Gender/Queer K Nakisa & Diane

Georgetown 2011-12

Gender/Queer K Nakisa & Diane

Fem-Gender K

***1NC

Space Exploration/Development 1NC Shell

Link:

The aff’s endorsement of outer space exploration relies on a hypermasculine, heterosexual notion of colonial conquest of the feminine body

Griffin, 2009

(Penny, Senior Lecturer in International Relations at UNSW, PhD at University of Bristol, researches IR, global governance, feminism and gender studies, “The Spaces Between Us”, found in “Securing Outer Space” by Natalie Bormann and Michael Sheehan, p. 70)

Much commercial gain already depends on the exploitation of outer space, but there is undoubtedly more to be made of spaces ‘resources’: ‘asteroidal mining, for example; the extraction of ‘lunar soil oxygen‘; the mining of very rare ‘Helium-3' from lunar soil as fuel for nuclear fusion reactors; or space, and particularly the Moon, as a ‘tourist venue‘, all kinds of new "sporting opportunities’ (Mombito Z005: 5-7). But the lines distinguishing the various components of the outer space are vague, and are particularly obscured by the tacit but pervasive heteronormativity that makes of space (to borrow the language of the then USSPACECONI) a 'medium' to be exploited; the passive receptacle of US terrestrial 'force'. As Goh stares, outer space ‘is an arena of growing economic and technological importance. It is also a developing theatre of military defence and warfare (2004: 259). US outer space discourse is driven by the belief that outer space exists to be conquered (and that it rarely ﬁghts back), that those at the Cutting edge of its exploitation are the ‘visionaries’ and ‘entrepreneurs’ that will pave the way to tourists, explorers, TV crews and to, as Morabito (‘l:1imS. ‘dubious characters' such us, ‘bounty hunters’ (Z004: IO). Much US outer space discourse presents a vision of the human colonization of outer space as both natural and essential to humanity, a ‘psychological and cultural requirement‘ that is not merely a ‘Western predisposition’, but ‘a human one‘ (Crawford 2005: 260). Regulating such discourse, however, is the normative assumption that space is a ‘masculine’ environment, a territory best suited to the performance of colonial conquest, and an arena for warfare and the display of military and technological prowess. Herein, ‘man’, not woman, is the human model by which to gauge those adventurous enough to engage in the ‘space medium' (see, e.g. Casper and Moore 1995). ‘Sex’ is only explicitly articulated in US space discourse to signal the category of ‘woman’, and the physical and psychological constraints that woman's ‘body' brings to spaceﬂight and exploration. NASA, for example, in identifying ‘gender related' differences affecting the efficacy and effects of spaceﬂight and travel, focus exclusively on the physiological differences between men and women (bone density, blood ﬂow, hormonal and metabolic differences, etc). As Casper and Moore argue, N ASA's heterosexist framings of these issues high light sex in space as a social and scientiﬁc problem (1995: $13). Female bodies are thus ‘constructed against a backdrop in which male bodies are accepted as the norm, an inscription process shaped by the masculine context of space travel' (ibid.: 516). By identifying only ‘woman’ with ‘sex', and the ‘ostensibly sexualized features’ of women's (Butler I990: 26), a certain, heretosexist, order and identity is effectively instituted in US outer space discourse. Fundamentally, the hierarchies of power, identity and cultural and sexual assumption that infuse outer space politics are no different to those that structure terrestrial politics. As Morabito, rather worryingly claims, ‘why expect men on the Moon to behave much better than on Earth?‘ (200-'1: 10).

We must examine masculinist assumptions that preserve heteronormativity in policy frameworks that allow for militarization of space

