'Divided We Stand': Sex, Gender and Sexual Difference Author(S): Henrietta Moore Reviewed Work(S): Source: Feminist Review, No

'Divided We Stand': Sex, Gender and Sexual Difference Author(s): Henrietta Moore Reviewed work(s): Source: Feminist Review, No. 47 (Summer, 1994), pp. 78-95 Published by: Palgrave Macmillan Journals Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1395255 . Accessed: 05/03/2013 14:56

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This content downloaded on Tue, 5 Mar 2013 14:56:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 'DIVIDEDWE STAND': Sex, Gender and Sexual Difference

Henrietta Moore

Thisarticle was originallypresented as a paper,and sincemuch of what it discussesturns on problemsof position,location, self-representation and representativity,I have decided to leaveit, as far as is possible,in its originalform. Extensive use of thefirst person pronoun is frownedon in the contextsin which I am used to working,but I have deliberately retainedit in this textto tryand conveya senseof particularity, of myself speakingin a specificcontext(s). The use of {we'is a highlypoliticized act bothin anthropologyand in feministcontexts. Its use hereis intendedto conveya senseof audience,that is of myselfspeaking to others.But, and much moreimportantly, it also operatesas a markof interrogation,a fictiveunity that revealsthe lines of fragmentationat the uerymoment whenit claimsaffinity.l The originalimpetus for this paperwas a questionconcerning the way in which feminism had influencedor affected my own work. This perfectlyreasonable request engenderedin me a feeling of intense panic.My first thoughtwas 'OhGod, how has feminisminfluenced my work'?The rootof the anxiety,of course,is one aboutbeing foundout, beingexposed as 'notthe realthing', 'not a properfeminist'. The anxiety of failure and lack is not entirely confinedto feminists. In fact, it is probablyrather a commonparanoia among academics. However, what this anxietyraises for me as a feministis the questionof positionality. Feminist politics and feminist practicehave always requireda clear sense of positionand of the politicsof location.For one thing, there has been the necessity of speaking out, declaringone's feminist politics within the workplaceor the homeor the politicalparty or wherever.In addition, the powerful,sometimes acrimonious,debates within the feministcommunity itself have demandedthat one own up as to where one locates oneself in terms of a variety of carefully drawn and demarcatedinternal divisions: radical feminist or socialistfeminist, for

Feminist Reriew No. 47, Summer 1994

This content downloaded on Tue, 5 Mar 2013 14:56:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions SexnGender and SexualDifference 79 example?These divisionsare importantbecause they have guidedthe political programmesproposed by differentgroups of feminists, and becausethey bring alreadypoliticized identities into play. They raise, therefore,what I am going to call, after Nancy Miller,the problemof representativity(1991: 20). Who and what do we representwhen we speakout, andhow do we negotiatethe inevitableproblem in the social sciencesof having to speak aboutpeople while trying not to speak for them?The question of whospeaks for whom and on whatbasis has given rise in feministdebate to a numberof very significantdivisions; one of whichis the splitbetween theory and practice. The main issue hereis one abouthow to link theoreticalwork with politicalactivism. Those who have not seen themselves as theorists have demandedto know what purposetheory serves for them and how readily,if at all, theorytakes accountoftheir experiences, concerns and struggles. Feminist theory has seemedto manynot onlyarcane, but elitist, racistand/or patriarchal. Thus, the politics of locationmake two things abundantlyclear. Firstlythat thereis no single,homogeneous body offeminist theory; and secondly,that the divisionsbetween different groups of women, as wellas betweenpractising feminists, make it impossibleto asserta commonality based on shared membershipin a universal category'woman'. Such divisionshave a particularresonance for me becauseI workas a social anthropologist.As it happens,I workwith and acrossdivisions of race, class,sexuality, ethnicity and religion. I questionthe purposeof my work, especiallymy theoretical writing, for the peopleI workwith becauseI do not find it easy to know of what immediateuse it couldbe to them. I frequentlytry to dealwith this problem,at least in part,by grounding my theoreticalthinking in the details of daily life and in the realities of postcolonialpolitical economies. I do not succeedin this as often as I shouldlike, and I tenaciouslyhold on to whatI tryto convincemyselfis an acceptablepolitical position by giving as muchspace and time to working onissues of agriculturalchange, women's labour and nutrition, as I doto writingon theoretical questions. The gross imbalances of power involved in myresearch situation mean that, at everyturn, the veryfact of writing andtalking about other people's lives can never be clearlyseparated from the question of whether or not one is speaking for them. This is a perennial problem for all feminist social scientists, in spite of a commitmentto feminist methodologiesand participatoryresearch. Manyof my feminist colleaguesare very criticalof my involvementin anthropology;often projecting on to me theirown anxieties about how to deal with issues of race and class, and about how to manage the increasinggap between feminist activism and the academy.I inevitably dothe sameto them.The most significant impact that feminismhas had on my workhas been to create a space in which I must continuously engage with these issues of positionalityand representativity.In this paper,I want to take up a very smallpart of this themeand discussthe wayin whichtheoretical treatments of sex, genderand sexual difference are connectedto what it is that unites and what it is that dividesus as womenand as feminists.

