June 14 Blog Post

Now that I have finally battled Google into submission regarding my log-in, I can finally post on here! I have to say, I felt like I was in kindergarten again reading Butler. My husband looks over and I have the article held up in front of me (as if getting it closer to my face will aid in osmosis J) reading so slowly it looks like I am reading a different language! Thankfully my husband and I love to debate topics so I was able to use him as a sounding board for what I was reading. When we disagreed I just told him he was being a phallocentric male and what did he know. J So I think I had a better time reading Butler than I had anticipated. Despite her (and I say her as for these articles she writes as “Judith”) writing style, I found what she had to say intriguing. As Gender Trouble was my favorite article, I would like to talk about it the most here. She starts with the argument that gender is socially constructed while sex is seen as biological. (pg. 9) She goes on to say that what if, because the idea of biological sex determination might be incorrect and as socially constructed as gender, that gender is what makes a person male or female? What an interesting and thought provoking idea! Butler spends a great deal of Gender Trouble writing on Simone de Beauvoir. Butler writes that de Beauvoir considers gender socially constructed but also fixed and that a “cogito” or agent “appropriates that gender”. However, de Beauvoir also thinks that an agent can transition between genders but that the attributes they pick up are already fixed and culturally set so there is no fluidity within the gender.

I tend to concur with certain points within the article. I think that society puts an inordinate amount of pressure to appear very male or very male, and if you do come out as queer you can only be the Will & Grace type queer (we’re talking Will not Jack). Even being queer you are culturally expected to fit into a box. So yes, I can certainly see de Beauvoir’s point about the stricture of cultural determination regarding gender. Butler continues on discussing gender but moves on from gender in relation to sex to gender in relation to ideas about body. Butler writes that just like sex is considered biologically set, the body is seen as one or the other based on what culture has determined makes up a male or female body. Just like with gender, what if what makes a person identify as male or female body happen because they possess certain attributes that culture decides makes that person one or the other? And even more intriguing is the idea that our entire culture is phallocentric and that the female body and gender only exist because it possesses the cast off attributes that males don’t see as masculine enough. What an incredible idea! And, writes Butler, society has a hard time talking about this because discourse itself is masculine so it lends itself to be predisposed to anti-female superiority ideas. Following the idea of discarded male attributes embodying what is culturally seen to make up “females”, Butler writes that on top of everything else this application of these attributes fixes females and does not allow them fluidity within their gender/sex.

I know I wrote a lot, but I thought Gender Trouble was a fascinating article and dang if you don’t feel smarter after figuring out what you THINK she is saying!