Women as the Subject of Feminism - Term Paper Example

Week #5: To say that gender is socially constituted defers the question of the relationship between gender and the body. Give a critical summary of feminist approaches to gender, with particular reference to Butler's work. Table of Contents i. Introduction - 3 ii. Women as the Subject of Feminism - 3 iii. The Subject in Language and Politics - 5 iv. The Body and Enforced Arrangement of Sex, Gender, & Desire - 7 v. Identity, Sex, and the Metaphysics of Substance - 9 vi. Language, Power, and the Strategies of Displacements - 11 vii. Conclusion - 13 viii. Bibliography - 14 i. Introduction The notion that the gender is socially constituted sparked seemingly endless debates among feminist theories. Judith Butler in her book Gender Trouble criticise what she believed is a pervasive heterosexual assumption in feminist literary theory. She sought to counter those views that made presumption about the limits and propriety of gender and restricted the meaning of gender to received notions of masculinity and femininity. This paper will give us a summary of feminist approaches with particular reference to the arguments presented by Butler supported by various prominent authors in the field. ii. Women as the Subject of Feminism In the statements of Simeone de Beauvior and Lucy Irigaray that “one is not born a woman, but rather become one” and “woman does not have sex” respectively, it is apparent that some feminist assumed that women has some other existing identity aside from their innate gender. Butler (1999) explains that categorizing women not only instigate feminist interest and goals within discourse but also represent the subject for whom political representation is pursued. However, this argument seems to attract some more debates since politics and representation are contentious terms1. 1Judith Butler, Judith, 1999, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, Published 1999 Routledge, ISBN 0415924995, p.1 In her argument, Butler (1999) insists that “representation” is an operative term within a political process that is trying to broaden the distinction and legitimacy of women as political subjects. It is also a natural function of a language to expose or to bend what is believed to be true about the category of women2. In this regard, feminist argues that the development of a language is significant as it can completely or sufficiently represents women in view of the persistent cultural circumstances in which women’s lives were either ”misrepresented or not represented at all”3. For Alcoff (1988), the concept of women is radically problematic as it is overwhelmed by the over determinations of male supremacy4. In de Lauretis (1990), most feminist agrees, “women are made”, “not born”, that “gender is not an innate feature” but a sociocultural construction that is oppressing women5. It seems that the very subject of women is no longer recognizing in permanent or long-lasting conditions as the current notion of the correlation between feminist presumption and politics is being contested from within feminist discourse. Furthermore, the viability of the subject as the ultimate candidate for representation is being challenge by a number of feminist groups. Apparently, with varying arguments on all sides, there is extremely little conformity on what indeed constitutes the category of women. It is therefore necessary first clarify the qualifications for being a subject before any discourse takes place or before representation can be extended6. 2-3-6 Judith Butler, 1999, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, Published 1999 Routledge, ISBN 0415924995, p.1 4 Linda Alcoff, 1988, Cultural Feminism versus Post-Structuralism: The Identity Crisis in Feminist Theory, Signs, Vol. 13, No. 3 (Spring, 1988), p. 96 5Teresa de Lauretis, 1990, Upping the Anti (Sic) in Feminist Theory, Feminism, Published 1997 Rutgers University Press, ISBN 0813523893, p.77 iii. The Subject in Language and Politics In Foucault’s view, according to Butler (1999), subjects are produced by the juridical systems of power since it seems to regulate political life through limitations, prohibition, regulation, control, and even protection of individuals related to that political structure7. According to Foucault (1984), this type of power applies itself to everyday life classifies the person, marks him by his own eccentricity, connect him to his own identity, enforces a law of truth on him that he must be acquainted with and others have to recognize in him8. Subjects are therefore regulated, formed, defined, and reproduced by these structures, which if analyzed cautiously, the juridical formation of language and politics that is supposed to represent women as the subject, is itself a disorganized structure. Feminism has time and again seems to assume that it knows what women truly are but they are actually imprudent, as every source of information about women has been tainted with “misogyny and sexism”9. The very political system that we expect to facilitate the emancipation of women is the source of gendered subjects thus any unsuspecting appeal to this system for the liberation of women will be undoubtedly “self-defeating”10. The issue of the subject is fundamental for politics and for feminist as well since juridical