Kenneth Burke explains in his definition of (hu)man that
we are, “the symbol-using (symbol-making, symbol-misusing) animal, inventor of
the negative, separated from his natural condition by instruments of his own
making, goaded by the spirit of hierarchy, and rotten with
perfection." On February 27,
we will take an in-depth look at one part of that list—“separated from his
natural condition by instruments of his own making.” Architecture and design play
a role in determining what we consider “natural” or “unnatural.” How we communicate about gender influences the way in which architecture is utilized, and in turn, those
physical structures influence how we communicate about gender.
Isaac West’s article, “PISSAR’s Critically Queer and
Disabled Politics” provides an example of how architecture plays a role in
public bathrooms. West argues that
the rhetoricity of place, space, and identity should be taken more seriously
and turns to the group People in Search of Safe and Accessible Restrooms (PISSAR) to expand on this notion. Born out of
a coincidental merging of the transgender and disability caucuses at the 2003
University of California Students of Color Conference, PISSAR combines the
concerns of transgender students and disabled students in the public bathroom. West explores, “how these seemingly
disparate groups have articulated, negotiated and managed their differences
while practicing a coalition politics that questions the safety and
accessibility of public bathrooms” (157).
Public bathrooms become a significant concern to the members
of PISSAR, because they serve as an explicit indicator for how bodies
supposedly should be utilized. Additionally, the lack of accessible public bathrooms is
correlated to smaller amounts of time that the members of these identity groups
can remain in a public location.
In short, nonaccessible public bathrooms create and maintain,
“able-bodied and bi-gendered normativities.”
First, West explores how space and place can be used to
enforce or challenge dominant normativities. Although women’s bathrooms and
men’s bathrooms are designed to fulfill the same function at face value, West
reminds us that symbolically they often perform different functions. What is more, individuals
who violate those norms are often the subject of shaming, ridicule, or at times, even physical violence. In other
words, deviation from gendered and abled expectations result in a form of
disciplining. The disciplining
that takes place in public bathrooms reflects John Sloop’s argument that, “the
meaning of gender in dominant remains fairly constraining”.
Second, West uses PISSAR Patrols and Politics to examine the
rhetoricity of place, space, and identity. For PISSAR members, three interdependent levels of shame
needed to be negotiated, the first level coming from the need to label public
bathrooms as a political issue.
Additionally, the members needed to challenge their own feelings or
“internalized shame” that came from having a body that did not align with the
physical boundaries created by a bi-gendered and able-bodied public
bathroom. Although this shame was
not necessarily tied to self-objectification, it was tied to internalized
sexism and internalized ableism that was derived by the pressure to adapt to
the dominant normativities. The third level of shame that needed to be overcome
was the division created between queer and disabled communities.
Nevertheless, through struggling against the “architectural
privileging” of the “normal body,” the members “effectively addressed both the
shame and the stigma directed at their bodies to bolster their coalition”
(167). The coalition that was
formed through this struggle fulfilled what West believed was a key aspect of
Judith Butler’s definition of queer. That is, the identity of queer must continually take on new meanings, never be
fully owned, and remain at the forefront of radical democratization.
Through his analysis, West draws attention to three key
issues. To begin with, he encourages his readers to reexamine their “pee
privilege” and “support efforts like PISSAR’s” (171). Next, he urges us to remember that place, space, and identities
are rhetorically constructed and therefore can serve as a place where meaning
is contested. Lastly, West argues
the PISSAR coalition can serve as an example for other groups who want to
build broad radical coalitions.
Although West examines public bathrooms, they are not the
only place where architecture is influence by conversations of gender. Clare Foran discusses in The Atlantic, how city planners in
Vienna, Austria decided to implement “gender mainstreaming;” i.e., redesign
the city in a way that provided women with the same access to city resources as men. However, as Foran points out,
this practice is not without criticism.
Some critics have argued that Vienna already provided an equal access to
resources. Other critics have asserted that the change in policy runs the risk
of enforcing bi-gendered stereotypes.
To respond to the later claim,
Foran reported that, “city officials have begun to shy away from the term
gender mainstreaming, opting instead for the label 'Fair Shared City'” (para
23).
Regardless of whether you are examining the use of space in
a city or the use of a room in a building, architecture plays a role in how we
communicate about gender and other identities. Yet, this is not a new idea. McSorley’s Old Ale House, for
example, only allowed men until a court order in 1970.
- What can we gain as communication scholars when we explore, “How our communication about gender in influences the way in which architecture is utilized, and how those physical structures influence how we communicate about gender”?
