In recent conversations about how we can respond to the publicity around the tragic LGB youth suicides, Male Women's Studies Student asked that we not do anything along the lines of "it will get better" because of how ineffective such messaging is in dealing with current trauma. If you're interested, the awesome community-based group SONG (Southerners on New Ground) just posted a memo, "Does it Get Better and If So, For Who?" voicing a similar concern and explaining why the "it will get better" mantra we've been hearing overlooks the magnitude of multiple systematic, long-term oppressions.
Friday, October 8, 2010
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Thoughts on Grenz
Power has proven extraordinarily difficult to conceptualize, and we as researchers seem to have the most difficult time theorizing power when it comes to sex. Grenz's (2005) article, "Intersections of Sex and Power in Research on Prostitution: A Female Researcher Interviewing Male Heterosexual Clients," examines power dynamics within the interview process between a female researcher (Grenz) and heterosexual German johns. Prostitution is legal is Germany, but still deemed "immoral," so Grenz notes a number of tensions arose in the interviewing process due to the nature of the topic and the gender/sexual power relations imbued within it.
First, she struggled to achieve an open, anonymous space where the men could fully participate and where she herself could feel safe. The interviews took place at a colleague's office space, as Grenz (understandably) did not feel comfortable meeting at the clients' homes and did not expect they would be able to share fully if the interviews occurred in public. Grenz was not able to employ what we would consider feminist methodology because she was wary of developing rapport and of divulging details about her own life; instead, she functioned as a listener only. Even though this risked placing her in the dominant position of researcher versus the lowly researched, Grenz still found that her probing into the experiences of these johns could be conceived of a challenge to hegemonic masculinity. Indeed, these men were not accustomed to being subject to study, investigated, and picked over as a research curiosity - such a research project was read "as an irritation to socially dominant perceptions of masculinity."
Second, Grenz navigates how 'confession' functioned in the interviews given her role as a researcher. Due to the "immorality" surrounding prostitution, the men appear to not have many opportunities to process their consumption of women, leading Grenz to note the "compulsion" for confession. The confession, however, was not itself a hierarchical relationship where the men were subordinates 'confessing' a shameful practice to a higher figure like Grenz. Instead, Grenz suggests that the confession is more of a self-exploration, and, in the context of social science, a confession to be made in a neutral, non-judging space.
Grenz, despite noting that "the dangers these clients faced were minimal compared to dangers people are confronted with when they come out as gay or lesbian," still uses 'coming-out' as a framework for interpreting the confession. In terms of the 'confession' experience, I disagree that it can be paralleled with a 'coming out' experience. Such an interpretation of 'deviance' is far too broad and overlooks how some kinds of deviance can get you killed while other kinds of deviance can get you back slaps at the local pub. Grenz gets to the heart of the matter when she writes: "The important question is whether concealment in this case is about being minoritized or about the privilege of having a position that basically allows one to be silent about one's "deviant" sexual position....The dilemma lies in the question of whether sex purchase - despite its social and legal status - is a so-called sexually deviant behavior that, like homosexuality, needs moral liberation or whether, instead, it is an exercise of power, an opportunity for men to opt out of private and personal conflicts." Although she doesn't concretely side either way, I think it would be dangerous of us to conclude the former due to the way in which prostitution is structured on class, racial/ethnic, and gender lines.
Third, Grenz notes the way homophobia functions within the interview space. None of her participants wanted to be interviewed by a man, and many explicitly suggested that being interviewed by a woman would be far preferable. They were wary of intimacy and vulnerability with other men because of a homophobic discomfort with male-male intimacy. Homophobia, as Suzanne Pharr so rocking-awesomely tells us, is a weapon of sexism; the homophobia of the johns served not just to distance themselves from intimacy with men, to but establish gender difference and hierarchy. Women are clearly burdened with emotional labor, as indicated by the participants' expectations that Grenz would listen without judgment to their 'confessions' and the way they perceive and treat prostitutes as "emotional resources." The men can "display their neediness," Grenz writes, "and women, like mothers, will care for them." They can offer their vulnerabilities and insecurities to Grenz, tentatively asking "if they should tell her" things that might lead to her rejection of them, but these insecurities are purely self-centered and masculinist - Grenz notes that they had no qualms about extolling "collective beliefs about sex and gender that result in social relations that privilege men." Due to her positionality as a researcher, Grenz did not challenge these comments.
Fourth, Grenz delves into how eroticism and sexuality played out over the course of her interviews. She faced the problematic dilemma of being an object of eroticism on the part of the clients, or experiencing the projection of their desire/lack of desire on to her. Interestingly, Grenz says that she did not necessarily interpret these eroticisms as the men exerting power and control, but rather as further "emotional neediness" and, therefore, vulnerability! Grenz notes several times over the course of the article of her sense of 'control' and 'power' in being able to deny or grant these men's sexual expectations. She never states that such power is illusory, but suggests that the power of the researcher and the power of men were interacting in particular ways. She has the 'power' of denial, but the men have the 'power' to ask such overt sexual requests in innocent, easy ways. Such a variable use of 'power' means we risk losing the structural ways in which it is reproduced and functions.
Grenz does note that "the most prevailing force that shaped the interviews was the gendered relation" between herself and the men she studied, and that the heterosexual eroticism of the interview process was understood by the men to "necessitate the presence of a woman as listener" due to their homophobic aversion to intimacy with men. In this sense, the eroticism projected onto the interview is coupled with the use of women for emotional needs. In conclusion, she argues that we must be careful to not see the researcher-researched role as one of a strict hierarchy and power dynamic. And while this is true, I find it interesting that we have taken 'feminist methods' to mean one that explicitly and singularly critiques the "researcher as god" and "researched as lowly other" model (especially considering that this is a point that comes up regularly in the articles from the summer 2005 edition of Signs). Have we forgotten that feminism also means a historic critique of the way gender and sexual hierarchies play out within the interview process, too?
First, she struggled to achieve an open, anonymous space where the men could fully participate and where she herself could feel safe. The interviews took place at a colleague's office space, as Grenz (understandably) did not feel comfortable meeting at the clients' homes and did not expect they would be able to share fully if the interviews occurred in public. Grenz was not able to employ what we would consider feminist methodology because she was wary of developing rapport and of divulging details about her own life; instead, she functioned as a listener only. Even though this risked placing her in the dominant position of researcher versus the lowly researched, Grenz still found that her probing into the experiences of these johns could be conceived of a challenge to hegemonic masculinity. Indeed, these men were not accustomed to being subject to study, investigated, and picked over as a research curiosity - such a research project was read "as an irritation to socially dominant perceptions of masculinity."
Second, Grenz navigates how 'confession' functioned in the interviews given her role as a researcher. Due to the "immorality" surrounding prostitution, the men appear to not have many opportunities to process their consumption of women, leading Grenz to note the "compulsion" for confession. The confession, however, was not itself a hierarchical relationship where the men were subordinates 'confessing' a shameful practice to a higher figure like Grenz. Instead, Grenz suggests that the confession is more of a self-exploration, and, in the context of social science, a confession to be made in a neutral, non-judging space.
