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The Uses and Abuses of Gender

Joan W. Scott

Over the past few years I had begun to lose


interest in gender. For one thing, it seemed
to be a settled question, a word that had be-
come part of a common vocabulary. The hot
debates about whether renaming women’s Joan W. Scott.  Source: Joan W. Scott

studies programs gender studies was a real-


ization or a violation of feminist principles
seemed resolved (if not in the same way in all Then last spring my interest was piqued by
places), intense discussions of the untrans- an outbreak of controversy in France – the
latability of the term had given way to its fre- country whose history I study – in which
quent use either in English or as a neologism gender was the focus of attention. A manu-
in various languages of the world, and its ac- al of instruction preparing students for the
ceptance by national and international agen- baccalaureate exams in the biological sci-
cies as the rubric under which are gathered ences which was approved by the minister
statistics on the situation of women usually of education, included a unit on human bi-
in comparison to that of men was a sign both ology called ‘Devenir Homme ou Femme’
of its transformational impact and of its sus- (becoming a man or a woman) that Catholic
ceptibility to recuperation. I had also begun politicians, parents, and educators found ob-
to conclude that as a settled term it could jectionable. The first page of the unit, under
no longer do the work of radically destabi- the heading ‘une grande diversité d’hommes
lizing presumptions about the relationship et de femmes’, had three photos of couples:
between biological sex and culturally con- two men, one leaning lovingly on the other;
structed roles for women and men, work it a man and a woman hugging; and two wom-
had done in the 1970’s when American and en holding hands (Dupuis, 2011, p. 174). The
English feminists appropriated the term caption said that it seemed easy, when one
from sexologists and psychiatrists such as walked down the street, to know which sex
John Money and Robert Stoller (Money and was which, but really, what did it mean to be
Ehrhart, 1972; Stoller, 1968). When the Amer- a woman or a man? This provocative ques-
ican Historical Review proposed a forum on tion was answered by reams of information
the twentieth anniversary of the publication about hormones; diagrams of reproduc-
of my 1986 essay, ‘Gender: A Useful Category tive organs; sonograms of fetuses; electron
of Historical Analysis’, I was both flattered microscopic photographs of genes, chro-
and bored – flattered because it turns out mosomes, zygotes, spermatazoa, and ova;
that the essay is still useful for historians and graphs of menstrual cycles; drawings of the
bored because I felt I had exhausted all I had human brain with the zones of pleasure and
to say on the topic.1 control marked in different colors; a discus-

2013, nr. 1  ●  Tijdschrift voor Genderstudies 63


Joan W. Scott

sion of the differences between animal and by more than a hundred deputies and sena-
human sexual activity – with a reminder that tors demanding retraction of the manual, an
humans can responsibly control procreation on-line campaign with thousands of signa-
using various contraceptive methods as well tures addressed to the minister of education
as abortion and new reproductive technolo- from parents demanding respect for their re-
gies; a discussion of whether or not there is ligious liberty of conscience and condemn-
a gene for homosexuality (the scientific evi- ing a teaching that would surely corrupt their
dence, readers are told, has not proven this adolescent children by suggesting they had a
to be the case). If sexual identity was estab- choice about their sexuality.4 The textbook
lished physiologically, by the operation of was deemed a product of the ‘gay lobby’ and
chromosomes and hormones, the text said, reviled as an import from the United States,
sexual orientation was another matter en- specifically influenced by Judith Butler, who
tirely. This was a function of intimate choices was dubbed ‘la papesse de la théorie du genre’
that might be heterosexual, homosexual, or in one newspaper article.5 Although the title
bisexual, and they had to do with the private, of the manual’s chapter echoed Simone de
not the public sphere. Left unsaid were such Beauvoir (‘one is not born, one becomes a
questions as: were women and men anymore woman’), the phrase was decried as a foreign
or less women and men in private than in invasion, another sign that American imperi-
public? What might this distinction between alism had penetrated deeply into French life
private choice and public appearance say (De Bauvoir, 1949).
about our ability to specify the meanings of Throughout the summer and into the fall,
‘women’ and ‘men’? the dispute about gender filled the columns
The word gender (genre in French) was of newspapers and on-line blogs. There was
used only once in the thirty pages of text. It even a protest organized against the award-
was presented as a technical term employed ing of an honorary degree by the University
by sociologists to denote the social recogni- of Bordeaux 3 to Butler in September. She
tion of individuals, mainly the ascription of was described by her critics as ‘the creator
sexed identity by others, but also the descrip- of the theory of gender, according to which
tion offered by individuals of themselves. people are no longer defined as men and
Nonetheless it was gender that the people women, but as practitioners of certain forms
who organized a massive campaign against of sexuality: homosexual, heterosexual, bi-
the manual made the focus of their objection. sexual, transsexual! For her, gender is a so-
The former senator and mouthpiece for the cial and cultural construction in the service
Vatican, Christine Boutin, drawing almost of the domination of women by men.’ (Info
word-for-word on the Pope’s 2008 Christ- Bordeaux, 20110) How could the university
mas message, penned an open letter to the honor such a person, the Catholic group pro-
Minister of National Education, denounc- testing the event asked, whose theories ‘by
ing ‘a pedagogy directly and explicitly in- denying sexual difference, overturn the orga-
spired by the theory of gender.’2 This theory nization of our society and call into question
she deemed an ‘ideology’ (thereby conjuring its very foundations?’6
a kind of Marxist bogey-man) that didn’t be- One group of demonstrators used the oc-
long in a science curriculum because it ‘de- casion to enact the transgression they were
nies the reality of the difference of women protesting. They cross-dressed, holding signs
from men.’3 There followed a petition signed warning against the castration that would

