I’ve had people criticize my lack of objectivity and my openly opinionated demeanor. That accusation doesn’t particularly bother me, because I have little (or no) faith in human ability to be unbiased. Objectivity is contemporary truth’s Holy Grail, the raison d’être that drives us to categorize and order the world. The problem of claiming objectivity is that we then presume a certain degree of universality, which I’ve already discussed as supremely problematic. Paradoxically enough, presumed universality has led us to rationalize, with terrifying efficiency and efficacy, thought methods that describe only difference in sex, gender, and sexuality at the expense of similarity. Difference becomes the application of truth as we understand it as individuals, and yet, truth is historically a subjective process that adheres to constantly shifting social values. What is considered un-woman now, for example, is not the same as un-woman a century ago. The “truth” of woman-ness once declared that wanting to vote made somebody un-woman – a man in a dress. Similarly, higher education was considered unwomanly, because of the “undeniable” truth that conservation of energy dictated that a woman could not cultivate both mind and womb. We look back upon our follies and laugh at our predecessors’ ignorance, but while the lines have shifted we are still guilty of the same kinds of truth declarations (and of all subsequent oppression).
(And to borrow a phrase from Carolyn Maloney, rumors of our progress have been greatly exaggerated. It would take serious social blindness to miss the cultural forces that continue to emphasize childbirth as woman’s ultimate imperative.)
However, it is important to note that sex/gender/sexuality classification is not entirely restricted to description by difference, both in potentiality and in practice. Racial classifications, for example, can sometimes trump sex classifications insofar as they are used by society (see: the one drop policy). The classifications can sometimes intersect. And by potentiality, I mean that classification by similarity rather than difference and classification by a healthy mix of the two are both possible, if difficult to imagine.
Truth is a loaded gun. It is a human construct, yes, but that construction doesn’t make it any less real. It still holds significance in the world because regardless of its artificiality it can still maim and kill. Thus, that gun affects the people around it in different but very fundamental ways. For the gun-holder, it represents safety and protection as well as power over the human on the other side. For the person staring down the barrel, it is a consumptive threat.
In matters of sex and gender, difference-bound ideology is an assertion of majority power over its minorities. I’m not saying that male and female as categorical definitions should be ignored or abolished entirely. Natal females, for example, experience heart attacks differently than do natal males, and the cultural male-identification of what constitute heart attack symptoms has led to many fatal misdiagnoses. For that and other similar reasons, it remains important to draw distinction in the ways that males and females vary. However, our social understanding of sexed males and females is that of absolute difference – that female is everything male isn’t and vice versa. That dichotomy is not only socially problematic (in that it serves as justification for discriminatory norm-enforcement as evidenced by misogyny, homophobia, and transphobia), it is factually incorrect. An entire spectrum of intersexed peoples exists despite the medical establishment’s best efforts to mutilate children who do not fall within traditional sex definitions. I’m referring to intersex genital mutilation (IGM), a brutal practice which continues to this day in the United States because we as a society continue to believe the Truth that sex is binary and that male and female are fundamentally separate.
Biology’s assurances of objectivity do not deserve blanket trust. In the article The Egg and the Sperm: How Science Has Constructed a Romance Based on Stereotypical Male-Female Roles, Emily Martin writes about ways though which biology and science draws upon social understanding to make its assertions. Sperm and egg are anthropomorphized and then imbued with normative sex traits; eggs are described as merely passive acceptors of active sperm warriors when a closer look at their relationship would suggest that such an interpretation is flawed. Is it that prevailing biological narrative has been written by men (and women, but mostly men) that are either unforgivably stupid, virulently misogynistic, or both? Or, perhaps, is it because our attempts to understand the world are colored by our understanding of truths that are fundamentally skewed to reflect social power dynamics?
The optimist in me hopes that it’s merely the second explanation although the continual blocking of research into certain fields of research (like homosexuality in non-human species) makes me wonder if conscientious discrimination comes into play.
Regardless, it is precisely because it is impossible to declare a universal truth without subjectifying, privileging, or erasing that I neither claim to be objective, nor do I seek objectivity. To be objective is to say “I do not have subjective biases or privilege, and I am considering every possible viewpoint using every imaginable definitive schema.” That’s a tall order and I can’t help but feel that I’m not really up to it. Nor, I can’t help but think, is anybody.