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The assertionof the non-universalstatus of the category'woman' is by now almost a commonplace.However, anthropology has had a particularhistorical role in the developmentof feministtheory because of its contributionto the criticalreworking of the category'woman'. In the 1970s, feminists outside anthropologydrew readily on the cross- culturaldata providedby anthropologicalresearch to establish varia- bility in genderand genderroles, and thus providesubstantive content for the feminist positionthat genderwas sociallyconstructed and not biologicallydetermined. However, cross-culturalvariability in the socialconstruction of gendercould not and did not accountfor women's universal subordination,and in order to remedy this, snthropology developedtwo very importantcomparative theories to try and address this issue. The first asserted that womenwere everywhereassociated with nature, partly as a result of their reproductivefunctions, while men were associatedwith culture.It was suggestedthat the devaluingof nature in relationto culture accountedfor the hierarchicalrelations between women and men (see Ortner, 1974). The second theory emphasizedthat womenwere inferiorto menbecause they werelinked to the domestic sphere, once again in consequenceof their role in reproductionand childcare, while men were associatedwith the public sphereof sociallife (see Rosaldo,1974). These comparativetheories of women'ssubordination were not long-lived.The categoriesof nature, culture,public and private were themselves found to be historicallyand culturally variable, and the homologiesposited between these cat- egoriesand the categoriesof genderdifference were revealedto be far from universal.2What is important about these two comparative theories of women'ssubordination is that they attemptedto provide socially,as opposedto biologically,based accountsof women'sposition in societyand of the originsof genderdifference. The preconditionsfor this projectwere, of course,that the biologicaland the socialhad already beenseparated from each other as explanationsfor the originsof gender difference.Whatever role biologywas playing,it was not determining gender. The very fact that these comparativetheories were social rather than biologicalin their determinationsopened them to criticalreinter- pretationby feminists of colour,feminists fromthe developingworld and lesbinn feminists. They challengedthe notion of the universal category'woman', and the assumptionof underlyingcommonalities of existencefor all women.Trans-cultural and trans-historical patterns of female subordinationwere rejected, and theoretical concepts were reformulated.3In the socialsciences, at least, this produceda crisisboth aboutthe politicalpurpose and organizationof a feministpolitics which did not appearto have a coherentconstituency, and aboutthe status of analyticalmodels of gender.In general,it wouldprobably be fair to say that many respondedto the latter crisis by assertingthe necessityfor culturallyand historically specific analyses. We couldlook for common- alities betweenwell-specified situations, but we wouldnever be able to

This content downloaded on Tue, 5 Mar 2013 14:56:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Sex,Gender and SexualDifference 81 state in advancewhat wouldbe the consequencesof the intersectionsof race,class andgender, for example. What is interestingabout this crisis is that it generated a simultaneous move towards pluralism and specificity.The very fact of having to reducethe scopeof any modelor analyticalstatement to a particularsituation producedan enormous range of empiricaloutcomes and theoreticalpositions. We now recog- nize this developmentas part of a general critiqueof universalizing theories,meta-narratives and totalizingtypologies. The currentdebate is, of course,one aboutwhether we locatethe originsofthis movementin poststructuralismand deconstructionismor in feminism. However,as regardsfeminist theory in the socialsciences, the shift in methodsof genderanalysis towards a specificitywhich would account for a plurality of experiencesand contexts was not as radical as it seemed.One fixed position remained and that was the divisionbetween sex andgender. Gender was seen as sociallyconstructed, but underlying that idea was a notion that althoughgender was not determinedby biology,it was the socialelaboration in specificcontexts of the obvious facts of biologicalsex difference.It did not matterthat almosteveryone recognizedthat both biologyand culturewere historicallyand culturally variableconcepts, as werethe relationsbetween them. The problem was that the elaborationof the socialdeterminations and entailments of gender in all their specificity had effectively left the relationship betweensex andgender very under-theorized. Recentwork in anthropologyhas returnedto this questionof the relationshipbetween sex and gender. Sylwa Yanagisakoand Jane (illier (1987) have suggested that the radical separationof sex and gendercharacteristic of feminist anthropologyis a specificand rather pervasiveethnocentrism. They argue that it is part of a Westernfolk modelwhich dominates anthropological theorizing, and, like so manyof the other binary categorizationsin anthropology- nature/culture, public/private- it does not stand up to cross-culturalexamination. In manyways, this simplymarks the impactof neo-Foucauldianthinking in anthropology.It is worthrecalling here Foucault'sargument in The Historyof SexualityVol I that 'sex'is an effectrather than an origin,and that far frombeing a given and essential unity, it is, as a category,the productof specificdiscursive practices.

The notion of 'sex' made it possible to group together, in an artificial unity, anatomical elements, biological functions, conducts, sensations, and pleasures, and it enabled one to make use of this fictitious unity as a causal principle, an omnipresent meaning; sex was thus able to function as a unique signifier and as a universal signified. (Foucault, 1984: 154) Foucault'sbasic argument is that the notionof'sex' does not exist prior to its determinationwithin a discoursein which its constellationsof meaningsare specified,and that thereforebodies have no 'sex'outside discoursesin which they are designatedas sexed. Consequently,the constructionof fixedbinary sexes, with fixed categoricaldifferences is

