In Matthew G Kirschenbaum’s Track Changes, the author explores the relationship between the human art of writing and the form of the writing instrument. Like Kittler, again we see a theorist who thinks in terms of McLuhan’s famous aphorism: “The medium is the message”. Kirschenbaum begins his introduction by considering the recently revealed writing process of George R. R. Martin. Martin’s use of an outdated word processor gains the attention of his fans, and for good reason, says Kirschenbaum. The word processor may hold some insights about the authors work. At the very least, Martin’s adherence to it goes to show that “we can become habituated to something like a piece of software just as we do a favorite pen or a particular weight of paper” (2).

As Kirschenbaum begins, he first clarifies that the works of art that he intends to examine “are not reducible to a single explanatory agent or element” (6). This is an important principle to remember going forward, so that we do not confuse the authors focus on technology for a belief in its primacy. However, Kirschenbaum does not wish that we undervalue the effect of technology either. He quotes literary scholar Evija Trofimova, who analyses the ways in which the environment that Paul Aster wrote in affected his work, and comments, “all of this … can only become visible is one dares to turn away, for a moment, from the centered intent of the human author and to look more closely at the work of ‘things'” (9). If we are to compose a more complete understanding of an author, we should consider all of the influences on his or her writing.

In the age of digital technology, such as word processing, this observance of the “work of things” becomes less obvious. Many theorists follow what Kirschenbaum calls as “emancipatory logic” (5), which views electronic media as a dematerialization of many technological apparatus. From this perspective, word processing somehow transcends the physical limitations of writing. This reminds me of the novel You Are Not a Gadget, by Jaron Lanier. Lanier, once a programmer in the upstart Silicon Valley of the 1980’s, discusses the philosophy with which the “world wide web” was created. They all believed that they were created a technology that would make the world immune to tyranny, for there would always and forever be a free flow of information, unrestricted by the material constraints of past technologies. Lanier has since split from this philosophy, and uses his novel to explore the ways in which Web 2.0 (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc.) creates very narrow channels through which people communicate digitally. The idealistic freedom that they envisioned did not survive the materiality of the technology.

Kirschenbaum, Like Lanier, does not buy into the “emancipatory logic” that considers electronic media as dematerialized communication. He argues that word processing does have materiality. One way this materiality is evidenced is through the development of “tacit knowledge,” or, “the extraordinary combination of muscle memory and unarticulated experience that enables us to perform very complex tasks without conscious effort or consciously knowing how to do them” (10). At the very least, the technology is effecting the writer in particular ways. This begs the question: Can the effects of this technology can be found in the literary work itself? For Kirschenbaum, the search for this technological materiality is an important aspect of literary criticism.

In Judith Halberstam’s “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Men, Women, and Masculinity,” Judith tries to deconstruct masculinity. Masculinity is usually applied to men and feminism is generally applied to females. Masculinity is similar to a hegemony, it shows leadership and dominance. Halberstam describes masculinity and feminism in such a way that it connotes a negative feelings towards femininity. The way she constructs her argument about masculinity, she empowers masculinity and states there are different forms of masculinity even within females and homosexual men. The question is, why is there such a negative connotation with femininity, why do we need to identify female masculinity as masculine to be empowered?

Halberstam describes masculinity in a way which masculinity dominates and while doing so, takes power from femininity. She describes, “As masculinity is ever more naturalized in hererosexual, homosexual and transexual male bodies, femininity becomes ever more degraded as a subject position and female masculinity becomes simply unimaginable” (2643). Here, Halberstam is stating how all forms of masculinity are recognized yet the female masculinity is not only seemingly shameful, it is also impossible to be understood in this (white) male dominated culture.

Halberstam describes throughout her writing that white males are the dominant group in society. She goes onto explain that having a penis is equivalent to having social power. According to Freud, we can generate social power in other body parts that become phallic and can access the social power reserved for white males. She mentions that lesbians can attain power as well, through Lacan’s framework of the “Lesbian Phallus.” Lesbianism has always been associated with female masculinity which is ultimately, undesirable and linked to female ugliness. Lesbians do however threaten heterosexual men because of the attractive lesbian who rejects them and the butch lesbian who rivals their masculinities (2652).

