Topics in the Philosophy of Gender

Talk of gender identity is at the core of heated current philosophical and political debates. Yet, it is unclear what it means to have one. I examine several ways of understanding this concept, in light of features that trans writers and activists seem to attribute to it: The concept should, ideally, make good trans people’s understanding of their own gender identities, the claim that people have privileged access to their gender identities and, perhaps the claim that we all have a (...) gender identity. Further, to validate trans activists’ demands, an account of gender identity should admit that misgendering is a form of serious harm, and that it is permissible for states, and maybe other agents, to require information about people’s gender identities. I conclude that none of the considered accounts meets more than a few of these criteria, on the assumption that the gender norms of femininity and masculinity are unjustified. But we can, and should, pursue the feminist project without “gender identity”. Feminism without gender identity doesn’t need to exclude trans people; it is possible to account for the specific harm of misgendering without believing that we have a claim to the recognition of our gender identities. And, instead of “gender identity”, it is more productive to rely on other gender concepts, such as gender norms, roles, and socialisation, to evaluate, separately, each of the trans people’s claims to inclusion into particular spaces. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore a range of existent and possible ameliorative semantic theories of gender terms: invariantism, according to which gender terms are not context-sensitive, contextualism, according to which the meaning of gender terms is established in the context of use, and relativism, according to which the meaning of gender terms is established in the context of assessment. I show that none of these views is adequate with respect to the plight of trans people to use their term of (...) choice to self-identify and be referred to accordingly. I then consider an invariantist view based on self-identification and explore some of its challenges. (shrink)

The 3sg pronouns “he” and “she” impose descriptive gender conditions on their referents. These conditions are standardly analysed as presuppositions. Cooper argues that, when 3sg pronouns occur free, they have indexical presuppositions: the gender condition must be satisfied by the pronoun’s referent in the actual world. In this paper, we consider the behaviour of free 3sg pronouns in conditionals and focus on cases in which the pronouns’ gender presuppositions no longer seem to be indexical and project locally instead. We compare (...) these cases to previously reported shifty readings of indexicals in so-called “epistemic conditionals” :359–406, 2012) and propose a unified account of locally projected gender presuppositions and shifty indexicals based on the idea that indicative conditionals are Kaplanian monsters. (shrink)

What does it mean to say that some features, such as gender, race and sexual orientation, are socially constructed? Many scholars claim that social constructionism about a kind is a version of realism about that kind, according to which the corresponding kind is a social construction, that it, it is constituted by social factors and practices. Social constructionism, then, is a version of realism about a kind that asserts that the kind is real, and puts forward a particular view about (...) the nature of the kind, namely, that it is constituted by social factors and practices. Social constructivists about human kinds such as gender, race and sexual orientation often make an additional claim, namely, that these kinds are social constructions but they are typically believed to be biological kinds (that is, people are typically wrong about the nature of these kinds). Ron Mallon (2017) calls social constructions that are (falsely) taken to be biological kinds covert social constructions. This paper is about how we could have terms in our natural language that come to refer to covert social constructions. (shrink)

'Caring to Know' argues that “caring is not the ‘other’ of reason and that our lived experiences of caring and being cared for can be useful resources for truth-seeking” (1). This claim is fleshed out over six chapters using a creative blend of analytical feminist theory, virtue theory of knowledge, and cross-cultural philosophy. The brief conclusion braids together different strands of the argument. The review examines the potential of Dalmiya's 'humble relational knowers' for cross-cultural philosophy.

Strategic essentialism Coherence Feminist subjectivity.

This research is an extension of Walker Information’s (Business Ethics: Ethical Decision Making and Cases, pp. 235–255, 1999) study on employees’ job attitudes that was conducted exclusively in the United States. Walker Information found that the reputation of the organization, fairness at work, care, and concern for employees, trust in employees, and resources available at work were important factors in an employee’s decision to remain with his or her company. Our sample includes 713 students from seven countries: Canada, Colombia, Ecuador, (...) Hong Kong, Ireland, South Africa, and the United States. When analyzing the entire sample, our data indicate that both social desirability response bias and gender were significant; however, this was not the case when the data are analyzed by country. On an individual country basis, our data suggest that the generally accepted premise that women are more ethically conscious than men was only true for the samples from the United States and Canada. The data also indicate that, while social desirability response bias was significant for the four factors suggesting ethical components for the sample from the United States, this finding was not universal. (shrink)