64 Tijdschrift voor Genderstudies  ●  2013, nr. 1


The Uses and Abuses of Gender

follow from the indifferentiation that But- they also have different rhetorical effects. Al-
ler was supposedly preaching. The campi- though my first reaction to the French con-
ness of the scene they staged suggested that troversy about gender last summer was to
the American philosopher had given some dismiss the confusion of the Catholic crit-
French Catholic boys permission to have a ics, I found myself drawn to thinking about
really good time (Lucet, 2011). the multiple and conflicting meanings that
There is a lot more to tell about the French gender has acquired in the course of its rela-
explosion of gender talk in the spring, sum- tively recent adaptation from a grammatical
mer, and fall of 2011, but I don’t want to go reference to a term denoting the social rela-
into that now. Suffice it to say that the Min- tions of the sexes. Rather than (as I had mis-
ister of National Education, Luc Chatel, held takenly thought) becoming clearer over time,
his ground. His reply to Boutin insisted on gender has become more elusive; the site of
the scientific seriousness of the curriculum: contestation, a disputed concept in the arena
‘The “theory of gender” does not appear in of politics. There are, of course, still feminist
the text…..The program is centered on bio- uses of the word, but it is now a term of refer-
logical phenomena, studying the genetic de- ence across the political spectrum, with ef-
termination of sex and the development from fects sometimes very different from the ones
embryo to adolescent. Complementing these feminists originally intended.
biological aspects, the program brings in a The elusiveness of a settled meaning for
sociological dimension on sexual differentia- gender is nicely illustrated by the ‘Statement
tion that distinguishes sexual identity from on the Commonly Understood Meaning of
sexual orientation.’ (Chatel, 2011) The man- the Term “Gender “’, drafted by a special con-
ual was not withdrawn and, presumably, its tact group within the United Nations Com-
teachings will be required for students who mission on the Status of Women in prepara-
take the baccalaureate exams in 2012. In one tion for the Beijing Conference in 1995. The
way the whole affair was a tempest in a tea- group was set up to resolve heated conflicts
pot, a brief outburst by organized Catholics between feminists and right-wing, primarily
who have only a minority voice in this mili- religious organizations about the appearance
tantly secular nation. In another way, though, of the term on the program and in the final
the affair suggests that despite widespread report of the conference. While the spokes-
dissemination of the term, the meanings of men for the Right insisted on a strictly bio-
gender are far from settled. Indeed, the pro- logical definition of the roles of women and
testers’ objections lumped into the one word men, feminists argued for the socially con-
very different matters of social power (male structed origins of those roles. The resolution
domination), sexual orientation (heterosexu- of the dispute, which appeared as an appen-
ality, homosexuality, bisexuality, transsexu- dix to the Program of Action of the Beijing
ality), and the undeniability of anatomical Conference, effectively offered no definition
difference. For all the care the French minis- at all:
ter of education took in clarifying those defi- Having considered the issue thoroughly,
nitions, the language escaped his best efforts the contact group noted that
at containment. 1 the word ‘gender’ had been commonly
This should not be surprising since words used and understood in its ordinary, gen-
have histories and multiple uses. They are erally accepted usage in numerous other
not only crafted to express certain concepts, United Nations forums and conferences;

