Gender and Habit: John Dewey and Iris Marion Young on Embodiment and Transformation

Researchers Carolyn Pedwell and Shannon Sullivan have begun to examine how habit can help us better understand the concept and lived experience of gender and how habit can act as a tool for enacting social change. John Dewey's pragmatism also inquires into how individuals can and should act and respond to their conditions and peers in constantly changing times. Through bringing together Iris Marion Young's analysis of feminine body comportment in her essay “Throwing Like a Girl: A Phenomenology of Feminine Body Comportment, Motility, and Spatiality” and Dewey's framework of habit that he develops in his book Human Nature and Conduct, I hope to enter into the ongoing conversation around gender and habit and to propose an outline of how we can begin to transform our often-rigid understanding of gender roles.While Dewey does not inquire into the relationship between gender and habit, he does acknowledge that habit is necessarily embodied: “[B]reathing is an affair of the air as truly as of the lungs; digesting an affair of food as truly as of tissues of stomach” (MW 14:16). Habits are functions of both the person and their environment. However, unlike breathing and digesting, habits are acquired; they are learned. Because they are learned, they are affected by the conditions that we live and act in. So the question of how gender is related to habit is an important one that is overlooked in Dewey's account of habit. Since Dewey defines habit as “an acquired predisposition to ways or modes of response” (MW 14:32; emphasis in the original), we ought to pay attention to the ways these predispositions and modes of response are embodied. In Young's “Throwing Like a Girl,” she intends to outline the “particular style of bodily comportment that is typical of feminine experience” (144). Through both Simone de Beauvoir's account of the condition of women in society and Maurice Merleau-Ponty's account of the relationship between the body and its world, Young hopes to articulate the “particular modalities of the structures and conditions of the body's existence in the world” (144).Our habits constitute who we are and what we know about the world; they are both within us and are conditioned by our environment (Dewey MW 14:31; Sullivan 27). So the moral question of habit is how to “modify the factors which now influence future results . . . [because] . . . to change the working character or will of another we have to alter objective conditions which enter into [their] habits” (Dewey MW 14:18). Dewey uses the example of a person's posture: we cannot simply command someone to stand up straight; we have to work with them to create the conditions to do so. Similarly, when playing the guitar, I do not actively think about where my fingers go—or what certain notes are—the act comes before the thought. It is only in moments of rest that I can reflect upon what I am doing (Dewey MW 14:25). Thus, what is often thought of as negative in terms of habit—that is, its mechanical character—is a necessity. For “if each act has to be consciously searched for at the moment and intentionally performed, execution is painful and the product is clumsy and halting” (Dewey MW 14:51). Most people can recall the first time they tried to do something: for example, wearing heels. I had to search for the proper footing, pause, balance myself, pause, reconfigure myself so I could find my footing, and repeat. However, with practice, I began to work from muscle memory, my feet moved fluidly, and I no longer had to focus on each step. Instead, I could focus on going where I need to go.Like Dewey, de Beauvoir argues that “every human existence is defined by its situation” (qtd. in Young 142; emphasis in original). However, de Beauvoir, and Young, pay closer attention to the ways in which women are defined by “the historical, cultural, social, and economic limits of [their] situation” (Young 142). While Dewey does pay heed to the role power plays in the formation of habit, he is more focused on mitigating the effects of power rather than rooting out its origin(s). Those who wish for a monopoly on social power find the separation of habit and thought, action and soul, to be desirable, so characteristic of history, for the dualism enables them to do the thinking and planning, while others remain the docile, even if awkward, instruments of execution (Dewey MW 14:52). So while Dewey offers an overall critique of hegemonic structures and power relations, how this separation of habit, thought, and action is perpetuated and experienced differs depending on what kinds of power and privilege you possess.Challenging established norms may be especially dangerous for marginalized groups of people. As Sullivan states, “to challenge the rigid confines of one's gender is, therefore, to commit gender treachery by challenging the hegemony of . . . sex . . . as well as gender . . . [and] is to risk all the . . . punishments that are meted out to gender traitors in society” (23). Different portions of society have more or less to lose through disrupting established social norms. Because “conduct is always shared, and the norm is what is promoted, certain bodies [become] excluded” (Pedwell 111). As societies grow, more people become a part of the environment we must respond to. Because we live in a capitalistic society, those with power and capital want to be able to continue to influence and delimit the habits we can acquire in the social sphere. So the disruptions of social norms by queer and disabled folx, and people of color, since they are often not profitable, are punished, whether through social exclusion, gaslighting and other emotional assaults, financial penalties, or physical threats and harms (Sullivan 25). People on the margins who disrupt ingrained social norms both have the most to lose and suffer