What does everyone think of Monique Wittig, a lesbian feminist, and her claims that sex ("male"/"man" or "female"/"woman") is a social construct in her "one is not born a woman"?

submitted by AllInOne from (self.GenderCritical)

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[–]Sebell 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

First, you have to find out how the author defines words like gender and sex - for instance, I've read a work where "sex" was the word that meant "sex roles" - the roles men and women play in society are socially defined.

ETA: Just read a summary of her work - she's using "sex" to mean "sex roles" - the categories people are placed into and expected to behave by.

[–]AllInOne[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Ah I see, if she means sex roles by sex, why does she say in The Category of Sex that;

male/female are the categories which serve to conceal the fact that social differences always belong to an economic, political, ideological order

And why don't authors just write sex roles instead of sex? Adding "roles" after sex really stops readers from being confused. When she said in her The Category of Sex that "there is no sex, it is the oppression that creates sex and not the contrary", I think it's expected most people reading get confused thinking she says sex doesn't exist and it's oppression that creates sex, if she said "there is no such thing as sex roles, for it's the oppression that creates sex roles ...", it would be so much more clear

[–]Sebell 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Look at Margaret Mead - she was an anthropologist, and feminist anthropology had a HUGE impact on feminism in the 60's and 70's. You have to remember that people felt that "women were biologically inferior" - so there was a real need to show that the "system" of male and female was oppressive, it wasn't just "women are born inferior to men" and "women are feminine because biology forces them to be that way". Anthropologists started showing that different cultures have different "roles" for men and women and it's not universal, and if it's not universal from society to society - it's hard to say it's biology.

It's clear to us today, but it was hard to say back then - it was controversial.

Monique Wittig wrote books in 1964 and 69. "Sex" and "Gender" were both interchangeable words at that time - the concept of there being a "class" of women, or women being a "role" was still new. So that's what she's arguing against: Women are not born to be docile and submissive.

Much later - you have transfeminist Julia Serrano come in the picture. She argues that "females" do not face oppression, "feminine" people do. Women are defined by being "feminine", and "feminine" people are oppressed. Thus - butch women are less oppressed than feminine men. "Woman" should be defined by "femininity" and man by "masculinity" and those that are neither don't need to be either.

There isn't anything wrong with that as a personal explanation of oneself and a search for meaning in one's own life - but it crosses into the political, and the need to define "woman" and women's rights as belonging to "feminine" people, not "females".

It's a regressive point of view that circles back to say that "Women are feminine because they can't help but being born feminine". That's the exact point of view Monique Wittig is fighting against.

[–]Anna_Nym 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I am rusty on my feminist history, but from what I remember, the French feminist writers in particular tried to write with a lot of word play and rhetorical flourish. I think it's as simple as that "sex roles" is a clumsy phrase. I suspect that it never occurred to her that people may think she was arguing biological sex literally didn't exist because it was such a ridiculous concept (and still is).