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Joan W. Scott

2 there was no indication that any new stabilities as they are manifest in the lives of
meaning or connotation of the term, dif- those we study.
ferent from accepted prior usage, was in-
tended in the Platform for Action… Ac- Gender and Women
cordingly, the contact group reaffirmed
that the word ‘gender’ as used in the Plat- Women were the explicit concern of the fem-
form for Action was intended to be inter- inists who began referring to gender in the
preted and understood as it was in ordi- 1970’s. Gender refused the idea that woman’s
nary, generally accepted usage. (UN CSW, anatomy was her destiny, insisting instead
1995) that the roles allocated to women were so-
cial conventions, not biological dictates.
That nothing certain can be named here but Since genital physiology was rarely invoked
‘ordinary, generally accepted usage’ suggests to explain why men did what they did, the
that the meaning of gender depends on who sex/gender, nature/culture distinction was
uses the word, in what context and for what a critical wedge in the effort to counter dis-
ends (Weed, 2011). In the rest of this essay, I crimination against women, their exclusion
will argue that there is no ‘ordinary, gener- from the worlds of men.7 In its early feminist
ally accepted usage’ for gender; instead it is articulations, the notion of gender as a social
a site for intense debate. What exactly does construction aimed at analyzing the relation
gender refer to: is it a matter of women, or of women to men in terms of inequality and
inequality, or sexual difference or some power. The idea was that gender applied to
combination of these? How have its uses in everyone, that it was a system of social or-
all sorts of social and political struggles in- ganization, that no one was outside it. Gen-
flected its meanings? There seems to be no der was about women and men, about how
single ground upon which gender can com- the traits attributed to each sex justified the
fortably or finally rest. Indeed there are those different treatments each received, how they
who refuse the term entirely, insisting as the naturalized what were in fact social, eco-
French Catholics did, that the term itself cor- nomic, and political inequalities, how they
rupts our view of God’s creation. And this is condensed varieties of femininity and mas-
precisely why these debates are political. The culinity into a binary system, hierarchically
political contests that follow from the con- arranged.
flict over gender lead to a proliferation of its Yet the focus of much of the academic and
meanings, and, in this way, (in Barbara John- policy work, to say nothing of media cover-
son’s words) ‘exceed the boundaries of stable age, done under the sign of gender has been
control or coherence. It becomes something almost exclusively women. This is in part a
to be endlessly struggled over.’ (Johnson, result of a tension within the feminist move-
1949, pp. 48-49) It is that political struggle ment – a movement that sought to mobilize
that I think ought to command our atten- women by providing them with a common
tion, because gender is the perceptual lens history, experience, and interest and by of-
through which we are taught the meanings fering exemplary role models to inspire ac-
of male/female, masculine/feminine. A “gen- tivism. From this perspective, it was enough
der analysis” constitutes our critical engage- to assume that ‘men’ or ‘patriarchy’ were the
ment with those disputed meanings and our source of women’s mistreatment; close anal-
attempt to reveal their contradictions and in- ysis of how power systems operated were

66 Tijdschrift voor Genderstudies  ●  2013, nr. 1


The Uses and Abuses of Gender

beside the point. The tension, then, was be- gender” in their everyday lives.’ The goal was
tween the pressing need for political mobili- to develop ‘policy interventions that advance
zation, on the one hand, and the more delib- gender equality and women’s empowerment’
erative action of critique, on the other hand. – women’s empowerment is not defined and
For some feminists, gender was a distraction seems to presume a universal understanding
from the real business of righting wrongs that is actually based on neo-liberal models
against women (‘an imperialist scheme for of individual self-determination.9 There well
co-opting the world’s women’ in the words might be objections that cultural differences
of some activists from the global South).8 are neglected in this kind of technical sur-
For others it was simply a synonym for that vey. But the attention to culture and tradition
business, and this was true both of activists isn’t always a corrective to the universalizing
and scholars. Among historians, for example, of the category of women. The terms simply
gender in the title of books and articles indi- refer to how women, understood as biologi-
cated that the social situation of women was cal females, are treated differently – the very
under consideration, that their action (or in- meaning of women isn’t thought to change at
action) was taken to be the result of chang- all.
ing (and changeable) conditions, that no in- The tension between what I’ve referred
herent female physical or mental incapacity to as mobilization and critique is evident in
shaped the way they lived their lives. In these this work. In the language much debated in
studies, women’s relation to men was usually 1990’s academic writing, gender was syno-
presumed rather than explored as variable, nymous with anti-essentialism, that is with
as depending for its meaning on specific con- the idea that women’s anatomy was not their
texts and conditions. Women across the ages destiny. This most often meant – following
were implicitly understood to be defined by the thinking of social scientists – that the
their shared biology. roles assigned to women (even as mothers)
Similarly, in the language of internation- differed according to time and place and had
al organizations such as the United Nations little direct relation to their biology. At the
and many NGO’s, ‘gender awareness’ means same time, however, the category women it-
paying attention to what women do, what re- self presumed a shared identity across cultu-
sources they command, what roles they play res, what Linda Nicholson once referred to
in families, localities, and states in order to as ‘biological foundationalism’, by which she
provide women with material resources to meant that biology remained the ground on
improve their conditions. Gender is a prac- which any definition of women rested (Ni-
tical tool for reform, but it has conceptual cholson, 1994, p. 82). This ‘biological foun-
consequences. When left at a purely descrip- dationalism’ is evident in feminist claims
tive level, the data collected produces a socio- for the commonality of women across the
logical category – ‘women’ – with discernible ages: for example, the French revolutionary,
qualities into which are grouped biological Olympe de Gouges, speaking in 1791 in the
females according to age and marital status. name of ‘the sex superior in beauty as it is in
Here, gender becomes facts about women courage during childbirth.’ (De Gouges, 1791)
(as different from men). Thus a recent World Similarly, the leaders of the women’s anti-
Bank World Development Report was based war effort in 1914 appealed ‘to all women of
on qualitative assessments in 19 countries all nations, who suffer childbirth with the
to ‘hear first-hand how men and women “do same pain and who, when their sons die in