While deconstructing Halberstam’s words and thoughts, I can say that she identifies as a masculine female but I feel that she is using the non-masculine females, the feminine females as a stepping stone to have herself and those that identify as a masculine female get ahead in the patriarchal society. She complains that the dominant systems must be updated in order to remain relevant to the social and political systems, which I agree is true but identifying as a masculine–anything to get ahead in society is just reinforcing the patriarchal dominated culture. Females, transexuals, and homosexuals should not have to identify as anything to have their voices heard and to be taken seriously. Heterosexual white men should be stripped of the “masculine” title. Identifying as anything masculine creates the divide of social groups and creates this disparity among us. Women should strive to empower through other means, instead of ultimately backing the patriarchal system.

Lauren Berlant and Michael Warner’s Sex in Public summarizes a few key ideas about the problems with heteronormativity. Heteronormativity refers to the world view that heterosexuality is the preferred and correct form of sexual orientation. Sex in Public is not about sexual acts in public, it is about the analysis of sexuality within our society. Society is structured according to heterosexuality, and this is followed by the rules that are made by polite and picture perfect families residing within the community. This structure creates a set of accepted social norms and behaviors that is supposed to help us recognize a “good” couple from a “not so good’ couple. These social codes determine who and what is proper and beneficial to society.

In a proper society, a home is for a family, a good family has good credit, and a good family has savings and go on vacations. Anything that promotes good family values is encouraged. If you don’t have a family, then society will say that you are lonely, need help for depression, or pushed to find a proper life partner for companionship. Heteronormativity is far ore concerned with how you behave in public. A heterosexual couple may not be having intercourse at all, but they can still be considered heteronormative if they behave in the way that a “good” couple should.

What most of normative society do not realize is that heteronormativity has privilege. Heterosexual standards try to dominate the queers in every way possible. Normative society believes that heterosexuality is the only way to link intimacy to a proper personal life. If a gay couple attempts to be a part of the society then they can only be accepted if they marry and raise kids “just like everyone else.” Gays and queers must be swept under the rug of normative society, and this is the privilege that heteronormativity possesses. Anything that falls outside of the normative structure is a choice and can/should be changed to fit the “correct” social order.

In Judith Butler’s essay, Gender Trouble, the author discusses gender as performative, in which one, under social influences, performs acts typically associated with masculinity or femininity, depending on one’s physical sex. Drag shows, in which men dress up and perform the female gender, Butler says, helps to call attention to gender as separate from the physical body, because it is such an extreme performance by a man (I use drag queens as the primary example because Butler does so, although I realize drag kings also do this) to act out the part of a hyper-feminine woman. We see that there are two parts to this: one being the fact that a physical man is covered with the signifiers of a physical woman (makeup, stiletto heels, big hair), but the other being the fact that internally, the man may “feel” like a woman, while having the physical genitals of a man.

Butler shows us that gender is not inherent, that “acts and gestures, articulated and enacted desires create the illusion of an interior and organizing gender core”(Butler 2549). She disassociates gender with the body, showing that history and society, not biology, define gender. However, is gender necessarily a trap, as Butler seems to make it out to be? Of course, telling men and women that they can only do certain things according to the practices of masculinity or femininity can confine people, but without those restrictions, gender itself can be an expression rather than a prison.

Jack Halberstam, in his essay, “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Men, Women, and Masculinity” takes Butler’s ideas further, arguing the validity of the female masculinity, which tells us that not only is gender performed and should be disassociated form the body, but that it can and should be performed as an identity by any sex. Through a series of examples, which Halberstam calls “heterosexual conversion narratives”, he tells us how these films serve to reinforce the idea of “real”, heterosexual masculinity. The heterosexual woman in each film often ends up rejecting the hyper-masculine, undomesticated male for a “compromise man”: one who will buy milk on the way home, but will also want to sleep with her every once in awhile. But the women in these movies don’t seem happy as much as they are willing to settle, simply reinforcing that the masculine, undomesticated ideal is the one they want (Halberstam 2641). More “feminine” men or even lesbian rivals, alternative masculinities, pale in comparison in these films to the straight heterosexual male.

