speculations on gender

I don't believe in essentializing biology, I promise. Biology is far from destiny. Pick any "biologically" defined group you like -- sex, race, cranial bumps, somatotype, etc -- and even when there are statistically significant differences between groups, if the groups are broad enough (if, say, close to everyone in the world is one of two sexes, or one of four or five races, instead of talking about small groups of people unusually high or low on a particular trait), there is almost always more variation within the groups than between them. Which means that differences at a group level are nearly useless when you are working at an individual level.

But this does not mean that I am not acutely aware of the fact that "I" cannot be separated from my biology. Every thought I have is both a cause and effect of changes in my body and would not have happened without that body.
"I" do not exist without biology, therefore "I" am affected by biology. And while there's only so much I can know about the details of another person's body, I know I share more biological similarities with other women than with other men. And sometimes that is important.

It seems to me that too often a rush to deny difference comes from the belief that difference is bad. That the nominal default category represents the most desirable state, and to acknowledge deviation from that default is to imply an intrinsic inferiority. Being "color-blind" is a privilege of the white, and it does not really mean treating everyone as if race did not exist, it means treating everyone as if they were white, because whiteness is the cultural default. (Try looking for English novels or newspaper articles not explicitly marketed to people of color where the white people are identified by race as often as the non-white. For a "mass," white-by-default audience, race is only an identifying feature if it is not the default), Noticing someone's non-whiteness is only an insult if non-whiteness is undesirable, so claiming "color-blindness" is a way of saying that being not-white is undesirable, which is a racist attitude if I ever heard one.

Likewise, maleness is the cultural default gender--everyone is male unless otherwise specified. Claiming that to ignore difference from maleness is a way to combat sexism means that the only way to erase female inferiority is to erase femaleness--because femaleness is, by definition, inferior. But you cannot begin to build a society that offers justice to women until you recognize the existence of women and the importance of womanhood as a social category.

I don't buy a goddamn word of it. I am not a man, and I am not the same as a man, and I want to be acknowledged as a woman. But being a woman means one thing and one thing only: I am a person who identifies as a woman. It does not tell anyone anything about my worth or skills as a person.

A New One

I am a fickle blogger. But sometimes I want a place to write certain things without the awkwardness of people I know personally reading them. So here we are. I have lots of thoughts and very few conclusions. And I am back on blogger, to explore them with the interweb.