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the effectof a specificdiscourse. What is more,if binarysex is an effectof discourse,then it cannotbe consideredas a unitaryessentialism, and, moreimportantly, it cannotbe recognizedas invariantor natural.This is, in essence,the argumentThomas Lacqueur makes so elegantlyin his recent book (Lacqueur,1990). However,two quite radical positions followfrom this point. First,in termsof anthropologicaldiscourse, the distinctionbetween sex and genderon whichfeminist anthropology has restedits case falls away. As Judith Butler (1990)points out, in her readingof the above passage from Foucault, perhaps there is no distinctionto be made betweensex and genderafter all. The secondpoint, which follows from the first, is that, as Yanagisakoand Collier(1987) assert, we cannot necessarilyassume that binarybiological sex everywhereprovides the universalbasis for the culturalcategories 'male' and 'female'.If gender constructsare culturallyvariable, then so are the categoriesof sexual difference.This is not the first time in anthropologyor anywhereelse that the fixedbinary categories of sex have been interrogated;one only needs to pointto the extensiveliterature that exists on the 'thirdsex', hermaphrodismand androgeny.4However, the recentwork in anthropologyhas a ratherdifferent purpose. We know that the recognitionof anatomicaldifferences between womenand men does not necessarilyproduce a discrete,fixed, binary categorizationof sex in the mannerof Westerndiscourse. Ethnographic materialsuggests that the differencesbetween women and men which peoplein othercultures naturalize and locate in the humanbody and in featuresof the physicaland cosmologicalenvironment are not necess- arily those which correspondto the constellationof featureson which Western discoursebases its categorizations.For example,the social differencesbetween women and men may be located in the body as natural differences, as in situations described by anthropologists workingin Nepal, where the differencesbetween the female and the male are conceivedof as the differencebetween flesh and bone.5 However,these differencesof genderare said to be locatedin all bodies, thus collapsing the distinction between sexed bodies and socially constructedgenders usually maintainedin anthropologicaldiscourse. The female and the male, as flesh and bone, are, of course,necessary features of bodily identity. This producesa discursive space where theoriesof social(gender) difference are groundedin the physiologyof the body, and thus function as part of the biologicalfacts of sex difference. This is, of course,very close to Foucault'sown projectwhich is concernedwith how it is that sexualdifferences and the categoryof sex are constructed within discourse as necessary features of bodily identity.In Westerndiscourse, it appears,it is not just that we need to have a bodyin orderto have a sex, but that we need a sex so as to have a body.This rather strange way ofthinking,of modellingthe relationship betweenbodies and the categoriesof sexualdifference, is preciselythat which is most readilyundermined by ethnographicmaterial. Many of

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the differenceswhich concernpeople around the worldare internalto bodies,that is within them ratherthan betweenthem. The questionis, are we to speak of these differencesas differencesof sex or of gender? This point is difficultto grasp for many of us because we have the gravest difficultyin understandingcategories of sex and notions of sexual differencewhich do not correspondneatly to discretephysical bodiesalready designated as sexuallydifferentiated. Sex then, as far as we understandit within the terms of Westerndiscourse, is something whichdifferentiates between bodies, while genderis the set of variable social constructionsplaced upon those differentiatedbodies. It is preciselythis formulawhich obscures rather than illuminateswhen it comes to the analysis of sex, sexual differenceand gender cross- culturally.In many instances, as I have already suggested, gender differencesare internalto all bodiesand are partofthe processthrough whichbodies are sexed. In such situations,it is far fromapparent how we shoulddistinguish sex fromgender, and, even more problematic, it is unclearas to exactlywhat genderas a conceptor a categoryrefers to. This argumentis, of course,quite different from those whichhave been madeabout the 'thirdsex', hetmaphrodism and adrogeny. The instability,or potentialinstability, of the categorygender in cross-culturalanalysis is an alarmingprospect. However, when we talk in general terms about discourseson gender and on the relationship between sex and gender, even if by this we only really mean to say differentideas aboutsex and gender,we still have to ask ourselvesthe question,'Whose discourses are we referringto?' At one time, anthro- pologysubscribed to the view that each culturehad its own modelof gender,its owndefinitions ofthe categoriesfemale and male. This view, which was much reinforcedby a predominantlyDurkheimian view of cultureand by the kind of liberalcultural relativism still prevalentin the discipline,has changedin recent years as anthropologistshave movedtowards working with modelsof culturewhich stress conflictand indeterminacy,and as they concentratemore on the differenceswithin culturesas opposedto simplybetween them.6 However, it doesnot solve the problemof howto link whatwe mightcall dominantcultural models of genderto the specificexperiences and situationsof particulargroups orindividuals within that socialcontext. This is not,of course,a problem whichis confinedto anthropology,but it raises onceagain the problems of positionalityand representativity. One set of problemshere is about how the experiencesof race, sexuality and class, as well as other forms of salient difference, transformthe experienceof gender.But, there are additionalproblems about how we are to conceptualizeand analyse the over-determined relationshipsbetween dominant and sub-dominantdiscourses on gender, the body,sexuality and sexual difference.These questionsbecome particularlyacute when we acknowledgethat they are crucialnot only in and for our work, but in and for our lives. What relationshipdo feministunderstandings of gender have to dominantgender models and ideologies?;can the formerever be entirely free of the latter?'is this

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what we are strivingfor? This is not only a matterof politics,but it is also a matter of subjectivityand self-identity.When we are busy discussingother people'sdiscourses on gender,their views about the body,their gender identities and subjectivities, how easy dowe findit to producethe kind of analysis which we would like to see applied to ourselves?As AdrienneRich remarked:

Perhaps we need a moratoriumon saying 'the body'.For it's also possible to abstract 'the body'.When I write 'the bodyv,I see nothing in particular. To write 'my body'plunges me into lived experience, particularity . . . To say 'the bodyvlifiss me away from what has given me primary perspective. To say 'my bodyXreduces the temptation to grandiose assertions. (Rich, 1986: 215)

By 'grandioseassertions' Rich means presumablyuniversalizing, comparativetheories. As a lesbianfeminist, Rich is onlytoo well awarethat the dominantdiscourses on gender,the bodyand sexualityprevalent in her own culturalsetting do not fit her personalunderstanding of these categories and/or processes very closely. Lesbians, like many other groups,have evolved their own discourses,what some have termed sub-dominantor alternativediscourses, on these issues. It is on this basis that writers talk of differentkinds of experience- 'the lesbian experience'or 'theBlack experience', for example - and seek in termsof feminist theory to establish the groundsfor theoretical approaches based on positionalityand representativity.However, the problemis notjust how to recognizethe existenceof specificgroups who may have alternativeperspectives and may not subscribeto dominantdiscourses withinany particularsetting. The more pressing problem with regard to gender,the bodyand sexual difference is to workout what bearing social and/orcultural discourses have on individualexperience. This is, of course,simply a modernversion of an old problemin sociologyand anthropologyabout the relationshipbetween the individual and society. In anthropology,this problemhas often been run in terms of the relationshipbetween dominant cultural symbols and the individual'sunderstanding and interpretationof them. This is a key issue in feminist theory, of course,where feminist standpointtheory invites us to take women'sexperiences as a startingpoint for analysis.7 Standpointtheory assumes that women have a differentperspective frommen, and that differentgroups of womenwill also differin their standpoints.In this sense, it privilegesgroups over individuals,but a more radicalreading of its premises would suggest that we all have differentexperiences and understandingsof culturaldiscourses, sym- bolsand institutions. The question here is oneabout how much any of us sharewith eachother. The specificand the universal,the particularand the comparative, how are these two polaritiesto be broughtinto conjunctionwith each other?I have alwaysbeen a supporterof the specificand the particular over the universal and the comparative,and I have always assumed

This content downloaded on Tue, 5 Mar 2013 14:56:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Sex,Gender and SexualDifference 85 that this is the resultof my experienceof researchin Africa.However, in her AmnestyLecture on 'VVomenand HumanRights' (Oxford, 5.2.93), CatherineMacKinnon argued for both the universaland the particular. MacKinnonholds to a radicalfeminist version of standpointtheory. In her work she consistentlyemphasizes what it is that women,in the global sense, share, and her work has been extensively criticizedon preciselythis point.She was talkingabout the mass rape and enforced impregnationof women in CroatiaandBosnia-Herzegovina. She argued simply that these crimes have been and continueto be practisedon women in many differenttimes and places, snd without erasing or ignoringthe specificsof what is goingon in the formerYugoslana, it is importantto recognizethat womensuffer these crimesat the hands of men and they do so because they are women. Women are in fact universal in their particularity. It was veryhard at that momentto deny the forceof her argument,or even to thinkof any compellingreason why I shouldever have disagreedwith it. Womendo fear sexualviolence. If we want someempirical justification for such a universalizingassertion it is only a matter of looking at the various women's grass-roots organizationsaround the world and at what they are campaigning against. RosiBraidotti, starting from very different assumptions, makes an argumentwhich has strongparallels with MacKinnon's. She speaksof a visionof womenas a collectivesingularity, wherethis notionis intended to providea provisionalplatform for the supportof 'women'sreal and multiplestruggles' (Braidotti, 1991:132). However, when we examine her argumentand consider what she foundsher collectivesingularity on we findthe connexionswith MacKinnon'sargument quite endent. For example, at one point, she says: 'It is on the basis of their shared experienceas bio-culturallyfemale beings that womenhave startedto speak in their own voice, distancing it from masculine experience' (Braidotti,1991: 139). Bodies. It all has somethingto with bodies. Is it reallythe case that oursimilarities are groundedin ourbodies? This is an exampleof a momentwhen the personalcomes into lived relationwith the theoretical.I find that my antipathyeven to simply posingthis questionis so greatthat I have to remindmyself not to grind my teeth. Andyet, I knowthat the recentreturn to the bodyin feminist theory and the effortson the part of many researchersto reclaimthe female body and the feminine - partly as a protest against the disembodiednature of the socialconstructionist discourse on the body- seemsto manyto offerreal hope and potential. This return to the bodyis not, however,a straightforwardone becausesome researchers want to distinguishbetween different types of femalebody. Some do not want to reducethe femalebody to its sexualand reproductive functions, and, as such they want to be able to mark a female body which is not the maternalbody. For others,the primaryconnexion is betweenmothers and daughters,or mothersand children,and they wouldlike to be able to celebratethe maternalin the femalebody.8 Frenchfeminists associatedwith the schoolof l'ecriturefeminine

