Hello, ladies! Today is the day to start our discussion on the fourth chapter of Silvia’s Federici’s Beyond the Periphery of the Skin.

To be honest, I was quite frustrated with Federici while reading this whole chapter. She didn’t elaborate her positions well and didn’t give enough examples to back up her positions. In the first paragraph I couldn’t figure out just what she thought being a woman is. At first I thought Federici was describing the roles and expectations forced on women and girls by men in a patriarchal capitalist society, but as I kept reading I learned that is not what she meant by the word, “women.”

In the second paragraph, she argues that performance theory is too limited of a concept to explain how gender (from what I understand, gender is the roles and expectations of females and males imposed by society and culture) came into being and how it is enforced.

Here’s a thought provoking quote from the second paragraph: “It overlooks that gender is the result of a long process of disciplining and that it is maintained not simply through the imposition of ‘norms’ but through the organization of work, the division of labor, the setting up of differentiated labor markets, and the organization of the family, sexuality, and domestic work.” I was hoping she would go on to explain in more detail and give lots of examples from different countries and time periods, so we the readers could understand how the concept of gender came into being and how it is enforced throughly, especially in our own society and culture. That didn’t happen though.

Here’s a quote from the last sentence of the third paragraph: “…the fact that this was not a rejection of gender as such but a rejection of a specific, devaluing definition of womanhood that the women’s movement put to death despite many institutional attempts to preserve it.”

I wonder is this true of the women’s rights movement? Did some women in the women’s movement not rebel against some forms of gender roles and expectations forced onto women and girls?

In the fourth paragraph, I believe Federici is saying that we as feminist women need to work within the system as it is to change social and gender roles. It seems to me that Federici thinks some types of gender roles and expectations can be a possible way to change and improve women’s status in society. I don’t know how that would work because I’ve only ever experienced gender being harmful to women and girls. Federici thinks “…we need to transform not only our individual and collective vision of gender..” instead of doing away with it altogether.

It is the 9th paragraph where we read, “The same case can be made for ‘women’ as a social identity.” So to her, to be a woman means you’re part of some social identity? I disagree with this very much.

"…‘woman’ is not a static, monolithic term but one that has simultaneously different, even opposite and always changing significations. It is not just a performance, an embodiment of institutional norms, but also a contested terrain, constantly being fought over and redefined.” That quote is from the 12th paragraph. I wrote in my notes that the definition of a woman (an adult human female) doesn’t change, but that what is expected of women, our roles in society, and what is seen as proper for women to be and do changes throughout history. Just because all women have a common struggle against the misogyny and oppression from men doesn’t mean being a woman is a social identity that one can opt into. How can we fight against our oppression from men if we don’t know what we are? How can we fight if what we are is defined as always changing?

In the final paragraph, she really gets on my nerves. Federici thinks intersex (Isn’t that term outdated? I thought the correct term was Disorders/Differences of Sexual Development.) people are some third gender. Gender is just the roles and expectations of females and males imposed by society and culture. You can’t be born a third gender. That makes no sense. What is Federici’s definition of gender anyways? I just want her to be more clear and elaborate in her writing.