It Begins and Ends With Butler

I’m heavily invested in beginnings and endings, so the time has come for the post to sum it all up. Just in case the first sentence was not obvious enough, this post will be self-indulgent.   In my first post of the semester, I ruminated over how Butler’s argumentation that the category of “woman” is highly problematic could be reconciled with the gains feminist political movements made for individuals who identified as women through the use of identity politics. I came to the conclusion that the concept of fragmented coalitions she presented as a means to acknowledge the success of the past while moving the feminist movement into the future was highly problematic, and was uncertain any political movement could be at all successful outside the mentality of collectivity which identity politics fosters.  I was similarly uncertain the category of women could truly be fundamentally altered. Everything she asserted seemed impossible.  After reading Undoing Gender and many other wonderful texts throughout the course of the semester, I think I can finally appreciate the merits of Butler’s arguments and, to some extent, understand her ideas and the limitations of my own former assumptions.

Despite the issues I had with Gender Trouble, the viability of fragmented coalitions and the ability of concepts which seem resolute to be fundamentally altered in politically powerful ways are two ideas I rely on within my theory. Probably in large part due to the Cvetokovich reading, I now recognize it is possible to form political coalitions amongst people with nothing in common aside from a goal or belief, even if that goal or belief reflects different value systems, an inconsistency which I had trouble grappling with as I initially worked through Butler.  This determination has enabled me to draw parallels between heterosexual individuals who hold divorce parties and folks who speak at congressional hearings in attempts to secure the rights of queer individuals to marry the people they love.  My conviction that the fundamental alteration of discourse, institutions, and reality is possible which I have developed from reading Butler and becoming invested in her idea of the changing human has allowed me to base my project on the idea that seeking marriage rights as an act of redefining the institution, could be a productive course of action for the queer community, something Butler doesn’t even think is possible.  I think that justifies the claim I’ve come full circle. I suppose the most important thing I have taken from this class is a broader view of what is possible and new ways of evaluating possibility. Whether this has made me a better thinker, a new version of naïve, or just a more hopeful person in general, I haven’t quite decided.  I’m excited to continue reading and learning with the insights the class has afforded me. 

My Theory

This is as far as I have developed the theory I presented in class yesterday. Any comments or suggestions as I keep working would be much appreciated. 

Throughout Undoing Gender, Judith Butler asserts that in order to make the world more hospitable for queer folks and other marginalized bodies, the fundamental meaning of human must expand and reality must be reconstituted to enable and to reflect this change.   She positions cultural translation, a process which compels “each language to change in order to apprehend the other,” as the key mechanism to the creation of a world in which more queer individuals are able to enjoy livable lives.  Though the specific political and economic operations which will contribute to this international dialogue and result from this interchange remain relatively unexplored by Butler, she does explicitly condemn recent efforts to promote lesbian and gay marriage as counter to the reconstitution of norms she envisions.

Butler’s aversion to the drive for gay marriage rights, an uneasiness shared by many scholars working in the realm of queer theory, is rooted in an anxiety that “the enduring social ties that constitute viable kinship in communities of sexual minorities are threatened with becoming unrecognizable and unviable as long as the marriage bond is the exclusive way in which both sexuality and kinship are organized,”(4).  Considering the institution’s status as a fundamental structural unit of heteronormative society privileging intimacy which is heterosexual, focused in effective child rearing, monogamous, and lifelong, this concern is valid. Furthermore, the discourse generated by many marriage rights campaigns rightfully warrants the interpretation of the movement as an attempt at an imperfect assimilation into this parochial power structure, justifying apprehension about the issue. Still, it seems defeatist and erroneous to consider the rigid norms of marriage stable and able to incorporate queer intimacy without significant reconstitution.  If the queer community was granted marriage rights, the boundary between the inside and outside of this power structure would become much more fluid, allowing forms of intimacy aside from those proscribed by former regulations to redefine the institution. The productive possibility of efforts by the queer community to gain access to marriage rights in order to destabilize the marriage norm and, as a result, the heteronormative society which uses this institution as a building block, should not be underestimated.  The incredible power an alteration of the boundaries and significance of marriage promises is made apparent in Butler’s reflection on the potential of reclaiming and redefining problematic terms, a discussion in which she observes struggles against exclusion “often end up reapproprating those very terms of modernity, appropriating them precisely to initiate an entrance into modernity as well as the transformation of modernity’s parameters”(179).   It seems logical to assume that the reclamation and redefinition of an institution which supports and proliferates reality rooted in heteronormativity could be an equally powerful exercise allowing queer individuals to work with the norms which they cannot will away in a manner conducive to their eventual complete reconstitution, a feat which could lead to the restructuring reality in a manner that makes more forms of intimacy and notions of kinship recognizable, and, as a result, more lives livable.

