Memes

CR #6

It was interesting to learn more about sex versus gender in Gender Trouble because the difference is still sometimes confusing to me. I understand that they are different and gender is socially constructed but I feel that as this point everything is just a label and is still putting people into categories and it’s all engrained in language (of course, that doesn’t mean language can’t be changed for the better). I think what probably throws a lot of people off is that sex: male or female based off of genitalia and chromosomes and gender: male, female, trans male, trans female, gender fluid, etc. share some of the same words. Is the idea of someone’s biological sex an archaic idea all together and should be thrown away in terms of categorizing people? This question reminds me of Driskills quote: “we need to look at gender, take what we need, and leave the rest to rot (Driskill, p. 105).

I was kind of thrown off by some of the ideas that Butler gave just because I think a lot of the writing was almost philosophical. I have a hard time really conceptualizing abstract ideas and the ideas/theories surrounding gender were almost broken down to the point where I didn’t even know what was trying to be said. I did my best in discerning what Butler was trying to say but some word choices like “substance” just left me more confused in the end.

I think that both Driskill and Butler had important ideas and theories about gender but I think that they both came from different centers in what they believe were the biggest influences of gender. I think that Butler’s ideas/theories fall more along the lines of gender being performative whereas Driskill relates his ideas/theories about gender more to colonization. I don’t necessarily think one idea is more important or right than the other but think that they both add important ideas to the overall conversation about gender.

These readings drew me to research more about intersex folk because although we grazed over what the definition of intersex is in my Introduction to Queer Theories course, I still didn’t know much about what it meant to be intersex. I think that the very existence of intersex people proves that gender and sex and the binary as we know it, can’t be as black and white as people try to make it seem. I think that researching and learning more about intersex people, for me, backed up the ideas/theories by both Butler and Driskill. Again, I was reminded that gender is so much more complex than the binary and this linear form that some people unfortunately thinks it takes (i.e. female-feminine-likes men, male-masculine-likes women).

The Politics of Getting Dressed

Binaries, gender, and waking up

By Charles A Sasaki-Skopp

Queer Theories Blog Contributor

Every morning when I wake up, I comb my hair and dress myself. The choices I make hold a preparatory significance, a prelude to the social act I will perform for the remainder of the day. In this simple, everyday act I perform an unintentional masculinity. A daily repetitive performance of gender builds through repetition “gender norms that enable the repetition itself.” (Butler, p 203) Such a masculinity, unexamined, potentially “replicates gender dynamics that are really dangerous.” (Driskill, p. 104) When my masculinity walks into a room, it “takes over space and movements.” (Driskill, p. 106) It receives consistent social validation for acts of aggression and violence. In unconsciously dressing for this particular act of the social stage, I may even provide a tacit approval of the aggression of others.  

In creating a masculine personal, I commit an act with public consequences, but these consequences, rather than being an extension of an essential identity, “found and consolidate” a veneer of essentiality. (Butler, p. 191) As Sedgwick recognized, the expression of genders and sexualities can feel very essential to those performing them, akin to a piece of their biology. (Sedgwick, p. 25) And yet, the roles we dress for, the categories we slip into can be altered at a whim. Would wearing a dress truly alter anything essential about who I am? Would an intentional act of femininity challenge the “naturalization of sex and of bodies,” and call the biological into question alongside the social? (Butler, p. 202) If, as Butler suggests, physiological and even genetic sexual divisions suffer from the same cultural construction as gender identity, then we might question why there must be such a division at all. 

Removing biological certainty surrounding sex cuts into the heart of what trans means. A transgender person receives, or chooses to take on, such a label because their gender expression does not match their gender biology. But if the categories by which their biology has been sorted are arbitrary, without clear demarcation, then a critical part of trans identity (or the non-trans identity, for that matter) no longer exists. Without a clear, binary biological sex to compare gender to, the label “transgender” loses some of its definition. Without a biological binary, when a person wakes up and festoons themselves with the trappings of gender, no “presuppositions [...] about sexed bodies” exist to define one’s expected performance. (Butler, p. 149) Without this tether, all expressions would be inherently intentional, with their political meanings exposed instead of hidden behind the articulation of bodily meanings, ready to generate alternative understandings in place of oppressive constraints.

CR #6

In this week’s readings I have noticed a few comparisons that are meant to clarify some terminology that has been grouped together as if they are one in the same and challenges those ideas that stem from a binary culture.

