Hey you guys...
Having lived in Virginia for 6 years, I am partial to the phrase "y'all." Since we don't have any gender neutral pronoun in standard English, this southern word works well instead. Some even extend it by saying "all y'all," which essentially translates into "each and every one of you" -- again, a useful abbreviation. So, having just emerged from the "y'all" region, into the "you guys" region, I was greatly amused by the conversation in yesterday's class.
Another part of my amusement came from my background in women's/gender studies. In fact, our discussion reminded me of an article by feminist theorist Judith Butler, "Imitation and Gender Insubordination."* Butler argues that all gender is performance, and the fact that we must reinforce it through clothing and learned behavior means that as a non-social, neutral entity it doesn't truly exist. She sums it up near the end of her article: "If gender is drag, and if it is an imitation that regularly produces the ideal it attempts to approximate, then gender is a performance that produces the illusion of an inner sex or essence or psychic gender core; it produces on the skin, through the gesture, the move, the gait (that array of corporeal theatrics understood as gender presentation), the illusion of an inner depth" (1997: 312). I believe Butler's argument embodies the social constructionist viewpoint Ross was illustrating in class. Why don't we refer to people in gender neutral terms? Because our linguistic stance must reinforce the gender division or it might not be so clear-- we are expressing the scripts used to establish gender difference. This explains the adverse reaction Ross has to women being referred to as "guys." The disruption in his socially derived conception of the gender divide is uprooted when in his mind someone is being referred to by the wrong gender term. If we just start calling everyone by the same pronoun, we might begin to lose the scripts necessary for gender performance, and then by gosh the whole world will be turned upside down!
I would argue that the world needs to be turned upside down. I would not necessarily argue that calling everyone by the male-identified pronoun is the right way to do it (as some suggested in class). Women have always been a linguistic afterthought; after all woman is really just man with a womb. And just because the womb is added to the male word, does not indicate that linguistic history recognizes us as being men with additional positive qualities. There are so many examples of derogatory words with implicit feminine identification I can't even count them all. Here is one example: the root word hyster, used to form "hysteria" but also "hysterectomy" simultaneously means womb, and signifies womb as a source of insanity. Words shape our social relations because we cannot communicate in order to form societal connections and norms without language. I believe that language adapts to reflect society -- just look at the words used to describe other minority groups in the past in contrast to the terms used today. So when our society finally emerges out of its complete obsession with gender dichotomy as an essential social organizing mechanism, a gender neutral pronoun will emerge.
I believe I've rambled on enough about social constructions of gender. It isn't directly related to human information behavior, but it is how I relate to social constructionist theory.
*Butler, J. (1997). "Imitation and Gender Insubordination." The Second Wave: A Reader in Feminist Theory. Ed. Linda Nicholson. New York: Routledge, pp. 301-315.
Another part of my amusement came from my background in women's/gender studies. In fact, our discussion reminded me of an article by feminist theorist Judith Butler, "Imitation and Gender Insubordination."* Butler argues that all gender is performance, and the fact that we must reinforce it through clothing and learned behavior means that as a non-social, neutral entity it doesn't truly exist. She sums it up near the end of her article: "If gender is drag, and if it is an imitation that regularly produces the ideal it attempts to approximate, then gender is a performance that produces the illusion of an inner sex or essence or psychic gender core; it produces on the skin, through the gesture, the move, the gait (that array of corporeal theatrics understood as gender presentation), the illusion of an inner depth" (1997: 312). I believe Butler's argument embodies the social constructionist viewpoint Ross was illustrating in class. Why don't we refer to people in gender neutral terms? Because our linguistic stance must reinforce the gender division or it might not be so clear-- we are expressing the scripts used to establish gender difference. This explains the adverse reaction Ross has to women being referred to as "guys." The disruption in his socially derived conception of the gender divide is uprooted when in his mind someone is being referred to by the wrong gender term. If we just start calling everyone by the same pronoun, we might begin to lose the scripts necessary for gender performance, and then by gosh the whole world will be turned upside down!
I would argue that the world needs to be turned upside down. I would not necessarily argue that calling everyone by the male-identified pronoun is the right way to do it (as some suggested in class). Women have always been a linguistic afterthought; after all woman is really just man with a womb. And just because the womb is added to the male word, does not indicate that linguistic history recognizes us as being men with additional positive qualities. There are so many examples of derogatory words with implicit feminine identification I can't even count them all. Here is one example: the root word hyster, used to form "hysteria" but also "hysterectomy" simultaneously means womb, and signifies womb as a source of insanity. Words shape our social relations because we cannot communicate in order to form societal connections and norms without language. I believe that language adapts to reflect society -- just look at the words used to describe other minority groups in the past in contrast to the terms used today. So when our society finally emerges out of its complete obsession with gender dichotomy as an essential social organizing mechanism, a gender neutral pronoun will emerge.
I believe I've rambled on enough about social constructions of gender. It isn't directly related to human information behavior, but it is how I relate to social constructionist theory.
*Butler, J. (1997). "Imitation and Gender Insubordination." The Second Wave: A Reader in Feminist Theory. Ed. Linda Nicholson. New York: Routledge, pp. 301-315.
posted by Camille at 8:43 PM
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