Recent work on women’s underrepresentation in philosophy has focused on a distinction between “in class” and “pre-university” effects as the primary cause of women’s underrepresentation in philosophy. This paper reports from a large dataset from the Cooperative Institutional Research Program that shows that, of the American students that intended to major in philosophy before they started college, about two-thirds are men. This lends credence to the pre-university effects explanation for women’s underrepresentation in philosophy. This paper will discuss this finding in (...) light of Louise Antony’s “perfect storm” theory of women’s underrepresentation in philosophy. I will argue that a major part of the perfect storm for women in philosophy is a masculine philosopher schema that discourages women from continuing in philosophy even before they enter a college philosophy class. I will also consider two objections to this argument, what I call the “problem of ignorance” and the “transmission problem.”. (shrink)

Surprisingly, it follows from commonplaces about sex and gender that there is a widely-practiced variety of transgenderism achievable through sex/gender “exaggerating.” Recognizing exaggeration as trans---or at least its moral equivalent---has several important consequences. One is that, since most traditional cultures endorse exaggeration, trans lifestyles have often been mainstream. But more importantly, recognizing that gender exaggeration is trans (or its moral equivalent) reveals a number of sex- and gender-discriminatory practices and intolerant attitudes: from pathologizing hypergender to legally restricting androgenic hormones, many (...) people who consider themselves trans allies are less consistent in their support of transgender lifestyles than they realize. Thus, seeing exaggerators as trans not only follows from a better grasp of transgenderism, but also reveals new arguments in favor of greater gender freedom against gender-policing by both conservatives and progressives. (shrink)

G.W.F. Hegel focuses his treatment of Sophocles' drama, Antigone , in the Phenomenology of Spirit, on the ideal of mutual recognition. Antigone was punished with death for performing the burial ritual honoring her brother, Polyneices, to whose irreplaceability she attests in her well-known speech of defiance. Hegel argues that Antigone's loss of Polyneices was the irreparable loss of reciprocal recognition. Only in the brother sister relation, Hegel thought, could there be equality in mutual recognition. I argue that this equality cannot (...) be found in a marriage union with a husband or in the public sphere of civil society. Situating Hegel's account of marriage in the Philosophy of Right within the history of marriage and historical literature on the emerging market economy of Hegel's time, I demonstrate that Hegel's perception of equality in the reciprocal recognition of the brother sister relation was a function of both economic realities and his relationship with his sister, Christiane. I show desire in the Phenomenology to be the desire for dominance, and I show the brother sister relation to be free of desire. (shrink)

Utilizing Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s work, I argue that the gestaltian framework’s co-determinacy of the theme and the horizon in seeing and experiencing the world serves as an encompassing epistemological framework with which to understand racism. Conclusions reached: as bias is unavoidably part of being in the world, defining racism as bias is superfluous; racism is sedimented into our very perceptions and experiences of the world and not solely a prejudice of thought; neutral perception of skin color is impossible. Phenomenology accounts for (...) the dynamic changes in expressions of racism and the interconnections of both race and sex for women of color. (shrink)

This article addresses the possibility of developing a critical feminist philosophy outside the bounds of foundational thinking.

(1971). A study of ‘admired people’ among adolescents in relation to aggression and sex differences. Journal of Moral Education: Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 61-66.

“The Subliminal K i d moved in and took over bars cafes and jukeboxes of the world cities and installed radio transmitters and microphones in each bar so that the music and talk of any bar could be heard in all his bars and he had tape recorders in each bar that played and recorded at arbitrary intervals and his agents moved back and forth with portable tape recorders and brought back street sound and talk and music and poured it (...) into his recorder array so he set waves and eddies and tornadoes of sound down all your streets and by the river of all language‐Word dust drifted streets of broken music car horn and air hammers—The Word broken pounded twisted exploded in smoke—.Nothing is true—Everything is permitted—1—William Burroughs, Nova Express. (shrink)

New Tenth Anniversary edition of this classic text with a new preface by the author, compares myths about meat-eating with myths about manliness, and seeks to ...

