone therapy and surgery while gender is supposed to be so fluid in the first place seems to miss the critical point that transgender, transsexual, and intersex are all different things. By blurring this distinction I feel that Levy perpetuates society's misunderstanding and, even worse, reluctance to understand these groups of people that make up part of our society. I myself was similarly unaware of the differences in these three groups prior to taking this course but can now appreciate how they are all different and can be treated as so. I think Jordan points out Levy's misstep and it seems to be a similar criticism made about many of Levy's arguments. Rather than criticizing I think Levy could learn from valuing the diversity within the lesbian population alone, specifically highlighted by bois.
ReplyDelete