Personhood: More than just Control, Must be about Equality

Susan Bordo dives head-first into the conversation about personhood through her article entitled "Are Mothers Persons? Reproductive Rights and the Politics of Subject-ivity". As the title implies, the controversy over reproductive rights is essentially the controversy over "subjecthood", or personhood. Grammatically speaking, the subject of a sentence is the person, place, thing, or idea that is being or doing something. Knowing that and trying to place it in this context, it can be inferred that the subject of one's life is what is actively being or doing something; in other words, the subject of one's life is the thing that is actively living. And so, Bordo's article examines just that - the subject that is actively living. The politics that are tied into this then are the politics of reproductive rights and the way in which a woman can both lose and gain subjecthood over her own life - something a man never has to worry he'll lose. As current legislation stands, a woman can (and does) lose her subjectivity when, instead, the fetus becomes the subject of a pregnant woman's life. When a woman becomes pregnant, she must give up her personhood for the sake of the fetus gaining its own personhood over her body. Seeing this as an issue, Bordo thoroughly examines and critiques the idea that, as it stands in our society, mothers are not the subject - or person - of their own lives but rather mere vessels for the fetus, the subject, the main person of concern. 

A perfect example of the reality that Bordo critiques is Personhood USA: Personhood USA, an anti-abortion, pro-life organization, defines personhood as "the cultural and legal recognition of the equal and unalienable rights of human beings." Personhood USA then continues that personhood is an affirmation of individual rights, and to be a person is to be "protected by a series of God-given rights and constitutional guarantees such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Through these definitions, it might appear as if Personhood USA has the potential to protect the rights of many women nationwide - however, unfortunately Personhood USA, does exactly the opposite of that; Personhood USA is an organization that fights for the rights of unborn fetuses, arguing that, as young humans, they deserve the same rights and respect as any full-grown human. As a result of this and despite the fact that Personhood USA may claim they are fighting for equal rights, Personhood USA fails to protect the rights that a woman ought to have, as both a mother and a human being. 

In examining this organization with added perspective and understanding from Bordo's piece, it is clear that Personhood USA jeopardizes a woman's own subjectivity for the sake of her potential child. There are many societal factors that contribute to this loss of subjectivity, all which revolve around the idea that women are inferior to men. Organizations such as Personhood USA, as well as the people who support such organizations, obsess over the fetus and fight to protect it, because, without their effort, the only individual with a say in the fetus' well-being is the mother herself. The idea that a woman has full and complete control over the young fetus is alarming because it promotes the idea that a woman is responsible enough to make decisions regarding both her well-being and the well-being of her child. It is my personal belief that if men were the individuals carrying the child, they would be trusted to make informed decisions regarding the state of the fetus. Why? For the reason briefly and subtlety aforementioned, now stated perhaps more blatantly: the pro-choice movement terrifies and alarms many individuals because it is a movement that not only empowers the female, but does so by placing all responsibility on the woman, thus removing men from the decision process. This is terrifying to our society because, as a country where a woman has yet to be president - even after all these some 230 years - and as a country where women still make $0.77 to a man's $1.00, any system that privileges a woman (or even makes her equal to a man) is a system that is not worth trusting. 

With all being said, Bordo does not believe this is the core of the issue.

So long as the debate over reproductive control is conceptualized solely in dominant terms of the abortion debate  - that is, as a conflict between the fetus's right to life and the woman's right to choose - we are fooled into thinking that is only the fetus whose ethical and legal status is at issue. 

In the above excerpt, Bordo writes of how the issue of personhood is only briefly discussed as we discuss a woman's right to choose and a fetus's right to live. Although a pregnant woman's personhood is most clearly seen being misrepresented when instead her fetus receives the most attention, a pregnant woman's personhood relies on far, far more than her decision to keep or abort a child. Thus, in agreement with Bordo, I must say that while I myself am pro-choice and fully believe that a woman's life ought to be prioritized over a fetus that may or may not be born, I ultimately see the issues of reproductive rights being issues that are not so clear; the fight for a pregnant woman's personhood will NOT be over when women have easy and affordable access to safe and professional abortion, but rather, the fight for a pregnant woman's personhood will be over when each inequality and injustice in our gendered societal structure is brought into light, discussed, and appropriately adjusted. 

Condoning Male Objectification is Condoning Violence

I found myself a little uneasy in reading Susan Bordo's "Beauty (Re)Discovers the Male Body", a chapter from her book entitled The Male Body: A New Look at Men in Public and in Private. This is the first time I've felt uneasy (in this particular course) with a specific viewpoint of an author, and so I'm particularly interested in the response of my fellow classmates in making Bordo's argument seem more just to me.