from, but they also have the most will to enact these changes because it is necessary for them to respond to the conditions they are in.Since character is formed through conduct in everyday activities, it can be understood as the “working interaction of habits” (Dewey MW 14:30–31). Conduct is inherently social, as “social traits are functions of social situations” (Dewey MW 14:18). Further, individual habits cannot be separated from institutional and social habits because “they are always intimately intertwined” (Pedwell 107). Habits are produced through the cooperation of the person with their environment (Dewey MW 14:10). So two questions arise: What is the significance of the habits we inherit from those who came before us? And how do conditions affect habits of gendered beings?In discussing the situation of feminine existence, I (like Young) am not making the claim that this account holds transhistorically and/or transculturally; it is contextual, grounded in time and place. However, women in a shared state of education and custom share a common condition (de Beauvoir qtd. in Young 142). While through de Beauvoir's account, it seems as if it is “woman's anatomy and physiology as such that at least in part determine her unfree status,” it is not women's anatomy as such that limits them, but the ways in which personal habits are formed and customs are reinforced through conditions set by existing customs (Young 143; Dewey MW 14:38). Women experience themselves as a contradiction because, as individuals, they have the potential for autonomy and creativity, but because society defines them as “other,” they are denied these capacities (Young 144). Thus, women's habits and impulses, which strive toward inquiry and creation, are quelled by established social norms and expectations. What, then, does it mean for someone to live as a contradiction?For one, these interactions are not defined merely by present actors but also by past customs (Dewey MW 14:43). Even though we do not exist in a time when women must wear skirts or dresses, women are still taught to sit and comport themselves in certain ways. We still “restrict our sitting posture [by] sitting with [our] legs relatively close together” (Young 145). This is not a habit that comes naturally—it is something we are taught. Constant reminders from our mothers and other adults to “sit like a lady” or to “close your legs” follow us as we grow. This is not said for our benefit, but because, as girls, we are taught—though often implicitly—to take up less space and that our bodies are always on display. To “sit like a lady” is to shield the parts of us that are forced open by the clothing we are expected to wear. We are charged with protecting ourselves from the gaze of others and are responsible for not “tempting” others by our comportment or actions (Young 155). We close our legs and cover our chests partly because of “the threat of being seen” (Young 154). Beginning in youth, we learn that part of our situation as women is “living the ever-present possibility that one will be gazed upon as a mere body, as the potential object of another subject's intentions and manipulations, rather than as a living manifestation of action and intention” (Young 155). Our bodies exist both for us and for others.Since the culture I am in still largely dictates that because I am viewed as a woman, I must “act like a woman,” I am situated by certain expectations and limitations. In many cases, I am expected to be docile, that is, to willingly and openly subject myself to the instruction of others and to form myself to their habits. That is, “to be a ‘real’ woman in our culture has meant and . . . still means to comport oneself in a generally deferential, nonconfrontational and ‘passive’ manner” (Sullivan 35). I am expected to smile, to deflect any unwanted attention in a sweet and passive manner, and to take up little space in the presence of others. So I live within my body as some thing other than myself, as another object in the world. The lived experiences of women come with further limitations than merely what means are available to them and what capacity they have to act upon their wants and needs. Women must also take into account how they will be seen, as someone who is placed, someone who is conducted more by outside forces than by herself (Young 150–52).Additionally, women take themselves to be the “object of the motion rather than its originator” (Young 150). Instead of performing her task through her body, a woman is conflicted between paying attention to how her body enacts the task and the task itself. Since women often assume that they, and therefore, their bodies, are not capable of the task, they do not apply their full effort (Young 147). Instead of adapting the environment to themselves, women adapt themselves to the environment. Likewise, women impose an “I cannot” onto a projected “I can” that comes to enact itself as a “someone can, but I cannot” (Merleau-Ponty qtd. in Young 148–49). Thus, because women are caught between paying attention to the task, and their body as they try to complete it, they hesitate and instead believe that “someone can do this, but I cannot” (Young 149). For example, I have seen my friends effortlessly climb trees, but because I lacked the confidence in my ability, I hesitated, and therefore, was not able to join them. Like Dewey's example of the hunched man, I could not be coaxed into joining (MW 14:24). First, I would have to acquire the confidence in my (and my body's) ability to complete the task.If the “cultural constructs that structure us are us” (Sullivan 26), how can we begin to change the culture we are a part of? Since we cannot be released from our bodies because our bodies are formational structures of our identity and how we interact with the world, we need to realign our view of structure. The “structures of/in [our] live[s] are the