Accordingly, it seems warranted to assert the queer community could oppose the homophobia generated by the marriage rights campaign without embracing the marriage norm by seeking access to  the institution as a means of reconstituting the  norm. The restructuring of reality this course of action has the potential to is paramount, as the inability of marriage to incorporate and legitimize the most fleeting forms of intimacy dictates that any effort to make all forms of intimacy legible must ultimately seek to detach political and economic rights from any form of intimacy, sexuality, or sexual act.  Thus, in seeking to redefine marriage and the notions of the human with which it is intimately bound to make more lives livable, queer folks would ultimately be striving to eventually displace marriage from its current position of economic, political, and social importance in society.  As “paradox is the condition of possibility,” this course of action, though difficult to relate to through the lens of logic rooted in binaries, holds promise(Butler 3).  The very act of seeking marriage rights begins this process of reconstitution, as the compulsion of marriage to encompass relationships existing outside of heterosexuality powerfully asserts the reality of queerness and its right to recognizability, challenging the notions of heteronormativity embedded within the institution and the conceptions of space, time, and kinship vital to the structuring of society and reality which makes queerness an impossibility.  Moreover, if queer individuals, or furthermore all individuals who desire in ways that do not conform to the societal valuation of relationships based in longevity, monogamy, and other characteristics conducive to the effective rearing of children, forced marriage to encompass their own variable intimacies and kinship structures, and thus recognize these relationships as legitimate through the endowment of political and economic rights, the traditional meaning of marriage and its role in upholding notions of reality would be further compromised.

The pursuit of marriage rights and subsequent overhaul of the institution as catalyst for a larger reconstitution of norms has merits aside from its theoretical possibility. The viability of marriage as the premiere heterosexual societal structure through which to seek a reconstitution of reality in its totality is reinforced by the precariousness of the institution.  The divorce rate within the United States hovers around 50%, and nearly 75% of divorced individuals remarry, suggesting visions of marriage as a sacred bond of lasting love in the best interest of all people are, at best, dated, and perhaps even  fantastical. These figures also suggest many heterosexual individuals who already have access to the institution may lack an investment in traditional notions of marriage or even be willing to support efforts to detach economic and political advantages from monogamous and lasting forms of intimacy.  Moreover, as traditional notions of marriage have aided the historical, and, in some cases, continual relegation of women to limited societal roles widely considered inferior to those of men, many women may also support a fundamental redefinition of marriage as an opportunity to change society and reality in a manner conducive to equality. Thus, the possibility for the formation of fragmented coalitions to reconstitute social norms arises.   Furthermore, as marriage does, in its current form, offer both recognition and economic and political benefits currently denied to those whose intimacy exists outside its rigid parameters, queer access to this institution promises an immediate extension of literal livability to some queer lives which philosophical approaches seeking to eventually incite political, social, and economic change may not offer.  Though this benefit can be interpreted as a compromise of theoretical purity on some level, its status as a legitimate benefit is, nonetheless, unquestionable. As the reconstitution of reality which will ensue from this more immediate extension of livability to some queer lives creates the prospect of a world in which intimacy and sexuality does not determine one’s reality or humanity, this compromise must be properly envisioned as the proliferation of possibility, a resource “crucial as bread” and absolutely vital to the international conversation Butler envisions.

Works Cited

Butler, Judith. "Undoing Gender." Routledge New York and London. 2004.

Print.

"Divorce Rate." divorce.com. n.p. n.d. Web. 22 November 2011. 

Questions I Still Have for Judith Butler

     I found Judith Butler’s Undoing Gender infinitely easier to understand and relate to than her earlier work Gender Trouble. However, there is a still a bit of vagueness, and, in my opinion, contradiction which leads me to pose a few questions about the practical reality of what she is proposing, or, perhaps more fittingly, what she is proposing at all.

What are the everyday issues people face who are not considered real or human?

     This experience is obviously infinitely varied and dependent on culture, but what violence does the queer community suffer aside from actual physical violence, which Butler posits reinforces the discourse excluding such individuals from humanity, creating a vicious circularity. Such communities’ denial of rights and the economic exploitation that results from this lack of recognition leads to an insidious trauma which, though certainly a form of violence, is not as thoroughly explored.

