Gender identity is the faux performance of radical sexual politics in an age of capitalist realism

[Pluvia]

Not sure I have the knowledge to fully understand all Hannah Berrelli is saying here, but I think I get the gist and it's a fascinating new take on gender identity politics as capitalist-created and consumerist. I mean, just think of all the money to be made out of flags and hair dye!

twitter.com/HannahBerrelli/status/1483898062921768963

'the illusion of confronting gender roles ... corporate sponsored performance of radicalism'

Yes, good points.

It's interesting. I think of it more as a way of enforcing the traditional sex roles while pretending to challenge them, i.e., by leaving the norms, roles and sexist stereotypes in place (or more like bringing really traditional crap back), but then telling people that they can jump from one rigidly defined box into another, or even out of all boxes (non-binary).

But the boxes themselves are not challenged at all, and jumping from one to another is only really possibly with medical intervention.

Women who become non-binary will still face all the sexism that women in general face in a given society, because we cannot identify out of that without rather extreme body modifications, and even then only partially.

I would argue that capitalism would support this approach as the ones jumping between the boxes will be few so being 'inclusive' will not cost firms much and they can, indeed, sell new products for the neo-genders, and if makeup becomes almost obligatory for all who 'identify as women' that is good for the cosmetic industry, too.

It's uncoupling the link between the words/roles/signifiers/ideas and material reality. Claiming abstract ideas/words have the same weight as the things they are invented to describe/signify/point towards.

Mistaking the finger pointing at the moon for the moon, in other words.

Her interpretation reminds me a bit of people who make a big deal about wanting to live off-grid, be self-sufficient, not need to work (in the conventional sense) without acknowledging that it is only possible for them to live like that because other people DO work, pay taxes for the NHS, work to make solar panels or medication or whatever else the ‘off-grid’ dwellers need to get by, buy and make goods and services and so on. The ‘counter-culture’ cannot exist without the mainstream culture it feeds off, so really does nothing to change the world, but makes people think they have a choice. Yes, I do watch a lot of those Ben Fogle channel 5 shows!

I agree, but it’s not really a radical new take - it’s been obvious from the start that the entire point of “intersectional” gender politics is to decouple the original (and useful) Marxist idea of the intersection of structural oppressions from any underlying radical politics. Essentially, to make gender politics friendly to late capitalism.

Neither Marxism nor second-wave (Marxist-influenced) feminism have, of course, much interest in propping up late capitalism: rather, the complete reverse. Second wave feminism largely saw itself as a way of formulating a radical alternative to capitalism. And even third wave / classical liberal feminism was ambivalent about capitalism, often wanting things like a universal basic income, free childcare, or payment for women’s domestic work, which would be sufficiently Scandinavian-social-democrat enough to upset the apple carts of most free-market politicians.

But current gender identity politics is in fact ragingly neoconservative and entirely market-based in its outlook. It privileges an illusion of internal self-determination and extreme individualism over communitarianism. It’s entirely dependent on the commercialisation of surgery, drugs, hormones and the purchasing of clothes and “lifestyle” accessories.

It’s anti-psychoanalytic, pro-medicalising, anti-socialist, intensely Western and secular, and thoroughly capitalist, implicitly opposed to recognising crises in resources, ecological and financial systems.

It’s fully part of an extreme commercialising of bodies, particularly female bodies, which goes hand in hand with commercial surrogacy, cosmetic surgery, pornography and prostitution. (Marketising human women as sex-body commodities in a marketplace, designated as such by their accessories, services and body parts, is never anything else other than intrinsically capitalist.)

Gender identity politics is, in short, just as capitalist as it’s possible to be - all about commoditising and individualising aspects of the self, communities and the body which have traditionally been thought of as not things that you should either buy, or value in money - humanity; selfhood; sex; bodies; motherhood.

It massively irks me when young people claim to be both left wing and are fully paid up to the full genderist/sex work is work/OnlyFans is empowering/cosmetic surgery is self-determination stuff.

