Feminist
Pro-Queer
Anti-Racist
Gaming

When the oft cited Simone de Beauvoir wrote her now infamous statement that, "One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman" (267), she was questioning much more than "woman-ness". Though I cannot speak to her intentions, nor do I care to, her words extend far beyond this category. She posed a very specific question "what is a woman" (xviiii) but if we look, we can see this question reaching out from its center to touch the very foundations upon which all else sits. From this, we can question if there truly is a base to anything. What does it mean to be anything?

Butler sums up the essence of Beauvoir's claim rather nicely:

The presumption of a causal or mimetic relation between sex and gender is undermined. If being a woman is one cultural interpretation of being female, and if that interpretation is in no way necessitated by being female, then it appears that the female body is the arbitrary locus of the gender 'woman', and there is no reason to preclude the possibility of that body becoming the locus of other constructions of gender. At its limit, then, the sex/gender distinction implies a radical heteronomy of natural bodies and constructed genders with the consequence that 'being' female and 'being' a woman are two very different sorts of being. (35)

The importance of Beauvoir's work stems from the movement away from the notion of biological destiny. As Butler further explains, this holds great significance to feminist theory:

The distinction between sex and gender has been crucial to the long-standing feminist effort to debunk the claim that anatomy is destiny; sex is understood to be the invariant, anatomically distinct, and factic aspects of the female body, whereas gender is the cultural meaning and form that that body acquires, the variable modes of that body's acculturation. With the distinction intact, it is no longer possible to attribute the values or social functions of women to biological necessity, and neither can we refer meaningfully to natural or unnatural gendered behavior: all gender is, by definition, unnatural. (35)

By questioning the idea of anatomy as an absolute and natural destiny, Beauvoir theoretically kicked open the door to questioning hegemonic distinctions between woman/man and the possibility of questioning other distinctions as well. This notion of sex and gender as separate categories has been floating around fairly prominently since then. Despite this, the divide of woman/man is maintained in much modern discourse and the biology which Beauvoir's argument attempted to maneuver past is still running strong. Biology is still espoused as a key factor in many differences. Admittedly, there exists a certain ease in these explanations that cannot be found as easily as in questioning these alleged foundations. So while Beauvoir's argument should have had more power to disband biology as destiny, biological arguments, it would seem, are far too convenient to be thoroughly forsaken. Biological precepts are still cited as a reason behind the gender divide and gender and sex are often used interchangeably. To apply reason to 'difference', non-biologist laypersons oft enough drag biological arguments out from the woodwork to close their claim off from further discussion. Perhaps it is our (FN1) culture of convenience that leads us to like our discourse and notions of truth as we like our food: fast and convenient (and maybe not so fresh if it requires little resources). Alas, we cannot entirely blame it on our McDonaldist society for we have argued the same easy "ultimate" arguments since time immemorial.

I remember stories from various history class, of various societies (the names of which have retreated from my memory) in which religious leaders would use fear of gods to force their subjects into giving them tribute to avoid the ire of said gods. These tales, which were apparently rejected as the basis of our 'far superior' religions highlighted the past use of religion in cajoling the masses to blindly follow the lead of the leaders. The notion, it seems, was that to question society was to question the gods themselves. While it may not always happen in such direct ways as 'believe and give or face wrath', it is nevertheless still employed in justifying socio-cultural precepts and boundaries. It is the nature of faith to believe without questioning. Here I could give several examples of the use of religious arguments given as unquestionable answers. Though these are certainly plentiful, I wish instead to apply this concept of faith to the Enlightenment.

