03-30-2012, 09:57 AM | #1 |
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Let's talk about Judith Butler
I am taking a literary theory class, and this week is "Feminism week," so our assigned readings included "Gener Trouble," by Judith Butler
I found it very triggery! And I am kinda feeling like holding her responsible for a lot of the "shoulding" i went through throughout the 90's 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 need to be ready to discuss this by Wednesday, and I see that she has written a lot more since "Gender Trouble"- so maybe it is possible that she refined her views? I am kinda crowd-sourcing this inquiry since I have to write a paper about Nietzsche's "On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense" this weekend and so I do not have time to follow up on Butler like I would like to So I am asking ya'll- does anyone else feel this way about that piece? Does she revise her views later on? How am I going to talk about her as a theorist without personalizing the issue? What that really be so bad if i DID personalize the issue?
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03-30-2012, 10:09 AM | #2 |
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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.
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03-30-2012, 10:13 AM | #3 |
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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?" |
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03-30-2012, 10:25 AM | #4 | |
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“... 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"
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03-30-2012, 12:00 PM | #5 |
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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.
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03-30-2012, 12:38 PM | #6 | |
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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. |
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03-30-2012, 12:41 PM | #7 | |
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03-30-2012, 12:45 PM | #8 | |
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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! |
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03-30-2012, 01:19 PM | #9 |
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"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. |
03-30-2012, 02:48 PM | #10 | |||
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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 Quote:
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!
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03-30-2012, 02:49 PM | #11 |
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i so heart you for this!
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03-30-2012, 06:21 PM | #12 |
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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. |
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03-30-2012, 08:43 PM | #13 | |
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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....
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03-30-2012, 09:01 PM | #14 | |
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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.............
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03-31-2012, 08:56 AM | #15 | |
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03-31-2012, 09:47 AM | #16 |
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*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* |
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03-31-2012, 10:03 AM | #17 |
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It's great to hear it, quite literally, in her own voice...
http://www.trendhunter.com/keynote/judith-butler |
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03-31-2012, 01:00 PM | #18 | |
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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.
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03-31-2012, 01:48 PM | #19 |
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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. Last edited by julieisafemme; 03-31-2012 at 01:50 PM. Reason: iPod |
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03-31-2012, 02:03 PM | #20 | |
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