Grenz, despite noting that "the dangers these clients faced were minimal compared to dangers people are confronted with when they come out as gay or lesbian," still uses 'coming-out' as a framework for interpreting the confession. In terms of the 'confession' experience, I disagree that it can be paralleled with a 'coming out' experience. Such an interpretation of 'deviance' is far too broad and overlooks how some kinds of deviance can get you killed while other kinds of deviance can get you back slaps at the local pub. Grenz gets to the heart of the matter when she writes: "The important question is whether concealment in this case is about being minoritized or about the privilege of having a position that basically allows one to be silent about one's "deviant" sexual position....The dilemma lies in the question of whether sex purchase - despite its social and legal status - is a so-called sexually deviant behavior that, like homosexuality, needs moral liberation or whether, instead, it is an exercise of power, an opportunity for men to opt out of private and personal conflicts." Although she doesn't concretely side either way, I think it would be dangerous of us to conclude the former due to the way in which prostitution is structured on class, racial/ethnic, and gender lines.
Third, Grenz notes the way homophobia functions within the interview space. None of her participants wanted to be interviewed by a man, and many explicitly suggested that being interviewed by a woman would be far preferable. They were wary of intimacy and vulnerability with other men because of a homophobic discomfort with male-male intimacy. Homophobia, as Suzanne Pharr so rocking-awesomely tells us, is a weapon of sexism; the homophobia of the johns served not just to distance themselves from intimacy with men, to but establish gender difference and hierarchy. Women are clearly burdened with emotional labor, as indicated by the participants' expectations that Grenz would listen without judgment to their 'confessions' and the way they perceive and treat prostitutes as "emotional resources." The men can "display their neediness," Grenz writes, "and women, like mothers, will care for them." They can offer their vulnerabilities and insecurities to Grenz, tentatively asking "if they should tell her" things that might lead to her rejection of them, but these insecurities are purely self-centered and masculinist - Grenz notes that they had no qualms about extolling "collective beliefs about sex and gender that result in social relations that privilege men." Due to her positionality as a researcher, Grenz did not challenge these comments.
Fourth, Grenz delves into how eroticism and sexuality played out over the course of her interviews. She faced the problematic dilemma of being an object of eroticism on the part of the clients, or experiencing the projection of their desire/lack of desire on to her. Interestingly, Grenz says that she did not necessarily interpret these eroticisms as the men exerting power and control, but rather as further "emotional neediness" and, therefore, vulnerability! Grenz notes several times over the course of the article of her sense of 'control' and 'power' in being able to deny or grant these men's sexual expectations. She never states that such power is illusory, but suggests that the power of the researcher and the power of men were interacting in particular ways. She has the 'power' of denial, but the men have the 'power' to ask such overt sexual requests in innocent, easy ways. Such a variable use of 'power' means we risk losing the structural ways in which it is reproduced and functions.
Grenz does note that "the most prevailing force that shaped the interviews was the gendered relation" between herself and the men she studied, and that the heterosexual eroticism of the interview process was understood by the men to "necessitate the presence of a woman as listener" due to their homophobic aversion to intimacy with men. In this sense, the eroticism projected onto the interview is coupled with the use of women for emotional needs. In conclusion, she argues that we must be careful to not see the researcher-researched role as one of a strict hierarchy and power dynamic. And while this is true, I find it interesting that we have taken 'feminist methods' to mean one that explicitly and singularly critiques the "researcher as god" and "researched as lowly other" model (especially considering that this is a point that comes up regularly in the articles from the summer 2005 edition of Signs). Have we forgotten that feminism also means a historic critique of the way gender and sexual hierarchies play out within the interview process, too?
Saturday, October 2, 2010
A difficult challenge
I attended my first drag show when I was 18 during the fall of my first semester of college. My sister and I went because a woman in our writing class would be performing and was trying to round up a crowd. We were not particularly close to this student, and I will say that a large part of attending the drag show was because it fit the image of the liberal, open-minded woman I intended to embody. The drag shows at my university were put on by the campus LGBTQ group and were a major revenue source for the organization...and I was such an awesome ally, I wanted to support whatever their community sponsored. Of course I was down with drag! At the time, I was still heterosexual, and I approached the show with an outsider's voyeuristic curiosity.
The show itself started out being what I thought it was going to be, with large, outlandish costumes and singing and dancing to disco and pop beats. After the established queens had started us off, amateur acts began to entertain the crowd. That was when it began to get raunchy and, for my sister and me, quite uncomfortable. In a drag show, you show your appreciation for acts by tipping the performers, very much like how dancers are tipped at a strip club. That night, the line between 'drag show' and 'strip club' seemed to blur to me. Several of the subsequent acts included stripping and simulating sex, often with a cheering crowd lining up to tip the acts. The more nakedness, the more the (mostly straight, although with a sizable population of queer folks) crowd ate it up. I was uncomfortable, but I did not want to seem like I wasn't open-minded or accepting. At the time, I was afraid that was what my discomfort meant. Either way, I was too invested in being a devoted ally to suggest otherwise.
But my comfort was further challenged when the woman from my writing class took the stage. She performed as Tom, the only king in the line-up (indeed, even though the drag world is a very marginalized and underpaid entertainment sector, queens dominate the scene). Tom had on vinyl leather pants, a men's white tank-top undershirt, a loose, open collared shirt, and boots. He had spiked his hair and painted the stubble of a beard on his chin. Although the queens had no trouble getting a line-up of folks willing to fling dollar bills on stage, Tom was strutting back and forth to some 90s rock song without anyone offering a bill for several minutes. This was Tom's inaugural drag experience. My sister and I watched Tom, all alone on stage as the time ticked by, and felt Tom's isolation...how terrifying to be up on stage, your first time in drag in front of a packed auditorium, and have no one tip you?
In a bold and bewildering moment, I decided I would break the ice for Tom and be the first to give him a bill. I had intended, of course, to just hand Tom a dollar, but Tom had different ideas. He saw me approach and started to make a seductive, 'come hither' gesture with his pointer finger. Oblivious, I thought this meant 'yeah! Bring me that dollar bill!,' but when I held up the bill, Tom skipped the bill and grabbed my wrist. My knee-jerk reaction was to try to wrench my wrist away, but Tom was quite strong. For a few moments there was an awkward, spotlit tussle as he tried to pull me closer and I, shaking my head with a fixed smile on my face, tried to pull back. "Come here," said Tom. "No, no, no," I said through that tight grin.
Tom won. He increased the force of his grip and knelt closer. I closed my eyes and turned away. His lips brushed across my forehead for a moment. Then he took the dollar and released me.
Although I have attended drag shows since that first, uncomfortably memorable experience, I determined some time ago that they were not for me. Choosing not to attend drag shows is not meant to be a direct affront to drag itself as a performance art. I think drag queens are brave and fierce and dare to show themselves to a world that marginalizes them. Drag shows just left me feeling too saddened and conflicted to find them entertaining...perhaps the expectation that they were 'entertainment' was part of the problem. I knew the political underpinnings were in there somewhere, but amid the giant fake breasts and Brittany Spears numbers, it was getting hard to find them. Watching them, I couldn't help but wonder, where is this supposed to be taking us?
