A queer exploration of all things gender

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Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival – transphobia in feminism

Every August since 1976, a music festival has taken place near Hart, in Michigan. This festival is organised, built, staffed, and attended exclusively by women, and over the years has grown in size. It now receives a turn-out of thousands of women each year.

(Brief aside): The festival uses the word ‘Womyn’ rather than ‘Woman’ in order to reflect the feminist idea of female independence from patriarchal language structures. That ‘man’ is still used as an indefinite pronoun (eg. ‘It’s one small step for man’), alternative spellings such as womyn, wimmin, wom!n, etc., both highlight and resist reference to women from a male baseline or norm.

Sadly, due to the way the festival is run, what could be an empowering event for all women is actively discriminatory. The Michigan Womyn’s Festival is for ‘womyn-born womyn’ – excluding women who were DMAB (designated male at birth).

How do the organizers of the festival justify this? Below I tackle some of the most common arguments I found for the trans woman excluding policy.

Photograph by James Cridland

1. ‘Trans women don’t grow up being read by people as girls, and so don’t have an embodied experience of the patriarchy in the same way as womyn-born-womyn.’

One woman’s experience of oppression is never going to be the same as that of another woman, I think we can agree. Everyone’s life experiences are unique, and there is no clear, unifying ‘female experience’. The closest thing one could reasonably claim to be shared by all women is the possession of a female gender identity – which trans women have. Many trans women indeed have declared that they have felt their gender identities in this way for their entire lives, though I think it’s important to note that one’s gender identity isn’t made ‘less legitimate’ through being questioned by oneself at any particular time (would a cis woman be any less of a woman if she has questioned her gender identity at any point in her life?). Women of colour, disabled women, and other groups besides will experience ‘being women’ in different yet entirely valid ways to the white, upper-middle class, cis, educated narratives that dominated much of the discourse of second wave feminism from whence such a philosophy originates.

Also, many trans women do have much direct experience of sexism and patriarchy, through being read as cis women by those around them. Based on the arguments above, this should not be read to imply that a more normative, ‘feminine’ appearance is to be viewed as a more legitimate form of woman. Trans women often face horrendous barriers to being taken seriously as women, which involves interplay between patriarchy and cissexism. This cannot be meaningfully separated out, and thus there is serious room for the argument that all trans women have an acute embodied experience of the patriarchy.

2. ‘Trans women have experience of male privilege.’

So do trans men, and yet they are welcome at the MWMF. Oh yes. These are individuals who identify as men, present as men, are men, and are afforded male privilege, yet still have access to the festival. This not only makes the claim of the festival being for ‘womyn-born womyn’ downright false (at best, it’s for ‘womyn-designated anyone’) but also firmly undermines the arguments put forward in points 4 and 5.

Experience of a particular type of privilege isn’t someone’s fault, it is simply something to be born in mind. A white womyn should bear in mind her race privilege. Able-bodied/minded womyn should be aware of their privilege compared to disabled womyn. If a person was not always (seen as) disabled, does that make them ‘less disabled’? No. This is an imperfect comparison, and is purely illustrative – certainly one cannot simplistically claim that how a person has been viewed by others strips them of the legitimacy of their identity. This is to erase their identity, using one’s own privilege to do so. Does the genital configuration of one womyn give her the right to claim womyn who are different to her are not womyn? No. And indeed, doing so is the very definition of ‘cis privilege’ – where sex designated at birth is presumed more legitimate than that which is identified, and lived.

3. ‘Oppressed people have the right to make their own safe spaces in the way they wish, without explanation.’

Well, that depends on where you are and what you’re doing. For example the extreme-right wing, racist, sexist, and homophobic UK political party the BNP was forced to change its constitution to accept people of colour. This was an obvious example of a group discriminating (illegally) against racial minorities. Whilst MWMF may not have breached Michigan or US law, this is still an example of a privileged majority (cis women) excluding a marginalized minority. The fact that cis women experience marginalization and discrimination doesn’t justify their performance of oppression in the name of safe space creation. The argument rests on viewing trans women as not being ‘real’ women. The very existence of the identity category ‘womyn-born-womyn’ makes the political statement that there are womyn who weren’t ‘born womyn’, and that they are therefore ‘other’. This ‘othering’ sets up a false dichotomy, that there are two distinct categories, those ‘born womyn’ and those not, and that your validity as a womyn is decided based on which category you fall into. I have written about the flaws with attempts to define identity based on biology here.

