Capitalism and Gender Continued
Gender Binary Oppression
How do we get away from thinking in gendered binary terms? We tend to be categorical thinkers by default. We organize things into groups to make life simpler. It’s something we all do in all aspects of our lives, and many times, we’re not aware we’re doing it. It doesn’t make us bad people, we just need to take care to not do it at the expense of someone else (This is where we can run into trouble, because sometimes what will hurt someone else is not always clear to us).
One of the ways categorizing (stereotyping) people can be harmful is with essentialism. Essentialism is “the belief that, for any specific entity (such as an animal, a group of people, a physical object, a concept), there is a set of attributes which are necessary to its identity and function”.
Essentialisms have had negative effects on society. Essentialist thinking, especially in the 1600 and 1700’s is what European white men used to justify superiority over everyone who wasn’t like them. Including superiority over white women, and people of a different color, who are not white.
Something to keep in mind is that sex and gender are not the same thing. Sex is (usually) determined by physiological characteristics (chromosomes and reproductive system(s)), and gender is how a person identifies with their sex (masculine and/or feminine). Cis-gender is when a person’s sex matches their gender. Transgender is when a person’s sex does not match their gender.
The Gender Binary Spectrum:
Male?<— — x— — —>Female ?
When we talk about the gender binary spectrum, we’re referring a person’s gender (identity or expression) as male or female, or somewhere in between (or possibly androgynous), or someone who identifies as being “gender fluid”).
However, there are people whose gender does not fall/who do not identify within the spectrum. (Some people identify with a third gender, and there are some who don’t identify with any gender at all)
Gender binary oppression is when we marginalize or discriminate against anyone who doesn’t fit in within the gender binary (and can’t be described as either male & masculine or female & feminine).
Capitalist companies, use categories to target their products toward a specific demographic. When a product/product line becomes popular, a social categorical cycle begins to happen:
1) The company that is selling the product has confirmation that they were marketing to the correct “category” (demographic) to make a profit.
2) If the product is extremely successful, it becomes a symbol of social status / a trend.
Demographics make marketing easier for companies, because it gives them a “category”, or “box” to fit their customers into. However, not everyone fits a demographic, even when a product becomes part of a trend.
The consumers who don’t fit the demographic, or don’t quite fit the demographic will end up doing one of these things:
a) Not get the product, and miss out on the “social status” that is associated with having it (There are several reasons for this: size/fit, color, price, quality of the product, etc.)
b) Get the product (and thus, feel some sort of sense of satisfaction because you meet the criteria of the social status), and live with the dis-satisfaction of the actual product (It isn’t quite right for the consumer, but they get it anyway)
c) Find a substitute that fits their need of a want better (while still missing out on the “social status” in some way) (ie: a generic or off-brand version of the product, because the original is too expensive)
Usually when someone finds them self in one of the above “non” or “peripheral” groups, they usually end up staying there until they either change how they feel about a trendy product, and its associated status, or the company recognizes they missed a “niche”, and comes out with a product to meet that want (with the hopes of it being at least as successful as the original).
Capitalist corporations exploit gender binary in all types of products: clothing, toiletries, toys, etc. By dividing the market by gender, they are more likely to increase their sales, especially, if they’re targeting a heterosexual couple, or siblings who happen to be male and female.
Can you imagine, how, for someone who is transgendered (or non-gendered, or androgynous, or just not as masculine or feminine as the friends they hang out with), how they would be marginalized to an “other” group?
Star Trek: The Next Generation — “The Outcast”
Scene from “The Outcast”, in which a female defends her gender on a planet of androgynous people (who oppress those with gender).
