If your feminist professor keeps talking about 'gender' as synonymous with 'sex', then you know for sure she is part of the problem!
Below you can see some previous writings by Klevius on the not only stupid but also extremely dangerous 'gender' concept. However, here's a very brief clarification of what it's all about. I use football (soccer) as an example because it happens to be the most contentious of sports in this respect.
Female football is defined by the biological sex of the players - not by their cultural or grammatical gender. No one would even consider questioning the right of a biological female to play in a women's football team no matter how "screwed up" her "expected gender appearance" or "femininity" or her physical appearance would be. Yes, she would possibly get the usual lesbian label, and demands to get more 'feminine' (gender) etc. but her status and rights as a player would still be rock solid.
Girls, whoever or wherever you are: Heterosexual attraction and reproductive capacity need not to confine/suppress your human being in your female body. As the Human Rights Declaration says, sex ought not to restrict any of your freedoms. However, islamic Sharia (in whatever* existing or future form) is an intrusion on your Human Rights! And remember: Human Rights give you and all others the freedom of choice - even if your choice is to live in accordance with Sharia. However, if you ask for Sharia you also commit an imposition on others incl. girls not even born as yet!
* Islam becomes immediately meaningless if girls/women are given equality. This is why all muslims' world organization, Saudi based, and Saudi led (Iyad Madani) OIC via UN has abandoned Human Rights and replaced them with Sharia. According to this world-Sharia girls'/women's rights are restricted by sex "duties", sex "obligations" etc. And don't let yourself get confused by people telling you that everyone has duties and obligations - that's completely beside the islamic point and could easily have been dealt with within the 1948 Universal Human Rights Declaration that islam opposes.
Religious fascism - the curse of today
The fanatic boosting of
religion today always favors the worst of them and in them! Hint: Saudi
islamofascist Iyad Madani is now the Fuhrer of the most powerful
totalitarian religious fascism (Wahabism, Salafism - or whatever you
prefer to call it).
These women are no different from
others applauding the suppressing of girls/women. Compare e.g. all
compulsory veil supporters. Compulsory because if the veil is supported
in reference to it as a symbol for religion (i.e. evil islam) then it
can't simultaneously be defended as the wearers "personal choice". Why?
Because there is no choice! If the individual chooses not to wear the
veil in a religious (evil islamic) "veil community" she is immediately stepping out of the religion (evil islam) of her "community".
belong to the female patriarchy
Klevius sex and gender tutorial
Freedman (a Stanford professor teaching about feminism):
Defining Feminism
A. Today the term “feminism” is quite loaded politically. We will put
aside contemporary stereotypes and caricatures of feminism to
understand its history.
B. Feminism as a term in modern Western culture has very recent histori-
cal origins, as well as diverse contemporary meanings.
1. The French word feminisme first appeared in the late nineteenth
century—from the word femme (woman) and isme (social movement
or ideology)—as part of broader campaigns for social justice, includ-
ing labor and socialist movements.
3. After the rebirth of the women’s movement in the 1960s, more
activists in Western societies began calling themselves feminists.
Feminism gradually became an umbrella term for a variety of social
movements that challenged gender inequality in law and culture.
Klevius comment: Would you believe it! Not even a hint at the
fact that there were two completely opposite "feminist" movements at the
time Freud came up with his ridiculous "psychoanalysis" (see
Klevius psychosocial Freud timeline)
now lumped together under the 'feminism' label. One wanted equality
with men and the other wanted separatism (incl. the rejection of the
right to vote). And what the heck is 'gender inequality in law and
culture'?! It's sex gender inequality in law and culture, dude! Gender
is already inequal because it's unequal so how could it challenge its
own premises?! Gender is an unequal relation
Here's some very old and less old stuff Klevius pleads guilty of having come up with:
Peter Klevius is the world's foremost expert on sex segregation - and it's easy because of a total lack of competition!
Islamosexist women on UK universities
Dear reader, if you, like Klevius, agree that it's sexist not to let
women do what they want, then you also share Klevius view that these
women are not only deeply sexist, but also alarmingly hypocritical.
Moreover, these kind of influential women truly support Klevius (and
Weininger's) conclusion that women constitute the main obstacle against
women's emancipation.
Or how else would you explain these two women and many others who state
that allowing women freedom is against women's rights? In other words,
they want to force all women to conform to their view.
And of course, to become an influential sexist woman is today supported
by the most sexist of ideologies, i.e. islam. An ideology that openly
violates basic Human Rights by replacing them with Sharia, especially regarding girls and women.
The disastrous "separate but equal" doctrine
Africa was suffering under a disastrous Koranic/islamic slave raid/trade
Umma imperialism for some 800 years before the first Europeans arrived.