In Issac West article, Michel de Certeau states “space is practiced place.” He goes on to say that terms are given meaning by the practices employed in them. Like the article states, public restrooms are served for multiple purposes and they are biologically divided. Another type of example of gender and identity are rhetorically constructed through place and space would be gym locker rooms. Like public restrooms, they are separated by biological gender and are used for more than gym members changing their clothes. In locker rooms, ones embodied space might become violated as well as body surveillance because one might compare themselves to other people in the locker room.
ReplyDeleteThis also causes problems with transgender’s because they get confronted with using the wrong restroom. When transgender did use the restroom they wanted, they were beat up and harassed. We are the creators of the negative because in situations like this, people do not know that transgender is just a modified identity of a person. Without knowing this, people act on violence, which they believe is right based on the symbols that they have created to express who can use what bathroom.
Our gender communication influences the way architecture is utilized in many different ways. One example will be how businesses build ramps to help women get the stroller where they are going without having to carry the strollers up the stairs as well as people with wheelchairs. Also how sidewalks are widen to help open the narrow space for people with strollers don’t have to worry about the person walking the opposite way as them. This changes how people build structures to make it more accessible not just for handicap people but mothers as well who are always on their feet.
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ReplyDeleteThis article illustrated many ideas that I, personally, feel need greater attention. A while ago, I was working at a bar that had 2 single-occupancy restrooms which were designated as gender specific, though the only real difference was that the “men’s” room had a urinal. During heavy business periods, there would often be a line for the “woman’s” room, while the “men’s” remained empty. It became common practice to suggest to women waiting in line to use the “men’s” room. I remember thinking how pointless it was to even have gendered restrooms, considering how often they got used by the “wrong” sex, though I had not yet developed a critical/cultural perspective on the matter. Indeed, many spaces construct gender to a similar, arbitrary effect. Clothing stores have “men’s” and “women’s” sections, instead of “shirts” and “pants” sections, the latter configuration being the preferred arrangement in virtually any other type of retail. Individuals shopping in the “wrong” section run the risk of either having their gender identity misconstrued under a heteronormative lens and thus compromising their agency, or being criticized and scoffed at for that identity. It is no stretch of the imagination that transgender people suffer the same “internalized shame” that West illustrates when shopping for clothes as they do when using public bathrooms, yet both are essential human functions, which individuals deserve the right to perform with dignity. Burke’s description of humans as “rotten with perfection,” comes into light in such institutions. While we as humans work tirelessly to organize and structure our physical space, space thus becomes hegemonic in terms of gender and ability. As communication scholars, we can first gain insight into this problem by reifying the idea that space is political. That is, the way we construct space is a rhetorical act and that often the meaning is influenced by and serving to the dominant group –something individuals may be unaware of unless they do not belong to that group. Much like PISSAR has done, we can then take both physical and discursive actions to enact change, and thereby re-arranging our space to achieve a more effective and universally accessible space, both physiologically and psycho-socially.
ReplyDelete1. Store lay-outs can affect constructions of identity as well. For example, most people are aware of the separation between men’s and women’s clothing. However, women’s clothing is also sub-divided into a junior’s, women’s and misses section. What section a person shops in shapes society’s ideas about that person’s weight and age, in particular.
ReplyDelete2. An aspect of Burke’s definition of (hu)man that is reflected in West’s article is use of symbols. Burke points out that humans are symbol using, and symbol mis-using creatures. Along those lines, West points out that while male and female bathrooms often perform the same function, people have invested different symbolic value in the bathroom and therefore treat each space differently. The symbol differentiating the bathrooms is based on hetero-normative interpretations of bodies. Burke also says that humans are obsessed with perfection. West reflects this sentiment when she/he points out that nonaccessible public bathrooms “create and maintain ‘able-bodied, and bi-gender normatives.’” Because society has defined an able-bodied, heterosexual, cisgendered bodies as perfect, architectural practices work to rhetorically construct bodies to perform to such ideologies. This also ties back into Burke’s articulation that human’s separate themselves from their natural condition by tools of their own making. The symbols that we use to rhetorically construct the perfect body are human made. As we learned earlier in the class identities like gender, race, etc. do not exist in some pre-formed fashion. Rather, they are socially constructed through various rhetorical practices. The very language system that we use to communicate creates the conditions possible to separate us from our ‘natural condition’. bell hooks articulates the idea of language being oppressive when she discusses language, and the necessity of transforming it.
3. As communication scholars when we explore how communication about gender influences the ways in which architecture is utilized and how those physical structures influence how we communicate about gender we gain a greater understanding of the ways that everyday rhetorical practices maintain systems of domination. As a result, we as scholars are better able to analyze problematic rhetoric, and work to actualize transformation.
1. Sports bars are geared towards heterosexual men. There is very few images of women athletes and it is rare in my opinion to see women's sports being played on the televisions. Football, baseball, basketball, and hockey dominate the televisions and the images on the walls. If there is representation of women, it isn't equal.
