Gender As A Factor Of Normalization Of Personal Identity In Feminism

Abstract

The article analyzes various concepts of socio-economic, Freudian-feminist and postmodern feminism. The author proceeds from the position that the feminine and masculine genders are Other to one another, the functional, meaningful and sociosexual difference between the gender existence of a person is determined, which entails the need to search for common grounds for their joint existence. A single normative basis for co-existence allows achieving the maximum socially effective position for the owners of both male and female genders. It is argued that the concept of separation of biological and social sex (gender) proposed by representatives of feminism has a resource for normalizing the personal and social identity of an individual in the conditions of its both individual and social existence. The author identifies various social, economic, psychological and other grounds for personal identification with gender, which allow achieving socially (normatively) acceptable human behavior. Such behavior is perceived as acceptable and evaluated in a socially positive way. Gender as a social gender is interpreted by the author of the work not only as a set of properties and functions of a person that he acquires in the process of socialization, but also as a set of requirements imposed on the subject of social relations. Based on the conducted research, it becomes possible to explain the strategies of organizing personal (family-household) and public (social) forms of relations between genders.

Keywords: Feminism gender, normalization, personal identity

Introduction

The existence of a person in society presupposes the use of modern norms of co-existence, while the traditional norms of human social existence, as well as the socially acceptable methods and models of personal identification corresponding to them, seem ineffective, requiring rethinking and replacement (Belshaw, 2006). It is necessary to identify other, modern ways of achieving self-identity, as well as the normative foundations of human social existence. The question of the normalization of a person’s personal existence is important (Dryaeva & Kanaev, 2020). On this basis, the study of the problem of identity and identification from the point of view of the normalization of human existence is considered relevant.

The present study is devoted to the problem of personal identity and gender as one of the most relevant factors in modern society for normalizing the way of individual (as not publicly disclosed, carried out by a separate subject) and social (as external, public) existence of a person. The position of a person in society is determined by many factors, among which the socio-sexual role occupied by a person and the associated norms that determine the existence of a person in society are of significant importance. The problematic nature of the gender approach to the normalization of personal identity and identification lies in the distinction between the biological and social gender (Offen, 1987), as well as the corresponding functions and principles of the organization of social interactions.

The process of feminization of modern society is significant, associated with a number of factors, among which is the technicalization of society, which allows women to perform men's work in the past, as well as the gap in the number of men and women in the direction of the latter. Such grounds entail a change in the structure of society, as well as a change in the social status of men and women in it. As a result, socially acceptable models of interaction subjects’ behavior are transformed; the ratio of individual identity and social expectations of social subjects’ behavior models is changing. Therefore, the study of the normative foundations of the process of gender identification and its result – gender identity is an extremely urgent problem of modern philosophy.

Problem Statement

The essence of the problem brought up by the author is that the regulation of the behavior of subjects of social interaction is determined by the aspirations of the individuals themselves, which express the possibility of each of them achieving an ideal mode of personal existence, as well as social expectations that determine the permissible behavior models of subjects of social interaction. Feminism, using the concept of “gender”, reveals the normative foundations of personal identity by pointing to socially acceptable models of human behavior in society. Sillaste (2019) emphasizes that “the gender order is a system of social norms, political culture and social institutions that form the attitude to gender problems and their solution in society” (p. 7). On this basis, it can be argued that the formation of genders and their practical application makes it possible to determine the foundations and principles of a person’s personal existence and actions.

Thus, an ideal image of a person is formed, which turns out to be socially acceptable and approved. The formation of a social gender allows you to realize the resources of an individual in socially acceptable and normatively fixed forms of existence. Changing gender roles, as well as personal and public identity, entails the transformation of socio-cultural types of understanding of male and female (Kletsina & Ioffe, 2019, Kletsina & Vekilova, 2020). Therefore, the problematic of the presented research topic consists in the analysis of the normative resource of a person’s gender identity.

The origins of the presented problem can be considered the gender concept of feminism, which was explicitly formulated and developed by many well-known researchers who noted the significant influence of social, economic and even psychological grounds for the formation of human gender.

The social and economic grounds for the formation of the gender concept are associated with the sociobiological division of male and female. Thus, gender stratification was based on biological prerequisites, the essence of which is that the prestige and authority of the sexes grows from natural bases associated with the performance of biological functions by the sexes: reproduction of the human species, the process of feeding a child and obtaining food. The technical development of the world community leveled biological differences: pasteurization of milk made it possible for a man to feed a child, the formation of heavy equipment allowed a woman to work where it was previously impossible.

This led to the realization of the unreasonableness of the biological imperative about the primacy of men in society. It is logical to conclude that gender stratification is a form of social stratification that cannot be explained solely from a biological point of view. It is essential that a man and a woman in modern society can perform equal types of work, but other things being equal, the gender factor is decisive in the division of labor.