Was Africa then "separate but equal"?
In 2013, Universities UK published the document "External speakers in
higher education institutions" which provoked controversy over its
acknowledgement that audiences might be segregated to satisfy the
demands of muslim speakers. The guidelines follow the principle that
segregation is permissible if the Equality Act 2010 is followed and
equal priority is given to all groups, in a manner similar to the former
"separate but equal" doctrine in United States constitutional law.
However, this is just the starting point of a slippery slope.
A well paid "specialist in equality" spits out the most unbelievable non
sense in her desperate effort to cover up her support for islamosexism
http://www.youtube.com/feature=player_embedded
Listen to this guttural babbling Nicola Dandridge, Chief Executive of
Universities UK, vomited in a BBC interview when asked why she doesn't
want to defend women's right to sit were they want: 'You're the one who
suggests that they don't have the right to sit where they want'. I.e.
she actually meant that
all women's right to sit where they wanted was an
infringement against
those women who wanted to be segregated!
the whole interview is
here
And here some more from the same woman in an other interview:
Nick Cohen to Nicola Dandridge:
Why not go further? Why not segregate all lectures at universities? Or as, I said to Dandridge, why not segregate by race?
Well she replied, Universities UK cannot recommend racial segregation because Parliament has banned it.
What about speakers insisting that homosexuals sit on one side of a hall and heterosexuals on another?
Dandridge did not want to see gays singled out, she said. Not in the least.
‘What’s your problem with women, then? Why should they come last?’
‘Because gender difference is visible.’
Klevius comment: And by 'gender' she stupidly meant e.g. breasts,
which do not belong to the gender category at all. Female breasts belong to the female sex, not to gender. You don't call a
breast 'she', do you!
Warning to you girls who want to decide over your lives - and let other girls decide over their lives! Watch up for this woman!
Leicester University is one of the world's most sexist (i.e. islamized)
universities. You
may not believe me but the truth is (an other professor witnessed it)
that a female professor, Barbara Misztal (an East European immigrant? as
BBC uses to put it), when presented with criticism against
islam's rejection of women's full Human Rights via Sharia, said "Why
don't you want to let women lead their lives as they wish". Yes, you got
it right.
She saw Sharia restrictions of women's rights as a right!
Why hasn't anyone taught her that impositions are not rights, and that
Human Rights don't hinder muslim women from choosing to live under these
impositions whereas Sharia denies them the choice to freedom.
Moreover, she also blamed the messenger for not allowing women to NOT
HAVE THEIR FULL RIGHTS!
Barbara Misztal's
female students need to know this, and as usual, it seems that
Klevius is the only one daring to really address this ultimate and extremely disastrous and even dangerous sexism.
Sharia sex segregation or Human Rights for girls/women?
In every possible form of Sharia girls/women are forced to lead their
lives in sex apartheid of varying degrees. And that includes OIC's all
muslims covering Sharia law via UN. But according to Human Rights
every girl/woman has the right to decide herself what kind of life she
wants to lead - incl. a sex segregated life if she so wishes. So to live
in a society where Sharia rules doesn't really give any fair options.
In islam women and non-muslims are all "infidels", and the only thing
that really distinguishes a woman as muslim is her "duty" towards islam
to reproduce (physically and/or culturally) as many new muslims as
possible - and of course to have the Sharia duty to serve as a sex slave for her muslim husband.
Isn't that funny, muslims need a law to get sex while for me such compulsory sex equals rape!
In John Peters Humprey's world view "infidels" didn't exist
John Peters Humphrey (peace be upon him
and Human Rights) is the last prophet of the Universal Declaration on
Human Rights - and he is utterly defamated by muslim Humanrightsophobes - yet all the
Billions of Human Rights followers take it (too?) calmly.
John Peters Humphrey (who actually existed and who wasn't a pedophile or
a murderous scumbag or a fanatic warlord or a terrorist) wrote the
first draft of the Universal Human Rights Declaration (peace be upon him
and Human Rights).
So what is modern islamofascism?
The main purpose of OIC is to gather all the world's muslims under a
worldwide Umma that is protected from Human Rights criticism. And for
that purpose OIC (ab)uses UN, and in an extension, via UN tries to
implement national laws all over the world that not only keep islam out
of scrutiny but even makes criticism of islam a crime! This lobbying is
going on all the time with weak and vulnerable and/or just traitor
politicians while most of the people are kept in deep ignorance about
islam through extremely Saudi biased education and the threats of being
accused of racism or "islamophobia".
And no, it's not a conspiracy theory. It's all to be found in UN's official documents and on the web.
And no, it's not the question of some "minor adjustments". No, this is
big and OIC's own actions (e.g. officially abandoning some of the most
basic Human Rights) in the UN easily proves Klevius right on this point.
