Experiencing Gendered Seeing

Abstract

This paper explores the concept of "gendered seeing": the capacity to visually perceive another person's gender and the role that one's own gender plays in that perception. Assuming that gendered properties are actually perceptible, my goal is to provide some support from the philosophy of perception on how gendered visual experiences are possible. I begin by exploring the ways in which sociologists and psychologists study how we perceive one's sex and the implications of these studies for the sex/gender distinction. I then discuss feminist philosopher Linda Alcoff's concept of "interpretative horizons," which highlights the role that one's social and political identities play in how we understand the world around us. I also discuss Elizabeth Grosz's notion (borrowed from Merleau-Ponty) of double sensation. I then apply some work in the philosophy of perception on perceptual learning and the cognitive penetration of perception to gendered seeing. My hypothesis is that we can explain how one's interpretative horizons are acquired through some notion of perceptual learning. I conclude by suggesting some of the epistemic and ethical implications of gendered seeing."To see . . . entails more than opening our eyes to allow light passively to bounce off our retinas. We must actively perceive that which is seen and thus make sense of somatic experiences. . . . In this way, sensing and this sense-making are necessarily conjoined, codetermined, and mutually emergent." -Vanninni, (Waskul and Gottschalk 2011,15) "A man would never hold a pen like that." -Dee, MTF cross-dresser, age 55 (quoted in Friedman 2015, 84)

The Problem of Other Minds

“…Contrast empathetic perspective taking with in‐his‐shoes perspective shifting : “consciously and intentionally shifting your perspective in order to imagine what thoughts, feelings, decisions and so on you would arrive at if you were in the other’s circumstances” (302). The former perspective‐taking process, but not the latter, involves imagining oneself to be the target (see also Tullmann ). Goldie rejects the possibility of empathetic perspective taking.…”

“…Thus, perceptual processing, conceptualization, and judgment are extremely important for mind reading in general. Over time, we learn to “just see” another’s mental states, making fast, unconscious inferences from one’s general ToM to a particular target (see Tullmann ).…”

“…Let’s take perceptual learning about gender as a case in point. Arguably, some form of perceptual learning is required in order for a person to attribute gender on the basis of sight alone (Spaulding ; Tullmann ). That is, we learn to see a subject as a man or a woman.…”

“…Through some process of perceptual learning, one learns to see “woman” and, through one’s adoption of social gender norms, associate her with feminine characteristics. This results in a perceptual judgment about not only the visual appearance of the target but also her personality, intellect, and character (Tullmann ).…”