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On page 178, Bordo writes the following - 

Perhaps, too, heterosexual men could learn to be less uncomfortable offering themselves as "sexual objects" if they realized the pleasure women get from it. Getting what you have been most deprived of is the best gift, the most healing gift, the most potentially transforming gift - because it has the capacity to make one more whole. Women have been deprived not so much of the sight of beautiful male bodies as the experience of having the male body offered to us, handed to us on a silver platter, the way female bodies - in the ads, in the movies - are handed to men. 

This is where my unease grew to be undeniable. 

First and foremost, I think it goes without saying that the objectification of men in advertisements and in media is just as healthy for men as it is for women when women's bodies are objectified. Female objectification is detrimental to women in that it creates painfully unrealistic and unattainable beauty standards for women to uphold. In the same way, male objectification holds men to unrealistic and unattainable beauty standards as well, which is equally painful to the esteem and self-understanding of a man.

                                 

But I think there's a larger issue with male objectification, that is oftentimes either ignored or perhaps intentionally condoned. And so next, I'd like to mainly focus on the implications that come with "the experience of having the male body offered" to women. My issue here is this - despite the fact that we, as women, are constantly fighting against the idea proposed by ads and movies - the idea that women's bodies are easily handed to men as if to acknowledge their control, right, and ownership over them - we now condone the opposite situation. Although we acknowledge that men feeling possessive over women's bodies is wrong, we do not acknowledge the same from women in regards to men's bodies. Here, Bordo specifically states that men should be comfortable with being a sexual object knowing that a woman finds pleasure in it. But... would we ever claim that a woman ought to be comfortable with being a sexual object simply because a man finds pleasure in it? No. So where does this double-standard come into play where it appears to be acceptable, as apart of the feminist movement, to condone the objectification of men, but not the objectification of women? What does that say about the feminist understanding of objectification?

 

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So while I'm upset by this double-standard, I do feel as if I understand why feminists might find it logical and acceptable to condone the objectification of male bodies in the media; I understand this other side very clearly, which is why I'm so distraught about how to feel in regard to this article. 

I understand that the objectification of men is different than the objectification of women because, for so long, men have had the privilege of not being objectified and because they are rarely objectified throughout their daily routine; objectification is different with men because their objectification is purely through the media. This is to say that the objectification of women is more intense because we are objectified not only through advertisements, movies, and magazines, but also through the people we encounter in our day to day lives -- not to mention the fact that we are objectified through our own political and economical systems. Really then, it should be clear that the objectification of men is more acceptable simply because they experience so much privilege in all aspects of their life, that male objectification in the media will perhaps prove a point and enable them to check the rest of their privilege. 

I also understand this idea from a different perspective - the idea that we "raise our daughters more like sons" but we don't "raise our sons more like our daughters"; I do see truth in the idea that we cannot empower women simply through providing them with access to stereotypically masculine traits, but that we must also provide men with access to stereotypically feminine traits. However... to that, I must ask, why is objectification a feminine trait? Yes, I do suppose objectification is unfortunately so much apart of a women's existence, but still, I'm doubtful to believe that objectifying men will result in some type of empathetic understanding. I mean, really, haven't we learned that two wrongs don't make a right?

In an article written for The Cut, by Kat Stoeffel, Stoeffel discusses the idea behind supporting male objectification very well:

Does [objectifying men] make us hypocrites? By objectifying men, do we undermine our criticism of those who would objectify us? NO. "Not being objectified" is just one of the many advantages of being male. When we selectively revoke this freedom from body scrutiny, we don't do anything to diminish the meaningful economic and reproductive advantages men enjoy. Put it another way: We will stop Dong Watch once there's a female president, zero wage gap, and Swedish-level paid paternal leave; once tampons, birth control, and abortions are all available free and on-demand.

So again, I really do understand where Stoeffel is coming from with this argument. However, I still find myself stuck. 

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To me, the bottom line is objectification leads to dehumanization and, regardless of how much privilege you may or may not have, dehumanization is ultimately what leads to violence and violence can happen to anyone, regardless of their privilege. Thus, if we condone the objectification - thus also condoning the dehumanization - of men in return for the objectification and dehumanization that women have so regularly faced, we are also condoning violence. So despite the fact that I can see and understand the perspective that justifies male objectification, I cannot come to terms with the idea that the objectification of men does anything productive in our fight against the war on women's bodies. 