I say all of this because, in reading Taylor and Rupp's (2005) "When the Girls are Men: Negotiating Gender and Sexual Dynamics in a Study of Drag Queens," these memories came back to me, crystallized and poignant and as freshly painful as they once were. Taylor and Rupp, both lesbians, share how their identities affected their participatory research of the queens from the infamous drag revue in Key West. I found this article saddening and angering to read. It has taken me some time to sort out what of it saddens me and what of it angers me, and why it is that my reaction has been so visceral. I have also been contending with whether I am entitled to such a reaction at all. I venture my critique with this hesitation in mind.
My first observation was that Taylor and Rupp spend a lot of time talking about gender and sexuality, but none talking about race. Such a conversation is sorely lacking, both in their reflection on their methodology and in the drag acts themselves. In Taylor and Rupp's description of the Queens, for example, the ones who are 'other' are racialized or noted for their difference (i.e. Puerto Rican, Black, Jewish, Swedish), but the WASP queen is not identified as white. Since Taylor and Rupp's own race isn't mentioned, I assume that they are white...it is likely that they would have been more inclined to discuss the role race played in their study if they were women of color. Furthermore, it is clear that the racial and ethnic identities of the Queens are incorporated into their act - "Sushi" is half Japanese and runs "Gook Productions;" "Gugi" is Puerto Rican. Even though Gugi is Puerto Rican, she performs as a Cuban, hosting "A Night in Havana." In other words, these gay men of color play up racial stereotypes of women of color in their drag acts. It may be subversive that they are 'really' men parodying overtly racist women of color stereotypes, but in the end, the stereotypes remain intact, if not reinforced.
Second, Taylor and Rupp seem overly congratulatory about how the queens challenge gender and sexual norms. For example, Scabola Feces' acts are described as "outrageous critiques of conventional gender and sexual norms," but these acts included "Karen Carpenter as a vomiting bulimic, a scorned woman wearing a ripped-up bridal gown in "Wedding Bell Blues," and Monica Lewinsky clutching a photo of Bill Clinton." Maybe there is more nuance to the acts than these descriptors suggest, but these acts don't sound outrageous or critical. These are mainstream parodies of these particular women (Carpenter, who died from her disordered eating, and Lewinsky, who is widely mocked for her affair with Clinton) and are already how women as a social group are perceived (as scorned brides and mistresses).
What Taylor and Rupp call "outrageous critiques" seem to just be essentializing and reinforcing. This is most obvious in the Queens' treatment of Taylor and Rupp. They refer to Taylor and Rupp "the lesbians" or "lesbo one" and "lesbo two." On many nights, they have them get on stage and announce that they are "the professors of lesbian love," or, more overtly, announce "I love to lick pussy." The researchers note that their breasts and pubic areas were often grabbed or touched as Sushi came around with the tip bucket. Most shockingly, the Queens routinely exposed Taylor's breasts onstage by pulling down her shirt. Taylor and Rupp write: "We let them do these things that we as feminists would never allow other men to do, even as we realized that these were, in part, expressions of male dominance. Without quite knowing it, we accepted these actions as part of a leveling process, even though they also made us angry."
I want to focus on that last part. Even though they also made us angry. This is the sole mention Taylor and Rupp provide in the entire article about any particularly negative reaction to the violation they experience by the Queens. Although Taylor and Rupp chalk this up to the "politics of vulgarity" of drag, they conclude that the Queens were shifting a power imbalance to suggest "as queer people we are all in the same boat." I cannot theorize my way into seeing this as the case. To grab the researchers' breasts or crotch, or to publicly expose their breasts to an audience, seems instead to be a way of ensuring there is yet another space in which women do not have full access or control over their bodies. Yet another space in which we are not safe from invasion. And while yes, the Queens that Taylor and Rupp study are survivors of incredible hardship and they too have been violated, to pass this violation on to the female-bodied researchers means not only does the female body remain a site of invasion and violation, but the Queens ensure the world does not become safe for them to perform or live as women, either.
The mainstream perception of gays and lesbians is always already reduced to a sexual act. To have lesbians announce on stage that they are "pussy lickers" does not "provoke a rethinking of what those categories mean." It seems to just reduce Taylor and Rupp to the sexual act that everyone is already thinking of when they identify as 'lesbian.' To make visible what everyone is already thinking is not the same as "rethinking," challenging, or changing it. That distinction is easily overlooked, but it is a crucial one to make.
There are clear tensions between feminism and drag, as indicated by the feminists Taylor and Rupp spoke to who found drag queens to be "demeaning" and did not want the Queens to visit the California campus. Taylor and Rupp insinuate that the perception of drag as "demeaning" is one of theoretical conclusions. I feel stuck, then, between being another feminist who calls drag performance 'demeaning' (and is therefore written off for not being aware of the "feminist project in drag") and simply letting drag off the hook entirely. This is the danger of critiquing a marginalized practice. There is such a push for protection from further marginalization that it leaves us very little room to talk about the ways in which it is problematic.
In that sense, Taylor and Rupp seem to over emphasize the social change the revue produces. Although the audience members in the focus groups seem to be moved to a broader notion of gender performance, their understanding of gender as a binary framework does not seem challenged, nor do their lives beyond the revue. In the researcher's focus groups, they say that "it was evident that heterosexual members had never conversed with a gay man or lesbian about the kinds of issues that came up in the discussion." Attending the drag shows doesn't, for example, lead to the audience members to have gay or lesbian friends, or at least it certainly doesn't lead to them processing the drag experience with gays or lesbians (or, it seems, anyone at all besides the researchers). Taylor and Rupp write that the focus groups often ended up conversing about "whether they thought of the drag queens as women or men, which girls were most attractive, and whether they enjoyed the performances more or were made uncomfortable when the drag queens deliberately broke the illusion of femininity by accentuating their identities as gay men." These conversations indicate a very nascent understanding of challenges to gender and sexual norms - are they men or women? Which one is the hottest? And do I prefer it when they don't stray from the illusion of femininity or when they reveal that they are 'really' male after all?
I do not want to dismiss the very tangible challenges drag poses to norms. I am suggesting, however, that Taylor and Rupp could be more reflexive about their anger, less congratulatory of "foregrounding" the tensions they faced as lesbians researching gay men, less certain that the Queen are deconstructing gender and sexuality, and more careful about noting the ways in which the Queens perpetuate the forces that contribute to their own marginalization. Accountability is not the same as blame.
Looking back at my first exposure to drag, I did feel violated by Tom, even though I did not (and do not) consider that experience as an assault. Like Taylor and Rupp, I permitted an incident that would I would not have permitted with an "actual" man, despite the reality that it was still a play of male dominance. In my mind, Tom was, after all, a woman. A woman who I would have to face the next day in class and twice a week for the rest of the semester. I was more embarrassed and confused than anything else. I can reflect now with a much sharper sense of what happened. In that scene, Tom and I performed a conventional heterosexual ritual of man-demanding-intimacy and woman-resisting-intimacy. The point was, however, that I was not performing. My "no" was not recognized, just as it hasn't been by other men. And while some would say that I should have known better, that to offer a dollar was to accept the drag show conventions and whatever the performer willed of me, I argue otherwise. The greatest challenge to gender and sexual norms would have been for Tom to hear and accept my "no."
The greatest challenge to gender and sexual norms would be a space in which all people have full determination over their own bodies.
