Hello,
So last night, for the heck of it, I decided to wiki "Lesbian" to see what the people of the world made of the term. While reading the extensive article (which had lots of interesting tid bits) I came across something that reminded me of Misfortune. Read about Queen Christina of Sweden here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christina,_Queen_of_Sweden. Apparently she was the inverse of Rose, a woman raised as a man. I think she may be an interesting person to research/discuss in class.
Just a thought,
Michelle
Monday, October 24, 2011
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Stumbling through Butler and Her Ideas of Gender Identification through Freud's Melancholia
I waited to write this post in the hopes of some deus ex machina event where the lights of heaven would shine down upon me and bring me an epiphany as to what Butler was saying. Alas it did not happen, so here is my best guess as to what she is saying about melancholia and how it relates to gender identity.
First I will start off with what I gathered from Freud as this is where Butler draws from. As we defined it in class and as he defines it in his essay "Mourning and Melancholia" melancholia is a state one enter when they have lost an object of love and they have internalized this loss in their ego (Freud 244-45). Melancholia differs from Mourning in this internalizing factor. People who experience melancholia feel as though this loss is a loss in their ego, instead of a loss in the world. Butler ties melancholia to gender identification by claiming that one loss that we all internalize is our desire for incest. In Butler's own words, "this process of internalizing lost loves becomes pertinent to gender formation when we realize that the incest taboo, among other functions, initiates a loss of a love-object for the ego and that this ego recuperates from this loss through the internalization of the tabooed object of desire"(79).
Now, for me this belief that we all inherently have incestuous desires seems a bit unrealistic and so does Butler's idea that we handle this denial of desire in a melancholic way and internalize, but for the sake of trying to understand her argument I am going to ignore my issues with these assumptions. The question then remains: How does the process of internalizing the lost love object of incest lead to gender identification?According to Freud and Butler it is in part due to the fact that when we internalizethis loss we are identifying with it as well and this is crcial in the formation of our character and also or gender identity (Butler 79). So the young child identifies with these forbidden incestuous feelings and this plays into the formation of their gender identity, but how? To me this does not seem like a logical leap. Here is how Butler explains it:
In the case of the prohibited heterosexual union [the desire for insect], it is the object which is denied
[the opposite sex parent], but not the modality of desire, so that the desire is deflected from the
object [the opposite sexed parent] onto other objects of the opposite sex [aka attraction to the
opposite sex]. But in the case of a prohibited homosexual union, it is clear that both the desire and
the object require renunciation and so become the subject to the internalizing strategies of melancholia.
'Hence the young boy deals with his father by identifying himself with him.'(79-80).
In other words it is when the child feels an attraction to the parent of the same sex as he that he feels the taboo of not only the incest but of the homosexuality and there for he internalizes this desire which allows the young boy to foster and identification with his father. This does not happen when the attraction is to the parent of the opposite sex because it is only the incest that is taboo and there for it is given up and is not internalized. This is, at least, how I have come to understand what Butler is saying. She goes on to say Freud's idea of the boy's fear of castration by the father is really more of a fear of feminization because of his homosexual love of the father in heterosexual society (80).
While this makes sense several questions then arrise. Why does the boy not also internalize his of his mother and begin an identifation process with her as well? Could a child perhaps not internalize any of this and handle it in a fashion more similar to mourning? What if the child never experiences a homosexual to its same sex parent? Would it then never be able to form a proper gender identity? As with most pyschoanalysis I feel like it provides an interesting explanation but it depends upon a variety of very bizzare things to be true and considered as fact (such as all children experience incestuous desires). Anyhow, this is how I understand Butler's general arugument for how melancholia relates to gender identification. If that deus ex machina event actually happens and the rest of her article makes perfect sense I will add more. Until then, happy reading!
Works Cited
Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble. New York: Rutledge Classics, 1990. Print.
