Sex, Culture, and Justice: The Limits of Choice (5 page)

1. Greer,
   Whole Woman,
   19.
   

2. Janet Radcliffe Richards,
   The Sceptical Feminist
   , 115.
   

   tion, some liberals, such as Martha Nussbaum, recognize the impor- tance of social norms in forming preferences. Will Kymlicka claims that ‘‘liberal egalitarians rightly insist that society can only legitimately hold people responsible for their choices if their preferences and capac- ities have been formed under conditions of justice.’’
   21
   However, Kym- licka makes it fairly clear that his statement is more wishful thinking than statement of fact, and remarks that ‘‘liberals need to think seri- ously about adopting more radical politics.’’
   22
   

   Foucault’s position is also not quite so clear-cut. As Nancy Fraser argues, Foucault’s position on normative values is ambiguous. At times it seems that Foucault rejects all normative argument and values, but elsewhere he appears to reject only
   liberal
   normative argument and values, and in some places he in fact relies on liberal normative argu- ment and values. Fraser concludes that ‘‘Foucault’s work ends up, in effect, inviting [normative] questions which it is structurally unequip- ped to answer.’’
   23
   As an example, consider his arguments about the relationship between power and freedom. Although
   Discipline and Pun- ish
   depicts power as ‘‘a centralized, monolithic force with an inexorable grip on its subjects,’’
   24
   Foucault insists in a later article that ‘‘power is exercised only over free individuals, and only insofar as they are free.’’
   25
   With the latter statement, Foucault wants to distinguish a situation characterized by power, which is fluid and retains the possibility for resistance, from a situation of slavery or victory, in which the dominant has won the battle and the victim has no chance to resist. This distinc- tion is similar to Hannah Arendt’s distinction between power and vio- lence. For Arendt, power always operates with the consent of those who submit to it. The president of the United States, for example, is powerful only insofar as the citizens of the United States do not revolt and remove him from office: they consent, in their inaction, to his power. If they were to revolt, so that the president could maintain his role only through use of the armed forces, the president would have no power over them, but merely (resources of) violence.
   26
   Similarly, what
   

3. Will Kymlicka,
   Contemporary Political Philosophy,
   93.
   

22. Ibid., 96.

1. Nancy Fraser, ‘‘Foucault on Modern Power,’’ 142.
   

2. McNay,
   Foucault and Feminism,
   38.
   

3. Michel Foucault, ‘‘The Subject and Power,’’ 221.
   

4. Hannah Arendt, ‘‘Communicative Power.’’ Note that, on Arendt’s view, the president would still need the consent of the army in order to undertake such action, and so would still have to rely on power rather than on violence alone.
   

   is distinctive about power for Foucault is the room it leaves for resis- tance, its indeterminate nature—an indeterminacy that results in part from the fact that power is creative and not (merely) repressive. As power operates by suggesting forms for human subjectivity, it can al- ways be overruled by alternative forms. Thus we could understand Fou- cault not as ruling out the notion of the autonomous subject, but rather as examining the ways in which the autonomous subject submits to power. The rejection of the autonomous subject should be understood in the sense that, for Foucault, the subject can, at most, choose which norms (or, in Foucauldian terms, which regime of power/knowledge or discourse) to endorse. The individual cannot escape power entirely. In most cases, the individual will not even reflect on or consciously choose to endorse norms at all, but will remain unquestioningly within the normative context in which she was formed.
   

   Nonetheless, Foucault’s early work in particular gives the impres- sion that power is a homogenizing, deterministic force that cannot be escaped. Such an impression is problematic because individuals living in liberal societies do not experience their lives as determined, and because liberal societies do indeed allow for more variety than Fou- cault’s account might imply. For example, while all women do face pressures to be beautiful and to comply with appearance norms, there are in practice a variety of images, each with their own set of norms, that women can aspire to. A woman might aspire to look glamorous, with heavy makeup and elaborate clothes and jewelry, or she might aspire to a sporty look, requiring a toned physique, simpler clothes, and ‘‘natural’’ makeup. While both images are derived from gendered society, Foucault’s account does not seem to explain how it is that women can internalize both, or how it is that an individual woman comes to internalize one image rather than another.
   