As discussed by Flax in "The End of Innocence", Enlightenment thinking seeks out the 'truth' of the 'nature' of things. As she explains, "One of the great promises of Enlightenment is that truth will set us free. Those whose actions are grounded in truth and whose work gives them a privileged relation to it will be the agents of progress and freedom for all" (133). While this movement may have lent to the ability and desire to question assumptions for the pursuit of these truths, Flax essentially warns us against having blind faith in 'Reason', the 'Real', and other such tenets of the Enlightenment. In this paper I want to explore biology, a child-subject of the Enlightenment, and to caution against this same faith in it. This faith leaves us unquestioning of the use of biology, which often works to reify social norms and hierarchies. In its common application, biology is used to provide the same absolute claims as religion has been. Biological 'truth' as a justification has occurred in countless ways, many of which are obvious, more of which are subtle. To demonstrate these more subtle biological vindications of hegemony, I turn to the seemingly innocuous subject of video games. At present, biological assertions are being made, on the basis of one study, as a rationale of the differences in video game use between women and men. Within this we can find justifications for several normative ideas, such as the notion of video games as 'boy's toys'. Why do we still attempt to find ways to close off the opportunity for discourse? How are we using biology to maintain social roles? Whose biology is making it into the mainstream? That is, when are biological claims made by the layperson and when are they ignored? How does this fit within the framework of Enlightenment philosophy?

Follow up:

In her analysis of white Western feminism, Flax poses post-modernist challenges to the feminist paradigm. Beyond that, she poses these challenges to the discourses that are at the root of this paradigm:

Postmodernism is threatening to some feminists because it radically changes [their] background assumptions […] It is often recognized that white feminist politics in the West since the 1960s have been deeply rooted in and dependent upon Enlightenment discourses of rights, individualism, and equality. However, the epistemological legacy that feminists have inherited from these discourses has only recently been called into question. Postmodernism, especially when compounded with psychoanalysis, necessarily destabilizes the (literal and figurative) grounds of feminist theorizing. It has this effect on many forms of Western philosophy. If one takes some of its central ideas seriously, even while resisting or rejecting others, postmodernism is bound to induce a profound uneasiness, or threatened identity, especially among white Western intellectuals. Our consciousness and positions are among its primary subjects of critical analysis. (133)

Western philosophy is not alone in this challenge. I will work to extend this framework in challenge to biological assertions as well.

Flax implicates the social sciences in adhering to Enlightenment dreams stating that empirical "science is the paradigm of knowledge for Enlightenment thinkers" (134). This easily extends to other empirical sciences as well. The 'hard sciences' in general are firmly embedded aspects of Enlightenment ideology. They can be seen as Reason incarnate. This strength of argument has led to the nigh unquestionability of the hard sciences. Here I wish to focus on biology (FN2) as it has the most relevance to feminist philosophy given that it is more often utilized in explaining human nature than the other hard sciences. Today, internet access has increased the open flow of information exchange. Laypersons now have easier access to biological 'fact'. One important aspect of this information exchange is that the information which is most prevalent and most accessed is, of course, that which is found by the 'masses' to be most interesting. The most interesting facts are those which are deemed most relevant to real life. This makes sense as, to the layperson, there is likely not as much interest in, say, non-human STDs that insects contract as there is in human STDs, for example.

Another key consideration of this information flow is that the layperson is more likely to want a simplified breakdown of the research findings. Rather than a detailed discussion of the methodology, specific results and statistical analysis, or, importantly, the proposal of alternative explanations, nuances, and weaknesses of the data always found in the standardized peer-reviewed biology journals, the layperson will likely want a summary only. This clearly leaves out important information about the potential 'facts'. Yet another aspect of this flow is that laypersons (and researchers alike) are likely to Google-search the particular phrase they are searching for, which is in turn likely to be a discussion which will strengthen their own belief. This is of particular importance in considering the reproduction of knowledge as biased toward the reification of existing concepts and attitudes.

