Let's talk about Judith Butler
 

I LOVE Butler and have studied her work extensively. I have to scoot off to class right now, but I'll be back to share some thoughts with you. FYI, her more recent work has been focused on queer theory and neoliberalism. I have a couple of great articles I can share with you written by her partner who also struggles with conceptualizing the performance of gender.

It might be helpful to excerpt a couple quotes from her work to guide the conversation and reponses - quotes like this one -

"If gender is constructed, could it be constructed differently or does it constructedness imply some form of social determinism, foreclosing the possibility of agency and transformation?"

Butler has never believed that 'femme' exists as a gender identity. She (or is it he...I thought she transitioned). Interesting she has moved to denying butch. Post modern blah blah blah

I never liked her or her ideas.

I read her work very differently. I see her as challenging the binary of sexual "normativity" as a social construct in and of itself. She takes the intersectional nature of gender (the social construct of race, class and sexuality) and then deconstructs it by way of questioning its validity and ability to stand on its own without the narrative of performance that inevitably informs it as more than a theoretical abstract. Can gender exist without heteronormative binaries? Can there be an absence of gender? Are male/female gender binaries accessible without acknowledging desire? She very much aligns herself with Foucaultian epistemology by way of defining human sexuality as more than the sum of just gender and sex. She urges her readers to view gender as a performance so that women are not relegated to patriarchal heteronormative constructs based in and on power alone.

She is not attempting to invalidate how anyone identifies, rather she is trying to disassemble the way gender is constructed as a social norm. She wants us to look at gender presentation as a performance based more on desire rather than gender based on sex alone.

These are just my musings. I hope they make a little bit of sense. Sometimes what makes sense in my brain makes zero sense once it leaves my mouth. ;)

And as far as I know, Butler identifies as Butch.

I don't believe she is saying that gender doesn't exist, she is arguing though that it comes into existence through repetition and that we perform gender. Remember it is only theory and there are a lot of competing gender theories.

I disagree. I haven't read anything that would lead me to believe she feels femme as an identity to be lacking in value. My understanding is that she wants to look at gender and desire more fluidly and without the influence of socially constructed acts of gender performance...which are traditionally very heteronormative.

Would she prefer that I do away with my heels, skirts and makeup? I think so! But most intellectuals prefer to deconstruct socially acceptable norms in order to find alternative methodologies. Personally, I love gender-bending no matter what form it takes!

"And as far as I know, Butler identifies as Butch."

I need to correct this (since I have to admit that I pulled it right out of my ass)...Butler doesn't stake claim to any "identity" so to speak. She reminds me of my partner in that she wears mens clothing and sports a very short haircut, but refuses to latch on to any gender recognizable identity. Again, a refusal to adopt socially constructed norms.

I perceive her as invalidating both butch and femme in the selection i was assigned to read. i may be misperceiving

it just sounds too much like the second-wave "butches and femmes are tools of the patriarchy" rhetoric.

i see how it this theory would have been very liberating for cissexed and cisgendered feminine females, esp. the straight ones. Which is ironic to me since the theory is supposed to liberate us from heteronormativity

and i am not butch so i don't know for sure, but i can imagine if you spent your childhood being bullied for being a tomboy, and then got to college and your gender studies professor said you had chosen that, it would be a little hard to take

that helps- the selection we read was more about performance based on social cues rather than desire. desire makes more sense. It makes perfect sense that masculine females would perform a masculine gender from a place of desire. It makes no sense that social conformity would drive this

see, i just have a really big problem with that!!! i think she is just naturally in the middle of the gender spectrum and she is projecting her andogyny on everybody else! Like, if she doesn't happen to feel masculine or feminine then nobody should!

hmmm...she kind of devalues the femme presentation if that femme presentation has been construed in conformity with social norms that weren't questioned the way Butler questions them and then derived through self (rather than though social norms). I also think that to the extent that a femme presentation is made in opposition to something more masculine, that one is then playing into a social polarity that Butler was trying to make us more aware of. does that make sense?