Halberstam even states that feminist criticism of masculinity as misogynistic is problematic, because “The responses also assiduously refuse to acknowledge even the existence of fully realized nonmale masculinities, which come in the form of lesbian fatherhood, butch identities, drag king performances, female sports icons, and so on”(Halberstam 2644). By stating masculinity to be the problem, rather than the monopolization of masculinity by the heterosexual male (and to some extent today, the homosexual male as well), we continue to associate it with men, when in reality, the two are wholly unconnected. In the same way that Saussure divorces the signifier from the signified, showing us that the bonds between the two are completely arbitrary, our author tells us that the phallus does not necessarily signify masculinity: “masculinity at the beginning of the twenty-first century can be recognized[…]as a dynamic between embodiment, identification, social privilege, racial and class formation, and desire, rather than the result of having a particular body”(Halberstam 2646). In fact, as time goes on, the signifiers of masculinity change, through the evolution of style and social practices.

But what does this mean for us? In the last section of his essay, “The Ugly: Hairy and Scary Masculine Women”, Halberstam begins to ask us, if masculinity is not a product of having a penis, why can’t women perform it as well? There is a culture, which includes the heterosexual conversion narratives mentioned before, that discourages this. The author tells us of a novel, The Woman in White, in which the masculine woman, Marian Halcombe, functions as a rival to the novel’s hero, Walter. She is shown to have a masculine, aesthetically displeasing face, and even shows these gender qualities in coaching Walter in masculinity. However, her character does not have a satisfying ending, and is mentioned by Halberstam to be “reduced to a shell of her former self”(Halberstam 2652) by the end of the novel.

By turning these women, who perform masculinity so well, into ugly creatures destined to be eradicated, heterosexual men remain the dominant example of “real” masculinity, disregarding the idea of rival masculinities. My favorite quote from this essay is Halberstam’s question to us: “Rather, why not ask whether men can ‘do’ masculinity, whether anyone can do it better?”(Halberstam 2652). Rather than seeing gender as simply a set of social practices that we must be freed from, as “radically incredible”, as Butler says (Butler 2553), the author encourages women to find their identities through the idea of gender.

As I began to put the pieces together of reading this text, I started to put analyze certain words. “Sex in Public” is not about sex acts but sexuality in the public sphere. Sex seems natural but it is actually constructed. this definition is mediated by the public; Sexuality generates a multitude of relations, therefore institutions are saturated with intimacy and desire even when they aren’t explicitly “Intimacybelongs at home, and it is alluring . Linked with ideas of “the good life” Connected with the “wish” for normalcy or uncomplicated personhood where ethics is usually abstracted from Because of heterosexual culture, practices that don’t feel especially sexual or familial collaborate to produce a social norm; but intimacy can be neither heteronormative or sexual. Feelings are political and so Berlant and Warner want us to examine feelings critically queerness is a way of life, introduces queerness as culture. It is deprived from being called a culture because queerness cannot have and so their space is limited. Always offers an alternative to normativity. culture there is a distinction between culture and lifestyle; public vs private; Not simply zones where sexual acts are made public but encompassing the culture at large ;What Berlant and Warner suggest is that the world is fixed according to heterosexuality, mainly the rules of good  and nice examples of families. There exists a whole set of accepted social behaviors that give good couple from the bad couple. Normal behavior is any group of social codes that everyone agrees is accepted and well practiced and beneficial to society A home is for a family. A family needs good credit to get a home. A good family saves money for vacations. A good family goes to Disneyland for vacations. Disney characters have family values. Buying products that have family values is good. Etc. If you don’t have a family, a heteronormative society tells you that you must be depressed and desperate in need of support and encouragement. A heterosexual couple might not be having any sex at all, but they are still heteronormative if they are behaving in the way a “good” family should. Heteronormativity starts with the proper, missionary sex between married folk, but it is far more concerned with how you behave outside the bedroom. “Hormonormativity” is a big term that describes the behavior of normal gay couples as they want to marry and raise kids and act  “just like everyone else.” If heteronormativity is privileged over all the other social orders, and if it has a changeable of damaging consequences,  like Berlant and Warner says then how do gay couples challenge that order well and successfully?