First I will start off with what I gathered from Freud as this is where Butler draws from. As we defined it in class and as he defines it in his essay "Mourning and Melancholia" melancholia is a state one enter when they have lost an object of love and they have internalized this loss in their ego (Freud 244-45). Melancholia differs from Mourning in this internalizing factor. People who experience melancholia feel as though this loss is a loss in their ego, instead of a loss in the world. Butler ties melancholia to gender identification by claiming that one loss that we all internalize is our desire for incest. In Butler's own words, "this process of internalizing lost loves becomes pertinent to gender formation when we realize that the incest taboo, among other functions, initiates a loss of a love-object for the ego and that this ego recuperates from this loss through the internalization of the tabooed object of desire"(79).
Now, for me this belief that we all inherently have incestuous desires seems a bit unrealistic and so does Butler's idea that we handle this denial of desire in a melancholic way and internalize, but for the sake of trying to understand her argument I am going to ignore my issues with these assumptions. The question then remains: How does the process of internalizing the lost love object of incest lead to gender identification?According to Freud and Butler it is in part due to the fact that when we internalizethis loss we are identifying with it as well and this is crcial in the formation of our character and also or gender identity (Butler 79). So the young child identifies with these forbidden incestuous feelings and this plays into the formation of their gender identity, but how? To me this does not seem like a logical leap. Here is how Butler explains it:
In the case of the prohibited heterosexual union [the desire for insect], it is the object which is denied
[the opposite sex parent], but not the modality of desire, so that the desire is deflected from the
object [the opposite sexed parent] onto other objects of the opposite sex [aka attraction to the
opposite sex]. But in the case of a prohibited homosexual union, it is clear that both the desire and
the object require renunciation and so become the subject to the internalizing strategies of melancholia.
'Hence the young boy deals with his father by identifying himself with him.'(79-80).
In other words it is when the child feels an attraction to the parent of the same sex as he that he feels the taboo of not only the incest but of the homosexuality and there for he internalizes this desire which allows the young boy to foster and identification with his father. This does not happen when the attraction is to the parent of the opposite sex because it is only the incest that is taboo and there for it is given up and is not internalized. This is, at least, how I have come to understand what Butler is saying. She goes on to say Freud's idea of the boy's fear of castration by the father is really more of a fear of feminization because of his homosexual love of the father in heterosexual society (80).
While this makes sense several questions then arrise. Why does the boy not also internalize his of his mother and begin an identifation process with her as well? Could a child perhaps not internalize any of this and handle it in a fashion more similar to mourning? What if the child never experiences a homosexual to its same sex parent? Would it then never be able to form a proper gender identity? As with most pyschoanalysis I feel like it provides an interesting explanation but it depends upon a variety of very bizzare things to be true and considered as fact (such as all children experience incestuous desires). Anyhow, this is how I understand Butler's general arugument for how melancholia relates to gender identification. If that deus ex machina event actually happens and the rest of her article makes perfect sense I will add more. Until then, happy reading!
Works Cited
Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble. New York: Rutledge Classics, 1990. Print.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Hello, Dolly! Dolls- Bodies without Minds
After reading Misfortune and watching Lars and the Real Girl, I got to wondering: What is with all of these dolls? Dolls play a major role in both texts. In Misfortune the doll house is central to the children's playtime and Geoffrey always finds great comfort in it as he is reminded of Dolores. In Lars and the Real Girl the main character, Lars, falls in love with a life size sex doll. Are the dolls in these two texts merely toys with fond memories attached to them or are they something more?
One important thing I noticed was how life was bestowed upon the dolls in both texts. Dolls are bodies with no mind. They are lifeless objects that often resemble living beings, yet there is something interesting about dolls in particular as opposed to statues which also resemble humans; people play with dolls. People use dolls to act out stories, to talk to, to have as a companion, to dress up, to be friends with-there is a personal interaction that people have with dolls that they do not with other objects that resemble humans. In a way we instill a "mind" onto the the object, giving it a personality, a name, a life.
There is something else unique to dolls, dolls are often played with by multiple people at a time. This is significant because it is not just one person putting a personality onto an inanimate object, it is a group of people recognizing a personality that is attached to an inanimate object. In the book Misfortune Geoffrey and Dolores build a doll and bestow upon her the characteristics of their ideal governess. Together they maintained this belief and in a way created a person to be their governess. In Lars and the Real Girl, Lars gives a personality to the sex doll he buys and names her Bianca. At first it is just him that treats her like a real person, but over time everyone in the town believes in her and treats her like a real person (she even receives a funeral service when she dies!). The communal belief in and bestowing of a personality onto a doll is interesting and important, especially when considering ideas such as acceptance, reality/mind/body disconnect, and the creation of a person.
