As a foreword, to make sure folks know where I’m coming from here: I’m a steadfast feminist and have been for many years. I consider it self-evident that the gender system is complex, cutting in multiple directions and intersecting with racism, classism, ablism, heterosexism, and other oppressions. I think it’s clear that the gender system is one of male dominance; I think it’s equally clear that men, like women, are profoundly damaged by it, that this arrangement is good for no one (that is to say, that we would all be much better off with open, egalitarian gender).

Also, if you are reading this as a gender-conforming person, and you think I’m making no sense, please consider that some parts of the gender system may not be apparent to you, in the same way that white people (like myself) sometimes say, in sincere but nonetheless damaging ignorance, that they “don’t see color.”

Introduction

Since I started getting heavily involved in feminism, I’ve had many different takes on gender and sexism. I’ve felt, at different times and to varying degrees, that gender itself is the problem — that this whole business of differentiating between men and women, between femininity and masculinity, is, at best, unnecessary, and at worst, catastrophically damaging. I no longer feel this way. While sexism and oppression are poisons to human happiness, I’ve come to see gender as a critically important part of identity and culture.

I do not know anyone to whom her gender is not a significant, meaningful part of how she sees herself. What that gender is varies widely, from masculine men and feminine women, to masculine women and feminine men, to something in between, to something that changes, to something outside of that, and more. Regardless of what someone’s gender identity is, regardless of whether it conforms to the dominant culture or not, people seem to strongly identify with their own. Gender is a very significant part of most of our senses of self — even those of us who are feminists or otherwise anti-sexism, and/or who don’t fit well into the gender system.

If you’ve ever had someone misread your gender, you probably have a very strong sense of what I’m talking about here. I’m a lesbian, the kind people can spot, and, as a I recently explained here (and do read that post; it’s very much relevant to this one), I sometimes feel like I’m lost in a quagmire between typical feminine presentation and identity and butch presentation and identity. I’m not butch, but I often don’t feel like a “real” girl, and I’ve sometimes had people tell me as much. I’m very happy being female and being read as female, but my queer identity is also very important to me. This ambiguity makes for a lot of misreading, which seems to scatter about equally between people misreading me as butch and people misreading me as straight and/or (for lack of a better word) femme. (Apologies for conflating gender and sexual orientation… They are, of course, often intertwined.) When this happens, in either direction, my heart sinks: I feel like I’ve failed at gender presentation. If it happens intensely, I start to feel sick, and start experiencing something like dysphoria. I get dizzy and nauseated, and begin to panic, losing my grip on my sense of self. “Who am I? Where am I?”

It’s an awful, awful feeling to have someone misunderstand your gender. So, I think that people all over and outside of the gender spectrum need cultural acknowledgment of their genders — not just tolerance, but recognition and affirmation. With this in mind, it is my sense that we can make a bigger, better impact on sexism and gender-based oppression by proactively creating more options, more gender designations, and working to make those accepted, than we can by only trying to tear down gender as it currently exists. A truly just gender culture is not a culture without gender, but a culture with respectful and non-coercive gender.

So, what would a just gender culture look like? What would it mean to have gender without gender oppression? Read More…

Posted under Culture, Sexuality

A note to my co-bloggers: I wasn’t at all sure how to categorize this post. Please let me know if anybody thinks it would be more appropriate somewhere else. An “Ethics” category perhaps? And I added the tag under the assumption that there will be a series, which it would be useful to connect — I have no qualms about deleting it if others feel it’s unnecessary or undesirable.

It occurred to me that it might be fun to post a discussion question or several as jumping off points for conversations, especially in these first few weeks. And the “question of the day” is a neat tradition at some other blogs, so why not here as well, especially since we’d like this to be a discussion-oriented space (I think)? I’m sure I’ll think of at least a few (assuming this one is successful), and co-bloggers — do post your own if the spirit moves you.

So, readers and fellow Revolutionary Act bloggers, I invite you to answer this question, provided you find it sufficiently interesting:

What one value or quality is important to you above all others? That is, if you had to reduce your value system to one fundamental principle from which all others flow, what world it be? Or, to come at it from another angle, if you had to rank virtues and qualities, which one would you deem most essential, most worthy of praise?

I think the question is an interesting one for a group of progressives, because I’m quite sure we can all work our way to the same (or similar) positions and priorities from many different starting points.

As I was thinking about this, I found myself weighing the competing values of justice and compassion, as I frequently do. I think striking a balance between those two may be one of the essential question of my life. It is clear to me that horrible damage can be done when one over-emphasizes justice, losing sight of compassion — yet I am no Gandhi, no Christ. Justice is profoundly important to me. Like most of us, I am sometimes deficient in mercy. (I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing.)

The balance I have struck between the two today (the best I’ve found so far, I think) is responsibility. Responsibility is the quality that is important to me above all others — the importance of our immense obligations as human beings and as adults. The root of most of my outrage is my sense that people have failed to meet their critical responsibilities. This is what infuriates me about global warming and pollution, about corruption, about war, about rape and abuse, and so many other things. I believe in the marrow of my bones that each of us has a tremendously important obligation to protect those weaker than ourselves, to use resources wisely and allot them fairly, and to save a life if ever we are in a position to do so — and if we do not meet these responsibilities, we have, in a profound sense, failed as adults, as human beings.

I recognize that it’s more complex than just “responsibility,” because I do have a very specific sense of what our responsibilities are. Ultimately, though, I think that’s the best way to sum it up: that we have duties and must meet them, that we must be accountable if we fail to do so. Justice and compassion both, for me, are derivatives of that: compassion is amongst our responsibilities, and justice a result of meeting them.

(As an aside, my value system has clearly been influenced immeasurably by my Jewish upbringing. The weight of the importance of our sacred obligations is a physical pressure on my back and in my gut.)

This way of looking at things is, of course, very subjective and specific to me. So what do you folks think? Is it mercy, is it fairness, is it something else entirely?

Posted under Discussion Question, Politics

Greetings! My name is Daisy, and I’m very excited to be blogging here at Revolutionary Act. Some basics facts about me: I am a nineteen-year-old college student, hailing from New Mexico, where I live with my girlfriend.

I run a small-time blog called Our Descent Into Madness, with my dear friend Emily, who will also be blogging at Revolutionary Act. There, we write mostly about art, gadgets and oddities, with a smattering of more serious stuff. Here, I plan to write experimental sorts of posts, exploring ideas that bother and fascinate me. I’m interested in learning and sharing and having conversations. Here’s a long but incomplete sort of laundry list of things I’m interested in having those conversations about (that is, what I will be writing about): sex, gender, culture, and identity, history and heritage and our relationships to both, justice and our obligation to do justice, sustainability and survival, and community, isolation, and love.

(You’ll notice a conspicuous absence there of items such as “Obama” and “McCain.” I’m a die-hard liberal, and I’ll be casting my ballot for Obama on Election Day — but, as I’ve said to my co-bloggers, I’m not especially interested in political debating and nitty gritty current events discussions, at this point. I’m somewhat disillusioned about both the US government and conventional forms of activism and change-making. I’ve also had more than one case of blogging burn-out. And I’m expecting our whole civilization to collapse fairly soon anyway. These things color my relationship to politics, especially politics as they play out in online discussions. Anyway, I’m hoping I won’t be too much of an outlier amongst the important work my co-bloggers will be doing.)

I’ve done some writing at Our Descent of the variety I’d like to do here, most notably a four-part series about sex some months ago, which I invite you to take a glance at. Here is part one (the other three parts are pinged in the comments there).

That’s all. Expect proper posts from me on Wednesdays from here on out.

Posted under Site Information