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<br><div><html>On Mar 26, 2008, at 9:50 PM, Kenneth Hyde wrote:</html><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><div><div>On Mar 26, 2008, at 6:22 PM, Amy Sheldon wrote:</div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><blockquote type="cite"><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">But how we theorize gender is related to how we theorize language and gender.</div></blockquote><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div>This seems to be rather worryingly Whorfian. If by "theorize," you mean "talk about" or "write about," then I can accept your point. However, if you mean "conceptualize" or "think about," then I would have to demur.</div></blockquote><div><br></div>I mean "make a theory of" gender.</div><div>I use 'theory' in the usual way scientists use it.</div><div>For example. The way I understand gender, as it is conventionally socially constructed, is that it is a THEORY OF DIFFERENCE.</div><div>Gender is the social meaning given to bodies that are female or male. This social theory constructs these bodies as being "the opposite sex". It's, currently, a difference that makes a difference...</div><div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div> I'm not persuaded that language has a deterministic effect on our thinking. </div></blockquote><div><br></div>that's a different kettle of fish.</div><div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div> I'm fairly firmly committed to the proposition that concepts and categories exist independent of the existence (or lack thereof) of labels (i.e. words or other semiotic tokens) and that the mapping between the realm of thought and the realm of language is imperfect at best.</div><div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: -1; ">Can you give an example of what "presents herself in a 'masculine' way" is and what the "masculine zone of the collective gender-space of her community" (or yours) is, or contains, or means, or a woman would behave like when they're there? And what is the "feminine zone"?</span></div></blockquote><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div>Well, let me start by expanding on the idea of "gender-space." First, I posit that gender is a socially constructed abstract aspect of identity (this seems fairly unexceptionable). </div></blockquote><div><br></div>Well, here's where I stumble on what you say.</div><div><br></div><div>I think of gender as socially constructed, too, but I am talking about REPRESENTATIONS, not necessarily identity.</div><div>I don't think there is a simple one to one mapping between social representation(s) of gender(s) and a person's psycho-social identity, constructed at some point in their life span.</div><div>Humans are aware of the representations of gender that circulate in their social spheres (through books, media, norms transmitted tacitly in action and explicitly through prescriptions that we are given (e.g., "be nice" to a girl,) etc.)</div><div>BUT, those are sketchy, thin, and mostly stereotypes, if not caricatures.</div><div>Real human beings are far more complex than the stereotypes that circulate to represent gender(s).</div><div><br></div><div>DOING gender is a creative process that requires us to align, resist, ignore, transform, or do something with the internalized understanding we have of general, gender "appropriate" behaviors and conventions.</div><div><br></div><div>As for identity, whatever that process entails, it too is creative. It requires us to mediate between the internalized representations of gender and our "sense of self", whatever that is... This is very much affected by our awareness of what gender is, and the freedom our society gives us to act, and the sanctions that we're threatened with if we do. Many women around the world, for example, don't have the luxury of having conversations that could raise awareness, and the social supports that could liberate them from the bonds of gender expectations. Just having a female body is dangerous.</div><div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div> In order to talk about this abstract construct, I'm using the model of a conceptual space. That space is defined by the features (and values of those features) that are relevant to gender in a given community. As the axes of features intersect and interact, zones of identity within the space are created. The masculine zone would be the part of the space that contains those features and values that the social group collectively view as "masculine" (i.e. associated with the label "masculine") Between social groups, the specific features and values that form the masculine zone of the gender-space could vary. The feminine zone would be a similar part of the gender-space characterized by those features and values that are viewed by the social group as meriting the label "feminine." Other zones of identity could also exist. For example, in some social groups, "macho" might be a distinct zone from "masculine" or "femme" might be distinct from "feminine." In theory, by mapping this gender-space, we could perhaps arrive at a more accurate picture of gender identities</div></blockquote><div><br></div>oops...why would that mapping tell us about gender IDENTITIES? It seems that what you could say with more certainty is that it would tell us something about gender REPRESENTATION.</div><div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div> in a community, discovering specific zones that are not yet labeled but that nevertheless exist.</div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>Okay, now, to the first question. By "presents herself in a 'masculine' way," I mean to say that the woman in question through behavior, speech, appearance, and other social and individual phenomena aligns herself with the features and values in the masculine zone of her community's gender-space. </div></blockquote><div><br></div>"aligns"?