Gender and Solipsism in Hegemony and Identity

In Connel & Messerschmidt’s reformulation of hegemonic masculinities, they describe the plurality and hierarchy of masculinities as a “fundamental feature of the concept” where verticality displays a pattern of hegemony. Power and value retain a similar ordering role in post-structuralist thinkers, like in Foucault’s work with the former and in Baudrillard’s with the latter. These theories relate notions to concepts to describe pluralities and multiplicities in what these concepts are related to, such as state institutions with Foucault and bodies with Baudrillard. They move from the general to the particular, from the abstract to the concrete and vice versa to outline notions that weave and intertwine one another, diminishing the fundamental feature implied by concepts.

Concepts lose their implications of fundamentality in relation to other things and retain it to describe these things and themselves. They are sustained to form a whole as concepts, to fragment again in relations that weave and intertwine. Notions of gender go through similar movements of formation and dissolution. An expression opens concepts up for discussion to recede for formation of these dissoluted concepts. This takes place in the Self as the fundamental Idea consisting of ideas that shape, reshape and shaping, while retaining the Idea of Self as fundamentum. This Idea of Self becomes different from its former Idea of Self by going through change, only to retain itself as the One.

Identity is such a mode that affirms the Self as One. In coming forth as expression, the Self becomes fragmented by expression that the utterance of “I am such and such, this is me, and so on,” tries to cover up by claiming to be the One. This simultaneous disclosure and enclosure appears as fragmentary invitation of opening up and wholistic deflection of closing down to change, while change happens nonetheless within the Self as it is a collection of ideas that enclose and disclose in and to itself in fragments.

The One in this sense is an operative mode of the Self. Surrounding ideas are enclosed and disclosed by the One to and of the Self that leads to fragmentation and formation of wholes in an idea such as identity. The utterance of “I am” implies that one speaks English which carries connotations about culture, nationality, language, expression, all of which affirms one’s personhood. These implications shift and change by being fragmentary but nonetheless form a whole. “I am a man, woman, non-binary person” utterances are no different in their fragmentary nature while affirming a whole. That is, identity as the One merely retains the Idea as fundamentum.

Identity and identities are folded into the Idea of Self as ideas. Is the Idea-as-One forms a hegemonic relationship with ideas? Consider the relations between trees, leaves, forest and nature. The latter contains all the former in itself as an abstract category and each form referential relationship with one another. The utterance that “trees have leaves” implies that the latter is part of the former as well as it is not, because the word “have” refers to multiple relations by its ambiguity. The utterance that “forests have trees” leaves the previous utterance intact in their implications, because leaves are not part of trees when they fall on the ground and are part of trees as they grow on them. These ideas are not modified by an idea that implies verticality by containing them in itself, just as nature cannot fold leaves, trees and forests in itself, because then these notions cannot be distinguished from one another by referring each leaf, tree and forest by the word “nature.”

The Self, meanwhile, affirms itself as the One whenever it refers to itself as identical to ideas referring to Self in time or identity. The present Self folds former and fragmented selves in itself whenever it utters or thinks of itself in reference, as if nature referring to leaves, trees and forests as itself, provided it can think in relation to utterances. Consider the utterance of “I have such and such identity” as an idea about the Self and “forests have such and such trees” about Nature. The Self folds the fragmentary I and identity in itself while Nature folds fragmentary forests and trees in itself. These ideas become One under the Idea of Self and Idea of Nature, respectively, until related to different ideas. Utterance underpins ideas in this line of thinking, but need not to happen as ideas are related under the One nonetheless.

Hegemony as operative mode of gender relations thus appear to conceptualize the One where some ideas fold other ones into themselves, such as the category of masculinity, that in becoming fragmented produces masculinities. This folding is likened to movement of verticality (with hierarchies) whereas fragmentation to movement of horizontality (with pluralities.)

What does categorization and conceptualization of particulars of these movements produce if solipsistic notions are taken as a given? What about the dialectic movement of representational notions of utterance and ideas? Categories of gender that characterize themselves according to numbers as a given (such as with man and woman corresponding to one and two, series of numbers, integers, and so on) invoke notions relating to these by reference, such as the solipsistic lens that folds, that the negation of it (like with the word genderless) cannot wave away as it still establishes a relation by reference. Hegemonic notions are invoked as concepts that lead to a sudden halt after affirming multiplicities and pluralities, having little more to offer from what the genderless pronoun (they) does by staying open to associations of multiplicity and plurality. Notions of representation on the other hand suffer from the difference that arises by relying on concepts that offer resemblance to what it describes. Approximation is their shortcoming that leaves astray. But this leaving astray can also lead to directions that establish relations to the phenomena at hand as it is implied by movement. From tracing around, dialectic movement can branch out to directions not bound by its starting point, to divert from linearity implied by tracing.

Collecting and naming fragments that fall down from categories established by the One cannot capture the movements of these fragments for they are fragmentary that the One folds into its categories, such as linear notions of space and time. By relating movement to the One, it paints this falling down as a thrust that gives account about the relationship solipsistic notions consist of. Consider the notion of discrimination from the point of view of the One as it moves in the Idea of Self and in its resemblance to hegemony in gender relations. Chauvinism appears as an idea in relation to identity that One operates in this view. It is difference from the vantage point of the One it tries to resolve by affirming this difference in relation to ideas, such as sex and gender. Fragmentation takes place during folding to affirm the One that ideas sustain (in identity) by relationship with ideas (of gender and sex.) The One fragments incommensurable ideas of gender and sex by folding them into one another while affirming difference that’s different from differences implied by relational associations and fragmentation that folding creates in identity. The utterance of “I am” cannot keep up with the implications of this affirmation so it folds it by relating to another idea, such as “they are such and such” that affirms the Self as Idea by relation that utterance establishes by the I-they relationship, from where relations between such and such unfold. This unfolding leads to fragmentation by incommensurability of ideas, to which each utterance, affirmation, idea refers back to the fundamental Idea of a sustained self by fragmentation that affirms the Self as a whole. The One tries to resolve difference but only complicates it by affirming difference that becomes entangled in fragmentation.

Hegemonic masculinity is the replication of the One that follows the operational mode of what it conceives to be the One, but emerges as configuration of multitude. Fragmentation imbues the displaced One with some of its fragmentary properties that resemble one another. Chauvinistic notions affirm the One as difference layed out in verticality; gender neutral notions affirm the One as difference from this laying out in plurality; and hegemony affirms the One as difference that differentiates laying out, all the while notions, such as gender and sex, resemble one another in becoming fragmentary. Affirmation of difference in the One then affirms the same and the similar as resemblance (in the notion of laying out in our case) that (re)produces notions of the identical in concepts (such as hegemony,) where the same, the similar, the resemblance and the identical approximate one another without ever meeting. Only in following these fragmentary movements can lead to an account about this dialectic production, that the less its concepts (of fundamentality) resemble these movements (of fragmentation,) the closer this account will be by approximation.