Critical Review of Segal's Chapter - Essay Example

Critical Review of Segal The of feminist theory and activism has been much debated in thepast, but seems to have lost some of its focus in recent decades. Although effective in bringing about positive change for women and for society in general, for many, the concept has become more associated with lesbianism than with anything applying to the greater majority of heterosexual women. It has therefore gained a sense of aggression and fear among heterosexual women who do not wish to be associated with homosexuality or who don’t wish to give up the pleasures they associate with a heterosexual lifestyle. As a result of this association, many women have abandoned the cause of feminism and become more involved with exploring the new freedoms they’ve gained since the 1970s. This is part of the argument made by Lynne Segal in her chapter “Sexual Liberation and Feminist Politics.” Beginning her article with a brief commentary on a film based on the letters of Maryse Holder, Segal illustrates how feminist thinking became equated with lesbianism in particular and homosexuality in general as well as how this shift in thinking has corrupted and stalled a movement that has great potential to effect still more positive societal change. Segal critiques the film, Winter Tan, as illustrating a commonly-held belief, not only in the general public but within the movement itself, that feminism is roughly synonymous with lesbianism and any suggestion that a heterosexual relationship can be pleasurable to both the woman and the man is a betrayal of feminism. In Segal’s words, the film provides a “dual depiction of feminism as anti-heterosexual pleasure and heterosexual pleasure as anti-woman” (370). Using this film as a base for her argument, Segal suggests Jackie Burroughs (writer, producer, director and actress for the film and a feminist herself) is fostering a dominant culture within the feminist movement that suppresses the voices of heterosexuals through its portrayal of heterosexual sex as an abandonment or hiatus from feminism as well as an act of pure aggression and an animal-like struggle for dominance rather than a mutually shared and equally pleasurable behavior. While there are good intentions in this argument, namely to try to debunk this idea of feminism equals lesbianism, it is suggested by others that Segal is merely perpetuating an idea that is not often encountered within the movement itself. “The repressive atmosphere of being guilt-tripped and silenced by other feminists about being straight is not one which I regularly encounter” (Gill, 1996: 123). While Gill (1996) admits that she may not be old enough or move in the right circles to have encountered a strict orthodoxy that indicates heterosexual relations are anti-feminist, this statement in itself suggests part of the changes that have occurred within the movement in the postmodern society for which an understanding of the differences between the concepts of modern and postmodern is helpful. The concept of the modern focuses upon the assumption that everything can be classified into specific categories and definitions. “Modernity is a project, and not only a period, and it is, or was, a project of control, the rational mastery over nature, the planning, designing and plotting which led to planomania and technocracy” (Beilharg, 2001: 6). The basic concepts of modernism were to take a hard and fast look at various social processes such as feminism to determine the universal truths of existence. These could then be canonized and applied across all cultures, individuals and time periods as a means of progressing toward a more ideal civilization. The tripod upon which the theory rested were economic, political and scientific rationalization (Mourad, 1997). Economic rationalization would bring all the forces of nature into the understanding and control of intellectual processes. In similar fashion, political rationalization would subject and control the governing bodies as well as the value systems by which the ‘correct’ society would measure itself and others. Scientific rationalization operated on the premise that an objective truth for all could be discovered through the careful application of appropriate scientific methods. (Mourad, 1997). This means of understanding the world is reflected in the concept of the unifying orthodoxy of lesbianism as the only true or authentic representation of feminism that Segal is attacking. As the ideas of modernism were raised and clashed against each other, as Segal points out that feminism cannot be about providing women the freedom to explore their sexuality in lesbianism while restricting them from doing the same in heterosexuality, the seeds of postmodernism were sown. “Modern intellectuals aspire to power, as legislators; postmodern intellectuals seek to live out, or to return, to their hermeneutical roles, as interpreters or translators across life-worlds or experiences” (Beilharz, 2001: 6). This is the role taken by Segal and others such as Sheila Jeffreys as they attempt to strike a balance within the feminist movement and the various viewpoints that could be raised. Introducing her book The Idea of Prostitution, Jeffreys discusses current widely divergent viewpoints regarding this age-old female profession. “Whilst some are defining men’s use of women in prostitution as a form of sexual violence, there are others who seek to normalise and legitimize ‘sex work’ as a reasonable job for a woman”(Jeffreys, 1998). What has been left out of the conversation, Jeffreys suggests, is the concept of the prostitute’s point of view. Like Segal, she asks is it wrong when the one involved finds pleasure in what she does? Emerging from the failed ideals of modernism, then, the postmodern represents a drive toward an undefined and undefinable goal within a collapse of the traditional boundaries of ‘self’, ‘other’ and ‘stranger.’ It can be seen as a means of existence in which this multiplicity of forms is recognized and dealt with. Having established in however shaky a fashion that a modern viewpoint of a single definition being applicable to all feminists exists, Segal moves on to discuss how this shift in thinking occurred in the postmodern world and what it means to abandon the concepts that emerged in the 1960s. This involves an understanding of the modern conception of the ‘other’ or the ‘stranger.’ Rather than being the ‘other’ in terms of skin color, cultural background or other specific external gender-based characteristics, Zygmunt Bauman, the originator of the term postmodern, describes the stranger as a product of her position as it is granted and defined by modern society. More importantly, Bauman suggests society must have a stranger as its only means of identifying itself. Thus, any suggestion that gender should be removed from the understanding of humans is itself contradictory to the means by which humans come to know themselves. Although strangers are usually defined as “removed and disconnected from us,” Simmel (1950) points out that “strangeness means that he, who also is far, is actually near.” Building off of this idea, Bauman indicates the stranger is anything that doesn’t fit within an accepted pre-established societal mold. As such, the stranger is automatically identified as being something foreign and outside of the usual sphere of behavior, but the stranger is also within, forcing an internal comparison that cannot help but frighten. Because it is neither friend nor enemy, the stranger remains suspiciously undecided (Bauman, 1993). Segal’s stance is that a postmodern approach needs to be taken to the concept of gender that both embraces and acknowledges the differences of people without restricting or limiting them through fear and suspicion or pre-determined definitions of what it means to be ‘male’ or ‘female.’ Her concepts regarding what it means to be a feminist attempt to include all individuals, men and women, hetero- and homosexually oriented. Here again, Bauman provides a useful investigation into how to restructure the idea of the stranger in such a way as to neither detract from nor exaggerate their attributes while removing suspicion and anxiety within the concepts of the tourists and the vagabonds. These distinctions are related directly to postmodern concepts as they embrace large conceptions with multiple manifestations. The vagabonds are those who have not profited from their endeavors or their deviances, while the tourists are those who have found benefit in their strangeness (Jacobsen, 2001). These distinctions are fundamentally different from the ‘stranger’ or the ‘other’ in a way that makes the concepts of postmodernism possible to discuss. Rather than identifying a single, hegemonic point of view and then defining a ‘stranger’ or ‘other’ as different from this concept, Bauman’s vagabonds and tourists can embody a variety of sameness and differences. While a lesbian female might seem to fit in with the hegemonic society of the feminist movement that Segal presents at the beginning of her chapter, she may also be different in that she enjoys wearing male-defined figure flattering ‘feminine’ dresses or prefers to be primarily engaged as a homemaker as a blatant and obvious example of how this concept can be applied. Taking it a step further, this same lesbian woman might be highly successful in attracting the types of relationships she wants or highly esteemed because of her unorthodox viewpoint, or she can be ostracized or vilified for these same attributes. Moreover, regardless of what she is wearing or how she occupies her time, she is both of these things with the most applicable attributes being revealed depending upon specific circumstances and situations. While this example examines only one of numerous possibilities, it is Segal’s argument that an individual can be heterosexual or homosexual, male or female, active or inactive and still be a feminist, successfully bringing all of these complex ideas of modernism and postmodernism into a succinct relatively simple context. Through this shift from modern to postmodern thought and the related shifts in concepts of the ‘other’, Segal indicates her strong support of female empowerment through her praise of societal shifts that have resulted from changes in gender identities and relations. In her discussion, she indicates that there have been two main trends that have emerged in the past few decades that indicate men have lost a great deal of control over women’s sexuality. These are “the increasing levels of sexual activity outside marriage, and the lowering of double standards as women’s sexual experiences draw closer to men’s” (Segal, 1994: 372). These are considered successes