Griffin, 2009

As Elias argues, ‘the global sphere cannot be regarded as a gender-neutral arena, bur rather, becomes a sire for the production of gender identity’ (2004: 30). But ‘male dominance within what we deﬁne as "the international" is not the only reason For thinking about a gendered global arena‘, we also need to examine ‘the impact of these masculinist assumptions’ (ibid.: 51). Space, constructed through a heteronormative, heterosexual, regulatory Framework, as a particular Frontier to be conquered and colonized, involves particular constructions of gender identity. The result is the creation and perpetuation in US discourse of outer space as an emptiness and void; the conquest of heterosexual man over nature. Discursive hierarchies of technologically superior, conquesting performance are imbued with their everyday power through an implicitly gendered framework for understanding both the earthly and extraterrestrial environments, and it is through gender that US political discourses of outer space have been able to (re)produce outer space as a masculinized, heterosexualized realm. I have argued in this chapter that sex and gender are discursively constituted to render the apparently ungt-ndercd discoursds) of outer space exploration and colonization coherent. Involving a multitude of actors, organizations, state and non-state~based articulations, the US politics ofouter space is dominated by a discourse of military, commercial and scientiﬁc conquest that draws heavily from essentialist and foundational understandings of and beliefs about nature, civilization, science, progress and consumption. Herein, important performances of gendered identity construct speciﬁc, tacitly gendered, rationalizations of exploration and colonization in particular ways, and gender is made intelligible in US outer space discourse in order to preserve essentially heteronormative regulations of identity that allow For the increased militarization of space, while serving neo-liberal, Anglo-American ideals of marketization, privatization, deregulation and flexibilization.

Hyper-masculinity legitimizes aggression against womyn and marginalizes those that deviate from the norm of heterosexuality

Leatherman, 2011

(Janie L., director of international studies and professor of politics, past employment at U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes, the United Nations University, Catholic Relief Services, Search for Common Ground, the Brookings Institution, and the Council on Foreign Relations, was Director of Brethren Colleges Abroad and taught at the University of Barcelona, “Sexual Violence and Armed Conflict”, p. 82)

Hyper-masculinity is legitimized by traditional patriarchal gender expectations that see the role of the woman in terms of satisfying the man and procreating, and also as the “mother of the nation," and carrier of the “purity” of the group. The assertion greatly circumscribes women's autonomy, and sets them up for strict control by their husbands and family to serve as the carrier of the next generation, or to “breed” soldiers. It puts them at greater risk should they venture outside their own group to court men from the enemy community and betray their own by producing baby enemy warriors. Lesbian or bisexual women are also at risk for living outside prescribed gender expectations and thus serving the interests of the enemy. Similarly, homosexual men also face violent forms of discrimination for failing to adhere to hypermasculinity. In many conﬂicts, they are labeled unpatriotic or unrevolutionary or are accused of acting like foreign imports, polluting and weakening the culture.” Meanwhile, the emasculation of men in war, their sense of marginalization and disempowerment, often reverberates directly on their own wives in the form of increasing levels of domestic violence and insecurity. As war reduces accountability, it also puts more pressure on males to conform to hyper- or militarized masculinity, which legitimizes aggression. Women and girls’ claims to bodily integrity are gradually eroded.

Alternative:

Reject the aff’s endorsement of space exploration in order to abandon gendered space discourses

Munevar, 2010

(Gonzalo, Ph.D. in philosophy of science from the University of California at Berkeley, teaches at Lawrence Technological University in Michigan, “Philosophy of Space Exploration”, 2/20/10, http://philosophyofspaceexploration.blogspot.com/2010/02/ideological-criticism-of-space.html)

The ideological critics argue that wisdom does not lie along any road that exploration may discover. "People," admonished one of their forerunners, the 18th-century French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, "know once and for all that nature wanted to keep you from being harmed by knowledge, just as a mother wrests a dangerous weapon from her child's hands; that all the secrets she hides from you are so many evils from which she protects you."[1] Rousseau's romanticism lives on among the ideological critics of space exploration. As they see it, the secrets our curiosity has pried from nature have brought us to the brink of disaster. We should have heeded Lao Tzu's warning: "[T]hose who would take the whole world to tinker with as they see fit . . . never succeed."[2] Ignoring this advice, Western science aims to control nature by interfering with it. In spite of all the so-called progress of the scientific era, Western science has not succeeded and will not succeed. To come to this conclusion, these critics argue, we only need observe the trends set in the previous century: the population explosion; the massive use of resources at an ever increasing rate; and the unparalleled poisoning of the soil, the air, and the water of the Earth. It is doubtful that our planet can withstand this situation for long. Indeed, the Club of Rome Study, among others, has predicted a global environmental collapse around the middle of this century.[3] Even if this crisis does not spell doom for mankind, and it might, it deserves serious attention. The first thing we must determine is what makes all these dangerous trends possible. And, the ideological critics say, it does not take much to isolate the main factor: technology has coupled with the mentality of growth and together they have run amok. But surely technology on such a grand scale could not have existed without prior great advances in science. And what is space exploration, these critics ask, if not the expansion of this mentality of growth and scientific development? Hence they find unacceptable the suggestion that space exploration can help us out of our dire straits. For that suggestion masks the imminence of the crisis and entreats us to engage in distracting pursuits – at a time when all our attention and effort should be concentrated on the abyss that is opening just a few careless steps ahead of us. From this ideological perspective, space exploration is no more than another technological fix for problems that cry out for a different approach. The only solution is to realize that the crisis is upon us and to stop the activities that have created it. Above all, we must stop interfering with nature. Space exploration not only delays the real solution to the problem but is itself a symptom of the problem.

