Enforced Ignorance and the Mystification of Femininity
When we talk about marginalization, we refer to the way that “those perceived as lacking desirable traits or deviating from the group norms tend to be excluded by wider society.”4 One of the most lucid descriptions of marginalization that I’ve read comes from bell hooks’s book Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center, in which she focuses on how most prominent feminists of the 1960s and 1970s tended to ignore the viewpoints and concerns of economically and racially marginalized women such as herself. This was because, being predominantly white and middle-class, these feminists existed in the center with regard to race and class, so they had little awareness or understanding of lives and perspectives on the margins. However, the reverse is not true: People at the margins must understand life at the center in order to survive. As hooks explains: “Living as we did—on the edge—we developed a particular way of seeing reality. We looked both from the outside in and from the inside out. We focused our attention on the center as well as on the margin. We understood both.”5
While hooks is referring here to her experiences growing up as a person of color in white America, her observations about margins and centers can readily be applied to other class issues. For example, those who are marginalized for being lesbian tend to have a thorough understanding of the assumptions and experiences of the heterosexual center—after all, they grow up in a predominantly heterosexual world and constantly have to navigate other people’s heterosexual assumptions. In contrast, most heterosexuals understand very little about lesbians and lesbian culture, as such knowledge has been systematically shut out of dominant society. Similarly, while I understand cissexual culture (as I was raised as, and generally assumed to be, cissexual), most cissexuals tend to have an extraordinarily limited understanding of transsexuality.
It is important to note that the lack of understanding that those at the center have of those at the margin is not solely due to their lack of exposure (such as the fact that they’ve never been to a lesbian bar or to a transsexual support group). Rather, ignorance about marginalized people is often enforced from within the center. For example, if a straight woman decided to go to a lesbian bar (where she might have the opportunity to learn more about lesbian people and perspectives), she risks having her straight friends and family members assume that she is lesbian. In other words, she risks being marginalized herself. Similarly, if a straight man were to buy a book on transsexuality (say, for example, this book), others might suspect that he is a closeted transsexual or a tranny-chaser. The constant threat of being ostracized, which is directed toward people who show even the slightest interest in marginalized cultures and perspectives, creates within the center an enforced ignorance regarding those at the margins.
It is safe to say that, despite the fact that we make up more than half of the population, women are marginalized in our male-centered society. This can be seen not only in women’s underrepresentation in political, economic, and media positions of power, but in the way that virtually anything associated with femaleness or femininity is typically relegated to a separate category. In the media, stories produced by men, and that feature male protagonists, are seen as universal, while those created by women and featuring female protagonists are often relegated to their own genre (women’s literature, chick flicks, etc.). When talking about sports, it’s a given that one is referring to male leagues unless the sport name is preceded by the word “women’s.” Until very recently, most medical research that examined general health concerns had been conducted on men, and still today women’s specific health issues are typically removed from general medicine and placed in their own category, such as ob-gyn or women’s reproductive health.
Because our society centers on maleness, most men are able to get by in life without ever understanding or appreciating women’s experiences or perspectives. In contrast, women need to be able to appreciate both female and male perspectives in order to successfully navigate society. In fact, in many ways, women in our culture are even encouraged to understand aspects of maleness better in order to fulfill the role they are often expected to play as family caregiver for male partners and children. One example of this is how women’s magazines feature articles with titles like “The Sex He Craves,” which offer advice about what men supposedly want, while most magazines geared toward men are entirely devoid of any information designed to shed light on women’s perspectives or desires.
Because of enforced ignorance, those who are socialized male typically end up mystifying femaleness—meaning that they develop a sensationalized and taboo curiosity about womanhood that is similar to that which many heterosexuals develop toward homosexuality, or that cissexuals develop toward transsexuality. Girls and women suddenly become perplexing creatures who males are entirely unable to identify with or relate to. While one might be tempted to say that the reverse is also true (after all, both sexes complain about not being able to understand the other sex), it has been my experience that most women are able and willing to put themselves in men’s shoes temporarily. For example, I have been struck by how women often wince when seeing images of men who are kicked in the groin or upon hearing stories of men who sustain injuries to their genitals, despite not ever having had male genitals themselves. In contrast, I have never once seen a man have a similar reaction upon hearing about reciprocal accounts of women (like stories about female genital mutilation). Similarly, while most women seem to understand how men “get off” via their penises, men seem curiously unable to imagine what it might be like to be on the receiving end of female sexual stimulation. This is evident in comments I’ve heard men make: that if they had breasts or female genitals they would fondle themselves all the time, as though the only pleasure they could relate to was the sensation of touching female body parts from the outside.
The mystification of women focuses not only on female bodies, but on feminine gender expression as well. It’s common for men to describe feminine women as being “enchanting” and “mysterious,” and as having the ability to “cast a spell” over them. In other words, they relegate femininity to the realm of the supernatural—by definition, not natural and impossible to understand. Perhaps no aspect of femininity is more mystified than women’s clothing, which often emphasizes women’s sexuality, and which is designed in color, texture, and style to be vastly different from “men’s” clothing (right down to the shirt and pants buttons, which are conveniently on the “opposite” side).
While enforced ignorance and the subsequent mystification of femaleness/femininity is a pervasive phenomenon, it clearly affects different individuals to different extents. Stephen Ducat makes a strong case that those boys who are most fiercely taught to disavow femininity within themselves are the ones who tend to have the most outwardly misogynistic attitudes overall.6 This makes sense when one considers the fact that enforced ignorance and mystification act to dehumanize those who are female and feminine, thus enabling certain men to sexually objectify, harass, and outright abuse members of those groups without experiencing any feelings of empathy or remorse. On the other hand, those boys who are given the freedom to express their full range of gendered expression, and/ or who are encouraged to listen, respect, and relate to the women in their lives, may avoid the intense enforced ignorance that other males face. Additionally, like any form of childhood socialization, enforced ignorance may be overcome later in life as one gains a greater understanding of women or as one grows more comfortable with feminine expression both within oneself and in others.