Norms of self-expression and gender essentialism
I take liberal feminist education to share some core features of mainstream liberal education, with a central emphasis on a broad education that fosters freedom by developing autonomy. In doing so, the feminist variant would pay particular attention to encouraging the growth of autonomy among girls, and their capacity to choose roles and lifestyles
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Thanks a lot for sharing! I find her analysis very enlightening. I never articulated the interplay of essentialist notions of gender with liberalism and carreer choices, but it makes a lot of sense. I would like to build, though, on my (partial) understanding of her statement.
She says: «In short, the valuation of choice and individualism in our society would be the very tool that allows for the perpetuation of gender essentialist beliefs, as they become concealed behind arguments of self-expression.»
I most definitly agree with her pointing out how liberalism plays a key role in maintaining essentialist notions of gender. Liberalism is all about nominally saying you are free to do what you want, without actually ascertaining that you don't suffer from any practical constraints. So in other words, liberalism is turning a blind eye on how structural and micro power/domination dynamics influence our freedom of choice. Since essentialist notions of sex/gender are a product of structural and micro domination dynamics, it follows suit that someone who adheres to a general liberal mindset does not see that.
However, by saying that the «valuation» of choice is the «very tool», she makes of liberalism the big fat factor of all. That is, she is locating the strongest influence in the realm of notions and conceptions. I don't know if she brings up the structuralist dimension at that point. But I think it would be important to do so. Why? For analytical and transformation purposes.
Analytical: conceptions and notions don't just spread all by themselves. They have to be helped and not constrained in some way. The thing is, critical perspectives of dominant notions have a harder time breaking through. It is harder for us to have our perspectives published, broadly distributed, broadly reported on, broadly integrated into curricula, etc. Resources needed to publish and distribute books, as well as offer coverage and bestow credit on them sit mainly in the hands of men (and I will not expand on that, it would take too long). While I do not think they are all actively conspiring to unanimously reject any publishing proposals from feminists and thus thwart their/our movement, I suspect there is definitely a good deal of passive resistance. Anyways. In the end, we are practically impaired when it comes to spreading our ideas.
Practical: not identifying the structural factors constraining the spread of our anti-essentialist critique makes us avoid them as an issue. We then eternally invest our time on the notions themselves, but end up strictly talking amongst ourselves.
This brings another fundamental question to which I have no answer: What came first? The egg or the hen? the notion (postmodern perspective) or the structure (materialist perspective)? My guess is neither. They rather gradually developed side to side. But I have no way to prove it in terms of essentialist notions of sex/oppression of women. What gives me that hunch is seeing how racist notions and the racist domination system developed.
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By the way, she is not alone in identifying liberalism as a problem. I remember Chris Brickell doing so in:
Brickell, Chris. (2001). «Whose ‘Special Treatment’? Heterosexism and the Problems with Liberalism», Sexualities, vol. 4, n. 2, pp. 211-235
Yumme!
Anyways. Thanks a lot!! Again!
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To be perfectly honest, the flaw is probably in my report of the talk than in Bradley's argument itself. I'm pretty sure she wouldn't argue that the liberal valuation of choice is the one and only reason that gender essentialism has been perpetuated in our society to this day - I phrased it that way more to get the point across. I'll admit it was a pretty weak choice of words, too, and I might edit the post. :)
That said I always love reading your reply, they're just as (if not more) thought-provoking than the original post! Thank you.
And I've just started on Chris Brickell's article in Thinking Straight, I might have to check out this other one, it sounds really interesting! I have too much to read these days... ;)
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