CUL120 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Judith Butler, George Romanes, Trans Woman
27 Aug 2018
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Gender, Week 7
subjectivity, performance performativity, habitus and space
* Thinking about gender:
* someones sex, male and female
* the socio cultural organisation of biological difference
* a way of acting in the world
* why worry about gender?
* gender is used to structure society: school, work, leisure, religion, consumption etc.
* gender- product and vehicle of hierarchical binary thinking
* gender = power
* Two models of gender:
* Essentialist: natural attribute (ie. it is determined by biology)
* Social constructionist: habituated effect of cultural ideas which we embody and reproduce
* BUT to argue that gender is either natural or cultural is problematic for the following reasons:
* it presumes the existence of two separates and definable entities (ie ‘nature’ and ‘culture’)
* it relies on, and reproduces, humanist logic
* The body and gender difference:
* changed historically and culturally
* shifting conceptions of ‘natural’ bodies (Lacquer 1995)
* pre 18th century Europe
* souls of men and woman seen as different
* bodies contained the same elements organised differently
* the 18th century and after
* men and woman as polar opposites
* had differnet (biologically determined) roles to play
* had (biologically determined) characteristics suited to different social roles.
* 19C woman are inferior, science told me
* scientific evidence is supporting the common belief
* female brain weighed less than men, inferiority, less robust (George Romanes, 1887)
* appearing in a newspaper not in a scientific paper
* Social Darwinism
* “maternal instinct” theory
* “morphological infantilism”
* Differences and Inequality
* justification of inequality in the C18th/19th
* Gender and race inequality explained by biological essentialism
* The source of gender differences (Body)
* (according to humanism)
* genetalia
* reproductive organs
* chromozones
* hormones
* brains
* Gender characteristics-
* Female: nurturing, Emotional, Passive, Submissive
* Male: Aggressive, Rational, Active, Dominant
* biological properties- gender characteristics- gender roles
* five genders: man, trans woman, gender queer, trans man, woman
* gender as a social performance:
* Gender and subjectivity
* not determined by the body
* gender is something we do, not something we have or are (judith Butler)
* gender is a cultural fiction; a truth effect
* Gender is the performative effect of reiterative acts
* acts that congeal over time to produce the appearance of a substance””
* Doing gender
* acts, gestures and desires produce the illusory effect of a internal core of subjectivity
Document Summary
Gender, week 7 subjectivity, performance performativity, habitus and space. * the socio cultural organisation of biological difference. * a way of acting in the world. * gender is used to structure society: school, work, leisure, religion, consumption etc. * gender- product and vehicle of hierarchical binary thinking. * essentialist: natural attribute (ie. it is determined by biology) * social constructionist: habituated effect of cultural ideas which we embody and reproduce. * but to argue that gender is either natural or cultural is problematic for the following reasons: * it presumes the existence of two separates and definable entities (ie (cid:1684)nature(cid:1685) and (cid:1684)culture(cid:1685)) * it relies on, and reproduces, humanist logic. * shifting conceptions of (cid:1684)natural(cid:1685) bodies (lacquer 1995) * souls of men and woman seen as different. * bodies contained the same elements organised differently. * had differnet (biologically determined) roles to play. * had (biologically determined) characteristics suited to different social roles.
