The Uses and Abuses of Gender
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The Uses and Abuses of Gender Joan W. Scott Over the past few years I had begun to lose interest in gender. For one thing, it seemed to be a settled question, a word that had be- come part of a common vocabulary. The hot Joan W. Scott. Source: Joan W. Scott debates about whether renaming women’s studies programs gender studies was a real- ization or a violation of feminist principles seemed resolved (if not in the same way in all Then last spring my interest was piqued by places), intense discussions of the untrans- an outbreak of controversy in France – the latability of the term had given way to its fre- country whose history I study – in which quent use either in English or as a neologism gender was the focus of attention. A manu- in various languages of the world, and its ac- al of instruction preparing students for the ceptance by national and international agen- baccalaureate exams in the biological sci- cies as the rubric under which are gathered ences which was approved by the minister statistics on the situation of women usually of education, included a unit on human bi- in comparison to that of men was a sign both ology called ‘Devenir Homme ou Femme’ of its transformational impact and of its sus- (becoming a man or a woman) that Catholic ceptibility to recuperation. I had also begun politicians, parents, and educators found ob- to conclude that as a settled term it could jectionable. The first page of the unit, under no longer do the work of radically destabi- the heading ‘une grande diversité d’hommes lizing presumptions about the relationship et de femmes’, had three photos of couples: between biological sex and culturally con- two men, one leaning lovingly on the other; structed roles for women and men, work it a man and a woman hugging; and two wom- had done in the 1970’s when American and en holding hands (Dupuis, 2011, p. 174). The English feminists appropriated the term caption said that it seemed easy, when one from sexologists and psychiatrists such as walked down the street, to know which sex John Money and Robert Stoller (Money and was which, but really, what did it mean to be Ehrhart, 1972; Stoller, 1968). When the Amer- a woman or a man? This provocative ques- ican Historical Review proposed a forum on tion was answered by reams of information the twentieth anniversary of the publication about hormones; diagrams of reproduc- of my 1986 essay, ‘Gender: A Useful Category tive organs; sonograms of fetuses; electron of Historical Analysis’, I was both flattered microscopic photographs of genes, chro- and bored – flattered because it turns out mosomes, zygotes, spermatazoa, and ova; that the essay is still useful for historians and graphs of menstrual cycles; drawings of the bored because I felt I had exhausted all I had human brain with the zones of pleasure and to say on the topic.1 control marked in different colors; a discus- 2013, nr. 1 ● Tijdschrift voor Genderstudies 63 Guest (guest) IP: 170.106.202.226 On: Wed, 29 Sep 2021 02:30:42 Joan W. Scott sion of the differences between animal and by more than a hundred deputies and sena- human sexual activity – with a reminder that tors demanding retraction of the manual, an humans can responsibly control procreation on-line campaign with thousands of signa- using various contraceptive methods as well tures addressed to the minister of education as abortion and new reproductive technolo- from parents demanding respect for their re- gies; a discussion of whether or not there is ligious liberty of conscience and condemn- a gene for homosexuality (the scientific evi- ing a teaching that would surely corrupt their dence, readers are told, has not proven this adolescent children by suggesting they had a to be the case). If sexual identity was estab- choice about their sexuality.4 The textbook lished physiologically, by the operation of was deemed a product of the ‘gay lobby’ and chromosomes and hormones, the text said, reviled as an import from the United States, sexual orientation was another matter en- specifically influenced by Judith Butler, who tirely. This was a function of intimate choices was dubbed ‘la papesse de la théorie du genre’ that might be heterosexual, homosexual, or in one newspaper article.5 Although the title bisexual, and they had to do with the private, of the manual’s chapter echoed Simone de not the public sphere. Left unsaid were such Beauvoir (‘one is not born, one becomes a questions as: were women and men anymore woman’), the phrase was decried as a foreign or less women and men in private than in invasion, another sign that American imperi- public? What might this distinction between alism had penetrated deeply into French life private choice and public appearance say (De