The show itself started out being what I thought it was going to be, with large, outlandish costumes and singing and dancing to disco and pop beats. After the established queens had started us off, amateur acts began to entertain the crowd. That was when it began to get raunchy and, for my sister and me, quite uncomfortable. In a drag show, you show your appreciation for acts by tipping the performers, very much like how dancers are tipped at a strip club. That night, the line between 'drag show' and 'strip club' seemed to blur to me. Several of the subsequent acts included stripping and simulating sex, often with a cheering crowd lining up to tip the acts. The more nakedness, the more the (mostly straight, although with a sizable population of queer folks) crowd ate it up. I was uncomfortable, but I did not want to seem like I wasn't open-minded or accepting. At the time, I was afraid that was what my discomfort meant. Either way, I was too invested in being a devoted ally to suggest otherwise.
But my comfort was further challenged when the woman from my writing class took the stage. She performed as Tom, the only king in the line-up (indeed, even though the drag world is a very marginalized and underpaid entertainment sector, queens dominate the scene). Tom had on vinyl leather pants, a men's white tank-top undershirt, a loose, open collared shirt, and boots. He had spiked his hair and painted the stubble of a beard on his chin. Although the queens had no trouble getting a line-up of folks willing to fling dollar bills on stage, Tom was strutting back and forth to some 90s rock song without anyone offering a bill for several minutes. This was Tom's inaugural drag experience. My sister and I watched Tom, all alone on stage as the time ticked by, and felt Tom's isolation...how terrifying to be up on stage, your first time in drag in front of a packed auditorium, and have no one tip you?
In a bold and bewildering moment, I decided I would break the ice for Tom and be the first to give him a bill. I had intended, of course, to just hand Tom a dollar, but Tom had different ideas. He saw me approach and started to make a seductive, 'come hither' gesture with his pointer finger. Oblivious, I thought this meant 'yeah! Bring me that dollar bill!,' but when I held up the bill, Tom skipped the bill and grabbed my wrist. My knee-jerk reaction was to try to wrench my wrist away, but Tom was quite strong. For a few moments there was an awkward, spotlit tussle as he tried to pull me closer and I, shaking my head with a fixed smile on my face, tried to pull back. "Come here," said Tom. "No, no, no," I said through that tight grin.
Tom won. He increased the force of his grip and knelt closer. I closed my eyes and turned away. His lips brushed across my forehead for a moment. Then he took the dollar and released me.
Although I have attended drag shows since that first, uncomfortably memorable experience, I determined some time ago that they were not for me. Choosing not to attend drag shows is not meant to be a direct affront to drag itself as a performance art. I think drag queens are brave and fierce and dare to show themselves to a world that marginalizes them. Drag shows just left me feeling too saddened and conflicted to find them entertaining...perhaps the expectation that they were 'entertainment' was part of the problem. I knew the political underpinnings were in there somewhere, but amid the giant fake breasts and Brittany Spears numbers, it was getting hard to find them. Watching them, I couldn't help but wonder, where is this supposed to be taking us?
I say all of this because, in reading Taylor and Rupp's (2005) "When the Girls are Men: Negotiating Gender and Sexual Dynamics in a Study of Drag Queens," these memories came back to me, crystallized and poignant and as freshly painful as they once were. Taylor and Rupp, both lesbians, share how their identities affected their participatory research of the queens from the infamous drag revue in Key West. I found this article saddening and angering to read. It has taken me some time to sort out what of it saddens me and what of it angers me, and why it is that my reaction has been so visceral. I have also been contending with whether I am entitled to such a reaction at all. I venture my critique with this hesitation in mind.
My first observation was that Taylor and Rupp spend a lot of time talking about gender and sexuality, but none talking about race. Such a conversation is sorely lacking, both in their reflection on their methodology and in the drag acts themselves. In Taylor and Rupp's description of the Queens, for example, the ones who are 'other' are racialized or noted for their difference (i.e. Puerto Rican, Black, Jewish, Swedish), but the WASP queen is not identified as white. Since Taylor and Rupp's own race isn't mentioned, I assume that they are white...it is likely that they would have been more inclined to discuss the role race played in their study if they were women of color. Furthermore, it is clear that the racial and ethnic identities of the Queens are incorporated into their act - "Sushi" is half Japanese and runs "Gook Productions;" "Gugi" is Puerto Rican. Even though Gugi is Puerto Rican, she performs as a Cuban, hosting "A Night in Havana." In other words, these gay men of color play up racial stereotypes of women of color in their drag acts. It may be subversive that they are 'really' men parodying overtly racist women of color stereotypes, but in the end, the stereotypes remain intact, if not reinforced.
Second, Taylor and Rupp seem overly congratulatory about how the queens challenge gender and sexual norms. For example, Scabola Feces' acts are described as "outrageous critiques of conventional gender and sexual norms," but these acts included "Karen Carpenter as a vomiting bulimic, a scorned woman wearing a ripped-up bridal gown in "Wedding Bell Blues," and Monica Lewinsky clutching a photo of Bill Clinton." Maybe there is more nuance to the acts than these descriptors suggest, but these acts don't sound outrageous or critical. These are mainstream parodies of these particular women (Carpenter, who died from her disordered eating, and Lewinsky, who is widely mocked for her affair with Clinton) and are already how women as a social group are perceived (as scorned brides and mistresses).
What Taylor and Rupp call "outrageous critiques" seem to just be essentializing and reinforcing. This is most obvious in the Queens' treatment of Taylor and Rupp. They refer to Taylor and Rupp "the lesbians" or "lesbo one" and "lesbo two." On many nights, they have them get on stage and announce that they are "the professors of lesbian love," or, more overtly, announce "I love to lick pussy." The researchers note that their breasts and pubic areas were often grabbed or touched as Sushi came around with the tip bucket. Most shockingly, the Queens routinely exposed Taylor's breasts onstage by pulling down her shirt. Taylor and Rupp write: "We let them do these things that we as feminists would never allow other men to do, even as we realized that these were, in part, expressions of male dominance. Without quite knowing it, we accepted these actions as part of a leveling process, even though they also made us angry."
I want to focus on that last part. Even though they also made us angry. This is the sole mention Taylor and Rupp provide in the entire article about any particularly negative reaction to the violation they experience by the Queens. Although Taylor and Rupp chalk this up to the "politics of vulgarity" of drag, they conclude that the Queens were shifting a power imbalance to suggest "as queer people we are all in the same boat." I cannot theorize my way into seeing this as the case. To grab the researchers' breasts or crotch, or to publicly expose their breasts to an audience, seems instead to be a way of ensuring there is yet another space in which women do not have full access or control over their bodies. Yet another space in which we are not safe from invasion. And while yes, the Queens that Taylor and Rupp study are survivors of incredible hardship and they too have been violated, to pass this violation on to the female-bodied researchers means not only does the female body remain a site of invasion and violation, but the Queens ensure the world does not become safe for them to perform or live as women, either.
The mainstream perception of gays and lesbians is always already reduced to a sexual act. To have lesbians announce on stage that they are "pussy lickers" does not "provoke a rethinking of what those categories mean." It seems to just reduce Taylor and Rupp to the sexual act that everyone is already thinking of when they identify as 'lesbian.' To make visible what everyone is already thinking is not the same as "rethinking," challenging, or changing it. That distinction is easily overlooked, but it is a crucial one to make.
