Anne Fausto-Sterling--Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality (2000)

Fausto-Sterling’s primary claim is that “labeling someone a man or a woman is a social decision.  We may use scientific knowledge to help us make the decision, but only our beliefs about gender—not science—can define our sex.  Furthermore, our believes about gender affect what kinds of knowledge scientists produce about sex in the first place.”  Rather, she claims that “Our bodies are too complex to provide clear-cut answers about sexual difference.  The more we look for a simple physical basis for ‘sex,’ the more it becomes clear that ‘sex’ is not a purely physical category.  What bodily signals and functions we define as male or female come already entangled in our ideas about gender.”  She notes that it wasn’t until the 1970s that sex and gender were posited as separate categories by sexologists, while second-wave feminists argued that gender differences were primarily the result of social institutions “designed to perpetuate gender inequality.”  However, because feminists left the physical differences of sex unquestioned, they left open the possibilities of “hardwired” differences between the sexes.

Importantly, Fausto-Sterling claims that

Truths about human sexuality created by scholars in general and by biologists in particular are one component of political, social, and moral struggles about our cultures and economies.  At the same time, components of our political, social, and moral struggles become, quite literally, embodied, incorporated into our very physiological being.  (location 129)

More specifically, she acknowledges that “Understanding how race and gender work—together and independently—helps us learn more about how the social becomes embodied.”  And it is this process of the social becoming embodied in which I am interested.  In particular, Fausto-Sterling points to the lack of data collection on the “normal distribution of genital anatomy,” which demonstrates that “from the viewpoint of medical practitioners, progress in the handling of intersexuality involves maintaining the normal.  Accordingly, there ought to be only two boxes: male and female.”

Fausto-Sterling observes that a similarly policed binary exists in general understandings of sexuality—one is either inherently heterosexual, or inherently a lesbian.  Further, even using the Kinsey scale, which acknowledges a more continuum-like understanding of sexual-object desire, is still a linear, two-dimensional scale.  She does acknowledge the existence of more complicated scales, such as that by Fritz Klein (which uses seven variables: sexual attraction, sexual behavior, sexual fantasies, emotional preference, social preference, self-identification, hetero/homo lifestyle along with a time scale).  Further, the work of feminist and gay theorists which revealed the social constructed nature of sexuality encouraged the idea that sexual expression was not biologically grounded.  Responding to Halperin’s claim that “sexuality is not a somatic fact, it is a cultural effect,” Fausto-Sterling instead posits that “sexuality is a somatic fact created by a cultural effect.”  Comparing Butler’s idea that the body is completely constructed through discourse with that of Grosz, who thinks there are some biological processes which “precede meaning,” Fausto-Sterling posits that “we need the concept of the psyche, a place where two-way translations between the mind and the body take place.”

Working against this is a deeply entrenched commitment to the idea of only two, discrete sexes: “Reconceptualizing the category of ‘sex’ challenges cherished aspects of European and American social organization.”  Fausto-Sterling gives a detailed account of the development of our understanding of sex and sexuality, primarily in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and shows in painstaking detail how political events and cultural norms of the times shaped scientific inquiry and understanding.  Ultimately, she does denounce her earlier proposed five-sex model, but instead advocates for a much more nuanced understanding of sex, gender, and sexuality, one which takes the idea of systemic interaction into much greater account.  Using a really useful example of the evolution of smiling as one which begins as a somatically neutral, muscularly simple action to one which, over the course of maturation and interaction, becomes a much more emotionally-connected and muscularly complex action, Fausto-Sterling argues that sex, gender, and sexuality need to be analyzed as similarly systems-oriented behaviors.

William Faulkner--The Town (1957)

Part two of the Snopes trilogy, between The Hamlet (1940) and The Mansion (1959).  Chapter Synopsis: Each chapter is narrated from the point of view of one of three characters: Chick Mallison, Gavin Stevens, or V.K. Ratliff.  Like The Hamlet, The Town also focuses on the changing economy of Jefferson, but emphasizes the significance of gender in the flow of the economy, not only in how they effect it differently, but there’s a real Helen of Troy-esque blame on women for motivating men to make poor economic decisions.  In the story of the corsage panic, or Gavin’s pursuit of Linda Snopes, or Eula’s cuckolding of Flem, or Montgomery Ward’s pornography atelier, lust and sex are seen as the motive power of economics.  While women inspire this tragic motive power, they themselves seem doomed, as the suicide of Eula Snopes seems to emphasize to me.

George Chauncey--Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World 1890-1940 (1994)

Contrary to popular beliefs that the mid-twentieth century gay liberation movements were working against entrenched anti-gay laws and mores.  In contrast, Chauncey shows that from the turn of the century until after Prohibition, there was actually an active gay community in New York City.  Chauncey looks particularly at working class culture in New York, where performances of gender “inversion” was, to a certain extent and in certain locations, an accepted gender identity.  In part, this is because “homosexual identity” was not understood as it was in the more closely pre-Stonewall (and certainly post-Stonewall) era: “One reason many men at this time found it easier to ‘pass’ in the straight world than their post-Stonewall successors would was that they found it easier to manage multiple identities, to be ‘gay’ in certain social milieus and not others” (274).  He discusses how, rather having a sexual identity based on sexual acts performed, such identity was instead based on inverted gender performance, where men identified as “fairies” and expressed this gender identity through traditionally feminine behavior, and were expected to take the bottom role in same-sex encounters.  At this time, men could engage in sexual behavior with other men and not necessarily identify as less masculine, as long as they maintained traditionally masculine behavior and took an insertive role in sexual acts.

