Gender: Key Concepts in Philosophy

by Tina Chanter

Key Concepts in Philosophy provides clear and comprehensive exposition and analysis of the main philosophical theories, ideas and arguments that inform, and are raised by, questions of gender and sexuality. It explores both early feminist arguments, which stress 'sameness' between sexes in the interests of equality, and later theories, which emphasise difference. It raises the question of how succesfully feminist theory has negotiated the relationship between gender, race and class. The text looks at how Marxist and psychoanalytic theory help to articulate feminist theory and also at how they might inhibit it. It also explores the ways in which the approaches of Foucault and Derrida have been taken up by feminist philosophy to reformulate questions of power and ideology. Finally it addresses contemporary questions of sexuality, transgender and technology, and various political issues faced by women, such as rape, abortion and pornography.

Philosophy undergraduates will find this an invaluable aid to study, one that goes beyond simple definitions and summaries to really open up fascinating and important ideas and arguments.

Genres: Feminism, Philosophy

184 pages, Paperback

First published November 30, 2006

Reviews

[Lee Irons · Rating 2 out of 5]

"In the background of Kristeva's appropriation, and re-signification of Lacan's return to Freud, is the way that Lacan takes up not only Saussure's distinction between the signifier/signified, but also Hegel's understanding of desire, as distinct from demand and need" (Gender, p. 115).

If that sentence is interesting to you, or even makes sense to you, then by all means read this book. Otherwise, you might want to pass.

I picked up this book (thankfully, used, for a mere $4) because the title, "Gender," grabbed me. I also saw that the topic of transsexuality was addressed right at the outset on page 1. On the back cover, the book claims to raise "the question of how transgender identity challenges accepted ideas about sex and gender." This is a hot topic today, and I wanted to learn more about it, to read the argument from the "other" side. The author, Tina Chanter, is a philosopher, and the book is in a series titled "Key Concepts in Philosophy." So I imagined that the book would tackle the topic of sex and gender using the methods of analytical philosophy, that is, clearing up confusions, defining terms and concepts, teasing out arguments, and so on. I wanted the book to really engage the contested relationship between sex (the biological concept of male/female dimorphism) and gender (a psychological, socially-constructed concept having to do with a person's gender identity and presentation to the world).

But I was disappointed to discover that these issues were dealt with only briefly. And when they were dealt with, there was little in the way of philosophical analysis. I'll save you the time and summarize the gist of her position on sex and gender. Most modern people think sex (the biological concept of male and female) is first, and then gender comes along afterward as a psychological and social overlay that may or may not match up with the biological substratum. Chanter says it's actually the other way around (p. 43). Gender comes first, and then we invent the concept of biological sex to align with it. Biological sex has no scientific basis and is the invention of the patriarchy set up in order to oppress women and gender minorities. If that sounds too hard to believe, it is because you are part of the patriarchy. If you protest and say, "I'm a woman (or trans), and I believe biological sex is ontologically real," you've internalized your own oppression.

Even as I write that, it sounds so absurd I worry that I may be misrepresenting her. But I don't think I am. I'll give you Chanter in her own words. She writes:

"[T]here is no causal link between sex and gender .... It is not that there is a sexual foundation on the basis of which the normative dimensions of gender are created. Rather, due to cultural investments in the ideals of femininity and masculinity, the body is read according to preconceived ideas about gender .... Gender, rather, is the way we organize sex. In the beginning, as it were, was the word. The law of gender dictates how we see sex - there is no 'outside' of culture in or on which we can stand as pre-cultural subjects, a position from which we can construe bodies as if they were somehow in and of themselves outside the cultural matrix within whose terms we configure them. Our preconceptions about gender predetermine how we envisage sex. The science of biology, and the medical establishment, are culturally loaded with presuppositions (given their practitioners, their ideological commitments, and the privileged nature of their collective standpoints), which tell us what sex must be - and what it must not be. Ontologies flourish on the basis of political edicts .... The binary oppositions of man/woman and sex/gender are not eternal verities, but rather cultural constructions which derive their normative force from those invested in maintaining a hierarchical order defined by patriarchal, hetero-normative power, harnessed for reproductive ends" (pp. 16, 44, 125).

