Oh, It’s a Wonderful Life
(1946). A classic American Christmas film. Remember that scene in the
alternate reality in which Jimmy Stewart’s character discovers that
without him being born, his wife Mary becomes (drum-roll please) … A Librarian!!! [1] Not only that, but a spinster librarian wearing tan makeup, glasses, and homely clothing. The shame of it all (read: sarcasm).
Yet
this trope of the spinster librarian is common. The LIS field, as we
know, is historically highly feminized, white, and, in the media at
least, often desexualized. While desexualization is completely different
from asexuality, I will be using this image of LIS work as perceived
feminine and asexual to discuss how concepts like sexuality and
competitive power are not fundamental aspects of existence.
Additionally, the terminology of the metaphor I will be using will be in
binary terms such as “feminine” and “masculine”; these binary views do
not reflect my perspectives, rather they support and contribute to the
problematic image and relationship I am attempting to critique and
detangle.
As an asexual person, I can’t help but see sex (the
verb, not the noun) as often being a masculine expression of power and
control [2]. The classic representation of toxic male greed and coercive
sexual power is the lewd American businessman, imposing his power
through sexual harassment of any woman in the office (Mad Men, Wolf of
Wall Street, etc). The inverse of this character, the
sexually-withholding woman, perceived either as innocent and virtuous,
or vindictive and self-righteous, is still an object to be conquered,
and therefore the woman is still seen as being in the weaker position
[3].
I’d like to explore this problematic association of sex and
power in the world of LIS. In this world, LIS work and workers who
represent public, equitable access to knowledge resources, are perceived
as feminine and asexual, in contrast to the masculinized and allosexual
world of private business, consumerism and capitalism. This post,
through the lens of specifically asexual queer theory, will discuss the
position of LIS work in a capitalist neoliberal society, and how an
asexual perspective applied to queer theory can help envision a
different relationship of systemic power. Asexuality, as defined by the
Asexual Visibility and Education Network (AVEN), can be defined as “a
person who does not experience sexual attraction” [4]. It gets more
complicated from there, as asexuality essentially contributes a whole
other axis of understanding one’s existence. I will not be defining or
discussing further what asexuality means, as there are plenty of
resources for self-education on the matter online [5].
While
queer theorist literature is beautiful and powerfully influential in
liberating the self from restrictive societal and personal oppressions,
they are frequently built upon the assumption that “sexuality is
presumed to be natural and normal to the detriment of various forms of
asexual and nonsexual lives, relationships, and identities” [6]. For
example, Sharon Marcus states that “Queerness also refers to the
multiple ways that sexual practice, sexual fantasy, and sexual identity
fail to line up consistently. That definition expresses an important
insight about the complexity of sexuality, but it also describes a state
experienced by everyone” [7]. Within my metaphor of sex paralleling
masculine capitalist power, Marcus’ vision of sexuality within queer
theory suggests that competitive power is inherent and fundamental to
human society.
While competitive power (read: allosexuality) is
perhaps by far a more common understanding of existence, it is not the
only way of understanding the world. Contemporary American society
largely still believes in the pervasive myth of capitalistic success
under neoliberalism, and therefore in the power of business, wealth and
power (read: masculine, allosexual). Conversely, socialist institutions
such as libraries and community archives, have seen progressively
decreased funding and therefore can be perceived as weaker (read:
feminine, asexual) in our profit-driven societal understandings of
power. Asexuality threatens capitalism, as it undermines the feminine
role of making babies to perpetuate a population of capitalist
consumers. LIS threatens private businesses, as LIS work tries to
promote equity and accessibility, notions incongruent with neoliberal capitalism.
This metaphor can also be
applied within the LIS field (read: queer community) itself. It is commonly
discussed in asexual community forums that asexual people are often
pushed from queer spaces, being seen as not queer enough, but I cannot
emphasize enough how queer our existence is [8]. In my metaphor, the
exclusion of alternate imaginations of society that are not capitalistic
can be seen in LIS workers who may consider themselves democratic or
progressive, yet are unwilling to commit to radical inclusivity.