I find it very important that both Misfortune and Lars and the Real Girl deal with dolls because they also deal with the issues listed above. In terms of acceptance both Lars, Rose and Geoffrey look for acceptance from others, perhaps this is why they are all so fascinated by dolls (dolls can reject no one and are generally accepted by all). Also all of these characters also seem to have some disconnect between mind and body or at the very least mind and reality. Lars suffers from a delusion, Rose has a gender identity crisis, and Geoffrey is convinced he can still speak to his dead sister when he visits the doll house. Both Rose and Lars are coming of age in their respective texts (Geoffrey is too, though not the same degree as the others). The story focuses on they're becoming an adults and the creation of their new identites. These characters are deeply tied to dolls throughout this text, so much so that perhaps the authors are commenting on how they are similar to dolls, or on a grander scheme of things, how people in general are similar to dolls. As it is claimed in the book Misfortune , "A baby's inner self is neither male nor female... Boys and girls were therefore made and not born" (98). Perhaps people are no more than ideas bestowed upon a body that are upheld by society, much like dolls.
One important thing I noticed was how life was bestowed upon the dolls in both texts. Dolls are bodies with no mind. They are lifeless objects that often resemble living beings, yet there is something interesting about dolls in particular as opposed to statues which also resemble humans; people play with dolls. People use dolls to act out stories, to talk to, to have as a companion, to dress up, to be friends with-there is a personal interaction that people have with dolls that they do not with other objects that resemble humans. In a way we instill a "mind" onto the the object, giving it a personality, a name, a life.
There is something else unique to dolls, dolls are often played with by multiple people at a time. This is significant because it is not just one person putting a personality onto an inanimate object, it is a group of people recognizing a personality that is attached to an inanimate object. In the book Misfortune Geoffrey and Dolores build a doll and bestow upon her the characteristics of their ideal governess. Together they maintained this belief and in a way created a person to be their governess. In Lars and the Real Girl, Lars gives a personality to the sex doll he buys and names her Bianca. At first it is just him that treats her like a real person, but over time everyone in the town believes in her and treats her like a real person (she even receives a funeral service when she dies!). The communal belief in and bestowing of a personality onto a doll is interesting and important, especially when considering ideas such as acceptance, reality/mind/body disconnect, and the creation of a person.
I find it very important that both Misfortune and Lars and the Real Girl deal with dolls because they also deal with the issues listed above. In terms of acceptance both Lars, Rose and Geoffrey look for acceptance from others, perhaps this is why they are all so fascinated by dolls (dolls can reject no one and are generally accepted by all). Also all of these characters also seem to have some disconnect between mind and body or at the very least mind and reality. Lars suffers from a delusion, Rose has a gender identity crisis, and Geoffrey is convinced he can still speak to his dead sister when he visits the doll house. Both Rose and Lars are coming of age in their respective texts (Geoffrey is too, though not the same degree as the others). The story focuses on they're becoming an adults and the creation of their new identites. These characters are deeply tied to dolls throughout this text, so much so that perhaps the authors are commenting on how they are similar to dolls, or on a grander scheme of things, how people in general are similar to dolls. As it is claimed in the book Misfortune , "A baby's inner self is neither male nor female... Boys and girls were therefore made and not born" (98). Perhaps people are no more than ideas bestowed upon a body that are upheld by society, much like dolls.
Monday, October 10, 2011
So am I queer? Or am I different? Or are those the same thing? -Reflections on Sedgwick
Hello all! I am sorry for my lack of blogging lately, but I fully intend to catch up by the end of this week. So going all the way back to Sedgwick and the excerpts we read from her book Tendencies....