And basically it's all about sanctioning islamic racism and sexism, i.e.
the very original pillars that in the first place made islam attractive
for the lowest of human behavior!
And finally
It's sex segregation, not gender segregation! It wasn't their gender but
their female bodies that were segregated. No one asked them about their
gender views before they were seated!
Peter Klevius has relentlessly for a long time tried to point out these
stupidities surrounding sex segregation. Take a look at this for a
starter:
Klevius sex and gender tutorial
Klevius quest of the day: What's the difference between the Pope and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg?
Klevius hint: It's all about 'not sameness' and Human Rights! Human Rights IS 'sameness' stupid!
When God was created he was made like Adam.
When the basic idea of Universal Human Rights was created it was made like Adam AND Eve.
And for you who think heterosexual attraction, i.e. that women are
sexier than men, could be (exc)used as a reason for depriving women of
legal sameness. Please, do think again! And read Klevius Sex and Gender
Tutorial below - if you can!
Klevius sex and gender tutorial
Judith Butler's* ultimate naivity/ignorance (or?!) on HSA & kinship & islam: "But
in actuality, the burka...can be a sign of private faith; it can be a
way of signifying a certain belonging to community; the burka can be a
way of negotiating shame and sexuality in a public sphere, or preserving
a woman’s honor, and even a way of resisting certain western modes of
dress that signify a full encroachment of fashion and commodity dress
that signifies the cultural efforts to efface Islamic practice. I cannot
imagine that it only signifies one thing...Klevius comment:
"Can be"!? Would you believe it, she misses (sic) the only relevant point namely
that the burka signifies Islamic Sharia confinement of the female muslim
reproducer - not resistance! In fact, the burka proper IS the opposite
to resistance. Furthermore this "signifier" is un-democratic and hence
unable "to undo restrictively normative conceptions of sexual and
gendered life"! Btw, how many single-sex couples out there just name
themselves lesbians for the sole purpose of being accepted as living
together in a household for more than a period of studies etc? Also
compare the tragedy of David Reimer (male "made female" and discussed in
Butler's Undoing Gender) who suffered from social and physical mutilation caused by sex segregation
now and then. He later committed suicide just like his schizophrenia
suffering twin. Contrary to offered (s)explanations David could have
been equally bullied as a non-mutilated boy. Furthermore, he was only in
second grade when he became bullied etc. Perhaps his "secret" had
leaked out. However, when HSA (heterosexual attraction) begun affecting
him many years later it was easy for him to take the decision to not try
to become a women. Also we don't know how much social sex pressure
affected his short marriage. But we do know that Butler misses all of
this precisely because she lacks essential knowledge and understanding
of biology (i.e. kinship and HSA - see Marriage, Kinship and Friendship).
Butler's heterophobia is (mis)directed against the Freudian (hoax - see From Freud to bin Laden and From Klevius without love and Klevius love letter to Edith Södergran) oedipalised family structure (see Klevius psycho(social timeline).
Butler: "In other words, the authorative force that shores up the
incontestability of the symbolic law is itself an exercise of that
symbolic law, a further instance of the place of the father, as it were,
indisputable and incontestable" Klevius: No, not the "father" but HSA and sex segregation!
Feminism IS genderized "heteronormative binariness" precisely because
it has to be bio-essential for its own survival, yet also avoiding an
identity based on the concept sex segregation because of its revealing
characteristics, for example the burka.
"...should
be in favor of opening the public schools to those who wear the burka,
since it will be in those schools that cultural encounters will take
place that allows both Islamic and non-islamic students the chance to
learn something about how various people actually live... the particular
cultural negotiations that an Islamic woman makes in the context of
rural and urban Germany in these times."
Klevius comment:
With Gender Trouble I thought abt Judith as a promising new female
liberator from sex segregation. However, it turned out that she merely
rode on a wave of "discourse confusion" in the aftermath of the feminist
realization that focusing on sex would ultimately undermine feminism
per se. And the more we hear from Judith the more conservative she
sounds. And what would be more safe a positioning for a
crypto-essentialist if not Islam. So perhaps her ending up as a sexist
fundamentalist shouldn't surprise anyone. No, there's no place for
"cultural negotiations" in a burka! Furthermore Butler (like many women)
denies the existence of HSA (an uneven evolutionary bio heterosexual attraction) hence missing another important issue about the burka.
