The Gender Conversation Still Relevant
In her book Sexing the Body, Anne Fausto-Sterling focuses on ways that sex is a socially constructed continuum by examining the fascinating minority of intersex individuals. Her approach bounces off of the existing argument that gender is a social construct and begins with the premise that this is old news given to us by second wave feminists (Fausto-Sterling, 4). Though in a feminist world, this may be the case, recent outrage surrounding a J. Crew ad with gender-bending implications shows how our society may need to revisit the gender issue. An example of such outcry can be found in the Fox News article “J. Crew Plants the Seeds for Gender Identity” which reverts to referring to gender performance and biological sex interchangeably. This article indicates that Fausto-Sterling’s argument rests on an unstable foundation. Though it has huge negative implications for transgendered individuals, the heart of the problem in this article affects all gendered individuals. By misunderstanding race, supporting ethnocentrism and championing violent masculinity, the article brings us back to a mindset that does not distinguish gender from the physical markings of sex and unnecessarily confines identity.  |
| This is the ad in question. [http://www.alllacqueredup.com/wp-content/ uploads/2011/04/jcrew-pink-nail-poilsh- controversial-ad-essie-neon-pink.jpg] |
Dr. Keith Ablow’s article for Fox News represents one of many responding to the recent J. Crew ad. This ad features a J. Crew designer, Jenna Lyons, playing with her young son. It shows the boy wearing J. Crew apparel and humanizes this professional woman as a mother; this targets J. Crew customers who also balance their professional lives with their private. One of the images pictures Lyons painting her son’s toenails pink. The caption reads “Lucky for me, I ended up with a boy whose favorite color is pink. Toenail painting is way more fun in neon” (Ablow, 1). Ablow responds to this ad by complaining that Lyons’s encouragement of non-traditional gender activities for her son will lead to his gender confusion and psychological demise. He thinks that this represents a bigger issue in our culture: choice in gender roles and identity. Ablow’s take would be less of a problem if it represented his opinion alone. However, it can be found in the Body and Mind section of the paper; this along with the “Dr.” label gives it potential validity to readers.
[here's the link to Dr. Ablow's article -> http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/04/11/j-crew-plants-seeds-gender-identity/#content]
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| A disturbing example of a past role thought to be inherentof a particular race. [http://www.crestock.com/uploads /blog/2009/controversial/02-1947-genuwine.jpg] |
The article pushes members of all sexes back into strict gender roles. Contrary to Fausto-Sterling who acknowledges the fluidity of gender as a social product, Ablow refers to gender as if it were an inherent part of congenital biology by saying that children receive gender identity, which results in corresponding action such as nail painting, “at birth” (Ablow, 1). He compares gender to race but makes the same mistake. Outward trappings that confine one to a particular racial category or sex category are somewhat fixed. As Ablow contends, the shape of a nose or the location of the genitalia requires surgery to change. However, the roles associated with each sex along with those associated with each race can, do, and need to change. Yes to “bleach the skin of others so they can playact as Caucasians” is disturbing to consider. However, in this quote Ablow implicitly says that the color of one’s skin determines how one can act. In fact, what needs to change is not outward appearance but the societal pressures that make acting a certain way Caucasian. If roles associated with physical appearance did not change we would still be living in a society where black individuals were thought to be inherently suited for servitude. Thankfully, we have moved past that. Ablow’s misconstrues both race and gender in his comparison, but a parallel does exist. Like race, roles associated with sex are not fixed and can change to encompass a perspective where painting a boy’s toenails is not seen as aberrant or damaging.
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| A depiction of ancient Greek gender roles for wealthy men. [http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Bxu2kHSW6aw/THU6a4m7zYI/ AAAAAAAAFRc/OSkgvzrGL2E/ s1600/Alexander+and+His+Beloved.jpg] |
Ablow also argues that current gender divisions necessitate the success of our species by saying that current, American “gender distinctions [including nail painting]… are part of the magnificent synergy that creates and sustains the human race.” This ethnocentric argument ignores that in current non-Western groups as well as in our own Western past very different gender divisions exist(ed) without causing extinction. The Huli, a group in Papua New Guinea, prize male beauty more then female. The males undergo beauty treatments for their skin and hair to accentuate their beauty. Their equivalent of a boy wearing decorative paint is seen as natural and right. Furthermore, it has not resulted in societal collapse (Wardlow). Fausto-Sterling explores how societies that led to our own understood gender distinctions in very different ways. In the 18th century European/American world, effeminate men existed and were called sodomites. Though they did receive some political persecution, in places sodomites became an accepted third gender in a worldview of only two sexes. Like with the Huli, this performance of contemporary feminine preference and behavior did not result in societal collapse. In Ancient Greece, men performed masculinity through naked wrestling, initiatory penetration, and love for other men that overshadowed love for women. This differs sharply from current understandings of ideal masculinity (Fausto-Sterling 11). All of these instances show that gender constructions change. Their mutability does not disrupt any kind of mystic balance and does not result in species death.