Is it wrong for people to compromise the purity of ideals in order to seek power (economic and otherwise) in a thoroughly heterosexual world?

      Butler admonishes gay marriage being made the main focus of queer human rights efforts of our time, stating that to install it as a “model for sexual legitimacy is precisely to constrain the sociality of the body in acceptable ways”(26).  She asserts privileging marriage asserts those that partake in relationships outside the parameters of longevity and monogamy do not have “real” desire and connections, proposing a drastic rethinking of our kinship structures. In my opinion, her dismissal of the focus on gay marriage is problematic for many reasons. First of all, I’m unconvinced it is fair to assert in this day and age that marriage represents monogamy or longevity-at least in Western culture- , as the divorce rate hovers around 50% and 75% of those who get divorces remarry at least one time(Divorce Rate , www.divorce.com). Moreover, even if marriage symbolically stands for such values, marriage represents an area of access to economic equality queer folks have henceforth been denied. Is pursuing gay marriage not a potential practice of seeking autonomy in an imperfect world one did not choose? It also seems possible that gaining access to marriage would allow queer populations to influence the definition of the institution, and possibly change its meaning or displace its importance.  Since, in our age, marriage and the privileges which accompany it are simply one branch of heterosexual power systems which define space, time, and how these entities are interpreted and organized by the general public, gaining access to, and thus some level of influence over, this system could potentially provide a foothold into displacing or destabalizing some of the broader heterosexual systems of power. Though queer desire, in all its variations, is not fully recognized or legitimized through the drive for marriage rights, this process seems to provide an opportunity to attain eventual recognition. If ideals should not be compromised on some level, or for some period of time, in working toward a better future, how exactly does the realty of the everyday lives of people become more livable? Will changes in our economic systems and societal order result from a grand and pure change in who is considered human without any theoretical compromise? Can such a transition occur without changes on the level of the everyday preceding it?

Does maintaining theoretical purity, in a way, lead to the sacrifice of bodies?

       The gay marriage example, which is one of the few concrete examples of political realities Butler explores, poses the question how undercutting the importance of seeking a place within or access to heterosexual systems of power leads to the sacrifice of bodies on some level. If queer populations cannot remake the society they did not choose, then seeking power within this imperfect society seems to be a vital exercise, one that should accompany and augment efforts to make norms more inclusive for all. In speaking about the politics of intersex birth, and more specifically the proposition that children should not be assigned genders in efforts to restore natural sexual difference, Butler states that queer theory would not “oppose all gender assignment,” as it is a “perfectly reasonable assumption” that children “do not need to take on the burden of being heroes for a movement without first assenting to the role”(Butler 8).  Should the queer community, which, in large part, seems to support the agenda of seeking marriage rights, a goal whose tangibility has been affirmed in recent legislative progress, sacrifice this focus in order to pursue a brand of politics which endorses a more dramatic restructuring of heterosexual power systems? What would this brand of politics look like, and is it possible an exclusive focus on such agendas would lead to the sacrifice of current dehumanized population’s quality of life, or potential quality of life, which could be gained by securing access to rights within a heterosexual power system.  It seems unfair to posit the deaths of queer folks because they do not have access to their partner’s health insurance benefits in light of marriage laws are any less tragic than other forms of violence, and are in need of redress less than other forms of violence.

Can the expansion of the umbrella of human occur without increasing economic equality and a diffusion of power?

                In creating a parallel between the human experience of grief, a process she describes as “agreeing to undergo a transformation the full result of which you cannot know in advance,” and the fundamental alteration of the notion of who is human, Butler asserts that we cannot know what the results of this process will entail in advance.  Nevertheless, in deeming the effort to reconstitute the human as “the demand to establish more inclusive conditions for viable life,” Butler suggests this effort will inevitably result in more people being considered human and thus being able to accrue the advantages that accompany such stature.  It seems this is, indeed, something of which we can be certain. Considering economic systems, and more generally power systems, are built on the exploitation of the nonhuman other, such inclusiveness will inevitably lead to an increasing dispersion of power and resources. Under this framework, can the accrual of economic privileges and power be construed as conducive to the expansion of who is considered human?

