[Blog/Commentary] [Canada] Fourth Wave: Part Two

[Stephanie Stevens]

Sincerely, Natalie Reed, Canada


Fourth Wave: Part Two

May 7, 2012 at 9:00 am by Natalie Reed


The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common.
They don’t alter their views to fit the facts. They alter the facts to
fit their views. Which can be uncomfortable if you happen to be one of
the facts that needs altering.

- The Fourth Doctor

There are so many theories.

The theories of the sexologists. Theories of the Christian right. Of
the psychiatrists and psychologists. Of the academics and
philosophers, even literary theorists. Of the average person watching
a documentary, “here’s what I think it is…”. Of the people punching
into google questions about what kinds of chromosomes or “chemicals”
we have. People (without any education in biology or genetics, but who
happened to catch some TV show somewhere about intersexuality)
suggesting chimerism in the brain. And feminists’ theories too, of
course.

The intensity with which people endlessly generate theories to
accommodate the existence of gender variance rarely seems to be in any
way motivated by a desire for genuine understanding. Instead, it
typically seems principally about recuperation, explaining us away.
These aren’t the theories of a scientist presented with a new
phenomena, they’re more like Christian apologetics: how do I get this
new fact to fit into my pre-defined beliefs? Oh, I’ve got it! When he
said “day” he really meant “seven-hundred million years”! These mental
acrobatics can be remarkably complex, sophisticated and ingenuitive,
intelligent, but the whole structure is backwards. The theory is given
precedence over the reality it claims to speak to. The facts are
altered to fit the views, rather than the views altered to fit the
facts.

Something inevitably goes wrong, though. No matter what contortions
are made in one’s theoretical structures, like redefining your “gender
is illusory social construct” theory to “…except socialization-from
birth rigidly codifies it (even though I’ve transcended it)”, or
adapting your concept of male sexuality to include a “reflexive
narcissistic desire to possess the self as female sexual object”,
something always gets left out. The fact of gender variance is a fact
of variance. Unless your theory accounts for the principles by which
gender does indeed vary, unless it accommodates the variation itself
rather than simply thinking up individual explanations for individual
variants, there are always going to be cracks through which the
unaccommodated reality shines through, and continues to destabilize
your worldview: the lack of universal socializations and the fact that
socialization seems to not have much of anything to do with how a
gender identity manifests, the increasing evidence of neurobiological
underpinnings to gender, the presence of butch trans women, the
presence of trans men, the presence of asexual trans people, the
affect HRT has on the libido, non-binary transitions, trans men who
cannot “pass” and thereby only sacrifice relative social privilege,
etc. etc. etc.

These cracks are particularly important in feminist theory, in as much
as feminist theory purports to be an explanation of the social
dynamics of gender. Any theory of gender, if it’s to have any meaning
or usefulness or validity at all, must speak to the actual full
realities of gender. And that requires speaking to the actual
realities of gender variance. All of them. Not just whichever ones you
can slot into the pet theory you refuse to abandon for fear of losing
a political edge, or fear of admitting to having been wrong. It
requires speaking to the actual lived experiences of human beings, all
of them, not telling certain people that their lives are wrong, or
don’t exist, so that you can continue believing whatever makes you
comfy or meets your particular political goals. Your degrees,
ambitions, publications or worries over how a fact might be
misinterpreted do not trump anyone else’s actual existence. Views must
be adapted to fit the facts. Otherwise, yours is just another
inaccurate worldview imposed by the privileged on the actual world,
and the lives within it.

Otherwise, you’re not addressing the social dynamics of gender. You’re
covering them up, and thereby perpetuating the problem.

This means that to create a valid trans-feminism – to create any kind
of valid feminism – we need to speak to the living, breathing
diversity of gender, and only assert as universals those aspects of
gender that are universal (difficult, sneaky, hard-to-find little
things that they are). Trans-feminism, 4th wave feminism, and the
future of feminism itself, MUST be based on only forwarding those
theories and positions that are inclusive, and fully recognize all
iterations of gender. This furthermore demands a consistent,
determined, unwavering commitment to acknowledging intersectionality,
and not excluding anyone from the discourse. It demands a
conversational, discursive model, in which no one from any particular
position claims to be able to speak for the whole. It demands
acknowledgment, perhaps based in a sort of socially conscious
skepticism, that no given subject position is going to have all the
facts, and therefore we need to maintain a constant hesitation, a
reluctance to over-commit to any one particular position or assume
things to be true simply because they, to us in our always biased and
limited positions, feel true or sound true or seem like they should be
true or would be awfully convenient and helpful if they were true.

If it’s not speaking to the lived experiences of gender, or the
available facts of gender, it’s not a feminism worth fighting for.