Examples of this use can be easily found, though the following is, of course, not intended to be exhaustive. While I cannot hope to exhaustively explore all implications of all layperson-accessed biology, I provide these to demonstrate a pattern. Applying myself in the most minimal way, I was, for example, able to find that recent biological research and theory has found that African Americans and women are statistically less intelligent than white men due to their comparable brain sizes, with black women possessing the smallest brains (FN3) (Rushton & Ankney, Conclusion: para. 1). A more subtle example of internet biology in the reification of racial social hierarchies comes from biology-online.org. According to the 'biological dictionary' they provide, "Negro" is defined as, "A black man; especially, one of a race of black or very dark persons […] distinguished by crisped or curly hair, flat noses, and thick protruding lips; also, any black person of unmixed African blood, wherever found" (emphasis mine). "White" is there defined as, "a person with a white skin; a member of the white, or Caucasian, races of men" and "Caucasian" apparently needs no definition as it is not even listed. In what I will presume to be unintentional occurrence, Caucasian men are presented as the 'natural' and normative while women are an offshoot and 'Negros' are to be explained in juxtaposition to the 'natural' normative category of white.

More subtle and less conventional an example comes from discourse surrounding video games. Since their creation, video games have been viewed as 'boys' toys'. They have been marketed to (white) boys and men, and are designed with (white) boys and men in mind. They are almost exclusively designed by men. Attempts to open the market to women and girls have included games in which the player bakes cakes or plays with a digital Barbie. In the past few years, an ideology shift became more visible on the web. Women were claiming to be gamers too. In March 2007, Play Vanilla, the first in-print gaming magazine devoted to women gamers was released in Germany. I recall in discussions which sprang up on the web at the time, that it was met with some joy but more ire. Recently, discourse seems to have increased once again surrounding a biological study discussed on ScienceDaily.com. The article explains:

Allan Reiss, MD, and his colleagues have a pretty good idea why your husband or boyfriend can't put down the Halo 3. In a first-of-its-kind imaging study, the Stanford University School of Medicine researchers have shown that the part of the brain that generates rewarding feelings is more activated in men than women during video-game play.

Before the discursive movement from the researchers, through the article authors, to the laypersons, we can see an inkling of reification in progress in this excerpt. Already, the researchers are re-searching for difference. But, if biology is a child of the Enlightenment, how can this form of Reason be used in this way?

Flax states that Enlightenment discourse is rooted in the "discourses of rights, individualism, and equality", how does this type of discourse come to be used in such seemingly counter endeavors as reifying social injustices. Perhaps it is related to this notion of "innocent knowledge" which Flax refers to:

Postmodernism calls into question the belief (or hope) that there is some form of innocent knowledge available. This hope recurs throughout the history of Western philosophy […] By innocent knowledge I mean the discovery of some sort of truth that can tell us how to act in the world in ways that benefit or are for the (at least ultimate) good of all. Those whose actions are grounded in or informed by such truth will also have their innocence guaranteed. They can do only good, not harm, to others. They act as the servant of something higher and outside (or more than) themselves, their own desires, and the effects of their particular histories or social locations. (133)

Thus, in turning to Enlightenment discourses, such as biology, we are absolved from guilt of action and never influenced by these prior beliefs. We are transformed, then, from oppressive actors benefiting from oppressing actions to beneficent progressives made so under the pursuit of Truth.

'Truth' plays a particularly important role in Enlightenment ideology as well:

Conflicts between truth and power can be overcome by grounding claims to and the exercise of authority in reason. Reason both represents and embodies truth. It partakes of universality in two additional ways: it operates identically in each subject and it can grasp laws that are objectively true, that is, are equally knowable and binding on every person. Power grounded in such truth will never generate domination, only freedom. (133-134)

Thus, built into this philosophy is the idea that power that stems from Reasoned Truth is actually freedom. Therefore, we cannot be prisoners of Truth's incarnations.

