Hi all,
I have never written to this listerv but have read and enjoyed many of the conversation that have occurred for the past year. I am prompted to respond on this topic primarily because I have spent some time thinking about some of these issues myself (I have a six year old daughter) and also because I am just now doing a lot of reading new to me in feminist philosophy, which I will teach for the first time in the fall.
Joan's call to try to understand this gender reveal practice so as to not judge a beloved relative harshly also inspired me - I love that motivation actually as I am constantly trying to shift things around in my head to maintain relationships with people who see the world so differently from me. I have found that understanding how they see the world and why actually educates me on a daily basis and I am best able to do that when I stop trying to "educate" them all the time about why they are being racist/sexist/homophobic, etc.. I tend to be a very practical person and this probably colors my perspective on the whole "gender reveal" party but, for me, I think there is some very real information that parents garner when they learn the sex of their child. In a different world, or maybe even a different society, this would be less (and in many places more) true, of course, because it is not in the biological fact of discovering that your child will be born with a vagina, for example, that matters. It is everything that vagina does and will signify, both to everyone else and to that child as she grows and shapes her identity. To be perfectly honest, when I was pregnant I hoped for a girl to empower. I knew what that would look like having a feminist mother and sister (and no brothers). I knew if I had a boy I would want to empower him too and teach him feminist values but I didn't have as clear a picture of what that would look like everyday exactly.. what lessons to teach and when... I think for many people, the sex of the child matters because it will, in a very real way, effect the dynamics of parenting. Whether it is about teaching the child to resist labels, teaching a child how not to bully or be bullied, etc. - given the societal context and the child's own ability, very early on, to internalize that context, these lessons might look very different for differently sexed children. To say that the sex of the child doesn't matter (in the sense that it is completely irrelevant as opposed to the sense in which we mean we don't care) is a very nice fairy tale but, in my opinion, not quite true yet given our cultural and societal context.
I don't know if this helps you Joan but it did help me better think through some of my own issues around how best to raise my daughter. I struggle now because my daughter is so typically "feminine" in many ways where I am not and never have been. She wears her princess dress and I try to stick a sword in her hand and call her a warrior princess (although why the violent image of the sword makes me feel better, I have no idea). I thought the "girl" I would get would have been more like me where feminism came so easily because my supposed gendered traits fit so badly. Ultimately, although I do get why the sex of the baby matters to parents, I also think that at the end of the day, it is not what is going to define them or us. And that is mainly because of the important work that many feminists have done in this country making sure that we can re-imagine a new response/identity even in the face of this societal context.
Just my two cents,
Vicki Toscano, Phd, JD
Nova Southeastern University
________________________________
From: Feminist ethics and social theory [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of helen lauer [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, May 15, 2014 8:15 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: A question I'm pondering
Joan-
Thank you for that reply.
You know, it's really an issue we should look at with more care and deliberate analysis--this business of cross cultural effects in social transformation. What with internet communications accelerating the affect of one cultural norm setting upon another ... I wonder if trickle-down is the only model to consider. There is also boomerang and double effect metaphors that have their relevance. Consider for instance the possibility that as women in the USA, just to pick a place, get stronger and more influential through--if you were to pick a factor it would be--education, the backlash of Boko Haram upon young women in Nigeria, and the justification for further horrific oppression of women in so-called fundamentalist social structures--right wing Christian and Islamic alike--worsens.
I'm just saying there's a more complicated set of cross cultural phenomena at work which, let us say, are not wholly too complicated to trace statistically--then the normative implications and obligations of moral intervention and intercession is a more interesting concern.
I think we need to push the dialogue of cross cultural responsibility and normative evaluation further than it was left with Nussbaum, just to pick one influential voice, declaring that we have a duty of care to 'distant others'... the Anglo-centric nature of these principles call their efficacy, if not their self-evidence, into question. Thank you for getting me to think far and wide.
Then too there is the intergenerational impact. What's it like for kids whose parents are determined to be gender neutral in their upbringing influences, and the children go to school and realise how different they are because they are not categorized at home the way their friends are. I wonder what kind of baggage that promises in the carrying. Do you think we are destined to inculcate a generation of grand daughters who are all about embracing curling irons, mascara, tupperware parties, and stay at home mom lifestyles!?
Cheers!!!
Helen
On Wednesday, May 14, 2014 7:51 PM, Joan Callahan <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Let me couple responses to Frances and Helen, who have rightly told us that things could be worse. And that they are much worse, elsewhere. We need to be reminded of this as often as possible. The horrors of crimes against women and girls, and even female fetuses are devastating, and should be devastating to all of us who are fortunate to live in places where we will, at least, not be killed or beaten senseless for our original sex assignment as female.
At the same time, these terrible practices continue because socio/cultural norms allow and promote them. If they will eventually erode, I believe it will be largely because the nations who are right now most powerful overcame the pink and blue wars.
I realize, of course, that this is a "trickle down" argument of, perhaps, the worst sort. I'll take the blame for that. But I'll stick with it.
It may be that the very best we can do at any time on any day. Over the long, long time it will take to effectively "liberate" women I believe our work must be on every strand we see in the fabric of discrimination, whether it be broad and bright or tiny but effectively colluding......
Joan
On Wed, May 14, 2014 at 3:28 PM, helen lauer <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
Dear Joan,
Why not just research the antiquated phenomenon and reflect for a publication on the sense of disturbance and love the relatives you care about warts and all?
I guess that's obvious.
But it's like, patriarchy is so real and entrenched is it any wonder these conventions exist--if they didn't what would we be concerned about after all? And it's a whole lot less creepy to share the details of one's born to be, than it is to for instance find a way to abort the baby because it's a girl. Or to cut the genitals to ensure she will be properly socialised. Given what goes on all over the world to women from birth and before, what's a little champagne cork popping and silliness over gender of the child? Of course that is a sin along a continuum of sins, but hardly as bad as it gets for most women all over.
Ya know?
Everything in--uh--perspective?
Helen Lauer
Philosophy & Classics
University of Ghana, Legon
On Wednesday, May 14, 2014 6:45 PM, Joan Callahan <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
I've been pondering a what I take to be a relatively new cultural practice. It is the practice of having a "gender reveal" party, which a pregnant woman has prior to a baby shower. I probably don't need to tell folks on this list what I find disturbing about this.
Anyone have any reflections on this practice and/or to help me out of my being fairly deeply disturbed by family members I really care about doing this?
Thanks,
Joan
############################
To unsubscribe from the FEAST-L list: write to: mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> or click the following link: https://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=FEAST-L&A=1
############################
To unsubscribe from the FEAST-L list: write to: mailto:[log in to unmask] or click the following link: https://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=FEAST-L&A=1
############################
To unsubscribe from the FEAST-L list: write to: mailto:[log in to unmask] or click the following link: https://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=FEAST-L&A=1
############################
To unsubscribe from the FEAST-L list:
write to: mailto:[log in to unmask]
or click the following link:
https://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=FEAST-L&A=1
|