There are clear tensions between feminism and drag, as indicated by the feminists Taylor and Rupp spoke to who found drag queens to be "demeaning" and did not want the Queens to visit the California campus. Taylor and Rupp insinuate that the perception of drag as "demeaning" is one of theoretical conclusions. I feel stuck, then, between being another feminist who calls drag performance 'demeaning' (and is therefore written off for not being aware of the "feminist project in drag") and simply letting drag off the hook entirely. This is the danger of critiquing a marginalized practice. There is such a push for protection from further marginalization that it leaves us very little room to talk about the ways in which it is problematic.
In that sense, Taylor and Rupp seem to over emphasize the social change the revue produces. Although the audience members in the focus groups seem to be moved to a broader notion of gender performance, their understanding of gender as a binary framework does not seem challenged, nor do their lives beyond the revue. In the researcher's focus groups, they say that "it was evident that heterosexual members had never conversed with a gay man or lesbian about the kinds of issues that came up in the discussion." Attending the drag shows doesn't, for example, lead to the audience members to have gay or lesbian friends, or at least it certainly doesn't lead to them processing the drag experience with gays or lesbians (or, it seems, anyone at all besides the researchers). Taylor and Rupp write that the focus groups often ended up conversing about "whether they thought of the drag queens as women or men, which girls were most attractive, and whether they enjoyed the performances more or were made uncomfortable when the drag queens deliberately broke the illusion of femininity by accentuating their identities as gay men." These conversations indicate a very nascent understanding of challenges to gender and sexual norms - are they men or women? Which one is the hottest? And do I prefer it when they don't stray from the illusion of femininity or when they reveal that they are 'really' male after all?
I do not want to dismiss the very tangible challenges drag poses to norms. I am suggesting, however, that Taylor and Rupp could be more reflexive about their anger, less congratulatory of "foregrounding" the tensions they faced as lesbians researching gay men, less certain that the Queen are deconstructing gender and sexuality, and more careful about noting the ways in which the Queens perpetuate the forces that contribute to their own marginalization. Accountability is not the same as blame.
Looking back at my first exposure to drag, I did feel violated by Tom, even though I did not (and do not) consider that experience as an assault. Like Taylor and Rupp, I permitted an incident that would I would not have permitted with an "actual" man, despite the reality that it was still a play of male dominance. In my mind, Tom was, after all, a woman. A woman who I would have to face the next day in class and twice a week for the rest of the semester. I was more embarrassed and confused than anything else. I can reflect now with a much sharper sense of what happened. In that scene, Tom and I performed a conventional heterosexual ritual of man-demanding-intimacy and woman-resisting-intimacy. The point was, however, that I was not performing. My "no" was not recognized, just as it hasn't been by other men. And while some would say that I should have known better, that to offer a dollar was to accept the drag show conventions and whatever the performer willed of me, I argue otherwise. The greatest challenge to gender and sexual norms would have been for Tom to hear and accept my "no."
The greatest challenge to gender and sexual norms would be a space in which all people have full determination over their own bodies.
Monday, September 27, 2010
The problem of positionality
There seems to be great costs to whatever research steps we take, even ones we intend to be empowering. In her 2005 essay on positionality, Khan points out the paradoxes of her role as "native informant." Although she is an inside informant, what she says about Pakistani women is not always what the Western public chooses to hear. Her research is always subject to willful interpretation. If Khan writes an affadavit to help grant asylum to Pakistani women fleeing their families, the West will interpret it as 'yes, West is best!,' not realizing that the women are fleeing partly as a result of Western political interventions, nor accounting for the patriachal practices still present in the West. Although Khan draws (and wishes to draw) public attention to Pakistani women's experiences, she is aware that this publicity could do more harm than good. "Such awareness could also help generate rescue missions," she writes, "The bombing of Afghanistan provides an example." She knows she cannot directly help the women imprisoned under the Zina ordinance who tell her their stories, and that aiding the women seeking asylum means hurting Pakistani men's chances to successfully seek U.S. visas. Even though she is striving to help Pakistani women, she sees that the biggest obstacles to the effectiveness of her transnational work are Western located. Khan yearns for greater direct action, touting an expansive transnational feminism that bridges the local and the global.
Kesby (2005), in his article on negotiating power in participatory approaches, describes a similar allure to direct action. Participatory research, sometimes employed as a feminist methodology, is no longer a fringe method used strictly by activists. As participatory research becomes less marginal, Kesby warns that participatory research risks being recolonizing; "power is most effective and most insiduous where it is normalized." As an increasingly normalized approach, participation has been subject to necessary critique.
But Kesby's purpose is to defend participatory approaches from the obliteration of total critical destruction. To say participatory approaches are now just recolonizing efforts, or worse, a wolf of tyrranical power in participatory sheep's clothing, is unhelpful. "Calls for resistance to all forms of power are unnecessarily immobilizing and must seem to emanate from a rather privileged positionality," he writes. Kesby provides the example of participatory action and research on HIV prevention in Ghana, suggesting that it was likely better for him to encourage the Ghanian women in his study to participate in safe sex training instead of encouraging them to "resist" the tyrannical power of the participatory approach.
Khan and Kesby offer similar solutions to their dilemmas of positionality. Khan seems to see no clear way to aid Pakistani women within an oppressive, clouded Western interpretation of her research, and argues that 1) "accountability and transparency" as well as "connect[ing] local patriarchies to global ones and develop[ing] a transnational feminist analysis" are the best recourses. Kesby reminds us that all approaches, even ones with empowerment as their goal, should be considered "contestable, imperfect work[s] in progress" that are "subject to future challenge and transformation." The native informant role is a compromised role. Participatory approaches are compromised approaches. Being accountable, transparent, and recognizing that every approach we employ is merely the best tool for now, not the perfect tool, is perhaps the surest path we have to reconciling our own positions.
Kesby (2005), in his article on negotiating power in participatory approaches, describes a similar allure to direct action. Participatory research, sometimes employed as a feminist methodology, is no longer a fringe method used strictly by activists. As participatory research becomes less marginal, Kesby warns that participatory research risks being recolonizing; "power is most effective and most insiduous where it is normalized." As an increasingly normalized approach, participation has been subject to necessary critique.
But Kesby's purpose is to defend participatory approaches from the obliteration of total critical destruction. To say participatory approaches are now just recolonizing efforts, or worse, a wolf of tyrranical power in participatory sheep's clothing, is unhelpful. "Calls for resistance to all forms of power are unnecessarily immobilizing and must seem to emanate from a rather privileged positionality," he writes. Kesby provides the example of participatory action and research on HIV prevention in Ghana, suggesting that it was likely better for him to encourage the Ghanian women in his study to participate in safe sex training instead of encouraging them to "resist" the tyrannical power of the participatory approach.
Khan and Kesby offer similar solutions to their dilemmas of positionality. Khan seems to see no clear way to aid Pakistani women within an oppressive, clouded Western interpretation of her research, and argues that 1) "accountability and transparency" as well as "connect[ing] local patriarchies to global ones and develop[ing] a transnational feminist analysis" are the best recourses. Kesby reminds us that all approaches, even ones with empowerment as their goal, should be considered "contestable, imperfect work[s] in progress" that are "subject to future challenge and transformation." The native informant role is a compromised role. Participatory approaches are compromised approaches. Being accountable, transparent, and recognizing that every approach we employ is merely the best tool for now, not the perfect tool, is perhaps the surest path we have to reconciling our own positions.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Because we already know what happens if we do not try
"Can a white, middle class, heterosexual man teach about racism, classism, heterosexism, and sexism? And if so, should he?"