   Bordo sounds a note of caution here. Although it is true that there is a variety of different images of the ideal female body, she argues that it is dangerous to focus on these multiple interpretations of beauty or to suggest that they foster diversity. The array of images of beauty on display in the popular media may contain some minor differences, but overall such images homogenize and normalize.
   27
   They homoge- nize because, while some deviations are permitted, fairly strict parame- ters of age and ethnicity are maintained. For example, one enormously
   

5. Bordo,
   Unbearable Weight,
   24–25.
   

   popular form of cosmetic surgery among Asian women involves insert- ing a crease in the eyelid to replicate Western facial features.
   28
   Beauty images normalize because all images function as models for compari- son, against which women should and do assess and attempt to modify themselves.
   

   Bordo is right to caution against an overly optimistic interpretation of beauty norms as fostering diversity and autonomy. However, we do still need a way of understanding how diversity develops, why an individual situates herself at any given point, and how resistance and change are possible. In the next chapter, I suggest that Bourdieu’s work shares many of the strengths of Foucault’s analysis, but deals more directly with these issues. It is a central claim of this book that we can and should recognize the significant limitations on individual auton- omy highlighted by a Foucauldian understanding of power and social construction while, at the same time, continuing to strive for a society in which autonomy is respected under conditions of equality. In other words, everything may be a pleasure-endowed internalized norm, but some pleasure-endowed internalized norms are better than others. We need to take seriously liberal normative values, and the parts of Fou- cault’s work which urge resistance to forms of domination, but we must not complacently reduce all resistance to individuals’ free choices.
   

   Genealogy and Genital Surgery
   

   Although most feminist Foucauldians have focused on Foucault’s ac- count of power and discipline, another aspect of Foucault’s work— genealogy—is useful for feminism. Most basically, genealogy is con- cerned with the
   development
   of a set of norms and practices. The premise of genealogy is that even the most specific and everyday prac- tices provide an insight into the operation of forms of power and domi- nation. As a result, changes in practices and norms indicate shifts in patterns of domination. Moreover, Foucault argues that the genealogi- cal method demonstrates that a central site for the inscription of these norms is the body. Modes of domination operate, in part, through ideas about how the body should be and practices that affect its shape.
   

6. For discussion of the connection between cosmetic surgery and racial dominance, see Eugenia Kaw, ‘‘Medicalization of Racial Features.’’
   

   Consider, for example, the case of genital surgery or circumcision, a practice that affects approximately 13 million boys and 2 million girls per year worldwide.
   29
   Female genital mutilation (
   fgm
   ) is perhaps the clearest example of a female appearance or body norm that is funda- mentally about the way women are supposed to act rather than how they are supposed to look—illustrating Foucault’s claim that domina- tion ‘‘establishes marks of its power and engraves memories on things and even within bodies.’’
   30
   In most societies in which it is practiced,
   fgm
   is designed to secure fidelity and suppress female sexuality. Efua Dorkenoo argues that
   fgm
   is often practiced for ‘‘psycho-sexual’’ rea- sons—beliefs about the nature of female sexuality which imply that it must be curtailed. She argues:
   

   The Mossi of Burkina Fasso, the Bambara and the Dogon in Mali believe that the clitoris would be dangerous during child- birth when contact with the baby’s head would cause its death. In some areas, notably Ethiopia, people believe that if the fe- male genitals are not excised, they will grow and dangle be- tween the legs like a man’s. . . . From these myths it can be seen that the clitoris is viewed as a ‘‘rival to the male sexual organ and is, as such, intolerable to men.’’ Among the Bamb- ara this is expressed in its extreme form by the belief that, upon entering an unexcised woman, a man could be killed by the secretion of a poison from the clitoris at the moment of contact with the penis. . . . In other instances society is quite direct about curtailing women’s sexuality. Very frequently, the reason offered by both women and men for mutilation is ‘‘the attenuation of sexual desire.’’ . . . In societies where a man has several wives, it is said that since it is physically impossible for him to satisfy them all, it helps if they are not too sexually demanding. It also supposedly reduces the chance of women straying.
   31
   

