Deconstructing ROR and GDP

[pms]

At 01:06 AM 1/28/99 -0500, you wrote:
>>Angela,
>>
>>I don't know if the stumble upon, revelation/recognition thing works with
>>this stuff, onacona, it ain't natural.  It's phantasimagoric.
>>
>>
>>It ain't like Judith figureing out that some cockless girls find it
>>necessary to act like cocky boys, or that some people let knives pierce
>>their flesh based on other peoples ideas.  Where basically, you just had to
>>pay attention.
>>
>>p
>
>
>but you see, Paula, you have an essentialist account of gender.  women are
>women because they are peace loving and nurturing and
>relational/relationship preserving, whereas men are men because they are
>aggressive and argumentative and destructive.  Judy's drawing on a
>tradition that suggests that there is nothing, absolutely nothing, natural
>about any of this and that these patterns of behavior are not only learned
>but are inscribed and reinscribed through all sorts of ordinary activities.
> We, in other words, perform gender and there is not essential woman=-ness
>or man-ness underneath doing the performing.  Iterative and reiterative and
>all that good lingo.  There is no material, biological *cause* behind
>gendered behavior and so forth.  So we have sex (biological sex
>characteristics) and we *do* gender and even then, some go on to argue, our
>biological material bodies are marked by --shaped by--performative
>discourses.  Hence, my crack about about men and multiple orgasms which
>might also apply to women and their difficulty achieving orgasms.  sure
>sure there is a biological component to these respective phenomenon, but we
>need to consider how much is shaped by language--representations of gender
>norms and the like
>
>>
>

Ok. So, men are taught to be ass-holes, women are taught to be door-mats(in
general).
So if a woman decides she's not going to be confined by the constructs of
society, she acts like an ass-hole?  I don't buy it.  Unless she just
happens to be an ass-hole, maybe.  But what I've observed had too much of a
herd look to be explained that way.

On good days, I believe the nurturing/relational stance is "natural" for
both sexes.
And that the need for power "over", is always a reaction.

And besides, people fulfilling stereotypes just gets on my nerves.

p