The Rhetoric of Preference: Fiction, Gender Construction, and Ideology

For some time, I've been meaning to write a blog entry on the failings of popular gender construction in contemporary American society. It began when I read "Women at Risk" by Bob Herbert (New York Times, 08.07.2009). Herbert writes, "We have become so accustomed to living in a society saturated with misogyny that the barbaric treatment of women and girls has come to be more or less expected."

Yes, I will address fiction soon. Yes, I mean fiction as in literature. The structure of this may wander; I'm coming at it organically, as it came to me. By the end, I'll have transitioned into ideology and storytelling.

Herbert's column focuses primarily on the level misogyny tacitly accepted in our culture. He concludes, "We would become much more sane, much healthier, as a society if we could bring ourselves to acknowledge that misogyny is a serious and pervasive problem, and that the twisted way so many men feel about women, combined with the absurdly easy availability of guns, is a toxic mix of the most tragic proportions."

I believe he has a point. I also believe he's missing the deeper source of the issue. He probes closest to it, though, when he says, "One of the striking things about mass killings in the U.S. is how consistently we find that the killers were riddled with shame and sexual humiliation, which they inevitably blamed on women and girls. The answer to their feelings of inadequacy was to get their hands on a gun (or guns) and begin blowing people away."

This concept of "sexual humiliation," of shame, is linked directly to conceptions about what it is that makes one who is male a "man." It is no great leap of logic for one to ask, these days, what is a man, and how does that relate to maleness? How, apart from biology, is he any different from a woman? Is there any difference at all?

Science tells us many things about these differences. We know about differing brain chemistry, about different patterns in behavior and psychology, about how the physiological aspects of sexual dimorphism affect who we are, how we think and feel, what we can and will do. Rather, I should say we believe we know things about this. How much is nature, how much nurture? I certainly cannot answer this question, but I can suggest a few other relevant questions.

I am far from the first to ask, but why must we assume so much about what it means to be male, to be female? This extends far beyond whether one is encouraged to play with GI Joe or Barbie. Note, I am not discussing literal gender identity; that is another discussion for those who know more about it to conduct. No, I'm interrogating what it means to be a certain gender. Why must boys be "strong," and why must girls be "gentle"? Naturally, we can prove that this is not absolute. We know it is not always the case. These are not at all new ideas.

Yet, children are still encouraged to follow models of gender behavior that enforce cultural tradition. These have nothing to do with biological imperatives. It may be that boys are, on average, "naturally" more aggressive than girls -- though, I'm skeptical of such assumptions. Even so, there are expectations placed on males from birth as to what role they will fill in society -- they grow up told to "be a man." This can mean many different things, but in almost all cases it carries a strong imperative.

I do not, by the way, suggest for even a moment that there are not equally problematic gender constructions in place for women and girls. I just happen to have considerably less knowledge from that perspective.

Inevitably, part of being "a man" seems to -- almost always -- include proving one's heterosexual virility. Some might protest this claim; others might say, "Of course it does." Either way, the issue exists. The emphasis on this "masculine" role is complicated by commingling with sexual partnering. It requires a partner who is not only female, but is willing to be "feminine" by the same schema that makes the male "manly."

Do we believe for a moment that sexual conquest is not a pressure impressed on men? Women, by the way, are not very likely to endorse the "man conquers woman" model these days -- if one believes that they, as a population, even really accepted it. Individual cases vary, as they always do, but if I may be so bold as to characterize the "woman" of contemporary Western culture, she's about a hell of a lot more than fulfilling a role in the archaic fetish of masculine dominance.

So, we have a culture where men are encouraged to strive for a position in relation to women that women are increasingly unlikely to tolerate. Now, consider Herbert's article, and you can see how absurd the entire model is. The entire thing boils down to the problematic nature of our cultural understanding of the gender binary.

Now, I'll come right out and say it: I find the whole thing stupid. Enforcing (or encouraging, or whatever term you find comfortable) "masculine" and "feminine" behavior accomplishes nothing but forcing people into roles and identities that may or may not be "natural" for them. I posit that if males were not pressured into "manly" roles and behaviors, they would be better able to cope with their difficulties.

After all, what could could teaching emotional openness, same-sex intimacy (platonic or otherwise), and willingness to seek help when they need it possibly do for men?

No, I suppose I'm not really very willing to give fair consideration to traditionalist arguments about gender roles, especially in the masculine case. I'm equally appalled at the tendency to attempt to enforce heteroexuality on males, contributing to the difficulties of growing up as a homosexual in our society. It seems absurd to enforce a masculine stereotype, as much as it does to assume that homosexual males will be foppish or effeminate.

In the end, I can't resolve the issue -- only rant about it. This does, however, bring me to the point I was getting to. Taken me long enough, hasn't it? This is where fiction comes into play.

Tonight, I finished re-reading Ender's Game, written by the brilliant crafter of many great works of science fiction and fantasy, Orson Scott Card, who also happens to be a raging bigot of a religious fundamentalist. Card had been my favorite author for some years before I discovered this. For a few years after that, I had refused to read his work any longer, even gave away those of his books that I owned. I was too discouraged, even hurt, by the discovery that my literary idol had turned out to be "one of them," the "them" who promote making homosexuals second-class citizens, even criminals.

Then, last week, I happened upon used copies of Ender's Game and Seventh Son in a local bookstore. In a fit of nostalgia, I bought both of them, along with a stack of other books. Rereading them, I was reminded of Card's brilliance as a wordsmith and storyteller. I was reminded that I could learn from him as a writer, even if he has failed me as a fellow human. Well, humans are fallible enough creatures. His craft would speak more loudly for me than his personal beliefs.

And it does. In reading Card's books, I do not feel bigotry or judgment. I see stories with rich and beautiful characters. I could, I'd argue, even make perfectly reasonable queer readings of his books. For me, the Boothian "implied Card" is not a bigot; he is a poet, one who captures all the beauty and ugliness of human struggles. Whatever Card is doing, for me -- as a reader -- he is telling stories that can support me. Their worth outshines his own ideology.

Ruminating on these thoughts as I closed the book, I remembered the blog entry I had intended to write on gender and masculinity in our society. The premise had been abandoned due to me being busy, but in that moment I also realized that I could not write that post as I had intended it. Before, I meant to offer conclusions, solutions. As I pondered, before I began writing this, it came to me that my solutions fell short of the mark.

True, I know what my answers are, but the problem isn't with what I believe to be the solution. The problem is in the ideology, the framework in which we live, a framework that is invisible to us. No matter how passionately or eloquently I wrote, I would never solve the problem of unrealistic masculine expectations with a blog post, nor even put a dent in said problem. I might as well try to write around homophobia.

No, I do not have that skill. The skill I believe -- hope -- I have is to tell stories. So, let my ideology be what it may be. If it is good, if it is true, then what I write will put forth into the world the best of what I can give it. The invisible failings of my own ideology will be sifted out, and whatever virtue may find its way into my words will show true.

Perhaps, just perhaps, I may even have a healthy impact, in some of my writing, on our perception of what it means to be a man -- or, at least, be an interesting word in that conversation.