This isn’t valuable just in terms of meeting the needs of those
experiences and identities that are most marginalized. It’s valuable
in terms of protecting the long-term interests of feminism itself. A
feminism that repeatedly fails to address the realities of gender will
systematically discredit itself, and consign itself to irrelevance. At
best, it will end up a specialized niche in academia for die-hards who
have little or no interest in engaging the realities that exist beyond
the walls of their classrooms, or beyond the spines of their
publications.

Consider, for instance, the ongoing insistence within unnervingly
large swathes of feminism on an absolutist view of gender as a social
construct. This principle has long been used to invalidate trans
people and support transphobic, cissexist and exclusionist attitudes
within certain branches of feminism. It’s a perfect example of people
saying “So what if your lived experience and actual existence
contradicts what I’m saying? I’m a grad student and I have BOOKS!”. In
other words, a perfect example of feminist theory failing to address
the realities of gender and thereby failing to live up to its own
mandate.

It seems to me that one of the reasons that the social-constructivist
viewpoint has persisted in feminism as long as it has, despite the
ever-increasing weight of that which contradicts it, is because so
much has been invested in it. So much of feminist discourse has leaned
on this premise, that gender is purely and wholly an arbitrary social
construct that could be totally remodeled or done away with entirely
if we were able to remake our culture from the ground up, that now
there’s a whole house of cards built on top of it that will collapse
if it gets pulled away. This creates an immensely heavy bias, and
creates a situation where people just won’t accept anything, theory or
fact, that contradicts this belief because there’s just too much at
stake, too much to lose. It’s exactly how beliefs almost always work:
not in accordance with evidence (we’re NOT rational creatures, us
humanses), but in accordance with what we most want or need to
believe, in accordance with a subconscious cost/benefit analysis.

This would be fine for feminism, even if certainly not fine for the
numerous gender minorities this theoretical structure excludes and
fucks over, if the premise were sustainable (like belief in God is:
there will ALWAYS be gaps to fit Him in, so people will ALWAYS find
ways to believe in Him). But it’s not. Feminism requires maintaining a
presented ability to speak to what’s really going on with gender in
order to maintain its credibility. It’s not a religion, and can’t rely
on faith, gaps, or the ineffable. Meanwhile, science, and evidence,
marches on. And bit by bit, more and more scientific evidence pours
in, with increasing certainty and decreasing deniability, that gender
is partially based on innate neurobiological structures and
predispositions. John Money has been utterly discredited and died in
shame. Milton Diamond now enjoys enormous respect amongst his peers.
The facts, like trans people ourselves, aren’t going away, and
eventually, one way or the other, will need to be addressed.

If feminism doesn’t find a way to account for that, if it continues
leaning so much of its discourse on the premise of hard-line
social-constructivism, it will not only condemn itself to irrelevance,
it will be utterly discredited in the process. And this would be just
fine for the other gender minorities, even if certainly not fine for
the feminists themselves, if it weren’t for the fact that we have an
intense interdependence. We need feminism. If it allows itself to
become an irrelevant, discredited joke that no longer accepts the
proven scientific realities, if it allows itself to become comparable
to flat-earthers, climate-denialists, 9/11-truthers and David Icke,
then we’ll ALL be fucked. The doors will be flung wide open for the
MRAs and bio-gender-essentialists to come marching on in saying
“Neener neener! We told you so!” and it will be even harder than ever
to effectively address their misogynistic, cissexist, patriarchal
idiocy.

What helps is that trans-feminism already has the theoretical and
political structures in place to accommodate this apparent
contradiction between feminism and the “nature vs. nurture conflict”.
We’ve already been addressing, and resolving, this issue for a long,
long time. We’ve moved past it. We’ve acknowledged a stochastic
interplay between a variety of factors, that may vary in an individual
between the rigidly deterministic and the fluid. We’ve been able to
discuss how an underlying predisposition can be socio-culturally
mediated, and that challenging and deconstructing those socio-cultural
mediations doesn’t require ignoring or denying the existence of the
predispositions. Just trust us. We’ve got this. But we can’t handle
everything.

The world needs feminism. It really, really, desperately does. But the
feminism it needs must be a credible feminism, and a feminism that
speaks to the actuality of gender, in all its rich diversity. A
feminism that doesn’t position theory or political convenience above
the lived realities of gender. A feminism that is skeptical in nature,
willing to adapt to changing landscapes of what we understand about
how gender operates. A feminism that speaks to all iterations,
etiologies and experiences of gender, and holds them to ALL be equally
valid and deserving of acknowledgment, free expression, and basic
human rights and dignity. An inclusive and intersectional
trans-feminism. A feminism for everybody.

A fourth wave.

…

(to be continued in part three)


http://freethoughtblogs.com/nataliereed/2012/05/07/fourth-wave-part-two/