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’d be happy to hear more! In butlers influential essay, they describe gender as “stylized repetition of acts through time”, but I am not sure what exactly repeated refers to here: repeated by the individual or societally reproduced over centuries or what.
This is why I said this definition leaves no room for the self. What of gender fluid people? It conflates gender roles with gender itself - or at least that’s how people usually read it.
On the contrary I would say, the definition of a social construct (it’s not solely a Marxist thing) means that it is literally invented reality. Yes, it’s real in that materially speaking, we can tell the social construct exists in the material world. I had another argument I wanted to add but I forgot before I could type it down lol so I’m leaving this like this and if I remember I’ll add it*
human language is a social construct. is it “fake”?
I don’t think language is a social construct, but under the dictionary definition of a social construct, it would be considered invented reality as it would be “existing not in objective reality but as a result of human interaction,” “an idea that has been created and accepted by the people in a society” and “a category or thing that is made real by convention or collective agreement; Socially constructed realities are contrasted with natural kinds, which exist independently of human behavior or beliefs.” (Verywellmind, merriam-webster, wikipedia).