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have been accusedof biologicalessentialism; although their workhas recentlybeen re-evaluatedon this point.9Rosi Braidotti,in particular, argues that this chargeof essentialismis false and that the feminine libidinal economy discussed in this work has taken on board the fundamentalepistemological insight of poststructuralismand psycho- analysis which is that the body is a 'cultural artifact' (Braidotti, 1991:219; 243). Braidottisuggests that what is hopefulabout a return to the femalebody is that it signalsa recognitionof the embodiednature of subjectivity.However, there is a distinctionto be madehere between her argumentand a straightforwardneo-Foucauldian or social con- structionistone, because she eschews any attempt to sever the body from the biologicaland claim that it is just a social constructionor a social field, nothing other than an effect of discourse (Braidotti, 1991:131; 243). This pointis worthmaking because it is the case that a radicalsocial constructionist position, such as that espousedby Judith Butler(1990) in her recentbook, does risk positingthe bodyas a blank surfaceon whichthe socialbecomes inscribed, thus suggestingin some sense that the bodyis pre-social.10 Braidottiargues that what is truly revolutionaryabout a returnto the femalebody is the notionof speakingfrom the body,with all that this implies both about the specificityof positionalityand the embodied, materialnature of one'srelation with the world.Much of herinspiration seemsto comehere from a readingof Adrienne Rich against the writings of the l'ecriture feminine school, and it is from the formerthat she derivesher term'feminine corpor(e)ality. Rich writes:

In order to live a fully human life we require not only control of our bodies . . .; we must touch the unity and resonance of our physicality, our bond with the natural order, the corporealground of our intelligence (Rich, 1976: 3940)

Rich takes the woman-to-womanbond as the groundsfor subjectivity and for social relations. Braidottitries to take the argumentabout femininecorpor(e)ality a stage further,and she stresses a notionof the bodyas an interface,a thresholdbetween the materialand the symbolic. The bodyis, therefore,not an essence nor indeeda formof anatomical destiny, but rather it is 'one's primarylocation in the world, one's primarysituation in reality'(Braidotti, 1991: 219). Thus speakingfrom the body would be a way of acknowledging women's position in the world, their difference from men, their particularity.It would also be a way of stressing simultaneously women'smaterial and symbolicrelation to their world.Such a view of the bodycould in principle,although Braidotti does not elaborateon this point,deal both withthe politicsof reproduction and sexualviolence and with the symbolic constructionof sexual difference,including the discursive over-determinationof the category 'woman'.Braidotti is sensitive to the charges of exclusionand unwarranteduniversalism that couldbe levelledat this theory,but by stressingthe materialityand

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specificityof the bodyas a locationfor subjectivity,she hopes to take account of the differencesbetween women, while allowing for what MacKinnonwould term their universal particularity. Thereare someinteresting parallels here with morerecent work in biology.The radical separationof biology and culture is something manybiologists would no longerhold to. A morecontemporary view of humanbiology would stress that biologyenables culture, while culture brings about biologicalchange. In what now sound like rather old- fashioned terms, we could say that biology snd culture are in a dialecticalrelationship. In this versionof biology,the bodyis indeedan interface, a threshold, a mediator. Perhaps we are arriving at a situationwhere the metaphorsof the biologicaland the social sciences are going to comeinto some kind of conjunctionor relationwith each other. Overall,we mightargue that the view of the bodyespoused by Rosi Braidottihas considerablepotential. In particular,its weldingof French and North Americanfeminist theory allows it to occupy a rather creativediscursive space. However,this notion of the body does still providedifficulties and these arise predominantly,I suggest,because of the influence of psychoanalyticthought on the scholars on whom Braidottidraws. The crux of the issue is, whatis the ontologicalstatus of the body, and beyond that what is the ontologicalstatus of sexual difference?In orderto proceedmuch further with this discussion,we haveto recognizethe degreeto whichwe as feministshave a tendencyto talk past each other once we begin to speak of sex, genderand sexual difference.One starting point is to notethat sexualdifference for French feminist scholars is not sex and not gender. It is, I think, a rather intermediate term. This is because much of their work draws on psychoanalyticthought and starts with the premise that one must acquirea sexed identity. But howeverone might theorizethe stages involved in that acquisition,it is not the same thing, of course, as anatomicalsex noris it the same thing as acquiringa gender.Braidotti (1991:264) refuses to confrontthis issue, and effectivelyclaims that gender and sexual differenceare the same thing and/or that the differencebetween them is not significant. Braidotti'sreturn to the female body reinscribesbinaw sexual difference,and makesthe inevitabilityof a mutuallyexclusive categor- izationthe basis forwomen's engagement with the world.In this sense, it does not matterthat she can deal with the chargeof universalismby providingthe spacefor an embodiedsubjectivity that canbe historically and culturallyspecific, because what she cannotdo is to abandonthe originarynature of the sexual differenc-ewhichgrounds her theoryof the body.The questionis, does this matter?Perhaps there is a case for assertingthe primacyof sexualdifference if we wantto describewomen in their particularity, and especially if we want to treat issues of dominationand power. However,as manyothers have pointedout, there are very serious difficulties with asserting a primary, ontologicalstatus for sexual

