Faludi, single gender situation free essay sample

The Citadel, as described in Susan Faludi’s work â€Å"The naked Citadel†, is a place of arcane traditions, contradictions, and hidden motives. Not surprisingly for a traditionally all-male institution, many of these mysteries revolve around the role of gender. Describing it as a bastion of masculinity, while not entirely false, would be an oversimplification, as would thinking of it as a backwards institution full of hypocrisy. As is inevitable in an insulated institution attended only by males, the Citadel is a place where â€Å"the rules of gender [can] be bent or escaped†. (Faludi 282) Cadets, as Citadel students are known, hold contradictory or even hypocritical views about the various genders. Freshmen joined the school to be made into the Citadel’s vision of a â€Å"whole man†, but are bullied and beaten by upperclassmen like women in abusive households. Furthermore, they still hold the upperclassmen in high regard after such incidents. There are required courses on respect for women, yet many cadets disrespect their â€Å"dates†, at times turning to violence. Perhaps strangest of all for this culturally conservative institution is the fact that it is not unknown for a cadet to date a drag queen from the local bar. There are two explanations for these oddities. The first is that cadets don’t care if their ideas on gender are sensible; they are just blindly following tradition. The second, and much more interesting, option is to explore these contradictions in terms of the hidden and public transcripts from James C Scott’s â€Å"Behind the Official Story†. Sexism, the line between â€Å"making men† and homosexuality, and the relations between upperclassmen and freshmen can all be explained in terms of hidden transcripts, and Scott’s more generalized ideas on power relations. The hypocrisy between what is taught and what is practiced regarding treatment of women is hardly unique to the Citadel. The idea that women â€Å"must be sheltered and protected not only from the elements and physical harm but also from embarrassment, crudity, and coarseness of any sort,† has a hidden and public transcript in and of itself. (Scott 266) Publicly this idea shows an admiration for women, men should go out of their way to make women’s lives better. The hidden transcript, however, is that women are inferior to men and cannot deal with problems. Also, it moves women farther from humanity and more into the realm of something aesthetic. The dehumanization combined with domination leads to domestic violence. A woman, to one who thinks of them in these terms, is a perfect outlet for anger. Faludi speaks of several of these incidents, such as, â€Å"one party incident in which two cadets held down a young woman while a third drunken cadet leaned over and vomited on her†(267). One can assume that worse things happen in private. As Faludi says, â€Å"[The citadel’s guide to women] is silent on the subject of proper etiquiet toward women who require neither deference nor rescue†(267). In the end, those who learn the Citadel’s â€Å"Art of good taste† and proceed to a violent relationship are not really being hypocritical; they are simply taking the ideas that inspired the guidebook to a dangerous extreme. Faludi’s interviews with Citadel alumni, however, show that some cadets settle down with strong, opinionated women and have normal relationships. This is an example of even the gender roles taught at The Citadel being escaped. These cadets took the public transcript of the above quote to the extreme of overall respect for women. Unlike the violent extreme, this is a very good message to take from the Citadel’s teachings on gentlemanliness. While cadets’ views of the opposite sex are easy to quantify using Scott’s ideas, their views on their own gender are more complicated. Who are the dominant and the subordinate? The answer is that the dominant here is the Citadel itself, its culture and traditions, with its public transcript of an atmosphere of male intimacy within the bounds of heterosexuality. The subordinates are the individual cadets, who, while agreeing with the system to some degree, have their own ideas. These ideas range from misogynistic domestic violence against dates to homosexuality. It is impossible to know how many cadets keep their true sexuality hidden, but those that do enact this particular transcript complicate the study of gender roles in the Citadel greatly. Theirs is perhaps the truest example of a hidden transcript, and of escaping gender roles. It is assumed in mainstream society that the role of men is to be attracted to women, but the Citadel, like the rest of the world, has its exceptions. Faludi speaks of the Citadel as â€Å"a campus where every second epithet was ‘faggot’† (280). They truly have reason to fear when enacting their transcript, much like Aggy the slave in Scott’s work. Also like Aggy, their â€Å"hidden transcript is at complete odds with [their] public transcript† (Scott 556). Cadets commit hate crimes against African American peers and females