Janice Lee
janice@janicel.com
The Origins of the Binary Machine of Gender in the Breakdown of the
Bicameral Mind.
Janice Lee
Abstract.
The way of conceptually looking at gender has been deeply problematic insofar as it has
operated exclusively according to binary oppositions. Considered to be the word that describes the
state of being male or female, there is the question of to what extent gender is a social construct or a
biological construct, especially in the modern context of the roles men and women have been
assigned in society.
In Gynesis, Alice Jardine looks at the territory of contemporary feminist thought in relation to
modernity, citing binary opposition as a core problematic in gender relations:
Woman, valorized under the banner of demystification, has become the site of inquiry
within a period of profound binary crisis [my emphasis].1
It is precisely this “profound binary crisis” that I would like to address. Jardine raises Deleuze’s
“most insistent problem-question,” “How and why does the ‘binary machine’ work?” 1
It is false [to say that] the binary machine only exists for reasons of convenience. It is said
that “base two” is the easiest. But in reality the binary machine is an important piece of the
apparatuses of power. As many dichotomies as necessary will be established in order to stick
everyone to the wall, to push everyone in a hole [...] Binary machines of social classes, of
sexes, man-woman, of ages, child-adult, of races, black-white, of sectors, public-private, of
subjectifications, among our own kind-not our kind.2
For Jardine, and Deleuze, “the binary machine is at the foundations of the dialectic and its
representations.”1 What then are the origins of this binary machine, where did this binary system
start and how has it persisted to make its way into every aspect of social life? For many, the answer
has been in the physiology of men and women, in the distinction between presence and absence of
the phallic symbol. This points to the origins of this binary system, or at least our awareness of its
existence, as being a recent phenomenon, or at least not being fully explored until the birth of
psychoanalysis.
The binary machine is much more deeply ingrained than just presence and absence on the
physical body. I think the origins of the binary machine, and therefore gender, can be traced back to
the origins of consciousness itself, and more specifically, to what Julian Jaynes coined as “the
breakdown of the bicameral mind.”
The questions I want to address then are: Can the binary structure that has been so
problematic for gender have its roots traced back to the binarism that was present during the birth
of consciousness? And if so, what are the implications for gender in the future and is there any
hope of changing the integral social structure that dictates the roles of males and females in society?
On the foundation of Jaynes’ ideas, I want to trace how his theories on consciousness can
help to explain the discrepancies between the consciousnesses of males and females. What were the
implications on women during and after the rise of consciousness (if the voices that were supposed
Janice Lee
janice@janicel.com
to bring reason were male)? Did females develop consciousness after men? How did females
account for the discrepancy between the old male voices and their own, new female voices? How is
this shift connected to the neurological differences and evolutions of the brains of males and
females? How do the gendered hemispheric differences support this line of reasoning? If we look
at classical Greek society, it can be argued that it was not gender that constituted social dynamics,
but power, that sexual practices were thought of in terms of power over others. When did this
binary structure of in control/ under control become translated to male/ female?
In looking at the origins of the active/passive binary structure in the origins of
consciousness, and connecting this to the binary structure that has dominated definitions of gender,
I will explore notions of the active/ passive in feminism and ideas of the feminine body as absence
and a blank slate; the phenomenon of schizophrenics, oracles, mystics; Freud and his female
hysterics, the function of gender in Greek society, Sappho’s fragmented poetry and the function of
the analog “I” and subjectivity in her work, physiological differences between male and female
brains, and differences between the two hemispheres; evidence of this binary structure in literature
(both classical and contemporary), the phenomenona of hypnosis, self-hypnosis, and possession;
and the implications of these analyses for our current situations and the future.
1
2
Jardine, Alice. Gynesis, Cornell University Press: 1986.
Deleuze, Gilles and Parnet, Claire. Dialogues. Columbia University Press: 2002.