(no subject)
May. 30th, 2003 01:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
adrienmundiLabels, again: they’re a constant source of difficulty for me. For starters, I don’t think gender is in any way “natural”; I’m definitely in the camp of perfomativists/constructivists where gender is concerned (though not only there). And yet, because for most people it is either/or, “naturally self-evident”, I think the unquestion-ed/-able gives most people (those for whom gender doesn’t feel constricting; I assume that’s more rather than less, but will admit that’s an assumption on my part) greater certainty/security about themselves, particularly in their social worlds.
Ideally, I want to move away from the concept of fixed identity and identity politics all together, but I realize that, while an admirable goal, it’s decidedly more difficult to realize (at least in my experience). “Girl” or “Boy” seem such automatically imposed categories in any/most dealings with others. Can it serve any functional purpose, or is it even functionally possible, to attempt to live outside of such social constructs without retreating to hermitage or communes of the like minded (assuming enough exist for it to be possible)? In a larger sense, how does one live free of labels in a culture in which everyone is consistently labeling themselves and others, in which labels appear to serve as a fundament to social interaction?
Ideally, I want to move away from the concept of fixed identity and identity politics all together, but I realize that, while an admirable goal, it’s decidedly more difficult to realize (at least in my experience). “Girl” or “Boy” seem such automatically imposed categories in any/most dealings with others. Can it serve any functional purpose, or is it even functionally possible, to attempt to live outside of such social constructs without retreating to hermitage or communes of the like minded (assuming enough exist for it to be possible)? In a larger sense, how does one live free of labels in a culture in which everyone is consistently labeling themselves and others, in which labels appear to serve as a fundament to social interaction?