attempting to join the corps. Although Faludi does not elaborate on the subject, it is reasonable to think that gays would be even worse off. The Citadel operates on the cutting edge of heterosexual behavior. Cadets are encouraged to kiss, hug, and shower with other men. The presence of a true homosexual could reasonably cause a great deal of unrest amongst the other cadets. Some would be disgusted by the thought of a homosexual in their intimate society, and those who keep a homosexual transcript hidden would likely be driven to prove their manliness. In this situation, and with the crowd being fellow cadets, there would be few better ways to do that then to commit a hate crime against the offender. Another topic, branching off the discussion of gender roles, is the more general relationship between upperclassmen and freshmen. This relationship can be perfectly described in terms of transcripts. It is interesting that the freshmen, the subordinates, do not necessarily have a hidden transcript. Publicly, they take the hazing without a lot of whining, and still admire the upperclassmen for having gone through it all already. This is another topic that Faludi does not expand on, but since most stay for a sophomore year, it is reasonable to assume that the hidden transcript is not much different. The upperclassmen, however, have an image to maintain. Publicly, they are angry and merciless with the freshmen, subjecting them to hazings that at times resemble domestic violence. Their hidden transcript, however, is one of sympathy for the knobs. They cannot act out this hidden transcript because â€Å"knobs would lose respect for upperclassmen†. (Faludi 259) This is very similar to George Orwell’s Burmese experience, used by Scott. Scott writes that, â€Å"Domination seems to require a credible performance of haughtiness and mastery. †(561) Much as a parent cannot show fault in front of a child without hurting their domination, the upperclassmen cannot show softness in front of freshmen, lest the Citadels power structure come crashing down. Power relations are restrictive for both the dominant and the subordinate, as is reflected in the disparity between the public and hidden  transcripts of each. Michael Lake, a knob who quit before the end of his first year, made observations about the citadel that form the basis for Faludi’s work, and this Essay. Faludi summarizes his observations: â€Å"If [the upperclassmen] couldn’t re-create a male-dominant society in the real world, they could restage the drama by casting male knobs in all the subservient female roles. †(Faludi 263) Although the Citadel is indeed a very sexist institution, the implication of this statement, that cadets are given these roles because they are generally reserved for females, is not entirely accurate. They are given these roles because they are subordinate. The dominant female roles of society are whole-heartedly embraced by the upperclassmen. The most obvious of these, of course, is the role of mother. Much like mothers instructing their children, knobs are taught a new way of life by the upperclassmen. â€Å"As a ‘knob’, every aspect of life is taught, a new way to walk†¦ Knobs are told how, where, and when to walk. † (Faludi 278) The upperclassmen are simply fulfilling all the dominant roles found in normal society. Even when the knobs are recognized as equals on recognition day, Faludi describes their relationship with upperclassmen as though they were of a different gender; â€Å"The relationship between knobs and upperclassmen following recognition day [†¦] shifts from maternal to matrimonial†(279). In terms of Scott, this is another example of a dominant, the institution of the Citadel being forced around by the subordinate, its cadets. In order to embrace all the oddities of the intuition, cadets are infused with the idea that women are subordinate, knobs are like women, and thus they are subordinate. In reality, however, these oddities are caused by the idea of having a society populated entirely by men, with men serving all the dominant and subordinate roles. For anyone, particularly the type of person drawn to the Citadel, this idea could be very disturbing indeed. Thus the public transcript of a misogynistic institution is needed. Scott describes this phenomenon in more general terms, â€Å"The necessary posing of the dominant derives not from weaknesses but from the ideas behind their rule, the kinds of claims they make to legitimacy† (561). The Citadel’s claim to legitimacy is as an institution of male superiority, in reality it is a monument to the versatility of genders. Although Scott uses extreme examples of master/slave, landlord/tenant, and ruler/subject in his work, his ideas can be generalized to fit almost any situation, including the oddity that is the Citadel. Describing it as a bastion of masculinity, while not entirely false, would be an oversimplification, as would thinking of it as a backwards institution full of hypocrisy and contradictions. It is, whether by design or evolution, a peculiar experiment in a single-gender society.