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Joan W. Scott

war, shed the same tears;’ (see: Bard, 1995, p. also inconstant, and can’t provide an onto-
45) and Robin Morgan asked, in the introduc- logical foundation.’ (p. 17) This means that at
tion to Sisterhood is Global in 1996, ‘do we some periods in history women are defined
not, after all, easily recognize one another?’ primarily as reproductive agents, at others as
Despite all sorts of differences among wo- the educators of the nation’s children, at still
men, there was, she said, ‘the same basic sto- others as enforcers of morality, and yet again
ry: one of deep suffering but also of a love – as subverters of reason. They are sometimes
for life, children, men, other women, the land equated with nature; at other times identified
of one’s birth, humanity itself – a love fierce with culture. In some periods they have been
enough to cleanse the world.’ (p. 36) Over the understood to have the same souls as men, in
course of many decades, feminist movements others they have been distinguished by their
have formulated a common identity for wo- lack of reason. Often, several contradictory
men (based on ‘biological foundationalism’) definitions coexist, used differently in differ-
even as many of them have sought to de-es- ent contexts sometime by the same people.
sentialize and particularize our appreciation Women began to be referred to as ‘the sex’
of women’s experience according to place sometime in eighteenth century Europe, a
and time. Most recently, in an effort to ban tag which has been difficult to detach to this
trans-sexuals from its ranks, a radical femi- day in some areas of the world. Riley’s ap-
nist group in London declared that its 2012 proach asks for history, not to tell us about
conference was open only to ‘women born the same women moving through different
women, living as women.’ (Kaveney, 20012) times, but to situate when and how different
The resort to biology suggests the difficulty historical contexts have come to understand
of otherwise specifying a settled meaning for the category of women itself. When gender
women. And, while it may acknowledge dif- is posed as a set of questions about what we
ferences of religion, race, ethnicity, and sexu- don’t yet know and when women is under-
ality, as well as class and urban/rural divides, stood as itself a construction (not the roles of
it overrides these differences with the claim women, but ‘women’), then gender becomes
of an inherent sameness, most often linked to a way of interrogating the complex sources
reproduction. It also complicates appeals to that make women a ‘fluctuating collectivity’
equality: if women are essentially different, worthy of scholarly and political attention.
then on what basis can they be considered Arguably, it is the very identity of women
equal to (the same as) men? that is up for grabs in debates about gender.
Yet the term gender itself isn’t respon- It’s not simply a matter of biology versus so-
sible for this dilemma. The term ‘women’ to ciology. Indeed current scholarship tells us
which it refers is, as Denise Riley (1988) put that it is hard to separate the biological from
it, ‘historically, discursively constructed, and the sociological because each is so inextrica-
always relatively to other categories which bly tied to the other. One of the problems of
themselves change; “women” is a volatile col- focusing on social construction is that this
lectivity in which female persons can be very takes the identity of women for granted and
differently positioned, so that the apparent only looks at the roles they are variously as-
continuity of the subject of “women” isn’t to signed. In that way, biology is imagined to be
be relied on; “women” is both synchronically outside of social context (as in Nicholson’s
and diachronically erratic as a collectivity, ‘biological foundationalism’); religious con-
while for the individual, “being a woman” is servatives and liberal feminists end up ar-

68 Tijdschrift voor Genderstudies  ●  2013, nr. 1


The Uses and Abuses of Gender

guing about what a female body should or ciation of the term with critiques of inequal-
should not be allowed to do, but the repro- ity. It was, after all, the inequality between
ductive physiology of the human body as de- women and men – an inequality typically at-
termining the meaning of women remains in tributed to nature – that feminists wanted to
place. challenge with gender.
While we can’t exactly detach our bod- It is true that there is nothing in the origi-
ies from ourselves, we can entertain the idea nal grammatical reference that suggests a
that female body parts aren’t enough to pro- relationship of power, nor for that matter in
vide a sure definition of identity, roles, and the adaptation of the word by sexologists in
sexual orientations. The more radical idea of the 1960’s. Those usages did, however, insist
gender understands it to be about the con- on the arbitrary assignment of masculine,
ception of various definitions of male/female, feminine (and in some languages neuter) to
masculine/feminine, in their complexity and nouns, and (in the case of the sexologists)
their instability. It is about struggles to hold on the purely social origins of the distinc-
embodied meanings in place (to impose and tion between anatomy and sexed identity. It
enforce norms) and struggles to resist or was precisely the arbitrary nature of those
overturn them.10 It is about the interests that linguistic and social distinctions that femi-
motivate these struggles, the stakes and the nists seized on to challenge the asymmetri-
stake holders. Its purview extends beyond cal relations between the sexes. Gender was
women and men, masculine and feminine our instrument for diagnosing and excising
to take in the large structures and processes inequality.
(such as capitalism and nationalism) within These days the rhetorical association be-
and by which social relations are formed and tween gender and inequality is a strong one.
political boundaries patrolled. From this per- Witness the use of the two terms as if they
spective, gender reminds us that there is no were synonymous in reports and policy rec-
unambiguous representation of women, it is ommendations from the United Nations and
always already a matter of politics. major international development agencies.
The purported aim of these recommenda-
Gender and Inequality tions is to end, or at least correct, the gen-
der inequalities that have been discerned in
One of the objections of French Catholics statistics disaggregated by sex. The goals of
last summer to the word gender was that it the programs that follow from these reports
wrongly implied that men unjustly dominate are far-reaching. If they were implemented
women, confusing the natural order of things there would be massive improvements in
in which men and women are not equal, but women’s access to health care, education,
have complementary roles to play, with un- jobs and other economic resources; violence
warranted exercises of force. One of the ob- against women would be punished and polit-
jections of some feminist activists at Beijing ical inclusion encouraged. The endorsement
and elsewhere to the word gender has been of the principle that women’s rights are hu-
that it is so depoliticized by international and man rights has, in her view, defined women
government agencies, as well as some NGO’s, as equivalent persons to men in the realm of
that it no longer carries a critique of male law. The Commission on the Status of Wom-
domination. These diametrically opposed en and the body that monitors the CEDAW
responses to gender contain the same asso- convention (the convention to end all forms

