Transformation of Intimacy

Giddens believes intimate relationships in the United States are in the process of profound transformation. By transformation he means a kind of democratization of the interpersonal domain, in a manner fully compatible with democracy in the public sphere. No longer an oppressive demand for constant emotional closeness, this new kind of intimacy would represent a negotiated agreement between individuals of equal standing and autonomy. I enjoyed Gidden’s use of non-normative language (that we have seen in Connell and Butler) to describe the intimacy we should strive for (words like egalitarian, autonomous, self-reflexivity, democratization), but his conclusions are confusing and arguments sometimes hard to follow and based upon essentialist gender assumptions. Citing data gathered from therapeutic works and self-help manuals, Giddens characterizes this change and traces its development further in chapters 5-7. His analysis in these chapters further deconstructs the transformation relationships in relation to addiction, codependence, and personal turbulence.

Following the historian Michel Foucault, Giddens privileges sexuality as both the metaphor and focus of self-identity in late modern capitalist societies. But unlike Foucault, Giddens does not conceive sexuality as a locus of social control. Instead, he reclaims sexuality as the site of "an emerging reflexive project of self". In chapter 5 Love, Sex, and Other Addictions Giddens describes addictions as a hindrance to self-reflection and transformation. Now, more than ever, Giddens states that the individual is continually making lifestyle decisions and these decisions are “defining who the individual is” (75). Giddens then moves to the addiction of sex, “Addiction is behaviour counterposed to choice, in respect of the reflexive project of self” (77).

In Chapter 6 The Sociological Meaning of Codependence, Gidden’s moves forward with his discussion on addiction. He defines a codependent person as someone who “in order to sustain a sense of ontological security, requires another individual, or set of individuals, to define her (or his) wants; she or he cannon feel self-confident without being devoted to the needs of others” (89). He contrasts an addictive relationship to a “pure relationship” one that has self-reflection as well as confluent love (90). In fact, addictive relationships hinder autonomy and self-identity and healthy intimacy. These troubles, argues Giddens, often are from childhood and relationships with parents. Reflection and transformation of “toxic” relationships between parents and children, however, “ allows clear insight into the connections between the reflexive project of self, the pure relationship and the mergence of new ethical programmes for the restructuring of personal life” (108).

Chapter 7 Personal Turbulence, Sexual Troubles addresses the issues of male and female sexuality and the notion of their supposed complimentary natures. In spite of his insistence on the importance of social institutions in constructing these narratives, Giddens assigns causality above all to the increasing sophistication of contraceptive technologies and women's concomitant demands for their own rights and pleasures (in reading from Monday). As the institutional restraints on women's behavior come into conflict both with women's sense of self and her pursuit of sexual pleasure, increasing tension develops between men and women. Women's demands arouse male violence and anxiety because they expose the constraints on women. Using a wide array of self-help literature and psychoanalytic theory, Giddens argues that while women have been socialized to value emotional intimacy over "episodic"-uncommitted-sex, their ties to others often come at the expense of their autonomy. And while women lose their autonomy through connection, men achieve manhood by suppressing connections to others. From early infancy on, men conform to the cultural imperative of masculinity by differentiating from the mother and denying their fundamental need for her love.

Simply put, men's and women's common longing for love takes different psychic forms. Men express the lack they feel in "overt rage and violence" against women (p. 117), whereas women express their lack by trying to connect with a man (or woman). Both men and women become "sex addicts," but women's addiction manifests a pathological need for approval and men's manifests a denial of that same need. Men's refusal to acknowledge their hidden emotional dependence on women means that they are "unable to construct a narrative of self which allows them to come to terms with an increasingly democratized sphere of personal life" (p. 117).

As we talked about Monday, Giddens's effort to challenge both Foucault's pessimism and inattention to questions of gender is admirable. But where Foucault overestimated the supremacy of power, in my opinion, Giddens underestimates it. In spite of his own sensitivity to the systemic nature of oppression, he neglects the relationship between sexual subjectivity and the powerful institutions that both regulate and construct it. Giddens reads much of his evidence self-help manuals-literally rather than as culturally/socially constructed objects (that often speak to specific groups of people). In so doing, he relies on a model of development that presumes the construction of gender relations he wants to explain (ex: men's disconnection). This odd inattention to the structural origins of gender norms leads Giddens to a perhaps unwarranted optimism (take for example the statement "the aversion felt by many towards homosexuality no longer receives substantial support from the medical profession" (p. 14). How far have we truly come in transforming intimacy from patriarchical and plagued with addiction and other psychoanalytical ills to an egalitarian relationship? Also, has the transformation occurred in certain groups of people or societies (i.e. upper-middle class Americans?) or is it a universal transformation?

