My take on Butler
is that I have difficulty deciphering the text but she makes perfect sense
after the 50th read.
“And with
discursive means by which the heterosexual imperative enables certain sexed
identifications and forecloses and/or disavows other identifications” ( 236). I
use this quote as my interpretation of her theory. I make this the idea of the
beginning of the process of exclusion of anything that deviates from the norm –
the abject, the obscure, the underclass, the rejects, the dregs, the
untouchables, the nonbeing. Would it be correct to say then there is no
identity; they are invisible. Invisible is worse than untouchable. If one can
be touched there is a chance. If one is invisible, they are nothing, not even
an object.
But as Butler
states, “collective disidentifications can facilitate a reconceptualization of
which bodies matter.” Therefore identity is changed as long as there is some
identity and not pure invisibility. It is the invisible that I worry about. I
mentioned being silenced in the first blog, in that women (and all people who
are considered ‘other’) are silenced or are afraid to speak out because of
retribution for transgressing past cultural ideals. If one breaks from these
ideals, one is ostracized or perhaps shamed into silence. This silence is
terrifying. It is abusive. Silence makes one invisible.
Agency is the only
way one can become uninvisible or can rise from the “abject” as long as the
agency is not ‘masculinized’ (237) or ‘feminized.’ Butler says (I think) fixity
should become invisible and so what is left would be fluidity, as long as there
is no assumption of regulatory heterosexuality (241), then one is free to
perform in any way one chooses. This is a huge leap from ‘heteronormative’ regulation.
Monica Wittig said
it in her quote: “It is an impossible being. It is a being that does not exist,
an ontological joke” (reading 7, 125).
It is not a joke to those who cannot be. Fortunately, the collective
engagement in the past years for the LGBTI community have given way to
visibility, to being. Butler makes this point in her statement, “I am off to
Yale to be a lesbian” (rd 7, 127). She did not say to ‘become;’ she said to ‘be.’
This is what she is saying in both her readings, let me ‘be’ who ‘I’ am supposed
to ‘be,’ not what or who you see me as. Or more Butlerian, as you see me
performing to be. I hope I make sense J
This idea of "being" as distinguished from "becoming" is very important to Butler. Therefore, the ontological is highlighted here and distinguished from "becoming" or performed "regulatory norms". I like how you ponited out this distinction in your analysis of Butler's articles.
ReplyDeleteI like your choice of the word fluidity; it's apt description.
ReplyDeleteThe statement, "I am off to Yale to be a lesbian" resonates with the idea of an adventure or discovery to find something new. I knew I existed here in this place, but how will I exist there in that place?
Colleen
I like too the idea that you can decide, in a moment and a given place, to "be" something that we read as so integral to basic identity. Is there a place where Butler could "not be a lesbian"?
ReplyDeleteI'm struck by the idea of choice here? We can see the scripts, we can decide they are flawed but how do you really resist prescribed ways of being a given gender? I had a friend who named her baby a non-gendered name, banned all pink or blue clothes, and bought no gendered toys, but still her 5 year old daughter learned to love tiaras. How much can we really resist?
Jen,
ReplyDeleteWas the five-year-old exposed to much television? I think TV has a ton to do with spreading these "scripts" of gender. Your friend went further than most in her experiment and tiaras still got through. That's pretty fascinating.