Chauncey follows gay life in New York through Prohibition, which ironically allowed for more overtly homosexual behavior from these working class enclaves into more middle class enclaves, as the acceptance of other kinds of deviant behavior during Prohibition allowed for acceptance of gender deviance as well.  Bohemian enclaves such as Greenwich Village and Harlem also allowed for acceptance of more varieties of gender behavior, as such deviance in gender performance could be considered under the rubric of artistic behavior rather than sexual deviance.  Ironically, the repeal of Prohibition in 1933 led to both harsher regulation of public acknowledgement of homosexuality (as the serving of “known homosexuals” became a form of disorderly conduct) as well as more exclusively gay areas.  By the 1950s, such safe places were very much underground and known through codes.  However, Chauncey does a thorough job of showing how, during the time period he investigates, gay life in New York enjoyed a certain amount of publicness.

Richard Wright--Native Son (1940)

This novel is the story of Bigger Thomas, a Mississippi-born young black man living in the Black Belt of Chicago, who over the course of the novel kills a young white woman, rapes and kills a young black woman, stands trial for the murder of the white woman, and is sentenced to death.  It is divided into three sections: Fear, Flight, and Fate.  The “Fear” section opens with a long scene of a rat attack first thing in the morning.  Bigger is awakened by the alarm clock in the one room apartment that he shares with his mother, sister, and brother.  A giant rat is loose in the room, and his brother and he chase it and finally kill it with a frying pan, though not after being attacked by the monstrous creature.  Bigger then goes to the pool hall, where he and his friends have planned to assemble before robbing a white jewelry store; in keeping with this section’s theme, Bigger is able to talk his friends out of the heist, realizing that their plan was too dangerous.  He then goes to the home of the Dalton’s, a rich family (who, it is revealed, are the ultimate owners of the dilapidated building in which he lives) who are big supports of Negro uplift programs, who have offered to hire Bigger as their chauffeur, as Bigger’s family is about to lose their relief money for food. 

One of Bigger’s first duties is to drive the college-aged Mary Dalton allegedly to a university lecture, though once in the car she insists that he instead pick up her friend Jan Erlone, a member of the Communist party who, along with Mary, tries to show Bigger solidarity through sitting in the front of the car with him and insisting that he eat with them in a restaurant, “one of those places where colored people eat, not one of those show places” (69).  Mary’s and Jan’s behavior toward Bigger confuses and upsets him, as his conditioning of strict deference to white people has taught him to fear what they intend as human kindness as a possible trick.  Though their intentions are well-intended, they still come across as not only condescending but racist, in Jan’s request for “authenticity” and Mary’s claim that “[Negros] have so much emotion!” and her insistence on hearing Bigger sing.  Mary gets so drunk during their night out that Bigger has to carry her to her bedroom; once inside, her blind mother comes in to check on her before Bigger can escape.  In his attempt to keep Mary quiet with a pillow, he accidently smothers and kills her.  Bigger, in his terror at having killed Mary, covers up his murder by stuffing her in the furnace (which it is his job to tend), chopping off her head with an axe in the process in order to make her corpse fit.

In the “Flight” section, Bigger tries to capitalize on his situation by attempting to blackmail the family after they discover Mary’s absence.  Bigger tries to implicate Jan in her disappearance, as he knows Jan’s Communism is as damning as his own black skin.  Mary’s body is discovered, however, by reporters who find her bones and an earring in the furnace after it starts smoking, and Bigger escapes into the Black Belt section of town.  An enormous police and vigilante search for Bigger targets this part of the city, as thousands of white men harass, arrest, assault, and attack black men (and the black part of town more generally) as part of their search for Bigger.  Bigger hides out for an evening with his girl Bessie, and tries to include her as part of his extortion and escape plan.  However, at Bessie’s refusal to participate, Bigger rapes her and then kills her in her sleep by bludgeoning her to death with a brick.  He then drops her body down an air shaft, realizing too late that the money he had stolen from Mary’s purse was still with Bessie.  The rest of this section consists of Bigger’s attempt to flee as the captors move in tighter and tighter.

The final section, “Fate,” describes Bigger’s stay in jail and his trial.  Jan reappears and provides Bigger with his attorney, Max.  Max tries valiantly to portray Bigger as a victim of circumstance: in Max’s words, “I shall endeavor to show, through the discussion of evidence, the mental and emotional attitude of this boy and the degree of responsibility he had in these crimes” (371).  Max’s devotion to justice evokes just enough hope in Bigger as to make his inevitable sentencing more poignant and painful, as Max is the first person Bigger has ever felt has seen him as a man.

