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What is the excerpt from undoing gender, by judith butler about
Judith Butler's view on gender and sex in his essay
What is the excerpt from undoing gender, by judith butler about
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Gender Stephen Morton in his Gayatri Spivak promotes Simone de Beauvoir’s saying, therefore he point outs, The category of gender identity was not determined by one’s biological sex; rather gender is a social construct, which can be resisted through social and political struggle.(73) The traditional of universal humanist thought had further defined the difference between men and women as natural fact, grounded in a biological foundation that is prior to social and cultural influence. Simone de Beauvoir had discredited this view with the assertion that ‘One is not born a women,one became a women’. The concept of gender performative is the focus of Judith Butler's work, particularly in Gender Trouble. In Butler’s terms the performance of gender, sex, and sexuality is all about the control of society. She pinpoint the fabrication of the "gendered, sexed, desiring subject" in "regulative discourses". Hence the argument of Butler concerns the role of sex in the production of natural or rational gender and sexuality. In her report, gender and heterosexuality are constructed as natural because the opposition of the male and female sexes is supposed as natural in the social imaginary. Gender difference as inequality is all shaped by economic, political, social and cultural factors. In the global context these division of the world formed radical difference between economic zones characterized by extremes of wealth and poverty. Yet, these in equal relationships are often reproduced within under developed societies where non-white women often find themselves at the bottom of the hyracial division. Hence the factors which produce different form of oppression consist of class, ethnocentric and racist practices, and heterosexism. Gender acts... ... middle of paper ... ...perstitions, selfish greed and callousness that are the cause of gendered violence. In this chapter Mahasweta Devi’s anthology of short stories entitled Breast Stories to analyze representations of violence and oppression against women in name of gender. In her Breast Stories, Devi twice evokes female characters from ancient Hindu mythology, envisions them as subalterns in the imagined historical context and, creates a link with the female protagonists of her short stories. As the title suggests, Breast Stories is a trilogy of short stories; it has been translated and analyzed by Gayatri Chakraborty Spivak and, in Spivak’s view, the ‘breast’ of a woman in these stories becomes the instrument of a brutal condemnation of patriarchy. Indeed, breast can be construed as the motif for violence in the three short stories “Draupadi,” “Breast-Giver,” and “Behind the Bodice,”
Throughout history, women have been portrayed as the passive, subdued creatures whose opinions, thoughts, and goals were never as equal as those of her male counterparts. Although women have ascended the ladder of equality to some degree, today it is evident that total equalization has not been achieved. Simone De Beauvoir, feminist and existential theorist, recognized and discussed the role of women in society today. To Beauvoir, women react and behave through the scrutiny of male opinion, not able to differentiate between their true character and that which is imposed upon them. In this dangerous cycle women continue to live up to the hackneyed images society has created, and in doing so women feel it is necessary to reshape their ideas to meet the expectations of men. Women are still compelled to please men in order to acquire a higher place in society - however, in doing this they fall further behind in the pursuit of equality.
Reading Chapter 11, “Genders and Sexualities,” written by Carrie Hintz was to construct and enact alternatives for these two traditional categories. Data is clearly indicated that sexual material is some of the most controversial content in literature. Children’s literature that is involved with adolescent’s childhood are key battlegrounds for attitudes about gender and sexuality. The significance of gender and sexuality in children’s literature is the persistent investment in what is perceived to be the innocence of children. Innocence is defined in part by children’s enforced ignorance of sexual matters. According to James Kincaid, “Youth and innocence are two of the most eroticized constructions of the past two centuries. Innocence was that
Enter into any café on the UCSC campus for a prolonged period of time and you are likely to hear the words “gender is a social construct”. Initially you’ll think to yourself, “what a load of granola” this is an expected reaction because for most people the concept of “gender” is natural. Its not until you are able to see how the idea of gender is constructed from physiological differences between males and females as discussed by researcher Miller AE and his team of scientists. Or how men possess great privilege because of gender roles, and women are seen as objects, that you will truly be able to understand that gender is nothing but a social contract. Authors Gloria Anzaldúa, Marjane Satrapi, and Virginia Woolf discuss in their novels Borderlands,
Judith Butler’s concept of gender being performative focuses on how it creates a sequence of effect or impression. Human have a consistent way of talking about their gender as if it were something that is simply a fact. People go about their lives following patterns that are interconnected with their male or female appearance. They get very settled in the expected behaviors and common attributes of male or female, without recognizing that gender is a social construction. It is difficult to wrap your head around the idea that gender is always changing and being reproduced because it is conversation that often goes unnoticed. Butler realizes that it will be a struggle to get people to grasp the idea that nobody actually is their gender and that
In this article, Shaw and Lee describe how the action of labels on being “feminine” or “masculine” affect society. Shaw and Lee describe how gender is, “the social organization of sexual difference” (124). In biology gender is what sex a person is and in culture gender is how a person should act and portray themselves. They mention how gender is what we were taught to do in our daily lives from a young age so that it can become natural(Shaw, Lee 126). They speak on the process of gender socialization that teaches us how to act and think in accordance to what sex a person is. Shaw and Lee state that many people identify themselves as being transgendered, which involves a person, “resisting the social construction of gender into two distinct, categories, masculinity and femininity and working to break down these constraining and polarized categories” ( 129). They write about how in mainstream America masculinity and femininity are described with the masculine trait being the more dominant of the two. They define how this contributes to putting a higher value of one gender over the other gender called gender ranking (Shaw, Lee 137). They also speak about how in order for femininity to be viewed that other systems of inequality also need to be looked at first(Shaw,Lee 139).
