The Unfamiliar in New Interpretations of Gender

Throughout our discussions in this class, I’ve come to realize just how much conversations about technology – particularly technologies of gender – can make people uncomfortable. Almost immediately I was reminded of the chapter “Monster Theory” from Jeffery Jerome Cohen’s Monster Culture. In that text, Cohen proposes seven theses regarding the nature of the monster as presented in film, pulp fiction, and other facets of popular culture. What struck me was that the traits that Cohen associates with these monsters are the traits that tend to make people uncomfortable when exhibited in others. This paper will discuss some of the traditional fears about gender and technology in terms of Cohen’s theses, as well as briefly discuss the possibility of overcoming those fears.

Of particular interest to Cohen is the concept of “category crisis” (Cohen 6). He suggests that monsters are frightening because they defy traditional methods of systemization, falling between two or more different categories at once. There poised, they stand as living proof of our lack of understanding; either we have neglected to make the correct category to accommodate them, or worse still our entire approach to categorization is flawed.

The most obvious parallel to Cohen’s category crisis is with people who are intersex or trans. What seems to distress people the most about these groups is that they stand outside of the two familiar categories: male (born male, identifying as male) and female (born female, identifying as female). This was supported in the film Is It a Boy or a Girl? (Ward), where new parents expected to see a baby that was male or female and were distressed to discover their child otherwise. The routes that people have taken towards rationalizing the extra-categorical entities are routes that attempt to reconcile the category crisis. For intersex people, this can mean creating new categories between the traditional male and female, or it can mean “corrective” surgery to place the person into an existing category. Attempts have been also been made to construct new categories: Sandy Stone says that “it was necessary to construct the category ‘transsexual’ along customary and traditional lines” (Stone 329) while attempting to discern who should be accepted into clinics for surgery. Though the reasoning for constructing this category was medical, that a category exists at all suggests a step towards normalizing a group that was previously marginalized if acknowledged at all. It should be noted, however, that while category construction is often valuable in that it can prevent people from being lumped into a group where they do not belong, it can also be used to stereotype and/or unfairly label, and is therefore not always positive.

Another of Cohen’s theses relates to the idea of the monster as distinctly “other,” as different and distant enough to be frightening. At one point, he specifically refers to “the exaggeration of cultural difference into monstrous aberration” (Cohen 7), which is well-suited to traditional fears of transgendered persons, homosexuality, and other non-normative identities. A different example, however, is that of the notion of the self as a technological construction, particularly as regards gender. The process of modifying one’s body, sexually or otherwise, is by no means a new development; circumcisions and tattoos are just two examples that have been around for centuries. However, new technologies are appearing that offer fundamental changes to human appearance and biology. Artificial limbs and synthesized hormones are now commonplace, and as the techniques used to manufacture such devices become increasingly sophisticated, they appear more alien to those who do not understand how they work. New advances raise new questions about what is “good technology” and what is “bad technology,” and the number of ethical concerns related to research and medicine climbs daily. Our recent technological advancements “have made thoroughly ambiguous the difference between natural and artificial” (Haraway 152), and as our understanding of the fields of computing and biology expands, even the idea that humans will always require organic (or even corporeal) bodies becomes suspect.

The concerns about ethics and the steadying flow of technology is, as Cohen suggests, one of distance. At present, it is relatively easy for people to distance themselves from such drastic changes as the complete mechanization of our bodies or brains. However, the process is both incremental and inevitable; it progresses at a slow enough pace that people should be able to acclimate to it, but stubbornly enough that change will occur whether or not humans have the psychological wherewithal for it. The gap between the familiar and the other will necessarily shorten itself, and as it does our fear of change will lessen.

Lest the thrust of this essay be misconstrued, I will now say explicitly that nothing in the ideas of intersexuality or technological enhancements to human biology strikes me as at all monstrous. Instead, it was my intent to explore the things that make people uncomfortable in terms of Cohen’s theses on monstrosity. The pop culture monsters that Cohen analyzes will always be alien and monstrous because they are outside what we can experience; we do not make categories for them or feel close to them because they do not exist. In contrast, certain aspects of the (gendered) human condition that have only really been explored in the last century or so – such as those discussed in this essay – remain disquieting to some only because our culture has yet to adapt its thinking to accommodate them. The evolution of our present system of categorization and our ever-increasing curiosity about the unknown together suggest that traditional notions of gender and humanity will soon not be the only ones accepted and embraced.

References

Cohen, Jeffrey Jerome. “Monster Culture.” Monster Theory: Reading Culture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997.

Haraway, Donna. “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late           Twentieth Century.” Simians, Cyborgs and Women. Routledge, 1991.

Stone, Sandy. “The Empire Strikes Back: A Posttranssexual Manifesto,” Sex/Machine: Readings in Culture, Gender, and Technology. Ed. Patrick Hopkins. Indiana University Press, 1998.

Ward, Phyllis. Is it a Boy or a Girl? Great Falls VA: Discovery Channel. Cable broadcast, March 26, 2000