The conclusion I suppose I am trying to make is that agency of some kind can be garnered from changing the realities of the everyday without the fundamental (and global) alteration of norms and classifications. A lack of power and influence within inhospitable societal systems, a symptom of a rigid and inclusive conception of humanity, is one effect of intolerance which makes life unlivable. Nevertheless, though such conditions can be viewed as a derivative of the more totalizing discursive injustice which manifests through power systems, localized efforts to make life more livable which are not necessarily a theoretically pure representation of ideals championing the complete destabilization of prevailing norms should not and cannot be dismissed as secondary. Gaining footholds in heterosexual systems of power may be a very valuable resource for, or step towards, attempting to change and destabilize norms, and the results of these efforts promise immediacy that the process of global exchange to reformulate norms, which Butler positions as a key to the expansion of livable lives, may not hold.   Though I believe full equality for groups deemed inhuman or less than human will require an overturn of power systems and the norms which drive these structures, I do not think all progress must retain this exclusive focus.

Works Cited

Butler, Judith. "Undoing Gender." Routledge New York and London. 2004.
Print.

"Divorce Rate." divorce.com. n.p. n.d. Web. 22 November 2011. 

The Discourse(s) of Gethen

As I read the first chapter of Samuel Delaney’s Queer Thoughts and the Politics of the Paraliterary, I was able to more fully grasp the nature of my struggle to understand Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness and the world of Gethen which it depicts.  After reflecting on Bohannon’s misguided effort to prove Shakespeare’s Hamlet has universal appeal by telling the tale to a group of West Africans, Delaney concludes it is a grave error to assume “that a single recognizable event, a single recognizable object, or a given rhetorical feature will have the same meaning no matter what discourse it is found in”(31).  My tendency to evaluate Le Guin’s invented world on the basis of my own assumptions and systems of meaning, which are rooted in the varied discourses to which I have been exposed, has led me to struggle with a series of contradictions while working through The Left Hand of Darkness. However, the folk tales sprinkled throughout the novel, much like the stories the Africans tell Bohannon which allow her to more fully understand their cultural difference, present some insight into the discourse of Gethen, and how rhetoric is shaping this discourse throughout the novel’s course.

“The Place Inside the Blizzard,” identified within the text as a hearth tale, reveals what meanings are written onto bodies through the discourse of Karhide. Though the lack of sexual differentiation within the people of Karhide prevents the society’s systems of signification from closely resembling the patriarchal discourse readers are familiar with and undoubtedly influenced by, the valuation of human life paramount to the culture of Karhide is certainly familiar. This sanctity of life is evidenced by the taboos against incest and suicide which are highlighted within the tale. Though the taboo against incest may initially prompt readers to forge a connection between this societal value and the incest taboo which serves as a powerful force within patriarchal culture, the fact that incestuous sexual relations are permitted until a child is born suggests that the outlawing of incest within Karhide is not motivated by the conception that such actions are morally reprehensible and universally unnatural, but rather by a concern for the health of the nation (or more specifically a healthy gene pool). The fact that incest is subjugated only for its ability to compromise the survival of Karhidians is further evidenced by the footnote which reveals that the brother’s choice to vow kemmering only became an issue when it was interpreted as leading to his brother’s suicide. The regard for life instilled within Karhide’s society is perhaps best evidenced by the powerful suicide taboo revealed within the observation “murder is a lighter shadow on a house than suicide”(Le Guin 22).  Since murder can be construed as an act to save one’s life in order to defeat an enemy or protect the lives of self and others, while suicide is an active choice to extinguish life which cannot be easily allied to an effort to sustain life in some other capacity, and thus a clear and direct act of devaluing life, this hierarchy supports the valuation of life.  One can infer this valuation of life is at least partially a result of the difficulty of living in a land as barren and frigid as Gethen, a speculation Ai makes repeatedly throughout the text.

