After reading Gender Trouble, by Judith Butler I searched around the web looking for more background information on Judith Butler. A lot of her work is related to Sigmund Freud and Foucault. I came across a professor’s website and I guess she teaches a class on Butler, but she had said that Butler “wants to question the idea that a person IS male or female, masculine or feminine, which are the fundamental ideas Freud started with. Butler wants to show that gender is not just a social construct, but rather a kind of performance, a show we put on, a set of signs we wear, as costume or disguise– hence as far from essence as can be.” I really liked the fact that this profesor (Dr. Mary Klages) was able to basically put together all of Butler’s ideas in one sentence. It is made clear that Butler is a feminist, so throughout the reading Butler goes on to explain how there’s a certain distinction made between men and women.

On page 2488-2489 Butler says “I read Beauvoir who explained that to be a woman within the terms of a masculinist culture is to be a source of mystery and unknowability for men, and this seemed confirmed somehow when I read Sartre for whom all desire, problematically presumed as heterosexual and masculine, was defined as trouble. For that masculine subject of desire, trouble became a scandal with the sudden intrusion, the unanticipated agency, of a female “object” who inexplicably returns the glance, reverses the gaze, and contests the place and authority of the masculine position.” I picked out this quote for a couple of reasons. The first sentence stood out because over and over I hear how men find women to be a mystery, or confusing. I’ve also heard that women and men think differently. I’m not really sure where I’m going with this, but is the mystery between a man and a woman attractive? Butler then brings up an interesting point where she refers to women as an “object.” Many men see women as an object, even today– especially as a sexual object. Women are seen as objects in music videos, on MTV during the Spring Break programming, having them participate in games where all they have on are teeny bathing suits, and some are even represented as “arm candy.” Anyway, back to the quote where it says “authority of the masculine position” — it seems like what she is saying is that men over power women, they hold all the power because they are the one’s who basically seek out “their” women, that he basically “chooses” her. Men feel like they can have who they want whenever they want, rather than it being a mutual attraction. Did any of that make sense?

Ok, so I’m a little confused on the section where Butler talks about the body. Is she saying that the only way a man and a woman are distinguished is because one looks feminine while the other looks masculine? Or is gender determined on the way a person acts and presents themselves rather than what you look like? Mm, confused? Me too!

I thought it was interesting on page 2943 where the whole idea of AIDS was being discussed. I couldn’t believe that (I think it was Simon Watney’s idea?) a person with AID, someone who is gay/lesbian, is defined as “the polluting person.” On the following page it also says, “Paradoxically, homosexuality is almost always conceived within the homophobic signifying economy as both uncivilized and unnatural.” That is just wrong on so many levels.

Then on page 2496 where the soul is being discussed, I linked a lot of this theory to Saussure because the words signified/signifying continued to pop up. It says “The soul is precisely what the body lacks; hence, the body presents itself as a signifying lack. That lack which is the body signifies the soul as that which cannot show.” The soul cannot show itself through the body, so that is something deep within. The soul is hidden, but it is the most important thing in any person.. (the body can’t show the soul and the soul is exactly what the righteous body needs).

On page 2497 it says, “If the inner truth of gender is a fabrication and if a true gender is a fantasy instituted and inscribed on the surface of bodies, then it seems that genders can be neither true nor false, but are only produced as the truth effects of a discourse of primary and stable identity.” Then a few sentences later it says, “I would suggest as well that drag fully subverts the distinction between inner and outer psychic space and effectively mocks both the expressive model of gender and the notion of a true gender identity.” The way one presents themselves, such as appearance, can be an illusion. In the case of a drag, what you see on the outside is not really what’s in the inside. The outer appearance would be considered feminine, while the person inside the body is considered masculine. So in other words, you can never really tell who a person is by their outer appearance, such as gender? It all comes down to soul?