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difference:principally, the exclusion of other forms of difference, notablyrace and class; and the reinscriptionof the binary categorizationof sexualdifference which makes the femininethe male'other' and institutes a relationof hierarchy.Theories which posit the primacyof sexualdifference are in fact vulnerableto criticismbecause in orderfor the assertionof primacyto be convincingthey have to be abstractand decontextualized.At the first momentthat the questionis asked'whose sexed identity?',it becomesapparent that the reality of such a lived identityis that it cannotbe experiencedin a pureform. When has gender ever been pure, untainted by other forms of difference,other relationsof inequality?Lives are shapedby a multi- plicityof differences;differences which may be perceivedcategorically, but are lived relationally.The conceptsof sexual differenceand gender differencecollide at this moment and cannot usefully be separated again, althoughthey never becomeand cannotbecome identical. And, as for gender discourse,there is no discourseon gender outside the discoursesof race and class and ethnicityand sexualityand so on. The point then is that although,in theory,we couldall live the categorizations of our bodiesand our identitiesin differentways - as Braidotti implies- we wouldstill haveto acknowledgethat, in termsof the theory as posited,our bodies would be primarilydifferentiated in relationto a binary sexual economywhich would be prior to all other forms of difference. Perhapsthe problemis not reallyone aboutbodies at all, but about identities,or ratherabout how we conceiveof the relationshipbetween the two. This is, of course,a problemwhich has been formulatedfor, at least, someof us in a very specificway by psychonnalysis.Psychoanaly- tic theory is, as has been remarked,an historicallysnd culturally specifictheory, just like any other. However,the processesof identity acquisitionwhich it proposesare intended to have universal appli- cation,and the relationshipsbetween anatomy, sexuality and identity whichit validatesare presentedas markingthe path of non-pathologi- cal development.The rigidityof the sexed categoriesthat psychoanaly- sis providesis opento question.Jacqueline Rose for one has arguedthat psychoanalytictheory does not work with a notion of fixed and immutableidentities, and that it has been one of the few places in Westernculture where it has beenpossible to realizethat women'do not slip painlesslyinto their roles as women,if indeedthey do at all' (Rose, 1983:9). However,in spite of these moreliberal interpretations, which argue that psychoanalysistakes sexual differenceas somethingto be explainedrather than assumed,it is still the case that psychoanalytic theoryinsists that in orderto becomea memberof a socialorder we must makean identificationwith eitherthe category'woman' or the category 'man'.This is the nub of the matter.What does psychoanalytictheory intend when it says that we must identifywith one or other of these categories?Is it reallyproposed that we shouldtake these categoriesto be discursivelyproduced and thereforevariable across space and time? Thereis, of course,much talk abouthow it shouldbe possibleto imagine

This content downloaded on Tue, 5 Mar 2013 14:56:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Sex,Gender and SexualDifference 89 a signifyingeconomy which does not take the phallus as the primary signifier,but this is seen as a potentialityrather than an actuality.From the pointof viewof cross-culturalanalysis, it canbe arguedthat Lacan's law of thefather is ethnocentric,and that, since it is an abstractand decontextualizedtheory of significationand takes no accountof any formof differenceexcept that of sex, it is exclusionaryin a numberof ways. Lacanhas alwaysbeen credited with cleansingFreud of biologisms, and someof his ownideas aboutthe bodyand its relationto subjectivity are suggestive.Lacan moves away from Freud's idea of sexualdrives as givenin biologicaldevelopment to an analysisof suchdrives through the functioningof languageand linguisticprocesses. For Lacan,drives are not biologicallydetermined, but rather are constitutedin processesof signification.Lacan treats the bodyin an analogousfashion, suggesting that the body as it is experiencedand perceived by the child is fragmentary,a body-in-bits-and-pieces.Out of this biologicalchaos of sensationand physiological activity will be constructeda livedanatomy, a psychic map of the body which is given not by biology, but by significationsand fantasies (both personaland collective)of the body (Grosz,1990: 434). ElizabethGrosz describes 'this body'in the follow- ing way:

Boundup withinparental fantasies long before the childis everbotn, the child'sbody is dividedalong lines of specialmeaning or significance, independentof biology.The body is livedin accordancewith an individual'sand a culture'sconcepts of biology.(Grosz, 1990: 44)

This sounds a little like Foucaultwith the psychicand the cultural added.However, Lacan's lived anatomyis an imaginaryone, a unity created out of the internalizationsof self-otherrelations. This body- image is an effect of the highly particularmeanings that the bodyhas beenendowed with by individuals,by cultures,and - accordingto Lacan - by the nuclearfamily. One cannotaccept this propositionabout the nuclearfamily uncritically, but what seems to be impliedhere is that the body-imageor corporeal schema is the resultof the internalizationof the body-imageof others, particularlythe primary carer. Overall, however,what is significantabout this body-imageis that it is neither natural nor cultural, neither individual nor social; rather it is a thresholdterm occupyingboth positions(Grosz, 1990: 46). There are some resonances here with Braidotti's 'feminine corpor(e)ality', althoughin orderto providea workabletheory of embodiedsubjectivity we would need to combineBraidotti's emphasis on materialitywith Lac?n'sinsistence on the symbolic.This might prove extremely difficult, notto say risky,since there is nothingthat links Braidotti'sfemale body to Lacan'sfeminine, except some residual and unresolvedproblem aboutanatomy. The problem is that the femaleand the feminineare not the same thing. Herethe conceptsof sex, genderand sexual difference all collidetogether. The meanings of these termsbegin to escapeus, and