Drabinski, Roberto, and Olson all acknowledge the power of old
structures in Western knowledge organization, such as how “in LC’s
terms, LGBT people are permanently othered, and purely sexual beings”
[9]. This tension of holding onto old power structures within the LIS
field reflects ace-exclusionist queer community members' unwillingness
to acknowledge a destabilization of an assumed norm of existence
(asexuality may be far from the norm at only 1% of the population, but
that’s still millions of people who exist in this way).
This
exclusionism and unwillingness to relinquish and acknowledge other types
of societal structures (relationships) also manifests itself within the
LIS field in the split in LIS workers’ desire to attach themselves to
capitalistic, neoliberal structures. For example, the LIS world is still
extremely white, entrenched in “neutrality” politics, and not fully on the overthrow-neoliberalism train. Asexuality, like other
sub-umbrellas of the queer community, problematizes the idea of any
normative or default way of existence by uncoupling sexuality from being
alive [10]. Sex, like masculinity, is not bad or inherently abusive,
but the assumption that sex (or masculinity / capitalist power as the
controlling entity) is the default of existence because of its
prevalence, is self-defeating of any movement toward accessibility and
inclusion, whether in the queer community, the LIS field, or society
writ large. There is so much that can be said about what asexuality can
contribute to queer studies, and it’s unfortunate that there is so
little inclusivity of it in queer theory canon, especially in LIS queer
theory (I found one article) [11]. I hope that my brief thought
experiment here can contribute to much more extensive and inclusive
discourse in the future.
----
[1] “It’s a Wonderful Life - Mary The Old Maid (1946),” YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SLDMMGzkyI.
[2]
I am very aware that is not all that it is, and it is very much a
source of empowerment and goodness for people of all/no genders (but
roll with my association for the time being, I have my own issues).
[3] The caricatures for this metaphor were inspired by Maura Seale and Rafia Mirza’s article "Empty Presence: Library Labor, Prestige, and the MLS,” Library Trends 68, no. 2 (2019): 252-268. doi:10.1353/lib.2019.0038.
[4] The Asexual Visibility & Education Network. https://www.asexuality.org/
[5]
See sites such as asexuality.org, asexualityarchive.com,
https://medium.com/@herbixarre/acephobia-allosexuality-and-what-it-means-to-be-queer-cc5b5329bfdd.
[6] Ela Przybylo, Asexual Erotics, pp.1. https://library.oapen.org/viewer/web/viewer.html?file=/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/24390/1005725.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
[7] Sharon Marcus, “Queer Theory for Everyone: A Review Essay,” Signs 31 (1) (2005): 196.
[8] To give one example, coming out as asexual tends to involve a lot of incredible invasive and inappropriate questions. Most assume it is suddenly okay for them to explain for you why you feel different (“You’re probably repressing some trauma,” “you just have to find the right person,” “you’re making that up for attention,” “how do you know if you’ve never tried it,” “is it a mental disorder? let's put you in therapy”, “it’s a phase,” “have you tried it with yourself?”, “are you an amoeba?”), rather than trusting that you know what you feel or do not feel.
[9] K.R. Roberto, “Inflexible Bodies: Metadata for Transgender Identities,” Journal of Information Ethics 20 (20) (2011): 58.
[10] Ashley O’Mara. “Coda: Asexual Awareness Week and the Future of Queer Theory.” Metathesis. https://egosu.wordpress.com/2014/10/31/coda-asexual-awareness-week-and-the-future-of-queer-theory/
[11] Brian M. Watson, “‘There was Sex but no Sexuality*:’ Critical Cataloging and the Classification of Asexuality in LCSH,” Cataloging & Classification Quarterly 58, no 6 (2020): 547-565. DOI: 10.1080/01639374.2020.1796876
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