I prefer to think of her as an AWESOME proto-punky badass philosopher and feminist, but not perfect, and not a huge supporter of the femme persona. And certainly she was writing at an historical moment when the notion of an informed, powerful, revolutionized femme was, perhaps, still not quite an acceptable notion amongst feminists. I believe it took later queer theory to open that door.

You do realize that the beginning sentence of each paragraph is a bit contradictory....

you prefer to ignore her devaluing femme and femininity.....okie dokie

her book was Female Masculinity not Female Femininity....just saying....

once again..........post modern blah blah blah.....

you have not convinced me........the devaluing of the feminine and the valuing of the masculine right down to the book title....

uhhhhhhhhhh..............I'm sooooo wrong

I beg a menopausal moment.........

wrong Judith.........I was thinking Halberstein (sp) not Butler........



although the contradictory point sorta is right..........I think.............

ooooo, i would love to take a peak at your dissertation!

*remembering reading and writing on Butler throughout the undergrad and the amount of eye bleed and brain-death which occurred...*

I still say someone get her an editor.

*runs away*

I totally 100% do NOT agree... I have lived with animals and small childrem through my entire life.. gender expression has a basis in brain function balanced with hormonal effect.

Gender Roles, are learned - social constructs, which vary according to the culture of our up bringing.

male and female are not the only genders -

someone who is Neutrois or Androgynous could very well fit the discriptions presented in those quotes. As could someone who is gender fluid.

My gender is not / was not -- a choice.

Well I think Judith Butler would be appalled to learn that her book Undoing Gender is where I learned the word femme and that it applied to me. Then I googled the word, found the dash site and signed myself up as Julie is a femme! Yay!

I am not an academic by any means. Much of the references she makes I do not understand. What I did take away was that gender is not some inviolate thing that cannot be questioned. It is worth taking a look at it as a social construction because that is where it intersects with patriarchy. I found her thoughts (at least those that I think I might have understood) to very helpful to me in exploring my own gender and sexuality.

I don't agree that Butler sees gender as a choice or something similar to clothing that one puts on. She argues that it is normalized through repetition and so "feels" natural when it is really cultural.

melissa

GAAAAAAAA! I am just in love with her!! Thank you for sharing this!

yes she does...

on the video in this very thread, at time stamp 1:11 .."we act as if ... it is a fact no body really is a gender from the start .. thats my claim.." through 1:35

and at timestamp 2:30 ... "its my view that gender is culturally formed"

--her words--

and my life experience does not agree. I know gender is variable, not a fixed point... gender roles and gender expression and gender pressentation are all cultural... internal gender awareness, is a product of our body via the brain and hormones and biological sex. How we interpret our internal experience is cultural...

social culture... is a system of chosen behaviors ... hence culture is choice, or better said cultural expression is a choice.... if she used the term "gender expression" instead of only stating "gender" ... I would agree with most of what she says. But "gender' and 'gender expression' are not the same thing.

I have learned about gender issues because I had to understand in order to survive. I make a diliberate effort in include all the various gender expressions when I talk about gender... or I try to remember to place the correct quailfiers on my comments.

The variations are endless.... for anyone to make statements based on their own perpective of their own experience, ...to the effect of being "more correct" than someone else. Well, ... :blink:

There are so many people who are searching for the words to discribe and explain who they are, and are looking for some point of connection with another human who shared some part of their path in life. To feel less alone and a place to 'fit in' ... to find such a slanted view of the issue, (as Butler presents) that is heartbreaking to me, ...

I keep thinking of the trangender kid who is trying to fit into the social construct of what they should be... (being sarcastic here) .. because according to Butler, "gender is culturally formed" ... and can not make themself "fit" into the
cultural form, ..because it is not a choice.. it happens and we have to learn to deal with and live with it...

hopefully they can find someone who understands that gender issues, are a wide and far reaching spectrum... before its too late for them to find peace and happiness with who they are inside.