So that is the answer to my quest, at least as far as this book goes, although it isn't so much an answer as a fiat edict from on high. I was hoping for some good philosophical arguments. Instead all I got was the assertion of an ideology.

But on further reflection, I now realize that the book wasn't intended to wrestle with various views of sex and gender so much as to provide a foray into the ins and outs of Continental Feminist theory. "Continental theory" here basically means French postmodernist philosophy in the vein of Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze et al. The author deals with things like intersectionality (or how first and second wave feminism is racist because it screens out the oppression of women of color), whether feminism can be interpreted in Marxist categories (I got the impression the answer was No), post-colonial feminist theory (or "Can the Subaltern Speak?"), feminist epistemology (knowledge is determined by the gender, race, and social location of the knower), and feminist psychology. In other words, the title is wrong. It shouldn't have been titled "Gender" but "Feminist Postmodernism" or "Postmodern Feminism."

So what is my take on postmodern feminism? After reading this book, I've come to the conclusion that it is impractical and unworkable. First, it is impractical because it so arcane, producing sentences like the one I opened with above. With all the discussion of "Kristeva's reappropriation of Lacan's resignification of Freud's reappropriation of Hegel" (or whatever, I honestly have no idea what that even means) you lose track of how any of this relates to the lived concerns of women for equality in society. It is more like a fun intellectual exercise than a really helpful project.

But second, postmodern feminism is unworkable. It turns against itself. If knowledge itself is based on the gender, race, and social location of the knower, then no one can make any claims at all. In fact, all claims can be rejected simply by the ad hominem, "But you're a [fill in the blank: man; white; heterosexual; cisgender; non-indigenous; etc.]." The charge in whatever form instantly negates anything you have to say because your group has oppressed some other marginalized group. Your claims are immediately invalidated by virtue of your identity. You have no right to speak. You should, simply, shut up.

At points, Chanter herself realizes the mess she has gotten herself into, acknowledging that she is a privileged, educated white woman. How can she then even discuss the problems faced by subaltern women, that is, women of color in colonial contexts, e.g., the poor washerwoman living in India? Writing books about such women and attempting to let the subaltern speak through her is not a neutral act. She has to use the subaltern woman's experience "to transmit some transcendent and incontestable ... truth ... in a gesture that is in fact far from disinterested" (p. 109). Isn't she, as a white, privileged philosophy professor who has mastered the western intellectual apparatus of rational thought (which she calls "phallologocentrism"), complicit in the subaltern's oppression? She is aware that she is treading on dangerous ground, but she insists on moving forward, since, she argues, it is also a form of oppression to be silent about oppression. This it leads her to write the following solipsistic paragraph:

"It is, then, inadequate for the intellectual [like Chanter] to wash her hands entirely of the question of acute ideological repression with all its messy difficulties, by refusing to engage it as an issue at all. Such a stance ignores the problem altogether, implicitly deeming it as unimportant, attempting to save face or to absolve oneself from the possibility of misrepresentation, or complicity. Equally, it is inadequate to merely appeal directly to naive experience in order to construct it as the 'truth.' ... [T]he motif of the subaltern woman serves to remind us not only of the complicity between two great political systems of oppression, but, just as urgently, of the persistent vigilance required by well-meaning postcolonialists and feminists [like Chanter] ... in order not to unthinkingly reinscribe in new guises precisely the kind of marginalization under protest. This does not mean that we can retain a position of innocence or purity, even with our best intentions. It means we must be willing, before all else, to admit to, and submit to examination, our own complicity in systematic oppressions, which cannot be wished away, but which must be thought through - again and again, since cycles of oppression have an uncanny way of reproducing themselves" (p. 110).

So, yes, this is a real dilemma, but postmodern feminists just have to keep ritually confessing their complicity in systemic oppression and keep "thinking it through" (whatever that means). But if all intellectual endeavor serves the interests of those in power, then by continuing to teach, speak, and write books such as this one is not Professor Chanter participating in the reproduction of cycles of oppression through her own "phallologocentrism"? Maybe she should own her hypocrisy and quit her profession as an academic.

Third wave feminism is already pretty "out there," but when it gets projected through the lens of postmodernist Continental philosophy, it gets *really* out there, to the point of becoming self-refuting.

