How weird is the timing of this -- since I just watched Victor/Victoria yesterday? (granted, that's crossdressing for a purpose, but it does raise questions of gender expectations.)
Feminism, it seems to me, springs up to address a specific set of expectations about the world and the people in it. It is there to correct faulty assumptions, to try to bring about a paradigm shift. In that, it is much like the civil rights movement, the gay rights/gay pride movement, and other similar social engines.
People join these things for that area where their particular concern overlaps others within a common theme. And I'd argue that, while the extremist and exclusionary elements wind up with a voice in those groups, the groups themselves often have to navigate a thorny path between the common goals of the organization and the support that they'd burn off by embracing more radical elements that would otherwise be natural allies.
Organizations that have accomplished many of their major goals often see a petering out of the more moderate elements, who often have more reasonable goals. Even within the world of anime conventions, there has been a remarkable shift in attendee and volunteer demographics, and the goals and expectations shift along with them. Anime is now arguably mainstream, and so my organization has been shifting more effort to broader cultural stuff, whereas a decade ago, the novelty of actually seeing the stuff at all was sufficient to draw crowds and maintain interest.
So I think it's understandable that the more moderate elements of, say, the feminist movement would see transgender issues as a distraction from their primary objectives, just as gay rights leaders often groan at the endless media focus on drag queens, leather daddies, twinkie boys, hardcore butch lesbians, and so forth. The lurid, freakish, and hedonistic elements of the movement will always draw the most sensational media spotlights, and can become the "face" of the movement in the public eye, and that can do real damage. On the other hand, they're a very real and unavoidable part of the gay community, just as people who identify as female are unavoidable tied to the goals and aims of the feminist movement.
It's kind of like bumping into your boss and your most embarrassing cousin at the same time; inconvenient relatives with a poor sense of timing can screw with your long-term goals.
The extremists give the not-yet-convinced moderates a compelling argument to stay on the sidelines and withhold support, even when they might otherwise be sympathetic to the goals of the cause proper. Mainstream America could get to know and like Will from Will & Grace far more easily than Jack from that same show. They'll be entertained by Jack, happily, but he's a bit too "out there" for even Will's comfort.
At the moment, transgendered people fall well outside the understandable range of normal experience, even for people already on the outside.
It's not right, and it's not fair, but it is true and it won't change overnight. The question that needs to be addressed in all cases is whether embracing that decidedly-not-mainstream branch of the family tree will be good for the organization's goals, and if so, whether the leadership is up to the challenge of explaining the alliance to the potentially sympathetic mainstream.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2008-11-03 04:16 pm (UTC)How weird is the timing of this -- since I just watched Victor/Victoria yesterday? (granted, that's crossdressing for a purpose, but it does raise questions of gender expectations.)
Feminism, it seems to me, springs up to address a specific set of expectations about the world and the people in it. It is there to correct faulty assumptions, to try to bring about a paradigm shift. In that, it is much like the civil rights movement, the gay rights/gay pride movement, and other similar social engines.
People join these things for that area where their particular concern overlaps others within a common theme. And I'd argue that, while the extremist and exclusionary elements wind up with a voice in those groups, the groups themselves often have to navigate a thorny path between the common goals of the organization and the support that they'd burn off by embracing more radical elements that would otherwise be natural allies.
Organizations that have accomplished many of their major goals often see a petering out of the more moderate elements, who often have more reasonable goals. Even within the world of anime conventions, there has been a remarkable shift in attendee and volunteer demographics, and the goals and expectations shift along with them. Anime is now arguably mainstream, and so my organization has been shifting more effort to broader cultural stuff, whereas a decade ago, the novelty of actually seeing the stuff at all was sufficient to draw crowds and maintain interest.
So I think it's understandable that the more moderate elements of, say, the feminist movement would see transgender issues as a distraction from their primary objectives, just as gay rights leaders often groan at the endless media focus on drag queens, leather daddies, twinkie boys, hardcore butch lesbians, and so forth. The lurid, freakish, and hedonistic elements of the movement will always draw the most sensational media spotlights, and can become the "face" of the movement in the public eye, and that can do real damage. On the other hand, they're a very real and unavoidable part of the gay community, just as people who identify as female are unavoidable tied to the goals and aims of the feminist movement.
It's kind of like bumping into your boss and your most embarrassing cousin at the same time; inconvenient relatives with a poor sense of timing can screw with your long-term goals.
The extremists give the not-yet-convinced moderates a compelling argument to stay on the sidelines and withhold support, even when they might otherwise be sympathetic to the goals of the cause proper. Mainstream America could get to know and like Will from Will & Grace far more easily than Jack from that same show. They'll be entertained by Jack, happily, but he's a bit too "out there" for even Will's comfort.
At the moment, transgendered people fall well outside the understandable range of normal experience, even for people already on the outside.
It's not right, and it's not fair, but it is true and it won't change overnight. The question that needs to be addressed in all cases is whether embracing that decidedly-not-mainstream branch of the family tree will be good for the organization's goals, and if so, whether the leadership is up to the challenge of explaining the alliance to the potentially sympathetic mainstream.