The valuation of life made evident through these taboos is interwoven into a cultural conception that people do not own their bodies.  The notion that bodies are communal property is also evidenced by the existence of a powerful suicide taboo, as this societal value suggests one does not have the right to extinguish the vigor of their body by taking their own life.  Furthermore, as Getheren is held responsible for the suicide of his brother and lover, a strange dynamic in which individuals are somehow responsible for the bodies they come into contact with emerges.  After being exiled, Getheren has all bodily comforts denied and his bodily presence within he community is largely ignored, suggesting his brother’s decision to compromise his own body compromised Getheren’s body as well. Nevertheless, he retains a name, and his sentiment “There is no place by the fire for me, nor food on he able for me, nor a bed made for me to lie in. Yet I still have my name, Getheren is my name” suggests this name allows him to retain a sense of identity and power (Le Guin 22).   Though he compromises his name, and thus  his individuality, through his departure into the winter landscape, he is unable to violate the principle code of his society by compromising his own body.  As he crawls through the snow, he resists the temptation to lie in the snow and die, his expressed desire, suggesting that the valuation of life championed by his society still has a hold on him. The glorification of life within the story is furthered as he encounters his dead lover, finding there is “no life in his belly” and he cannot say his name, a moment which asserts there is no individual identity or bodily fertility in death.  Getheren’s ultimate choice to retain his bodily integrity reinforces both the sanctity of life and the notion of the body as communal property, while his sacrifice of his name in order to attain physical integrity privileges communal bodies as more important than personal identities.  Nevertheless, as Getheren relinquishes his individuality to his community and maintains his body, the collective object, this inversion proves highly problematic for the community, which promptly falls into a state of illness and infertility.   However, as his identity and body are ultimately reunited, the merging of these entities causes both Geheren’s own death and the prospering of his former community, signifying the death of the individual and ultimately once again asserting the community’s control of bodies.  The notions of communal bodies and communal responsibility for bodies which pervade “The Place Inside the Blizzard” suggest these values are embedded within the discourse of Karhide.   As Estraven is exiled, and, on some level, is punished for his associate Ai’s “perverse” bodily difference, this discursive quality reemerges.  

Nevertheless, the chapters which follow this story give the distinct impression that the discourse of Karhide is changing.  Though human life has clearly been regarded as sacred throughout history, the government’s aggressive support of the violence emerging in the Sinoth Valley suggests this value is under attack by the powers that be.   Furthermore, Estraven’s suggestion that King Argaven is attempting to run Karhide “efficiently” in a manner similar to the neighboring nation of Orgoreyn, a condition which Ai suspects will give the Gethian nations “an excellent chance of achieving the condition of war,” suggests events on the horizon may irrevocably alter the discourse of Gethen(Le Guin 49).  Karhide, and furthermore all of Gethen, clearly face the potential of massive alterations in their discourse as the story of the envoy Ai unfolds. Negotiating between the old and the new manners of making meaning is a challenge I fully expect to grapple with as I make my way through the rest of the text.

Tracy

Works Cited

Delaney, Samuel R. Queer Though and the Politics of the Paraliterary.  

      Wesleyan University Press. Hanover and London. 1999. Print.

Le Guin, Ursula K. The Left Hand of Darkness. New York: Ace, 2000. Print.

Grappling with Essentialism

Within her reflection on the problem of essentialism within Space, Time, and Perversion, Elizabeth Grosz paints a portrait of the two principle modalities of feminism and the fundamental tensions which differentiate these theoretical approaches to efforts to redefine women.  Grosz asserts all feminists must negotiate “between seeking acceptance in male terms and retaining a commitment to women’s struggles”(46). In doing so, the concept of essentialism, which Grosz defines as the assumption that women have a “given” and “universal” essence- describing biologism, naturalism, and universalism as distinct variations or specifications or this concept- becomes paramount.  Grosz asserts all of these frameworks have rationalized “the prevailing sexual division of social roles by assuming these roles are the only, or the best, possibilities, given the confines of the nature, essence, or biology of the two sexes”(49). 

Egalitarian feminists, or first wave feminists, attempted to completely abandon essentialism, a natural political move as this concept was the academic justification for their oppression throughout history.  Nevertheless, in seeking escape from oppression, these feminists struggled for “a greater share of the patriarchal pie and equal access to social, economic, sexual, and intellectual opportunities” by asserting that women could accomplish the same feats as men if they were not confined to restrictive social roles, effectively alleging the sameness of all humanity (51).  Though this movement championed the concept that men could be feminine and women could be masculine, making an important contribution to the development of recognition of the fluidity of gender roles, Grosz outlines the multiple problematic aspects of this approach.  She asserts this movement:

1.       assumed masculine values and achievements as the norm;

2.       focused on the commonality of humanity to an extent which led to the abandonment of conceptions of femininity;

3.       enacted equal opportunity laws which were often used by males in manners which hurt women;

4.       ignored specificities, including the history, of society’s male and female dynamic ;

5.       lost power through its reduction to an attack on patriarchy which was not gender specific;

6.       addressed only the public domain by addressing equality, a concept which cannot be policed on a personal  level;

7.       and did not rewrite the social meanings of women’s actions, preventing the change of women’s place within social and symbolic order.

