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Wednesday, September 9, 2020

essentialism

 There's something I just thought of, though it's a version of things I've considered before:

What if the problem is an extreme version of it-is-whatecver-you-want--it-to-be-ism colliding with old-fashioned essentialism. So on the one hand we have extreme social-constructionism that says we can define reality however we want to. That's great, in theory. But then that gives great power to whoever we assign to the reality construction business. Also, reality doesn't usually abide with our wishes. We want the Trump rallies to spread disease but not the BLM protest, so we only listen to the evidence we like.  

Then we get an extreme form of biological racism, that wants to define everyone by Ancestry.com DNA texts and antiquated classifications (the one drop rule, mulattoes and octaroons and that other out of date garbage. "passing" as white.). Then the individual doesn't get to decide "their" race, after all. We have to have a Nazi-era way of defining ethnicity. The last thing I want to do with a colleague or prospective colleague is to scrutinize their body for ethnic authenticity. "What is your actual parentage," I ask, and I get written up for a micro aggression. 

9 comments:

Leslie B. said...

I don't like having to reveal pronouns. I am a person first. That's all you get to know unless you know me well enough to ask.

Jonathan said...

I've only seen what I assume to be cisgendered females state pronouns in the their email signature or zoom screen. If you go around the room and ask for pronouns, that puts people on the spot if they actually are trans or nonbinary. I just use first names to refer to student in the 3rd person in discussion.

Leslie B. said...

Why do you think they are the ones who feel compelled to do this?

Jonathan said...

II can only speculate. Only one male colleague of mine puts pronouns into his email signature, the predictable he / him / his. cis non Lesbian conventionally attractive young women probably feel safe putting forth their pronouns. The male students probably haven't thought about it at all.

Leslie B. said...

I want authority so I don't want to be marked female, I put it off as long as possible. People may guess but I don't want to go out of my way to draw attention to it. Think of George Eliot, Fernán Caballero, Acton Bell, and all the women scientists who use initials only. When the ERA is passed, women are promoted as easily as men, we make 100% on the dollar, abortion is safe, legal and free, and a few more things like that, I'll consider it but in the meantime I've got a gender neutral name for a reason, suckaz, is what I have to say.

Jonathan said...

The male Leslies are mostly British, in my experience. All the one's I know in US are female, including several former students, my sister-in-law, and you. The Morgan / Jordan / names are frequent among my students now a days, but it is always the Aleshas and Sadies who want to advertise their pronouns.

Leslie B. said...

But a lot of people in writing take me for a man, and I used to get mail from the selective service and the army recruiters that assumed I was a man. And at LEAST I don't have to ADVERTISE that I am someone who can be discriminated against and asked rude questions, and it DOES put it off for a few minutes, shunt it to the side.

Jonathan said...

That's interesting, because it gives you the opportunity to know what male privilege means, I would guess. The absence of that condescension.

Leslie B. said...

Also, I spent a lot of time as a child grocking grammatical gender, accepting that "he" was universal and could include me, etc. After all that work, conceding to men the universal category and accepting secondary status within it, so I could be a person at all, I *really* resent the idea that I should give it up, and relegate myself to second class status 100%. F*** that and f*** the men who say I should, and who now police even more what it is to be a correct woman. When I was a child they had given up pink and blue for girls and boys, etc., and when I was in high school we started to be able to wear pants to school, and weren't forced to take home ec any more, and so on, and so forth. But now they put bows on girls as soon as they are born. It is all so utterly retrograde, and they are limiting reproductive rights again . . . all while gender fluidity is in fashion BUT you are supposed to also label yourself a fixed gender. It is t.w.i.s.t.e.d., I feel.