subjects are regularly produced by particular prohibiting practices that will be no longer visible once such political system has been placed. In other words, the 7 & 10 Judith Butler, 1999, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, Published 1999 Routledge, ISBN 0415924995, p.2 8 Michel Foucault, 1984, Power, Edited by James D. Faubion, Vol. 3, Penguin Books, p.331 9 Linda Alcoff, 1988, Cultural Feminism versus Post-Structuralism: The Identity Crisis in Feminist Theory, Signs, Vol. 13, No. 3 (Spring, 1988), p. 66 law generates and then cover up the notion of “a subject before the law”11 in order to raise that discursive structure as a accepted foundational principle that later justifies that law’s own regulatory power. In this view, it is not sufficient to see women completely represented in language and politics, as we need to know how the actual structures of power produced and categorized women and the subject of feminism. Another problem arising from the notion of the subject is the assumption that the term “women” denotes a common identity rather than describing a woman. The possibility of the name’s compound meaning is consequential to the idea that if one is a woman then not all is a woman. This is because “gender is not always constituted coherently or consistently”12 in various historical circumstances since gender traverse with cultural, class, ethnic, sexual, and regional standards of discursively established personality. Attempting to detach gender from the political and cultural crossroad is therefore problematic since the later produced and maintained it. Moreover, the universal basis for feminism which is an identity believed to be present cross-culturally, are oftentimes the source of women intimidation and cruelty since it has some influence on universally accepted “father- rule” or male domination13. Domination based on Foucault (1984) is a wide-ranging formation of power whose implication and consequences can sometimes be found “reaching down in the fine fabric of society”14. Although the integrity of patriarchy is less popular nowadays, the universal conception of women still exist and hard to depose. 11-12-13 Judith Butler, 1999, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, Published 1999 Routledge, ISBN 0415924995, p.3 14 Michel Foucault, 1984, Power, Edited by James D. Faubion, Vol. 3, Penguin Books, p.348 This is because the subject of feminism according to Butler (1999) is “effectively undermined by the constraints of the representation discourse in which it functions”15. Thus, the division within feminism and the contradicting resistance to feminism from “women” whom feminism argues to symbolize is undoubtedly coming from the compulsory confines of identity politics. iv. The Body and the Enforced Arrangement of Sex/Gender/Desire Aside from language, politics, and common identity for women is the notion that sex and gender is a separate thing. The argument is that gender is culturally constructed and therefore not necessarily connected to sex. In other words, sex and gender distinction is a “radical discontinuity between sexed body and culturally constructed genders”16. This problematically implies that body and gender is an entirely different thing. Furthermore, if one assumes that body is indeed separate then gender itself will become a free-floating pretence that might even result to the notion that man and masculine is not necessary male and may sometimes come as a female. In Alcoff (1988) work, she emphasize the importance of female biology as it has spiritual and political meanings and far more radical implications than we have yet come to appreciate17. Apparently, it does not make sense to define gender as a cultural manifestation of sex since gender is not simply as a cultural symbols but the “very apparatus in which sexes themselves are established”18 contrary to Simone de Beauvior’s belief that gender is constructed. Furthermore, nothing in Beauvoir’s description assures that the one who becomes a woman is essentially female and if the 15, 16 & 18 Judith Butler, 1999, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, Published 1999 Routledge, ISBN 0415924995, p.4, 6 , & 7 17 Linda Alcoff, 1988, Cultural Feminism versus Post-Structuralism: The Identity Crisis in Feminist Theory, Signs, Vol. 13, No. 3 (Spring, 1988), p. 99 body is a situation as she asserts, “there is no recourse to a body that has not always already been interpreted by cultural meanings”19(Butler 1999, p.8). In addition, if we are to believe that the body is just an inactive medium on which cultural meanings are displayed then the body is simply a tool externally related to a set of cultural meanings. However, the existences of bodies are only signified prior to the mark of their gender20. Luce Irigaray further complicates the discourse by saying that “woman does not have sex”. In other words, women constitutes absurdity within the course of identity itself or women are the “sex” which is not “one”, un-representable, sex that cannot be thought, a linguistic absence and opacity21. Contrary to Beauvior’s designation of women as the other, Irigaray’s argument insinuates that both the subject and the other are favouring the masculine through the elimination of the feminine in general. If we are to consider this and believe that women are sex, which is not one according to Butler (1999) then we are disregarding the metaphysics of substance that shaped the actual idea of the subject 22. Humanist believed that subjects have a propensity to assume a substantive person who carries a variety of essential and nonessential attributes. Their feminist position regards a person as a pre-gendered substance capable of reason, moral deliberation, or language. This position along with the universal conception of the person is always linked to the constructed relations in whom it is determined. However, according to Butler (1999) gender does not signify a substantive being but a point of union among culturally and traditionally explicit sets of relations23. 