Queer theorists like Judith Butler are relatively new to the world of transgender issues. She, like author/Chicana activist Cherrie Moraga, are quite forthcoming about their individual struggles with transphobia. For latent second wave feminists like them, the struggle is very internal and often goes against their anti-assimilation backgrounds. I am not saying they are right or wrong, rather inserting a bit of information that might shed some light.

added: by anti-assimilation I mean that some people feel transgender males have divorced themselves from the feminist community by "assimilating" into the heterosexual world. NOT ME! But "some people" ;)

[quote=maryoosa;557846]
if you look back up there I did the mea culpa thang...........I got the judith mixed up..............menopausal moment is my excuse....uhhhhhh......reason

thanks

I've read a lot of Butler and I don't read her at all as saying what you think she's saying. I can understand how some might misunderstand her focus on gender as performance as trying to negate a person's gender identity as consciously self-constructed.

I actually have her Bodies That Matter beside me here for a current essay I'm writing, so I'll quote a little of what she says on essentialism vs. constructivism to try to better demonstrate her point:

and later on the essentialist vs. constructivist debate on sexuality, though also applying to gender:

I have never read Butler explicitly say that she denies the existence of butch and femme, nor that she is denying anyone's identity at all. Also, for her saying that gender is performative is not saying that it is a choice. In fact, her challenge of gender is largely aimed at heteronormative gender constructs that assumes the "masculinity" of men and the "femininity" of women to be "natural." Basically, she seeks to question the policing of gender upon certain bodies, but not the medium by which many people feel "born into" their own gender. This is obvious when you look at her discussion on sexuality also in Bodies That Matter:

And letter, on the queering of that heteronormativity:

Her theories must also be taken within the context of psychoanalysis and her own reconfiguration of the oedipal model, which determines that people develop their gender identity before they can even speak. Her theory is that small children develop their gender identity in relation to their mothers, not in the classic Freudian sense of wanting to sleep with the mother/father and kill the father/mother. But in the sense that the child perceives its gender in its own relation with its mother, either wanting to maintain the attention of the mother by emulating her (or her gender presentation) or by emulating the person she appears closest to (her partner, who, according to Butler, can be any gender).

That being said, Butler's approach to gender performativity is really half way between essentialism and constructivism, in that she sees gender as an unconscious performance that cannot actually be changed (much like sexuality). What a person likes/is what they like/are, and they cannot change that, only seek to suppress it (as is encouraged in a society that prizes heteronormative relationships over other forms of sexuality and interaction). But a person does grow up seeing certain gender cues that they relate to themselves. And so boys who are taught to be masculine from a young age emulate the masculinity that most speaks to them, while boys who find themselves at odds with masculinity might emulate another gender presentation that most speaks to them.

All of these quotes need to be taken into their context. When Butler says that "gender is a kind of imitation for which there is no original," she is challenging the idea of "natural" masculinities and femininities, in the same way that she challenges heterosexual as the original of which homosexuality is deemed a copy. Gender is, in many respects, a circular imitation within a society that assumes that there is an original masculinity/femininity or some form of Platonic original archetype that serves as the origins for all other imitations. Yet there is no original, and so there can be no imitations except for the fact that the concept of gender in human heteronormative societies is always that there is an ultimate in masculinity/femininity that all others strive to live up to. Just as heterosexuality claims to be the "original," and yet heterosexuality and homosexuality as modern concepts cannot exist without each other as a concept. Neither can be the original, because each can only be defined as the "opposite" of the other. And yet if you take it out of its modern concept, sexuality is more than binary opposites or scale of heterosexual, bisexual and homosexual. The same arguably applies to gender.

Butler has talked about her identity in a few of her works. She identifies as lesbian, but also talks about the function of identity. I think it was in Gender Trouble that she spoke about how when she's alone, she is not alone as lesbian, or when she is with a partner, she isn't with a partner as a lesbian. Yet when she goes out to give a public talk, and particularly within certain environments, she feels as though she "puts on lesbian" in a world that tends to require identities in relation to bodies. But she also talks about the openness of identities, and how she rejects the limits placed on lesbian by second wave feminists (in other words, she disagrees with many of the premises of second wave radical feminist lesbians) or simply lesbians who believe that lesbian must be restricted to certain genders, sex acts etc. She states clearly that lesbian must remain open to all who would wish to adopt it as their identity in the future. But she also states that people should understand the role of identity in a society that has created a need for sexual identity. And so identity can act toward visibility in a heteronormative/patriarchal society.

