Gendered practico-inert-objects: A defense of the vandalism of public restroom facilities
Within the present paper I aim to add to the discussion of how women are still by and large suffering from ideological oppression despite substantial progress in conceptually re-engineering notions of gender. I will be utilising both the work of Iris Marion Young in relation to Sartre’s practico-inert realities, coupled with Haslanger’s hierarchically defined gender analysis to argue the built environment, and more specifically, public restroom facilities, act as a practico-inert that persistently constrains aspects of action by perpetuating oppressive past-praxis and ideologies of gender. Due to the placement of baby-change apparatuses I will claim these facilities bear some responsibility for the current subordination of women, and ought to be disrupted, via political vandalism in order to offer a counter-speech to the problematic and normative embedded ideology in such material spaces.
A comment before I continue. The reader may be questioning why it is that I have committed to a blended approach of both Haslanger and Young in order to substantiate my claims. Whilst for Haslanger it is the gendered body (when bodily features are ideologically, and for the most part, essentially, associated with ‘biological roles’) that acts symbolically to distribute ‘appropriate’ hierarchical treatment[1], for Young, in conceiving ‘women’ as a serialised collective, the activity of ‘gendering’ reality, and material objects, does not start and finish with the physical body. It entails also, the embedding of past gender ideologies in other material ‘things.’ Borrowing from the work of John Paul Sartre and the notion of the practico-inert, Young is able to bridge the divide between our ideological and material worlds, and how oppression can traverse this intersection.
For the present paper, I utilise the practico-inert to refer to all activities and material structures (practico-) that in being inherited from past praxis (-inert) have the effect of limitation or nullification on current (potentially, differing) action or ideology.[2] As a consequence, along the dimension of gender, the social construction of woman(ness) is not merely via the ‘marked body;’ Haslanger’s “observed or imagined bodily features presumed to be evidence of a female’s biological role in reproduction,”[3] (which for Young, is just one practico-inert object) but is also via the relationship to the ‘already-there’ objects (and practices thereof) in our material structure of existence. Now, what this suggests (prima facie) is that even if we engage on a project of conceptually re-engineering unjust gender constructs, oppressive gendered realities may persist in our material lives via other objects. And indeed, they do; despite progressions in more equitable ways of thinking, ideology at an embedded and institutional level is maintaining material injustices for many individuals. I believe the following project may offer some insight into how individuals can push against systemic ideology, state-sponsored speech, and problematic constructs of gender.
How is it that the practico-inert realities, that structure gender, maintain women’s subordination?
(i) The practico-inert object for the most part is ideologically and practically related to a female’s biological role in reproduction
Within folk discussion on whether public restroom facilities are problematically gendered practico-inert objects, in that they maintain women’s subordination, often the debate is centred upon the exclusion problem in relation to the gender divide of facilities. Yet, I believe such actually masks the argument that current design is oppressive also to cisgendered women. In noting that transgendered and intersexed individuals would benefit from cisgendered allyship for their own liberatory projects, my discussion hopes to display how current practico-inert-objects are oppressive to all.[4]
And by no means is this self-evident. For the divide of gender in toilet facility design in itself does not necessarily suggest anything about a “female’s biological role in reproduction.”[5] What I do believe does indicate this, however, is in the placement of baby-change apparatus[6], of which are located solely within female toilets. Unfortunately, this is not only the case within Australia currently, but is also the default conditions of facilities within the majority of Westernised cultures.[7] Historically however, such considerations seems to be quite logical in relation to social patterns; prior to the civil rights act and women gaining legal inclusion into labour markets, primary care was ultimately, whether rightly so, associated with women. What use would such be in male toilets? Ergo, baby-change apparatuses were only socially necessary in female facilities.
Yet, the feminist project has progressed so that socially women are no longer subjected to legal forms of domestic subordination qua marginalisation from the workforce, exploitation with regard to unpaid domestic labour and powerlessness in patriarchal governance, such as marriage bars.[8] Why is it that the design of these facilities still remains largely unaltered?
Haslanger may suggest that the (practico-inert) objects (baby-change apparatuses) within the space (toilet facilities) are experienced passively as the discursive construction is covert to the individual. Whilst I agree with this notion, I believe that such discursive activity is by no means neutrally related to the context that brought about its existence. Conversely, in a much more Youngian manner, I suggest the historic reality, of which includes ideology and praxis, that was necessary for the construction of the object to begin with, is sustained alongside its materiality. This does not change the fact however that an individual must be conscious of the ideological embedment; in fact, it may not even occur to them that such objects or ideologies are oppressive.