A first thought when reading this article is, how did we get from the “science of ideas” to the production of meanings and a system of illusory beliefs? Marx, being someone who is known for taking a word and twisting it to his benefit, has expressed the more obvious definition of  ideology but for anyone who looked further, they would not necessarily think of it as a full science of ideas. The article doesn’t blame Marx completely as it states the transition and development of language as a key factor in why we have the definitions we do now. We seem to get lost in translation with the different variation but it strikes me that Williams is trying to differentiate and explain but there really isn’t that big of a difference. Ideology has to be a natural science and that is understood but that also leaves room for it to have definitions that include illusions and class systems. Natural and social sciences go hand in hand and that could be a large reason ideology was able to evolve into something much different than originally planned. The article mentions ideology taking the place of Metaphysics and that definitely leads strait into Marx so there was no surprise that there were later different versions classified by Marx.

Ideology in the sense of right and wrong is the easiest to understand. Our ideas, interests, and conflicts are all apart of our consciousness that wasn’t believed to be unlocked until and ideology is bestowed upon us. At the very least that’s what the article wants us to understand. That’s a bit on the dramatic side but thats to come with Marxism. consciousness, in it’s truest form, plays a large part in understanding ideology. Marx believed in changing the world instead of interpreting it and that ties together all the variations of ideology. What we believe, whether it be about class structure, personal opinions, or unrealistic notions, we are still trying to make others understand why we believe what we do while also trying to change their ideologies. We no longer interpret and feel empathy; instead we push to change the world to make it better in our eyes. Ideologies are literally our ideas and how we display them for the world to see. Williams is aware of that and yet still felt he needed to explain every aspect in hopes others would get a better grasp on the world.

In their article, Sex in Public, Lauren Berlant and Michael Warner make sharp social commentaries on what it means to live in our heteronormative society. They discuss the definition of heteronormativity and how it stems for a sense of privilege and a need for social purity. Interestingly too, as per the title’s namesake, they discuss why exactly the notion of “sex in public” is considered so taboo based on the constructs set in place by heteronormativivity, and the fact that “queer” love and intimacy in general is strictly confined to spaces that are separate and private from the public. This in turn causes the public to mediate any sort of queerness, and ultimately makes all sex and intimacy public, despite the heteronormative need to suppress all queerness.

In hashing out what exactly heteronormativity means, the two authors begin by comparing the idea to multi-ethnic integration (ie- such as found in immigration) in the United States. They use the example of a magazine cover that displays a photo of an ethnically unidentifiable woman, muttering the fact that decades down the line there will have been so much cross-racial reproduction in America that race will not be considered when thinking about what it is to be American. The authors use this as an example of a societal attempt at easing the “white-dominated society” into the potential shaking of their “’core’ national culture” (2601). It is so hard for our dominantly Caucasian society to swallow the idea that their perceived purity would one day no longer exist, to the point where their hand must be held through it all. And that is the crux of the definition of heteronormativity that Berlant and Warner present, as they state, “This sense of rightness-embedded in things and not just in sex- is what we call heteronormativity. Heteronormativity is more than ideology, or prejudice, or phobia against gays and lesbians; it is produced in almost every aspect of the forms and arrangements of social life…” (2605). The privilege of being the dominant culture in society brings with it a fear of difference, which in turn harbors tailored constructs, such as the normalcy Americans find in heterosexuality, that enable this perceived pure society to maintain its existence through repression of sexuality in public spaces. Most suppressed is “queer,” or homosexual sexuality as it is so difficult for the heteronormative citizen to define it and allow its existence in their constructed universe based on their privilege.

Moving off the fact that fact, intimacy must therefore be separate from the public sphere according to Berlant and Warner. In turn, they argue that “…Although the intimate relations of private personhood appear to be the realm of sexuality itself, allowing “sex in public” to appear like matter out of place, intimacy is itself publicly mediated, in several senses” (2604). Therefore, while intimacy is for only the private sphere, it has therefore become a public act based on the fact that its activity is mediated by the aversion of the public. It is confusing to think about, but the truth is that if we are constantly trying to avoid the public in our sexual acts, then those sexual acts therefore belong to the public by the fact that we are answering to the public in hiding from it. The irony is that the original attempt at securing these non-conforming sexual acts to privacy, it causes these acts to become a part of public society.