Questions about the use of “inclusive language” in Christian discourse are trivial but the discussion which surrounds them raises an exceedingly important question, namely that of whether gender is theologically salient-whether Christian doctrine either reveals theologically significant differences between men and women or prescribes different roles for them. Arguably both conservative support for sex roles and allegedly progressive doctrines about the theological significance of gender, race, ethnicity and sexual orientation are contrary to the radical teaching of the Gospel that in (...) Christ there is no male or female, Greek or Jew, slave or free man. (shrink)

: Nancy J. Hirschmann presents a feminist, social constructionist account of women's freedom. Friedman's discussion of Hirschmann's account deals with (1) some conceptual problems facing a thoroughgoing social constructionism; (2) three ways to modify social constructionism to avoid those problems; and (3) an assessment of Hirschmann's version of social constructionism in light of the previous discussion.

Sara Mills offers a trenchant analysis of the complexities of social relations--including notions of class, nationality and gender--and spatial relations, landscape, topography and travel, in post-colonial contexts.

This piece, co-authored with Sel Wahng, was part of a set of essays published together under the title "Thinking Sex/Thinking Gender." In this article, we explore how identity politics that underwrite many gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender discourses have proved limiting in regard to potential political alliances and social change. We address this concern by looking at the questions under consideration in this forum through a particular lens: how bodies and identities interact and intersect with modern formations of power. Through (...) this mode of inquiry we seek to relate supposedly disparate elements for the purpose of making new social, political and scholarly connections. (shrink)

Using real-life examples, this book asks readers to reflect on how we—as an academic community—think and talk about race and racial identity in twenty-first century America. One of these examples, Rachel Doležal, provides a springboard for an examination of the state of our discourse around changeable racial identity and the potential for “transracialism.” An analysis of how we are theorizing transracial identity (as opposed to an argument for/against it), this study detects some omissions and problems that are becoming evident as (...) we establish transracial theory and suggests ways to further develop our thinking and avoid missteps. Intended for academics and thinkers familiar with conversations about identity and/or race, Rethinking Rachel Doležal and Transracial Theory helps shape the theorization of “transracialism” in its formative stages. -/- Part I: The Current State of (Trans)racial Discourse The first half begins with five puzzle cases, all based on specific historical figures. Each case poses the problem of someone not being readily “black” or “white” (or “mixed”). The chapter asks readers to think about their assumptions and how/why they might classify any of the puzzle cases racially. Then, with those assumptions and classification processes in mind, Part I outlines particular challenges we face—conceptually, linguistically, politically, and theoretically—as we try to adapt the messy practice of race in the U.S. to a new effort to theorize potential transracial identity. The concerns this half addresses include: how Doležal’s case might be understood alongside the identities of other racial nonconformists; what we think “black identity” consists of and how our language and concepts for race need to be clarified; whether ancestry and phenotype should continue to dominate our discourse; the relevance of political orientation and action to racial identity; and the implications of motive and intention for racial identity. Ultimately, Part I argues that we need to improve the way we are thinking and talking about transraciality in the Doležal era. -/- Part II: Pathways for Further Developing (Trans)racial Discourse Where Part I uses the case of Rachel Doležal and other real-life examples to critique the strains of our existing scholarly discourse on the topic of transraciality, Part II offers broader discussion about some of the ideas that are at play and/or need to be more adequately addressed going forward. Part II outlines some of the problems that I anticipate will trip up the discourse going forward and argues that there are particular ways we (as academics) might navigate them responsibly. My intention here is to identify and explore some of the areas we could strengthen or pay more attention to in an effort to help steer our critical exploration of transraciality in productive directions as the conversation progresses in the future. The concerns raised in Part II include: the linguistic and conceptual problems of “passing”; the very real dangers of conservatism dominating our theorization of transracial identity; the complexities of identity in terms of individual and collective identity and how the process of self-identification affects them; the sensitive and controversial issue of transgender theory (as it relates to transracial theory); and the neglected area of ideal/non-ideal philosophy. Ultimately, Part II argues that we need to avoid significant and harmful mistakes as we decide how to go about theorizing transracial identity and articulates responsible ways we can move forward. (shrink)