ReplyDelete2. Humans are symbol misusing, inventor of the negative, and we are separated by instruments of our own making. Humans created these divisions that put others down while lifting others up. Humans created the spirit of hierarchy, people who are queer are not looked at as normal and that is not right, they are just as deserving as people who are considered normal.
3. We gain knowledge, I never thought about bathrooms in this way, which opened my eyes to a new issue. We can gain an understanding of how people who are disabled and transgendered feel and how we can make changes to accommodate everyone.
Gender and identity are rhetorically constructed through place and space in many different ways because of the way our society has been formed. For example, you would think that many women would come to a gun range but there seems to be about the same amount of men when it comes to visiting the gun range. Many years the gun range has always been known for men to go and practice their skills in shooting. It has been always geared towards men because they are the first who have been drafted in the Armed Forces etc.
ReplyDeleteOther aspect of human that is discussed in West’s article is when he mentions the definition of what humans are, “inventor of the negative” which really gives me a sense that could be true due to the communication in gender. When he discuss how humans are “separated from his natural condition by instruments of his own making” it is something that we can say that humans have a negative minded and tend to not care about other human beings.
ReplyDelete1. I feel that nail salons are an example of how gender and identity are rhetorically constructed. When I go to a nail salon it is geared towards women because women are usually the ones that are getting their nails done/ painted. However, if a man were to sit in for a manicure or a pedicure, it can be seen as awkward because it is going against the norms. The décor of a nail salon is usually geared towards women with colors that were westernized to define the female gender. I feel that manicures and pedicures should not be so gender specific because I feel that keeping your fingernails and feet clean are just ways of good hygiene. If a man decides to go and get a pedicure it shouldn't be frowned upon or viewed as awkward. I think that if the layouts of nail salons and other spas were gender neutral then maybe it would attract more men. I think barbershops are another example. A lot of barbershops can be designed to attract more men than women. Both men and women get haircuts but usually a woman will go to a hair salon rather than a barbershop. My point is that although men and women might partake in the same grooming processes there is still separation in where they go due to what has been rhetorically constructed through place and space.
2. I feel that another aspect of Kenneth Burke’s definition of (hu)man that is reflected in West’s article is “the inventor of the negative.” We as humans put a label of “right and wrong” on “natural and unnatural”. Because we have a westernized view of what is natural and unnatural we tend to put a negative view on what is unnatural. Even the terms natural and unnatural are showing a difference between positive and negative. Through communication, we as humans invent the negative by what we feel is right and wrong.
3. The more that society structures gender through communication, the more that architecture will be used to compliment the norms of society. When architecture compliments the societies structure for gender norms, it becomes imbedded in the way we communicate about it. Therefore it creates this ongoing cycle of how gender communication is influenced by architecture until someone decides to boldly go against societies norms and create a new pattern of thinking for gender. I feel that it can start with the way we communicate about gender. If gender is communicated differently then it can also be shown differently through gender.
Reading about PISSAR and the issue regarding gendered bathrooms reminds me of how much I like the coffee shop Great Lake's Coffee: they have 2 bathrooms, each with a toilet and sink in them, and are not gender-labled but rather one room is named "better-lighting" and the other, "stronger-flush". The humorous twist on the name of the stalls create a worry-free feeling not only to those who may not claim to be either male or female but to those who have to go to the bathroom and the room that pertains to their gender has a line to get in (most likely the women's).
ReplyDeleteAnother example of how gender identity being rhetorically constructed through place & space is the kind of car you drive and how you look inside that car, based on the color and body of the vehicle. Have you ever heard someone say, "that looks like a girly car" to someone who drives a mint-green ford focus, or VW bug. Or that a large pick-up truck is a "man's" vehicle. For example a friend of mine's boyfriend doesn't like to drive her car because it is a little white ford focus, and he says he would rather her car be black so he would feel comfortable driving it. Does the make of a car matter that much in reflection to one's gender that it causes discomfort? Apparently so. Although a car isn't architecture in the sense that it houses you (although in same cases it does) it is still a place of shelter while driving.
In Burke's definition of the human, “the symbol-using (symbol-making, symbol-misusing) animal, inventor of the negative, separated from his natural condition by instruments of his own making" The car is an instrument of human's making, and his become an object of rhetorical design ever since, picked-at and altered, colored and re-done, to become a reflection of the identity of driver behind the wheel (if one can afford the luxury of such a custom vehicle that is).
"Goaded by the spirit of hierarchy" meaning we as humans put a ranking on everything, and practically everything we do insinuates where we might stand on a hierarchal level, of any kind. This relates to West's article in the section talking about what "real" political issues are, and how those get defined and categorized. In our society, even the idea of what is considered politically important, becomes political and hierarchical.