Gametes have no sex
Although
it is almost trivial today to criticize Freud, child psychiatry and
issues in sex-segregation still seem to be something like the last
resorts for otherwise out-dated mainstream and reactionary
psychoanalysis (e.g. GID - gender identity disorder). Freud’s
all-embracing libidinal power of males and penis envy of females thus
constitute excellent openings for sex/gender criticism. A considerable
part of this criticism occurs within a continuously changing
psychoanalytic movement itself. In this respect one can seriously
question its internal coherency (For an alternative.view read about Childless female child psychoanalysts in search for motherhood and femininity).*
Judith Butler, for example, questions the dichotomy of sex as well as
the necessity of heterosexuality, and, contrary to S. Freud, presupposes
that masculine and feminine are not dispositions. One of the most
anxious aims of desire is hence to elaborate the difference between him
and her, and to discover and install proof of that difference
(1997:132-137). Despite a considerable body of ”evolutionary”
speculations, however, there seem to be only two distinct facts to rely
on in sexual reproduction: heterosexual attraction
(HSA, for example what makes: a fish deliver his sperms on top of a
heap of roe; a bee to carry pollen to the pistil etc.) and biological
kin recognition/altruism. These, however, are almost extinct in the
discourse of today. Both Freud and Butler seem to have neglected their
essential relevance, maybe partly because of a general (unconscious)
ambiguity towards modernity, and partly because of a view on sexuality
that does not fully discriminate this most basic evolutionary aim of
sexuality. Recognizing pure HSA (as separated from its popular and
all-embracing cultural form**) would make controversies about sexual
identity, homo-sexuality etc. less controversial, not the least because
there seems to be limited access to what it really is except for that it
has to be there because of how we conceptualise evolution itself (also compare L. Irigaray 1985).
As
a conclusion Butler establishes that what is called power is in fact
what makes one’s ambivalent emergence possible and, subsequently, a
strict identity impossible (1997:198)! So where's the room of feminists'
own? Or the door to, or, more importantly, out of it?
**)
Compare the fact that the class of women ultimately rests on the
essentialist sex-interpretation formulated in the delivery room. The
feminine hence belongs to a sub-class of "biological" women.
Gender trouble solved
Although
gender, seen as an emphasise of a social, cultural or psychological
dimension, is usually used in contrast to sex (seen as an emphasis on a
biological dimension), there is no agreement on, not only where to draw
the line but also on the internal positioning of the concepts. Although
(social) gender describes the state of being female or male in a social
context the same can be said about sex. Sex ascribed to a living being
may be described by assumed reproductive potential or plainly as a
visual comparison to what is considered the other sex. However, these
are clearly not the ones under consideration when we talk social gender.
What we have to evaluate is whether sex is compared on an equal
footing. What exactly is the meaning of having a concept, gender, that
shares the conceptualization of another concept, sex, but also expands
it, allegedly beyond its limits? But are there limits for ‘biological
sex’ as a concept? In fact, it seems that its only limit is in the
direction of its own essence, i.e. how precise or “biological” a body
can possibly be in the interpreter’s eye while still keeping its
distance to gender? A fair comparison needs to account for both the
comparative status of the concepts, i.e. that the initial purpose
(dicholtomy) of the comparison is upheld, and that no additional
“stretching” of the concepts are allowed. With such a ruling it will be
argued that there is no meaningful difference between sex and gender. An
insistence on a difference may then be interpreted as an extension of
one of the compared concepts on the behalf of the other while still
keeping in touch with the mutual base, i.e. the "biological" body.To what extent are gender and sex social or biological constructs?
What
does it mean that sex is biological? Do other factors not solely
limited to biological sex count? What about HSA (heterosexual
attraction)? Whereas "femininity", "identity", "gender" etc. not well
articulated (or at least not coherently used) concepts dominate "gender
studies" (a cover name for academic neo-sex segregation) debates and political forums, HSA isn't even considered in the equation, whereas kinship is counter-productive.
Of
course, social or personal gender identity or other characteristics
may not be related to sexuality at all. However, this option seems quite
limited in the discourse of today
2013:
What's the difference between the Pope and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg?
Klevius hint: It's all about 'not sameness' and Human Rights! Human Rights IS 'sameness' stupid!
When God was created he was made like Adam.
When the basic idea of Universal Human Rights was created it was made like Adam AND Eve.
And for you who think heterosexual attraction, i.e. that women are
sexier than men, could be (exc)used as a reason for depriving women of
legal sameness. Please, do think again!And read Klevius Sex and Gender
Tutorial below - if you can!
The Plan of God
A Cardinal, a Pope and a Justice "from medieval times"
Keith O'Brien has reiterated the Catholic Church's continued
opposition to civil partnerships and suggested that there should be no
laws that "facilitate" same-sex relationships, which he claimed were
"harmful", arguing that “The empirical evidence is clear, same-sex
relationships are demonstrably harmful to the medical, emotional and
spiritual wellbeing of those involved, no compassionate society should
ever enact legislation to facilitate or promote such relationships, we
have failed those who struggle with same-sex attraction and wider
society by our actions.”