Lisa Vogel, the founder of MWMF has said this about the festival:

Supporting womyn-born womyn space is no more inherently transphobic than supporting womyn of color space is racist.

Except this draws a false parallel… unless you refuse to accept trans women as being women at all. It’s more like supporting a women of colour space that decides that women of colour with one white parent don’t count, because their appearance and experience may be different. Attempting to say ‘oh you are a woman, but you don’t fulfill this sub-definition we’ve created for inclusion in our space’ fundamentally discriminates against a minority, rather than providing a safe space from a majority, or oppressive influence.

4. ‘Many womyn-born-womyn have been the victims of sexual assault and rape at the hands of men. These women may feel threatened by the presence of trans women.’

This argument could implicitly rest one any of several potential meanings. One interpretation may be ‘these women may feel threatened by trans women who possess penises and are capable of penetrative rape, or cause triggering  simply through the presence of the organ’. At MWMF, phallic sex toys are visibly for sale, and there are workshops pertaining to much sexual activity, ranging from masturbation to fisting. As has already been mentioned, trans men are allow allowed to be present who not only may possess a penis but may also present entirely unambiguously as male. What this therefore says is that trans men are not a sexual threat in terms of their ‘maleness’, but that trans women are. This erases the legitimacy of both group’s gender identities – trans men are ‘other’ from cis men by this understanding.

This claim could imply that a cis woman’s discomfort is more valid than a trans woman’s right to be recognised. This would sound utterly unacceptable if presented in terms of race – ‘a white woman who has received abuse at the hands of a black woman may feel threatened by the presence of black women’ is not a reasonable argument for the exclusion of black women, and that’s without the fact that one is implying that trans woman = man = rape.

Is the implication that one can ‘spot’ a trans woman through their appearance, which could be ‘male and threatening’? I’ll let the images below cover this one.

            

Jenna Talakova, and Buck Angel. Guess which one would be allowed entry to Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival? Hint: it’s not the woman. How the festival actually establishes the men they allow entrance are trans, I have no idea. Also to my knowledge, neither Jenna nor Buck have ever had any association with MWMF, and this point is purely illustrative.

Note: I’d like to reiterate that appearance is not a good justification for legitimizing or erasing a person’s gender identity. The images of the people above who experience and exhibit being female and being male in visually normative ways simply help to highlight the absurdity of the classification system used by the organizers of the festival.

The account of Alice Kalafarski tells of a trans woman’s experience at MWMF, highlighting how upsetting and offensive WBW arguments really are – and can be read here.

5. ‘Allowing trans women to enter would allow men to put on dresses and claim a female gender identity and enter the space.’

Men already enter the space. This is apparently okay though, simply because they were designated female at birth. Accommodation is also (rightly) made for male children, so long as they’re 10 years old or younger. Crucially though, this argument rests upon a ‘slippery slope’ based logic (or lack thereof). This is the assertion that:

If we allow A to happen, then B will happen too! Therefore, A should not happen.

This does not address the issue at hand, but derails the voice for trans women to be recognized as much as cis women by shifting attention to a hypothetical claim with no basis for concern.

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As Alice Kalafarski’s account details, MWMF does seem to form strong, laudable policies regarding acceptance and awareness of race and ability. That there are apparently plenty of people who attend the festival and make a point of sporting ‘Trans Women Belong Here’ T-shirts and buttons doesn’t seem to have changed the situation, and in my eyes only problematises the sincerity of a trans ally who will declare a disgust with policy and yet still willingly engage with it. I will leave you with a powerful quote from the ever-eloquent Julia Serano:

My female identity is regularly reduced to a “debate” by non-trans queer women who would rather spend a week with their friends in Michigan than examining their own cissexual privilege. What’s even more disappointing to me is that there are a lot of FTM spectrum people out there who do the very same thing. They hypocritically expect their friends, families and co-workers to respect their male- or genderqueer-identities for 51 weeks out of the year, then for that one week at MWMF they take advantage of cissexual privilege (which presumes that one’s “birth sex” is more legitimate than one’s identified and lived sex) in order to enter women-only space. Their insistence on “having it both ways” marginalizes me as a trans woman: it delgitimizes my female identity in both the lesbian and the transgender communities of which I am a part.

