Wost 3002 Blog

o.k. i struggled through butler, well it wasn't that much of a struggle, but she could use language that is more accessible to more people, not just those schooled in post-modern theory, therefore she wouldn't be so damned intimidating to most of us. anyway, what i got from it is deconstuct as always deconstruct. any ideas of what you think gender is, do away with them completely, because they don't exist. gender like everything else falls upon a spectrum and perhaps their can be as many genders as their are people. therefore, a whole new way of looking at what is masculine and feminine. well if we do away with everything we know that is masculine and feminine than we can start redefining what that is. so i am going to take a couple of quotes from butler, that i feel were at the heart of her text. "the critical task is, rather, to locate strategies of subversive repitition enabled by those constructions, to affirm the local posissibilities of intervention through participating in precisely those practices of repetition that constitute identity and, therefore, present the immanent possiblity of contesting them."(pg. 188) it is only through recognizing that our gender, who we think we are is a total and complete social construct, and there are only two possible and very limited choices. that we can then begin the process of deconstructing and challenging those two very limiting possibilities. perhaps this is where the discussion begins, but for feminists, butler states the challenge is.. "not whether to repeat,
but how to repeat or, indeed, to repeat and, through a radical proliferation of gender, to displace the very gender norms that enable the repetition itself. There is no ontolgy of gender on which we might construct a politics for gender ontologies alway operate within established political context as normative injuctions..."(pg. 189) to me , what this means is, as feminists we are still using the language and definitions of the dominant, heirarchical white , male culture to define what "gender" is. and to even begin to truly understand and argue what gender is we must first do away with feminism as an 'identity politic'(pg. 187)o.k. i think i have said enough for now.

Well, I definitely think her writing is very hard to follow, but I'll discuss whatever it is I got out of it. One thing that she says is that society has taught us what feminine and masculine characteristics are; which are not real. These characteristics are taught by society, and are given to the "appropriate" gender. I believe this is true, but only to some extent. I feel as though people will express the masculine or feminine characteristics they feel suite them, but they will also obey how society thinks they should be. But for many people, they will hide the characteristics that go against societal rules. Another thing that that I found interesting was her thought about people performing what society wants you to be. For example, a gay man may get married in order to fulfill social norms, and start actually believing in his own performance. The reason for this is because this is what society deems “normal” so they will fulfill the identity that society constructs for them. I guess these are just a few points of hers that I agreed with, but a lot of her stuff I found a little extreme..

Ahhh, the language of academia…anyone actually talk like that? Butler makes some insightful connections between gender, agency, and identity. She describes gender as “performative”, an “act”, a “signification” that is so constantly repeated that it becomes (socially) real. So not only do we think of certain behavior as gendered, but we act according to our gender. Our possibilities of thinking/acting outside of the gender box are limited because cultural hegemonies like “compulsory heterosexuality” transverse generations and our bodies inscribed with one of two gender labels from the moment of our birth. So Butler describes (gender) identity as an “effect”, allowing us to further deconstruct and use our agency to contest/intervene on the “ritualistic repetition” of “hierarchical binarisms” than is possible if we consider identity as “fixed”. Her words to describe gender as a social construction: “the tacit collective agreement to perform” are empowering; they imply that we all have a role, but that the prescribed role can be ruptured by a critical rupture…my understandings….

This was interesting; I thought I was doing pretty well with the reading, and then I got to the huge section where every other word is "epistomology". There were two specific arguments that stood out to me: one concerns the fact that I will never toss around the "etc" so easily because doing that makes a LOT of assumptions on many levels. The second thing falls under the umbrella theory (in my own words) that everybody is always in drag in that we are always wearing or performing a gender. The reason we know this is because gender norms are impossible to embody to perfection. For example, if someone is not exhibiting the same gender-specific behavior on a date as they do buying groceries or hanging out with family, it gives testimony to the fact that each mode of behavior is contrived to fit the situation. Gender performance is especially apparent during situations of "duress". A good example would probably be the job interview -especially when this job has a history of being gender-specific. This stood out to me partially because of a recent conversation I had with a friend of mine; she was saying that in college she would for the most part wear gender gender-specific clothing unless she went out on the town -during which she would put on a "female" costume of makeup, jewelry and a skirt. Having graduated and returned home, she now finds that she has to dress in drag on a regular basis whether it be for work (at a flower shop) special occasions.

The first part of the reading seems to say exactly what we talked about in class today. . . that ‘sex’ is the product of compulsatory heterosexuality and the need for 'male' and 'female' and that this creates, through repetition, the gender roles that exist today. The concluding chapter seems to suggest that the only way to change the limiting ways gender and sex are defined in our society is to use the same method of repetition to create a new “sediment” or history to sex and gender that would allow for all the possibilities of sex that may exist. I guess the one thing that kept me from completely agreeing with/understanding the reading was the fact that men and women are physically different and I didn’t feel that the article explained how Butler’s theory supported this fact. I suppose, according to her, my thinking may be programmed according to compulsatory heterosexuality that does not allow me to think beyond the physical differences between men and women, yet even after sifting through the reading I simply can not completely grasp the concept that it is not gender that is socially constructed but sex.