I think it is a misunderstanding. She does not see any one way of being queer or a lesbian or anything else. She does not seek to invalidate any particular gender identity. That isn't her point at all.

Again, Butler is not claiming that anyone chooses their gender. Performativity does not equal choice. In fact, she argues against second wave feminists who believed butch/femme as "tools of the patriarchy."

I'm not really seeing where people are getting that she's anti-femme. In fact, I'd say the opposite. Can someone provide a quote?

Butler is not arguing that it is a choice. Again, performativity does not mean choice.

There are very few studies that can prove that gender is purely biological. However, we do need to understand the inherent problems of claiming an essentialist argument in a society that uses that argument against anyone who deviates from the norm.

This much I can agree with. Butler tends to look at gender, only, and not sex. Gender works for trans people in the same way as it does for cis people or anyone else. However, I also see trans issues as an issue of sex identity...something which Butler does not acknowledge at all. For her, trans and intersexed people are used solely for the purpose of proving her theories on the formation of gender, but she does not acknowledge any studies on sex variation or the experiences of trans and intersexed people themselves.

There are obviously problems with Butler's theory as there are with any theory. I particularly have an issue with her failure to let go of the oedipal model. I would think by this point most theorists would have moved into a more post-oedipal understanding of gender. The whole theory is quite bogus, imo, though the formation of gender at an extremely young age does make sense. As a mixture of biology and early experience of the self in relation to other people, though not necessarily the parents. It does make sense that gender would form through the way a baby experiences itself through its relationships with the world around it. Butler doesn't argue that this is a choice a person makes as even a 4 or 5 year old, or even a choice at all, and as such there is really nothing one could do to alter the gender formations the baby makes.

Yeah, both Butler and Halberstam seem to still carry these opinions about transguys, in particular. You can see them trying to work through it in their later works, but it still shines through pretty strong. They both also have trouble seeing transmen as transmen, instead of "biological women" with a "gender identification" that makes them fully identify as male. Again...yeah...they have their theories definitely have their problems. That isn't to say there isn't something useful to be taken out of it, as a lot of what they say about performativity and hetero/homonormativity is still very useful in the post-marriage rights/post-homo age of successful white gay dudes who think no one undergoes oppression anymore.

And here is the entire issue I am having with Theory, and why i make a bad intellectual. I know essentailism is "bad" and constructivism is "good," (and I know value judgements are bad) and essentialism is behind every oppressive force, but the grounds upon which we elevate constructivism seem a little spurious to me

we learned in class that to be called an "essentialist" is the worst thing you can hear as a theorist

However, as I understand it, the reason we reject essentialism is not because it cannot exist, but because we cannot access it directly

that is a good reason not to speculate about it, but not a good reason to reject it, and not a good reason to elevate constructivism

i think it is as problematic to reject essentialism just because it has been used against us as it is to reject it just because we can't understand it

constructivism is appealing because it puts everything in our control, at least unconsciously, but it is no more provable than essentialism, because we would have to prove it against essentialism, and we cannot access essentialism

exactly my point- under constructivism, it makes perfect sense, but in practice, we could end up with lesbian spaces full of those very same successful white dudes that think no one undergoes oppression anymore

I wouldn't say they are any more spurious than the grounds to which society has elevated essentialism. I also think that there is quite a difference between essentialism as socially constructed belief with specific consequences, and any ability for biology to help determine things like gender and sexuality. Yet because most everything in society that claims to be "natural" tends to actually be the product of social construct (since "nature" cannot create categories of "gender" or "sexuality," and the presence of these concepts alone are entirely cultural, especially given that in many languages and cultures the distinction between "sex" and "gender" doesn't even exist, and in many eras the notion of "sexual identity" did not even exist). As such, it becomes more important for many to look at the role of presumptions of "naturalness" in society than attempt to look for "the gay gene," or "the reason" some people are this way or that way, and especially when such attempts frequently are underlined with the desire to find a way to biologically eliminate undesirable traits (again how the social plays into notions of the supposed "objectivism" science).

Personally, as I stated a few times above, I approach the topic with biology and social relationships as an infant as the source of the production of "gender" and sexual preference. In a similar way that modern psychology has more lately determined personality traits as neither fully biological nor environmental (the old nature vs. nurture debate).