Four male members of the Scottish Catholic clergy allegedly claim that
Keith O'Brien had abused his position as a member of the church
hierarchy by making unwanted homosexual advances towards them in the
1980s.
Keith O'Brien criticized the concept of same-sex marriage saying it
would shame the United Kingdom and that promoting such things would
degenerate society further.
Pope Francis, aka Jorge Bergoglio: Same-sex is a destructive
pretension against the plan of God. We are not talking about a mere
bill, but rather a machination of the Father of Lies that seeks to
confuse and deceive the children of God." He has also insisted that
adoption by gay and lesbian people is a form of discrimination against
children. This position received a rebuke from Argentine president
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who said the church's tone was
reminiscent of "medieval times and the Inquisition".
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg: 'Sex' is a dirty word, so let's use 'gender' instead!
Klevius: Let's not!
As previously and repeatedly pointed out by Klevius, the treacherous use
of 'gender' instead of 'sex' is not only confusing but deliberately so.
So when Jewish Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg proposed gender' as a
synonyme for 'sex' (meaning biological sex) she also helped to shut the
door for many a young girl's/woman's possibilities to climb outside the
gender cage.
The Universal Human Rights declaration clearly states that your
biological sex should not be referred to as an excuse for limiting your
rights.
Islam (now represented by OIC and its Sharia declaration) is the
worst and most dangerous form of sex segregation - no matter in how
modern clothing it's presented!
Klevius Sex and Gender Tutorial
What is 'gender' anyway?
(text randomly extracted from some scientific writings by Klevius)
It might be argued that it is the developing girl, not the grown up
woman, who is the most receptive to new experience, but yet is also the
most vulnerable. Therefore we need to address the analysis of the
tyranny of gender before the point at where it's already too late. I
prefer to use the term ‘female’ instead of ‘woman’ so to include girls,
when appropriate in this discussion. I also prefer not to define women
in relation to men, i.e. in line with the word 'universal' in the Human
Rights Declaration. In short, I propose 'gender blindness' equally as,
for example, 'color blindness'. And keep in mind, this has nothing to do
with biological differences.
According to Connell (2003:184), it is an old and disreputable habit to
define women mainly on the basis of their relation to men. Moreover,
this approach may also constitute a possible cause of confusion when
compared to a definition of ‘gender’ which emphasizes social relations
on the basis of ‘reproductive differences’.
To really grasp the absurdity of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's and
others habit of confusing 'gender' with 'sex' one may consider that
“normal” girls/women live in the same gender trap tyranny as do
transsexuals.
The definition of ‘acquired gender’ is described in a guidance for/about transsexuals as:
Transsexual people have the deep conviction that the gender to which
they were assigned at birth on the basis of their physical anatomy
(referred to as their “birth gender”) is incorrect. That conviction will
often lead them to take steps to present themselves to the world in the
opposite gender. Often, transsexual people will undergo hormonal or
surgical treatment to bring their physical identity into line with their
preferred gender identity.
This evokes the extinction of the feminine or women as directly
dependent on the existence of the masculine or men. Whereas the feminine
cannot be defined without the masculine, the same applies to women who
cannot be defined - only described - without men.
Female footballers, for example - as opposed to feminine footballers,
both male and female - are, just like the target group of feminism, by
definition distinguished by sex. Although this classification is a
physical segregation – most often based on a delivery room assessment
made official and not at all taking into account physical size,
strength, skills etc. - other aspects of sex difference, now usually
called ‘gender’, seem to be layered on top of this dichotomy. This
review departs from the understanding that there are two main categories
that distinguish females, i.e. the physical sex belonging, for example,
that only biological women may participate in a certain competition,
and the cultural sex determination, for example that some sports or
sporters are less ‘feminine’ than others.
‘Gender’ is synonymous with sex segregation, given that the example of
participation on the ground of one’s biological sex is simply a rule for
a certain agreed activity and hence not sex segregation in the form of
stipulated or assumed separatism. Such sex segregation is still common
even in societies which have prescribed to notions of general human
freedom regardless of sex and in accordance with Human Rights. This is
because of a common consensus that sex segregation is ‘good’ although,
as it is seen here, its effects are bad in the long run.
In Durkheim’s (1984: 142) view ‘organized despotism’ is where the
individual and the collective consciousness are almost the same. Then
sui generis, a new life may be added on to that of the main body. As a
consequence, this freer and more independent state progresses and
consolidates itself (Durkheim 1984: 284).
