Critical Response #6

I first wanted to take the time to converse with Qwo-Li Driskill’s interview “Intentional Masculinities”. This interview is a critique on gender binaries as seen in western society and culture as well as a comment on masculinity as dominantly a detriment if continued at its current form.

                Driskill discusses the sticker they got from ACT-UP, “Gender Is a Sex Toy” (102). Driskill says that they have been playing with “butch” more and that “I’ve never really been masculine, and I think that provides a huge amount of distance and freedom from dominant notions of masculinity to play with butch genders in my own life” (102). I can really relate to this idea as a concept and it helps me personally identify masculinity in a different way. Masculinity is always so married to the biological hormone testosterone and cis-men. I find it compelling to thing that we can move in the androgynous spectrum to become more butch and femme as we feel.

 Masculinity and “butch” are different in that masculinity is used as a standard that people are too follow or a naturally masculine trait. Women in politics are often described as being “masculine” as an insult when they are “bossy” or assertive. Being a politician, the only way to get your voice heard is to be straight forward and assertive, but having these be naturally masculine traits women are said to be “acting like men”. Perhaps there will be a time where masculinity is not inherently misogynistic or used to belittle women, especially women in power. This is when we divorce the concept of masculinity with the “traditional male”, however that may be defined.

                Butch on the other hand is a way or presentation. I find this to really read well in the form of “Gender is a sex toy”. Butch is the presentation of dress in a fashion that is not feminine. It’s almost the opposite of feminine. Being a butch often translates into forms of playful dominance, although it does not have too.

                One part of Butler’s book that I was particularly attracted too in ideas is Butler’s address of the incest taboo. Butler discusses how the Oedipus Complex is one’s first look into sexuality and “the notion of an “original” sexuality forever repressed and forbidden this becomes a production of the law which subsequently functions as its prohibition” (76). Butler does not use the incest taboo as a place to discuss whether incest in itself is something wrong or not, but simply uses it to help further her theory on heterosexuality as the dominant sexuality.

                First, the incest taboo creates innate heterosexuality when one’s first desire is their parents. This is then repressed through law and culture where incestual acts can lead to harsh and extreme punishments. This furthers that length of heterosexuality as the dominant sexuality. Second, as long as homosexuality and bisexuality is repressed in a way making it illegal or societally unacceptable, heterosexuality will prevail as dominant in culture.

                I wanted to discuss this idea further, thinking about “the incest taboo” shows that making something “illegal” or out of societal norm causes people to become against such thing. I think another example of this thinking is the new North Carolina trans bathroom laws. Before the bill there wasn’t a lot of attention brought to the use of bathrooms by trans people. Now that there is a law putting transmisogyny into place people are avidly supporting the bill, using transmisogynistic rhetoric. This comes right after major movements in the LGBTQ rights sector, such as marriage, and during the rise of trans celebrities such as Laverne Cox and Caitlyn Jenner.