Omi and Winant are primarily concerned with how race is formed and defined in society. This article discusses at length the ways that people try to define and interpret race, but because it is not a concrete, black and white subject, this is quite a challenge. The biggest reason that race is hard to define is because it is hard to figure out exactly where it comes from. Omi and Winant argue that race is socialized: “we have now reached the point of fairly general agreement that race is not a biologically given but rather a socially constructed way of differentiating human beings” (65). People believe that humans are born a specific race and that is the race you will be defined by for the rest of your life. For many, race has become a hurdle that has determined their life path when it can be simply summarized as mostly skin color. To people born and raised in the United States, race is about ancestry, and most of the time this has a significant effect on appearance.
Butler takes a similar stance about how gender is formed in Bodies that Matter. Again we are taught that people are born one sex or another, but despite a person’s chromosomes, gender is a social formation. Society has certain norms that pertain to either the male or female gender, and humans are expected to reflect those norms in order to have strict gender binaries. Butler discusses how these norms are perpetuated when they are materialized. “Sex” is a construct that is not something we are born as but it is “a process whereby regulatory norms materialize “sex” and achieve this materialization through a forcible reiteration of those norms” (236). In the U.S. society, women are expected to have a shapely body, wear feminine clothes, and maintain their hair and makeup in a “feminine” way. Men are expected to have a more muscular build and wear masculine clothing. Short hair and the addition of facial hair contribute to the ideal construction of a man. Society could dictate that women are supposed to have short hair and wear suspenders, and if people reiterate that norm by wearing those styles, that idea of “sex” would be the norm.
I think that both race and gender share a similar problem of having strict guidelines and molds that humans are expected to fit into. There are only two genders, and until recently, people were expected to identify with only one race. Those who do not fit the norms of one gender or race are subject to discrimination. More importantly, people who do not define themselves as one specific gender often feel alienated and long for some sort of identification and connection with other people. Butler describes these in-between areas as uninhabitable zones (237). Society used to dictate that those living in these zones were abnormal and should be shunned from the rest of “normal” society. I think U.S. society today is becoming more accepting of people who are either choosing to live or were born in these “uninhabitable zones” The U.S. is becoming a melting pot of races and cultures and it has been predicted that soon it will be almost impossible to define people by race. In class we looked at the example of the U.S. census that is now allowing people to mark multiple races. I was shocked that this was not previously an option because many people have multiple races in their background.
While it is more common and obvious as to how people can be multiple races, people who are transgender, multi-gender, or no gender are much more likely to be scrutinized in society. This is probably due to the fact that race is visually more difficult to determine. Race can be covered with makeup or a good tan, and a mixture of races is even more difficult to determine based on appearance. However, if someone does not look either fully male or fully female, they become something that cannot be defined and is therefore looked down upon. In 2005, the movie “Transgender” was released about a man undergoing the process of becoming a woman and some potholes she hits along the way. I recall watching the movie at the time of its release and thinking that it was interesting that a whole movie was made about someone who is transgender, but no one would make an entire movie about someone who is born biracial and their everyday life. I really enjoy the movie poster for the film that sums up what both Butler and Omi and Wanant are saying about racial and gender construction: Life is more than the sum of its parts. Race and gender are not cut and try simple things because they have been socially constructed based on visual culture.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0407265/
image from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transamerica_(film)
I feel that, in the cases of sex, gender, and race, even in today's society, being "in-between" is an uncomfortable place. Perhaps this is just an issue that I feel very personally about, as I identify as "genderqueer" and bisexual, I have many trans friends, and I am related to several mixed-race people.
ReplyDeleteEven in today's society, in public settings, mixed-race people are highly scrutinized; if you are in a position where your identity is not obvious, people will make their discomfort known by lashing out. I have taken my 4-year-old cousin to Ross Park Mall, and heard people younger than myself call him an "Oreo." I have witnessed my trans friends be referred to as "it." I have been called a number of harsh names because, at times, I have not been easily discernible as "female." The problems of society are far from taken care of.
Many people attribute such societal short-comings to generational teaching. If your father was a racist, it's not your fault that you're one, too. I simply cannot agree with that statement, though I know there is validity in it. A person can fight what they've been brought up with, especially if they know it's wrong. The problem with society is that no one is brave enough to stand up to the individual calling the 4-year-old an Oreo, or the one trying to de-pants a trans person at a club. We think we're doing our part by trying to better ourselves, but really, we're just letting cruelty go on by the sidelines.
You bring up some intriguing questions here about the effects of sex and race categories and the way that cultural institutions and practices (the examples of the U.S. census and gendered restrooms work quite nicely) construct sex, gender, and race in particular ways, even as they may not immediately appear to do so. However, be careful not to collapse sex and gender here--in the paragraph when you analyze Butler's arguments you slip between gender categories (man, woman, feminine, masculine) and sex categories. How might you use Butler to parse out the ways that sex and gender, while distinct, are often assumed to be collapsed or are assumed to necessitate one another (remember the class discussion we had about the ways that heteronormativity employs a teleology in which sex is assumed to lead to gender which is assumed to lead to (heter)sexuality?)?
ReplyDeleteAlso, the film that you note here is not called "Transgender" but is called "TransAmerica", which is itself an intriguing title. How might you analyze the ideologies of nationalism at work in the title? How does the film (or even the poster for the film, if you haven't watched it) link national identity to gender and race categories and ideologies? How might Omi and Winant, as well as Butler, help you analyze the ways that citizenship categories are racialized, gendered, and sexed, and vice versa?