feminism jewishness gaylesbian hohesexraceessents?

'sexrace~essentialism~homo/hetero~gay/lesbian~jewishness~feminism~"

~!@!~



THE
following description
of what essentialism means
in a feminist context
could & should further clarify
our quest:

'IF
most feminists,
however one may classify trends and positions
- cultural, liberal, socialist, poststructuralist, and so forth -
agree that women are made,
not born,
that gender is not an innate feature
[as sex may be]
but a sociocultural construction
[and precisely for that reason it is oppressive to women],
that patriarchy is historical
[especially so when it is believed to have superseded a previous matriarchal realm],
THEN
the "essence" of woman
that is described in the writings of many so-called essentialists
is not the "REAL essence", in Locke's terms,
but more likely a nominal
one.'



THE
crucial words
in this paragraph
for my limited purposes here
are "as sex may be";
in other words,
the division into sexes is
[or at least may be]
an innate feature,
even for those who are anti-essentialist
feminists.



THERE ARE
men and women "REALLY";
the question is
what does this mean,
or what are they like,
or are there any essential differences beyond the obvious ones,
while the question with regard to gay people is:
Have "they" always existed,
or have "we"
"made them up"?



Have they
perhaps
made themselves up -
at a certain point
in cultural
history?



~!@!~



Steven Epstein
poses the issue in a sharply focused
and politicized
manner.

"I take as given
that power inheres in the ability to name," he writes,
"and that
what we call ourselves
has implications
for political practice ...
Legitimation strategies
play a mediating function between self-understanding
and political programs,
and between groups
and their individual
members."



The
great virtue
of Epstein's paper
is its constant attention to the political function
of claims to
essence.



In the
following statement,
while I think he seriously misconstrues social constructionism,
he nevertheless clearly articulates
this political
function:

'A
"folk constructionism"
comes to be disseminated:
the view that sexual identities are willful self-creations.
And in reaction against this folk constructionism,
which denies the experience of a non-voluntary component to identity,
lesbians and gays operating within the liberal discourse
slide to the opposite extreme:
they assert that there is something "real" about their identity,
and then try to locate that felt reality in their genes,
or their earliest experiences,
or their mystical
nature.'



This
alleged
"folk constructionism"
bears no relation, typological or genetic,
to social constructionism
- it certainly predates these theories -,
so Epstein is setting up a paper tiger here,
but nontheless,
the positive part of the argument seems undoubtedly
correct to
me.



Claims
for essence
are legitimation strategies for identity politics and, as such,
are attacked at great peril to causes of difference
and liberation of
differences.



Or,
as Ed Cohen
has put it,

"How individuals come together to act for change,
how these actors are changed by their activities,
and how these acts and actors crystallize as movements
cannot be adequately imagined if the powerful effects FELT
by acting subjects are 'theoretically'
disappeared."



THIS formulation
appears in a generally appreciative discussion of J.B.'s work,
in which E.C. has also written:

'In its attempt
to rethink "agency" so that it is "constituted" in terms of "construction,"
it obviates any concern with what brings individuals together
to effect changes in the social imagination/organization
of their shared life-world,
implicitly portraying collective action as
"simply" voluntaristic.'



And
THUS,
I would add,
it paradoxically reinscribes the "Protestant" ideology
of the individual.



Picking up on C.'s overall argument,
I would suggest that only a grouping which has some somatic referent
can allow itself the possibility of reinvenrting
its essence:

"FOR
if we can begin to gather together
on the basis of constructions
that 'we' are constantly and self-consciously in the process of inventing,
multiplying, and modifying,
THEN perhaps 'we' can obviate the need
for continuing to reiterate the fragmenting escillations
between identity and difference that have been the legacy
of post 1960s progressive
politics."



As
C.
quite
brilliantly
suggests here,
there has to be some referent for a we
that is not in quotation marks
in order for the cites, constructed "we"
to function
as such.



With regard
to women and gay people,
there is some "objective reality,"
some somatic referent, it seems, about which
to even ask the question
of essence.



At least
ostensibly,
the category of women is defined
by something they do
with their
bodies.



There is,
in both cases,
as I have said,
something about which to ask the question in each of these two cases:
BUT WHAT ABOUT
JEWS?



IN
what sense
does this category exist -
even as a nominalist
category?



I suggest
that only genealogy
can fill that function for
Jews.

~cool!~
engel
31 aug 2005 - bewerkt op 22 mrt 2008 - meld ongepast verhaal
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