19 to 23 Judith Butler, 1999, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, Published 1999 Routledge, ISBN 0415924995, p.8, 9, & 10 v. Identity, Sex and the Metaphysics of Substance Identities are presumed to be self-identical that persist through time as the same, unified and coherent. However, it is not right to assume this unless discussions on gender identity come first since a person only becomes intelligible when gendered. Similarly, to understand the notion of a person in sociological terms, one must see it in terms of a group claiming ontological precedence to the various roles and functions through which it assumes social visibility and meaning. In philosophy, a person is receiving logical elaboration on the belief that whatever social context the person is “in” he is constantly connected the “definitional structure of personhood, be that consciousness, the capacity for language, or more deliberation”24. However, numerous questions arise on the extent to which regulatory practices of gender formation and division constitute identity. For instance, the self-identical status of the person and the extent in which identity is a normative ideal rather than a descriptive feature of experience. Lastly, how can regulatory practices that rule gender also rules culturally intelligible notions of identity? Butler (1999) explains that coherence and continuity of the person are logical or analytic features of personhood but socially instituted and maintained standards of intelligibility25. Therefore, any claim of a gendered being who seems to be persons that is not coherent and continuous is false, as they are not conforming to gendered model of cultural intelligibility by which persons are characterized. In addition, although cultural feminist separate female from male traits, they did not give an explicit formulation of what it really means to be a woman26. 24 & 25 Judith Butler, 1999, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, Published 1999 Routledge, ISBN 0415924995, p.16 26 Linda Alcoff, 1988, Cultural Feminism versus Post-Structuralism: The Identity Crisis in Feminist Theory, Signs, Vol. 13, No. 3 (Spring, 1988), p. 100 Feminist theory must be able to deal with women’s experience by explaining where it comes from and how it correlates to material social system and the power relations, which structure them27. Furthermore, we cannot recognize an intelligible gender unless it maintains a sound and constant relationship among sex, gender, sexual practice, and desire. In the same way, the laws that are supposed to institute a contributory connection between biological sex, culturally constituted genders, and the effect in the manifestation of sexual desire are the same laws that prohibit and promote discontinuity and incoherence28. The “truth” of sex in Foucault’s work Butler (1999) added is constructed specifically through the regulatory practices that create coherent identities through the “matrix of coherent gender norms”29. On the other hand, according to Alcoff (1988), this denial of biological determinism is not grounded in the conviction that human subjects are underdetermined but to a certain extent, in the principle that we are “over determined by a social discourse or cultural practice”30. The metaphysics of a substance on the other hand is a philosophical discourse supporting the existence of a being and substance which critic says comes from the idea that the grammatical formulation of a subject and predicates suggest the prior ontological reality of substance and attribute. In other words, a psychological person is a substantive thing or a substantial identity, which many believe, is a false concept31. Continental philosophers also shares similar view by rejecting the 27Teresa de Lauretis, 1990, Upping the Anti (Sic) in Feminist Theory, Feminism, Published 1997 Rutgers University Press, ISBN 0813523893, p.81 28, 29, & 31 Judith Butler, 1999, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, Published 1999 Routledge, ISBN 0415924995, p.17 & 20 30 Linda Alcoff, 1988, Cultural Feminism versus Post-Structuralism: The Identity Crisis in Feminist Theory, Signs, Vol. 13, No. 3 (Spring, 1988), p. 103 discipline of metaphysics as they assume it as naïve ontological connections between knowledge and a reality conceived as a thing in itself, totally independent of human practices and methodology32. However, there are other arguments supporting the ontological concept of the nature of being that says gender like any other primitive concepts that integrates to the same line of thought, belongs mainly to philosophy. It seems