Post Number Eleven

Wittig argues that "difference" is used by power hierarchies to mask conflicts of interest that would be apparent if everyone were the same. So, she recommends that we reject the labels of "men" and "women." Butler, on the other hand, says that rather than reject these labels, we should simply be aware of their superficiality. Mansfield says that it is romantic to think that our passions will ever be free from the binary.

I actually agree with all three, but they all seem to want to have timeless arguments that will always be true. This makes all three arguments weaker. We should reject the terms "man" and "woman" the same way we have rejected the term "Negro." If it becomes necessary to describe someone's physical appearance, we can mention that they have breasts, or a beard, or even that they are feminine or masculine, without needing the terms "man" and "women." By the same token, if it is necessary to mention someone's skin color, we can call them black, or white, or Latino, or any other number of things without thinking of them as "a black" or "a white."

Mansfield is correct that it's romantic to think that we'll ever be totally free to desire whomever we choose. It would also be romantic to think about gay marriage fifty years ago. Now it's an inevitability. I mean, damn, my own mother is married to a woman.

And Butler has it right on the money--for now. The best thing to do is to hold up the binary to ridicule. When future generations grow up seeing the superficiality of these labels, they can decide when to discard them. But, for me, and for my friend Natalie, who now refuses to use gender pronouns and cut all her hair off and changed her Facebook name to "Nate," and gets mad at you if you tease her about it, it is far too late. I will never be able to stop using gender pronouns--it's simply the language I speak--and Natalie will never be able to stand her ground without oozing self-conscious hostility. And in six months, she will most likely be Natalie again.

Right now, dropping the labels simply won't work. But we could probably teach our kids to stop using them.