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.