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they do so largelybecause they are decontextualized.It is only in the context of racial discrimination,religious intolerance,neo-imperial politics, and other concrete socio-economicdeterminations that we know what distinguishes sex from gender, that we understandthe economyof sexual difference,that we cometo grips with the material referentsof the symbolic.The potential for developing a feministtheory of embodiedsubjectivity which couldand wouldtake accountof race, class, sexualityand otherforms of differencecertainly exists. However, it is likely to remainpermanently out of reachwhile we insist that sex, genderand sexual differenceare foundationalin some sense, either as categoriesor as sets of relations.In so far as the theoriesof the bodyI have been discussingrest on poststructuralistassumptions, they are clearly anti-foundationalist;although my point is that they are not really so becausethey workon the assumptionthat bodiesare already dividedinto two mutually exclusivecategories. Binary biologicalsex providesthe basis for the culturalcategories 'male' and 'female'.The shiftingand unstablenature of the sexedidentity proposed by Lacanis always mapped on to and mapped out in terms of a pre-existing categorizationof sex. This may not matter,of course,if what we really wantto dois to workout somekind of criticalpractice, that is a spacefor critical reflectionon and political action aroundthese issues, rather than a new metatheory. However,as an anthropologist,it is the pre-existingcategorization of sex - that somehow,in the hands of theorists,transmutes itself first into sexual differenceand thence into gender- whichis the stumbling block.Much new workon the genderingof bodyparts, bodily substances andsocial acts makes it clearthat there is no one-to-onecorrespondence betweensex, genderand sexual differenceunderstood in the terms of Western discourse.As I suggested earlier, individualpersons while having recognizablebiological features, might not have discrete and singulargenders in the sense that feministdiscourse has conventionally understoodthat term. Anna Meigs has argued on the basis of her researchwith the Hua peopleof the EasternHighlands of PapuaNew Guinea,that individualsare classifiedby externalanatomical features, but that they are also classifiedaccording to the amountof certainmale and femalesubstances they have in their bodies.These substancesare thoughtto be transferablebetween the genital classes througheating, heterosexualsex andeveryday casual contact (Meigs, 1990: 10S9). The binarycategories 'female' and 'male'are thus not discreteones and nor are they premisedon the discretebinary categorization of biologicalsex differencesevidenced by externalgenitalia. The Hua insist that the gender of a person changes over their lifetime as their body takes on more of the substances and fluids transferredby the othersex. On the basis of what Meigssays, the Hua would appearto have a pre-existingcategorization of sex, since they classify substances as sexed accordingto the kinds of bodies they originatein. Semen, for example,is a male substance.However, the question is how well are their theories of sex, gender and sexual

This content downloaded on Tue, 5 Mar 2013 14:56:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Sex Genderand SexualDifference 91 differencerepresented by theoreticalmodels premised on Europeanand NorthAmerican folk models? Perhaps it doesnot matterthat in orderto makealternative gender models intelligible to our students,colleagues and readers, we have to rework them in terms which thoroughly misrepresentthem. Thereby,I may add, making them appear even moreexotic. But, there is an additionalpoint because one of the things revealedby alternativemodels for thinking and living the connexionsof sex, gender,and sexual difference is that Europeanand Norl;h American modelsare probablynot well servedby the prevailingtheories either. Many people find that their theories of sexual differenceand their experienceof genderedidentities do not correspondwell to discrete binary categories.There has been some recognitionof this in recent theoreticalwork on genderwhere writers have begunto emphasizethe performativeaspects of genderidentity and the possibilitiesthat exist forthe subversionof categoricalidentities.1l Thisemphasis on performanceis welcome,but it doesnot seemvery revolutionaryfrom an anthropologicalpoint of view. This is because ethnographicmaterial suggests that gendercategorizations are often based on roles - that is, on what womenand men do - ratherthan on anatomy.The North Americanberdache is now a rather well-known exampleof a thirdgender categorization which counters the one-to-one equivalenceof the binarycategories of sex and gender;and a man most usually becomes a berdacheby assuming the tasks and roles of a woman.l2There is considerableemphasis in the anthropologicallitera- ture on genderas performedand its relationto the symbolicconstruc- tion of gender.More recent work stresses that these differentaspects of gender are perhapsbest seen as mutuallyco-existent, but sometimes conflicting,models of or discourseson gender.Where discourses exist that focuson the absoluteand irreduciblenature of sexual difference, there is no parl;icularreason necessarilyto privilegethem over other discoursesor to accordthem somekind of foundationalstatus. 71Vhatis essential is to examine those contexts in which certain discourses becomeappropriate and powerful.Marriage ceremonies, for example, are sometimes situations in which sexual difference is stressed. Philosophicaldiscussion may producea very differentaccount, under- playing the role of women and men in biologicalreproduction, and emphasizingtheir essential similarities, especially as through the courseof biographicaltime. Ethnographicaccounts often give a very vivid sense of people'sperceptions of their 'livedanatomies' and of how understandingsof bodies, genderidentities and sexual differenceare given substance through involvementin repetitive daily tasks and throughthe concretenature of socialrelationships. From this perspective, it is hardlysurprising that age, class, race, sexualityand religion completelyalter the experienceof a 'livedanatomy', of what it is that sex, gender and sexual differencesignify. 77Vhatperformance is all about,of course,is genderrelations. 'Genderrelations' is not, however,a term widelyused by theorists who derive their inspirationfrom poststructuralismand/or from the

