This blog is divided into two sections.
The main one, “Spinning concepts”, is based on a fictional intergenerational conversation that gives rise to a systematic analysis of words such as “feminism”,”women”, “gender(s)”, “diversity”, “binary”, “non-binary”, “trans”, “transsexual”, “transgender”, “queer…
Some are uttered by people of all ages, but used to mean very different things; others have appeared recently. While some young Red Riding Hoods champion these words with enthusiasm, others are perplexed by so many resignifications and neologisms.
Concepts have meaning within paradigms of thought. At the end of the 20th century, a change of course took place not only in the way we think and define, but also in the way we give, or withdraw validity and legitimacy to concepts.
That is why prior questions arise when analysing the changes in meaning of some terms, the irruption of others in language, and the consequences they may have not just for those who utter them but for the entire community.
We need preliminaries such as: Who defines? How do we define? What is “to include”? What is “to assign”? And what precisely is “to be”, that verb that we use for all definitions?
And before we look at any gender-related terms, we will have to address the question of why is society raising the question “What is a woman?” but not the question “What is a man?”
This section aims to reflect on all these questions in order and in dialogue form. To do this, we will make a point of not taking any definition for incontestable truth as a starting point. We will assume that every word is a cultural construction, and that, therefore, communities of speakers can change meanings and introduce new words when needs arise. But the power to change language implies taking responsibility for the consequences of that change. It also implies accepting that the community has the right and duty to examine whether these new terms and concepts are consistent with each other, consistent with existing knowledge, and consistent with what they want to define. And if the new words are terms with political effects, they will have to be debated and agreed upon by the community, because they will have consequences for the entire society. Democracy needs shared language.
By not taking for granted at the outset any statement expressed with the verb « be », we can explore who is defining, what for, who for, and with what consequences for equality. And it will also hopefully help shed light on those underlying meanings and tenets that we do not usually make explicit. When thinking paradigms change, those implicit meanings change and they will make dialogue impossible for us if they are not addressed.
The other section, “Observing Culture & Events” does not follow any particular method or order. Hopefully collaborations with other spinners and weavers will take place.