Category:

Feminism, Music, The gender binary, Transgender, Women

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GenderBen on the radio again!

No proper post for you today my lovelies, sorry about that. I was planning on it, but then fate threw me onto the lovely Cam FM local radio station with 7 hours notice today. I was invited to sit as a guest speaker on a talk show discussing mental health. Whilst I’ve not written about it specifically (yet, at least), mental health is a personal interest, is incredibly important, often overlooked, and certainly connects strongly to many issues of sexuality and gender.

If you’d like to listen to me talking along with another guest (a professional councillor from the University Counselling Service here in Cambridge) about student mental health issues, the link should appear on 2nd March, and remain up for about 6 weeks, which I make the 12th April.

The link to the page where the show can be found is here.

On the right hand side of the page, look for the ‘listen again‘ box. this show will be the 01/03/2012 link. (you can also still hear me speak about gender issues from the 08/02/2012 show).

Enjoy!

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Music, Popular Culture

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Classical music and gender – instruments, orchestras, and stereotypes

There are fricking loads of stereotypes everywhere you look in society related to gender and sexuality. The most basic things like the choice of colour of an object can cause people to make all sorts of judgements on things such as ‘how you act’, or who you like to take to bed.

It fascinates me how some straight males behave as if they’re all magnets of the same polarity. Also that more than 6 square inches of physical contact with another man will irreversibly lead to sodomy. Just call it queersteria.

Arguably, one of the stranger realms into which these stereotypes penetrate is that of music. I want to focus today on looking at two sides to this – sexism encountered in professional classical music, and gendered associations with instrument choices.

When I talked to a few musicians (professionals and students) about this, on at least three separate occasions I was asked “you’ve looked at the Vienna Philharmonic then?”. Seeing as I was just vaguely musing on that it was an interesting thing to consider at that point I had not, but I now have. With a reputation as one of the finest orchestras in the world, they had a policy of women not being members until 1997. Today, they have progressed to have a depressing 6 women…out of 138 members.

It amuses me that the Google search ‘sexist orchestra’ gives the Vienna Philharmonic Wikipedia page as the first hit.

It’s a Vienna sausagefest.

The reluctance that this orchestra, and many others have exhibited in their hiring of women players  has been pathetically defended in terms of fluffy claims about the ‘soul’ of the music, and importance of a ‘unified, masculine aesthetic’. In 1996, a radio interview was held in Germany that included 3 members of the Vienna Philharmonic along with a Viennese sociolgist, who were defending “the priority of musical results over all other concerns” (The full article on this, and other issues discussed in this post, may be found here). Some of the gems they stated included:

“So if one thinks that the world should function by quota regulations, then it is naturally irritating that we are a group of white skinned male musicians, that perform exclusively the music of white skinned male composers.  It is a racist and sexist irritation.  I believe one must put it that way.  If one establishes superficial egalitarianism, one will lose something very significant.  Therefore, I am convinced that it is worthwhile to accept this racist and sexist irritation, because something produced by a superficial understanding of human rights would not have the same standards.”

“Pregnancy brings problems.  It brings disorder.  Another important argument against women is that they can bring the solidarity of the men in question.  You find that in all men´s groups … And the women can also contribute to creating competition among the men.  They distract men.  Not the older women.  No one gives a damn about the older ones.  It is the younger ones.  The older women are already clever, they run to you!  But the 20 or 25 year olds…  They would be the problem. These are the considerations.  In a monastery it is the same.  The alter is a holy area, and the other gender may not enter it, because it would cause disorder.  Such are the opinions.”

Men are musicians because they don’t get emotionally worked up about silly little things, like women being musi- oh wait.