This is the question the professor of my "Teaching Sociology" pedagogy class wrote on the board at the start of one memorable class session about a year and a half ago. She asked our class to share our response to that question.
One (white, middle class, heterosexual) male said, "Yes, of course. We should be objective and practice value-free sociology when we teach."
The professor asked if there were any other comments to add. A (white, working class, ambiguously queer) woman said, "Yes, of course, because he should be trained to teach every field. Like, say I teach Introduction to Sociology. Even though I don't study them, I need to be able to teach about race and gender and sexuality just like I need to be able to teach about criminology and families, even though I don't study those, either."
These two students, within moments, articulated a shared expectation that value-free research is both acheivable and desirable, two things Harding and Norberg (2005) state it is not. Despite decades of feminist arguements to the contrary, it is still possible to obtain a doctorate in sociology believing that 'objective' and 'value-free' are realistic and preferable goals. Believe me, I have witnessed it first hand.
The man's comments, cynic that I am, did not surprise me. The woman's, however, were jarring. Her words pointed to a much more insidiuous pathology in a discipline divided by numerous fields...that "race" and "class" and "gender" and "sexuality" are merely fields of study. The question was not whether this hypothetically uber privileged man could teach the sociology of race or class or gender or sexuality, but if he could teach racism, classism, heterosexism, and sexism. She saw the '-isms' and saw "separate fields of study some other sociologists do." The woman's response showed that she felt race, class, gender, and sexuality were not already part of every other field of study. She saw race, class, gender, and sexuality as separate from the rest of sociology, separate from, even, the rest of her life. There were things to 'study' or 'subjects' teach, not power structures embedded in the fabric of our institutions. Not unavoidable. Not inescapable. She could put them away in a folder and teach them next week.
That is the myth feminist methodology saves us from, as Harding and Norberg claim. Because to think otherwise is to resign ourselves to our doom. If we do not see these hierarchies as always already present, then we are indeed "complicit in the exercise of power." While it is true that, for the past few weeks, the complications of attempting to account for this ever present power has left us feeling as though there is no right path, it seems that attempting to account for this ever present power means we do avoid a definitively wrong one.
Even Harding and Norberg write, "In spite of feminists' heroic attempts to eliminate such power differences, this goal has proved impossible." See?! All the generations of brilliant, fierce, badass feminists that have come before us have ALSO never managed to be perfectly power-neutral researchers! Instead of feeling defeated by this (or feeling pressured to be the first to come to some miraculous, publishable and tenure-worthy conclusion), perhaps we can take consolation in it. That we are still trying to eliminate power differences means, well, that we are still trying to eliminate power differences. That the battle wages on means that we're still fighting it. No one has shrugged their shoulders and said, "You know what? *pops knuckles of white privilege* I'm going where people don't recognize that I am the default racial position. It's time to colonize people and call it objective!" Through all the brambles and overgrowth, we keep striving to make a new path. Sometimes we must pause in desperation, or when the grief of it all is too much to bear, but pausing is not the same as stopping.
Never, ever, ever, ever forget that we are still here. And we will keep trying, together, in the face of all its impossiblities, to prove the goal possible.
This is the question the professor of my "Teaching Sociology" pedagogy class wrote on the board at the start of one memorable class session about a year and a half ago. She asked our class to share our response to that question.
One (white, middle class, heterosexual) male said, "Yes, of course. We should be objective and practice value-free sociology when we teach."
The professor asked if there were any other comments to add. A (white, working class, ambiguously queer) woman said, "Yes, of course, because he should be trained to teach every field. Like, say I teach Introduction to Sociology. Even though I don't study them, I need to be able to teach about race and gender and sexuality just like I need to be able to teach about criminology and families, even though I don't study those, either."
These two students, within moments, articulated a shared expectation that value-free research is both acheivable and desirable, two things Harding and Norberg (2005) state it is not. Despite decades of feminist arguements to the contrary, it is still possible to obtain a doctorate in sociology believing that 'objective' and 'value-free' are realistic and preferable goals. Believe me, I have witnessed it first hand.
The man's comments, cynic that I am, did not surprise me. The woman's, however, were jarring. Her words pointed to a much more insidiuous pathology in a discipline divided by numerous fields...that "race" and "class" and "gender" and "sexuality" are merely fields of study. The question was not whether this hypothetically uber privileged man could teach the sociology of race or class or gender or sexuality, but if he could teach racism, classism, heterosexism, and sexism. She saw the '-isms' and saw "separate fields of study some other sociologists do." The woman's response showed that she felt race, class, gender, and sexuality were not already part of every other field of study. She saw race, class, gender, and sexuality as separate from the rest of sociology, separate from, even, the rest of her life. There were things to 'study' or 'subjects' teach, not power structures embedded in the fabric of our institutions. Not unavoidable. Not inescapable. She could put them away in a folder and teach them next week.
That is the myth feminist methodology saves us from, as Harding and Norberg claim. Because to think otherwise is to resign ourselves to our doom. If we do not see these hierarchies as always already present, then we are indeed "complicit in the exercise of power." While it is true that, for the past few weeks, the complications of attempting to account for this ever present power has left us feeling as though there is no right path, it seems that attempting to account for this ever present power means we do avoid a definitively wrong one.
Even Harding and Norberg write, "In spite of feminists' heroic attempts to eliminate such power differences, this goal has proved impossible." See?! All the generations of brilliant, fierce, badass feminists that have come before us have ALSO never managed to be perfectly power-neutral researchers! Instead of feeling defeated by this (or feeling pressured to be the first to come to some miraculous, publishable and tenure-worthy conclusion), perhaps we can take consolation in it. That we are still trying to eliminate power differences means, well, that we are still trying to eliminate power differences. That the battle wages on means that we're still fighting it. No one has shrugged their shoulders and said, "You know what? *pops knuckles of white privilege* I'm going where people don't recognize that I am the default racial position. It's time to colonize people and call it objective!" Through all the brambles and overgrowth, we keep striving to make a new path. Sometimes we must pause in desperation, or when the grief of it all is too much to bear, but pausing is not the same as stopping.
Never, ever, ever, ever forget that we are still here. And we will keep trying, together, in the face of all its impossiblities, to prove the goal possible.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
The problem (and salvation) of experience
Experience is sometimes horribly ill-used. Who of us hasn't groaned when another student raises their hand and begins to speak about how "one time" or "this friend of mine" or "in my mother's case," and goes on to extol a glittering individual example that is meant to undermine an entire body of research to the contrary? Individual examples do not render empirical patterns irrelevant. As individuals, we all have a multitude of experiences that may or may not fit general patterns - but that doesn't mean those patterns don't exist.
It also doesn't mean that there aren't many, many, many examples of individual experiences that do fit this empirical patterns. Given conversations about inequality, privilege, and oppression, it is those examples of 'experience' that are usually not afforded space or legitimacy. These are experiences that I feel are dangerous to invalidate as merely discursive constructions. Scott (1991) argues that 'experience' is discursive and often wrongly used to 'naturalize' difference. Although Scott says that "subjects...are constituted through experience," we must be careful not to take this to mean that this construction doesn't have very real, harmful social consequences. Subjects are not necessarily the ones doing the constructing, which is a tenuous point that can easily be missed.
