The Woman that does not exist and the subtle trap of rivalry

Michelle Goldberg’s careful and interesting New Yorker article What is a Woman? (August 4, 2014), collects together and traces the developments of the radical feminist argument from the early 1970s through to today. She shows how the increasing participation of transsexuals, or transgendered people, in the feminist movements have brought to light a problem in the underlying logic that increasingly leads to trouble – something that is experienced by the radfems as ‘a baffling political inversion’.

The logic of the 'radfem' problem is stripped down to show itself as follows: if you have the bad luck to be born with a body like this (female), then society will force you into the position of a serf, a secondary, an inferior: so, unite and fight for freedom. If you are lucky enough to be born with a body like that (male), then you are privileged, whether you like it or not: prepare to eat dust (ie we shall attack you for your privilege). Members of the 'radfem' group have imagined that they are on the trail of a kind of racism, that their position is righteous ipso fact. They are, therefore, very surprised when they find themselves caught up in the position of the oppressor and the subject of as much hatred in return. This is what happens when trans people show up and want to identify as women.

Goldberg’s thoughtful article helps to show how the logic slips along an unstable dichotomy which leads to oscillation and conflict – participants have unwittingly stepped onto the imaginary plane (see Lacan, especially his early work) of a––a’. Even though many of today’s feminists would want to argue for a more sophisticated or ironic understanding (see for example Lucy Mangan’s humorous 'weekend column' in the Guardian, August 2014), the underlying logic of the argument goes on reproducing itself. 

Only a couple of years ago in the UK the storm blew up when journalist Julie Birchill jumped in to defend her friend Suzanne Moore from ‘a bunch of dicks in chicks clothing’ and found herself attacked in return. Moore had bemoaned the fact that she could never be as gorgeous as a ‘Brazilian Transsexual’, and was surprised to find herself the target of a twitter attack from the trans movement and its supporters. The logic that underpins these positions swings back and forth between oppressor and oppressed, bodies like this, and bodies like that: and as Lacan predicted, hatred and rivalry prove themselves very difficult to avoid.

The argument is replaying itself again now, as Caitlyn Jenner appears on the cover of Vanity Fair, and once more begs the question, is being a woman simply a matter of perfecting a body image, or manufacturing/relying on a certain kind of genital. For some decades now, we have had the possibility to think about the problem in three registers - symbolic, imaginary, and real. Feminity might better be thought as a subjective position, or perhaps, a work of art. For each, it is a question of how to bring 'woman' or feminity to life when there is no pre-written programme to inform you in your nature.

4 Sep 2014