Keynote's abstracts and biographical info
Wendy Cealey Harrison: Why Gender?
The question ‘Why Gender?’ is one of the most compelling there is, and is arguably overdue for a decent answer. But in asking the question ‘Why Gender?’, we are already seduced into looking for a general answer for the existence of something that is not a single entity or set of processes. Both ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ disaggregate into a whole series of processes, which have no necessary coherence, even if they have links with one another. Furthermore, the processes we identify under the two headings of ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ are nevertheless intricately connected with one another, and need to be considered to be of a piece.
This paper begins with what seems to be the more recalcitrant end of the spectrum, ‘sex’ to show that, in many ways both it, and our knowledge of it, is open to the impact of cultural forms. It then gradually moves towards consideration of some of the relationships between discourse, body and behaviour to demonstrate some of the ways in which human biology is inevitably open to the impact of history, discourse and power, and human behaviour and social relationships automatically entail body and brain.
What the paper suggests is that not only have we yet to get to grips adequately with the plasticity of body and brain, but arguably, we haven’t really properly addressed what it means to say that our knowledge is historically and culturally specific. We continue to find ourselves veering between an absolute and unsustainable relativism and an appeal to truths whose timelessness we don’t quite believe in, but which make possible the very technological world we live in. And this comment, about the historical specificity of our knowledges, applies as much to the social as to the natural sciences, and as much to our knowledges of ‘gender’ as to our knowledges of ‘sex’.
Wendy Cealey Harrison is currently the Head of Learning and Quality Unit at the University of Greenwich, UK, and is part of the research group and supervises PhD students in the University's Department of Creative, Critical and Communication Studies. Her recent publications include “Madness and Historicity: Foucault and Derrida, Artaud and Descartes”, History of the Human Sciences, 20(4) (2007); “The Shadow and the Substance: the sex/gender debate”, in The Handbook of Gender and Women's Studies, ed. Mary Evans, Kathy Davis and Judith Lorber, London, Sage Publications (2006); Beyond Sex and Gender, London, Sage Publications (2002, with J. Hood-Williams); “Truth is Slippery Stuff”, in B. Francis and C. Skelton, Perspectives in Gender and Education, Buckingham, The Open University Press: 52-64 (2001); “Gendered Melancholy or General Melancholy? Homosexual Attachments in the Formation of Gender”, new formations, no. 41, autumn: 109-26 (2000, with J. Hood-Williams).
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Jeff Hearn: Being, Working, Politicising, Theorising Gender: Intersectionalities, Embodiments/Virtualities, Transnationalisations
For men to work on gender and power, whether in academia, policy development or some other forum, is not unproblematic. I have long considered that the priority is for profeminist men to approach gender relations with a focus on the critique of ‘men, masculinities and men’s practices’. At the same time, in working with feminist colleagues, a focus on ‘gender, sexuality and violence’ has often been dominant conceptually in our work. These can represent various practical, policy/political and theoretical tensions. Throughout most of my academic career I have also found it useful to recognise how important social issues demand engagement in several different forms and arenas at the same time, in: being, work, policy/politics, theorising. This applies to gender and power – and why gender? In this presentation I outline the complexities of some relations to gender and power, as simultaneously involving personal life, working, politicising, and theorising. This simultaneity frequently inhabits the research process. Drawing on a variety of recent research, I also specify some of the issues that have come to increasingly preoccupy me in recent years, namely, intersectionalities, and especially the continuing neglect of age and ageing; embodiments/ virtualities; and transnationalisations, specifically trans(national) patriarchies.
Jeff Hearn is Professor, Hanken School of Economics, Helsinki, Finland; Professor in Gender Studies (Critical Studies on Men), Linköping University; and Professor of Sociology, University of Huddersfield. He is Co-Director of Swedish Research Council Centre of Gender Excellence (GEXcel) at Linköping and Örebro Universities, and Managing Editor, with Nina Lykke, of Routledge Advances in Feminist Studies and Intersectionality. He has been elected as a UK Academician in the Social Sciences; previously he was Research Professor, University of Manchester. His research interests include men and masculinities, gender and violence, gender and management, power and patriarchy, the body and sexualities. He has approaching 500 publications, with numerous articles and books, including: The Gender of Oppression (1987), ‘Sex’ at ‘Work’ (1987/1995), Men, Masculinities and Social Theory (1990), Men in the Public Eye (1992), The Violences of Men (1998), Men, Gender Divisions and Welfare (1998), Gender, Sexuality and Violence in Organizations (2001), Handbook of Studies on Men and Masculinities (2005), European Perspectives on Men and Masculinities (2006); and most recently Sex, Violence and The Body, edited with Viv Burr, Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.
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Sally Hines: Who’s Gender?: Towards a Theory and Politics of Gender Diversity
Substantively and conceptually, ‘gender’ speaks of the constructions of masculinity and femininity, and to the experiences of ‘man’ and ‘woman’. This paper explores the implications of ‘gender’ - as a categorising devise; as a political strategy; as a way of articulating 'lived experience'. With these points in mind, 'transgender' is employed as site through which to explore the limitations of the persistence of a binary gender model. I argue that for 'gender' to remain a meaningful theoretical concept and a fruitful political site, it needs to be pluralized in order to take account of multiple gendered expressions and identities. Such a project, I suggest, would further detach 'gender' from 'the natural', and set in motion a more developed social constructionist account of gendered lives and social positionings.
Dr. Sally Hines is a lecturer in Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Leeds, UK. Her research interests are in the areas of gender, sexuality, intimacy, the body, and transformations in identity practices, as well as feminist theories and politics, sexual politics, including queer theory and activism. Her current work focuses on social, cultural and legislative change, and gender diversity and citizenship. She is currently leading an Economic and Social Research Council funded project which examines the impact of the recent UK “Gender Recognition Act” on gendered identities and practices of intimacy and citizenship. Recent publications include: TransForming Gender: Transgender Practices of Identity, Intimacy and Care. Polity Press (2007); “(Trans)Forming Gender: Social Change and Transgender Citizenship”, Sociological Research Online, 21(1) (2006); and “What's the Difference? Bringing Particularity to Queer Studies of Transgender”, Journal of Gender Studies, 15(1) (2006). She is the editor of a forthcoming edited volume: Transgender Identities: Towards a Social Analysis of Gender Diversity (Routledge, February, 2010).
Last update 14.10.2009.
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