February 18th, 2007
by
Ide Cyan
Exceptionalism is the condition of something or someone which does not fit a pattern or a norm, which I am examining here in a political light, and in particular as it relates to women’s oppression, although it obviously relates to other oppressions as well.
The opposite of exceptionalism is exemplification, or conformity, whereby the individual demonstrates or follows the qualities of its class.
This blog entry is a version of the article I wrote for the FSF Wiki about this subject. (You can go edit that article, if you’d like to add more examples of exceptionalism in fiction, for instance. I only listed a couple that I could think of off the top of my head, but there are a whole lot more.)
Exceptionalism of the Oppressed
Exceptionalism applied to the oppressed raises the individual above her sex/race/economic class without upsetting the position of her class as a whole. Exceptionally, a woman can gain importance if she is perceived as different from her gender, that is, if she is singled out from other women, while the rest of her gender are viewed without special consideration, and usually dismissed as a whole.
It’s a variation on the “divide and conquer” theme, and its mirror image is scapegoating. Exceptionalism places every emphasis on the worth of the individual, divorcing her from her political context, and therefore discouraging her from joining others who share the same default political status in a revolutionary struggle, because her uniqueness exempts her from the consequences her gendered status.
Exceptions may gain access to privileged groups, but they never gain the basis for the power which keeps a particular class in a position of domination over another, because that very basis is what should have excluded those exceptions from participation in the first place.
This phenomenon is linked to tokenism, but whereas tokenism is the behaviour of the group or the incumbent towards including an individual they would normally exclude, for instance as a political gesture of good will or mollification, ‘exceptionalism relates to the individual’s unique status in itself, to its justifications and to the nature of the individual’s difference from her peers.
Typical statements about exceptionalism:
- “You’re not like other girls.”
- “That’s pretty good for a woman.”
- “Rising above one’s class.”
Exceptionalism of the Oppressor
Whereas exceptionalism targeted at individuals from oppressed classes seeks to raise them “above” their oppression, exceptionalism targeted at individuals from oppressor classes can take a curiously apologetic form when the charge is that of being an oppressor.
As exceptionalism of the oppressed tries to exempt the oppressed from the burden of being oppressed, exceptionalism of the oppressor tries to exempt the oppressor from the responsability for oppression.
The typical response against the charge that men exploit women goes:
“But not all men are like that!”
In this way, it’s very similar to the process of scapegoating. The difference is that here, “don’t hurt me! I’m not like them!” is a response from a member of a dominant class in the face of insurrection, rather than from a member of a subjected class in the face of oppression, and that it seeks to reject the blame onto the group, rather than away from it.
This is often followed by an attempt to invalidate the very notion of the responsability of an oppressive class by showing one or a few of its members as innocents, which marks it as a very hypocritical or very stupid refusal to systematise, to see the connections that dictate how a large number of elements function as a whole, or as outright mystification.
When a member of the oppressed claims exceptionalism for one of her oppressors, Rebecca West’s definition of idiocy might explain it — a focus on the personal, divorced from the political. But the lunacy of the politically-obsessed, which might prevent, for instance, a man from noticing that a woman is the victim of discrimination because she is a woman, is conspicuously absent from the line of thought required to arrive at the conclusion that the nature of the exceptional man should override his membership to his class.
Instead, this logic demonstrates a very keen awareness of that class status, and of its implications, because a lack of such awareness would mean that the individual, failing to see his connection to the oppressor, would not try to defend himself as one of them.
Exceptionalism in Fiction
Exceptionalism in fiction provides well-worn narrative tropes for female characters.
The one female character who escapes her destined gender role recurs again and again, since the conditions that require her exceptionalism to allow her to perform heroic deeds endure. That is: for as long as the rule is that women don’t perform the actions that drive the story, then you must make exceptions to allow women’s actions to drive the story.
(The very concept of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, for instance, rests on the Slayer’s exemption from the fate of helpless female characters in a horror story. The episode “Chosen” took a belated stab at making the exception less uncommon.)
The Other Alternative to Being an Exception
Conformity is not the only alternative to exceptionalism. The other alternative to exceptionalism is to change the rules. To destroy the norm, rather than to try to escape it.
It’s revolution.
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Filed under Theory, female characters, politics | Comments (5)
Okay, I’ll be the one to bring up Protector of the Small first here, becausethat first point reminds me so much of her relationship with Alanna.
Alanna, as the only female knight, can be argued away by all the conservatives as exceptional. She’s magic, she’s blessed, she cheated, she’s a fluke, whatever they can come up with. All of these arguments are thrown at Keladry to discourage her from becoming the second female knight. The whole attitude rebuilds any barriers Alanna may have broken, and forces Keladry to break them down again.
No doubt, if the series had continued, those same barriers may have to be broken by the third girl. Although, two is just a tiny bit harder to explain away than one. I remember it was actually helpful in one of the books when Keladry got thrown during several jousts. It showed everyone (especially the girls) watching that while she was a good jouster, on the level with the men, she wasn’t this unattainable ideal. She was human.
[...] We’ve had a recent spate of interesting posts about media aimed at children here at THL, courtesy of C.L. Hanson (btw, did you know she wrote a book? She did! And she’s posting chapters online). Her latest post here, “Girls Will Be Girls,” seems to me to tie in with an encyclopedic definition that Ide Cyan wrote this week at Feminist SF – The Blog! about exceptionalism: [...]
Whew, it wasn’t me this time pointing at Protector of the Small and hopping up and down. Thanks Ragnell!
The barriers re-erected and needing breaking down again was one of the saddest and most realistic aspects of that book. The way that Alanna can’t help Kel, and can’t be seen to, and had to remain artificially distant! It was not exactly representative of the pressures that stop women from connecting across generations and that are barriers to mentoring, but it stood in for them very effectively.
They’ll say you’re exceptional if you’re alone — and if you’re together they’ll dismiss you as a conspiracy and you’re both, or all, discredited.
[...] theory that minor female characters are allowed to be cooler than leads by IdeCyan’s rule of exceptionalism, but she rocks and I wish she had her own [...]
[...] getting to the point – it made me think of an essay by Ide Cyan on “exceptionalism” (http://blogs.feministsf.net/?p=128; mentioned in one of Revena’s Internet round-ups), and wonder if this is a manifestation of [...]