On Wed, 28 May 1997, Joel VanLaven wrote:
> Why aren't there genderless women anymore? you ask. I think that you
> will find that genderless women and non-sexual lesbians have fell by the
> wayside for a very important reason.
>
> Most of the "bad guys" (the sexist, anti-gay people :) (probably some
> of the "good guys" too) have ignored the sex and/or sexual orientation of
> characters when it wasn't shoved in their face.
>
> On Fri, 23 May 1997, farah mendlesohn wrote:
>
> > the 30s were so good. The type of childhood they wrote about was
> > one in which girls were to be asexual. This doesn't seem to be
> > allowed anymore.
> >
> > Farah
>
Joel, you message seems a bit confused, because, I think, of the unclear
use of the words "gender" and "sex" and "sexual."
While gender is frequently confused for sex, it is generally accepted by
feminists that gender refers to socially constructed roles, i.e.
masculine, feminine and androgynous, whereas sex is physiological, i.e.
male, female, hermaphrodite. I don't mean to suggest that either of these
categories can or should be limited to the three examples I have provided.
While feminists generally agree that the dichotomous gender system of
feminine and masculine is a major element of women's oppression, opinions
vary on what to do. Some seek to widen the categories and make them
looser, other to add additional genders and allow for choice between them
regardless of physiological sex, and others to reject the idea of a system
of genders where character traits are grouped together into bundles.
The north american lesbian community has been through a maze of approaches
to gender. Some lesbians (few) do not challenge the system of genders,
and see themselves as feminine, some feel themselves to be masculine,
which may or may not be equated by the lesbians involved as the same as
butch/femme, though many lesbians involved in butch/femme idntifications
see this as something quite apart from merely a mirror of masc./fem.
hetero roles. Many lesbians embrach androgyny, others reject genders
altogether, and some play with the idea of gender in a fluid way.
Being a lesbian is a sexual orientation, and can be accompanied by any
gender or none at all.
With reference to science fiction, these distinctions show the endless
possibilities for imagining differences from our own culture, and the ways
in which characters can be constructed. I've just recently read Melissa
Scott's Shadow Man which is a fascinating exploration of the clash between
two human societies, both of which have five sexes. While one society
clings to a social system of two genders and one acceptable sexual
orientation, hetero, the other has a complex system of nine sexual
orientations. But even in this socially complicated book, I didn't feel
that Scott had completely let go of some ingrained assumptions about the
connections between sex, gender, and sexuality. Of course within our
society, as within every culture, links are made between sex and gender
and sexuality, but I maintain that there is no necessary link between
them. The associations are, like gender, socially constructed (ok, ok, so
I'm an old fashioned social constructionist, it's not the worst thing I've
been called).
Re children's sf, I was certainly always attracted to characters, both
male and female but particularly female, that transgressed socially
approved gender roles. Certainly it is far more common to see female
characters outside conscripted gender roles than men. Because
inappropriate gender behaviour is taken in our society as a sign of sexual
deviance, it is received very negatively. Particularly for men. The ways
in which women are desexed, all women but particularly lesbians, have
opened up some room for girls and women, but particularly girls, to be
non-feminine without instantly raising the spectre of sexual deviance.
This has both positive and negative aspects. While it may help combat the
training of girls to be feminine, it also helps perpetuate the
invisibility of lesbians.
Scott is certainly right when she says that without explicit sexual
content, characters coded as lesbian will not be SEEN to be lesbian.
Items meant to code a character as lesbian will be read as gender
deviations, not as gender and sexual orientation signals.
This is true for many of us in real life as well. I purposefully code my
appearance as lesbian, but still am constantly confronted by the
assumption that I am straight. This creates a constant need to explicitly
out myself.
And then as lesbians become more visible as sexual beings, there is in
some quarters a backlash against non-feminine girls. As fear of
lesbianism grows, girls and girl characters have to be more explicitly
coded as heterosexual, which is all wrapped up with feminininity of
course.
I think this has a lot to do with what's going on in children's
literature, as well as the backlash against feminism generally.
I suppose I should stop rambling now..
Robin Gordon
**********************
Resistance is fruitful.
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