Afterall, it was not just the policy constraints I listed above that were the sole mechanism for the practico-inert realities of public restroom design[9]. Indeed, it was prior to this; in ideology, at a structural level, that conditioned such social rules. On Haslanger’s account, if I am not mistaken, it is the legacy-attitudes of biological essentialism that are the perpetual engine behind the hierarchical social positioning of women; consistently positioning women in relation to her ‘reproductive role.’[10] Public restroom facilities, as practico-inert-objects that structure gender concepts, are no different. By including baby-change apparatus solely within female toilets, similar deterministic ‘roles’ for women are pedestalled, and presented as ‘just the way things are.’
(ii) The practico-inert object positions female(s) in relation to routine, habitual practico-inert realities that are in fact limiting and oppressive[11]
Having suggested how public restroom facilities have the element of -inertia, in that we do not experience the object with its’ history and ideology therein, I will now explain how such spaces also have a ‘limiting or nullifying’ effect. Despite having relevance for past- moreso than current- praxis, such spaces and objects indeed have potential in “conditioning contemporary possibilities for action.”[12] An objection here, however, may be formulated to suggest that by inclusion of these apparatus within female toilets, action is in fact enabled, and possibilities for women increased. Within this paper however it is no mere accident I have placed emphasis in that apparatuses are solely supplied for female facilities. In other words, there are no baby-change apparatuses within male toilets. Consequently, the design of male toilets forecloses and disables the potential of male-centred primary care. Juxta-positioned together, these practico-inert realities (female and male) pedestal one gendered ideology, that women are intrinsically linked to their reproductive role of childrearing. And by contrast, that men are not necessarily. Consequently, women are limited in their material existence and oppressed as such.
To suggest this is not to submit that men are not able to conduct child-rearing activities within male toilets. Conversely, a quick internet search suggests single- and same-sex- fathers have in fact found quite inventive manoeuvres so to successfully change a diaper in a cubicle without conventional apparatus.[13] Yet, such a revelation only goes to further represent the inertia behind these facilities; despite societal demand for change and more equitable facilities from multiple positions on the gender spectrum, ‘new’ facilities being erected still maintain this familiar design. Which, importantly, further purports “conceptualisation of group difference (genders) in terms of unalterable essential natures.”[14]
Further, such demand signals that the practico-inert realities available no longer match current, albeit only progressive, ideology or praxis. Within her more recent work on social practice, Haslanger suggests that if the “world does not substantiate such valuing,”[15] which in this case is baby-change apparatus in male toilets, “then the practice becomes harder to sustain on its own terms.”[16] Accordingly, without drastic intervention, the design of such facilities position women in relation to an essentialist reproductive telos, as well as to disproportionality high expectations on responsibilities of childrearing.
(iii) Both (i) and (ii) together condition a set of structurally unjust rule-bound pre-reflective possibilities of action
Important to my argument is to understand that such practico-inert objects or realities are not experienced in isolation. It is in the coalescence of various experiences in material reality[17], whereby all, or majority, of public facilities encountered have a similar design, that a ‘structure’ to the reality is created. Together, qua repetition and scope, this structure perpetuates women in a social position that is anchored to the primary care of children and consequently, also to the past ideologies of biological determinism (i). And it is in this manner, that the practico-inert has the potential to subordinate. (ii).
As public facilities, these practico-inert-objects are both established and maintained by the state. Surely then, the embedded ideology (of which, can be theorised as a speech act) gains additive and substantial force in subordinating individuals. Indeed, within an argument of the derogatory nature of monuments, of which I believe has comparable significance, Lai asserts of state-sponsored speech that it “enjoy(s) considerably authority and publicity, (…) and purport(s) to speak in our name.”[18] In other words, and in relation to my practico-inert example, the embedded ideology is granted authority in virtue of speaking on behalf of everyone, albeit indirectly, as well as normativity in that it appears as though such speech is widely endorsed. As state-sponsored speech, public facilities do not merely “fail to coordinate us well”[19] or “presuppose something to be valuable that lacks value”[20] as Haslanger would posit, but more seriously, create normative limitations to women’s existence. Whilst it sits somewhat outside scope of this paper, if Young is correct in that “the self is a product of social processes, not their origin,”[21] such practico-inert-objects may be causing other structural injustices for women, say, ontological or epistemic, as well as contributing to sustaining the relationship between the marked body and ideological essentialism. And further, normalises ‘the inferior status of the target group,’ which I am sure helps to justify further subordination and injustices of women along other dimensions and in other areas of life.
Finally, it is pertinent to note that I am not suggesting public facilities are the only practico-inert-objects that establish such ends. Much like Marilyn Frye’s analogy of the bird cage, it is in coalescence that these practico-inert-objects become problematic, and oppressive ideology is able to be materially maintained.
