After reading the first 22 pages of Judith Butler's book, Gender Trouble, I came away with one thought, "so... I guess there is no such thing as women." In these first few pages she seems to me to be arguing that "women" is a category created as a foundation for itself (yeah, wrap your head around that). Which implies that women is actually an empty term that exists only because someone (or some group or something) constructed it and because after it was created people bought into it and perpetuated it. Feminists is one group Butler critiques for perpetuating the idea of "women. " As she writes "For the most part, feminist theory has assumed that there is some existing identity, understood through the category of women, who not only initiates feminist interests and goals within discourse, but constitutes the subject for whom political representation is pursued"(2). As I understand it, for Butler the word "women" is not satisfactory as an identity. I would then like to ask, "what constitutes a satisfactory identity?"
If "women" does not cut it as a satisfactory identity for women, then what does? A different word? A picture? A symbol? A movement? Also, if "women" is not an identity, then is "men" not an identity? If "men" is and identity then what makes it more satisfactory than "women?" I believe I agree with her general point that "women" is hardly an exhaustive word for that category of people, and has probably even been a limiting factor and a detriment to the feminist movement, but I believe there is a flaw in her logic. People need some way to communicate and the main way we do that is through language. All words constitute themselves and only hold the meaning that culture gives to them. While this may not be a perfect way to communicate, the only way to change it would be to completely change the way we communicated, and I would argue that no way of communication will ever be completely satisfactory. Language is a devilish paradox, giving us a way to express our ideas yet at the same time never fully expressing them. Perhaps this is Butler's point, that language is unsatisfactory and to change the way "women" identify themselves we must first change the language.
However, this does not seem a very practical route and is probably not exactly what Butler intended. As she claims:
This text continues, then, as an effort to think through the possibility of subverting and displacing those naturalized and reified notions of gender that support masculine hegemony and heterosexist power, to make gender trouble, not through strategies that figure a utopian beyond, but through mobilization, subversive confusion, and proliferation of precisely those constitutive categories that seek to keep gender in its place by posturing as the foundational illusions of identity. (46)
From this, I gleaned that her point is not to completely usurp the system but to exploit the holes in the current system to expose its faults and bring about a deeper understanding. If we start to consider why someone might identify with "women" and what that implies, and realize how much that term lacks as an identifying tool we can start to re appropriate meaning to the word "women" and reclaim it. By exposing the flaws in the current system of identification, or as she puts it, by "subversive confusion" perhaps we can redefine our identities.
Michelle,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your musings on the terms woman and man and the way you used Butler to help you articulate these connections and contradictions. It strikes me that your title question is a good one, and one that we didn’t spend too much time on in class.
I think that Butler would not think that “man” is a truthful category, any more than woman is, though again I think that she’d use discursive evidence to show how it HAS accumulated a limited (and limiting) meaning. This is why, for instance, I think it’s important to note that terms like “heteronormative” or “masculine” speak to categories of language and not necessarily to the easy fit individual bodies and selves have in these categories. It might be interesting to go back through the section and note the places where Butler talks about the male individual as another type of presumption or performance (one such place is pg. 3) to see if she is careful of her language w/ regard to male constructedness throughout.
I like where your final thoughts tend. What do you think of this idea that we can subvert in order to redefine identity? Do you buy it? Can you imagine how this would be done? I don’t know that, for Butler, anything would constitute a satisfactory identity for “women”—part of her point, indeed, might be that categorization of this kind is always unsatisfactory (though still useful). But that doesn’t mean you have to agree. What about the alternative communicative versions that we discussed on day one? Are more options enough? Or is a fundamental upheaval needed?
Great thoughts, here Michelle. Keep it up!
p.s. I'm also a big fan of the background image!
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