Bodily Constructs

Embodiment is, hands down, my favourite talking point in GSDS, because it fucks with so many of the "common sense" assumptions and knowledges that float around in the socio-cultural ether and find their way into our thoughts, minds and understandings. Your understanding of the body, your body, and others bodies is constructed. Dominant understandings of the body are rooted in naturalistic, essentialist theories that presuppose the body as innate, known and unchangeable. This is one of the problems of the sex/gender distinction; even people who understand that gender is a social construct struggle to entertain the idea that "sex" is not biologically grounded and immutable, but also constructed. I came across this disagreement in the comments section of an Autostraddle article at the start of semester that illuminates my point wonderfully despite my disagreements with the article itself and provides an excellent example of discourses around bodies (yes, Autostraddle. I know, shut up, it's not that bad). Here's another one discussing how notions of gender embodiment plays out on queer fat bodies.

Micheal Foucalt and Judith Butler are the obvious writers when it comes to bodily constructs, but this last week's topic was centred around surgical interventions and the discourses surrounding the bodies/people that have them (in fact, I think the essay question I'm doing [funnily enough, the essay on bodily constructs] is straight out of Foucalt's ideas on disciplinary- and bio-power) and I chose to read Nicki Sullivan's (who is my current academic crush, along with Sam Murray) article on Genital modification and the somatechnologies of cultural (in)difference (soma = cell/body). 

I'm currently reading Somatechnics, which is edited by Sullivan and Murray, so I may be biased, but thought the article was brilliant (some people didn't, and expressed this with blinkered impassioned vitriol in the tute). Illustrating their point, Sullivan used Australian legislation on what is deemed "female genital mutilation" (again, a term that is constructed) to reveal the way in which the specific (yet generalised) bodies that access genital modification technologies are racialised, stigmatised, valorised, gendered, empowered, disempowered, victimised and sexualised through the discourse that surrounds them. Specifically, the dualism of surgical  modification of female genitalia (labia, hymen, vagina, clitoris) as a barbaric folk custom that must be stamped out (hello colonialism!) and a cosmetic surgery that is empowering and/or health driven (but also much derided and morally panicked about). 

I think people get too caught up on children, age, gender and consent when it comes to FGM to think academically on the topic. 

Guess what? Along with gender, our notions of childhood, proper bodies, life cycle and consent are also socially constructed and incredibly Western and White! Everything is socially constructed, but before you fall into an existential fuck funk: nothing matters, so relax, have a culturally relevant beverage of your choice, and discursively analyse it/party like it's 1999/enjoy the K-hole.

Sincerely,
SJ

Innocent Power

One of the readings from week three was Donna Haraway's chapter "Situated Knowledges: the science question in feminism and the privilege of partial perspective" from Simians, Cyborgs and Women: the Reinvention of Nature. The book is listed under both philosophy and zoology, depending on the lister. In the prescribed chapter, Haraway critiques and adds to ideas of objectivity in science, ultimately suggesting that the only real objectivity is that of situated knowledges and partial perspectives, going past the anthropological tradition of reflexivity and baring the position and biases of the questioner. I think the essay ought to be categorised as philosophy rather than science texts as I doubt their practicality, but still thoroughly enjoyed the reading and agreed with much of what Haraway wrote. 

One argument that struck me was the critique of 'Innocent Power' as a doctrine of objectivity, in which the subjugated is positioned as the most credible source, offering a clearer perspective with which to transform the world. Haraway argues that this is not the case, not least because such positions are in themselves "God-tricks... ways of being nowhere while claiming to see comprehensively", ending up being as un-locatable and unchallengeable as the positions they are supposed to be an alternative to. At around the same time as I read this piece, some major drama was going on within the computer tech community. Violet Blue is a well known sex-positive, feminist advocate and educator within the tech community, and the cancellation of her talk on harm minimisation, sex, drugs and partying at a conference was not taken well. The cancellation was pushed by The Ada Initiative, a feminist organisation supporting women in open source technology and culture, based on the name of the talk "sex +/- drugs: known vulns and exploits", which is understandable if the content and presenter of the talk wasn't known, and you thought that someone was for reals going to give a talk about how to date rape.
The responses:

• Violet Blue's post about it

• What the Ada Initiative had to say

• The hackers' responses (a selection)

The situation naturally has a fair bit of history (feminism is still fairly new in tech and has naturally had a lot of  backlash and hatred thrown in it's supporters direction), but has opened up a space for some necessary discussions to take place. What I found most interesting about the situation, is the innocent power afforded to the Ada Initiative, an organisation that seems to position itself as the only one representing 'women' and one that can not be questioned because of this. It is an example of the very "unlocatable, and so irresponsible, knowledge claims" that can not be called to account for their actions. Having decided that tech conferences shouldn't not have any "off-topic" talks, and only to mention sex or sexuality in specific ways and having published a guide for how to do this, uses the innocent (and real) power they wield to shut down anything that they decide is harmful to 'women'. It is this dictatorial power, and the use of 'women' as a monolithic identity with a fixed locus, that exemplifies Haraway's words: We do not want our world represented by innocent powers.

SJ
Oh, here is the same talk given at an earlier conference:

EDIT: Oops, no it isn't! I can't find the talk I'm writing about, but the talk on this page is interesting anyway and at least explains why a non-tech talk is being given by a non-tech presenter at tech confereences.