              On page 35, I found a quote that I am particularly fond of, “if desire could liberate itself, it would have nothing to do with the preliminary marking by sexes”. I probably like it because I agree, and I think that Foucault would also agree. I also think it’s a beautiful notion that could easily be made into more than just a notion. To love and lust and allow yourself to explore sexuality without restrictions of social “normativity” is a wonderful idea. Instead of looking at the body and immediately thinking yes or no because of what you have learned to desire, imagine looking at the person with a blank slate and allowing yourself to love, lust, and desire for the soul and act on a mutual curiosity.

              So much of our perspective has been predetermined by what is “normal” in society and it is challenging to try and see things through an unfiltered lens. How do you look at the whole picture and remove everything you’ve already been exposed to in your life? You can’t, our biopower map project proved that it’s impossible to not be part of the whole system.

              However, in Qwo-Li’s interview they talk about intention and I think this is a fairly straight forward solution to at least a component of the problem. To think and perceive with the intention to be open and just being aware of your position could probably have a significant impact. As we have discussed before, thinking about privilege and non-privilege is a great place to start working towards change.

              In the book from this week there is a section on Freud (a psychology favorite) and on page 78 they talk about Freud’s ideas on loss and the ego. I found this section to be an interesting perspective on gender that I wouldn’t have thought to connect. He believed that when we lose love, we internalize their character so that they may live on within us and this can be translated into gender “norms” and sexuality. I don’t think Foucault would be too happy about Freud being included in this book because he is the father of relating sex with diagnosis but his perspective on this does seem relevant.

              I am conflicted on the use of the word “feminism” now because of this book. I hadn’t thought about the fact that feminism associates “feminine” with being female and has a built in binary assumption. There is a great explanation of the relation (or lack thereof) between sex and gender, which is referred to as performativity. I think it’s great because it makes it clear that behavior isn’t from some kind of “natural” gender expression. There is nothing innate about sex and gender and all the words we use to put each other into binary boxes. The world is what we make it!

Understanding and Troubling Genders

            Judith Butler. What can I say about Judith Butler? I have a love/hate relationship with anything written by them. I say this because I find the text extremely difficult to get through but I know that there is probably something mind altering or earth shattering hiding inside. Honestly, most of the time I end up missing the core content because I am stumbling through the language and examples provided. Again, with this particular text, Gender Trouble, I am struggling to get to the ground-breaking content that has helped paved the way for Queer Theories to come into existence and flourish into the field it is today.

            One of the things that I really appreciated in this book is finally getting to read some of the foundational material that leads to the understanding that gender is socially constructed and performative. I struggled a little with some of the questions they were asking about whether a person can “possess” a gender or whether some on can “be” a particular gender. While I think these are critical questions, I don’t know that I fully understand the context in which they are to be answered.

            Another piece that I found really interesting is the groundwork that was laid in the beginning of the book about the way that feminism has intersected with this particular topic and question surrounding gender. It was really interesting to see the way that different theorists have applied theories in different ways to question the social construction of gender. I question, though, how many of these other theorists were actually trying to question the construction of gender and how many were making political statements about the differences between man and women. I don’t think, that at this time, I have done enough of my own self-educating to know which is true.

            As multiple theorists were brought into the text I really have questions about the way that Freud interplays with all of this. The concept of “mourning and melancholia” (78) is really throwing me for a loop. I don’t understand what this means or how it directly relates to the concepts being presented by Butler.

            There is one thing in particular that I would love for us to have a class discussion about and that is about one particular statement made by Butler: “There is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender; that identity is performatively constituted by the very “expressions” that are said to be its results” (34). I am really confused here because my understanding is that one’s gender identity is how they innately feel but their gender expression is what was being performed on a daily basis in an attempt for the world to view them in a particular fashion. But this statement by Butler muddles that understanding. Am I correct in believing that Butler is claiming that because gender identities are typically aligned with the socially constructed binary system they are not innately inherent within one’s identity?

            I am really disappointed that we are not meeting in class this week because I feel like I really need to externally process this and get some questions answered. Honestly, while I know that it would not be representative of all the queer theories, I feel like we could spend an entire term working through this text and trying to dissect and interpret what it is that Butler is saying. I apologize for my not putting more critical analysis in this critical response, but due to my inability to really understand what is being said, I have tried my best to bring forth what I was able to take away from the text.