Overall, I thought Sedgwick made a lot of good points and brought up some interesting ideas about the use of the first person in queer theory, but I want to draw your attention to the way she defines "queer." She defines "queer" several times throughout this excerpt and the first time she defines it as such:
Queer is a continuing moment, movement, motive-recurrent, eddying, troublant. The word "queer" itself means across- it comes from the Indo-European root -twerkw, which also yields the German quer (transverse), Latin torquere (to twist), English athwert...across genders, across sexualities, across genres, across perversions. (xii)
"Queer," as Sedgwick defines it here, is a motion across boundaries it is that which does not lie in one particular category. (Perhaps this is the reason people feel uneasy with things that are "queer"-because they are not easily defined and mess with societal boundaries). However, by having "queer" mean across boundaries or, in other words, something that is not strictly within the a social norm, doesn't the term "queer" become a catch-all phrase, simply meaning "not of the norm?" Indeed this all inclusive definitions of "queer" seems to be what Sedgwick is pointing to. Later in the essay, Sedgwick creates a list of ways to define one's sexuality to exemplify how many factors go into determining one's sexuality (7). This shows how there are several opportunities for one to define their sexuality across boundaries, thereby occupying a position that is not purely heterosexual. As Sedgwick claims herself:
With or without that heterosexist assumption , though, what's striking is the number and difference of the dimensions that "sexual identity" is supposed to organize into a seamless univocal whole. And if it doesn't? That's one of the things that "queer" can refer to: the open mesh of possibilities, gaps, overlaps, dissonances and resonances, lapses and excesses of meaning when the constituent elements of any one's gender, of any one's sexuality aren't made (or can't be made) to signify monolithically. (8)
Now, to me this just seems to be saying that "queer" pretty much encompasses anything that is not strictly defined within the boundaries of the norm. But what advantage does she gain from this? Almost no one is strictly within the norm of sexual identity. Sedgwick points out this fact later on in the paragraph when she goes on and on with examples of people that would not be considered "normal"(8). But if almost everyone is "queer" where is the force behind this word? Does it still allow specific groups of queer people (for example, homosexuals) to use its agency?
In the forward she discusses the political movements that have gone on for queers and in particular a rally she participated in. By making "queer" a catch-all term she allows several groups of people to identify with that word and join the cause; however, there is also a downside to this. Allowing the term "queer" to be employed by any one of atypical sexuality diversifies and muddles the meaning of the word making it simply t a word to be used to push for a general acceptance of abnormal sexuality rather than allowing it to be employed by a specific group, such as homosexuals, to fight for issues that are effecting them in particular. By not defining the term a little more precisely Sedgwick steals a specific groups identity (specifically the homosexuals) and lumps all atypical sexualities, with various different agendas, into one group-the group "queer."
Another issue with defining "queer" so broadly is that you can then create several divisions among the group. It is not one universal sexuality with one universal agenda; Sedgwick has created a very diverse group. Does a straight female who really loves being the sadistic one in S&M role playing really have the same political agenda as a homosexual male? Would this not lead to a factioning of the category "queer" and thereby weaken the only power that was gained from having it be a catch all phrase? Would it not eventually create a "queer" within the "queer?" While I understand she was trying to make a point that society too narrowly defines what is considered a "normal" sexual identity, what she ends up doing is encompassing almost everyone under a slightly restricted heading of "queer." In an idealistic world maybe the group "queer" could accomplish all the goals of all the groups of people it encompasses, but realistically this is a group of diverse individuals with different (and possibly opposing) political agendas and the group "queer" would be used to define them all which weakens the term's agency. For example, "American" is a term used to define a large group of people with diverse political views and agendas. Now this term can be applied to gain some sort of agency when it is used in context with other countries, but it cannot be used within America for its agency. Say you have someone who is pro-choice and someone else that is pro-life. They can not both rally under the name "Americans" for both those causes, it wouldn't make sense. Since "queer" as Sedgwick defines encompasses such a large group of diverse individuals they have the potential of running into that problem. The title people gather under needs to clearly define their political agenda in order for it to have its maximum agency as a title, and to steal the word "queer" from the homosexuals as a rallying point by making it a catch-all phrase could be highly detrimental to their political agenda.
ASIDE: If you want to watch some funny and well done videos about gay rights check out http://fckh8.com/BornThisWay/ !