Historically, laws and policies to criminalize drug use or possession were rooted in explicit racism, and they continue to wreak havoc on certain racialized communities. We are a group of bioethicists, drug experts, legal scholars, criminal justice researchers, sociologists, psychologists, and other allied professionals who have come together in support of a policy proposal that is evidence-based and ethically recommended. We call for the immediate decriminalization of all so-called recreational drugs and, ultimately, for their timely and appropriate legal regulation. We (...) also call for criminal convictions for nonviolent offenses pertaining to the use or possession of small quantities of such drugs to be expunged, and for those currently serving time for these offenses to be released. In effect, we call for an end to the “war on drugs.”. (shrink)

Based on Maldonado-Torres’s formulation of the term, we conceive the decolonial turn as a form of liberating and decolonising reason beyond the liberal and Enlightened emancipation of rationality, and beyond the more radical Euro-critiques that have failed to consistently challenge the legacies of Eurocentrism and white male heteronormativity (often Eurocentric critiques of Eurocentrism). We complement Maldonado-Torres’s account of the decolonial turn in philosophy, theory and critique by providing an analysis of the trajectories of academic philosophy and clarifying the relevance of (...) decolonising philosophy and of the decolonial turn for current efforts in transforming philosophy in face of the challenges of social movements such as the Third World Liberation Front and Black Lives Matter in the United States, and Rhodes Must Fall in South Africa and England. After a brief analysis of the trajectory and current status of philosophy as a discipline in the modern Western research university, we provide examples of the decolonial turn and of decolonising philosophy in three areas: the engagement with (1) Asian and (2) Latin American philosophies, and (3) debates in the philosophy of race and gender. (shrink)

This essay aims to motivate a different way of reading Simone de Beauvoir's feminist philosophy than that which has become dominant in Beauvoir scholarship. I wish to argue that we can read Beauvoir as articulating what I will call a "feminist art of living." To substantiate this thesis, I highlight a crucial feature of her art of living—one that is connected to her reflections on the body—namely, what I refer to as Beauvoir's "sensualism." By "sensualism," I have in mind a (...) subjective experience of the body from an intimate, first-person perspective that is not derived from the body's appearance.Before delving into the idea of sensualism, let me preview the stages of my argument. I first discuss examples of how... (shrink)

Research suggests that interventions involving extensive training or counterconditioning can reduce implicit prejudice and stereotyping, and even susceptibility to stereotype threat. This research is widely cited as providing an “existence proof” that certain entrenched social attitudes are capable of change, but is summarily dismissed—by philosophers, psychologists, and activists alike—as lacking direct, practical import for the broader struggle against prejudice, discrimination, and inequality. Criticisms of these “debiasing” procedures fall into three categories: concerns about empirical efficacy, about practical feasibility, and about the (...) failure to appreciate the underlying structural-institutional nature of discrimination. I reply to these criticisms of debiasing, and argue that a comprehensive strategy for combating prejudice and discrimination should include a central role for training our biases away. (shrink)

My thesis offers an account of the phenomenon of bodily alienation. Bodily alienation marks the failure to realize oneself in one’s bodily activities. I argue that realizing oneself in one’s bodily activities requires the pursuit of bodily activities for their own sake—not for the appearance they produce, and the ability to deal skillfully with one’s environment. I characterize bodily alienation by examining three cases concerning gender and race: the tendency, inflected by gender norms, to identify with certain fetishized body parts (...) and to modify one’s body accordingly, the physical incapacitation that the gaze of a member of a dominant group can provoke in a member of an oppressed group, and the personal transformations that members of non-oppressed groups achieve when they reform the bodily habits that alienate members of oppressed groups. I vindicate the use of the concept of bodily alienation for ontologies of the body that aim to ground social criticism. I explain that the concept of bodily alienation can accomplish this task because it is descriptive and normative. Applying this concept both describes someone’s relation to her body and judges that relation as defective. Describing social practices as alienating entails that things are not as they should be. And that raises the question of how they should be changed. My use of the concept of bodily alienation for a critical project concerning gender, race, and the body sets this project apart from other forms of social critique, such as social constructionism. Social constructionists typically make descriptive claims about the relative naturalness of a state of affairs and then make the case for changing it. For example, feminist social constructionist critiques move from the claim that gender differences are not merely a matter of biology and can be reformed, to arguments about why they should be reformed. My account avoids this two-step argumentative strategy. The concept of bodily alienation simultaneously uncovers and evaluates phenomena, while tying them to a conception of human flourishing as embodied. (shrink)