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| An example of Ablow's suggested role for young boys. [http://www.featurepics.com/ FI/Thumb/20100508/ Boy-Playing-Sheriff-1532344.jpg] |
Another disturbing element of Ablow’s article is the particular breed of masculinity he offers in lieu of nail painting. He suggests that this boy integrate violence into his identity as a man by proposing that he “celebrate his masculinity with a little playacting as a cowboy, with a gun” (Ablow 1). Ablow further confirms this and says that war is masculine by arguing that gender blending as displayed in pink nail polish threatens us by rendering neither gender “motivated to protect the nation by marching into combat against other men [emphasis added]” (Ablow 1). Here he argues that femininity cannot fight and that masculinity can and should. In light of Cynthia Enloe’s chapter about men in militaries this is particularly troubling. She examines the role of militarized masculinity in compelling men to commit atrocities in war. Borislav Herak, a breed of this masculinity, took part in the systematic rape of thousands of women. Though in this extreme example many other elements contributed to Herak’s actions, gender constructions do make war possible (Enloe 106). Ablow promotes glorifying outlaw violence as an acceptable identity for young boys (Ablow 1). This perpetuates violence by making it an integral part of male identity. Instead, allowing a boy to paint his nails pink moves us away from that brand of masculinity and then allows children to articulate their own gender performance rather than forcing them into one. I fail to see the horror Ablow does in this.
Far from being horrified, when I first saw the J. Crew article while innocently flipping through the magazine in the Coop, I remember thinking how wonderful it was that popular media was beginning to blur our strict gendered behaviors in a non-political, non-charged medium. Though Dr. Ablow’s article momentarily punctured a hole in my ballooning happiness, the comments to his article helped to patch the damage. All that I read argued against a conflation of gender and congenital sex (“Search”). Gender roles have their place in easing social interaction and establishing order. However, these roles should never operate to constrict individual identity. Since gender performance is not linked strictly to biology, this gives all the more reason to allow the blurring of behavior and expected action until each individual operates uniquely. If in the future Lyons’s son does need psychotherapy, as Ablow suggests he will, it will not be because of his nail painting but because of the mindset that labels him a deviant for doing so (Ablow 1). Continued rigidness in understanding gender not nail painting is the real issue. Therefore, as a solution, we should not reaffirm this rigidness but rather expand our views so that this boy does not have to live in a society determined to uphold nonsensical conventions. This will positively impact transgenders, males, females, and everyone in between.
Works Cited
Ablow, Dr. Keith. "J. Crew Plants the Seeds for Gender Identity - FoxNews.com."
FoxNews.com - Breaking News | Latest News | Current News. Fox News, 11 Apr. 2011. Web. 18 Apr. 2011. <http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/04/11/j-crew-plants-seeds-gender-identity/>.
Enloe, Cynthia H. "All the Men Are in the Militias, All the Women Are Victims." The
Curious Feminist: Searching for Women in a New Age of Empire. Berkeley: University of California, 2006. 99-118. Print.
Fausto-Sterling, Anne. Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of
Sexuality. New York, NY: Basic, 2000. Print.
"Search." Twitter. Web. 19 Apr. 2011.
<http://twitter.com/search?q=http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/04/11/j-crew-plants-seeds-gender-identity/>.
Wardlow, Holly. Wayward Women: Sexuality and Agency in a New Guinea Society.
Berkeley: University of California, 2006. Print.
You make a very convincing argument in that expressing gender through painting one's nails is definitely a more benign way of expressing gender than through the use of violence. Interestingly enough, our society still deems the latter more favorable.
ReplyDeleteThis article reminds me of something else I saw while flipping through a magazine. It was a whole two-page spread of male adult celebrities doing "girly things." I believe the magazine was a Cosmo and it made fun of certain celebrities getting manicures or holding reusable shopping bags (because they look like purses) or wearing fur. Sometimes I think the media tries to hype something up not because the content itself is worth publicizing, but because the content can be manipulated to make money. Though their goal is money, money, money, these seemingly silly magazines that tell girls 101 ways to please their man actually shapes and reinforces the structures that oppress the very audience they're trying to serve. I think that more people are reading about this little boy and his mother and are also making a big deal out of it (in a negative way) because Cosmo made a big deal out of it.
As for the promotion of little boys playing with their little guns, people think it's a purely benign thing and some might argue that I'm over analyzing things, but I do think that violent video games and toy guns (which are getting more and more realistic now) do teach kids a message, and a violent one at that. If it was all fun and games, why are boys in Malaysia singled out and placed into masculinization camps to play with guns and to trek through the jungle as a pretend war zone? Even more surprising to me, this CNN article about these Malaysian de-feminization camps was published just a couple days ago.
I enjoyed reading your news flash a lot, April! Very interesting and relevant photos, too!
Going on a tangent, I just wanted to follow up on Samantha's comment about the Cosmo magazines and how they often feed into the negative loop of disempowering women. Every time I go to class in the morning, I walk past the stack of Cosmo magazines in the coffee table of my common room. Thanks to one of my suitemates' monthly subscription, we have recently received the fifth one this year. Although I have always been frustrated with the message being sent in the magazine, I have never been as disillusioned as I was when I discovered the extent to which the magazine reinforces oppressive structures through marketing strategies. Turns out that when you stack a series of COSMO magazines, an image of a shirtless man with a well defined torso appears vertically cross the binds of the magazine. Now, isn't THAT subtle...as you slowly piece together the body of a half naked guy, you give in a little more into their disempowering rhetoric.
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