Recognition of the significant political drawbacks of the complete rejection of essentialism likely contributed to a new conception of feminism focused on difference which emerged in the 1980s. However, the embracement of the age old conception of women as fundamentally different from men was based on a notion of difference vastly different than the binaries of autonomy and lack utilized historically. The women of these movements considered their difference as pure difference, or difference which is not derived “from a pre-given norm” or based on systematic privileging of any identity.  In describing the progress this new concept allowed, Grosz points to the fact the feminism based in difference:

1.       allowed a major transformation of the social and symbolic order by refusing to privilege a single identity ;

2.       allowed differentiation of women from other oppressed groups;

3.       made the fight against patriarchy specific to women;

4.       and put pressure on “structures of representation, meaning, and knowledge to transform in order to avoid patriarchal alliances(54).

The merits Grosz associates with feminism of difference, most particularly in her reflections on its ability to make the feminist movement explicitly feminine in nature, once again reveals a recognition of the worth of identity politics.  Though some theorists assert that to define women as a group different than men is to essentialize them, and thus tragically revert to the type of classification which led to the need for the feminist movement, Grosz allies repudiating essentialism with a politically impractical effort to retain theoretical purity.  In recognizing the political worth of acknowledging and celebrating the difference of femininity, Grosz sets herself apart as a theorist who recognizes that reshaping discourse is a political action, and thus cannot be meaningfully separated from politics into a realm of respectable academics.  Nevertheless, in acknowledging the legitimacy of the concern of producing work that is respected by our masculine notions of credibility, she illustrates the tensions which lead to an infinite variety in what constitutes a feminist text, a distinction which she explores in the first chapter of Space Time and Perversion.  As one reads Grosz’ text, which is ordered according to masculine logic- even utilizing numbers to highlight important points and their complexity, the variety of textual constructions which can be considered feminist and the differing motivations of writing feminist texts are clearly put on display.

Grosz, Elizabeth. Space, Time, and Perversion. Routledge New York and London. 1995. Print.

"Space, Time, and Perversion": An Exercise of Moderation

          Upon picking up Elizabeth Grosz’s Space, Time, and Perversion, I immediately noticed the blurbs on the back cover, the first of which is an endorsement of the work by Judith Butler.  Seeing as I read the book with Butler on the brain, I was not at all surprised Butler’s discussion of women as a collective group within Gender Trouble made its way into our class discussion of Grosz’s work.  Within the first chapter of Space, Time, and Perversion, Grosz sets out to both reveal “the more conventional positions regarding the categorization and assessment of feminist (and patriarchal) texts are problematic in feminist terms” and propose “new conceptions of textual production and reception that may help to explain the ways in which political judgments about the textual and sexual positioning of theories and texts may be possible”(11).  All of the issues with the common theoretical frameworks used to designate texts as feminist Grosz expresses can be related to a general suspicion of identity politics which pervades Butler’s works.  However, her effort to generate new and improved theory in the designation of texts as feminist reveals an acceptance, if a somewhat grudging acceptance, of the importance of identity politics, a sentiment which Butler similarly concedes through her call for fragmented coalitions or groups which “acknowledge it contradictions and take action with those contradictions intact”(20)

                Grosz positions the sex of the author, the content of the text, the sex of the reader, and the style of the text as the four highly problematic characteristics of writing individuals often examine in determining whether or not a work is feminist in nature.  Examining the sex of the author leads one into the web of intentional fallacy and suggests there is a certain manner in which women write which allows individuals to immediately recognize the gender of the author on the basis of the text’s content or style.  Grosz dismisses the legitimacy of both the sex of the author and the content of the work as an indicator of the text’s feminist nature with the simple assertion that “women’s experiences are as varied as men” and not wholly dictated by patriarchal oppression, the universality of which Butler critiques through her claim “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 categorical or fictive universality of the structure of dominance”(5).  The consideration of the sex of the reader as an indicator of a text’s status as feminist, patriarchal, or some compromise of these appellations also relies on this problematic notion of the universal experience of patriarchal oppression, as such framework ignores the affective fallacy, and in doing so, creates an “ideal reader” which comes to signify the collective mindset of women. The final category, the style of the text, which is justified as an indicator of a text’s feminist nature through the assertion that women writers always craft their work in manners which somehow undermine the logical constructions of texts as dictated by our masculine signifying economy, is undermined through its paradoxical imagination of patriarchal repression as both an experience universal for women and exclusive to women.  Grosz uses the example of avante garde art, which is a field dominated by male artists, as evidence that one does not necessarily have to be a woman to experience the repressive nature of patriarchy and desire to express these trials within art. 