In the first section of this essay, I offer a brief overview of Hegel’s dozen or so mentions of dance in his Lectures on Aesthetics, focusing on the tension between Hegel’s denigration of dance as an “imperfect art” and his characterization of dance as a potential threat to the other arts. In the second section, I turn to an insightful essay from Hans-Christian Lucas on Hegel’s “Anthropology,” focusing on his argument that the Anthropology’s crucial final sections threaten to undermine Hegel’s (...) entire philosophy. And in the final section, I offer my own reading of the Anthropology, connecting the threads of my previous two sections. More specifically, I attempt to show that Hegel has in effect quarantined dance in what he terms “the dark regions” of madness in “The Feeling Soul.” Overall, I suggest that this quarantining is ultimately as problematic for Hegel as it has been for dance. Because without dance, complete with its associations with people disempowered in their embodiment, this crucial transitional section in the Anthropology remains burdened with a corporeal remainder that problematizes the entire system. Put simply, Hegel must – by his own logic – learn to dance gracefully with those he would rather shun. (shrink)

There is growing support for the view that social categories like men and women refer to “objective types” (Haslanger 2000, 2006, 2012; Alcoff 2005). An objective type is a similarity class for which the axis of similarity is an objective rather than nominal or fictional property. Such types are independently real and causally relevant, yet their unity does not derive from an essential property. Given this tandem of features, it is not surprising why empirically-minded researchers interested in fighting oppression and (...) marginalization have found this ontological category so attractive: objective types have the ontological credentials to secure the reality (and thus political representation) of social categories, and yet they do not impose exclusionary essences that also naturalize and legitimize social inequalities. This essay argues that, from the perspective of these political goals of fighting oppression and marginalization, the category of objective types is in fact a Trojan horse; it looks like a gift, but it ends up creating trouble. I argue that objective type classifications often lack empirical adequacy, and as a result they lack political adequacy. I also provide, and in reference to the normative goals described above, several arguments for preferring a social ontology of natural kinds with historical essences. (shrink)

In this collection, white women philosophers engage boldly in critical acts of exploring ways of naming and disrupting whiteness in terms of how it has defined the conceptual field of philosophy. Focuses on the whiteness of the epistemic and value-laden norms within philosophy itself, the text dares to identify the proverbial elephant in the room known as white supremacy and how that supremacy functions as the measure of reason, knowledge, and philosophical intelligibility.

This paper explores the role of generics in social cognition. First, we explore the nature and effects of the most common form of generics about social kinds. Second, we discuss the nature and effects of a less common but equally important form of generics about social kinds. Finally, we consider the implications of this discussion for how we ought to use language about the social world.

This essay is a critical review of two recent collections, Feminism and Foucault: Reflections on Resistance, edited by Irene Diamond and Lee Quinby and Feminism as Critique: On the Politics of Gender, edited by Seyla Benhabib and Drucilla Cornell. While the collections differ in their manner of addressing the critical sources that have inspired them-the former relying upon a single theorist, the latter attempting to move through some of the philosophical history that constitutes our present theoretical terrain-both attempt to think (...) through and thus revisualize some of the categories of difference which we have inherited. Though the best essays from these collections are celebrated for demonstrating how "feminism as critique" can work to move us toward a clearer and more inclusive feminist theory, questions are raised about what the inattention to race in these volumes suggests about our own role in the construction of power and knowledge, and the erasures that help to secure them both. (shrink)

Quayshawn Spencer (2014) misunderstands my treatment of racial naturalism. I argued that racial naturalism must entail a strong claim, such as “races are subspecies”, if it is to be a substantive position that contrasts with anti-realism about biological race. My recognition that not all race naturalists make such a strong claim is evident throughout the article Spencer reviews (Hochman, 2013a). Spencer seems to agree with me that there are no human subspecies, and he endorses a weaker form of racial naturalism. (...) However, he supports his preferred version of ‘racial naturalism’ with arguments that are not well described as ‘naturalistic’. I argue that Spencer offers us an unnaturalised racial naturalism. (shrink)

Although World of Warcraft utilizes ethnic and gender stereotypes in the construction of its playable characters, the structure of the gaming environment provides a modest utopian vision that is structurally just, maximizing both liberty and equality among participants in a way consistent with John Rawls's Theory of Justice. As a result, class, race, and gender are much more a matter of human (humanoid) variety, rather than a tool for hierarchically differentiation. Nevertheless, in players' engagement with the game, class, race, and (...) gender differences take on meaning well beyond the strucuture of the Warcraft universe demonstrating how real world values infect our imagination. (shrink)

"Draws on philosophers, political theorists, activists, and poets to explain how unspoken and unspeakable knowledge is important to racial and gender formation; offers a usable conception of implicit understanding"--Provided by publishers.