Experience, particulary that of people of color, indicates that race and the race hierarchy is very real. The experiences of lesbians, gays, and bisexuals indicate that hegemonic gender and sexual norms are very real. The experience of trans folks and women indicates that gender is very real. Even McDowell (1992) suggests that it is women's 'experience' as women that has lead to feminist researchers' inclination to study subjects with substantive social concerns.
But this experience is complicated, as McDowell is wary of essentializing a feminist identity and ascribing masculinity and femininity to particular methodologies (i.e. quantiative methods are masculine methods; qualitative methods are feminine methods). This is perhaps a mistinterpretation of what feminism is suggesting. McDowell notes that small-scale qualitative studies are "assumed... [to] draw on women's (purported) abilities to listen, to empathize, and to validate personal experiences as part of the research process," but it seems to me that feminists are arguing that qualitative studies allow for all of us to draw on our shared abilities to listen, empathize, and validate personal experiences. These are not essentialist notions of women researchers, but offer what convential methodologies deny or dismiss as unimportant. McDowell cautions against an over-valorizing of feminist methods, but I question whether this is a justified critique. (When men praise conventional methods, does anyone suggest they are over-valorizing them?) The point is that conventional methods do not have to be valorized - they are already normalized. We must valorize feminist methods because otherwise, who would champion them? More importantly, if we didn't say they were worth doing, who would ever do them? Sometimes you have to yell to be heard above a downpour, and feminist researchers who tout feminist methods may risk over-valorizing them rather than be silently drenched.
McDowell goes on to cite Hill Collins, who suggests we must strive to "decolonize our minds" although none of us can escape from "hegemonic notions of knowledge." In that sense, claiming any particular method is preferable or better is unhelpful. It seems best to just acknowledge the subjectivity of experience, a feminist tenet that has dramatically challenged conventional methodologies as well as those that are termed 'feminist' (McDowell 1992). Feminist scholarship faces intense pressure to conform, at least somewhat, to conventional methodologies in order to be seen as 'legitimate' or publishable. This may largely explain why McDowell could not locate feminist geography research that had been overly reflexive about the researcher's subjectivity or analytic of "the particular position of women as researchers." I would argue that the disciplinary pressure feminist researchers face cannot be taken so lightly. Critiquing women for "remain[ing] relatively absent from her text" doesn't seem fair given why women may strive to legitimize their research by removing themselves from it. Citing the 'experience of difference' as women is not necessarily encouraged in academic work, which pretends to be masculinist, objective, neutral, and value-free.
McDowell does return to this complication with more nuance and forgiveness, acknowledging that women in the academy have a tendency to become "a surrogate man" in order to compensate for marginality. (Consider nearly two decades later, C. J. Pascoe's selected attire of plain t-shirts and cargo pants in an attempt to become "degendered" in her research for Dude, You're a Fag is an example of how "de-gendered" really just means "less like a 'woman' and more like a 'man.'") She concludes that "we must recognize and take account of our own position, as well as that of our research participants, and write this into our research practice rather than continue to hanker after some idealized equality between us."
Can't we write our subjectivity into our research practice while still hankering away with our idealized notions? I'd hate to think this is an either/or crossroads. It is a hard line to tow, this post modern critique of 'experience' as discursive and of feminism as too structural and essentializing. Even though Scott argues that noting the construction of experience "does not mean that one dismisses the effects of such concepts and identities," it is all too easy to imply that the 'experience of difference' reifies difference itself. And although McDowell cautions against the relativism of post modernism, but even she admits how easily post modernism dismisses any structured feminism, even if it led to post modern feminism. I am concerned that, in striving to complicate essentialism, we miss a very essential recognition of structures.
Allow me to conclude with a quote that I feel sums up the complications. In a debate about 'race' in The Black Scholar, Jon Michael Spencer attacked "the postmodern conspiracy to explode racial identity" and argued that "to relinquish the notion of race - even though it's a cruel hoax - at this particular time is to relinquish our fortress against the powers and principalities that still try to undermine us." Acknowledging the very real experiences of marginalized groups is acknowleging that marginalization is happening. A movement away from that is, perhaps, a most unfortunate path to take. It may also be an exercise in self-harm, because we lose sight of the structures themselves and, most importantly, those oppressed by them.
In the end, I guess we can always chalk it up to experience.
It also doesn't mean that there aren't many, many, many examples of individual experiences that do fit this empirical patterns. Given conversations about inequality, privilege, and oppression, it is those examples of 'experience' that are usually not afforded space or legitimacy. These are experiences that I feel are dangerous to invalidate as merely discursive constructions. Scott (1991) argues that 'experience' is discursive and often wrongly used to 'naturalize' difference. Although Scott says that "subjects...are constituted through experience," we must be careful not to take this to mean that this construction doesn't have very real, harmful social consequences. Subjects are not necessarily the ones doing the constructing, which is a tenuous point that can easily be missed.
Experience, particulary that of people of color, indicates that race and the race hierarchy is very real. The experiences of lesbians, gays, and bisexuals indicate that hegemonic gender and sexual norms are very real. The experience of trans folks and women indicates that gender is very real. Even McDowell (1992) suggests that it is women's 'experience' as women that has lead to feminist researchers' inclination to study subjects with substantive social concerns.
But this experience is complicated, as McDowell is wary of essentializing a feminist identity and ascribing masculinity and femininity to particular methodologies (i.e. quantiative methods are masculine methods; qualitative methods are feminine methods). This is perhaps a mistinterpretation of what feminism is suggesting. McDowell notes that small-scale qualitative studies are "assumed... [to] draw on women's (purported) abilities to listen, to empathize, and to validate personal experiences as part of the research process," but it seems to me that feminists are arguing that qualitative studies allow for all of us to draw on our shared abilities to listen, empathize, and validate personal experiences. These are not essentialist notions of women researchers, but offer what convential methodologies deny or dismiss as unimportant. McDowell cautions against an over-valorizing of feminist methods, but I question whether this is a justified critique. (When men praise conventional methods, does anyone suggest they are over-valorizing them?) The point is that conventional methods do not have to be valorized - they are already normalized. We must valorize feminist methods because otherwise, who would champion them? More importantly, if we didn't say they were worth doing, who would ever do them? Sometimes you have to yell to be heard above a downpour, and feminist researchers who tout feminist methods may risk over-valorizing them rather than be silently drenched.
McDowell goes on to cite Hill Collins, who suggests we must strive to "decolonize our minds" although none of us can escape from "hegemonic notions of knowledge." In that sense, claiming any particular method is preferable or better is unhelpful. It seems best to just acknowledge the subjectivity of experience, a feminist tenet that has dramatically challenged conventional methodologies as well as those that are termed 'feminist' (McDowell 1992). Feminist scholarship faces intense pressure to conform, at least somewhat, to conventional methodologies in order to be seen as 'legitimate' or publishable. This may largely explain why McDowell could not locate feminist geography research that had been overly reflexive about the researcher's subjectivity or analytic of "the particular position of women as researchers." I would argue that the disciplinary pressure feminist researchers face cannot be taken so lightly. Critiquing women for "remain[ing] relatively absent from her text" doesn't seem fair given why women may strive to legitimize their research by removing themselves from it. Citing the 'experience of difference' as women is not necessarily encouraged in academic work, which pretends to be masculinist, objective, neutral, and value-free.