2013, nr. 1  ●  Tijdschrift voor Genderstudies 69


Joan W. Scott

of discrimination against women) work tire- and impacts. So, for example, the focus on
lessly to bring about the realization of these reproductive rights, domestic violence, girls’
goals, but there are a number of obstacles in education, and sex trafficking, while of cru-
their path. cial importance for improving the quality
The first and most obvious is the com- of some women’s lives, nonetheless down-
mitment of governments to protect de facto plays or ignores the economic structures that
male privilege usually in the name of culture. shape these lives, transforming cultures as
If culture and tradition can explain male/fe- well as material conditions. Without changes
male asymmetries, then, they argue, it is not in these structures – the ones that underlie
inequality, but valuable indigenous ways of poverty and inequality by seeking out im-
being that are in play. Here a form of cultural poverished (often rural) women as a source
relativism refuses to address issues of power. of cheap labor, by causing large flows of in-
The second, and more difficult, is to establish ternational migration and massive transfers
what equality between the sexes might mean. of population and wealth – it is difficult to
Are we talking about the formal equality of imagine how long-term reform can be se-
abstract individuals before the law – as in cured (See: Bernstein, 2007; Farris, 2012).
voting rights, or the prohibition of discrimi- From this perspective, gender is a distraction
nation between the sexes in family law codes? from the more immediate and fundamental
Does equality extend to social rights and are causes of inequality among peoples and na-
these the same for women and men? Is the is- tions, as well as between the sexes.
sue equivalence rather than equality and how The rhetoric of a ‘clash of civilizations’
can that be measured? (In some cases, when has further complicated the idea of gender
statistics have revealed ‘men at risk’, gender equality as a universal principle with global
policy has been addressed to them with re- application. In the context of struggles over
sources diverted from women’s causes. (See: the place of Muslims in the nations of the
Baden and Goetz, 1997, p. 6)) What is the West, gender equality has been trumpeted
standard by which equality should be mea- as one of the West’s primordial values. West-
sured to address the particular problem at ern triumphalists have lined up male domi-
hand? Some governments and activists have nation, violence against women, their sexual
objected to what appears to be a Western bias exploitation and repression on the side of Is-
in standards offered as universal: they argue, lam, wiping clean the Western slate on these
for example, that when a liberal notion of in- issues. Listen to the head of the commis-
dividual rights replaces a sense of commu- sion recommending a ban on headscarves
nity divisions of labor, the positive value of in French public schools: ‘France cannot al-
complementary relations between the sexes low Muslims to undermine its core values,
is denied. which include a strict separation of religion
A third obstacle is material: the empha- and state, equality between the sexes and
sis on gender as culturally constructed nar- freedom for all.’ Or, the judges in a Swiss fed-
rows our vision to locally visible inequalities eral court ruling against a teacher who wore
between women and men. We don’t see that a hijab to class: ‘It is difficult to reconcile the
those are often generated or perpetuated by wearing of a headscarf with the principle
the structures of global labor markets, man- of gender equality – which is a fundamen-
ufacturing, and finance capital – and are in- tal value of our society enshrined in a spe-
soluble without attention to their operations cific provision of the Federal constitution.’

70 Tijdschrift voor Genderstudies  ●  2013, nr. 1


The Uses and Abuses of Gender

(McGoldrick, 2006, p. 89, p. 128) It is not as gender’s referent, but has no prior meaning
if these ‘fundamental values’ have been put apart from that (Butler, 1990, p. 7). Perhaps
into practice in France or Switzerland, as a for that reason, it has been almost impossible
glance at gender statistics (on women in po- to keep gender and sex apart in ordinary us-
litical office, domestic violence, wage differ- age.
entials) in those countries indicates. (Picq, The 1992 edition of the American Heritage
2012) But the contrast with the Muslim oth- Dictionary of the English Language offered
er has drawn European traditionalists’ at- this special note on the term:
tention (including some feminist attention) Traditionally, gender has been used primar-
to the status of women in Islam (as if there ily to refer to the grammatical categories of
were one status that applied to all the vari- “masculine”, “feminine,” and “neuter;” but
ants – theological, institutional, and nation- in recent years the word has become well
al) and away from the continuing problem established in its use to refer to sex-based
of inequality for the women of the secular/ categories, as in phrases such as gender
Christian West. In the current civilizational gap and the politics of gender. This usage is
discourse, the recourse to ‘gender inequality’ supported by the practice of many anthro-
has become a way of justifying discrimina- pologists, who reserve sex for reference to
tion – the unequal treatment of Muslim mi- biological categories, while using gender
norities in Western European democracies. to refer to social or cultural categories.
The assumption of inequality that adheres to According to this rule, one would say The
gender is at once affirmed and denied – af- effectiveness of the medication appears to
firmed when it comes to assessing Muslim depend on the sex (not gender) of the pa-
suitability for membership in the nations of tient, but In peasant societies, gender (not
the West; denied as an issue for the West in sex) roles are likely to be more clearly de-
the Manichean contrast with Islam (Scott, fined. This distinction is useful in principle,
2011). but it is by no means widely observed, and
considerable variation in usage occurs at all
Gender as Sexual difference levels. (p. 754)

