女性真實存在嗎？——兩本有關性別的書

 

Material Girls：Why Reality Matters for Feminism   2021

實體女人：女性的真實存在

 作者Kathleen Stock (1972- )，英國人，Sussex大學哲學教授，女同性戀，曾有異性戀婚姻和家庭。此書從分析哲學的角度批評性別認同的概念，反對在法律上將性別定義成單純的個人內在感受，由各人自行決定，旁人不可干預，也與生理和身體外觀無關。她主張男女性別真實存在，但也同時主張，生物只要有分類，必然會有例外，例外者不應受到排擠。傳統的性別分類仍需保持，沒有必要取消男女，但是可以增加新的概念、語言和交义性的類別，給予非二元性別者相同的人權和尊重。Stock支持跨性別人士，但不同意當下流行的性別認同理論，期望就理論部分進行學術辯論，不但得不到正面回應，卻因不符合英國學術界反對二元性別的政治正確而飽受攻擊，失去教職。但此書卻受到媒體和大眾歡迎，成為暢銷書。

 此書和Duke大學法學教授Doriane L Coleman 2024年出版的On Sex and Gender: A Commonsense Approach 立場近似，都是反對本世紀以來英美盛行的對性別所採取的極左和極右立場：完全排除二元性別（男女）或者完全排除非二元性別及非異性戀者 (LGBTQ+)，而主張依據實證和經驗對待和定義性別，在常態之外看到並尊重差異的存在。兩位作者都自認為女性主義者，因此她們都主張男女的生理差異不容忽視，基於安全和隱私的需求，女性需要專屬的空間和法律，如庇護所、監獄、更衣室、遊民收容所、女廁、生育相關的保護等等；在高度競爭(elite sports)和身體接觸（如拳擊）的運動比賽中，為了公平和安全，也應男女分組。

Coleman也因她的書受到詆毀，不過並未失去教職。

 

 

赤道上 讀後 (中文)

顧燕翎2014/5/2

　　C是我先生的高中好友，大學畢業後隨著留學潮到美國，留了下來，成家立業，在太空總署任職，是一位優秀的科學家。數十年來我只聞其名，未見其人，直到幾年前，才在他和妻子返鄉時見到面。第二次也是最後一次見面，我正等候做肺部穿刺檢查，他們來家裡探望，說了些鼓勵的話。

　　網路興起後，許多同班同學都組成了群組，在虛擬空間重新擦出火花，他們那班也不例外，陸陸續續聽到先生提起散居世界各地同學的近況，功課最好的遁入了空門，風流倜儻的退休後四處傳教，也有人成了企業家、醫生。世事難料，我的肺癌疑雲在穿刺之前居然奇蹟式地消散了；先生的電腦網址卻因為管理單位異動，失去了不少連絡人，將近兩年不再聽他談起高中同學。生命中失去了一些活動，又被另一些填滿，依舊忙碌不停運轉下去。

On the Equator -- Wu's novel 赤道上 讀後 (英文)

Wu was my husband's buddy from high school and a highly achieved scientist and engineer with broad interests in arts, history and literature. He died from lung cancer at an early age of 64 and left behind an unpublished novel On the Equator. It is a heart-breaking love story between a Taiwanese comfort woman and a Taiwanese military doctor in the Japanese army during the Second World Warand a legacy of Wu's creative talent and humanitarian sentiments.

Yenlin Ku 顧燕翎

            In my mind, 嘉林's work possesses many elements that have the potential of developing into a full-fledged novel or even a masterpiece. As mentioned previously, it has a well-built, balanced structure. Literary symbols have been put to good use. The many ironies and paradoxes in the story make the plot intriguing to the point of being bewildering. It is exactly the bewilderment, the puzzling nature of life that captivates the reader and provokes her/him to think.

       In the writer's scheme, I believe, Mei Chun has to die in the end. For many reasons, Mei and Chen's love was strictly prohibited despite their mutual attraction. It only became possible when, for a short period of time, all the ruling forces were pulled out and Chen became the temporary ruler of the emptied military camp. Mei put on a pretty dress and loved Chen as an equal.  That chapter is named "Paradise" not without reason.

       Ironically, their love is doomed from the very beginning because it will find no blessing outside the temporary and, in fact, illusionary paradise. Returning to Chen's home together would perhaps be the beginning of more tragedies for Mei. Building a life in defeated Japan with the crippled schizophrenic captain would be equally humiliating for Mei as an ex-comfort woman. To survive in either place would mean surrendering her dignity.

       A brave and smart young woman sold into slavery by her close relative, Mei first tried to protect her dignity by going on a hunger strike when the nursing job she expected turned out to be prostituting. Then refusing to return to prostitution after she had a chance to work as the doctor's assistant, she threatened to kill herself with a knife. In a worn military uniform, she worked harder than any man in the effort of saving lives and won herself respect.  Mei survived hell but was cheated by the illusions of paradise.

       Desperate love for a undeserving man has taken the lives of many literary heroines: Madame Bovary, Anna Karonina and Madame Butterfly, to name the best-known few. Chen, the well-educated gynecologist, set his mind on returning home to resume his business and family life, which included an imagined son. Absent-minded, he failed to notice Mei's symptoms of pregnancy and rudely brushed away her appeal for not leaving the island (abandoning the paradise). In contrast, Chen's assistant, the aboriginal fisherman, less-educated but enjoying more freedom in life, was much more caring and sensitive. He discovered Mei's embarrassing pregnancy and felt for her. Furthermore, he made the choice of staying on the island to build a family with a local woman who happened to be pregnant at the same time.

       Mei did not want to die. But she had no "lakes and rivers" to return to when the paradise was lost.

       Fate did not offer Mei many choices (in the setting of the mid-20th century), did it?

       (And that is why we needed a feminist revolution. For your information, this last statement is made over the objection of Pei-yuan, my husband. And it proves that the movement still has a long way to go.)