Alex Lair

WGSS/QS 462

Both Driskill and Butler examined and critiqued the relationship between sex and gender, the fact that both of these are socially constructed concepts/identities, and both analyzed underlying factors of these constructions. Driskill engaged the concept of “intentional masculinity”, while Butler engaged and critiqued various approaches take by others involved in academia.

One point that stood out to me the most from Driskill’s reading in particular was their engagement of Alice Walker’s concept – “take what you can use and leave the rest to rot” (Driskill, p. 105). Driskill writes, “we need to look at gender, take what we need, and leave the rest to rot. If there are parts of ‘masculinity’ that we don’t need any more, that are hurtful to ourselves, our relationships, our communities, then why on earth keep them?” (p. 105). What it means to be “masculine” or “feminine” is yet another socially constructed binary of identities that are naturalized but not actually natural. The above approach engaged by Driskill challenges the essentialist constructions of masculinity and femininity – that in order to identify as one or the other, one must engage all of the socially constructed qualities that make up that “performance”. In this way, this concept relates to Butler’s discussion of claiming a cultural “gender” identity. Butler writes, “This achievement requires differentiation from the opposite gender. Hence, one is one’s gender to the extent that one is not the other gender, a formulation that presupposes and enforces the restriction of gender within that binary pair.” (Butler, p. 22). Here, Butler also discussions the essentialist notions surrounding these socially constructed identities due to the fact that they are binaries, and therefore the idea that one can only identify as one or the other.

I see this essentialist notion taking form in my every day life. I see it manifested in the difficulties that many people have with fitting people into boxes. In a society with such a foundation in binaries, many people have a hard time when they are unable to place an individual and each of their identities into a box – it creates this fear of the unknown because this society has made many identities that do not fit into the binaries completely invisible. As Butler writes, “this differentiation is accomplished through the practices of heterosexual desire. The act of differentiating the two oppositional moments of the binary results in a consolidation of each term, the respective internal coherence of sex, gender, and desire” (p. 23).

Another primary concept that stood out to me from Butler’s reading was the discussion surrounding gender as inherent or something that a person “becomes”. This is a question that I have dabbled with over the years since taking WGSS/QS courses. Butler summarizes the conclusion I have come to when writing, “the mark of gender appears to ‘qualify’ bodies as human bodies; the moment in which an infant becomes humanized is when the question, ‘is it a boy or girl?’ is answered” (p. 111). This goes back to what I discussed above – the need for putting people into distinct boxes. In this way, by asking and answering that question, an identity is immediately prescribed to a human being through the eyes of others. Before a child is even out of the womb, people feel the need to know if it is “a boy or a girl”.

CR #6

In Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble, the critique of how biological sex and gender intertwine, becoming one of the main reoccurring themes throughout the text. One component where Butler impressively argues over Foucault’s theory on gender and biological sex is through Foucault’s own work in History of Sexuality when French hermaphrodite Herculine Barbin is analyzed. While Foucault critiques that Herculine is in a “happy limbo of a non-identity”, Butler argues that Herculine’s life does not fit this statement and Herculine reveals how complex biological sex and gender can be not because of their hermaphrodite status, but because Herculine’s choices with their sexuality (Butler 128).           

            Although Herculine was assigned as female at birth, due to later on confessing their physical status to doctors and priests, Herculine was later forced to change their sex to “male” (Butler 127-8). Due to this change, Herculine is also obligated to “dress in men’s clothing” and have the “rights of men in society” (Butler 133). While it is not clearly shown as to why Herculine was obligated to change their sex, this insight shows that biological sex intertwines with gender due to Herculine being forced to perform gender roles despite Herculine being a hermaphrodite. This act shatters the idea that biological sex is something that is not socially constructed. Furthermore, despite Foucault arguing that Herculine is a happy limbo state, when Herculine speaks of their interaction with a doctor who finds out about their condition, Herculine states, “I wished he were a hundred feet underground!” (Butler 143). This comment reveals that Herculine is not in a happy limbo state all the time, even though Herculine is a hermaphrodite, the social pressure to have a biological sex is still enforced upon. Thus, even though Herculine does not have a body that can be categorized in biological sex terms, the critique of their body’s treatment is being discussed as if their body were one.