Heh, well that's pretty irresponsible of a prof, imo. Universities should generally judge ideas on the logic used to arrive at them, not by being cliquey.

In your original post you wrote:

It appears that the reason you support essentialism in this case is not because constructivism or a medium between essentialism and constructivism (which is basically what Butler is proposing) cannot exist, but because you might believe that the idea that something that is so much a part of you must be 100% innate. I think the prospect that some important factor of identity is not entirely innate is extremely frightening and threatening to many people. Especially when you constantly have society trying to devalue who you are.

Yet Butler is, by no means, saying that Butch and Femme don't exist.

Everything "can" exist, however, there is no evidence I've ever read that proves gender essentialism. We have to understand why certain categories have become important to us in society. Why is the identity of queer or masculine or feminine important in relation to bodies that have traditionally been approved as "bearing" these identities, and those that have not? Queer, lesbian, gay, pansexual, bisexual, why are these identities important? There is no "gene" for any such fluid concept, but we use them because of oppressions that have occurred and continue to occur as far as monstracising and making invisible certain bodies participating in certain sexual acts with certain other bodies. Same with gender. Does that make these identities any less important to us? No. They are important, and we need to get this idea out of our heads that just because something is not 100% essentialist, that it makes it any less real, truthful, valid or important. It might be helpful to look at it through the lens of race as well. Race and ethnicity are also social constructions, and yet in an age where racism is still rampant, identities such as POC, black, first nations etc are extremely important. Yet just because race is not something that has always existed socially, does make the POC community, its identities and activism any less real or valid.

No, sexual preference and gender are not choices, but neither does that mean they are entirely biologically pre-determined.

I bring up this quote again, because I think it's extremely important to emphasize when talking about gender:

Essentialism also rides on the idea that what is declared "biological" cannot be changed, and yet biology is so much more complex than that, not to mention the way biology intersects with society.There is no "natural" for humans thing that can be stripped of its social aspects. Every so-called "scientific fact" is interpreted with specific social ciphers, so that we create knowledge through our experiences as social beings.

Not really. Policing "lesbian" and "woman" in the past is what led to second wave rejection of butches and femmes, and which excluded women of colour from the women's movement co-opted by white, middle class women. Butler argues against such policing. Her argument is that lesbian should not mean having certain kinds of sex, dressing in a certain way, or even sleeping with only women (many lesbians fuck transmen, genderqueer folks, gay cis men and it doesn't make them any less lesbian), having certain beliefs or any other criteria.

yeah there is already the whole gatekeeping thread for this conversation

i was making the jump to straight guys throughout my life who, in the process of hitting on me and getting shot down, thought it was funny to tell me "i am a lesbian trapped in a man's body" when i am pretty sure they really are not

i would not want to gate-keep against pre-operative transexual lesbians, but i DO want to gate-keep against Dan the perv who sexually harassed me when i was 19

but like i said, another thread

Again, I would argue that is entirely incorrect and does not at all encompass the argument against essentialism. The argument against essentialism is against the meaning and implications of essentialism (essentialism is ideological, as is everything, it does not represent any kind of defense of "biological fact," but the production of knowledge and its representation as objective "fact"), not an argument against biology. You cannot divorce any aspect of humanity from its interaction with the world around it.

Nietzsche's rejection of a thing has little to do with the inability to perceive it, and more to do with perception as inseparable from any notion of "truth." This is an understanding most post-structuralists, in particular, generally agree on; society and perceptions of "truth" as a web of socially constructed systems.

Looking at it within its context of other of Nietzsche's works helps with perception of what precisely he is saying. If we jump to his premise in Beyond Good and Evil, that "good" and "bad" can only exist within particular social contexts, that they do not exist otherwise.

Linking this to his premise expanded upon in Will to Power:

The same premise can be replied to this debate, as well as to modern gender, sexuality and the ridiculous either/or debate (which Butler does not appear to fully support, anyway) between essentialism and constructivism.