So they argue that women shouldn’t be allowed because either men get too distracted by their wicked feminine wiles, or basically that women don’t play with the same emotional control as men do.

I would say this was bullshit, except that they do a pretty good of this themselves through their actions. Let’s see how.

  • The Vienna Philharmonic, like many orchestras, has a female harpist. She wasn’t recognised as a ‘member’, but played with them for 20 years. It was okay though, because she sits *near the edge*.
  • More and more, and since as early as the 1940s and 1950s, various orchestras have been using ‘blind auditions’ in order to remove racism and sexism from the auditioning process. The lead to a 50% increase in female audition success rate. This rather blows the claim that women ‘naturally’ produce an inferior sound out of the water.
The painstakingly slow entry of female musicians into these old-school bastions of white male tradition have predictably not been easy. When the Berlin Philharmonic allowed entrance to its first woman (Sebine Meyer, a clarinetist), she was rejected after her probation period, with a vote of 73-4. This was apparently due to her ‘musical tone’ not being a woman. Funny how at rehearsals she was made to feel as welcome as  flatulence in a lift, as other members would literally move their chairs away from her, as if she’d give them music-cooties.
I can be quite a simple creature. I was amused that these three options fit with what happens in an orchestra.
To give a bit of comparison with UK orchestras, this neat little piece from 2003 gives an illustration:
A random sample of five British symphony orchestras suggests that gender ratios vary wildly: the Hallé and the BBC Symphony may not do badly (the Hallé has 45 men and 38 women; the BBCSO 55 men, 37 women), but orchestras such as the London Philharmonic and Bournemouth Symphony trail, splitting at 52-23 and 45-26 respectively. And the London Symphony Orchestra, widely regarded as being the country’s most successful, has 77 male members to 22 female.
In relation to gender division between instrument choices, she adds:

And, if you sweep your eye over any orchestra on stage, you will notice a particular phenomenon: women players are concentrated among the string sections, with fewer appearances in the woodwind. They are almost absent from the brass sections, traditionally orchestras’ laddy, hard-drinking outposts. Meanwhile, you will rarely see a male harpist.

To be fair, this reflects a cultural fact that parents are more likely to give their daughters a nice, “girly” instrument such as a violin or a flute than the galumphing, “unfeminine” trombone or tuba. And to suggest that your boy plays a harp might seem akin to some parents to encouraging an encyclopaedic knowledge of show tunes and a taste for interior decoration.

And yet despite this social stereotyping (which I found echoed when snooping on a classical music forum), virtually all professional/soloist/famous flautists are men. It seems like whilst on the one hand a lack of women playing particular kinds of instruments such as those in the brass section will be due to the social encouragement that high-pitched, soft, delicate sounds are more appropriate/desirable/’feminine’, on the other hand there’s still a worrying smattering of old-school sexists smattered around this particular industry.

In that much of the musical professional world is connected through who has played with who, who has been taught by who, who went to what conservatoires and met who, etc. This network-oriented system reinforces similarity. It was politicians that caused the much needed change in the Vienna Philharmonic’s policy rather than musicians.

Category:

Feminism, Men, Music, Popular Culture, Socialisation, Women

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Shameless little mini-plug, but it involves a lot of my voice, so.

Last night by a string of happy coincidences, I was invited to be part of a panel answering questions on issues of welfare and gender in Cambridge! It was super enjoyable, so thanks to the lovely people who got me involved.

For those who also may know her, the other guest speaker on the show was the wonderful Ruth Graham, feminist extraordinaire and currently Women’s Officer for Cambridge University Student Union.

The show can be heard by clicking here.

The link should be active for the next six weeks or so, I guess until 22/03/2012.

Scroll down a little bit, and look on the right for the box labelled ‘Listen again’. Click the link that reads ’20:00 08/02/2012′ and there you go!

The show also features a really brilliant interview with Sarah Brown, Cambridge City Councillor and the only openly Trans politician in the country. Another small interview with Sarah can be read in Diva magazine from last year, here.