Overall, I thought Sedgwick made a lot of good points and brought up some interesting ideas about the use of the first person in queer theory, but I want to draw your attention to the way she defines "queer." She defines "queer" several times throughout this excerpt and the first time she defines it as such:
Queer is a continuing moment, movement, motive-recurrent, eddying, troublant. The word "queer" itself means across- it comes from the Indo-European root -twerkw, which also yields the German quer (transverse), Latin torquere (to twist), English athwert...across genders, across sexualities, across genres, across perversions. (xii)
"Queer," as Sedgwick defines it here, is a motion across boundaries it is that which does not lie in one particular category. (Perhaps this is the reason people feel uneasy with things that are "queer"-because they are not easily defined and mess with societal boundaries). However, by having "queer" mean across boundaries or, in other words, something that is not strictly within the a social norm, doesn't the term "queer" become a catch-all phrase, simply meaning "not of the norm?" Indeed this all inclusive definitions of "queer" seems to be what Sedgwick is pointing to. Later in the essay, Sedgwick creates a list of ways to define one's sexuality to exemplify how many factors go into determining one's sexuality (7). This shows how there are several opportunities for one to define their sexuality across boundaries, thereby occupying a position that is not purely heterosexual. As Sedgwick claims herself:
With or without that heterosexist assumption , though, what's striking is the number and difference of the dimensions that "sexual identity" is supposed to organize into a seamless univocal whole. And if it doesn't? That's one of the things that "queer" can refer to: the open mesh of possibilities, gaps, overlaps, dissonances and resonances, lapses and excesses of meaning when the constituent elements of any one's gender, of any one's sexuality aren't made (or can't be made) to signify monolithically. (8)
Now, to me this just seems to be saying that "queer" pretty much encompasses anything that is not strictly defined within the boundaries of the norm. But what advantage does she gain from this? Almost no one is strictly within the norm of sexual identity. Sedgwick points out this fact later on in the paragraph when she goes on and on with examples of people that would not be considered "normal"(8). But if almost everyone is "queer" where is the force behind this word? Does it still allow specific groups of queer people (for example, homosexuals) to use its agency?
In the forward she discusses the political movements that have gone on for queers and in particular a rally she participated in. By making "queer" a catch-all term she allows several groups of people to identify with that word and join the cause; however, there is also a downside to this. Allowing the term "queer" to be employed by any one of atypical sexuality diversifies and muddles the meaning of the word making it simply t a word to be used to push for a general acceptance of abnormal sexuality rather than allowing it to be employed by a specific group, such as homosexuals, to fight for issues that are effecting them in particular. By not defining the term a little more precisely Sedgwick steals a specific groups identity (specifically the homosexuals) and lumps all atypical sexualities, with various different agendas, into one group-the group "queer."
Another issue with defining "queer" so broadly is that you can then create several divisions among the group. It is not one universal sexuality with one universal agenda; Sedgwick has created a very diverse group. Does a straight female who really loves being the sadistic one in S&M role playing really have the same political agenda as a homosexual male? Would this not lead to a factioning of the category "queer" and thereby weaken the only power that was gained from having it be a catch all phrase? Would it not eventually create a "queer" within the "queer?" While I understand she was trying to make a point that society too narrowly defines what is considered a "normal" sexual identity, what she ends up doing is encompassing almost everyone under a slightly restricted heading of "queer." In an idealistic world maybe the group "queer" could accomplish all the goals of all the groups of people it encompasses, but realistically this is a group of diverse individuals with different (and possibly opposing) political agendas and the group "queer" would be used to define them all which weakens the term's agency. For example, "American" is a term used to define a large group of people with diverse political views and agendas. Now this term can be applied to gain some sort of agency when it is used in context with other countries, but it cannot be used within America for its agency. Say you have someone who is pro-choice and someone else that is pro-life. They can not both rally under the name "Americans" for both those causes, it wouldn't make sense. Since "queer" as Sedgwick defines encompasses such a large group of diverse individuals they have the potential of running into that problem. The title people gather under needs to clearly define their political agenda in order for it to have its maximum agency as a title, and to steal the word "queer" from the homosexuals as a rallying point by making it a catch-all phrase could be highly detrimental to their political agenda.
ASIDE: If you want to watch some funny and well done videos about gay rights check out http://fckh8.com/BornThisWay/ !
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