The careful distinction between gender as a The conclusion is that the meanings of sex
social category – the attribution of meaning and of gender keep sliding into one anoth-
to sexed bodies – and sex – the anatomical er, blurring the boundaries that were estab-
difference between men and women – has lished to keep them apart.
done important work. It has allowed femi- Sometimes gender is simply a euphemism
nists to refuse the idea that ‘anatomy is des- for sex, a polite alternative to a word that has
tiny,’ (meaning that women’s anatomical too many evocative implications. Sometimes
difference from men justified their unequal it is designated an inappropriate terminol-
treatment) and has produced historical and ogy. So, for example, the French Commis-
anthropological scholarship on the varieties sion on Terminology and Neology argued in
of capacities and roles that different women 2005 that ‘the substitution of gender for sex
have enjoyed in different places at different responds to no linguistic need’ and so had
times. It has even called into question the no place in the French lexicon – sex was just
transparent meaning of anatomy itself. Ju- fine for signifying cultural as well as biologi-
dith Butler, for example, suggests that sex is cal difference.11 Sometimes gender prolifer-

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Joan W. Scott

ates almost axiomatically in areas as diverse one’s deep anxiety about the uncontainable
as the academy, the media, and the National nature of gender and of the sexual difference
Assembly. At the same time, some French to which it referred. It could mean every-
feminist scholars have resisted the word, re- thing and nothing; its exact referent had to
ferring instead to ‘the social relations of the be repeatedly specified and even that might
sexes’, or to ‘the power relations of sex.’12 not be enough.
In his rebuttal to his Catholic critics last At Beijing in 1995, even after the phrase
summer, the French minister of education, ‘generally accepted usage’ was accepted, sev-
deemed gender a sociological term that, like eral Latin American delegates apparently
race or religion, could be employed without concerned about the normalization of homo-
much controversy. It was, he said, about so- sexuality felt compelled to say exactly what
cial roles, their economic and political ad- they thought gender meant. ‘Guatemala in-
vantages and disadvantages, and not about terprets the concept of gender solely as fe-
sexual behavior or sexual orientation – that male and male gender in reference to women
was a separate issue, a personal choice, deter- and men.’ Peru’s delegate insisted that ‘sexual
mined by neither biology nor sociology. rights refer solely to heterosexual relation-
In fact, the purely sociological status of ships.’ The Vatican expressed a more general
gender has been impossible to maintain. It anxiety about the breaking apart of society’s
seems to have no fixed meaning and it’s hard very foundations: it took the meaning of gen-
to determine exactly what it refers to. For ex- der to be ‘grounded in biological sexual iden-
ample, during the discussions of the draft- tity, male or female.’ (UN, 1995) During the
ing of the Rome Statute which created the ICC debates one commentator noted that if
International Criminal Court (ICC) in 1998, gender was allowed to refer to anything be-
‘gender’ was singled out for special definition, yond male and female, the Court would be
while terms like ‘political,’ ‘racial,’ ‘national,’ in the position of ‘drastically restructuring
‘ethnic,’ ‘cultural,’ ‘religious,’ ‘wealth,’ ‘birth,’ societies throughout the world.’13 This same
and ‘age,’ were taken to be self-evident and in concern about the radical potential of the
need of no clarification (Oosterveld, 2005). word was expressed by the opponents of the
Long negotiations were required to find ex- French curriculum I referred to earlier. The
actly the right wording – a wording whose ‘theory of gender,’ they argued, ‘by denying
awkwardness reflects the controversies they sexual difference, [would] overturn the orga-
were crafted to resolve. Article 7(3) of the nization of our society and call into question
Rome Statute defines gender this way: its very foundations.’14 (Here sexual differ-
For the purposes of this Statute, it is un- ence was taken to be the fixed and unchange-
derstood that the term ‘gender’ refers to able creation of God) Speaking at the Vati-
the two sexes, male and female, within the can in November 2011, the French priest and
context of society. The term ‘gender’ does psychoanalyst Tony Anatrella warned that
not indicate any meaning different from the the ‘ideology of gender’ would ‘transform
above. the meaning of the relations between women
and men, the meaning of sexuality, and even
The phrase ‘two sexes’ was a concession to the meaning of the family and procreation.’
the Right; ‘within the context of society’ was (See: Case, 2011)
meant to mollify social constructionists. The What is so odd about these frantic efforts
final sentence seems to me to convey every- to limit gender to the two sexes (male and

