More tiresome discussions of gender in popular culture
Today I posted a comment on some recent discussion of writing on virtual transvestitism at the Terra Nova blog. My comment is here, and the text is reproduced below:
The “fact that people are studying and talking about these ideas” (gender studies and queer theory) would not be objectionable if it had not reached the level of an extremely tiresome obsession.
In the Department of English and Cultural Studies at the University of Melbourne, where I am a PhD candidate, a majority of staff seem to spend a majority of their time writing and teaching about gender studies and queer theory. Past a certain point, such a focus becomes sheer narrow-mindedness. It is liable, too, to push other topics out of their proper place in studies of culture: things like aesthetics, history, biography, and so on.
What’s objectionable about Ruberg’s writing on Terra Nova is, as Endie points out here, that she is pushing an agenda and prepared to do some intellectual contortions to do so. In her post on Virtual Transvestitism, for instance, Ruberg writes that
these virtual cross-dressers are using the medium of cyberspace to experiment with the bounds of gender ideologies and performance… whether they like it or not. (emphasis added)
The structure of thought underlying this is, I presume, the standard gender-studies indoctrination that there is something terribly sinister about contemporary constructions of gendered identity and their connection to biological difference, and that people ought to rebel against the straightjacket of identity that they find themselves in. And as the Marxist ropes in all working people to the socialist cause, then blames their false conciousness when they fail to rise up, so Ruberg makes all men who use female avatars, and women who use male avatars, part of the gender-bending revolution… “whether they like it or not.”
No-one has a chance to respond that their choice to be a virtual ‘transvestite’ is meaningless, or borne out of a sheer desire to watch a wiggling, polygonal, female Night-Elf bum wend its way across Azeroth. If that happens to be a fact, then it’ll be beaten down by the agenda.
And that, my friend, is sheer intellectual dishonesty.
Thanks to Joystiq for bringing this to my attention.
Brian,
Suggesting that someone is guilty of “sheer intellectual dishonesty” is a very serious allegation. This is not a phrase to be thrown around lightly.
If someone makes an argument with which you disagree, that does not make them intellectually dishonest.
You say that nobody has a chance to respond to Bonnie Ruberg’s arguments, but there was certainly a passionate debate in Terra Nova after her first posting. And there has clearly been much debate in other arenas. So, this is not a fair charge to level at Ruberg.
I am more concerned by misrepresentations of fact in this thread. Endie originally criticized Ruberg for claiming that her posting was a scientifically rigorous “study,” but she never made this claim.
In your posting, you suggest that the majority of staff in the Department of English and Cultural Studies at the University of Melborune “spend a majority of their time writing and teaching about gender studies and queer theory.” I suspect that your professors and administrators would be amused by this statement.
Luckily, it is easy to evaluate the truth of your assertions.
According to the description of your department’s faculty (http://www.english.unimelb.edu.au/culturalstudies/staff.html), approximately 31 professors teach courses in the cultural studies area. Of these 31 professors, 19 do not mention gender studies or queer theory in the explanation of their research areas. The 12 professors who do mention gender studies and queer theory do so in as part of a larger research agenda. (I skimmed quickly, so you should feel free to double-check.)
According to the description of your department’s curriculum (http://www.english.unimelb.edu.au/culturalstudies/structure.html), there are 36 courses offered in the area of cultural studies. Of these, only four courses are clearly focused on issues of gender and sexuality.
At the end of the day, your negative reaction to Bonnie Ruberg’s most recent posting seems to have less to do with her specific arguments and much more to do with your opposition to feminism and queer theory.
Is it really fair to accuse her of intellectual dishonesty just because you don’t agree with her political views?
Aaron Delwiche
22 Mar 06 at 15:25
If Aaron is going to follow you around with the same posts, then I think i can, too!
“As regards the balance of studies in your department, you are right that the majority of the faculty do mention feminism or queer studies as among their major spheres of interest: of the four members of the department, 75% mention this.
Interestingly, by comparison, of the staff brought in from other departments, only around a quarter express such an interest: still a high proportion, but revealing in being a third of the percentage of the department staff themselves.
Yes, these are the same figures as Aaron mentions, but I believe that each of our interpretations has some merit ;)”
Endie
22 Mar 06 at 19:17
If they say:
“these virtual cross-dressers are using the medium of cyberspace to experiment with the bounds of gender ideologies and performance… whether they like it or not. (emphasis added)”
and you say:
“The structure of thought underlying this is, I presume, the standard gender-studies indoctrination that there is something terribly sinister about contemporary constructions of gendered identity and their connection to biological difference, and that people ought to rebel against the straightjacket of identity that they find themselves in. ”
Then that is as intellectually dishonest as one can be, dude. You characterised as politic what was written as point of fact. Do you disagree that there’s an experimentation with gender ideologies and performance going on, regardless of its importance? Then don’t presume any more than that unless you have more quotes and material to go on.
.. but for the record, the entire discussion was beyond tiresome and her article was foul for a number of other reasons.
I agree that queer theory is pushed hard at Melbourne, but I’m thankful that its done as a way to access biography, history, aesthetics in turn. It was a useful model (once in the mid 90s, say) to dig around what the fulimations of postmodernity had completely ignored.
Christian McCrea
19 Apr 06 at 17:44
Hi, Christian,
I don’t “disagree that there’s an experimentation with gender ideologies and performance going on”, generally speaking. What I do disagree with is Ruberg’s claim that this happens whatever players intentions or their interpretations of their actions; that it happens “whether they like it or not”.
In “The Myth of the Ergodic Videogame”, James Newman fairly well exploded the idea that players necessarily identify with their in-game avatars. Re-examining M. Kinder’s analysis of Super Mario Bros. 2, which ramped up the gender-bending implications of male players’ choosing to play as the princess, Newman wrote that
Put simply, if a skilled male player chooses the Princess in Super Mario Bros. 2 (as I always do), it’s probably because her ability to fly makes it easier to pass through the stages, not because they are “virtual cross dessers … using the medium of cyberspace to experiment with the bounds of gender ideologies and performance… whether they like it or not.” (Ruberg)
I’m not aware of there being distinct gameplay advantages for male players of World of Warcraft to choose female avatars, but the example of SMB2, highlighted by Newman, shows that a player’s choosing an avatar of the opposite sex should not always be considered an act of experimentation with gendered identities.
Maybe Ruberg’s “whether they like it or not” isn’t intellectual dishonesty; maybe it’s just incredibly faulty logic. But I do still suspect dishonesty, of the kind we find where we lie to ourselves about what our life experience tells us we ought to do and to believe. I find it difficult to imagine that a literate adult would really think that the account people give of their own actions ought not to have any bearing on how we ought to interpret them.
Ben H
21 Apr 06 at 14:19