However, consensus may also rest on an imbalance that is upheld and may
even strengthen precisely as an effect of the initial imbalance. In such
a case ‘organized despotism’ becomes the means for conservation. As a
consequence, the only alternative would be to ease restrictions, which
is something fundamentally different from proposing how people should
live their lives. ‘Organized despotism’ in this meaning may apply to
gender and to sex segregation as well.
According to Connell (2003) whose confused view may be closer to that of
Justice Ginsburg, gender is neither biology, nor a fixed dichotomy, but
it has a special relation to the human body mirrored in a ‘general
perception’. Cultural patterns do not only mirror bodily differences.
Gender is ‘a structure’ of social relations/practices concentrated to
‘the reproductive arena’, and a series of due practices in social
processes. That is, gender describes how society relates to the human
body, and has due consequences for our private life and for the future
of wo/mankind (Connell 2003:21-22). However, the main problem here
involves how to talk without gender.
Sex should properly refer to the biological aspects of male and female
existence. Sex differences should therefore only be used to refer to
physiology, anatomy, genetics, hormones and so forth. Gender should
properly be used to refer to all the non‑biological aspects of
differences between males and females ‑ clothes, interests, attitudes,
behaviors and aptitudes, for example ‑ which separate 'masculine' from
'feminine' life styles (Delamont 1980: 5 in Hargreaves 1994:146).
It seems that 'masculine' and 'feminine’ in this definition of gender is
confusingly close to the ‘mystique about their being predetermined by
biology’ when compared to the ‘reproductive arena’ and ‘reproductive
differences’ in Connell’s definition of gender. However, although
gender, according to Connell (2003: 96), may also be ‘removed’ the
crucial issue is whether those who are segregated really want to de-sex
segregate? As long as the benefits of a breakout are not clearly
assessable, the possible negative effects may undermine such
efforts.Hesitating to run out through an opened door to the unknown
doesn't necessarily mean that you don't want to. Nor does it mean that
you have to.
According to Connell (2003:20) the very key to the understanding of
gender is not to focus on differences, but, instead, to focus on
relations. In fact, this distinction is crucial here because relations,
contrary to differences, are mutually dependent. Whatever difference
existing between the sexes is meaningless unless it is connected via a
relation. On the one hand, big male muscles can hardly be of relational
use other than in cases of domestic violence, and on the other hand,
wage gaps cannot be identified without a comparative relation to the
other sex.
Biological determinism is influential in the general discourse of sports
academia (Hargreaves 1994:8). However, what remains to analyze is
whether ‘gender’ is really a successful concept for dealing with
biological determinism?
‘To explain the cultural at the level of the biological encourages the
exaggeration and approval of analyses based on distinctions between men
and women, and masks the complex relationship between the biological and
the cultural’ (Hargreaves 1994:8).
With another example: to explain the cultural (driver) at the level of
the technical (type of car) encourages the exaggeration and approval of
analyses based on distinctions between cars, and masks the complex
relationship between the car and the driver. However, also the contrary
seems to hold true;. that the cultural (driver/gender) gets tied to the
technical/biological. The ‘complex relationship’ between the car and the
driver is easily avoided by using similar1 cars, hence making the
driver more visible. In a sex/gender setting the ‘complex relationship’
between sex and gender is easily avoided by distinguishing between sex
and culture2, hence making culture more visible. The term ‘culture’,
unlike the term ‘gender’ clearly tries to avoid the ‘complex
relationship’ between biology and gender. The ‘complex relationship’
makes it, in fact, impossible to distinguish between them. On top of
this comes the ‘gender relation’ confusion, which determines people to
have ‘gender relations’, i.e. to be opposite or separate.
This kind of gender view is popular, perhaps because it may serve as a
convenient way out from directly confronting the biology/culture
distinction, and seems to be the prevalent trend, to the extent that
‘gender’ has conceptually replaced ‘sex’, leading to the consequence
that the latter has become more or less self-evident and thus almost
beyond scrutiny. In other words, by using ‘gender’ as a sign for ‘the
complex relationship between the biological and the cultural’,
biological determinism becomes more difficult to access analytically.
The distinction between sex and gender implied in these quotations,
however, does not seem to resolve the issue, precisely because it fails
to offer a tool for discriminating biological aspects of differences
from non-biological ones, i.e. those that are cultural. This is also
reflected in everyday life. ‘Folk’ categories of sex and gender often
appear to be used as if they were the same thing. Although 'masculine'
and 'feminine' are social realities, there is a mystique about their
being predetermined by biology. Furthermore the very relational meaning
of ‘gender’ seems to constitute a too obvious hiding place for a brand
of essentialism based on sex. Apart from being ‘structure’, as noted
above, gender is, according to Connell (2003:20), all about relations.
