Constructionism: What the Hell?

I’m reviewing of Essential Dykes to Watch Out For and it’s taking forever. Here’s one snag I just noticed. In her introduction, Bechdel recounts her discovery of constructionism, which she defines this way: “Apparently no one was essentially anything!” But in Dykes we find a frail little boy named Jonas who insists on taking hormones so he can be a girl, at which point he becomes quite a sassy, self-confident little creature. But if no one is essentially anything, what’s the point of messing around with your body?

Does Jonas/Janis mean:

1) Alison Bechdel is no constructionist?
2) Constructionism makes an exception for transsex operations because those are transgressive enough anyway?
3) [ some undefined third option ] ?

0 thoughts on “Constructionism: What the Hell?

  1. Transsex operations seem, to me, entirely consistent with constructionism, which posits that all concepts (like gender) are merely artificial social constructs rather than the hard-and-fast natural laws they sometimes appear to be. If gender is only a construct created by our society rather than a natural fact we’re born with and have to stick with, why not try to change our gender if that’s what makes us happy? Or, to put it in Bechdel’s terms: if no one is essentially anything, that means anyone can be anything they want.

  2. Hey Ed. The problem with that is that, at least from what I’ve read, trans people don’t experience their gender as being “what they want”; they experience it as being what they are. It’s the same distinction you see with gay or lesbian folks (or for that matter with straight folk); everybody perceives or feels their sexual preference as being part of who they are, not something they choose.

    And, yeah, the fluid, “gender and sexuality are play/choice/constructed” discourse hits some bumps in trying to account for transsexuals. A really fantastic book about gender and biology by a trans activist is Julia Serano’s Whipping Girl, which is extremely smart and thoughtful and convinced me, at least, that the “gender is constructed” idea isn’t really workable. Serano also very kindly contributed a piece to my gay utopia project; it’s short and very insightful; you can find it here

  3. Hi, Ed. Having asked your advice, I’ll join Noah in differing with you. If gender is completely artificial, why would it make someone happy to switch genders? What would be the point? It’s a hell of a process, from what I hear.

    So the Serano piece corresponds with what I would have expected. Nature designed her to be a woman but messed up the finishing touches. Human science came along and corrected the job.

    So now I’m coming down for choice (1): Bechdel is not a constructionist, at least not as Wikipedia explains the term to me. Come to think of it, I don’t see how she could be after the childhood described in Fun Home. She wanted to dress butch when her father wanted her to dress femme (or like a boy vs like a girl, as I would say if I weren’t knee-deep in gay/gender stuff right now).

    What I get from Essential Dykes, and from my own ’70s feminist upbringing, is that everyone is a mix of different gender traits and hetero/homo inclinations, with the mix varying from person to person and equally genuine in each person’s case. Some people match the arrangements expected of regulation-issue men and women, a lot of people don’t, and the people in that second group tend to waste a lot of energy trying to match one or the other of the two regulation arrangements.

    It’s a pluralist view of things, which is the kind I tend to have.

  4. Right, cause if it’s pure construct, why not have the ultimate erasure of the concept be something to shoot for rather than encouraging anyone to adopt one or another.
    To me, ( and I know you’re dying to hear it) this is more egalitarianism run amok; we’re asked to radically redefine working concepts of sex/gender because around %2 of the population don’t operate within those parameters and an even smaller percentage among them have found careers in academia writing about it. It’s a worthwhile course of study, I bet, but I don’t think they’ll ever have much luck de-marginalizing what is in purely material terms simply aberrant behavior.

  5. Yeah; I’m aware of your spiel, Uland. You don’t necessarily need to repeat it here every time the subject comes up.

    You did get that Serano (and a fair number of feminists and academics of various sorts) *don’t* think gender is constructed, right? I think Serano would probably like, or at least find some common ground with, the take on gender in Lewis’ Prerelandra (basically male and female are absolute archetypes, God being the ultimate male in a way that makes everyone else (man or woman) relatively female.)

  6. “God being the ultimate male in a way that makes everyone else (man or woman) relatively female”

    That’s the freakiest thing I ever heard.

  7. Oh, okay- I don’t have to voice my opinion because you, precious you, have heard it before. Why do you assume I wrote that for your benefit? There are others here who might want to discuss the issue with me.
    And, come on- you write about the same shit over and over again too. About these same subjects to boot.
    Why? Because they come up often around here, and I still have the same opinion on the matter.
    You wrote a few days ago you don’t think gender is a construct.
    Noah, Noah, you don’t have to keep repeating yourself!

  8. Hey Uland. I do write about the same thing over and over, it’s true. You have even pointed this out before, I think. And others can certainly respond to you, of course. I was only speaking for myself re: not really needing to hear it again, at least not quite so soon.

    Tom; I must admit, I’m not sure where Lewis gets that from. I presume his take on gender comes from some theological tradition or other, but I don’t know anything else about it, really. It might make more sense in context, is what I’m saying, but I don’t know what the context is, precisely.

  9. Hi, Noah. Yeah, my feel for theological nuance is zero. To me it’s like he’s saying, “How great is God? He makes Johnny Weissemuller look like a woman. Next to him John Wayne has got tits! What I’m trying to say is” and so on.

    Which is kind of funny, if you can imagine CS Lewis with a Brooklyn accent.

    And hi, Uland. Are you agreeing with me or disagreeing? I’m kind of proud of my little theoretical whatever-it-is, but basically it lays down what I’ve always thought anyway.

    And come to think of it, why is Ed Howard’s icon a blond chick?

  10. Holy crap that’s funny, Tom.

    I think when Lewis talks about masculinity as a semi-platonic concept, he’s thinking more of things like command, lawgiving — primal father attributes, rather than secondary sexual characteristics.

    Also, I don’t think it’s necessarily a maleness is great, femaleness is wimpy thing for him. Maleness and femaleness both are necessary, good, etc.; they’re just different from one another.

  11. Yeah, I agree with you Tom. But I don’t buy into Constructionism at all, so, yeah. I think I’m pretty much what Constructionists were trying to get rid of…

    Yeah, I think Noahs’ right about Lewis’ ultra-man-god.
    I know that in certain occult traditions the essential male is the force that causes an action, or spurs a creation into being. That’s a simplified version, of course. I think most concepts of an essential maleness fall along these lines.

  12. I guess you’re to my right and some gender studies professor at Sarah Lawrence is to my left. As to the male prime-mover God, I remember all that from Promethea. Didn’t realize there were Christians who took the same line.