I am unfortunately not at a point yet where I can write my own additions to this piece but I wanted to start venturing into gender and gender roles because there are a lot of marxists who repeat, no doubt because it seems to make sense on the surface, that gender is a social construct or that it should be abolished. A lot of it is Butlerian in nature and I highly recommend Leslie Feinberg who was positioned against the butlerian view of gender.
The sense of self is completely omitted in the Butlerian view of gender (as a performance), in that as a (cis) man if I acted (performed) like a woman and put on women’s clothes, then that theory states I would be a woman. But I would not feel like one, because I know I’m not a woman. And if I lived in a false reality that forced me act like a man all my life from childhood to the point that I also believed I was a man (say in the same way you can make someone believe the sky is red if you berate them enough), then what explains that trans people specifically are able to “break out” of this mold? A lot of common (in marxist circles) feminist theory is unfortunately completely dismissive of trans people, trans men especially - if gender is a construct to pit oppressors and oppressed then why would anyone “choose” to be part of the oppressed group? Everyone ought to perform as men if that were the case. As for gender abolitionism, the author makes the case in their essay :)
I usually think of gender abolition as absurd. Sometimes it is brought up and I have no clue who it is supposed to help or how its abolition can even make coherent theoretical sense. Imo it sounds radical but is often just nonsense to say that gender exists because of oppressive human systems.
It reminds me of the “masculinity is a prison” line that is repeated, yet isn’t it the goal for many trans men to be sentenced to this prison? I know gender is potentially quite an unpleasant “prison” to be in even for cis folks due to oppressive systems, but isn’t there risk of much greater harm in being misrecognized or being targeted as non-compliant?
But it’s not all completely absurd I suppose even if it is not how I think it is best said. I feel as if it is possible for the same gendered aspects to elicit both a feeling of gender euphoria and a sense of resentment depending on how human systems work.
Certain aspects of masculinity give me a strong sense of self, but the same aspects can become a prison if I’m not allowed to perform differently. Imo the fun parts about gender are soiled in this way and thus gender can be used against us. If we remove or reform the unrelenting pressures that exist in our respective cultures then perhaps in some way we have “abolished” gender, but really it actually seems liberated via revolution.