General status of gender relations vs. Quibbles

Rob Schaap rws at comserver.canberra.edu.au
Thu Nov 25 18:51:23 PST 1999



>yet rob, you make absolutely no argument that explains to me how it is that
>a womb affects the world in and of itself. what does a womb do in the
>world that shapes social relations? how is it that possessing a womb
>--with or without a view-- matters to me or anyone else outside of the
>social relations that make it matter? i may come to have a disease
>associated with the malfunctioning of my womb but what has that to do with
>my woman-ness, how i'm thought of by you, treated by you and so forth? men
>have adam's apples and women don't. does that define them as men?

Sorry, Kel, I just don't see what we're arguing about any more. My testicles do stuff to me night and day, whether I'm in a com or not. Your ovaries do 'em to you. That's all. It was worth mebbe a line, not a thread. I factor this bit into the 'our being determines our consciousness' sensibility, but not as author of consciousness, just as a conditioner in the context of always already present social relations. Why? Coz I get a bit tense when I feel discourse theories reach crescendoes of certainty (not that anyone here said it in so many words, but eg. "there is no difference in nature between men's preference and women's preferences, so age-different sexual relationships won't be happening when we get in charge") - that way does tyranny lie, for 'left-conservatives' such as I, anyway.


>i have a special necklace--a stuffed trophy cock and pair of balls. i wear
>it all the time to work and yet i can tell you without a doubt that this
>does not ensure that i get treated like a man! i certainly don't get
>salary offers in job interviews that a man would. and yet i have in my
>possession those things that make me a man, no? is it that i have to get
>an erection? but then are men who don't have erections not men?
>ejaculations? what about men who can't ejaculate? oh wait, i need
>testosterone coursing thru my body, is that it? phooey capooey on that!
>the research in that arena has a dismal record.

But this is exactly what our last little understanding was about, Kel! Men aren't ejaculating all the time. But formal logic would have it that when one observes a single person, and that person is ejaculating semen, one is not watching a woman. It doesn't mean all who do not ejaculate etc are women - just that those who do are not women. It's still a marker - just not a definitive one, that's all. And I'm not normalising womanness at men's expense in these formulations, am I?


>maybe the selfish gene mattered eons ago. i cannot see how it matters now
>other than we are dealing with the hangover from the eons long drunk we
>were on making it matter so much.

I have to get to a meeting (November is full of meetings), but I reckon it might matter a lot. Anyway, I brought it up in a modest little post to warn against assuming power relations might be the only and exhaustive explanation for the old bloke/young woman thing. Power relations are in there for sure, I reckon. But they're not alone. Not for mine, anyway.

Cheers, Rob.



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