Pronouncements of Gender, Identity

In gender matters, language matters. Last week in class we spoke, generally, about issues of gender and power. We examined the work of Catherine Mackinnon, the feminist thinker whose response to both character feminism and formal equality was a striking and resonant view of gender as a function of male-controlled power dynamics.

Same? Or different? To MacKinnon it was immaterial because to be woman was, in either instance, a comparison to and reflection of what it is to be man. MacKinnon wrote that her work did not advocate an approach or a platform for change. It intended to reveal deep-seated power imbalances, and how a woman's world, however fair and pleasurable it may be to any one woman, has forever been informed by the bare fact of being controlled by the men who have made it.

These gender-power imbalances, we all know, appear in key practical facets of everyday life -- in the workplace, in the home, and in politics, for example. They have structured our society, and, importantly, they can frame the choices and perspectives of new generations of women born into its limiting framework.

Gender-power imbalances are also reflected in language, our common human tool that can effect profound impact. When gender markers are used in language's many contexts, they often implicitly endorse deeply rooted assumptions about gender roles and positions. [Let us not forget that the Declaration of Independence still reads that "All men are created equal."] In symbolic and insidious ways, perpetuation of gender-marking can be society's (un)conscious way of perpetuating the very power imbalances that the likes of MacKinnon et al feel must be eradicated. To mark a woman by her gender can be to deny her personhood in favor of her sex.

This linguistic issue has been played out in key areas over the twentieth century. As discussed in a recent class blog post, here, "Ms." has had a strong showing in the marketplace of gender titles. Its goal was to question the power dynamic, and to decouple womanhood from marriagehood (to men). Likewise, "he" made the gradual and overdue shift to more gender-neutral options -- most commonly "(s)he," "he/she," or, to the chagrin of those with an eye for grammatical agreement, "their."

Of late, some in scholarly circles have taken it a step further by opting for the appealing "take that" option of the female-specific "she" in situations of gender neutrality (See, e.g.: Pruitt, Lisa). This is generally, although not always, received without incident (See, e.g.: Torts malcontents who leave her negative comments on the issue). There is even, I now learn, the option of "zi." And, as reported in the New York Times, a local school in Claremont, CA, recently changed its constitution to erase all gender-specific pronouns.

In one sense, gendered pronouns reflect the imbalances of the gender paradigm. Yet in another sense they can be used to limit the choices available within it. They also reveal that it is not just about language and power, but about the fluid and ever-evolving nature of gender identity. A recent story in the Times discussed some recent and encouraging additions to the gender pronouns -- online, in schools, and even on travel documents. Google+, the story tells us, created the option of declaring oneself as "male," female," or "other." Australia created on its passports a candid third identity option of "indeterminate."

They are Preferred Gender Pronouns (PGPs), and they reflect the younger generations' wish to take ownership over an identity divorced from their sexual functions. A man could choose "his" or "hers" or "theirs." To those adopting these PGPs, it is a way of exploding the paradigm. According to Ritch Savin-Williams, of Cornell University's Sex & Gender Lab, these youth are "fighting the idea that your equipment defines what it means for you to be a boy or girl. They are saying: ‘You don’t know me by looking at me. Assume nothing.'"

All of this is to say that if how we see each other is affected by how we name each other, and if gender naming perpetuates assumptions of difference and of power dynamics, then our world is better if we scramble the pronoun choices. It would reflect our diverse gender identity norms, and it would in fact create a more level and egalitarian playing field for generations to come.

Of course, doing away with "he" and "she," or "men" and "women" is not entirely practical. We live in a gendered world, and in fundamental ways we are often "men" or "women" as much as we are people. But to blast the choices wide open, so that gender identity inhaibits several growing and changing points in between the two, we invite greater forms of gender identity, and take quite a bit of air out of the he/she power dynamic in the process.

One more thing (and I'll keep it brief because this post has become a bit long in the word count): My girlfriend alerted me to a book she read several years ago, a chronicle of a young boy whose parents forced a complete sex change on him after a botched circumcision. At the age of a toddler, the boy underwent a comprehensive, invasive and extended trasnformation to a young girl. The doctor who persuaded the poor teenage parents to go through with it (now discredited and nowhere to be found) was hell-bent on proving his thesis that nurture completely trumped nature. Here was the ultimate test case. The thing is, throughout his childhood, the young child repeatedly threw away his girl's clothing, and would express his wish to be a boy. Nature was calling him.

It is a harrowing story, told poignantly here, in a later article following the subject's suicide as a young adult. It is also a tale of the unsafe reach of modern medicine. But it is as much a story of gender identity as it is about sex change and dangerous doctors. It would be misguided to draw from the story the conclusion that one should not mess with biological nature. To me, it echoes the need to allow our children to choose who they are, not what biology gave them, what a doctor prescribed for them, or what their parents, society, and yes, their pronouns, expect of them.