   Sometimes, this misogynistic view of female sexuality is expressed via the idea that a woman’s genitals are not dangerous but dirty. Dorkenoo
   

7. George Dennisten et al.,
   Understanding Circumcision,
   v.
   

8. Michel Foucault, ‘‘Nietzsche, Genealogy, History,’’ 85.
   

9. Efua Dorkenoo,
   Cutting the Rose,
   34–35. See also Gerry Mackie, ‘‘Ending Footbinding and Infibulation,’’ 1004.
   

   notes that ‘‘in some African countries where
   fgm
   is practiced—Egypt, Somalia, Ethiopia—the external female genitals are considered dirty. . . . Yet in practice infibulation clearly has the effect opposite to that of promoting hygiene: urine and menstrual blood cannot escape naturally resulting in discomfort, odour and infection.’’
   32
   

   Interestingly, this latter justification of
   fgm
   is similar to the justifi- cation for routine secular male circumcision in countries where it is widely practiced, such as the United States and South Korea. Ritual male circumcision in the Jewish and Muslim religions is not justified by any real or supposed effect on functioning, but is a symbolic, aes- thetic act representing the covenant between Abraham and God.
   33
   Rou- tine, secular male circumcision,
   34
   however, is justified by the somewhat paradoxical assertion of two beliefs: that the foreskin serves no func- tion (so that there is no harm in removing it) and that the foreskin functions harmfully (so that it ought to be removed). Both sets of claims are highly controversial. The claim that the foreskin serves no function takes the form of denying that it plays any role in male sexual pleasure. Against this claim, some studies show that the foreskin is highly sensitive, so that removing it decreases sexual pleasure.
   35
   More moderately, a study of South Korean men who were circumcised after becoming sexually active found that, while 80 percent of men reported no change in their sexual pleasure, ‘‘of those who did report a differ- ence, it was roughly twice as likely for a man to have experienced di- minished sexuality than improved sexuality.’’
   36
   In relation to the posi- tive claim, that circumcision has beneficial effects, it is argued that uncircumcised men are more prone to a variety of problems. Accord- ing to Michael Katz, medical opinion on precisely what these problems are has shifted in the United States. Whereas the focus in the nine- teenth century was on the prevention of what Dorkenoo calls psycho- sexual ‘‘problems’’ such as ‘‘Onanism [masturbation], Seminal Emis- sions, Enuresis [involuntary urination, particularly while asleep], Dys- uria [painful or difficult urination], Retention [the inability to discharge
   

10. Dorkenoo,
    Cutting the Rose
    , 40.
    

11. See Leonard B. Glick, ‘‘Jewish Circumcision.’’
    

12. In other words, circumcision performed on babies or young boys not in response to an actually existing medical problem or to adhere to a religious rule or tradition.
    

13. See J. R. Taylor et al., ‘‘The Prepuce,’’ 291–95; Nicholas Carter,
    Routine Circumcision;
    

    Billy Ray Boyd, ‘‘The Loss.’’
    

14. Myung-Geol Pang et al., ‘‘Male Circumcision in South Korea,’’ 69.
    

    urine, faeces or semen], General Nervousness, Impotence, Convul- sions [and] Hystero-epilepsy,’’ current justifications focus on different problems of health and hygiene, such as ‘‘Prevention of phimosis [a condition in which the foreskin is too tight and cannot be drawn back], Prevention of penile cancer, Prevention of cervical cancer, Prevention of urinary tract infections, Prevention of sexually transmitted diseases [and] Prevention of
    aids
    .’’
    37
    Katz’s list accurately represents the reasons given in one recent Australian book aimed at parents,
    In Favour of Circumcision,
    which adds that circumcision is more hygienic for both the circumcised man and his partner, that ‘‘being circumcised will re- sult in better sexual function, on average,’’ and that ‘‘being circumcised will result in a penis that is generally regarded as more attractive.’’
    38
    The final claim rests on a vicious circle: a norm should be followed since, as it is generally followed by others, noncompliance is deviant and disadvantageous.
    

