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biology is not destiny: the anti-essentialist (anti-sexist, pro-queer) message of Orphan Black
May. 23rd, 2013 09:35 pm![[personal profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mswyrrOkay, so we all know what essentialism is, right? In its simplest form, it’s the whole “men are from mars, women are from venus” thing that gets thrown around, saying that (a) there is such a thing as an inherently female or male body (b) all people are either female or male (c) and the biology of their bodies determines their personality/characteristics/abilities. People who like to pretend that women talk more than men because OVARIES or something. Or that a dick makes a person a man and that having one is a ~magical power source~ for channeling the mental energy to do math.
It’s bullshit, basically. The science hasn’t been firmly established at all, and whatever the case, variation between individuals trumps variation between groups. You can’t say “women suck at math ha ha! and men r super good at it because DICK” when there are individual women who are fucking geniuses at it and individual men who cannot balance their checkbooks (if we had checkbooks anymore; do youngsters even remember what those areomg i am old). And you can’t say that women are natural nurturers and men suck at it when there’s women out there who cannot stand the thought of caring for a child and men who love being really involved dads or become kindergarten teachers or… hell, HAVE YOU HEARD OF MR. ROGERS.
Anyway. So there’s that. And there’s essentialism about sexuality, which is connected. Where people put articles in Psychology Today about how there’s a “gay (male)” brain and how it’s similar to the brains of women. Conflating their essentialiized idea of gender with sexuality and saying, OH, if you wanna fuck dudes you must be like a woman! Etc. etc. And the hetero/homo binary itself is essentialist, though that one has a lot of defenders across the board.
And basically this show raises the most gorgeous middle finger to all that shit without even having to get didactic. It just sails the fuck in and says
fuck you, no. Biology is not destiny. Not for any individual, and not even for… ( [MASSIVE SPOILERS - srsly don’t read before watching, spoilers are important on this show and you want to avoid them )
It’s bullshit, basically. The science hasn’t been firmly established at all, and whatever the case, variation between individuals trumps variation between groups. You can’t say “women suck at math ha ha! and men r super good at it because DICK” when there are individual women who are fucking geniuses at it and individual men who cannot balance their checkbooks (if we had checkbooks anymore; do youngsters even remember what those are
Anyway. So there’s that. And there’s essentialism about sexuality, which is connected. Where people put articles in Psychology Today about how there’s a “gay (male)” brain and how it’s similar to the brains of women. Conflating their essentialiized idea of gender with sexuality and saying, OH, if you wanna fuck dudes you must be like a woman! Etc. etc. And the hetero/homo binary itself is essentialist, though that one has a lot of defenders across the board.
And basically this show raises the most gorgeous middle finger to all that shit without even having to get didactic. It just sails the fuck in and says
fuck you, no. Biology is not destiny. Not for any individual, and not even for… ( [MASSIVE SPOILERS - srsly don’t read before watching, spoilers are important on this show and you want to avoid them )