because the primary outcomes she attributes to be directly brought about by these trends. The first beneficial outcome Segal says is the increased use of contraceptives as a means of physically protecting partners from illness and unwanted pregnancies. The respect inherent in this shift in gender relations also translates to an increased recognition of women as individuals rather than objects and an acknowledgement of their rights to make decisions regarding their own bodies. Another outcome she attributes to these shifts in sexuality has been an almost aggressive lack of concern regarding a woman’s sexual status at the time of marriage – women are no longer destroyed socially by the mere suggestion that she might not be a virgin when presented at the altar. While these are seen primarily as advantages for women, men have also benefited from the same physical precautions taken as well as finding themselves happier with a single partner than they had been in previous decades (Segal, 1994: 372). Through these changes in gender relations, Segal indicates society as a whole has grown stronger as “it is the rediscovering of the pleasures to be found in our bodies and the joy of bringing pleasure to others (of desiring and feeling desired) which, when things go well, feeds personal optimism and strength” (Segal, 1994: 373). Despite the successes that have been achieved, Segal indicates that the modernist tendency for labels has enabled conservatives, through such actions as legislation regulating pornography, to shift attention from the real issues of gender representation to focus on more superficial concepts, a shift that is not being challenged by apathetic feminist sympathizers. She contends that it is necessary for feminists to continue arguing for sexual autonomy and expression by uncovering “the social forces which ensure that women’s sexual agency is suppressed in contexts of significant gender inequality, and to fight to change them. It is also to uncover and challenge the cultural forces which disparage women and gay men through meanings roping gender to sexuality via conceptions of ‘masculinity’ and ‘activity’ and ‘dominance’ coded into heterosexual coitus” (Segal, 1994: 372). While the male gender (regardless of actual physical gender) continues to be portrayed as the powerful, active and outward reaching gender, the female gender (again regardless of actual physical gender) continues to be portrayed as weak and subordinate, focused on the home and unconcerned with larger events. Through this representation, the primary dividing line between masculine and feminine emerges as being based upon the specific role undertaken during the sex act – the giver or the receiver. Therefore, Segal concludes her essay with an appeal to address the concept of heterosexuality as proof of manhood as the only means of successfully crossing and reducing the gender divide within the greater culture. As can be seen through this analysis, Segal tackles some very weighty and complex subjects within a short space while she attempts to make her case for a more active involvement in feminism regardless of an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity. While the basis of her argument rests on a modernistic conception of feminism as lesbianism that is not necessarily valid in the postmodernist world, her call to individuals of all persuasions to continue working toward greater equality among the genders is nevertheless valid. Representation of the genders, based upon the context and other attributes associated with a particular image or concept, continues to divide masculine and feminine along lines of powerful and subordinate, making it impossible for either to gain the full range of expression that should be the right of all. In contrast, pleasure, both the experience of and the giving of, is argued to provide a sense of well-being, confidence and optimism for those involved, itself bringing about positive social change. While she is obviously biased toward the feminist point of view, suggesting that changes such as sexual promiscuity are beneficial, other developments have more generally agreed upon benefits, such as physical protection from illness and greater overall respect for the autonomy of women, allowing them to take a greater role in the greater human progression. References Bauman, Zygmunt. (1993). Postmodern Ethics. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Beilharz, Peter. (2001). The Bauman Reader. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Gill, Rosalind. (1996). “Straight Sex: The Politics of Pleasure: Review.” Feminist Review. N. 53, pp. 122-125. Jacobsen, Michael Hviid. (2001). “Zygmunt Bauman: (Un)Happiness of Uncertain Pleasures.” Sociologisk ARbejdspapir. N. 10. Jeffreys, Sheila. (1998). “The Idea of Prostitution.” Feminista. Available 27 May 2007 from Mourad, R.P. (1997). “At the Forefront: Postmodern Interdisciplinarity.” The Review of Higher Education. Vol 29, N. 2, pp. 115-140. Segal, Lynne. (1994). “Sexual Liberation and Feminist Politics.” Straight Sex: The Politics of Pleasure. London: Virago Press. Reprinted in Sandra Kemp & Judith Squires (Eds.). (1998). Feminisms (Oxford Readers). Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 370-374. Simmel, G. (1950). “The Stranger.” The Sociology of Georg Simmel. K.H. Wolff (Ed.). Glencoe, IL: Free Press. Read More