Gender and Biology

NIKK magazine’s focus is on gendering biology, a highly debated subject. The three articles we read for Monday are nicely summarized on p. 2 of the magazine. In this response I will talk mostly about the first two and how they relate to Butler’s post-structural theories concerning the construction of gender and the use of the body in performing gender and to Connell’s theories of masculinity, and specifically the “body-reflexive” practices.

In the first article about the Norwegian research project “Perceptions of gender, genes, and reproduction” talks about the troubling of gender in relation to new reproductive technologies. For instance, what was once seen as unnatural or a process of “de-naturalization” called “artificial reproductive technologies” has now shifted in name to “assisted reproductive technologies” (“re-naturalization”). This shift in linguistics, the author of the study states, dictates that the process of new medical technological interventions (like invitro) is seen as sustaining the natural state of the body rather than an unnatural means for reproduction. In this article the categories of what is seen as nature and as culture, in relation to reproduction, is changing. It is this change that signifies that in actuality “where we draw the line between nature and culture is a product of culture” and that culture (i.e. technologies, etc.) are ever-changing.

This relates to Butler’s point about the social construction of gender and how gender is performed or lived out with the body. Butler, I think, would agree that the distinctions between culture and nature have been influenced largely by cultural and social “norms” and thus should be labeled as social constructions. The shift in technologies, however, can also be related to Connell’s definition of body-reflexive practices and re-embodiment. Body-reflexive practices involve social relations and symbolism, “where bodies are addressed by social process and drawn into history” (27). The new technologies affect social relations and symbols that the affect the body. Connell would then argue that the body can be an agent as well as the object of these social processes. Attention to body-reflexive practices allows exploration of the physical sense of gender performatives. Women and men are using their bodies in different ways that skew the paradigms of reproduction (and this culture and nature). For instance, women are reproducing later or choosing to not carry a child at all and use a surrogate mother, etc.

In “Ghost Hunt” Thora Holmberg refers to a “third way” of understanding the constructedness and essentialness of gender and the body. Holmberg describes the conflict between Bulter-esque theories of construction and other more biologically-based arguments of essentialism. Gender theorist have tended to deconstruct “nature” and react somewhat skeptically to biological research and knowledge. The same is true for biologist. Thus comes the “third way” a balance between the two schools of though and practice. I couldn’t help but think the problems gender scholars have had with being considered credible in their work. With the scientific or empirical, often both masculinized and simultaneously more valued, a balance of science with cultural understandings seems ideal. Could this be considered ignoring the fact of science as socially constructed, or regardless is this "science" important to consider?

Butler has been criticized for ignoring the body and the scientific or biological/essential arguments. She perhaps fell into the trap of the “biological” slipping away like a ghost (11). Holmberg, however, believes that “still, it [the biological], appears to be haunting gender perspectives of the body.” Connell’s body-reflexive practice speaks to t his point, in which the body needs to be accounted for in gender identity and construction. Understanding the body as an agent for change or gender trouble (constructed) but also as an object of biology or essentialist (although perhaps constructed as well) allows for an alternative “extra-discursive” third way of understanding the body in relation to culture.

Gendering Animals shows how our anthropological gender stereotypes have carried over to the animal world. Looking at the "science" of animal biology and reproduction "provides dream artifacts for the gender hierarchy producing process" or in other words "troubles" gender. In this way some of the "essential" biology used deconstructs historically held notions about gender and sexuality. Similarly, the NY times article on human sexuality and sexual desire also uses empirical evidence that supports essential claims and a wide variance of experiences. In this article however, to what extent can we accept this type of research as completely valid? Perhaps only when it is coupled with other constructedness-type theories (third way)?

Self-Made Man- discussion questions

1. Vincent finally writes out for us that men are victims of the patriarchy as well, she continues however by saying, “that women have been co determiners in the system, at times as invested and active as men themselves in making and keeping men in their role.” p. 272 Do you agree with this statement? In what ways would Vincent say that women are co-determining the system (examples from the chapter on dating?).
2. Quotes Adrienne Rich “our [women’s] blight has been our sinecure” “being the second sex imprisoned us, but it came with at least one sizable benefit. We didn’t have to carry the world on our shoulders” p. 259. How do you respond to this quote?
3. “White manhood in American isn’t the standard anymore by which women and all other minorities are being measured and found wanting…It’s just another set of marching orders, another stereotype to inhabit” (280). Do you agree with this statement? What about the standards of “masculinity” for women in politics?
4. Is the work the men are doing in their “men’s movement” group “troubling gender” by Butler’s definition? (Look at pg. 273 “I passed in a man’s world not because my mask was so real, but because the world of men was a masked ball”).
5. In the interview at the end of the book (question 6) Vincent suggests that, “gender roles are born at least in part- perhaps in large part- of natural inclinations.” How do you respond to this statement?
6. Vincent says often that the male role is like a straitjacket and says “one that is no less constrictive than its feminine counterpart” (276). However, are the ways in which they are restricting more severe for women than men?