Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Gender Studies and Sexuality, 2024
Year: 2024
DOI:
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Language, Neuter, And Masculinity. The Influence of The Neuter-Male in The Reiteration of Social Models. An Analysis Starting with Cavarero, Irigaray, And Butler
Alberto Grandi
ABSTRACT:
Gender studies have generated numerous questions around the ‘neutral’ forms that underlie foundational concepts of thought; such as the Self or I (think) in philosophy (Io in Italian and Ich in German). The purpose of this analysis is to emphasize how ‘neutral’ forms are central to the reiteration of the binary model and the domination of man, intersectionally understood. Historically, man is the canon, placing his supremacy as part of the natural order. Inserted into this model, various thinkers have considered the male as the universal gender. In this way, man has convinced himself that he is not affected by his masculinity and can speak for all mankind, becoming the logos – the neutral Self – through which everything else declines. The neutral Self, as a neuter, should result as ‘neither one nor the other’. However, that ‘I’ stands as ‘one that signifies and dominates the other’. The Self, in fact, is not neutral, but masculine, even though it is ready to accommodate particularizing sexuality. The term ‘man’, therefore, indicates two aspects. On the one hand a finite being. On the other a universal, produced by language, through a logical parabola that absolutizes this finiteness. Then, by means of a descending dynamic, this universality will be able to specify itself both in that finite male that generated it, and in all the rest, the latter incorporated by the process. It seems, then, that man has made himself ‘neutral’ by taking control of language. With it, he orders and constitutes the world, developing dichotomies, as well as signifying anatomical bodies, nailing permissive fates to them. Working on language and the relationship between the neutral and power indicates the possibility of rewriting dominant models.
keywords: Dominance, Masculinity, Language, Social Models, Neutral