I am unfortunately not at a point yet where I can write my own additions to this piece but I wanted to start venturing into gender and gender roles because there are a lot of marxists who repeat, no doubt because it seems to make sense on the surface, that gender is a social construct or that it should be abolished. A lot of it is Butlerian in nature and I highly recommend Leslie Feinberg who was positioned against the butlerian view of gender.
The sense of self is completely omitted in the Butlerian view of gender (as a performance), in that as a (cis) man if I acted (performed) like a woman and put on women’s clothes, then that theory states I would be a woman. But I would not feel like one, because I know I’m not a woman. And if I lived in a false reality that forced me act like a man all my life from childhood to the point that I also believed I was a man (say in the same way you can make someone believe the sky is red if you berate them enough), then what explains that trans people specifically are able to “break out” of this mold? A lot of common (in marxist circles) feminist theory is unfortunately completely dismissive of trans people, trans men especially - if gender is a construct to pit oppressors and oppressed then why would anyone “choose” to be part of the oppressed group? Everyone ought to perform as men if that were the case. As for gender abolitionism, the author makes the case in their essay :)
I believe that gender is going to wither away in communist society eventually. As it is a construct tightly coupled with patriarchy.
Abolishing gender in any society existing today is as idealistic as abolishing Christianity in yankeeland though. Social roles and expectations imposed by patriarchy are part of people’s reality. We need people’s consent to abolish gender and to be able to consent, people need to have awareness of gender first.
Also, gender doesn’t exist in isolation. Dismantling patriarchy will be more nuanced than dismantling its elements separately. And it will require material basis we might not currently have anywhere in the world to address it properly. (inheritance is part of the patriarchal system too!)
For now we should respect people’s struggles within the patriarchal framework and give trans people our critical support.
Gender will wither away with material conditions changing, not with us saying it shouldn’t exist.
I think that’s what the author wants to challenge; with gender withering away, then trans people will simply cease to exist - not as people of course, people will still be born with consciousness (sapience? I’m not sure how you call it in english), but their gender will cease to exist, and what will they be? The author’s theory is that being trans is not only important to them, but precedes patriarchy and thus gender abolition will not fix oppression - gender is not the product of oppression and can exist without it.
I do agree, personally, that it’s a very far off event, but I have also changed my mind on whether it’s “important” to talk about now. By which I mean, I used to think that because it was so far off, then it wasn’t really urgent to worry over it - it will happen long after I’m dead, there’s nothing to it now. But I have since changed my mind after I saw for myself gender abolitionists who are ultimately transphobic, and they didn’t come to this conclusion by accident. Can we say that they are only using gender abolition to confirm their transphobic views? Maybe, but it’s still important to talk about and understand gender, because trans people (and non-binary people) exist right now.
I think we can distinguish between gender withering away under different material conditions and gender being “abolished”. Abolition is a political project, gender withering away would happen passively as the material conditions that underpin gender cease to exist and the contradictions are resolved. Actively trying to abolish gender is prefigurative idealism, which is why it attracts transphobes.
I don’t mean to put words in anyone’s mouth but my understanding through experience is that gender abolitionists promote the withering away view - I take this from the various vetting tickets I handle on marxist spaces such as this one or discords. They’re not quite out there actively trying to abolish gender, but see it as something that will cease to exist eventually, in one way or another.
So in that way (again not saying every gender abolitionist/withering away is transphobic!) I have come to understand that gender abolitionism and the view that gender will wither away (whether it actually will is another question) are one and the same. Some people might put more urgency on it than others. Like I said in possibly another comment a lot of it seems to come from seeming like a common sense conclusion.
I don’t remember meeting strict ‘withering away’ theorists so I can’t speak as to what they think if they exist!
I think I’m in the ‘withering away’ camp and don’t think abolition is a useful framework. Gender contradictions aren’t antagonisitc, or at least, they don’t have to be. Non-antagonistic contradictions can simply be managed until the contradictions achieve a higher unity in synthesis (and then produce new contradictions that we probably can’t even imagine in our current gender paradigm).
I also don’t think gender withers away simply because we get rid of family, private property, and the state. I think those are some of the material foundations for gender as we know it and they are much of the foundation for gender roles, but gender itself can’t be resolved without addressing the technological limitations of gender affirming care. I know in my case I will probably never get bottom surgery, because even though I might be interested in it conceptually I don’t think the technology can give me exactly what I want. Gender can never wither away as long as we are so limited by our own bodies and gender affirming technology.
But eventually we will surpass these limitations. I envision a day that “transition” won’t even exist as a concept because we can just change ourselves at will, there will be so many genders and so many gender expressions and gender will be so fluid and dynamic that people today wouldn’t even recognize it as gender anymore.
I think we’re going to have gender for a long time, even after we defeat capitalism, but I also think there is a horizon where we’ll leave it behind because it isn’t useful anymore.
I imagine these people are the same or close to those who say “they don’t see color”.
Actually all of them were very steeped in radical feminist literature!
yeah but terfs are lying. when they say they want to “abolish gender” they’re really saying they want to keep gender and just call it sex while abolishing gender roles
when I, a marxist transfeminist, say that ultimately gender should be abolished, I more accurately mean that sex assignment and categorization should be fundamentally deconstructed and reformed without the cishetero patriarchal baggage (typing this on my phone so I can’t really go into detail right now but I’ll try and make a proper response to this piece later)