Let's talk about Judith Butler

[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.