</div><div>Or "gets aligned with"?</div><div><br></div><div>Frankly, when I use certain forms of speech, like direct requests, I am not aligning with anything masculine. If I'm conscious of anything, it's that I'm RESISTING alignment with a caricature of femininity that says it's "women's language" to hedge, mitigate, etc. Or I'm aligning with the professional role I have that requires me to sound authoritative. Sometimes I'm conscious of taking a risk that by NOT hedging I may be sanctioned, because I'm stepping OUT of the STEREOTYPE of what the listeners think I SHOULD talk like, and therefore, who I should BE, what kind of a woman I should be. This has been discussed as "role stress", or "the double bind".</div><div><br></div><div>And, since I come from a dialect area (the Bronx), and a culture in which women DO/DID talk like this, it doesn't seem UNfeminine to do so at all. All of this is relative. What passes for acceptably "feminine" in a place like Minnesota, is read quite differently in other cultures and regions, in which women are far less sanctioned for speaking in less mitigated ways. And vice verse. This is not news.</div><div><br></div><div>But it is relevant to this discussion. My concern is that it is easy to get seduced into thinking we have represented a LIVED femininity or masculinity (i.e. "identity"), when all we have done is made more explicit reductionist stereotypes and caricatures. </div><div><br></div><div>Our representations of gender are too limited. Real people are far more complex than the labeled boxes people want to put us into (especially before they really 'know' us).</div><div><br></div><div>My own opinion is that (notice the mitigator), I don't think it is very revealing to describe someone as a "masculine woman". That is just RElabeling.</div><div>Plus, it's a perjorative label. Just as "feminine man" is. </div><div>What if we moved beyond labels?</div><div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div> Thus, in a community where masculine is associated with features of strong verbal posturing (braggadocio or one-upsmanship, etc.), the "masculine" woman would exhibit these features. On the other hand, in a community where stoicism or withholding is a feature of masculine identity, then the "masculine" woman would exhibit this trait. </div></blockquote><div><br></div>And what about a woman who belongs to multiple communities in which 'strong verbal posturing", whatever "posturing" means,</div><div>is allowed in one but sanctioned in another? She's bicultural, let's say. Is she simply regarded as a "woman" in one community and a "masculine woman" in another? And what's her LIVED experience of womanhood? How does SHE understand herself to be? What about women and men who consider labels to be a hinderance? There is no direct mapping between the labels and one's "identity". It's not just trans people who feel this way about gender...<br><blockquote type="cite"><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>Nor would this presentation be limited to language behavior. It could include actions, clothing, facial expressions, physical posture, etc. In some communities (perhaps many), a woman who plays rough sports, wears sweats and a hoodie, maintains a closed expression and stands and moves in a certain way could be said to be "presenting herself in a masculine way."</div></blockquote><div><br></div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>do we want to live in a world like this?</div><div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div> And yes, these examples are simplistic stereotypes. In reality, I realize that self-presentation is much more complicated, involving a vast number of variables. In a properly mapped gender-space some features would be neutral, either because they are not associated with any identity zone or because they are associated with several different zones. Other features or values might be more or less proximal to the center of an identity zone and thus more or less relevant in self-presentation. </div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div></blockquote><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>If the gender space is neutral, then we don't need it any more...</div><div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div>And of course, self-presentation would not necessarily be a phenomenon of the conscious self. I suspect that most people do gender identity and other types of self-presentation from a partially or entirely subconscious basis. It would be very interesting to study whether conscious self-presentation of gender differs from subconscious...and how it differs if it does.</div></blockquote><div><br></div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>how would you design a study to test this...?</div><div>Amy<br><blockquote type="cite"><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>And once again, I think I'll stop here.</div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>Ken</div><div><br></div><br><br><div> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Goudy Old Style; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><div>Kenneth Hyde</div><div>ELI & Dept of Linguistics</div><div>University of Delaware</div><div><a href="mailto:kenny@udel.edu">kenny@udel.edu</a></div><div><br class="khtml-block-placeholder"></div><div>"No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife between the shoulders will seriously cramp his style.—K. Z. Steven Brust</div><div><br class="khtml-block-placeholder"></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"></span> </div><br></blockquote></div><br></body></html>