As Lorber explores in her essay “Night to His Day”: The Social Construction of Gender, “most people find it hard to believe that gender is constantly created and re-created out of human interaction, out of social life, and is the texture and order of that social life” (Lorber 1). This article was very intriguing because I thought of my gender as my sex but they are not the same. Lorber has tried to prove that gender has a different meaning that what is usually perceived of through ordinary connotation. Gender is the “role” we are given, or the role we give to ourselves. Throughout the article it is obvious that we are to act appropriately according to the norms and society has power over us to make us conform. As a member of a gender an individual is pushed to conform to social expectations of his/her group.
In their publication, “Doing Gender, ” Candance West and Don H. Zimmerman put forward their theory of gender as an accomplishment; through, the daily social interactions of a man or woman which categorize them as either masculine or feminine. From a sociological perspective the hetero-normative categories of just sex as biological and gender as socially constructed, are blurred as a middle ground is embedded into these fundamental roots of nature or nurture.To further their ideology West and Zimmerman also draw upon an ethnomethodological case study of a transsexual person to show the embodiment of sex category and gender as learned behaviours which are socially constructed.Therefore, the focus of this essay will analyze three ideas: sex, sex
Gender is a performance according to Judith Butler . All bodies, she claims, are gendered from birth; sometimes even earlier now we can determine sex in the womb . For Butler society dictates ones gender and the individual reinforces that gender through performance . “The deeds make the doer” in Butler’s words; there is no subject prior to performance. Butler’s concept of gender, however, leads us to question: what of those who are incapable of performing the gender ascribed to them? If one is unable to perform are they left genderless, lacking subjectivity and social identity? If no human is without gender , as Butler claims, then where does this leave her theory? Either gender is more than simply performance or one can exist without gender.
The construction of gender is based on the division of humanity to man and woman. This is impossible ontologically speaking; because the humans are not divided, thus gender is merely an imaginary realm. It only exist in the language exercises, and the way that cultural products are conceived in them. This essay is a preliminary attempt to offer an analysis of ‘One Is Not Born a Woman’ by Wittig and ‘The Second Sex’ by Simone De Beauvoir holds on the language usage contribution to the creation of genders and the imagined femininity.
Judith Butlers book entitled ‘Bodies that Matter’ examines and questions the belief that certain male-female behaviors are natural within our society. The behaviors that Dr. Butler has distinguished between in this book are femininity and masculinity. She believes that through our learned perception of these gendered behaviors this is an act or performance. She implies that this is brought to us by normative heterosexuality depicted in our timeline. In which, takes on the role of our language and accustomed normalization of society. Butler offers many ideas to prove some of her more radical idea’s such as examples from other philosophers, performativity, and worldwide examples on gender/sex. Some philosophers that seem to be of relevance to her fighting cause are Michel Foucault, Edmund Husserl, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and George Herbert Mead. Her use of the doctrine of constitution takes ‘the social agent as an object rather than the subject of constitutive acts” (Performative). In other words, Dr. Butler will question the extent to which we as a human race assume the given individualism between one another. She has said that “this will constitute him-or herself” (Butler 13). She also wonders to what extent our acts are reputable for us, rather, by our place within dialect and convention. Dr. Butlers followings being of a postmodernist and poststructuralist practice, decides to use the term “subject” rather than “individual” or “person” in order to underline the linguistic nature of her position. This approach should be of credit to philosopher Jacques Lacan because symbolic order gives the system and signs of convention that determines our perception of what we see as reality.
In all societies around the world, women are treated as if they are a minority group, just like any racial or ethnic group that is out of the norm. The justification for considering women as a minority group and the existence of sexism becomes clear through the examination of social indicators, including education, employment, and income.
The word “Queer” means “strange, unusual”, the same with word “odd”. The theory of queer gender is not a specific theory, but a comprehensive interdisciplinary discourse that come from multiple subjects such as history, society and literature. The theory of queer gender established outside of the mainstream culture: these people and their theory cannot find their position in the mainstream culture, and they do not have intention to do so. “Queer” is a appellation for a social group including people who are not conform with the mainstream society about sexual preference and gender identity, like homosexual and bisexual.
Merriam-Webster dictionary defines intersexuality as “the condition of having both male and female gonadal tissue in one individual or of having gonads of one sex and external genitalia that is of the other sex or is ambiguous”. Intersexuality, gender, and sex are three things that typically would be associated with each other. However, in order to get a completely objective and realistic understanding of intersexuality, several terms that society has accepted to be true have to be put into question. By examining two written texts and one documentary, intersexuality can be defined and outlined more effectively than a simple dictionary definition.
In order to grasp the concept of social construction of gender, it is essential to understand the difference between sex and gender. Biologically, there are only two reproductive genital organs that are determinants of sex: the vagina and the penis. Sex is established solely through biological structures; in other words, genitalia are the basis of sex. Once a sex category is determined, gender, a human categorization socially attached to sex, is assigned based on anatomy. Gender typically references social or cultural differen...
Taking the case of men and women, their separate gender classifications (male and female) is an example of a difference in a group. Being male or female is given by nature. An inequality between the groups can be found in the socially constructed roles ascribed to each gender. In many traditional societies, men are said to be the heads while women are their subordinates. The women are supposed to be submissive to the men in such societies and have no say on whether they are comfortable with such an arrangement. Such is a case of inequality between the two groups where the female gender is not given an equal and fair chance to exist as men. Gender inequality provides an example of inequality and difference between two groups. Gender is a