As products of Reason, biological findings are touted as Truth. As Truth, these knowledges cannot reproduce domination. By this logic, knowledges produced through this channel which reify hegemony really only follow the natural law. Does this mean that oppression is logically freedom? Is this saying that accepting Beauvoir's claim that woman is a created category as Truth is not contradictory to accepting biological Truths about inherent woman-ness labeled as sex? Will both bring freedom as both are founded in Reason? Perhaps, then, one is not really Truth. This seems indeterminable and:

This undertaking is arduous, and a certain laziness brings me back to my customary way of living. I am not unlike a prisoner who enjoyed an imaginary freedom during his sleep, but, when he later begins to suspect that he is dreaming, fears being awakened and nonchalantly conspires with these pleasant illusions. In just the same way, I fall back of my own accord into my old opinions, and dread being awakened. (Descartes, 63)

For this ease, then, just as Descartes later finds Truth in his God, so shall we find Truth in the pre-established social hierarchies of female/male. But, we shall agree to name it gender to incorporate both 'Truths'.

Why, though, are we more inclined to justify than to explore? I believe part of the answer can be found in the (often obnoxious) musings of Descartes:

Several years have now passed since I first realized how numerous were the false opinions that in my youth I had taken to be true, and thus how doubtful were all those that I had subsequently built upon them. And thus I realized that once in my life I had to raze everything to the ground and begin again from the original foundations, if I wanted to establish anything firm and lasting in the sciences. But the task seemed enormous, and I was waiting until I reached a point in my life that was so timely that no more suitable time for undertaking these plans of action would come to pass. (59)

What Descartes best describes in this passage (and future passages) is anxiety: an anxious pursuit of breaking down the foundations of his prior knowledge to get at the 'Truth'. Justifying our foundations comes much more easily and readily than breaking them down or questioning their existence. Thus it is with privilege and oppression. Acknowledging our unearned privileges and the interaction between that and the oppression of others is particularly prone to be met with resistance. Therein lies part of the "profound uneasiness" surrounding post-modernism that Flax describes.

So it is that before ScienceDaily's article even reaches the layperson at large, some interpretations are already packed in. First, we see from the excerpt above, an intended audience of females put in juxtaposition with the male subject. In the statement, "why your husband or boyfriend can't put down Halo 3" we can tease out the assumption of a heterosexual female reader. Digging deeper still, the writer's opinion that the female readers likely disapprove of the males in their lives devoting (more) attention to video games is manifest. Further analysis uncovers the pre-reader assumption that if the future female reader has tried playing these games as well, they likely felt left out and lacked understanding of their other's enjoyment of the game. Not only is the female reader immediately placed in heterosexual relation to a male partner, but she can also be assumed to be nagging, misunderstanding, and needy. That this article is making biological connections suggests that her nature and his nature run in opposition.

Recall that earlier we decided to fall back on the already-established 'Truth' of sex differences but agreed to name gender rather than sex for the sake of stability. In combination with the first paragraph's assertions, the second paragraph follows our lead with statements from the researchers, those champions of Enlightenment themselves, that, "These gender differences may help explain why males are more attracted to, and more likely to become 'hooked' on video games than females" (qtd. in ScienceDaily, para.2, emphasis mine). Here, gender and sex are merged. First, the differences are described as a difference of gender (the social). Within the same sentence, the differences are then ascribed to sex (the biological) in the use of male/female. As this interchangeability persists throughout the entirety of this article, we can now more righteously reconcile Beauvoir's argument with biology. Science places them as one in the same.

The study and findings are then briefly described. First it is stated by the researcher that "The females 'got' the game [and] appeared motivated to succeed at the game. The males were just a lot more motivated to succeed." We can here question if this statement implies a general deficiency in female motivation in task completion or merely as a fact of the study. I question this because the terminology calls to my mind an apathetic female, not as focused on the possibility of success as her male counterparts. Perhaps it is meant only as a statement of the 'nature' of female/male motivational differences in the specific context of this particular study, perhaps not. It is an important consideration, though. They explain further that it was a game in which territory was to be gained and that male brains "showed much greater activation and the amount of activation was correlated with how much territory they gained. (This wasn't the case with women)" (para. 10). Regarding the indications:

The findings indicate, the researchers said, that successfully acquiring territory in a computer game format is more rewarding for men than for women. And Reiss, for one, isn't surprised. "I think it's fair to say that males tend to be more intrinsically territorial," he said. "It doesn't take a genius to figure out who historically are the conquerors and tyrants of our species-they're the males" (para. 11, emphasis mine).

