Stereotypes In Judith Butler's Besides Oneself?

Stereotypes have become a socially accepted phenomena in today’s society. So socially acceptable, in fact, they have made it onto advertising billboards and into our daily language. We do not think twice as they pass our tongues, and we do tilt our heads in concern or questioning as they pass into our ears. In Judith Butler’s essay “Besides Oneself: On the Limits of Sexual Autonomy”, stereotypes are exposed and explored. Especially stereotypes pertaining to sexual orientation. Butler explains how stereotypes are unacceptable. She does this in a way which allows her to concurrently explore what it means to be human, and also what humans do or need to make Earth a livable place for ourselves. When examining Butler’s essay, one could say, and

She is expressing that making the world a livable place is not an easy or straightforward task. Not as straightforward as some would like it to be, that we’d be happy with just the bare minimum of food and water. Rather she is giving us something we do not normally like to hear; that it takes effort to make anything work, such as humans need to work hard in order for our world to be a livable and bearable place. In Butler’s essay she makes apparent the need to move away from judgement and toward

When Butler tells us “The body implies morality, vulnerability, agency; the skin and the flesh expose us to the gaze of others but also to touch and to violence,” (Butler 21) she is saying that at all times while in the presence of others, our bodies are under a microscope for judgment and stereotypes. The human body has no defense against the judgement of others, it is capable of feeling many things. Violence and hate are two of those things, fear is another. It can be said fear causes most actions, such as the violence and hate associated with stereotypes. As far as stereotyping and hate-crimes goes, this is accurate. Frequently, when a person encounters a different idea, they unconsciously become frightened. They do not know how to respond or act to this new idea, so they do what a human does best in times of doubt, they close up completely to the idea. They lock it out and exclude it from the possibility of being accepted as “right” or “moral”. When a thought is placed in our heads, especially when it is placed by an emotion such as fear, it is hard to remove. This causes mass amounts of people believing in the same stereotype. Where there are stereotypes, there are hate-crimes. Hate-crimes are acts of violence fueled by prejudice and biases toward a group of people which are unlucky enough to be placed in the criminal’s mental box of