72 Tijdschrift voor Genderstudies  ●  2013, nr. 1


The Uses and Abuses of Gender

female) is that gender has always referred to is freed in this way, it seemingly has no lim-
precisely that: to sexual difference. Indeed, its. Homosexuals, bisexuals, transsexuals are
queer critics of the term have rejected the the phantasmatic incarnation of the end of
use of gender because, they say, it is anchored man (Edelman, 2004). If the term gender was
in a hetero-normative conception of relation- meant to install a wall of separation between
ships that excludes the recognition of the fact social roles and biological sex, its critics see
that there are sexualities (and relationships instead a proliferation of sexualities; the re-
among them) that exceed all permutations of placement of the simple male/female binary
the male/female binary (See: Abelove, Bara- by three, four, even five sexes (or genders).
le and Halperin, 1993). If ‘queer’ is going to The distinctions we want gender to make
overturn society’s foundations, these critics between bodies, desires, and social roles get
argue, it will not be by wielding the cudgel of collapsed when sexual difference and sexual
gender. The anxiety expressed in these crit- orientation are taken to be synonymous, that
ics’ comments is, I suggest, symptomatic of a is when anatomy and desire are taken to de-
larger anxiety about the difficulty of pinning termine one another and so one’s very iden-
down any sure, certain, and enduring mean- tity. No amount of negotiation seems to re-
ing for sexual difference itself. It is also the solve this trouble.
result of a conflation – one the French sci- From one perspective this ‘gender trouble’
ence manual tried to avoid – between sexual is said to be a function of a world historic
difference (the male/female distinction) and confrontation between the forces of order
sexual orientation (the choice of a sexual and the champions of change, the conserva-
partner). This is true of both those who find tive defenders of patriarchy and the progres-
gender too radical and those who find it not sive proponents of ‘sexual democracy.’ (See:
radical enough. Fassin, 2010) I think the politics are actu-
Those who find gender not radical enough ally more complicated than that simple op-
ought to listen to those who fear its radical position implies. Gender is a site of strug-
potential. For the opponents of gender, the gle about what counts as natural and what
word conjures fantasies of desire run wild, counts as social and these don’t divide simply
sexuality unleashed. If, as they maintain, along Right and Left lines. But there’s also
heterosexuality and social order are inti- something else going on that has to do with
mately linked, the one providing the natural the relationship between gender and sexual
foundation for the other, then gender – from difference, which is what I want to talk about
their point of view the mistaken notion that now.
the assignment of roles to sexed bodies is If, as Freud , Lacan, and others have sug-
arbitrary and contingent – inverts the rela- gested, sexual difference is psychically an
tionship, falsely arguing that society deter- enigmatic issue, ambiguous, puzzling, never
mines sexual identity. Even if the referents finally or satisfactorily understood, impos-
are restricted to men and women, the idea sible to symbolize, then the rules and ideals,
that they are defined ‘within the context of the myths and folktales offered to account
society’ calls into question any self-evident for it can never fully do their job. Sexual dif-
biological claim. In the logic of its critics, ference takes us, in Joan Copjec’s (1989) for-
then, gender leads inexorably to freedom of mulation, to the ‘impossibility of meaning.’
sexual orientation, the detachment of desire Elizabeth Weed (2011) explains it this way:
from its reproductive mandate. Once desire ‘The psychical rupture constitutive of Freud’s

2013, nr. 1  ●  Tijdschrift voor Genderstudies 73


Joan W. Scott

and Lacan’s theories of sexuality, what Lacan Conclusion


calls the real, what cannot be known, can-
not be symbolized, is this impossibility.’ (p. Gender – the social and cultural practice
203) Sexual difference raises the questions that is the object of study – is, then, always
of the origin of life (where do I come from?); an attempt to assuage collective anxieties
the reasons for our divided bodies (why are about the meanings of sexual difference, to
there men and women? must I be one or the fix these necessarily elusive meanings once
other, why not both?); the nature of the at- and for all. Elusive because despite the vis-
traction between these bodies (what is this ible anatomical differences between bod-
desire I feel?); and the mystery of our mortal- ies (whatever their variations), and despite
ity (Laplanche and Pontalis, 1986). endless regulatory policing, our imagina-
These are questions for which no single ra- tions cannot be limited in the assignment
tional or unconscious answers are exhaustive of meaning to them. Questions about sexu-
or satisfactory. Social, religious, and politi- ally indeterminate bodies and trans sexuality
cal institutions work relentlessly to provide only compound the difficulty. Butler (2004)
the answers, holding them in place, erecting (referring to Levi Strauss) puts it this way:
massive structures on what are always tenta- ‘Sexual difference is the site where a ques-
tive foundations. Their aim is to contain or at tion concerning the relation of the biological
least to redirect the fantasies that individu- to the cultural is posed and reposed, where
als entertain about the differences of sexed it must and can be posed, but where it can-
bodies (and what desires they can or cannot not, strictly speaking, be answered.’ (p. 16)
follow), and to bring them collectively under Gender, as our object of study, is, in effect,
control through various forms of normative the answers (contingent, contentious, and
regulation. mutable) offered to that unanswerable ques-
Gender as an analytic category may seem tion. Indeed, the normative regulations that
to be directed at the arena we call the social, establish gender roles are attempts to make
but the object of its analysis (historical con- the question unaskable. As a result, gender
structions of the relations between the sexes) is a perpetual site for political contestation,
is irrevocably connected to the psycho-sexu- one of those locations for the deployment of
al realm. It is for that reason that gender can knowledge in the interests of power.
never be free of its association with sex, that It is for that reason that gender remains
is with sexual difference. Since sexual dif- a useful concept for critical analysis. If we
ference is gender’s referent, and since sexual take gender as a guide not simply to how men
difference has no inherent, fixed meaning, and women are being defined in relation to
gender remains an open question, a site of one another, but also to what visions of so-
conflict about the definitions we (and others) cial order are being contested, built upon, re-
attribute to it. Or, as Weed (2011) puts it, ‘It is, sisted, and defended in terms of those male/
in fact, the impossibility of sexual difference female definitions, we arrive at new insight
that guarantees that gender will never be ful- into the various societies, cultures, histories,
ly knowable or semantically stable.’ (p. 307) and policies we want to investigate. Gender
becomes not a guide to static categories of
sexed identity, but to the dynamic and con-
tested interplay of imagination, regulation,
and transgression in the societies and cul-