In Gender Trouble, by Judith Butler, there is a focus on gender norms and what gender truly is. Butler believes that gender is a result of one’s actions and behaviors, such as a focus on the body and mind, which regulates this concept of sexuality, creating a distinction and a political argument concerning gender.

Butler delves into this concept of ideology, where this formation of ideas shapes gender and sexuality. With these ideas, comes an even closer focus on the body versus the mind, the corporeal versus the soul, or the inner versus the outer. Butler’s argument begins with the interior soul, which is within the body and is “signified through its inscription on the body…” (2548) She believes that the structuring inner space is successful due to the presence of the body as a vital enclosure. The soul itself, is “a surface signification that contests and displaces the inner/outer distinction itself…” (2548) She states that it is some form of internal psychic space that is inscribed on the body as a social signification.

When new definitions and forms of sexuality arise, they go against the typical heterosexual structure. It is this socially constructed ideal that is then viewed as a norm, automatically expelling, or casting out, any other forms. It regulates the sexual field, keeping it in a comfortable and understandable place. However, gender is not as black and white as many urge it to be. What is it, exactly? Before answering that question, Butler goes into the argument of the inner and outer. She claims that acts and gestures are what produce this internal core, but they do so on the surface of the body, thus creating identity. She claims that these actions are performative, as the essence or identity that they signify are simply fabrications that are sustained through corporeality. It is these acts and gestures that create an illusion of an “interior and organizing gender core”.        Butler then answers the question of gender, as she 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…” (2549) Essentially, gender does not exist, according to Butler. It is simply a result of these behaviors that work to create an identity that does not truly belong to an individual.

I especially liked her inclusion of Esther Newton’s perception on gender identity and the expressive model of gender, mocking it, as she states, “…drag is a double inversion that says, “appearance is an illusion.” Drag says “my outside” appearance is feminine, but my essence ‘inside’ the body is masculine. At the same time, it symbolizes the opposite inversion; “my appearance ‘outside’ is masculine but my essence ‘inside’ is feminine” (2549) An argument such as this one further encourages and proves the arguments that Butler makes throughout the piece. It mocks gender identity in a simple way, as it is evident that the outer appearance of an individual does not signify their sexuality. It does not give them a true identity, thus proving that gender is not true or false, as Butler mentioned before. It goes into this concept of inner and outer, which is the most basic form of Butler’s argument, as there are much more specific forms, or labels, that show this distinction. Although gender may not be true or false, it is clear to see the various forms of sexuality that individuals may possess. Newton’s argument poses a contradiction between the two reversals, as it steers away from the concept of gender significations.

Butler’s arguments towards gender and ideology connects very well with Althusser’s concept of ideology and how one is called, or hailed, by a specific presence. Individuals are interpellated through the presence of gender norms, as they signify accepted or appropriate behavior within society. Butler’s argument is powerful and incredibly relevant, as it not only relates to the initial outbreak of the deeper understanding of sexuality, but also the modern day understanding of it as well. There are countless cases where individuals are misunderstood on account of their sexuality. This is a result of many things, but in Butler’s argument, it is the forced social norms that come with the concept of gender that are imposed on individuals. It is a concern that is not understood by all, as it is much easier for everything and everyone to have a label of some sort. This way, there is some type of order and “identity” between individuals. However, Butler believes it is useless, as these forms are not necessarily true or false, but socially constructed instead. They are imposed on individuals who are forced to stay in one lane, regulating heterosexuality, rather than understanding the deeper meaning of what gender really is.

Gender Trouble aims to open possibilities for the ways gender manifests, or in Butler’s terms, is performed, rather than to provide a definitive account of what exactly is “gender.” She argues that gender is both performed and performative; that gender is something individuals perform and that gender, in the performance, constitutes “the identity it is purported to be”. She argues that sex is constructed, and constructed through the “apparatus” of gender.