In these paragraphs exists a leap of faith. We come from a place of scientific observation that male brains exhibit "greater activation" in when playing this particular game in this particular study. Somewhere along the way, however, we change course to arrive at a universal claim that males are 'natural' conquerors and females are not due to some intrinsic force. It should be noted that at no point in the article is it stated that any of this could be the result of outside forces or conditions that existed before the subjects consented to this study. To the contrary, it is implied that questioning this leap of faith is tantamount to ignorance or imbecility as "it doesn't take a genius" to realize this intrinsically driven need to conquer. There may be an additional underlying assumption that women are not only inherently disinclined to conquer but that they may be intrinsically programmed to be conquered. These assertions seem like quite a leap of faith for 'Truth'. Luckily, Enlightenment has fail-safes in place for the sciences.

Flax explains that the Enlightenment notion of science entails a belief that, "use of the proper scientific method guarantees that investigators will not distort the data they gather. This method and the scrutiny of the scientific community ensure that investigator bias will be controlled and errors corrected" (135). Will this leap of faith thus be addressed later in the scientific community? Rest assured, "The 'scientific' process is self-correcting and governing. It will gradually but necessarily eliminate any bias or false knowledge. The social world is stable, homogenous, and lawfully structured. Its laws are good and not contradictory; they work to the equal benefit of all" (135). Further, "grounding in science preserves the innocence of the […] scientist. Knowledge acquired by the proper methods must reflect the Real."

What of the layperson interpretations? Clearly they are already innocent. Whatever claims are made with the arguments given them by Reason cannot oppress but can only free. What, though, occurs if the "'scientific' process is self-correcting" but the layperson interpretation is not? And don't the beliefs of the layperson fuel what is considered to be interesting and fruitful courses of study? Here is where I can admit to a certain level of hopeful surprise.

Message boards and blogs have become a site of layperson discourse. The current study under analysis is one that has been posted in various sites several times over. Through analysis of one such blog containing 35 responses, I found a near-equal mix of reification and questioning despite the title "Women Are From Venus, Men Like Video Games" on Techdirt.com. The poster repeats the information found in the study in a fairly neutral way though with the same sex/gender interchangeability. We first see a resistance to any discursive action at all in the claim by an anonymous poster that, "If there's something out there that appeals to guys, we better shut it down (Title IX) or attempt to equalize it! Oh, if there's things out there that only girls like to do, it's called empowerment and is okay" (comment 1). This comment does not address the biology presented at all and is merely intended to shut down future discourse around this study. However, it is immediately followed by a comment by reader, Petrea Mitchell which summarizes a different biological study altogether, stating that, "video games have also been shown to induce changes in the brain previously attributed to biological gender differences. So this latest result may simply be because the male volunteers had already played more video games" (comment 2). Recall that this is a claim which was absent in the article itself. The comments continue in a similar fashion with broad-based support of hegemony evenly-dispersed among claims that support Beauvoir's enculturation of 'woman'. Though not necessarily indicative of "innocent knowledge", it does not indicate a complete failure of the Enlightenment claim of "self-correcting silence".

Layperson discourses such as these are interesting in other ways as well. Analyzing what biology makes its way into these discussions is also telling of the self-correction of science. If the course of what gets studied is, to some extent, determined by the interests and consumptions of the layperson, then the science that filters through also influences what later gets researched. Perhaps, then, through extremely gradual cycling, science does make self-correcting movements toward 'Truth'. It is definitely a gradual move, though. For example, the study briefly referenced in comment 2 did not appear to achieve nearly the same impact as that of the first study which justified existing norms. Even in this post, there was no comment which spoke to this. Nor was it as prevalent in the rest of the online community. This suggests a slowing in the function of "self-correction" as studies such as this do not meet with as many responses. A lack of response from laypersons does not lead to the same encouragement of future study.

