Queer Self-Identification

A common thread I’m finding as I continue to post blogs is the prominent role of identity politics in our discussions so far.  For the first time though, Queer and Now gave a modern face to the theory that Foucault and Butler have been building in terms of gender and sexuality.  This isn’t to say that either theorist’s work felt outdated, but more that their work didn’t seem to put as much of a name and face on the many underlying issues of queer theory as Sedgwick’s work.  Her introduction provided the back story we all (unfortunately) know so well now – and that is the inner struggle of those marginalized as sexually queer.  Ironically enough, the suicide numbers and statistics actually make the issue more human, providing a more tangible humanity than Foucault and Butler’s academic prose. 

In reading Sedgwick, I felt the weight of the word “queer,” with all of its social and political nuance, seems to be almost destructive.  In a hegemonic structure that perpetuates the notion of the heterosexual couple as the standard unit by which all others are measured, anyone residing outside of this restrictive definition is then marginalized, polarized, made deviant.  It’s a heavy word, one that carries so many implications, in both self-perception as well as societal judgment.  It’s extremely curious to me, then, how Sedgwick proclaims “queer” to be merely a matter of self-proclamation; that if I believe myself to be queer, I am.  And we can get into the solipsism of this statement, or maybe the semantic/syntactic/pragmatic study of such declarations, but I’m struggling with something a bit higher here, more simplistic.  Is it really that easy to “claim” an identity? 

After further reflecting on our class discussion around the agency and authenticity of queer self-identification, I found myself having a bit of a “light bulb” moment.  If we say, “I think, therefore I am,” than Sedgwick is correct.  She – a queer theory pioneer, an oft-quoted queer theory guru – is the most shining example. As a woman who, aside from her profession and area of expertise, can be seen as the very definition of the conventional heterosexual dream, in a long-term seemingly functional 40+ year life partnership and marriage…with a man.  No, she didn’t exactly fit the bill of a queer pioneer, but her position in academia and in queer theory remains the same, regardless of what she “reads” like on paper.  She clearly internalized and empathized with the term and those who embodied this identity.  So maybe what Sedgwick means, is that all one needs to do to be queer is not just he “impulsion to use it in the first person,” (9) but to know it – that is, to acknowledge, to understand, to empathize.  We wouldn’t feel a compulsion to self-identify unless we felt some level of understanding, some true reason to claim the identity as our own, so if you feel it, if you know it, then you are.  And in this way, then Sedgwick, regardless of her marital/relational categorization, is queer.

Sorry, no deep philosophical ruminations here, just a pretty simple revelation for me about Sedgwick’s work and it’s relation to the Cartesian duality.   

-terese

Works Cited

Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. Tendencies. Duke University Press, 1993. Print.

Talk is Cheap

As our discussion of Foucault’s History of Sexuality continues, the correlation between restriction and discourse – or perhaps more appropriately, restriction through discourse – becomes more and more evident.  While the notion in and of itself isn’t groundbreaking or mind-blowing, it certainly has me thinking more critically about the constraining effects of a gender-based language, which Butler introduced via Luce Irigaray.  Indeed, perhaps gender discourse, similar to sexuality discourse, has been effectively policed by a faulty language that, whether intentional or not, serves to limit progress and legitimacy.

In class, Foucault’s “’discursive fact,’ the way sex is put into discourse” (Foucault 11) suggests that, while we may speak much about sexuality, the way in which sex is discussed is perhaps more indicative of the true nature of sexuality than what is said.  Our class discussion of the many types of paraphalia was a perfect demonstration of how the “scientification” of sex, while allowing for a supposed objective discourse, also allows those who do not fall under these clinical categorizations renounce these as alien, deviant behavior.  It acts as a mechanism for those outside of the categories to judge and marginalize those who have been deemed as deviant.

Similarly for Butler and Irigaray, the very basis of discourse suggests oppression, with the “totalizing goal” of excluding the feminine altogether through a “phallogocentric signifying economy” (Butler 13).  It follows then, to suggest that one of the biggest hurdles to some semblance of a comprehensive, unbiased gender discourse is the lack of a language through which we can conduct this discourse; that the discourse itself, whether seemingly progressive, is self-defeating in terms of the “other.”  If we operate through a structurally weighted language that is indeed phallogocentric, then any communication that does attempts to open up discourse on gender roles outside of the dominant role is rendered ultimately futile.

As we read more and more of these foundational texts, many commonalities and correlations are starting to emerge.  The most problematic to me at this point is this very point – that the existence of discourse doesn’t carry much value if the manner in which we communicate it, and the language through which we conduct it, is inherently fallacious.  Both Foucault and Butler seem to be driving this point home to me, which has me questioning all sorts of “progress” we’ve supposedly claimed in identity politics that goes beyond just gender, but also ethnicity, religion, political persuasion, etc.  Like the title suggest, I suppose I’m seeing just how cheap our “talk” can be and has been.

-terese

Works Cited

Butler, Judith Butler. Gender Trouble, Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. Routledge Classics, 1990. Print.

Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality: Volume 1 – An Introduction.  Random House, Inc. 1978. Print.

The Circular Reasoning of Gendered Identity Politics

In discussing and unpacking Judith Butler’s first few chapters, I found the issue of identity politics – and particularly, the role of gender in said political machinations – to be quite problematic.  As Butler notes, “the question of ‘the subject’ is crucial for politics” (Butler 3).  

Herein lies the issue though, at the very definition of the political subject.  The very basis that there exists a subject, a quantifiable entity or defining characteristic that galvanizes a political “body” implies that there is indeed an identifiable being known as “woman.” It requires a commonality, some sort of (nearly) all-encompassing umbrella under which countless subscriptions can huddle. But what is that commonality?  How is it defined?  Is it the physiological features of the female body – as in, anyone with female reproductive organs?  Or is it culturally contextual, revolving the execution of performative gestures that suggest feminine (like Eddie Izzard)?  Are identity politics (in relation to “women”) really that simple?  

Butler certainly recognizes this “assumption that the term women denotes a common identity,” that if “one ‘is’ a woman, that is surely not all one is; the term fails to be exhaustive…because gender is not constituted coherently or consistently in different historical contexts” that “intersect with racial, class, ethnic, sexual, and regional modalities” (Butler 4). Indeed, attempting to embody (pun intended) identity in such a comprehensive manner cannot only be bogus, it can be quite damaging. In the process of activating a political body, we are obscuring other facets of identity, and in some cases, erasing them, for the sake of progress.  But then again, as Butler notes, without a subject, how does one make the political and social strides that the feminist movement has undoubtedly secured?  Although it feels a bit like circular reasoning, I do feel that this discrepancy is increasingly significant, and one that is worthy of considerable thought.

I suppose the question I was left with (among many others, of course) is -- How can we reconcile the need for political agency through mobilized masses, while still maintaining the significantly unique identity of constituents?  In the highly-charged and diverse political arenas that we now operate in, is the construction of gender outdated, and if so, can we ever get away from our reliance upon such an ingrained structure of thinking and judging?

- terese