To me the most interesting section of the excerpt was the "I" vs "other" discussion. To me this was interesting, because in my previous women's studies feminist film theory class it was one of the building blocks of the class. The white/male culture is often looked at as the majority ("I") while the black/hispanic/women or so "called" other cultures are looked at as the minority- no matter what the actual statistics are in the United States. The white male dominated society holds power, while anyone else who doesn't fit into that specific mold is the 'other' or minority in the U.S.
In one of my first psychology courses I read about a study dealing with gender issues. I vaguely remember that it involved newborn infants and visitors that were not family with the infant. Visitors that saw babies in a 'blue' color instantly called it words similar to 'tough', while visitors that saw babies in a 'pink' color said how 'precious/sweet' the infant looked.

Well...I struggle through Butler too. I find that her writting was very hard to understand and I don't get a lot of the things that she talk about, but I will try my best to talk about what I get. I do agree with Ercia that she did talk about how the society has taught us what feminine and masculine characteristics are, especially when she consider the sedimentation of gender norm. For example, when she talk about how gender is the working of " sex" and continue talking about gender being a repeated corporeal project(pg.177). It seem to me like she think male and female are born phsyically like the way they are, that their action should be of what will protray thier sex. And if their action is not what protray thier gender, then they should punished, being talk or make fun of, and excluded. This part is where I think that it isn't fair, because I feel that as a human being, a person's gender shouldn't be judged by the societly by a standard of behaviors, jobs, or roles. Just because a male is a nurse,it doesn't mean that the society have the right should judging the male. Saying that he is changing his sex gender and are to be unnoticed. She also question about gender being a act and talk a lot about the type of norms that define a female from a male within a society public view and relating it to cutural view about gender too. I understand when she agrues about how female and male tend to act according to the norms in their society and cutural life. But then what is really the meaning of the gender. Is a male define as male because of his agency strong in life and verus for a female? so is a person's gender define from other opinion, but not from thier own opinion or thier knowledge of gender? well..this is what I get from the reading..I liked some of her arguement, but some of them just got so confused and frustrated because she seem to repeat her opinion about gender.I guess she wanted us to understand in her way, but I think it will be hard in that way.

Okay...first of all, i have to say that I have struggled through most of Butler's writing about gender.I found myself reading it and thought i understood what she was talking about but then i'll soon get lost and have to go back to reread it carefully. Her reading makes me feel like I was not her intended audience. Oh well, here is what i got out of the reading. Bulter states that gender is not real, that it is fake since we are not born with it but that the society has constructed and defined gender. Due to this, since upon birth, we tend to perform our roles, according to our sex, in able to satisfy what society believes is normal behavior from us. Bulter further points out we need to deconstruct what society has created in gender to change the rules of gender, but like what Erica has mentioned above, we will more likey just go along and contiune doing what is the society believes to be natural from us. Also, maybe it was already mentioned in the article and i just did not catch that but, if Butler says that society is what constructs gender, then how did it came to be in the first place? How did it really came to be that male should act this way, or female should act this way?

Reading this excerpt from Butler was a long process for me because from the moment I began, I started to reflect her thoughts off of my ‘performances’ and trying to analyze how I fit in with her descriptions of the origins of gender. What I discovered was probably what made her thesis so groundbreaking: I was terrified. How much of my actions and feelings are truly social constructs, and is there even a sexual being that can express itself truly within me? As I look back on my life, I try to identify the gender norms that I observed or were expected to perform, which changed the way I saw myself. Butler’s last three sentences (nearly 1/3 of a page) are absolutely the most fascinating. Is it possible for us to break down these illusions and expectations we all have and see and feel the real sexuality of ourselves? And imagine…the impact that would have on world politics!!!

"Hey Jude. Don't be so confusing. Take a piece of literature and help us through it......" Yes, I wish I could comprehend everything she is trying to get across, but it is one of those pieces that a person must read 25 times in order to only begin to get at the heart of it. I tend to write like her, and that is, by using a lot of commas and making extremely long sentences. Professors hate that, but I like it. I have learned to make short and sweet sentences, but I'm always itching to put in that extra thought. Anyway, Butler...She has a lot to say and speaks exactly how the mind speaks to us. The mind does not function in complete thoughts and sentences. It wanders. It repeats itself. It makes up words. It is utterly confusing to follow at times. That is
Butler and I can't help but love it. I cannot help but love anything that is making the people think backwards. It is refreshing to step completely away from the traditional ways of thinking and take a step back and ask yourself, "Why has it been like that?" "What can we do to change traditions?" Gender should not be thought of in binary ways of thinking. It is more complex than that. That is what she is saying. Just let it flow people and embrace the gender that you feel like playing today.