                Though dismissing these common frameworks is fairly easy to reconcile within the spirit of suspicion of the merit of identity politics, suggesting that a text can be inherently feminist requires acknowledgement of the utility of labels. Grosz’s reluctance to enter this realm is clearly revealed by her tentative assertion the construction of parameters as to what constitutes a text only “may” be possible, expression of “a Foucauldian anxiety about what power is invested in providing definitive categories” and acknowledgment of the potential “that there isn’t really a clear-cut distinction between feminist and mainstream texts and that, moreover, one and the same text can, in some contexts, be regarded as feminist and in other contexts as non- or anti- feminist (18). Nevertheless, she presents framework for deeming a text feminist, a label which has had great historical worth in allowing individuals to improve their qualities of life and abilities to be heard, which are flexible and resist assumptions of the gender collectivity such terms as the feminine imagination imply. In doing so, she asserts that in order to be considered feminist, a text must challenge phallocentrism in some way, “problematize the standard masculine ways in which the author occupies the position of enunciation,” and not only challenge patriarchy, but “help, in whatever way, to facilitate the production of new and perhaps unknown, unthought of discursive spaces”(Grosz 23).  None of these requirements are gender specific, opening up the possibility of the consideration of a diverse body of texts as feminist in nature and the collection of the infinitely varied writers and readers of these works into feminist coalitions of individuals with an array of biological traits and life experiences, a possibility which Butler champions in her revisionary assessment of identity politics. Moreover, the requirement that texts must generate new ideas and open up revolutionary possibilities within the world of representation in order to be considered feminist works retains the consideration of feminism as a highly productive movement and manner of changing the world which spans eras, effectively doing the spirit of the movement which has inspired the legacy of texts under consideration justice.  In examining the role of identity politics in the modern era, Grosz, in my opinion, manages to successfully negotiate a compromise between the modern sentiments of the problematic nature of labels and the great benefit labels have reaped throughout history, creating a valuable link between feminism and queer thinking without completely abandoning the conception of woman.

- Tracy

Works Cited

Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble. Routledge Classics. 2006. Print.

Grosz, Elizabeth. Space, Time, and Perversion. Routledge New York and London. 1995. Print.

Corrective Rape and The Bodily Stakes of Discourse

The average South African woman is more likely to be raped than to complete secondary school.  Human rights organizations estimate that over 40% of South Africa’s female population is raped at some point in their life (Middleton, 1). Moreover, in Capetown, the nation’s largest city, these organizations estimate 10 corrective rapes, or rapes aimed to cure victims of their homosexuality, occur each week(Middleton, 1). In describing the rationale motivating these crimes, Jody Kollopen, the former head of the South African Human Rights Commission, states, “"The rationale would be that a woman who chooses to be lesbian has surely not had a relationship with a man, and therefore, if she has a relationship with a man, even if it's a violent, forced one, that will surely convince her that the lifestyle she chose is inappropriate’”(Gim, Schapp 1).  Though South Africa is not the only setting to heinous hate crimes of this nature, it is certainly the most visible battleground, as condemnations of corrective rape’s prevalence in this region and widespread cultural acceptance of these crimes have emanated from an array of news outlets; everyone from Newsweek to ESPN has covered this traumatic aspect of the nation’s culture. (If you would like to do some reading on the issue you might try http://articles.cnn.com/2011-10-27/world/world_wus-sa-rapes_1_lesbians-sexual-orientation-cape-town?_s=PM:WORLD ,http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/e60/news/story?id=5177704 , or http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2057744,00.html).

This tragic state of affairs is paradoxical to say the least, as South Africa’s laws regarding gay rights are some of the most progressive in the world.  In 1994, South Africa legalized homosexuality and prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation within their post-apartheid constitution, acts of tolerance several nations throughout the world have not yet undertook. Furthermore, in 2006, the nation legalized gay marriage.  This disconnect between the nation’s progressive laws and the barbarism lesbians of South Africa face reveals that tolerant words must be backed up by tolerant thoughts to truly craft an environment in which queer individuals are respected and do not face insidious trauma as a subjected group. The danger of ingrained homophobic thought manifested within this situation reveals the incredible importance of queer theory’s effort to alter the discourse of sexuality.