However, if there are none - or if the relations are excluding - the
concept of sex segregation may be even more useful.
In Connell’s analysis, gender may be removed (Connell 2003:96). In this
respect and as a consequence, gender equals sex segregation. In fact it
seems that the 'masculine' and 'feminine’, in the definition of gender
above, are confusingly close to the ‘mystique about their being
predetermined by biology’ when compared to the ‘reproductive arena’ and
‘reproductive differences’ in Connell’s (2003:21) definition of gender.
The elusiveness of gender seems to reveal a point of focus rather than a
thorough-going conceptualization. So, for example, in traditional
Engels/Marx thinking the family’s mediating formation between class and
state excludes the politics of gender (Haraway 1991: 131).
What's a Woman?
In What is a Woman? Moi (1999) attacks the concept of gender while still
emphasizing the importance of the concept of the feminine and a strong
self-conscious (female) subject that combines the personal and the
theoretical within it. Moi (1999: 76), hence, seems to propose a loose
sex/gender axis resting on a rigid womanhood based on women’s context
bound, lived experience outside the realm of men’s experience.
Although I share Moi’s suggestion for abandoning the category of gender,
her analysis seems to contribute to a certain confusion and to an
almost incalculable theoretical abstraction in the sex/gender
distinction because it keeps maintaining sex segregation without
offering a convincing defence for it. Although gender, for example, is
seen as a nature-culture distinction, something that essentializes
non-essential differences between women and men, the same may be said
about Moi’s approach if we understand her ‘woman’ as, mainly, the
mainstream biological one usually classified (prematurely) in the
delivery room. If the sexes live in separate spheres, as Moi’s analysis
seems to imply, the lived, contextual experience of women appears as
less suitable for pioneering on men’s territory.
This raises the question about whether the opening up of new frontiers
for females may demand the lessening or even the absence of femininity
(and masculinity). In fact, it is believed here that the ‘liminal state’
where social progression might best occur, is precisely that. Gender as
an educated ‘facticity’ then, from this point of view, will inevitably
enter into a state of world view that adds itself onto the ‘lived body’
as a constraint.
It is assumed here that we commonly conflate constructs of sex, gender,
and sexuality. When sex is defined as the ‘biological’ aspects of male
and female, then this conceptualization is here understood as purely
descriptive. When gender is said to include social practices organized
in relation to biological sex (Connell 1987), and when gender refers to
context/time-specific and changeable socially constructed relationships
of social attributes and opportunities learned through socialization
processes, between women and men, this is also here understood as
descriptive. However, when description of gender transforms into active
construction of gender, e.g. through secrets about its analytical gain,
it subsequently transforms into a compulsory necessity. Gendering hence
may blindfold gender-blind opportunities.
In conclusion, if gender is here understood as a social construct, then
it is not coupled to sex but to context, and dependent on time. Also it
is here understood that every person may possess not only one but a
variety of genders. Even if we consider gender to be locked together
with the life history of a single individual the above conceptualization
makes a single, personal gender impossible, longitudinally as well as
contemporaneously. Whereas gender is constructive and deterministic, sex
is descriptive and non-deterministic. In this sense, gender as an
analytical tool leaves little room for the Tomboy.
The Tomboy - a threat to "femininity"
Noncompliance with what is assumed ‘feminine’ threatens established or
presumed sex segregation. What is perceived as ‘masculinity’ or
‘maleness’ in women, as a consequence, may only in second place, target
homosexuality. In accordance with this line of thought, the Tomboy
embodies both the threat and the possibilities for gendered respectively
gender-blind opportunity structures.
The Tomboy is the loophole out of gender relations. Desires revealed
through sport may have been with females under the guise of a different
identity, such as that of the Tomboy (Kotarba & Held 2007: 163).
Girls throw balls ‘like girls’ and do not tackle like boys because of a
female perception of their bodies as objects of action (Young 2000:150
cited in Kotarba & Held 2007: 155).
However, when women lacking experience of how to act in an effective
manner in sport are taught about how to do, they have no problem
performing, quite contrary to explaining shortcomings as due to innate
causes (Kotarba & Held 2007: 157). This is also opposite to the
experiences of male-to-female transsexuals who through thorough exercise
learn how to feminize their movements (Schrock & Boyd 2006:53-55).
Although, according to Hargreaves (1994), most separatist sports
philosophies have been a reaction to dominant ideas about the biological
and psychological predispositions of men and women, supposedly
rendering men 'naturally suited to sports, and women, by comparison,
essentially less suited (Hargreaves 1994:29-30), the opposite may also
hold true. Separatism per definition needs to separate and this
separation is often based on biological differences, be it skin colour,
sex or something else.
