File spoon-archives/french-feminism.archive/french-feminism_1998/french-feminism.9806, message 30


Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 11:31:52 -0700 (PDT)
From: J Poxon <poxon-AT-saclink.csus.edu>
Subject: Re: Less definite sexes



At last, a chance to catch up on the fun stuff!

On Mon, 15 Jun 1998, Don Walter wrote:

> I mention this because Irigaray and the other FF's whom I have dipped into
> may have a position on gayness (gaiety? gaite'?), but seldom think about
> people who may not be anatomically (or physiologically, or psychologically)
> very clearly of one sex or the other-- which must make the construction of
> their gender especially tough and traumatic.  All the writing that I happen
> to have read is limited to males and females and perhaps gays, all of which
> are genders as I understand the term; but when the anatomic or otherwise
> biological sex is not so unambiguous, most of what I have read doesn't seem
> very helpful.

I think that bodies that blur the binary distinction betw. the sexes _are_ 
very problematic in a thinking of difference as sexual difference--and 
this points out one of my problems with Irigaray's work. I'm not sure 
it's helpful to approach difference-as-such by trying to make the 
(admittedly huge) leap from _one_ to _two_, i.e., by trying to think of 
the feminine as irreducibly other than the masculine. It seems to me that 
this tactic runs the major risk of reproducing the binarisms Irigaray is 
trying to get away from, and her silence (as far as I know) on the 
subject of "differently sexed" bodies may well be an indication of that 
risk. And, as I've argued on this list in the past, I'm suspicious of 
her focus on the heterosexual couple as the paradigm of ethical 
relationality for much the same reason.
 
> 	Are there helpful discussions of such intermediate bodies?

If so, I'd also like to hear about them.

> 	And then there is the serious question raised by Judith, about the
> oppressive metaphysics so strongly supported by all this dichotomizing.
> Metaphysics as we mostly know it today is an invention of the Classic
> Greeks, whose contructions of gender are amazingly different from ours, and
> only sound like ours because we got most of our words from them or from
> their imitators, the Classic Romans.  One good example of those different
> constructions is in Page DuBois' "Is Sappho Burning?"  Sappho was certainly
> not one of the Ol' Athens Boys, and to the extent that we can imagine a
> metaphysics for her, it is one of desire and empathy (my notions--- maybe
> you have others).

You're not the first person I've heard recommend this essay, Don. I guess 
I'll have to check it out.  :-)  So where can I find it?

Judith

Judith Poxon
poxon-AT-saclink.csus.edu


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