[Kiwi Comiendo Kiwi · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The very conception of bodies as harboring a material causality that is easily or readily distinguishable from societal influences implies that there is some part of ‘nature ’that is outside ‘society.’ Yet the suggestion that some natural ground that we designate ‘sex’ both pre-exists and causes ‘gender’ assumes both that nature somehow stands outside our interpretation of it, and that it precedes or comes before any interpretation. [...] On the other hand, to hold to a consistent position, social constructionists must do away with the idea that sex comes first, that it logically and chronologically precedes any interpretation of it. Rather, all we have are various competing interpretations of sex, all of which derive from a series of commitments that are ultimately political in nature."

An illuminating, captivating and often perplexing read. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but one thing must be pointed out: as others have said, this book isn't that much about gender, it would be more aptly called postmodernist feminism, which is what it's about. The title is, therefore, somewhat misleading (though a careful reading would quickly inform the obvious: gender and feminism are intrinsically linked), but that's not a huge loss since postmodern feminist thought is a pretty damn formidable subject.

Chanter's writing manages to do something that not many people can, present complex subject in a straightforward prose, as straightforward as the subject itself allows, while not sacrificing accuracy and even adding style and elegance. She juggles clever writing, conceptual precision and astute explanations while riding a literary unicycle. She has clearly done her research and knows how to present her investigations.

I found the chapters on epistemology and capitalism to be particularly interesting, though all chapters present solid mind-blowing theories. Of course, some are harder, I found the chapter on post-collonial feminism to get really hard. It's last chapter on psychoanalysis was also a complicated ride, but I enjoyed it, what little droplets of knowledge reached my brain were fascinating. I'm indebted to this book for introducing me to the ideas of some ground-breaking thinkers: Lacan, Spinoza, Fanon and Kristeva (which I found most interesting of all and hope to read more about).

Overall, recommended to those interested on deepening their understanding of postmodernism and feminism, more or less easy to follow though it's not really an introductory book.

[Chuk's Book Reviews · Rating 2 out of 5]

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2.5 Stars

Feelings about the book:
- This was a random, charity shop buy - it was a decent book

Premise/Plot:
- Gender: Key Concepts in Philosophy is a philosophical introduction and critique of how the concept of gender has been theorised.

Themes:
- Gender as a construct, feminism, philosophy, intersectionality, power, ethics and more

Pros:
- Raises important questions and issues

Cons:
- Got convoluted as it went on, the writing not as tight. Therefore the later chapters were lacking

Quotes:
‘It was only a matter of time. We have heard about the death of God and the end of metaphysics; now the end of gender has been announced.’

‘Feminist theorists have got quite a lot of mileage out of the sex/gender distinction, to say the least. Does the transgendered age herald the end of gender as we know it?’

‘There are however a number of reasons to be wary of defining feminism as a movement to achieve equality. If we assume that feminism aims to accomplish the equality of women with men, the question arises, which men?’

‘Heidi Hartmann has aptly characterised the relationship between feminism and Marxism as an ‘unhappy marriage,’ one in which Marxism has proved itself dominant.’

‘Patriarchy divided the interests of the working class by perpetuating the idea that men should be paid a higher wage than women, and capitalism adapted accordingly.’

‘How do we avoid constructing a new vision of knowledge that will not fall prey to new normative exclusions to which we remain blind? How does feminist theory become sufficiently inclusive to speak for all women?’

[Gavin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Annoying: conventionally unconventional. I've been looking for a good introduction; this is not that.

(Is it a coincidence that the best popularisers - Paglia, Greer, Moran - are all highly problematic?)

Chanter manages to make exciting parts of feminism - e.g. Calhoun's post-deconstruction stuff - sound dull, dense and theoretically empty, as if it were the same kind of navel-gazing theorism as the hyperinflated Althusserian-Foucauldian stuff. (To be fair, any overview has to cover French theory, because that's what our counter-gender people have actually been up to for decades. But not blind acceptance.)

You get the impression, here, that progress in feminist thought consists in calling your predecessors bigoted - JS Mill calls out the Victorians, Okin calls out JS Mill, Butler calls out Okin, Wittig calls out Butler, and then Calhoun calls Wittig heteronormative.