                                

Again, I really posted this because I'm incredibly curious for your opinions -- disagree with me, agree with me, correct me on something, point out something I failed to mention. I'm really stumped on this issue, and I'd love to hear what other people have to say. 

what the Trans Woman Manifesto could do for Allegheny College

 Lately I've been thinking about how the various ways in which language is frustratingly limited. To say it simply, words are really, really difficult. That being said, words are our most effective form of communication and so we've got to make the most of what we've got. By this, I mean to say that we need to be constantly aware of language and its fluidity and even more aware of the ways in which language can be expanded to achieve a greater level of inclusivity. 

With that in mind, I think the Trans Woman Manifesto could do Allegheny a lot of good, assuming we're talking about the ideal Allegheny College where the Statement of Community actually makes a difference in the way students are treated on campus. 

First and foremost - while speaking idealistically, of course - the Trans Woman Manifesto would open the eyes of students to a variety of new isms. Currently in the Statement of Community, we claim that as Allegheny students we are going to actively confront and challenge sexism, racism, heterosexism, religious bigotry, and other forms of harassment and discrimination. While I can appreciate the idea that we included heterosexism in this statement, heterosexism is defined as the "discrimination against homosexuals on the assumption that heterosexuality is the normal sexual orientation" which really dismisses the possibility for trans* students - or any student, for that matter - who identifies their sexuality as something other than homosexual or heterosexual. Within just the first few pages of Julia Serano's writing, we are exposed to the idea of Transphobia (the intense dislike of or prejudice against transsexual or transgender people), cissexism (the belief that trans*'s identified genders are inferior to, or less authentic than, those of cisgendered individuals),  and a wider definition of sexism including Traditional Sexism (the belief that men and masculinity is superior to women and femininity) and Oppositional Sexism (the belief that female and male are rigid, mutually exclusive categories, each possessing a unique and non-overlapping set of attributes, aptitudes, abilities, and desires).  And yet, the majority of students on this campus would not know the meaning behind these terminologies because the majority of students on this campus are unaffected by the oppression these isms create. This is then to say that the isms that Allegheny Students say they are willing to confront and challenge - those being sexism, racism, heterosexism, and religious bigotry - are isms that oppress a more privileged group of oppressed individuals.  

Before going further into this, I think it's important to discuss intersectionality on a deeper level since that's not necessarily we've spent much time defining in the course. In Patricia Hill Collins' Intersecting Oppressions, Collins defines intersectionality as a "way of understanding social location in terms of crisscross systems of oppression"; in other words, intersectionality is analysis claiming that systems of race, social class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, nation, and age form mutually constructing features of social organization". Thus, when these systems form together, oppression can exist on a variety of levels for a variety of different ways. Collins explains this idea through the exploration of the black feminist woman identity - not only does a woman face oppression from being a woman, but she faces oppression from being black as well. Thus, it can then be said that, when compared to a white woman of equal economical/financial/class/etc. background, the white woman would have more privilege based on the fact that she is white and the black woman would be oppressed based on the fact that she is black; thus, even though both women face the oppression from their existence as a woman, the black woman experiences oppression on multiple levels - both sex and race - and therefore receives more oppression. 

     

Bringing this back to the Statement of Community at Allegheny, I previously stated that our current statement benefits the most privileged of the oppressed. Despite the fact that there are other isms discussed in Serano's piece - such as transphobia, cissexism, traditional sexism, and oppositional sexism, the only isms we mention in our statement community are the isms that we, as a society, accept as "worth fighting against". That is to say that we see discrimination based on the binary-definition of biological sex (man vs. woman), race, and the binary-definition of sexuality (heterosexual vs. homosexual), and religion with more severity than discrimination based on gender identity, gender expression (or lack thereof), etc. We have a way here at Allegheny - and in most places, really - to only recognize and fight against the systems of oppression that oppress the privileged group of oppressed, the group of people that we wouldn't mind to be equals to because, for the most part, their self-presentation remains normative. 

With this in mind, we can once more go back to Serano's Trans Woman Manifesto. I feel as if Serano's manifesto is incredibly useful in understanding the fact that oppression is a complex system that results from a variety of privileges - many of which go unnoticed because they're so frequently taken for granted, i.e. ablism, eurocentrism, pro-natalism, etc. 

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While Serano's text doesn't cover all of these things, I don't think it needs to nor do I think it should. It would be exhausting to write a text that addresses all of the systems of oppression we choose to ignore. Instead, I feel as if Serano's method is successful in addressing the systems of oppression we ignore that pertain to trans* issues and I'd hope that other activists feel empowered to indivudally address other ignored systems of oppression until we know enough about them to include them in our "everyday mindset of oppressive systems". 

