some thoughts
While an undergrad, I did a bit of research and writing on the idea of “writing the body.” It came from a feminist discourse, study of the so-called “French feminists,” Irigaray and Cixous and the like. And then of course our prof tossed in Butler to screw things up a bit more.
If I had/have the time to dig up Donna Haraway this might make more sense. But it is constantly interesting to me that in a virtual-world like the blogosphere, where one’s body is not visible or tangible through the array of technology that creates our little online worlds, so many of us choose still to write from the point of view of our bodies. I cannot be anyone but who I am, I suppose.
This may be why I resist the typical journalistic fetishization of “objectivity” as a good in itself, because it erases the speaker/writer from existence. The “objective” journalist must have no race, no gender, no sexual orientation, no ethnic background, nothing but language, which is presupposed to be masculine, right? (Lacan, I’m looking at you.)
I will not be erased. I don’t post a picture of myself next to each blog entry, but I am out here in the open, my real name on the page, easily linked to Twitter and Facebook and Flickr and any number of things that tell you more and more about ME.
So even though I could create myself an identity online that is not gendered, I don’t and many of us don’t. We could leave our bodies behind and write from some disembodied place that claims authority–the God trick, right?
But it’s not really possible, is it?
So do we write our bodies because they have constructed us, or in an attempt to define, construct, and reclaim them?
(feel free to ramble back at me in comments)
Speaking for myself only, I write from my body online to reclaim my body. So many people in meatspace want to take my right to my body away from me. Sometimes it feels like the ‘nets is the only place that I can reclaim my body.
Maybe it is a consequence of being 50 and thus being of a generation that did not grow up with the ubiquitous presence of computers and the ‘net, but I cannot imagine how I could have an online presence that is not influenced in any way, shape, or form by who I am in real life. I think that those who claim otherwise are, to be crude, full of shit. If you’re white, you’re white on the ‘nets, whether you like it or not; same for any other axis.
>>>So do we write our bodies because they have constructed us, or in an attempt to define, construct, and reclaim them?
Probably an interaction between the two, feedback loop. I’m feeling gramscian, so let’s draw a distinction between residual and emergent selves, and suggest there’s a cycling between. Identity citation, but every citation changes slightly with context.
To be continued, doctors appoint.
This is an odd one for me, because at least some of the time that I spend on the ‘net is spent deliberately trying to get away from my r/l body and into a body that I wish it could be - namely, a female body. The rest of the time, it is at least partly involved with celebrating the body I have already (namely, a male one). Gender identity is somewhat complex for me! But anyway, the point is that at least sometimes I am writing myself the body I wish I could have. At other times I am celebrating having the body I do.
I don’t think I ever blog from a perspective of “no-body”, simply because our bodies form the means by which we interpret the world and become aware of it; it is easier to envisage the online world through analogies to the senses. So much of the language of the web evokes (for me, anyway) sensual experiences (for example, “trackback” immediately brings to my mind the physical act of using scent and sight to follow the signs left by someone, back to their starting point).
I think it is interesting that even experiences where it is claimed that we leave our bodies, the descriptions of the person having the experience of any interactions with their surroundings seem to continue to carry a sense of our bodies even though we have supposedly left them. Why, then, would it be different when we interact via keyboards and modems?
…more…
I remember I have tried to write as personas, or make music under various personas, and they all just keep integrating back into me.
So maybe I’m chronically unable to escape my body/mind–which are inseparable imo. I’ve been thinking about what Jay Prosser says about the skin ego in relation to transness, where the mind projects an image of how the body is (or should be, but isn’t, and hence gender dysphoria).
So, I think “leaving the body” is false, the signified can never really be utterly cut from the referent.
Also, Susan Stryker suggests that trans rage is produced by being caught in a symbolic web where you can never truly articulate yourself without being squeezed from the field by cis interpretations, assumptions etc. And that’s partly about having your body overdetermined with cis narratives, there’s no space there either.
So the linguistic–which is what we’re talking about here–is an unequal field from the start (as French feminism well knows)–and the experience of disembodied writing is only really conditional on writing from that specific position–cis white male innit.
I think.
Theory girl theories.
I realise that was all about being a trans woman, but that is precisely my point.
Also, ME ME ME.
You are always welcome to ME ME ME all over my comment section
But this:
“the experience of disembodied writing is only really conditional on writing from that specific position–cis white male innit.”
was exactly what I was talking about.
Meep meep
Well, that’s very French feminism yeah. Irigaray says summink like “it’s the privilege of men to have bodies, but not *be* them.” Cos she’s crap about everything else besides cis gender, she doesn’t mention race etc, but it’s a point worth extending, because all kinds of bodies are overwritten with narratives, and all kinds of subjectivities are reduced to *being* bodies but not subjects.
But the basic point, that cis white men write as though their bodies are unmarked is true, and that’s what constitutes “objective” language… of course, for the rest of us, the notion that they’re unmarked is rather laughable, really…
Later today I’m coming back to take your point here and combine it with my recent thoughts on “objective” media and shred the mainstream media.
After I do my bit of work on my Palin paper, that is.