McDowell does return to this complication with more nuance and forgiveness, acknowledging that women in the academy have a tendency to become "a surrogate man" in order to compensate for marginality. (Consider nearly two decades later, C. J. Pascoe's selected attire of plain t-shirts and cargo pants in an attempt to become "degendered" in her research for Dude, You're a Fag is an example of how "de-gendered" really just means "less like a 'woman' and more like a 'man.'") She concludes that "we must recognize and take account of our own position, as well as that of our research participants, and write this into our research practice rather than continue to hanker after some idealized equality between us."
Can't we write our subjectivity into our research practice while still hankering away with our idealized notions? I'd hate to think this is an either/or crossroads. It is a hard line to tow, this post modern critique of 'experience' as discursive and of feminism as too structural and essentializing. Even though Scott argues that noting the construction of experience "does not mean that one dismisses the effects of such concepts and identities," it is all too easy to imply that the 'experience of difference' reifies difference itself. And although McDowell cautions against the relativism of post modernism, but even she admits how easily post modernism dismisses any structured feminism, even if it led to post modern feminism. I am concerned that, in striving to complicate essentialism, we miss a very essential recognition of structures.
Allow me to conclude with a quote that I feel sums up the complications. In a debate about 'race' in The Black Scholar, Jon Michael Spencer attacked "the postmodern conspiracy to explode racial identity" and argued that "to relinquish the notion of race - even though it's a cruel hoax - at this particular time is to relinquish our fortress against the powers and principalities that still try to undermine us." Acknowledging the very real experiences of marginalized groups is acknowleging that marginalization is happening. A movement away from that is, perhaps, a most unfortunate path to take. It may also be an exercise in self-harm, because we lose sight of the structures themselves and, most importantly, those oppressed by them.
In the end, I guess we can always chalk it up to experience.
Getting over ourselves
The research field is full of suprises, and not always in the data we collect. Rather ironically, the research field itself shows us the limitations of all the training we have endured to be able to pretend to be effective field researchers. The lived reality of field research very often turns out to be full of the complexities and challenges no training includes, and it uncovers all of the problematic assumptions we make about a research field before we enter it. Acknowledging these problematic assumptions is pretty embarassing, especially if we have claimed to have a lens that avoids these pitfalls, but instead falls right into them. Sometimes we find out that we are not as made of feminist awesomeness as we'd like to think we are.
In "Can you Belly Dance?", Miraftab (2004) analyzes her experiences as a Western-trained scholar interviewing women who were heads of their households in Mexico. Miraftab, exiled from Iran, received her doctorate in the U.S. Her darker complexion meant she did not "look" white (where white = 'American' or 'Western'), but her Spanish was Persian-accented, so she was read as a foreigner by the women she studied. Rather than interpret her as a privileged Western woman because of her educational background, the women in her interviews often saw her as sharing a "common identity" of being from another "'poor' country." Due to the Western portrayal of Muslims and a recent biased television movie about Iranian gender relations, the women understood Iran to be a place that was worse for women than Mexico, and expressed sympathy for Miraftab with comments like, "you must be very happy to be here." Moreover, the slanted Western media depiction of Persian women meant Miraftab was routinely questioned if she wore the veil and if she could belly dance. Miraftab's status was also negotiated through the Mexican women's values, not just Western values imposed through multimedia. Since Miraftab was childless, the women saw her as having "missed out on...a woman's only true asset."
With this, she shows the limitations of a Western/Non-Western framework of privilege as devised by Western feminists, where Western scholars must always be prepared to account for their privilege. This framework, she argues, indicates a superiority complex. Through presuming we will already be in a privileged, superior position, we also presume the Global South women we interview will be "passive: objectifed, mute, and lacking any source of power vis-a-vis the researcher." Basically, we make ourselves out to be pretentious, condescending jerks. Our reflexivity with regard to our privilege in the research field, in this sense, is hampered because we take our superior status for granted, and, conversely, we presume our participants to be inferior and underprivileged in relation to us.
Miraftab acknowledges that she was, in many ways, in a privileged position relative to her interview participants, and it is interesting to note that the perception of her was heavily created by a dominant Western colonializing depiction. However, the women she interviewed did not always see her as more privileged or powerful. Miraftab's training prepared her to assume she would be in the powerful position and that this power would be taken for granted, but instead her 'superior' researcher role was interrogated, questioned, and played with because of the participant's autonomous understandings and expressions of their own power.
The insider/outsider role is far more complex and varied than the Western/Non-Western paradigm makes it out to be. Miraftab's experiences challenges us to not enter a research field presuming our privilege and power over the women we study is a given. Attempts to account for our privilege/power risks "re-objectifying the subject" when we don't always have that total, overarching privilege/power to begin with.
In "Can you Belly Dance?", Miraftab (2004) analyzes her experiences as a Western-trained scholar interviewing women who were heads of their households in Mexico. Miraftab, exiled from Iran, received her doctorate in the U.S. Her darker complexion meant she did not "look" white (where white = 'American' or 'Western'), but her Spanish was Persian-accented, so she was read as a foreigner by the women she studied. Rather than interpret her as a privileged Western woman because of her educational background, the women in her interviews often saw her as sharing a "common identity" of being from another "'poor' country." Due to the Western portrayal of Muslims and a recent biased television movie about Iranian gender relations, the women understood Iran to be a place that was worse for women than Mexico, and expressed sympathy for Miraftab with comments like, "you must be very happy to be here." Moreover, the slanted Western media depiction of Persian women meant Miraftab was routinely questioned if she wore the veil and if she could belly dance. Miraftab's status was also negotiated through the Mexican women's values, not just Western values imposed through multimedia. Since Miraftab was childless, the women saw her as having "missed out on...a woman's only true asset."
With this, she shows the limitations of a Western/Non-Western framework of privilege as devised by Western feminists, where Western scholars must always be prepared to account for their privilege. This framework, she argues, indicates a superiority complex. Through presuming we will already be in a privileged, superior position, we also presume the Global South women we interview will be "passive: objectifed, mute, and lacking any source of power vis-a-vis the researcher." Basically, we make ourselves out to be pretentious, condescending jerks. Our reflexivity with regard to our privilege in the research field, in this sense, is hampered because we take our superior status for granted, and, conversely, we presume our participants to be inferior and underprivileged in relation to us.
Miraftab acknowledges that she was, in many ways, in a privileged position relative to her interview participants, and it is interesting to note that the perception of her was heavily created by a dominant Western colonializing depiction. However, the women she interviewed did not always see her as more privileged or powerful. Miraftab's training prepared her to assume she would be in the powerful position and that this power would be taken for granted, but instead her 'superior' researcher role was interrogated, questioned, and played with because of the participant's autonomous understandings and expressions of their own power.
The insider/outsider role is far more complex and varied than the Western/Non-Western paradigm makes it out to be. Miraftab's experiences challenges us to not enter a research field presuming our privilege and power over the women we study is a given. Attempts to account for our privilege/power risks "re-objectifying the subject" when we don't always have that total, overarching privilege/power to begin with.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)