Sex as Oppression

Here is my critical response, let me know what you think. Not sure if I fully grasped Butler, so feedback and possibly clarification would be great :)

The beginning of Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity caused me to think back to Foucault and Bio-Power. Butler writes, “Power seemed to be more than an exchange between subjects or a relation of constant inversion between a subject and an Other; indeed, power appeared to operate in the production of that very binary frame of thinking about gender,” (2). Butler goes on to discuss the relationship between men and women, questioning the “internal stability” and the “extent that they conform to a heterosexual matrix for conceptualizing gender and desire,” (2). It was her ponderings in relation to my opinions and experiences with Bio-power that caused my intrigue.

In my Bio-power presentation I discussed that my being a woman was an area where I was a member of a population that was subject to oppressive behaviors and techniques. I had viewed woman as my sex and gender, my identity; however, through Butler’s work I have developed different conclusions not only about my own self-portrayal but how I am anticipated to be portrayed by those holding power over me.

Butler discusses the meanings of gender and sex; one socially constructed the other biological. Women are biologically created different from a man but those differences have been used to stunt the abilities of women in eyes of society. Women have breasts, not for breastfeeding but for show, to be push-up and pushed out. The body shape of women is not seen as a body but an object of sex that is to be conceptualized and fantasized. The biological components of women have unintentionally generated the social construct of the female ‘gender’; the conceptualization of the biological differences between male and female are used as the techniques to oppress and restrict both the male and female populations. Women are portrayed as slender, big breasted and gorgeous; those who do not fit within those standards strive to. Men are intended to have tight and fit bodies, so they can be attractive enough to be with a slender, big-breasted and gorgeous woman.

As a thicker, curvier, and shorter woman I have often times felt the societal pressures to alter my shape in order to fit within the confines of the gender normality that society has imposed. I now see that it my conceptualized sex that has been misinterpreted and misrepresented, that allows for these gender conceptualizations to hold power over myself and other woman. I do, however think it is also important to note that the male sex has also been misinterpreted as well, causing similar gender constructs to be created. Men may not be expected to have large breasts, a flat stomach, and an apple bottom; but they are typically expected to be a man’s man, fit, attractive and packing considerably sized equipment.

Society has confused gender and sex, but more than that sex has been mutated into a tool of oppression, a tool that is used to promote the inaccurate conceptualizations of both sexes. Attempting to force the male and female sexes to conform within in the limiting constructs of what is considered gender normative.