74 Tijdschrift voor Genderstudies  ●  2013, nr. 1


The Uses and Abuses of Gender

tures we study. There’s a politics of gender “Manuels de sciences: ‘c’est une polémique
and a gendering of politics that commands créée de toutes pièces,” Libération September
our attention – in the form of an unending 2, 2011; and “Après l’introduction de la théorie
du genre dans les manuels scolaires, l’Eglise
set of questions about how, when, where, and
catholique organise la riposte,” Le Monde
under what conditions individuals, societies
September 12, 2011. Boutin is the spokeswoman
and cultures have tried to answer what can-
for a larger Vatican project. On this, see Mary
not finally and definitively be answered (or Ann Case (2011).
even asked). Far from being an exercise in 4 The petition was called “Défendons la liberté
frustration, this approach opens the way to de conscience à l’école”. http://www.afc-france.
new thinking, new interpretations, and per- org/societe/actions-et-outils/petition-education
haps even to new policies. And far from be- (consulted January 13, 2012.) See also http://
ing settled, as I once thought it was, gender un-ministre-irresponsable.org. (consulted Dec.
is a perpetually open issue; when we think it 16, 2011) A chronicle of lectures and events
has been settled, we know we’re on the wrong protesting the manual can be found at http://
track. www.evanglium-vitae.org/actualite/1751/
le-genre-demasque. (consulted January 13,
2012).
Notes
5 “La ‘papesse’ de la theórie du Genre à
My thanks for their comments and criticisms to
Bordeaux!” Infos Bordeaux, September 21, 2011.
Elizabeth Weed and Sara Farris, as well as to the
See also, « Mauvais genre, » and the interview
members of the seminar at Södertörn University in
with Butler, « Judith Butler : Comprendre plutôt
Sweden and at the American University in Cairo,
que classer, » Le Monde : Culture et idées 1
Egypt.
October 2011.
6 “La Théoricienne du gender honoré par
Deze tekst is door de auteur in Amerikaanse
l’université Bordeaux 3,” a protest circulated by
spelling aangeleverd en daar hebben we gezien haar
the Association pour la Fondation de Service
academische thuisbasis geen verandering in willen
politique, a Catholic organization, protesting
brengen. Ook de tekst van Waaldijk is hieraan
the award to Butler. www.libertepolitique.com
aangepast.
(consulted November 23, 2011.
7 So the French socialist Jeanne Deroin,
1 American Historical Review, “Forum: Revisiting
responding to Proudhon’s quip that a female
‘Gender: A Useful Category of Historical
legislator made as much sense as a male
Analysis,’” (2008).
wetnurse, asked him to specify which organs
2 See, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/
were necessary for the functions of the
world/europe/meditation-on-gender-lands-
legislator. Cited in Scott,1996, p. 78.
pope-in-hot-water-1210064.html and the
8 Pamphlet by the Revolutionary Women of the
Pope’s 2008 Christmas message: http://
Philippines, cited in Baden and Goetz, 1997, p. 6
www.vatican.va/holy_ father/benedict_xvi/
9 From an announcement of the Bellagio
speeches/2008/december/documents/hf_ben-
Conference Center for a World Bank Writing
xvi_spe_20081222_curia-romana_en.html.
Workshop, “Defining Gender for the 21st
3 Christine Boutin, “Lettre ouverte au Luc
Century.”
Chatel,” May 31, 2011.
10 The question of ‘trans’ is the latest entry into
A counter letter organized by the Institute
the conversation. It has importantly affected
Emilie Châtelet, appeared on June 14. See
the way in which gender is conceived. See
http://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2011/06/14/
Salamon, 2008, pp.115-38.
enseigner-le-genre-contre-une-censure-
archaïque_1535573_3232.html. See also,

2013, nr. 1  ●  Tijdschrift voor Genderstudies 75


Joan W. Scott

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