Glossary of Terms

I've been thinking lately that I've been using a lot of obscure terms, sometimes in atypical ways, that may lead to misunderstandings. So I'm going to keep updating this as I make new posts so that you guys know where I'm coming from when I use words like "masculinist" in rarefied ways.

Each entry includes the Oxford English Dictionary's (OED) definition(s) and my notes on how I use the word.

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Masculinist
adjective
characterized by or denoting attitudes or values held to be typical of men : masculinist language.

Note the defintion states "values held to be typical of men." I would say, "values men are expected or enforced to have." What I mean by "masculinist," is fitting in the male-dominated tradition or view. To me, masculinist and militarist are practically synonymous. It's a position where you advocating analytical thinking, dialectic thinking--in short war-like thinking.

Bourgeois
adjective
of or characteristic of the middle class, typically with reference to its perceived materialistic values or conventional attitudes : a rich, bored, bourgeois family | these views will shock the bourgeois critic

Marx also destinguishes the bourgeois from the wage-laborers. The bourgeois reap the profit of their enterprises, but the wage-labor is only paid a fixed amount every hour. Marx didn't concern himself with a middle class, only the business owner and those he controls. When I talk about bourgeois, I use the word interchangeably. The people of the middle class have more power to control bodies, which to me, lumps them in with Marx's original definition, as well as the modern-day use. The line can be blurred of course, some people who are technically middle class are wage laborers. But they have enough capital to influence media and own property. 

Feminism
noun
the advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men.

This is a fitting description of what I stand for. Except that I also consider myself "feminist" because I oppose "masculinist" values. In her book Three Guineas, Virginia Woolf talks about the "private" values of women and how women taking on the "public" or what I would call "masculinist" values makes women promote war. I don't oppose men as a feminist, I oppose masculinism, whether it be practiced by women or men.

Patriarchy
noun ( pl. -archies)
a system of society or government in which the father or eldest male is head of the family and descent is traced through the male line.
• a system of society or government in which men hold the power and women are largely excluded from it.

These two definitions are not mutually exclusive. There's a reason women still normally take the husband's last name, and it helps perpetuate the kind of system the second definition describes. The word currently describes the society we live in and most, if not all, around the world.

Essentialism
noun Philosophy
• the view that categories of people, such as women and men, or heterosexuals and homosexuals, or members of ethnic groups, have intrinsically different and characteristic natures or dispositions.

I am not an essentialist. It's something I want readers to keep in mind as they read and discuss ideas on here.

Dialectic
noun (also dialectics) [usu. treated as sing. ]
1 the art of investigating or discussing the truth of opinions.
2 inquiry into metaphysical contradictions and their solutions.
• the existence or action of opposing social forces, concepts, etc.

This is the kind of discourse I'm trying to avoid. Traditionally, in dialect philosophy or discussion, an argument is presented, then another (antithesis or opposite) argument is presented, they duke it out like armies. One emerges victorious. This kind of discouse also assumes there's some sort of Truth capital "T" that exists out there and that we can get at it through something subjective like language (ha!). Now whether you disparage this like me or not, note I am trying to avoid continuing in the dialectic debate or intellectual warfare, the masculinist tradition.


Construction
noun
• the creation or formation of an abstract entity : language plays a large part in our construction of reality.

As a non-essentialist, I treat gender, race, pornography, yaoi...all as constructions. These things do not exist out there in the world, but in our language. We use these constructions or abstractions to talk about physical things. But these constructions (gender, race, etc.) have real reprucussions in society.

Abstract
existing in thought or as an idea but not having a physical or concrete existence : abstract concepts such as love or beauty.
• not based on a particular instance; theoretical : we have been discussing the problem in a very abstract manner.
• (of a word, esp. a noun) denoting an idea, quality, or state rather than a concrete object : abstract words like truth or equality.

Every word in this glossary is abstract. Some people think abstract things are more complex, more intellectual, or better in terms of art. But when I talk about abstract, I'm talking about it in terms of the OED's definitions above, having no "physical or concrete existence" and not being "based on a patricular instance." Both of those definitions work together when I use terms like "abstraction" or "construction." "Pornography" is not a physical object, it's an abstract concept we use to talk about a whole bunch of "particular instances" of images and literature. In creating this abstraction, we need to remember we aren't talking about a physical substance or THING with cut-and-dry limitations out there in the world outside of our language. That's why framing the definitions of abstract things in different ways can garner some interesting results, because it forces us to take a static construction we might treat as an object and think of it instead as a limited, but sometimes useful, tool to talk about things out there in the world.

Generalization
noun
a general statement or concept obtained by inference from specific cases : he was making sweeping generalizations.
• the action of generalizing : such anecdotes cannot be a basis for generalization.

Often times, people use the word "generalization" in negative ways. And generalizations CAN be a bad thing, when people take them, like abstractions, to be real things in the real world. However, generalizations in the way I use them, as an abstraction that serves as an umbrella for many incidences of something, not not every single incidence and not based on "a particular instance" solely can be useful for talking about the way we think about things like pornographic pictures, yaoi comics, etc. I don't believe full-heartedly in my generalizations as if they exist in the real world or describe every instance of something: I use them as points of reference, as jumping pads into new ways of thinking.