Another Gender Thing, Or What the Heck Is Male Bonding Anyways

[debka_notion]

During learning tonight, Steve, wotyfree and I had a discussion about how we speak about the opposite sex. The starting point was the combination of looking at the curses to Eve in Genesis 3:16 and comparing with Genesis 4:7 (might be verse 6- it's the warning G-d gives to Cain), and thinking about gender, sexuality and sin. From there, things came around to my mention of being at Steve's for shabbos dinner a few weeks ago and his roommates making some comments in front of me that were quite objectifying to women, without thinking about it at all. After some discussion, he insisted that making objectifying comments about women, particularly sexual comments relating to their appearance, was a frequent and necessary piece of male bonding. I objected- there must be some way for men to bond without being derogatory to women, right?

But it has set me to thinking about how I speak about men (I'm generally pretty uncomfortable discussing men's appearance in general, although I will mention that someone is attractive, if it's relevant- I find the notion of saying more than that very uncomfortable in the vast majority of situations. I wonder if that's just me.), and how one can discuss appearance without objectifying the person about whom one is speaking.

Even more so, it is pushing me to consider how men are and are not reached by feminism, and how I'm supposed to react to that. It is becoming more and more clear that the way that feminism reaches women is different from the way that it reaches men, and how complex that relationship can be. It troubles me, but I feel clueless about how to treat the issue.

Comments

[lordameth.livejournal.com]

This is one of the key difficulties. We can't escape who we are.. and every time we address a topic like this, we do so as a woman, or as a man, or as a representative of the colonized, or of the colonizer (I took a whole course on Orientalism this term...). It's unescapeable, and it makes things difficult, because whoever you're talking to will take it a certain way based on the fact that you're female (or male, or white or black or whatever).

There was a great quote in one of my readings a few weeks back. Ah, here it is. "Thus, to speak openly of the repressed question of gender is to confirm the dominant culture's worst suspicions that, if women are allowed to speak, all they can speak of is (their) sex." - Griselda Pollock, "Differencing the Canon (http://www.amazon.com/Differencing-Canon-Feminist-Histories-Revisions/dp/0415067006)" p25.

To be honest, I still have weird feelings about the word "feminism".. but I think of it as "gender studies". This helps break down the Self/Other barrier of the association of feminism with female superiority or male inferiority, and the various stereotypes of feminists. At least it does for me. "Gender Studies", hypothetically at least, incorporates all kinds of gender relations and gender issues, including issues of manliness and masculinity, and issues of "performing" gender (the ways in which we act 'feminine' or 'masculine' in order to maintain a normative position in society, not being seen as strange, i.e. a butch tomboy or a sissy girlyman).

I wish I could offer you suggestions for how to talk about this stuff with guys (guys who aren't already open to the ideas) without it seeming preachy, and without triggering defense mechanisms. It's something I guess I'll have to keep thinking about.

[debka-notion.livejournal.com]

Well, the term "feminism" is too narrow for what I really want. But "Gender studies" is an academic discipline (and one that often fascinates me), not a statement of one's actual views. What I need, really, is a term that talks about having positive views of both genders, and freedom for both while still respecting the notion of gender roles. I don't know what such a term would be, though.

The guy I was talking with was willing to listen, I just wasn't finding language that opened the issue up for him in a way that made sense. However, he and I have had other discussions about gender, and it often takes us a couple of times to really hear and understand each other. I imagine that it will eventually come up again, and then perhaps I'll have better fortune.

It's stuff that takes a long time to sink in. A lot of it seemed obvious and not worthy of notice to me for a long time, and then in the last couple of years, I started really noticing how different things are for men and women, and where those differences are unfortunate and problematic rather than just different- and how often that seems to be the case.