Basically, as much as it sucks, the process to successfully attaining an intersectional perspective that is all effective, universal, and aware is an incredibly slow and exhausting one. However, I think efforts such as Serano's are very much needed and hopefully, with more efforts such as this, a Statement of Community such as Allegheny's could be continuously revised to further include all types of oppression. While the list will be exhausting, I believe it better to have an all-inclusive list than a list naming just a few. With the way the statement is currently phrased, it only perpetuates the idea that the systems of oppression that benefit the least-marginalized groups are the only systems of oppression that are worth fighting against, or perhaps even the only systems of oppression that exist. 

Contradictory Truths: Creating Dysphoria in and for the Binary

dys·pho·ri·a
/disˈfôrēə/
noun. a state of unease or generalized dissatisfaction with life.

In Anne Fausto-Sterling's first chapter of the book Sexing the Body, entitled "Dueling Dualisms", we are told point-blankly on the seventh page that the facts we've created in this world are not what they seem. 

As a biologist, I believe in the material world. As a scientist, I believe in building specific knowledge by conducting experiences. But as a feminist Witness and in recent years as a historian, I also believe that what we call "facts" about the living world are not universal truths. (Fausto-Sterling 7)

This is a statement I inherently agree with: no one truth is universal, nor is one truth of more validity than any other. In another course I am currently taking - a Junior Seminar in Creative Nonfiction Writing centered around the shaping of identity - our discussion was mainly centered around the many, contradicting identities a singular individual may possess. In particular, we focused one class entirely on one excerpt from Patricia Hampl's I Could Tell You Stories, a memoir. In this section, entitled "What She Couldn't Tell", Hampl describes an elderly woman she used to assist. Far into the section we learn that this sweet woman who is hardly capable of even functioning on her own anymore was a Nazi Collaborator in World War II. With this knowledge then, we - the readers - along with Hampl herself, are torn between which truth is more valid: the sweetness of the woman, or the darkness of her history? 

In looking at how this compares to Fausto-Sterling's discussion on the socially-constructed binary - the construct that separates sex, gender, and sexuality into black and white; man or woman; male or female; straight or gay - I think the woman in Hampl's memoir is a good example of the fact that two contradicting identities can be present and valid within an individual. This woman - both a sweet elderly lady and a Nazi collaborator - posses two strong, contradicting, perhaps even seemingly-hypocritical identities - how can a Nazi collaborator be sweet; how can a sweet old woman have once been a Nazi collaborator? How can these truths coexist? And how did she transition from one to the other? These aren't questions we'd typically ask about this woman. Quite frankly, although we know and acknowledge the bizarre combination of these two truths, we don't actually question the possibility of this being able to happen. We understand that personality traits and beliefs can shift over time; although this woman may have once been a Nazi collaborator, we understand that she could have gone through an experience that shifted her entire essence - from one extreme to the other. So, if we believe in the fluidity of personality and if we believe in a constant changing or growing of the personal, emotional, mental, and social capacities, why are there things that we strictly believe cannot be fluid or contradictory? 

Sex, gender, and sexuality are apart of a binary that our society refuses to abolish. As stated above, we - as a society - accept the fact that this woman can at one time have identified as a Nazi collaborator and now, presently, identify as a strong opposite, a sweet, caring, elderly woman. However, we do not accept the fact that a woman can at one time have identified as a man and now, presently identify as a woman. We - as a society - might even accept the fact that this elderly woman can be both a Nazi collaborator and a sweet, caring individual all at once. However, we cannot accept the fact that there might be an individual who can be man and woman all at once. 

For whatever reason, we live in a society where we recognize that not all truths are universal truths and where we accept contradicting truths within individuals, but we pick and choose these truths which we are willing to accept. We allow contradiction to exist within personal characteristics and traits, but we do not allow it within personal expression and identity. We are stuck on this binary that divides sex, gender, and sexuality into two simplistic categories, where we refuse to accept anything contradictory or outlying. 

This is where dysphoria comes into play. Dysphoria: a state of unease or dissatisfaction with life. Having this binary creates dysphoria for those who contradict or those who do not fit. However, the very thought of dismantling the binary, while liberating the oppressed from dysphoria, creates a fit of dysphoria in our society due to the fact that it has become so very dependent on the binary it has socially constructed. 

The fortunate aspect here is that one of these states of dysphoria can be remedied: the dysphoria of society that results from the challenging of the sex/gender/sexuality binary can be relieved through the continuation of education and awareness. As Fausto-Sterling writes on page 21, "Sexuality is a somatic fact created by a cultural effect", meaning  the fact of sexuality has become a fact because of the culture we have created. Thus, the reformation of this culture - the abolishment of the binary - allows for the reformation of sexuality. And until then, we'll not only be a culture of binary oppression, but of continuous, perpetual, and two-sided dysphoria.