An equally important factor in the implementation of the process of emancipation of a woman is the change in her status in the family and marriage. In primitive tribes, a woman had the status of a gift, completely belonged to a man as the head of a family and marriage. The meaning of this status was determined by the prohibition of incest, as well as a gift as a means of social exchange and achieving collective consent. Thus, the functions of prohibiting intra-group marriages and achieving intergroup marriage unions were performed. The principle of organizing a social structure is being formed, in which the functional of a woman is to be a channel of kinship, while the male functional is a partnership in a transaction.

The idea of a woman as a gift determines the principles of the organization of social relations, the ways of interaction between various participants of social interaction, in which its equal members exchange goods, among which a woman is a thing (commodity) among things (goods). The kinship system involves the imposition of social rules on the biological relationships between the subjects of social interactions, in which genders have different rights.

On the basis of the deed of gift, a sexual division of labor is formed, designed to divide the functional actions of each of the sexes to increase the survival of the social system. It is recognized that representatives of both sexes are able to perform the same functions, therefore, in order that they are not duplicated in the same family, an act of donation is implemented for the distribution of roles in the family, marriage and, thereby, maximum social adaptability and stability is achieved. The status of a woman as a commodity is not so much a desire to belittle her status as the need for the survival of society as a system. Changes in the structure of society and its technical re-equipment lead to transformations in the ability of people to perform their work duties, regardless of gender (Sillaste, 2020a). On this basis, the normalization of gender identity is realized in the form of providing masculine and feminine genders with equal opportunities in the performance of labor activity in the modern society.

The development of understanding of the role and status of women in society is realized in the idea of forming the social necessity of unpaid female labor in the conditions of family and marriage relations. The family and marriage are interpreted as a social security body, in which the role of family members consisted in educational, moral support, and the production of the human factor. Various factors that determine the use of women’s labor as responsible for household management, care and upbringing of children are important (Kalabikhina & Rebrey, 2020). The most significant is the gap in the income of the husband and wife.

In the process of industrialization of society, there is an increase in the work load on a man as the main earner of the family, as a result of which there is a need to form a competent household management and achieve the status of a spiritual support for a man by a woman. As a result, an appropriate ideology is formed that determines the need for a woman’s secondary position in marriage and in society, the feminine gender is associated with a new social role (Blinova & Vyalshina, 2020), the profession of home economics. The family is considered as a necessary condition for maintaining public order (Maynard, 1995). At the same time, each of the members of family and marriage relations performs certain functions that determine his place in the structure of personal and social relations (Kalachikova & Gruzdeva, 2019).

Along with the presence of social and economic factors of gender formation, supporters of the feminist concept identify the psychological foundations of social gender. It is argued that gender is determined primarily by the examples given by parents to children. The author asserts the emergence of sexual identification with a gender role in society. The basis of such ideas can be considered the theory of Z. Freud’s theory of the formation of gender identity, in which gender was equated with the biological sex, and gender identity itself meant the process of psychosexual development of a person. The key factor in the formation of gender identity is the human physiology as a symbol of masculinity or femininity.

Within the framework of psychological feminism, it is argued that the upbringing of children in family conditions forms certain specific images of acceptable and desirable behavior of both girls and boys. N. Chodorow demonstrates that various forms of sexual identification prepare a man and a woman to perform certain adult sexual roles and at the same time orient a woman to the role of reproduction of offspring in society, which initially forms inequality in society. Such a psychological determinant determines further forms of human behavior and forms an appropriate attitude towards a person who performs a sexual social function or not.

At the same time, the failure of one of the parents to fulfill their psychological and educational functions can lead to a crisis of the family as its instability, a crisis of masculinity as a weakening of the usual male hegemony and related traditional ways of understanding masculinity (Arkhireeva, 2020), as well as a crisis of power caused by the habit of perceiving paternal power.

Speaking about the differences in gender identification, Chodorow (1989) points to the assimilation of sexual behavior through imitation of the role behavior of the father/mother, before the development of the main identity due to the gender of boys/girls. The result of this process is a division into the private, belonging to the female gender, and the public, belonging to the male social sex.

Speaking about the transformations of feminism, it can be argued that representatives of postmodern feminism and some other scientists used the resources of the deconstructive method of J. Derrida was recognized as the foundation of any culture and the defining principle of the whole society - a man. At the same time, a woman, since she did not possess the properties of a man, did not receive public recognition and was excluded from public relations and relations as a full-fledged and full-fledged member of public relations and relations.

Postmodern feminists deconstruct masculine logocentrism and show that a woman, being an irrational being who expresses her gender ways of existence in a different, irrational way, turns out to be as valuable a subject of social and interpersonal relations as the male gender.

