Linda Nicholson - "Interpreting Gender"

Nicholson addresses the meaning of gender within feminist discourse. She argues that it is used in two different and contradictory ways: 1) it refers to a social construction rather than the biologically constructed sex; 2) it increasingly refers to any social construction that separates "female" from "male" bodies. Nicholson argues that "if the body is itself always seen through social interpretation, then sex is not something that is separate from gender but is, rather, that which is subsumable under it" (pg. 39).

In this paper, Nicholson shows how, even in feminist discourse that does not endorse the idea, gender is still seen as dependent on biological sex. She describes a "coat-rack" view of self-identity. "Here the body is viewed as a type of rack upon which differing cultural artifacts, specifically those of personality and behavior, are thrown or superimposed" (pg. 41). This approach allows feminists to explain both commonalities and differences among women and to avoid the pitfall of biological determinism. The shape of the rack can make certain demands about what gets thrown on it, but it does not completely determine it. It allows us to maintain the idea that there are basic natural constancies regarding gender without trapping us with no way to create social change. She labels this approach biological foundationalism (b.f.), which is not the same as biological determinism because it always involves some element of social construction. B.f. is a continuum which can be closer to or farther away from biological determinism. Nicholson feels that b.f. and the coat rack view of identity is what stands in our way of really understanding differences among men, among women, and regarding who is identified as either. We can't just use and accept male/female differences, we must investigate how they come about, how they are socially constructed, and how they play out in different times and places.

Nicholson provides a brief discussion of the historical context in which sex identity and differences became seen as natural and universal came about. She notes a significant shift in the 18th century from a "one-sex" view of the body to a "two-sex" view. Women went from being viewed as a lesser version of the male body to being viewed as a qualitatively different form.

Sex and gender

"What I am calling 'biological foundationalism' is best understood as representing a continuum of positions bounded on one side by a strict biological determinism and on the other side by the position I would like feminists to endorse: that biology cannot be used to ground claims about 'women' or 'men' transculturally" (pg. 49). The positions are relative, not simply either/or. Nicholson analyzes the work of several feminists using this approach, locating their work on the continuum. She sees approaches of Robin Morgan and Janice Raymond as being not significantly different from biological determinism, despite their explicit dependence on social constructionism and rejection of biological determinism. Radical feminists are also examples of b.f. that is close to determinism. She finds that other feminist scholars who focus on cultural history and diversity also still depend on b.f. to make critical moves (Carol Gilligan and Nancy Chodorow are given as examples). Chodorow's work is identified as b.f. because it "rests on the assumption that the possession of certain kinds of genitals does possess a common enough meaning across this range of cultures to make possible the postulation of a fundamentally homogenous set of stories about child development" (pg. 54). Such approaches make invisible the many ways in which men and women do not fit the generalizations. A feminism of difference is both true and false so rejecting it or accepting it makes no sense. We need a new way of understanding gender that allows both similarities and differences.

How then do we interpret "woman"?

Nicholson argues that we should stop making claims about women in general or even women in patriarchal societies and replace such claims with ones about women in particular contexts. She does not want us to stop looking for patterns, but to understand such patterns in different and more complex terms, especially noting the historicity of the patterns. Relying on Ludwig Wittgenstein's ideas about language, she suggests that we think of "woman" not as a list of specific characteristics, but as "a complicated network of similarities overlapping and criss-crossing: sometimes overall similarities, sometimes similarities of detail" (pg 60). The meaning of "game" is an analogy. Regarding feminist politics, she suggests that we forget about the idea of women as a united, single group and instead think in terms of coalition politics: "feminist politics as the coming together of those who want to work around the needs of women where such a concept is not understood as necessarily singular in meaning or commonly agreed upon" (pg. 62).