Let's talk about Judith Butler

[Toughy]

Originally Posted by Novelafemme

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....

[Toughy]

Originally Posted by Toughy

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.............

[Toughy]

[quote=maryoosa;557846]

Originally Posted by Toughy

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

QUOTE]


Female Masculinity was written by Judith Halberstam not Judith Butler. They are different people.

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

[EnderD_503]

Originally Posted by dark_crystal

Basically, what i think she says in "Gender Trouble" is that there is no innate masculinity or femininity and we are all just performing arbitrary social constructions

I feel like she is telling me i don't exist! That my butch does not exist! That transitioning FTMs/MTFs are putting themselves through surgery for nothing!

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:

It may be useful to shift the terms of the debate from constructivism versus essentialism to the more complex question of how 'deep-seated' or constitutive constraints can be posed in terms of symbolic limits in their intractability and contestability. What has been understood as the performativity of gender - far from the exercise of an unconstrained voluntarism - will prove to be impossible apart from notions of such political constraints registered physically. It may well be useful to separate the notion of constraints or limits from the metaphysical endeavor to ground those constraints in a biological or psychological essentialism. This latter effort seeks to establish a certain 'proof' of constraint over and against a constructivism which is illogically identified with voluntarism and free play.

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

There is a tendency to think that sexuality is either constructed or determined; to think that if it is constructed, it is in some sense free, and if it is determined, it is in some sense fixed...Performativity is neither free play nor theatrical self-presentation; nor can it be simply equated with performance. Morover, constraint is not necessarily that which sets a limit to performativity, constraint is, rather, that which impels and sustains performativity.

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:

It is said, of course, that women are always already punished, castrated, and that their relation to the phallic norm will be penis envy. And this must have happened first, since men are said to look over and see this figure of castration and fear any identification there. Becoming like her, becoming her, that is the fear of castration and, hence, the fear of falling into penis envy as well. The symbolic position that marks a sex as masculine is one through which the masculine sex is said to 'have' the phallus; it is one that compels through the threat of punishment, that is, the threat of feminization, an imaginary and, hence, inadequate identification.

And letter, on the queering of that heteronormativity:

This specular relations, however, is itself established through the exclusion and abjection of a domain of relations in which all the wrong identifications are pursued; men wishing to 'be' the phallus for other men, women wishing to 'have' the phallus for other women, women wishing to 'be' the phallus for other women, men wishing both to have and to be the phallus for other men in a scene in which the phallus not only transfers between the modalities of being and having, but between partners within a volatile circuit of exchange, men wishing to 'be' the phallus for a woman who 'has' it, women wishing to 'have it' for a man who 'is' it. And here it is important to not that it is not only that the phallus circulate out of line, but that it also can be an absent, indifferent, or otherwise diminished structuring principle for sexual exchange. Further, I do not mean to suggest that there are only two figures of abjection, the inverted versions of heterosexualized masculinity and femininity; on the contrary, these figures of abjection, which are inarticulate yet organizing figures within the Lacanian symbolic, foreclose precisely the kind of complex crossings of identification and desire which might exceed and contest the binary frame itself.

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.

Originally Posted by dark_crystal

Yes that would have been helpful, sorry! Here are some more:

“... that gender is a choice, or that gender is a role, or that gender is a construction that one puts on, as one puts on clothes in the morning, that there is a 'one' who is prior to this gender, a one who goes to the wardrobe of gender and decides with deliberation which gender it will be today.”

“...gender is a kind of imitation for which there is no original"

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.

Originally Posted by Novelafemme

"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.

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.

Originally Posted by dark_crystal

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

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.

Originally Posted by dark_crystal

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

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."

Originally Posted by Novelafemme

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.

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?

Originally Posted by boobookitty

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.

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

Originally Posted by boobookitty

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.

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.

Originally Posted by dark_crystal

My quibble is that, to me, this only makes sense for the cisgendered. I feel like she implies there is no such thing as transgender **

**although i am cisgendered and i would never presume to speak to what transgender "is," which is what i would be doing if i went toe-to-toe on her assertions

which is precisely my problem- Butler does not let her cisgendered perspective stop her from making assumptions about what transgendered individuals are thinking and feeling

I particularly don't like the way she takes the David Reimer case and decides for herself what led him to report that he "felt like a boy"

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.

[dark_crystal]

Originally Posted by EnderD_503

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.

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

Originally Posted by EnderD_503

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.

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

Originally Posted by EnderD_503

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.

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

[EnderD_503]

Originally Posted by dark_crystal

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

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).

Originally Posted by dark_crystal

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

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.

Originally Posted by dark_crystal

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

In your original post you wrote:

Basically, what i think she says in "Gender Trouble" is that there is no innate masculinity or femininity and we are all just performing arbitrary social constructions

I feel like she is telling me i don't exist! That my butch does not exist! That transitioning FTMs/MTFs are putting themselves through surgery for nothing!

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:

There is a tendency to think that sexuality is either constructed or determined; to think that if it is constructed, it is in some sense free, and if it is determined, it is in some sense fixed...Performativity is neither free play nor theatrical self-presentation; nor can it be simply equated with performance. Morover, constraint is not necessarily that which sets a limit to performativity, constraint is, rather, that which impels and sustains performativity.

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.

Originally Posted by dark_crystal

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

What proof, exactly, lies on the side of essentialism, and what reason is there to support?

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

Actually, constructivism does not put everything in our control...not even unconsciously, and Butler argues just that. She says that we cannot voluntarily change our sexual preferences or our gender, nor should we want to. Constructivism is problematic because of its name, moreso than what many theorists understand by its implications.

For example, why are certain bodies labeled as "disordered" in our society? Why is intersexed viewed as a "disorder"? Why is trans viewed as a "disorder"? Why are differently abled people viewed as having "disabilities"? There is nothing in science which deems that any of these things are "disorders" or "disabilities." It is a social judgement we place upon those who don't physically fall into a body or sex-normative category.

The argument against essentialism is not an argument against the role of biology, but an argument against the meaning of essentialism itself.

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

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.

[dark_crystal]

Originally Posted by EnderD_503

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 don’t necessarily support essentialism. I just feel like the argument against it is “essentialism does not exist because we can’t see it”

like I said in the OP, I didn’t have time to follow up on Butler like I wanted to b/c I am in the middle of writing a paper on “On Truth and Lying in a Non-moral Sense”

Our assignment is to trace the influence of Nietzsche’s rejection of the correspondence theory of truth

It looks to me like Nietzsche’s rejection of the” thing-in-itself” was based on our inability to perceive it, and not on whether it existed or not

Its like if my shih-tzu went out and tried to convince all her friends there is such a color as red

She would be basing it on hearsay and the other dogs would laugh at her and she wouldn’t be able to prove it and they wouldn’t be able to do anything with it even if she could

But she would not be wrong

[dark_crystal]

Originally Posted by EnderD_503

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.

Originally Posted by dark_crystal

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

Originally Posted by EnderD_503

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