Bauvoir, 1949). about our ability to specify the meanings of Throughout the summer and into the fall, ‘women’ and ‘men’? the dispute about gender filled the columns The word gender (genre in French) was of newspapers and on-line blogs. There was used only once in the thirty pages of text. It even a protest organized against the award- was presented as a technical term employed ing of an honorary degree by the University by sociologists to denote the social recogni- of Bordeaux 3 to Butler in September. She tion of individuals, mainly the ascription of was described by her critics as ‘the creator sexed identity by others, but also the descrip- of the theory of gender, according to which tion offered by individuals of themselves. people are no longer defined as men and Nonetheless it was gender that the people women, but as practitioners of certain forms who organized a massive campaign against of sexuality: homosexual, heterosexual, bi- the manual made the focus of their objection. sexual, transsexual! For her, gender is a so- The former senator and mouthpiece for the cial and cultural construction in the service Vatican, Christine Boutin, drawing almost of the domination of women by men.’ (Info word-for-word on the Pope’s 2008 Christ- Bordeaux, 20110) How could the university mas message, penned an open letter to the honor such a person, the Catholic group pro- Minister of National Education, denounc- testing the event asked, whose theories ‘by ing ‘a pedagogy directly and explicitly in- denying sexual difference, overturn the orga- spired by the theory of gender.’2 This theory nization of our society and call into question she deemed an ‘ideology’ (thereby conjuring its very foundations?’6 a kind of Marxist bogey-man) that didn’t be- One group of demonstrators used the oc- long in a science curriculum because it ‘de- casion to enact the transgression they were nies the reality of the difference of women protesting. They cross-dressed, holding signs from men.’3 There followed a petition signed warning against the castration that would 64 Tijdschrift voor Genderstudies ● 2013, nr. 1 Guest (guest) IP: 170.106.202.226 On: Wed, 29 Sep 2021 02:30:42 The Uses and Abuses of Gender follow from the indifferentiation that But- they also have different rhetorical effects. -Al ler was supposedly preaching. The campi- though my first reaction to the French con- ness of the scene they staged suggested that troversy about gender last summer was to the American philosopher had given some dismiss the confusion of the Catholic crit- French Catholic boys permission to have a ics, I found myself drawn to thinking about really good time (Lucet, 2011). the multiple and conflicting meanings that There is a lot more to tell about the French gender has acquired in the course of its rela- explosion of gender talk in the spring, sum- tively recent adaptation from a grammatical mer, and fall of 2011, but I don’t want to go reference to a term denoting the social rela- into that now. Suffice it to say that the Min- tions of the sexes. Rather than (as I had mis- ister of National Education, Luc Chatel, held takenly thought) becoming clearer over time, his ground. His reply to Boutin insisted on gender has become more elusive; the site of the scientific seriousness of the curriculum: contestation, a disputed concept in the arena ‘The “theory of gender” does not appear in of politics. There are, of course, still feminist the text…..The program is centered on bio- uses of the word, but it is now a term of refer- logical phenomena, studying the genetic de- ence across the political spectrum, with ef- termination of sex and the development from fects sometimes very different from the ones embryo to adolescent. Complementing these feminists originally intended. biological aspects, the program brings in a The elusiveness of a settled meaning for sociological dimension on sexual differentia- gender is nicely illustrated by the ‘Statement tion that distinguishes sexual identity from on the Commonly Understood Meaning of sexual orientation.’ (Chatel, 2011) The man- the Term “Gender “’, drafted by a special con- ual was not withdrawn and, presumably, its tact group within the United Nations Com- teachings will be required for students who mission on the Status of Women in prepara- take the baccalaureate exams in 2012. In one tion for the Beijing Conference in 1995. The way the whole affair was a tempest in a tea- group was set up to resolve heated conflicts pot, a brief outburst by organized Catholics between feminists and right-wing, primarily who have only a minority voice in this mili- religious organizations about the appearance tantly secular nation. In another way, though, of the term on the program and in the final the affair suggests that despite widespread report of the conference.