Talk:Postmodern feminism
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[edit] Context
I could be mistaken, but I thought that someone's sex was a matter of biology, not language. I suspect that something is missing from the article that would explain this seemingly odd statement. -Casito⇝Talk 18:41, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
- Sex is a matter of biology. However, gender is not. Sarge Baldy 21:57, July 20, 2005 (UTC)
- Not according to postmodernist feminists, it isn't; that's one of their main distinguishing features. I've edited the article to try and explain their argument. VoluntarySlave 02:19, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
My apologies. I am familiar with the postmodernist usage of gender, but I just wasn't thinking about it at the time. Of course, gender is often (and imprecisely) used as a euphemism for sex, and I incorrectly assumed you were using it that way. Nevertheless, the article could probably use a bit more background information. I was exposed to the topic of gender vs. sex in a high-level anthropology class taught by a postmodernist professor. She had to take considerable time to explain, since a significant portion of the class was not familiar with it. Anyhow, I'll do my best to reduce ambiguity in the article, but, unfortunately, I know absolutely nothing about postmodern feminism, so I won't be much help in expanding the article. -Casito⇝Talk 01:43, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
- Gender isn't a matter of biology, but it isn't a matter of language, either. (At least not the meaning of "gender" as used in postmodern feminism, which has nothing to do with grammatical gender.) --Angr/tɔk tə mi 13:20, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
Actually, one of the most fundamental aspects of poststructuralist feminist (an off-shoot of postmodernism) is the concept that sex does not exist. That is to say, sexual identity is not based on fixed biological 'essence', but is in fact fluid and constructed entirely by culture (as controlled by language). There is, therefore, only gender. Judith Butler's brilliant 'Gender Trouble' is the place to start with this - Carla
I think you're getting confused with semantics. Sex does exist. Sex is a biological issue - if an organism has certain reproductive organs, e.g. a penis and gonads, its sex is male.
If postmodern feminists are indeed trying to use the word "sex" to refer to the social roles that males and females are supposed to play, instead of the word "gender", then they are doing themselves a disservice by muddying the semantic waters. Language is a matter of convention; in all feminist literature I have read, it is explicitly agreed that "sex" and "gender" denote to the respective interpretations put forward on this page.
So the article should read "... gender is constructed through language".
As an interesting sidenote on the role of language and gender, many African languages do not have gender-specific pronouns (i.e. he/she) and therefore do not suffer from the he/she denotations in western texts (texts = writing, speech etc.). There have been suggestions that gender oppression is a "western" phenomenon because of this (but by implication of any culture that has gender-specific language). [See O. Oyewumi, "Visualising the body", The invention of women: Making an African sense of gender studies pp 1-30, 1997] However, empirical evidence does not seem to bear this out (e.g. there is widespread oppression and abuse of women throughout Africa).
From my understanding, although gender is largely constructed through socialization, there are biological processes in utero related to gender development, mentionably the increase in androgen receptors, and the BST region of the hypothalamus. It is not simply a case that if you were to bring up a biological male child as female through their toys, treatment, exposure to female-typical activites etc that they would grow up feeling female. Amanda
- I have labeled this page for expert attention since no one seems sure whether or not is gender or sex that recevies a new treatment in postmodern feminism. While I think the statements "the argument gender is itself constructed through language" and "gender is not something natural, nor is it something completely determinate and definable. [...] Gender, like other systems of meaning, is less like a cage, and more like a tool: it constrains but never completely determines what one can do with it." do not really make sense from a prespective of history of ideas since gender was considered simply a social construct since Simone de Beauvoir, a pre-postmodern feminist. --chemica 02:40, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] POV
This article is extraordinarily POV. The final paragraph needs extensive editing. Unfortunately, I don't know enough about the subject to fix it. GenericGabriel 21:39, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
-- I've added a few quick edits, as this was so scrappy, but don't have time to do anything larger. Will try to come back later and revamp it more fully. Silver Avocado 22:50 BST, 9th June 2006.
[edit] Frug & an expert opinion
The question of postmodern feminism is a vexed one. I say this because of the definitions of post-feminism the first being "after feminism" the second being "postmodern, poststructural, postfeminsim".[1] Whether this article should exist seperately from postfeminism is a moot point - IMHO they should be merged. From a Gender studies expert point of view, Frug's work is over emphasized. Frug's conclusions about "sex" are to similar to Judith Butler's to give her work this amount of emphasis.--Cailil 01:01, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