that the gender discourse is getting more complicated in philosophical views since it tends to lead to the conclusion that a person is “gender and is one in virtue of his or her sex, physic sense of self, and various expressions of the physic self, the most salient being that of sexual desire”33. In this sense, gender becomes more perplexed with sex, as unity over and against an “opposite sex” is senseless. Moreover, the structure that is supposed to maintain a similar but oppositional internal coherence among sex, gender, and desire is equally absurd34. This is true since gender can only denote a unity of experience, of sex, gender, and desire, “only when sex can be understood in some sense to necessitate gender”35. vi. Language Power, and the Strategies of Displacements “A doer behind the deed”36 is the argument of the large number of feminist theory and literature particularly in the field of humanism. They believed that nature work in harmony with the order of compulsory heterosexuality and the emergence of homosexual desire. Therefore, if desire could release itself, it would have nothing to do with the preliminary marking by sexes. 32 Linda Alcoff, 1988, Cultural Feminism versus Post-Structuralism: The Identity Crisis in Feminist Theory, Signs, Vol. 13, No. 3 (Spring, 1988), p. 113 33, 34, 35, & 36 Judith Butler, 1999, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, Published 1999 Routledge, ISBN 0415924995, p.21, 22, & 25 Another argument is the “order of materiality” that clearly supports the power of language to subordinate and displaced women. For them, the linguistic fiction of sex is a category shaped and dispersed by the system of compulsory heterosexuality in an attempt to limit the creation of identities along the axis of heterosexual desire37 . For Foucault and Derrida according to Alcoff (1988), feminism could only be wholly negative feminism, deconstructing everything, and refusing to construct anything38. In another Irigaray’s argument according to Butler (1999), she insists that sexual disparity is not a simple binary that preserve the metaphysics of substance as its underpinning. For her, the masculine subject is an imaginary construction shaped by the law that disallow incest and influence the endless displacement of a heterosexualizing desire. On the other hand, the feminine is never a mark of the subject and it could not be an attribute of a gender. Furthermore, it is a signification of lack, signified by the Symbolic (the law of the father), a set of discriminating linguistic set of laws that in effect create sexual diversity39. Another feminist norm that receives numerous criticisms from the feminist theorist of sexuality is the post genital sexuality seeking lesbian appropriation of Foucault’s work. “A sexuality beyond sex”40, a fictitious idea apart from the heterosexual norm that disastrously regard the ways in which power relations remains to create sexuality for women even within the terms of a free heterosexuality or in simple term “lesbianism”41. 37, 39, 40, & 41 Judith Butler, 1999, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, Published 1999 Routledge, ISBN 0415924995, p.26 & 29 38 Linda Alcoff, 1988, Cultural Feminism versus Post-Structuralism: The Identity Crisis in Feminist Theory, Signs, Vol. 13, No. 3 (Spring, 1988), p. 105 vii. Conclusion Feminist theories supporting socially or culturally constructed gender indeed has become so occupied with the discourse to bend the truth about the category of women. Some says the development of a language is significant as it can sufficiently represent women in view of the persisting cultural differences. However, this approach seems pointless, as there are a number of other issues that must be answered. Over determination of male supremacy or “father rule” is one, the viability of women as a “subject” for representation is another and the assumption that the very term “women” denotes a common identity. There is indeed little conformity on what indeed constitutes a woman. In Butler’s work, power seems to regulate political life including women through limitations, prohibition, and protection of individuals related to that political structure particularly men. Women are considered “subjects” that can be regulated in such a way that it will be no longer visible one such political system has been placed. In sum, the law generates and then cover up the notion of a subject before the law. Therefore, we can conclude that the separation of gender and body in women is caused by the very political system that is supposed to emancipate women from cultural oppression as the division within feminism and the contradicting resistance to feminism for “women”, whom feminism argues to symbolize, is undoubtedly coming from the compulsory confines of identity politics. viii. Bibliography ALCOFF, Linda, 1988, Cultural Feminism versus Post-Structuralism: The Identity Crisis in Feminist Theory, Signs, Vol. 13, No. 3 (Spring, 1988), pp. 405-436 BUTLER, Judith, 1999, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, Published 1999 Routledge, ISBN 0415924995 De LAURETIS, Teresa, 1990, Upping the Anti (Sic) in Feminist Theory, Feminism, Published 1997 Rutgers University Press, ISBN 0813523893 FOUCAULT Michel, 1984, Power, Edited by James D. Faubion, Vol. 3, Penguin Books Read More