Thus, a woman can be understood as an alternative to a man, as Other in relation to the masculine gender. The masculine principle retains the principle of integrity, indivisibility, peace and self-sufficiency, which is directly connected with reason and logocentrism. The female gender, on the other hand, contains a principle that is a dynamic, becoming principle, which includes the principle of multiplicity based on the plurality of the erogenous zones of the female body. This association is used to describe the Otherness of the female gender in comparison with the male one. Thus, the plurality and illogicality of the female gender is recognized, the formation of which does not obey the logic of the formation of an alien, “male” principle.

There are a number of features that distinguish female gender identity: decentralization in relation to the patriarchal warehouse, ignoring traditional binary oppositions (activity/passivity, male/female, etc.), blurring the boundaries between chaos and order (Me-Other), and some others.

The idea that it is fundamentally impossible to define the female practice of writing and forming one’s own identity is significant, since the female gender based on decentralization surpasses discourses based on male influence. Female gender implies the possibility and ability of a woman to occupy spaces that are not subject to theoretical, automated, rationalized subordination. Thus, it is possible to carry out the idea of the formation of the female gender as an alternative to the male, as something that is worthy of being together with a man, equal to him, but not obeying him on the basis of a rational masculine principle.

As a result, we see that there are several different feminist concepts that are differently suited to understanding the essence of gender, the reasons for its formation and its significance for the formation of a personal identity of an individual. Gender is interpreted as a form of achieving a person's social position in society and performing socially significant functions.

Research Questions

Among the main issues considered in the article, we can distinguish:

• What are the socio-economic grounds for personal identification with gender;
• What are the psychological grounds for personal identification with gender;
• What is the correlation of gender personal identity and socially acceptable behaviors?

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of the study is to determine the resource of a person’s gender identity in the conditions of its both individual and social existence.

Research Methods

In the course of the research, the method of comparative analysis was used, which allows us to compare different concepts of gender identity and identify its various bases, as well as a logical method by which the influence of gender on the normalization of the process of achieving identity by a person is established.

Findings

The results of our research are the statement that on the basis of economic, educational and status transformations of the understanding of gender as a social sex, a new ideology is being formed in society that determines the possibility of perceiving women from the point of view of their social function. Female gender is interpreted as a function of a woman to achieve social order, which is achieved in various ways: from using a woman as a social gift to using unpaid female labor as a basis for the development of society (Popov, 2020). It becomes possible to form an economic stratification of society in the form of a functional division into male and female types of activities.

The idea of gender equality is that there is a transition from biological “males” and “females” to “men” and “women”, each of which is incomplete without its half. The existing division into men and women has its function not to belittle women as gender or gender, but to guarantee marriage for the formation of sustainable development of society.

The masculine gender is associated with external, socially oriented forms of activity, the feminine gender correlates with the private existence of a person and is perceived as the second sex, dependent on a man. The reason for the presented division is the imposition of stereotypical models of human behavior in everyday life and society (Nebel, 2018).

One of the forms of such imposition is the formation of an image of family and marital relations, in which the distribution of social functions is realized through the use of a psychological image for the formation of gender-oriented behavior stereotypes: the idea of education through personal and social identification allows you to form an image of a specific family (a strong traditional family) as the main value of a (patriarchal) society. The status of a man in this case is the head of the family, and women are the second sex.

In accordance with the formed values, which are laid down at the psychological level, a person's personal identification is formed and his gender identity is formed. The latter is associated with the possibility of practical implementation of gender properties in family and everyday life and, as a result, achieving the status of male and female social sex.

As a result of the formed norms and principles of interaction between masculine and feminine genders, gender practices are being implemented to optimize intra-family and social relations (Kletsina & Ioffe, 2019), which makes it possible to increase the efficiency of people’s co-existence and the achievement of their gender identity.

It should be noted that the presented idea of feminism is realized not only in relation to individual men and women, but also in the field of education and the use of psychological techniques and techniques that allow achieving gender identification practices of both men and women. All this makes it possible to form certain stereotypical models of human behavior in the family (Sillaste, 2020b) and society, which means that the possibility of distributing social statuses based on the psychological aspiration of men and women to perform specific patterns of behavior arises and is supported.

Conclusion

On the basis of the results provided, we can say that gender as a social gender has social, economic and psychological grounds for forming a person’s position in society and identifying himself with socially acceptable patterns of behavior. The use of the image of importance, significance of certain behaviors allows us to form a certain way of individual and collective action in society in a person. In accordance with psychologically, socially, and economically significant values, a person's gender identity is formed, according to which a person gets the opportunity to enter the system of family, marriage, and other ties and relationships. Gender, therefore, acts as one of the factors of rationing personal identity.

In addition, gender acts as a normative basis for the regulation of public relations, which allows achieving the most stable state of the social system. The use of gender statuses and roles allows us to regulate social relations in such a way as to use the resources of individuals as subjects to achieve a high level of efficiency of social interaction. Thus, gender turns out to be the basis for a person's awareness of the need to fulfill desirable behaviors for correct co-existence. Gender, as a result, turns out to be one of the factors of rationing personal identity and the relationships that a person enters into in society.

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