That layperson discourse surrounding this biological claim did not completely reproduce existing hierarchies does not run counter to Flax's claims. She does not suggest that the Enlightenment has produced nothing which can be deemed beneficial but rather warns against a blind faith in its 'Truths'. Specifically, she wishes to instill post-modernism and its approaches which "disrupt master narratives of the West and the language games in which terms like freedom, emancipation, or domination take on meaning" (141). She suggests applying post-modernist hesitance to combat this:

We become hesitant to speak for or prescribe our good(s) for others. Contemplating Auschwitz or the environmental disasters produced by modern technologies we can no longer sustain the illusion or the hope that "true" knowledge is sought only by the virtuous or is a priori generated by the good. When knowledge is put into practice, the probabilities it will have only the beneficial results we intend is small. It is more difficult to separate normative discourse from potential exercise of power or to conceptualize power entirely innocent of domination. (142)

We can attempt to question our assumptions as Descartes attempted to only, perhaps, more thoroughly. While he found truth only in his thoughts and built from that framework, we must not fall into this trap. Truth within ourselves cannot be separated from that which occurs outside of ourselves. We must, however, apply this fervent skepticism to seemingly unquestionable assertions created through "Reason', such as biological Truths.

I do not purport to know where to begin to do this other than from within. Perhaps that is the real useful application of Descartes – to believe more in our own ability to break down our assumptions about Truth but through pushing this questioning outward rather than believing only in our own foundation. Flax agrees that, "Postmodernists must firmly situate themselves as constructs of within their own discourses. The imperial, impersonal Cartesian ego is to be deconstructed and its desires set free to play within and as language. The 'view from nowhere' is replaced by admittedly partial and fragmentary multiples of one" (140).

Beauvoir's assertion of a created category of woman has not taken us far enough. Our experiences of gender shape our knowledges and conceptions of Truth. This, too, still maintains an assumption of 'Truth' which, as we have seen, can run counter to other conceptions of 'Truth'. We can use Beauvoir's assertion of "woman" as a construct to reach out from this center into all aspects that it could possibly question. As I stated when I began, she posed a very specific question "what is a woman" (xviiii) but we can, if we look, see this question reaching out from its center to touch the very "foundations" upon which all else sits. The concept of Truth must itself be questioned. Again I turn to Flax:

Part of the purpose of claiming truth seems to be to compel agreement with our claim (if it is true, then you as a "rational person" must agree with me and change your beliefs and behavior accordingly). We are often seeking a change in behavior to win for our side. If so, there may be more effective ways to attain agreement or produce change than to argue about truth. […] There is no evidence that appeals to reason, knowledge, or truth are uniquely effective or ought to occupy privileged positions in strategies for change. (144)

We have just seen, through our exploration of biology, that this is the case. When faced with a decision (conscious or not) to either challenge our own assumptions or to strengthen them, it is just as (if not more) likely that we will act on the side of ease. Pursuit of Truth in Reason is, therefore, not a terribly helpful quest as Truth can easily be bent to shape our needs. Thus, the positions of Reason must always be questioned, even when presented with biological 'fact'.

Footnotes:
1. Throughout, I use our, we, and us, to collectively refer to "Americans" and the "online community" which consists predominantly of "Westerners" as these are the communities that this piece deals with.
2. It is important to note that biology encompasses many other fields so when speaking of biology I refer also to neurology, psychiatry (the physical side of psychology), physiology, anatomy, biochemistry, and biopsychology.
3. The white supremacist site, Stormfront.org, has an entire message board entitled "Science, Technology and Race Genetics, eugenics, racial science and related subjects." Much of the content found there uses biological ‘fact’ to espouse their racial views. Thus, a blatant application of ‘biological fact’ in reifying hegemony can be found there. However, visiting this site helps their board statistics grow.