The discourse surrounding these tragic occurrences inevitably reflects ideas explored within texts of queer theory.  In reflecting on her trip to the police station to report her experience of corrective rape, a South African woman named Fana relates, "They say, 'She deserve everything. How can she pretend to be a guy. Why, she's a girl. There's no such thing as gay. A woman is a woman, and a man is a man.'(Gim, Schapp 1).  The dangerous nature of the conception of the categories of man and woman as rigid and unambiguous, and, moreover, rooted in sexual behavior, revealed by this violence raises the stakes of Butler’s argument that the juridical systems of power which operate to establish identities we often assume precede discourse “produce what it claims to merely represent” in a troubling manner (Butler 3). If our ultimately baseless systems of signification allow people to justify bodily violation of other human beings, it seems legitimate to assert these categories are in serious need of re-evaluation.  Butler’s argument becomes a bit more tangible and increasingly urgent upon examination of the tragedy of the rhetoric she critiques and its relation to bodies. The importance placed on distinct aggressive and passive sexual roles many texts we have studied explore similarly becomes more ominous within this situation.

The plight of South African women also both poses questions to Cvetkovich’s exploration of trauma and provides evidence of the many layers of the traumatic she investigates. Though Cvetkovich chooses to focus on insidious trauma, or trauma which is tangential to the clearly horrific events the conception trauma is often rooted within by discourse seeking to pathologize and individualize the experience, the plight of South African lesbians blends the boundaries between these distinctions.  Though all queer women of the nation are affected by insidious trauma as members of a subjected group which faces not only the widespread rejection of their sexual identities but the threat of violent erasure of their sexuality, many have also directly experienced rape, a personal and clearly definable experience of trauma. Can their experience of homophobic attitudes and violence be reconciled into either of these experiences of trauma? The point at which trauma becomes a matter of everydayness or the result of an incident seems difficult, if not impossible, to sort out, and it seems viable to claim that all trauma is rooted in direct experience at some level.  The complex nature of this trauma becomes more apparent within one columnist’s sentiment “In other words, the men who are perpetrating this violence believe that by raping a woman they can turn her into a “real African woman,” as the fact that the trauma of the rejection of sexual identity leads to broader experience of complete cultural exclusion, provides a concrete example of the intricate relations and transferences of traumatic Cvetkovich seeks to legitimize (Price 1).    

The prevalence of corrective rape is horrifying, and it is understandable to hope atrocities of this nature could not occur closer to home, or are an “African problem.”  It is certainly more comforting to use this tragedy as evidence that our nation is making a drive toward equality and tolerance, and is certainly further along in such a process than South Africa. The inherent flaw of any assumption of a natural drive toward more progressive thinking is undercut by the dynamics which led to the proliferation of corrective rape and its relative acceptability within cultural consciousness, as  “New York-based Human Rights Watch recently conducted interviews in six of South Africa's nine provinces and concluded ‘social attitudes towards homosexual, bisexual, and transgender people in South Africa have possibly hardened over the last two decades ( Mabuse, 1).  A drive toward the tolerance of queerness requires a clear and active alteration in thought, thus queer theory’s act of generating a new form of discourse is incredibly important. In wallowing through theory it is easy to forget the real bodies which these ideas are attempting to redefine and, in many cases, save.  The South African women whose sexuality has been deemed something in need of “correction” or has been actively “corrected” are obvious embodiment of the importance of this type of study.

Works Cited

Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble. Routledge Classics. 2006. Print.

Gim, Beein and Schapp, Jeremy. "Female athletes often targets for rape" ESPN E:60. 11 May 2010. 29 October 2011.   http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/e60/news/story?id=5177704

Price, Carolyn E. "Corrective rape a growing trend in South Africa" Digital Journal. 29 October 2011. 29 October 2011. http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/313566#ixzz1cCTKBBu5

Mabuse, Nkepile. "Horror of South Africa's 'corrective rape'" CNN. 27 October 2011. 29 October 2011.http://articles.cnn.com/2011-10-27/world/world_wus-sa-rapes_1_lesbians-sexual-orientation-cape-town/2?_s=PM:WORLD

Middleton, Lee. "'Corrective Rape' Fighting a South African Scourge" Time. March 2011. 29 October 2011. http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2057744,00.html