means by which [we] take up and engage in [our] world, not merely obstacles to that process” (Sullivan 29)—our families, our language, and our education shape and form who we are. It is not a question of what to do, but instead, how one ought to do it. As Butler states: [T]he question, “what are we to do?” presupposes that “we” has been formed and that it is known, that its action is possible, and the field in which it might act is delimited. But if those very formations and delimitations have normative consequences, then it will be necessary to ask after the values that set the stage for action. (304)So we must inquire into the values and experiences that shape our everyday experience; we must question that which we take for granted. As people who are situated, we are constantly responding to our environment—especially in ways that we are not always conscious of.Accordingly, we need to consider how to do so intelligently. We must cultivate the culture we are a part of while we cultivate ourselves; in this way, we are beings who are both conducting (through our actions and the way we comport ourselves) and conducted (by the structures of our society and the norms and expectations we are expected to live up to) (Sullivan 31). But, in choosing how to enact the gender we are, we can begin to disrupt prevailing cultural norms (Butler qtd. in Sullivan 32). Through the deliberate repetition of certain gendered acts, we can begin to displace what has been previously believed and expected of those gender roles. Through exercising gendered habits in different environments than they were formed, we can begin to uncover unanticipated potentials and then react to the consequences of our actions. It is through responding to our environment, inquiring into habits and beliefs that we have taken for granted, and reshaping our conditions that we can begin to reform our understanding of gender identity.One of the ways we can reshape our conditions and reform our beliefs is through language. Language creates a bridge between old notions and new possibilities of understanding; it extends from the page and comes to shape how we take part in life with each other (Dewey 57). When we discuss our pronouns with others, we are transforming what we have so often taken for granted, and providing an opportunity for new understandings of what gender can mean for new generations. By taking seriously neutral pronouns, queer identities, gender politics, and so on, we can begin to make coherent categories we previously lacked the vocabulary for (Butler 305). By wearing down engrained habits through deliberate actions, we can begin to intelligently (trans)form and embody changes in gender. For this change to be lasting, it must have meaning; it must be coherent. We need the ability to speak about the changes that are occurring; we must be able to inquire into and dialogue about the ways in which habit and gender change.Further, since children have the most plastic impulses and are therefore most amenable to social transformation and change, we can enact change and understanding through educating youth (Dewey MW 14:70). So adults must cultivate a “deliberate [and] humane treatment of the impulses of youth” (Dewey MW 14:69). This is what Dewey understands education to be: “the intelligent direction of native activities in the light of the possibilities of the social situation” (MW 14:70). For cultural change and gender, education exists to help youth to form the habits of “questioning, rethinking, and re-embodying their own and their cultures’ gender habits” (Sullivan 34).However, as education currently exists, it is closer to that of a kind of training, that is, an “impatient, premature mechanization of impulsive activity” (Dewey MW 14:70). Instead of encouraging the promotion of flexible habits and impulses, we train children to conform to existing conditions and customs. We measure the “goodness” of children by the amount of “trouble” they make for us—that is, “the amount they deviate from adult habits and expectations” (Dewey MW 14:72). Instead of viewing children in their particularity, in their development as children, we measure them against ourselves and the customs that are taken for granted. When we take for granted what we think we know, “and therefore about what is necessary to ameliorate suffering and produce ‘positive’ transformation, we risk becoming blind to change . . . when it is actually happening” (Pedwell 112). Since children have the most flexible and plastic impulses, it is crucial that we take the utmost care in encouraging them and providing them with adequate direction (Dewey MW 14:69). If we do not, we risk reinforcing and upholding existing, restrictive social structures and conventions. Currently, the specific ways that girls are expected to behave—walking like a girl, smiling, sitting “properly”—are “learned as girl[s] come to understand that [they are] girls” (Young 154). This is contrary to Dewey's understanding of what education ought to do—education ought to encourage children to engage with and inquire into their environment. Further, education should enable children to form habits that help them to grow and learn fluidly (Sullivan 34).Both pragmatism and phenomenology can act as useful frameworks for inquiring into and critiquing established social norms. Though Dewey's projects often only touched upon the lived experience of women, when his work is put in conversation with feminist thought, it can act as a tool toward more intelligently and creatively responding to the conditions we find ourselves in. Through juxtaposing Dewey's framework of habit and his concepts of plasticity and growth with Young's framework of feminine modalities and her analysis of comportment and spatiality, I hope to have shown how through inquiry into and critique of gendered habits, we may begin to transform them into something positive and productive.