And not only young people. Look at Corbyn and John McDonnell, trolling about claiming to be great Marxist left-wingers while simultaneously talking about how there ought to be a “civilised” “market” for sexual work. Last time I looked, genuine Marxists were pretty sceptical about the idea of market capitalism being just awfully “civilised”. When it’s women’s bodies, though, even the most ardent Momentum activist is suddenly all for capitalism being just so empowering and fabulous. Funny that!

I have had some similar thoughts that I haven't fully developed yet. I noticed in the 2000's that people today have a thousand times more consumer goods than we had in the seventies and eighties when I was growing ups. So much so that girls had options to buy tutus and hair ornaments and pink Legos and things that never existed before. Things that we could never have afforded in the old days. I think that consumerism has actually strengthened gender presentation. And now it's even more pronounced with the mass marketing of make up and the beauty influencers. Young people today are focused with their looks and their avatars and their presentations and images of themselves in a way we never were.

Like the dystopian world in The Hunger Games, all those heavily groomed citizens of the capital city. We are getting closer to that every day.

Great post, @nightwakingmoon

Yeah really great post nightwaking.

Night walking - I think that’s the single most useful thing I’ve read about the gender issue. Thank you, a really incisive post. Please Twitter it!

@Sittininafield

Night walking - I think that’s the single most useful thing I’ve read about the gender issue. Thank you, a really incisive post. Please Twitter it!

Second this.

Thanks nightwalking, that really explains it well from that angle.

Although you describe genderism as secular it seems to function in many similar ways to a religion or supernatural belief system. I suppose that splitting of idea/representation from matter mirrors supernatural ideas.

Bixoeine there is research somewhere I recall reading in how gender roles become more starkly differentiated and rigidly enforced the wealthier a society becomes... can't begin to remember where I read it but will try!

nightwakingmoon thanks for this. Wish I could be as clear and articulate when I'm talking to people about this. Rather than wibbling and emotional

@nightwakingmoon fantastic post, Thankyou

Damn good post @nightwakingmoon. Yes the trans craze is very Disney isn't it? Wish upon a star and hand over the money. As far away from radical politics as one could imagine.

A couple of thoughts based on the OP and other posts:

There was a book, the name of which escapes me, some years ago about the way that countercultures, like punk, end up just feeding into the consumerist machine. There are elements of that idea in what she's saying, I think.

I'd agree that intersectional gender services corporate capitalism by providing a way for capitalists to claim virtue without endangering current the economic system, but that's true of identity politics across the board. I don't think it's possible to address it for gender and not the whole structure of id pol.

There's some truth to the idea of this as a belief system like a religion, but it's important to remember that it doesn't matter what your view of reality is, materialism, humanism, whatever. It is underpinned by a set of propositions about the nature of reality which are themselves not material or provable. Many people, when those propositions that are axiomatic in their thinking are challenged, can be reactive or even emotional if they are not practiced at those kinds of discussions. In that sense neither religion nor genderism is inherently different than other secular ideological positions, though some of these may be more coherent and well founded than others. If there is a difference with gender ideology I think it is that it's axioms and assumptions are not clearly defined by those who believe them in many cases, in fact they tend to be shrouded in obscurity so as to prevent them from being challenged, or they seem to change as is convenient for the person espousing them.

it doesn't matter what your view of reality is, materialism, humanism, whatever. It is underpinned by a set of propositions about the nature of reality which are themselves not material or provable

Surely most of us have a varied view that is a mish mash of different propositions? Some of them probably even inherently contradictory!

@DomesticatedZombie

it doesn't matter what your view of reality is, materialism, humanism, whatever. It is underpinned by a set of propositions about the nature of reality which are themselves not material or provable

Surely most of us have a varied view that is a mish mash of different propositions? Some of them probably even inherently contradictory!

Yes, I think that's true, even for people who go to a lot of effort to try and avoid it or at least be aware of it. And lots of people don't think about it much on a day to day basis either, they just go about their business.

I suppose I was really just wanting to say, there is an idea that religion is different in that it somehow involves people having these first principles or axiomatic beliefs, unlike secular ideologies. That's really not the case, every individual has these and also every philosophical system, religious or not, has them. Even ones that see themselves as rooted in materialism.