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writings of Lacan. Conversely,we should note that anthropologists rarelyuse the term 'sexualdifference' unless they mean biologicalsex, and they never use the phrase 'sexual relations'unless they mean sexualintercourse. We can see onceagain how easy it is forus all to talk past one another.This is particularlythe case when we think about performanceand gender relations, and the connexionof bothto a notion of embodiedsubjectivity. Lacan explicitlystates that the subjectdivided in languageis a subjectconstituted in language,but by languagehe doesnot mean social discourse,he meansinstead a systemof signification,a systemof signs. Moreproblematic yet, is the factthat the Lacaniansubject should not be confusedeither with the personor with the self. The assumptionof a sexed subjectposition is a prerequisitefor agencyand for self-identity, and as such subjectivityis an attributeof the self, but subjectsare not individuals. It is for this reason that Lacanian ideas about the constitutionof subjectivity- in spite of the liberating release they provide from Cartesian views of the subject and its role in the productionof knowledges- are likely to give us very little insight into the experienceof being a genderedindividual. To do that, we wouldneed to link Lacanianideas about the constitutionof subjectivityto social discoursesand discursivepractices. This is preciselywhat a numberof feminists have tried to do, most notablyperhaps Teresa De Lauretis (1986). The issue here, of course, is that the sexed subject and the genderedindividual are not one and the same. Thereis a gap and it is this gap which the notions of embodiedsubjectivity and corporfe)al femininityare designedto fill. De Lauretistries to bridgethe same gap by stressing notions of intersubjectivityand relationality.She makes use of the insights of Lacanian theory, but her concern is with an 'I' understoodas a complicatedfield of competingsubjectivities and competingidentities. This'I' is mostcertainly a concreteindividual and onewho is engagedin relationswith others.This view of subjectivitydoes not privilegegender overall otherforms of difference,but becauseof its stress on intersubjectivityand on socialrelations, it is perfectlycompatible with a notion of embodiedsubjectivity, as well as with ideas aboutperformance. De Lauretisargues convincinglythat differencesbetween women may be betterunderstood as diSerenceswithin women. In otherwords, that the differencesof race,class, sexualityand so on are constitutiveof gender identity.As De Lauretissays:

Thefemale subject is a site of differences;differences that arenot only sexualor onlyracial, economic, or (sub)cultural,but all of these together andoften enough at oddswith oneanother . . . onceit is understood. . . that these differencesnot onlyconstitute each woman's consciousness and subjectivelimits but all togetherdefine the femalesubject of feminismin its veryspecificity . . . these differences. . . cannotbe againcollapsed into a fixedidentity, a samenessof all womenas Woman,or a representation of Feminismas a coherentand available image. (1986: 1v15)

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Differenceis, ofcourse, a relationalconcept, and it is alwaysexperienced relationallyin termsof political discrimination, inequalities of power and formsof domination.There is, therefore,nothing useful to be said about genderoutside of the concretespecificity of genderrelations. This very specificityguarantees that gender itself does not exist outside of its materialand symbolicintersections with otherforms of difference.In fact,I wouldsuggest for the time being that we might be better of Tworking backtowards sex, gender,sexual diSerenceand the body,rather than takingthem as a set of startingpoints. If ouruniversal particularity is to be significant,and if we areto achieveanything as a collective singalarity, then we might best strive towards an understandingof embodied subjectintywhichdoes not prinlege gender and sexual difference unduly just becausewe areso uncertainabout what else it is, if anything,that we share.

Notes

HenriettaMoore teaches at the LondonSchool of Economics.Her publications includeFeminism and Anthropology,Polity Press, Cambridge,1988.

1 Thispaper was originallypresented at a conferenceon feminist theory at the Universityof Essex in February1993. My inspiration for publishingthe piece in this formcomes from my reading of Nancy Miller's attempt to explicatethe politicsandcontingencies of identityandlocation(1991). I am alsogratefulfor MariannaTorgovnick's discussion of the use ofthe pronoun'we' (1990: 4). 2 See Moore(1988: 13-30), MacCormackand Strathern(1980), Strathern (1984),Rosaldo (1980). 3 Onesuch conceptwas the family;Amos and Parmar(1984), Bhavnani and Coulson(1986), Collins (1989; 1990). 4 Theliterature is veryextensive, but see Epsteinand Straub (1991), Williams (1986),Garber (1992) for examples from literature, anthropology and history. 5 Levi-Strauss(1969) first identified the flesh/bonecomplex. See, forexample, Diemberger(1993) and for further discussion Moore (1993). 6 Again,the literatureis large,but see Sandayand Goodenough(1990), and Atkinsonand Errington (1990) for examples. 7 See, forexample, Harding (1987). 8 Mostnotable in this regardis the workof Frenchfeminists, particularly Kristeva(1980) and Cixous(1980; 1986). Anglo-American scholars are also involvedin this move, but they proceedfrom differentpremises, and criticismsof the Frenchschool abound. See, forexample, Suleiman (1986), Gallop(1988), Burke (1980),Rich (1976),Conley (1984), Stanton(1986), Spivak(1992), Silverman (1988), Delphy (1975), Grosz (1989). 9 Brennan(1989), Schor (1989). 10 Butler(1990: chap 3) arguesthat Foucault's position provides for a critiqueof Lacanianand neo-Lacanian theories. On this basis,she criticizesKristeva's view of the maternal body as pre-symbolic,but without apparently recognizingthe perilsof her ownneo-Foucauldian position. 11 See, forexample, Butler (1990) and Garber (1992). 12 Williams(1986); Whitehead (1981); Roscoe (1988).

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