Can a person actually possess a gender? Can a person even be a gender? Or are we just acting out a gender? I think a good example of gender performativity would be Lady Gaga when she assumes the role of her male alter ego,  Joe Calderone. When she performs as Joe, Gaga attempt to blur the lines that are imposed in society’s approaches towards gender and sex. Manliness in this case, is being performed through Lady Gaga’s actions and clothing rather than being a trait that pre-exists within her. Gender and sex, from Butler’s perspective, can be approached in a similar fashion to “dress up” in the sense of being a construction (or performance) rather than an essential part of one’s being. To quote Rupaul Charles: “we’re all born naked and the rest is drag”.

Butler talks about drag performances (side note: drag performances are so much fun and everyone should go see one at least once!) in order to illustrate how they shake up the “very distinctions between the natural and the artificial, depth and surface, inner and outer through which discourse about genders almost always operates”. Since drag is the performance of a gender that is supposed to be the opposite of the performer’s “true” gender, it causes one to question the extent to which certain traits are considered male or female. Rather than viewing drag as just imitation, Butler approaches it as an action that defines the boundaries that create the idea of gender in the first place. Butler defines gender as “the repeated stylization of the body, a set of repeated acts within a highly rigid regulatory frame that congeal over time to produce the appearance of substance, of a natural sort of being”.

Gender comes to existence through our actions. She states: “gender proves to be performative — that is, constituting the identity it is purported to be. In this sense, gender is always a doing, though not a doing by a subject who might be said to preexist the dead”.

Her conclusion for the challenging of gender binaries is that no individual person can escape the existing framework or power structures but that those power structures can be challenged through performing gender in such a way that calls attention to the framework’s logic and challenges its status as “natural”.

In Gender Trouble, Judith Butler refers to how sex and gender have been a major topic within politics.  Someone who was by chance born with one set of reproductive organs versus another has had their entire ideology shaped by what it means to be of that sex.  However, there is a difference between “the body,” which has traditionally influenced our views on gender, and what is within us that shapes who we are.  

Butler alludes to Foucault’s The History of Sexuality, in how society has managed to control the discourse, and in turn, public views of controlling sexuality.  Traditional views of sexuality include some form of heteronormative vaginal/penile intercourse between a (preferably married) man and woman.  This is a clear way to define two types of bodies: the male and female.  However, homosexuality throws a wrench into this neat construction of gender, not to mention transgender individuals, or Butler’s example, those who dress in drag.  Suddenly, these other sexual practices “that open surfaces and orifices to erotic signification or close down others effectively reinscribe the boundaries of the body along new cultural lines” (2545).  No longer does inhabiting one type of body restrict one to specific sexual acts, and therefore other behavior as well.

As interference declines within the realm of what constitutes proper exchanges between the sexes, “the very boundaries that determine what it is to be a body at all” decline as well (2545).  For so long, many of us have internalized what it means to be a “girl” or “boy” since childhood.  As a child, I was told by my mother that it is more fun to be a girl.  We get to dress up, wear makeup and high heels, and partake in generally more frivolous activities while men do the work.  While I’ll admit that I do enjoy designer shoes, I have departed from my family norm by providing for myself (I’m the first woman in my family to have lived in their own home/apartment outside of a father or husband), with the goal of pursuing a master’s degree next year instead of a wedding (my mom likes to mention she was married and pregnant at my age).  Both aspects are considered masculine traits in my family, and while not discouraged, I’m often looked upon as an oddity in my family (can’t wait for Thanksgiving next week!). 

Butler takes this idea further when referencing Foucault again later in the essay.  He describes how the essence of one’s soul is located somewhere within the body, not outwardly displayed on it.  It is invisible, a “signifying lack” (2548).  Desire is not a consequence of gender.  A girl wanting a Barbie doll for their birthday may, of course, want one out of true desire, but more likely, from an internalized idea of what it means to be a girl formed by gender ideology.  Butler points out that it is through repetitive acts conforming our gender that creates what we see as our gender identity.  However, she also make a key distinction between expressive and performative acts.  She encourages the radical idea of expression, and that by allowing the outward expression of our true selves, we will not be forced to conform to gender.