In her article, The Theatre of Operations: Performing Nationness in the Public Sphere, Diana Taylor discusses the expression of nationness as a performance and links it with the performance of gender. She writes, "Both gender and nation-ness (which, I will argue, are the product of each other's performance and therefore difficult to imagine separately) are oppositional and exclusionary - just as one is male as opposed to female, one is Argentinean as opposed to something else. Both are inscribed on physical bodies" (92). She laments the idea of nationness as one that,  like gender, is fundamentally oppositional; by definition it creates a subject and an other. We have discussed redefining the oppositional gender roles, so what about redefining ideas of nationness? How can nationality be expressed without automatically creating exclusionary boundaries? Taylor seems to suggest this is inherently impossible. If so, then is it important, or even necessary, to express nationality?

I have a couple of question/comments after thinking about the readings for this week. First, Prof. Tadiar's article engenders nations - Western vs. Eastern; US as male in comparison with Japan as "wife" (222) or "mistress" (223), with Philippines, in turn, being the "wife" in relation with Japan. I wonder whether defining "masculinity" and "femininity" in the suggested manner in which male is clearly dominant to the female is not simply perpetuating the discrepancy that feminists are trying to fight against. Second, both Taylor's and Pettman's articles depict masculinity as exclusive, either as military, governmental or societal forces. Based on the readings, I imagine that the opposite feminine position is inclusive; Pettman describes the goals of different feminist groups as "increasing women's access and power", "using the state for feminist goals" and "urg[ing] state action in defence of women's rights" (10), all of which attempt to include women in existing institutions. On the other hand Pettman also states that women are faced with Wollstonecraft's dilemma, in which one can either seek "a politics where gender does not matter" or "assert the special work that women do as women" (18). I find the dilemma to be inherently gendered. In the first case, women would be attempting to assimilate bodily into traditionally male roles in society. In the second, women would be unabashedly declaring their femininity - but at the same time exerting an exclusion principle that mimics the masculine exclusion that has been so often protested. The question then is whether there might be a third (or fourth or fifth, etc.) option in which a female power can be formed and exercised without ostracizing one or more parties?

nation with a capital N

Jan Pettman wrote in her piece, Worlding Women- A Feminist International Politics, on the nature of the state, state formation, and international state relations as being deeply gendered. She reveals several layers of gendered-ness, including through the law, through the military, through discipline, through normativity- ultimately asking not "what citizenship does or should mean... or what citizenship means or might become for women," (23) but "what the citizen is a citizen of?" (23) In order to understand what is happening to and around women, we must understand the center of power, through a gendered analysis. She points to the dangers presented by globalization, including the growing imposition of powerful transnational capitalist interests. I am very interested in the inter-national aspect, where nations with a capital 'N' interact- not citizens. What does it mean for women that we let these nations do the talking for us? Is representation in the state enough?

The readings this week all addressed the inherent relationship between the construction of nations, and the gender binary that exists within them. Diana Taylor asserts that the performance of gender and the performance of “nation-ness” are “mutually reinforcing.” (95). Tadiar talks about the global economy as a gendered construction, favoring the “masculine ranks of global management” and oppressing feminine characters (241). And Pettman gives reason to both Tadiar and Taylor’s evaluations of nations, identifying motherhood as the force that molds nations into masculine entities. As we talk about reconstructing the gender binary in this country and around the world, how can we expect to make any true change when it seems the gender binary is such an intrinsic aspect of the “state”? The very system that facilitates life on earth (states and the government) is based on a hierarchy between genders, then how can we presume to limit (if not eliminate) the dichotomy between men and women? Humans have formed a culture around identifying women as mothers, child-bearers and the source of the next generation. How do we steer away from a stereotype that is biologically-based? Basically, if generations of people have come to depend on a governmental structure in which men are favored and women underappreciated, what can we do to really change this without complete anarchy?

Oct. 9th

In "Disappearing Acts," Diana Taylor describes the processes by which citizens in Argentina internalize different conceptions of national identity as proscribed by the political and military authority in power (first the Perons, and then the military junta). This idea of internalization, and the focus on being seen performing these acts of identification, play out in Prof. Tadiar's description of a "deterritorialized Third World" as created by the global economy. As immigrants, specifically migrant workers, spread across the globe, there is the creation of "a new race of infantilized, feminized, commodified peoples...motoring globalized production. It is no longer, therefore, a matter of nations acting like people, but of people embodying their nations" (241). The roles of different nations in the global economy become internalized by citizens as a part of their national identity, which then must be performed in the public sphere in order to belong to the nation. Thus the use of the word "oriental" to distinguish Japanese superiority from other Asians in an international community becomes a necessary assertion of Japanese identity. The denigrating treatment of Filipina prostitutes by Japanese johns, and the general inferior treatment of migrant workers by citizens, is also part of this assertion of identity.  It follows that equality is only possible if there is an equal relationship between countries, which, given the state of the current global economy, seems impossible. How can we change national identities and imaginings of nations in the current global economy? Does it require a complete restructuring of economic relations?

October 9th Discussion Post

Nandita Sharma's WHITE NATIONALISM, ILLEGALITY, AND IMPERIALISM from last week and Professor Tadiar's SEXUAL ECONOMIES IN THE ASIA-PACIFIC COMMUNITY for this week both criticize nationalism as a tool to keep a global hierarchy in place. However, the authors seem to come up with different conclusions as to how to fight the dangers of nationalism. Sharma's piece focuses on "unwanted migrants," individuals or groups of people that do not fit in the imagined, "national community" of a state. Therefore, she concludes by discussing a No Borders movement with their declaration, "No One is Illegal" (139). Unfortunately, the No Borders movement would not resolved the issues described in Tadiar's piece.

Tadiar explores a structure already in place in which Filipino women and children are used as commodities, and move freely among state borders throughout different countries, including Japan. She examines the exportation of Filipino women and children to other countries for sexual exploitation. Tadiar writes, "...nationalities are used as instruments of exploitation. The fact that Filipino girls are imported in Japan to replace the Japanese prostitutes who used to service U.S. soldiers in Okinawa demonstrates that certain national ideologies of discrimination are at work" (238). In this passage, she asserts that Filipino women and children are imported into Japan, because they are outside of the Japanese identity. By outsourcing prostitutes to imported Filipinos, rather than using Japanese women, a power structure is formed based on nationalism in which Japan comes out on top. The use of Filipinos to provide and satiate Japanese consumption and desire, disassociates prostitution from Japanese national identity. The outsourcing of prostitutes implies that there is a market for prostitution in Japan, because there is a Filipino supply, and not the other way around.

Therefore, Sharma and Tadiar provide two ways in which nationalism upholds a global hierarchy. First, it uses state borders and national identities to exclude unwanted "outsiders." Second, it welcomes and imports "outsiders" in order to provide the "dirty" work/commodities that are "beneath" its particular people or community. Is there a way to amend/change Sharma's proposal of the No Borders movement to address both these issues?

Crimes Against Our Own?

In her writings on feminist international politics, Jan Jindy Pettman points out that by promoting the notion that women belong in domestic settings, many societies also promote the idea that men are those who belong in the public sphere, as opposed to women. They thereby promote the masculinization of politics and the male monopolization of authority. Many women take part in allowing for this phenomenon to occur, by submitting to the limitations that these male-dominated societies have outlined for them.
As Pettman's argument progresses, she points out that "while states treat women differently from men, states also treat women differently, as citizens or not, or as members of dominant or minority groups, for example" (14). Might one suggest that even women who protest their being treated unequally from men engage in behavior that promotes unfair and unequal treatment of fellow women who belong to minority groups? If so, how can we change this occurrence?