Category:

Feminism, LGBT, Music, Popular Culture, Sexuality, The gender binary, Transgender, Women

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Drag, sexualisation, and the question of ‘age appropriateness’…

Hello everyone! Sorry for the enormous hiatus. First Christmas, then New Years, then zipping about doing real-life things – time is a stern mistress. I pledge to catch up. So the next week or two should, if I’m a well-behaved little blog elf, see an inordinate amount of gender commentary. Strap yourself in, and enjoy the literary ride.

So, coming up with content on the fly is actually fairly hard. I’ve had some really great suggestions for topics to cover, which I wish to save because I’ll need to do a serious amount of research to do them justice. So if you’ve contacted me in that regard, watch this space.

I was recently chatting away to a friend of mine, when, suspecting quite rightly I’d find it both intriguing and fabulous, sent me the link to this video.

My reaction was one of delight and amusement at seeing the boy in the video busting sassy moves in a burlesque-style drag outfit. I’m always pleased to see people challenging normative gender behavior. It takes bravery, and I think for kids to both want to and be allowed to express themselves unconventionally is a positive thing. The boy also has a public Facebook page, where quite a few more videos of his dancing feature, along with photographs showing him at competition, and also having featured on TV.

These are videos that I’m sure make quite a few people uncomfortable, due to him being quite young and the dancing, lyrics and outfits being sexualised. It obviously relates back to the big question ‘is sexually explicit material damaging to children of a certain age?’ which I think is a problematic question already because it assumes that all children of a given age will respond to things in the same, or similar ways.

So, I decided to do some searching through academic literature. Even when searching with terms like “the impact of sexualized material”, the vast majority of results concern the impact of sexual abuse, sexual harassment, or the impact of pornography – none of which really hit the nail on the head*. So rather than get into a post where I take up issues with academic communities, trends and methodology problems, I thought I’d keep to my musings on the actual topic.

Based on the fact that dancing in this style at this skill level for his age is a very uncommon pursuit, I think it’s reasonable to assume that he has been developing a passion – particularly given the page that shows many routines learnt, and some competitions entered that look pretty big. This also strongly implies support from his parents – though if any Mandarin speakers care to shed any light on the page contents, that would be cool. I came to the conclusion that a free translator wasn’t going to help me once the text ‘Free friend I want you to help refuel’ resulted, which I don’t think is a particularly accurate reflection of ANYTHING. Anyway, I should think that what this boy has taken from the music he likes does not have sinister undertones of manipulation or abuse by adults. Rather it reflects showmanship, and probably an enjoyment of striking costumes and catchy sounds rather than being something that is considered sexual, despite the music being produced with this in mind.

Even if the kid is quite aware of the sexual nature of what he does (and it would be rather patronizing to assume full out that he doesn’t) why is this automatically a bad thing? There is no rational reason or obvious evidence suggesting that any harm is caused by this behaviour. The risque nature of the art form he performs rather subverts the form itself and adds a dimension of originality, rather than instantly sexualising him to his audience.

Fabulous? Absolutely. Sexual? …not really. Both culturally and politically, it means something when boys and men put on ladies clothing to entertain.

More generally, there is quite a big stigma around recognising that many children engage in non-abusive sexual play and behaviour at all, from what may be surprisingly young ages. This isn’t something that should be punished or viewed with shame, but used as an opportunity for communication and education. Also obviously, plenty of exposure and involvement with sex for children can be abusive and traumatic, which is to be abhorred. I do not believe that this kid’s hobby acts as some kind of paedophilic catnip.

There was a time when I would choreograph routines to my Spice Girls cassette (how retro, right), and I certainly donned lady’s attire at least once when I was little. This was never sexual for me, though of course there would be people who would damn the permittance of such behaviour as irresponsible. To them I say: Sod off with your gender policing.

What was I thinking…I clearly needed role models with slightly more fabulous dress sense.

*For anyone interested, here is an interesting looking paper on adolescent exposure to sexualised media, and whether this impacts on their notions of women as sex objects. Bear in mind  Also here is a paper that you may only be able to access through a University subscription, but with the title ‘Sexed Up: Theorizing the Sexualization of Culture’, how can you resist?

Category:

Children, Music, Popular Culture, Sexuality, Socialisation

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