Essentialism is an understanding of certain facets of supposed "human nature" that claims to be absolute. It holds the same problem as any absolutist ideology. The challenging of any absolutist ideology results in a similar response described by Nietzsche when he discusses the reaction of humans to the idea that their value systems, previously believed to be absolute and inherent, are a matter of perception and social construction. People then defer to the belief that, because something is based upon perception or is partially the product of social interaction, that the argument is that these things are "meaningless" or that they do not exist. This is entirely incorrect.

Constructivism, on the other hand, is not limited to an absolutist idea that certain human traits are solely socially constructed. It does not absolutely contest the possibility of a partial biological contribution to human traits, but, instead, seeks to examine the ways in which identity and the essentialist concept of "innate" identities in relation to certain bodies is, itself, an issue of social actualisation through repetition. Essentialism denies any possibility beyond innateness. Constructivism, despite perhaps being poorly named, does not.

As such, your shih-tzu analogy does not really directly correlate with the debate. Both the shih-tzu and the other dogs in your example are trying to assert the absolute existence or inexistence of something. The debate, if we relate it back to Butler, is about the essentialist belief that gender is purely a biological construction that is fixed/unchangeable and, thusly, "natural" via its limited definition of "natural." Essentialism does not allow any other option and takes a simplistic view of gender construction.

Butler's perspective is not the exact opposite (again, if you look at the quotes I've provided throughout this thread) - meaning that she is not denying the possibility that gender may be influenced somehow by some biological component, but that gender is developed within the child within the first year of birth...not as a result of being voluntarily constructed, not as a construct that can be controlled in any way, not even as pure construction at all, but as a factor that is influenced by the complex intersections of the child's interaction with the world around it. In fact, there she does not even exclude it as "natural," since natural must not be simply defined by biological fixedness. In fact, there is nothing that says certain intersections between biology and early social interaction do not result in what we understand as "gender." Otherwise, one would be able to argue for "masculine" and "feminine" animals, when animals do not bear gender presentations nor sexualities. Humans might place their own understandings of what "masculine" and "feminine" constitute upon the animals, but that has little to do with some innate animal "gender" or "sexuality."

There could be one thousand threads on a subject, it does not invalidate the relevance of its discussion in this thread. Certain topics are not simply restricted to certain threads, nor rendered irrelevant when they pop up in more than one thread. In fact, my post was directly related to one you made, and indirectly to many other posts you've made throughout this current thread. Let's follow the chain of discussion, throughout the topic you have expressed concerns about second wave feminism and the ways in which it dismissed butch/femme relationships as "tools of the patriarchy.

From the OP:
From post #10:
Butler speaks directly to that, and, in fact, writes against this "shoulding" and "tools of the patriarchy" rhetoric in her discussion of the uses of identity and recognising identity as necessary within the modern queer community. Policing "lesbian" and "woman," relates directly to why there was and is still a lot of "shoulding" going on, as far as "how to be a lesbian." This is 100% relevant to this topic.

See, I really felt like the Nietzsche/Lacan/Foucault/Butler sequence that has been my life the past month really is saying that that there is nothing at all that is innate.

I felt like it was absolutist. I am willing to take your word for it if it is not, though, as I am not likely to go much deeper into theory after this semester

i was totally doing that. I was thinking if something is not innate then it must be a complete illusion

hmmm.... this is all a bit disturbing for me. While I know part of what has been said is true I'm not in agreement with all of it. The fact of the matter is, gender identity is based on estrogen and testosterone. These hormones influence the brain in utero. If one feels like a girl or a boy or both or neither....it will be because of the individual's hormonal balance and because of hormonal levels in utero as well as hormone levels while growing. Why do men have such a difficult time understanding women and vice versa? It's because gender is significant, because of the action of gender-creating hormones. Now there is no normal....but there is gender.

This is not the "fact of the matter." There are no studies which show this conclusively. In some ways similar to the studies that have, for decades, been trying to "prove" that men are "logical," women "emotional."

Pure stereotype. The stereotype of "men don't understand women" is one that is cultivated into a child since the beginning. It's self-prophesising. In some languages and cultures there is no concept of gender, only sex. The differences in the approaches to trans rights in English and French Canada are a very good example of the above.