Gendered Language 1NC Shell

Language shapes meaning—the terminology used in science is structured to preserve its power.

Hare-Mustin and Marecek 1990

(Rachel T. Hare-Mustin is a clinical psychologist. She has taught at Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, and Villanova University. Her research and writing have received awards from the American Psychological Association and the American Family Therapy Academy, of which she has also served as president. Jeanne Marecek is a professor of psychology and the coordinator of the women’s studies program at Swarthmore College. She received her Ph.D. from Yale.] “Gender and the Meaning of Difference.” From Making a Difference: Psychology and the construction of Gender, ed. Rachel t. Hare-Mustin and Jeanne Marecek. USA: Yale University, 1990. p. 22-64. Web.)

The connection between meaning and power has been a focus of postmodernist thinkers (Foucault, 1973; Jameson, 1981). Their inquiry into meaning focuses especially on language as the medium of cognitive life and communication. Language is seen not simply as a mirror of reality or a neutral tool (Taggart, 198 5, Wittgenstein, 1960; 1 967). As Bruner (1986) points out, language "imposes a point of view not only about the world to which it refers but toward the use of the mind in respect to this world" (11 I). Language highlights certain features of the objects it represents, certain meanings of the situations it describes. "The word—no matter how experimental or tentative or metaphoric—tends to replace the things being described" (Spence, 1987, 3). Once designations in language become accepted, one is constrained by them not only in communicating ideas to others, but in the generation of ideas as well (Bloom, 1981). Language inevitably structures one's own experience of reality as well as the experience of those to whom one communicates. Just as in any interaction we cannot "not communicate," so at some level we are always influencing one another and ourselves through language. Meaning-making and control over language are important resources held by those in power. Like other valuable resources, they are not distributed equitably across the social hierarchy. Indeed, Barthes (1972) has called language a sign system used by values. For constructivists, values and attitudes determine what are taken to be facts (Howard, r 98 5 ). It is not that formal laws and theories in psychology are wrong or useless ; rather, as Kuhn (1962) asserted, they are explanations based on a set of agreed-on social conventions. Whereas positivism asks what are the facts, constructivism asks what are the assumptions ; whereas positivism asks what are the answers, constructivism asks what are the questions. The positivist tradition holds that science is the exemplar of the right use of reason, neutral in its methods, socially beneficial in its results (Flax, 1987). Historically the scientific movement challenged the canons of traditional belief and the authority of church and state. Science was a reform movement that struggled to supplant faith as the sole source of knowledge by insisting on the unity of experience and knowing. For Western society today, science has largely displaced church and state authority so that scientific has itself become a euphemism for proper.

The alternative: We must reject the gendered language that the aff endorses. Only the alt allows us to evaluate their science truth claims from multiple perspectives.

Morawski 1990

(Jill G. Morawski is a professor of science in society, psychology, and feminist, gender, and sexual studies at Wesleyan University. She is also the director of the Center for Humanities.] “Toward the Unimagined.” From Making a Difference: Psychology and the construction of Gender, ed. Rachel t. Hare-Mustin and Jeanne Marecek. USA: Yale University, 1990. p.150-83. Web.)