From this perspective, the Tomboy would constitute a theoretical anomaly
in a feminine separatist setting. Although her physical body would
possibly qualify as feminine, what makes her a Tomboy would not.
The observation that in mixed playgrounds, and in other areas of the
school environment, boys monopolize the physical space (Hargreaves
1994:151) may lack the additional notion that certain boys dominate and
certain boys do not. Sports feminists have 'politicized' these kinds of
experience by drawing connections between ideas and practice (Hargreaves
1994:3) but because of a separatist approach may exclude similar
experience among parts of the boys. Moreover, a separatist approach is
never waterproof and may hence leak Tomboy girls without a notion.
Femininity and feminism
Feminism and psychoanalysis as oppressors
According to Collier and Yanagisako (1987), Henrietta Moore (1994) and
other feminist anthropologists, patriarchal dominance is an inseparable
socially inherited part of the conventional family system. This implicit
suggestion of radical surgery does not, however, count on unwanted
secondary effects neither on the problem with segregated or
non-segregated sex-worlds. If, in other words, oppression is related to
gender segregation rather than patriarchy, or perhaps that patriarchy is
a product of sex segregation, then there seems to be a serious problem
of intellectual survival facing feminists themselves (Klevius in
Angels of Antichrist 1996).
If feminism1 is to be understood as an approach and/or analytical tool
for separatism2, those feminists and others who propose not only
analytical segregation but also practical segregation, face the problem
of possible oppression inherent in this very segregation (Klevius 1994,
1996). In this sense oppression is related to sex segregation in two
ways:
1. As a means for naming it (feminism) for an analytical purpose.
2. As a social consequence or political strategy (e.g. negative bias
against, for example, female football or a separatist strategy for
female football).
It is notable that the psychoanalytic movement has not only been
contemporary with feminism, but it has also followed (or led) the same
pattern of concern and proposed warnings and corrections that has marked
the history of ‘feminism’ in the 20th century. According to S. Freud,
the essence of the analytic profession is feminine and the psychoanalyst
‘a woman in love’ (L. Appignanesi & J. Forrester 1992:189). But
psychoanalytically speaking, formalized sex and sex segregation also
seem to have been troublesome components in the lives of female
psychoanalysts struggling under a variety of assumed, but irreconcilable
femininities and professional expectations.
In studying the history of feminism one inevitable encounters what is
called ‘the women’s movement’. While there is a variety of different
feminisms, and because the borders between them, as well as to what is
interpreted as the women’s rights movement, some historians, incl.
Klevius, question the distinction and/or methods in use for this
distinction.
However, it could also be argued that whereas the women’s rights
movement may be distinguished by its lack of active separatism within
the proposed objectives of the movement, feminism ought to be
distinguished as a multifaceted separatist movement based on what is
considered feminine values, i.e. what is implied by the very word
‘feminism’3. From this perspective the use of the term ‘feminism’ before
the last decades of the 19th century has to be re-evaluated, as has
every such usage that does not take into account the separatist nature
underpinning all feminisms worth carrying the name. Here it is
understood that the concept ‘feminism’, and its derivatives, in every
usage implies a distinction based on separating the sexes - e.g.
addressing inequality or inequity - between male and female (see
discussion above). So although ’feminism’ and ‘feminisms’ would be
meaningless without such a separation, the ‘women’s rights movement’,
seen as based on a distinct aim for equality with men in certain legal
respects, e.g. the right to vote, could be described as the opposite,
i.e. de-sex segregation, ‘gender blindness’ etc.
As a consequence the use of the word feminism in a context where it
seems inappropriate is here excepted when the authors referred to have
decided to do so. The feminist movement went back to Mary Wollstonecraft
and to some French revolutionaries of the end of the eighteenth
century, but it had developed slowly. In the period 1880 to 1900,
however, the struggle was taken up again with renewed vigour, even
though most contemporaries viewed it as idealistic and hopeless.
Nevertheless, it resulted in ideological discussions about the natural
equality or non-equality of the sexes, and the psychology of women.
(Ellenberger 1970: 291-292).
Not only feminist gynocentrists, but also anti-feminist misogynists
contributed with their own pronouncements on the woman issue. In 1901,
for example, the German psychiatrist Moebius published a treatise, On
the Physiological Imbecility of Woman, according to which, woman is
physically and mentally intermediate between the child and man (see
Ellenberger 1970:292). However, according to the underlying presumption
of this thesis, i.e. that the borders between gynocentrism and misogyny
are not well understood, these two approaches are seen as more or less
synonymous. Such a view also confirms with a multitude of points in
common between psychoanalysis and feminism. As was argued earlier, the
main quality of separatism and ‘complementarism’ is an insurmountable
border, sometimes contained under the titles: love, desire etc.
.