    Katz considers the available research, and argues that contemporary claims are as scientifically suspect as those from the nineteenth cen- tury, so that neither adequately explains circumcision. For example, the research on the connection between penile cancer and circumcision is somewhat inconclusive. It seems that the most invasive forms of can- cer
    are
    more likely in uncircumcised men, but the disease is extremely rare, too rare to merit precautionary amputation.
    39
    As the title of his paper argues, ‘‘The Compulsion to Circumcise Is Constant: The Rea- sons Keep Changing.’’ In other words, medical justifications of routine male circumcision are post hoc rather than genuinely explanatory. The motivation to circumcise is, for Katz, social rather than medical.
    

    If we compare this evidence on routine secular circumcision (
    rsc
    ) with research on
    fgm
    , we see that contemporary
    fgm
    combines those justifications of male circumcision which are outdated with those which are still prevalent. Whereas American views of male sexuality have moved from the notion that male desire is immoral to the notion that intact male genitals are unhygienic or dangerous to health, African
    

15. Michael Katz, ‘‘The Compulsion to Circumcise Is Constant,’’ 55–56.
    

16. Brian Morris,
    In Favour of Circumcision
    , 88.
    

17. The incidence of penile cancer among
    un
    circumcised men in the United States is only
    

    0.002 percent, while the risk of ‘‘clinically significant complications’’ from circumcision is 0.19–1.5 percent. Contracting penile cancer if uncircumcised is thus 750 times less likely than suffering a significant complication, and only ten times more likely than dying, from circumcision. See Michael Benatar and David Benatar, ‘‘Between Prophylaxis and Child Abuse,’’ 38–39, and S. Moses et al., ‘‘Male Circumcision,’’ 370.
    

    views of female sexuality combine both.
    fgm
    , like
    rsc
    viewed over the last two centuries, aims not merely to change people’s bodies, but also thereby to change their
    behavior
    and their
    preferences.
    By mutilating a woman’s genitals so that intercourse is extremely difficult and painful,
    fgm
    is designed to ensure both that a woman
    cannot
    and will
    not want
    to engage in sexual intercourse with anyone other than her husband (intercourse with the husband being part of marital duty rather than motivated by female pleasure). It is central to the practice that the wom- an’s desire for intercourse, as well as her capacity to engage in it, is limited. Because the clitoris has no function other than to give the woman sexual pleasure, myths of its danger to men and babies effec- tively censure female sexual desire. If the only purpose of
    fgm
    were to ensure behavioral compliance with modesty norms, then other prac- tices such as confinement would suffice.
    40
    fgm
    focuses on limiting not just a woman’s ability to act on her desires, but the desires themselves. Similarly,
    rsc
    in the nineteenth century aimed at reducing the tempta- tion for men to masturbate by reducing their penile sensitivity. How- ever, the current justification for
    rsc
    involves a complete repudiation of this rationale, for as we saw, it is crucial to the current doctrine of routine secular circumcision that the foreskin be seen as irrelevant to sexual desire. For men in Western societies in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, the aim is to increase or preserve penile sensitivity and sexual pleasure, not to reduce it. Thus, while contempo- rary and nineteenth-century discourse share the notion that the fore- skin and thus the intact penis is dangerous to health, they sharply diverge on the question of whether and to what extent sexual desire is healthy. As Foucault puts it, ‘‘Rules are empty in themselves, violent and unfinalized; they are impersonal and can be bent to any pur- pose.’’
    41
    The rule that men ought to be circumcised can be bent to serve the purpose of either restricting sexual desire or increasing sexual hygiene—whichever purpose is deemed necessary by the relevant so- ciety.
    

    This brief account of
    fgm
    and
    rsc
    is a form of genealogy. But why is genealogy in general, and of genital surgery in particular, relevant to feminism and liberalism? Two elements of the genealogical method