If indeed the above is correct, the question remains, how best can we disrupt such objects?
To answer such, I believe it must first be suggested why it is critical such facilities ought to be disrupted. Sartre’s notion of counter-finality[22] in relation to the practico-inert, suggests that “people pursuing their own ends create a structural system whose teleology runs counter to those individual ends.”[23] If we take this into consideration for public restroom facilities, whilst by no means are individuals blameworthy, we are able to see how individual’s actions do contribute to the stubbornness and sustainment of ideology within the structure. Ergo, a disruption is a necessary method.
To what disruptive counter speech would fulfil a challenge to the status quo, and the embedded ideology of public gendered practico-inert-objects I am not sure I am equipped to formulate within this paper. What I am willing to submit is in agreement with Lai, that such state-sponsored speech is best disrupted via political vandalism, or rather, ‘defacement, destruction or removal.’[24]
Firstly, such vandalism would act immediately as relief and counter-speech to other subordinated individuals, signalling that ‘they are not alone.’ Considering the publicity of placement of such facilities, this message also has a large potential reach. Secondly, within such a message, the potential force of the speech act (the embedded ideology of the practico-inert) is punctured and undermined in that another voice is offered, and thus the authority of the state-sponsorship fails to speak in everyone’s name. For Young, who believes that institutions are necessary for promoting broad scale justice, targeted political vandalism within public restroom facilities could create a situation whereby the institution is pushed to respond in some manner. Whilst the response may not be favourable, it does mean that the issue at hand is at a minimum registered with the state.
Thirdly, and potentially most importantly, such vandalism offers a contribution to the discussion that there are potential realities outside the paradigm. Of this, I believe Haslanger would be in agreement, considering that constructs of gender are structurally relational, if such political vandalism challenges the past-praxis (gendered reproductive roles) of the objects, there is a nexus of potential to disrupt our belief structures, and further, our embodiments of ideology. Ipso Facto, political vandalism challenges the material maintenance of oppressive ideologies behind gender constructs, and subsequently also the property of normativity the ideology possesses.
To conclude, I have utilised the accounts of both Haslanger and Young in an explication of how material, practico-inert realities that structure gender can maintain women’s ideological oppression. This was conducted by suggesting first, the activity of ‘gendering’ sits beyond just the marked body and is related to objects that are also linked to presumed ‘biological roles of reproduction.’ Utilising the placement of baby-change apparatus in current public restroom design I have suggested such realities are embedded with essentialist ideologies of the past, and as such contribute to continually subordinating women. For the liberatory project, I have also suggested such facilities ought to be disrupted via targeted political vandalism.
[1] Sally Haslanger, “Gender and Race: (What) Are They? (What) Do We Want Them to Be?” Nous 34, No. 1 (2000): 42.
[2] Iris Marion Young, “Gender as Seriality: Thinking about Women as a Social Collective” Signs 19, no. 3 (1994): 725-728.
[3] Sally Haslanger, “Gender and Race,” 42.
[4] And thus, also requires, disruption.
[5] Ibid., 42.
[6] The term ‘apparatus’ includes not only change tables but pram circulation space, dispensary units etc.
[7] Only a few cities, such as New York, have begun to alter this structure.
See: https://edition.cnn.com/2019/01/05/us/new-york-changing-tables-mens-bathrooms/
[8] See: Iris Marion Young, “Fives Faces of Oppression” in Justice and the Politics of Difference (Princeton University Press, 1990): 36-65.
[9] As in this equation, policy itself could be said to be a past-praxis
[10] Haslanger, “Gender and Race,” 37-43.
[11] Young, “Gender as Seriality,” 729.
[12] Marion Iris Young, “Structure as the Subject of Justice” in Responsibility for Justice, Oxford University Press, (2011): 55.
[13] See: Footnote 7.
[14] Young, “Fives Faces of Oppression,” 47.
[15] Sally Haslanger, “What Is a Social Practice?” Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement, no. 82 (January 2018): 244.
[16] Ibid
[17] Which occurs in the context of a background of non-ideal structural injustice for women.
See: Young, “Structure as the Subject of Justice.”
[18] Ten-Herng Lai, “Political Vandalism as Counter-Speech: A Defense of Defacing and Destroying Tainted Monuments.” European Journal of Philosophy, no. 3 (2020): 608.
[19] Sally Haslanger, “What Is a Social Practice?,” 244.
[20] Ibid.
[21] Young, “Fives Faces of Oppression,” 45.
[22] Of which Young also utilises in argument. See: Young, “Structure as the Subject of Justice.”
[23] Young, “Gender as Seriality,” 726.
[24] See: Lai, “Political Vandalism as Counter-Speech”