" Should We Frame Gender Questions Differently? "

Abstract

There has been over some time now the de-disciplining of formerly traditional fields such as the Social Sciences, the Humanities and Languages, which in many significant ways have altered the categories of contemporary thought radically. This is perceived as advancement in critical thinking, but the all too facile and felicitous deployment of such ideas discredits intellectual rigor as it leaves unmarked the limits of such empowering border-crossings. While we need not mourn category-failure, we have to resist easy re-namings of certain fields such as Feminisms and Gender Studies. Yet it may also be equally simplistic not to redefine and extend the current dimensions of such knowledges to include both the re-theorizing of such fields, given the changing nature of thinking and practice in the contemporary context. Hence it is relevant to ask: Should we frame gender questions differently? But it is equally important to resist the debunking of questions of gender in favor of ambiguating even the salutary contributions of feminism and gender studies. It is precisely this contradiction, one that seeks disruption for its own sake, that I wish to investigate and respond to. True, there will be more questions than answers in this respect but it is precisely those I wish to raise in the current article.