In Judith Butler's Gender Trouble, she points out the impossibilities surrounding the categories of "women". Since gender, in itself, is not fixed historically, socially and/or culturally how women are represented becomes dependent upon the other discursively constrained identities surrounding gender; including, but not limited to, race, class structures, ethnicity and sexuality. "Feminist critique ought to also understand how the category of "women," the subject of feminism, is produces and restrained by the very structures of power through which emancipation is sought" (Butler 4). Is it possible for women to transcend these structures of power? Or is the representation of gender, women in particular, too dependent and constrained by other societal discourses?
Feminism urges to represent itself, strengthen itself, universally in the patriarchal society. However, in doing so, (mis)representation may surface as a result; "The urgency of feminism to establish a universal status for patriarchy in order to strengthen the appearance of feminism's own claims to be representative has occasionally motivated the shortcut to a categorial or fictive universality of the structure of domination" (Butler 5). Though feminism strives for (proper) representation in their identification, their claims are seen as an exclusion from all other constituting powers racially, sexually, culturally, socially etc. "By conforming to a requirement of representational politics that feminism articulate a stable subject, feminism thus opens itself to charges of...misrepresentation" (Butler 6-7). If identity is dependent upon the dominating structures of power present in a specific society, and feminism strives to defy these structures, this might be inadvertently dismantling their representation for the wrong reasons.
The representation of gender is not problematic because gender itself, but rather the other identifying problems that coincide with gender. For example, Butler discusses "gender" and "sex" and how it is dificult to fully separate those two terms and distinguish them as individuals. With the physical, make-up of a male and female's sex, there is an assumed gender that follows this distinction in gender; "Can we refer to a "given" sex or a "given" gender without first inquiring into how sex and/or gender is given, through what means?" (Butler 9) Similar to how gender is culturally constructed, sex too, may be argued similarly. "Sex" becomes constructed and originated in histories and the sciences and placed in the discursive properties surrounding. This mind-body distinction between men and women places gender as a "secondary characteristic" (Butler 15), and restricts the female sex to its body. For gender hierarchy to change, there needs to be a rethinking for the mind/body distinction between men and women. The hierarchy that is present now only marks the female body not within its own situation and freedom but within masculinist discourse (Butler 17).
This is interesting and although I keyed into many of these points, you hit upon some that I did not. I agree with Butler in many respects, but in some ways I split with her. Although I do believe the cross-section of gender with race, class, etc. is important, I also feel that gender itself is problematic. Sex is naturally separated from gender in many ways. Gender is a social construction that is only ingrained in us to be synonymous with sex because of our historical culture and society. To move past this,we would need to redefine 'people' as a whole; allowing traits to flow fluidly and not be associated primarily with one sec--thereby gendering males and females. This is where I meet back up with Butler, in our fight for equality in a patriarchal society that produced the subject 'women' (4).
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting that you bring up sex as constructed, I wonder if you mean this in a different way that gender is constructed? Or if it is that sex is so interlocked with gender within our society? I need to go back to Butler (15) to unpack sex as a secondary characteristic. In truth I am not sure I fully grasp this concept. I don't feel that it is that the mind/body distinction between men and women needs to be rethought (for gender hierarchy to change), as much as it is that we as a collective society need to change how we produce and assign gender.