In this paper I discuss the question of what it means to say that a property is socially constructed. I focus on an influential project that many social constructivists are engaged in, namely, arguing against the inevitability of a trait, and I examine several recent characterizations of social construction, with the aim of assessing which one is more suited to the task.

This anthology of contemporary articles (and court cases provides a philosophical analysis of race, sex and gender concepts and issues. Divided into three relatively independent yet thematically linked sections, the anthology first addresses identity issues, then injustices and inequalities, and then specific social and legal issues relevant to race, sex and gender. By exposing readers to both theoretical foundations, opposing views, and "real life" applications, the anthology prepares them to make critically reasoned decisions concerning today's race, gender and sex social (...) issues. Sex and Gender Identity. Sexuality and Sexual Orientation. Race and Ethnicity. Racism. Sexism. Heterosexism and Homophobia. Equality and Preferential Treatment. Discriminatory Harassment. Identity Speech and Political Speech. Sexual Speech. Sexual Assault. For anyone interested in the philosophical underpinnings of today's Race, Sex, and Gender issues. (shrink)

A range of themes—race and gender, sexuality, otherness, sisterhood, and agency—run throughout this collection, and the chapters constitute a collective discourse at the intersection of Black feminist thought and continental philosophy, converging on a similar set of questions and concerns. These convergences are not random or forced, but are in many ways natural and necessary: the same issues of agency, identity, alienation, and power inevitably are addressed by both camps. Never before has a group of scholars worked together to examine (...) the resources these two traditions can offer one another. By bringing the relationship between these two critical fields of thought to the forefront, the book will encourage scholars to engage in new dialogues about how each can inform the other. If contemporary philosophy is troubled by the fact that it can be too limited, too closed, too white, too male, then this groundbreaking book confronts and challenges these problems. -/- Table of Contents -/- Foreword Beverly Guy-Sheftall Acknowledgments Introduction: Black Feminism and Continental Philosophy Maria del Guadalupe Davidson, Kathryn T. Gines, and Donna-Dale L. Marcano -/- 1. Black Feminism, Poststructuralism, and the Contested Character of Experience Diane Perpich -/- 2. Sartre, Beauvoir, and the Race/Gender Analogy: A Case for Black Feminist Philosophy Kathryn T. Gines -/- 3. The Difference That Difference Makes: Black Feminism and Philosophy Donna-Dale L. Marcano -/- 4. Antigone’s Other Legacy: Slavery and Colonialism in Tègònni: An African Antigone Tina Chanter -/- 5. L Is for . . . : Longing and Becoming in The L-Word’s Racialized Erotic Aimee Carrillo Rowe -/- 6. Race and Feminist Standpoint Theory Anika Maaza Mann -/- 7. Rethinking Black Feminist Subjectivity: Ann duCille and Gilles Deleuze Maria del Guadalupe Davidson -/- 8. From Receptivity to Transformation: On the Intersection of Race, Gender, and the Aesthetic in Contemporary Continental Philosophy Robin M. James -/- 9. Extending Black Feminist Sisterhood in the Face of Violence: Fanon, White Women, and Veiled Muslim Women Traci C. West -/- 10. Madness and Judiciousness: A Phenomenological Reading of a Black Woman’s Encounter with a Saleschild Emily S. Lee -/- 11. Black American Sexuality and the Repressive Hypothesis: Reading Patricia Hill Collins with Michel Foucault Camisha Russell -/- 12. Calling All Sisters: Continental Philosophy and Black Feminist Thinkers Kathy Glass -/- Afterword: Philosophy and the Other of the Second Sex George Yancy Contributor Notes Index. (shrink)

I read Sara Kofman's work on Nietzsche, Charles Mills' _The Racial Contract_, and Kodwo Eshun's Afrofuturist musicology to argue that most condemnations of "faking it" in music rest on a racially and sexually problematic fetishization of "the real.".