In the essay “How Bigger Was Born” included as an addendum of sorts to the novel, Wright explains his motive for writing Native Son in reaction to the response to his 1938 collection of short stories, Uncle Tom’s Children.  Wright states,” I found that I had written a book which even bankers’ daughters could read and weep over and feel good.  I swore to myself that if I ever wrote another book, no one would weep over it; that it would be so hard and deep that they would have to face it without the consolation of tears” (454).  Indeed, Native Son is unflinching and “hard,” in that it forces the reader to identify with Bigger’s point of view.  Just a few pages before raping Bessie, for example, Bigger reflects on how being black in America is itself a form of rape: “But rape was not what one did to women.  Rape was what one felt when one’s back was against a wall and one had to strike out, whether one wanted to or not, to keep the pack from killing one” (227-8).

Jack Kerouac--On the Road (1957)

It is a largely autobiographical work based on the spontaneous cross-country adventures of Kerouac and his friends during the middle of the 20th century. It is often considered a defining work of the postwar Beat Generation that was inspired by jazz, poetry, and drug experiences.  It follows the narrator, Sal Paradise, and his friend Dean Moriarty.  The novel contains five parts, three of them describing road trips. It takes place in the years 1947 to 1950 and is largely autobiographical, Sal being the alter ego of the author and Dean standing for Neal Cassady. The epic nature of the adventures and the text itself creates a tremendous sense of meaning and purpose for the themes and lessons. Kerouac provides not only the story of a literal journey but also that of an intense internal quest and a pursuit of freedom and self-determination. 

The novel’s five sections tell the story of three cross-country trips taken by Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty and their various friends.  They go to San Francisco, Denver, New York, New Orleans, Detroit, Texas, and Mexico.  Along the way they take various jobs, Dean impregnates several women, and they fuel it all with alcohol, speed, and jazz.  By the novel’s end, Dean Moriarty is divorced, and picks up Sal’s new girlfriend.  Sal realizes that it is all over. Dean heads back to Camille and Sal denies him a final ride. All that remains for Sal is the memory: he reflects on the images of the road and closes “. . . I think of Dean Moriarty, I even think of Old Dean Moriarty the father we never found, I think of Dean Moriarty."

Kerouac claimed that the novel was an example of spontaneous prose, a form of writing he compared to jazz improvisation.  Though it’s clear that he revised more than he claimed, he did in fact write it on a long roll of paper, which is now a museum piece.  On the Road was not only considered by some (and some eventually) a literary masterpiece, but it influenced an entire generation, kicking off a cultural storm of jazz-fueled and inspired literature and performance.  It also immortalized Kerouac’s friends as almost mythic figures, especially that of Dean Moriarty.  Kerouac always insisted that his most significant themes were religious and spiritual ones, as he always insisted that “beat” was short for “beatific,” and the spontaneous bop prose he wrote was in a sense a connection with the divine.  Further, the novel is also a bildungsroman, as Sal tries to figure out how to balance his growing responsibilities with the kind of free spiritedness which Dean represents.

Leslie Marmon Silko--Ceremony (1977)

Silko’s first novel, it provides an alternative approach to history.  Unlike secular history, which takes an academic, scientific method approach, the kind of spiritual perspective of history which Silko utilizes instead requires initiation, is eschatological and millennial.  Ceremony takes place after World War II in the Laguna Pueblo, in the shadow of Mount Taylor.  Mount Taylor is significant to the tribe as it is the location of the emergence myths of many Southwest tribes, as it marks the spot where the first man and first woman emerged from previous worlds, and the access point for the next world.  Further, it is also the site of a uranium mine, signifying another kind of emergence place, as uranium represents a very real apocalyptic threat as well.

The main character, Tayo, a veteran of mixed ancestry returning from fighting against Japan in World War II. Returning to the poverty-stricken reservation at Laguna after a stint at the Los Angeles VA hospital, Tayo is recovering from battle fatigue, and is haunted by memories of his cousin, who died in the conflict when the two soldiers were forced to take part in the Bataan Death March of 1942. Seeking an escape from his pain, Tayo initially takes refuge in alcoholism. Gradually, helped by the mixed-blood shaman Betonie, he comes to a greater understanding of the world and his own place within it.

Ceremony has been called a Grail fiction, in that the hero overcomes a series of challenges to reach a specified goal; but this point of view has been criticized as Eurocentric, since it involves a Native American contextualizing backdrop, and not one based on European-American myths.  It dramatizes the conflicts felt by many Native Americans, especially those returning from war: what to do when traditional healing is not strong enough medicine to heal wounds caused by modern technology?  Is it possible for shamanistic traditions to change enough to address modern problems?  The novel itself is a form of modern medicine, as the novel not only tells the story of trauma, but in the fragmented, multi-model narrative style (which includes multiple points of view, poems, prayers, and mythic stories), it is able to not only convey the character’s traumatic experience but involve the reader more directly than a straight ahead narrative would.  In fact, by opening with an invocation and utilizing these different modes of narration, the novel itself invokes a sort of ceremony, which involves the reader in the very sort of “new medicine” it references.