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.

In Judith Butler’s From Gender Trouble, one of the things she talks about is what it means to be a female and how being a female is filled with endless possibilities of trouble. She discusses how there is this box of what a woman should be and if one does not fit into that criteria, there would be trouble. For example, a woman could get pregnant by the wrong person at the wrong time or not be able to get pregnant when the time is right. Similarly, a woman is supposed to be modest and should contain certain aspects about herself including sexuality or else she is considered “trouble.” All of that pressure falls onto a woman, not a man. Again, if a woman were to discuss her sexual partners openly it is looked at as “trouble” however for a man he is given props. While all of these issues are definitely still present today, women have been making huge strides to counteract these boxes of what we are supposed to be. For example, we almost had a woman president! A woman being in a position of that power or even coming close to achieving it is a huge mark of progress on its own. Another example can be women in the film/tv industry. Up until very recently, women were portrayed on screen as these stiff, non-complex, doll-like characters. They were essentially present as a prop for the male characters. However, now we have woman dominating the industry. We see this major stride very well in the area of Comedy. Comedy was predominantly male up until very recently. A perfect example of this is the tv show “Broad City” on Comedy Central. This show was created by and stars two female comedians and it is a show based on their real life odd-couple friendship while they are trying to make it in New York City. This show does not shy away from female issues of “trouble.” For example, Menstruation used to be something that nobody spoke about and was considered inappropriate to discuss while it is a natural process of the human body! There is an episode of “Broad City” where one of the girls gets her period on a flight and the whole episode surrounds her trying to find a tampon. It is absolutely hysterical and real. 20 years ago an episode like that would never have been aired. Therefore, while I think women still face discrimination and hardships, I also have tremendous hope because the “troubles” of being a woman are slowly becoming less and less.

Sexuality is not the spontaneous overflow of unfettered passion (2404), according to Zizek!, but a theatrical performance: the sadomasochist stage director, who enjoys the fantastical dominatrix onstage, that extends her hand toward the director in the empty audience, pulling him up, and physically reminds him: whose the master of his body. In other words, pain, less physical/more emotional, is the lynchpin to the fantasy of love. And love, if you ain’t know by now, is a construct. Oh, where in New York art thou construct-free spaces to engage our primate sense of love upon a mate, that’s not a dive bar? What is love (don’t go there Alexis)?

Let’s step back and ask a less daunting question: Does Zizek! exist? What position is he arguing of courtly love, as a relevant parameter (2407) that stages the conscious mating? One, Zizek sort of exist, verified by Norton & YouTube; and two, my assertion: courtly love adheres to only a minority of men, that value “conscious” pursuit for carnal love. Let’s break these three italics: Value, is how a man prioritizes his attention; pursuit, is the exercising, or Althusserian material existence (1354), of his attention aprori or vested with seductive tools; and carnal, is the biological hardwiring that, upon “lover’s” (a noun I’ll expound on later) sight, automates testosterone and adrenaline that’s pleasurable…which runs full circle: that runs back to an “unconscious” attention. Thus, the chemical pleasure, is the valued attention, to be pursued.

The pursued woman, in this case, will respond to his hail (1356), whether she ignores him or engages, because she being the judge of a future relation or not, because she’s being pursued (the roles would switch, if she pursued the male), has initially and/or ultimately judged, thru periphery or directly, his superficial façade: the face, hair, body, etc. The pursuer’s subsequent persuasive rhetoric use of, perhaps Jakobson’s poetic function (1151), if it passes thru the screening membrane between pursuer/pursued, would be the deciding factor. I’d argue this type of modern courtly man, on all degrees, from infrequent pursuer, or daily, as in a Casanovian libertine, or modern pick-up artist, may lean toward Zizek’s argument.

However, I do agree that, in most cases, empirically in majority of relationships, at least in Manhattan, there’s a symbolic love dyad, via both mates “always already subjected” by constructs of love (Church, advertising, parents), that, whether necessary or not, is there at love’s first sight. Which brings me to that seemingly impossible question of: what is love? If Plato’s Symposium is inconclusive, fast-forward 2000+ years later where Freud ask “What does a woman want?”, and excluding the Darwinian’s natural selection of procreation…love—as I avoid answering this philosophical conundrum—is better suited for it’s pragmatic synonym: process.

 First love, we misconstrue, or people tell us we do, for a crush, or “puppy love”. And because the greatest minds in history, can’t objectively agree on love: to that love struck kid in elementary school, love…this is love.

This is pre-puberty. Lust is not a biological feeling yet, or perhaps it’s felt another way (I can’t recall the 90’s). This may be the “Real”(2426) that Zizek mentions, when the catalytic discovery in The Crying Game, when the purser discovers the impossibility of his fantasy and the object-subject relation switches. Proceeding, then, this “puppy love”, I assume, unless the kid is a natural mack, has no conception of Jakobson poetics, does not like pain in any manner, and may even listen to his mom’s advice: and give this six year old girl, a bear and flowers…and it’s not Valentine’s Day! But until that inevitable day where both kids are just so confused, they “break-up” (if it gets that far), to the contrary argument: that courtly love still dictates parameters; that kid, with his sincere attraction of her, is boundless from an idea of love, or at least from Zizek’s one.

In “Gender Trouble,” Judith Butler ultimately argues that gender is performed. She also criticizes aspects of Feminist theory (and other well known theorists) such as the idea that there exists an identity and a subject that requires representation in politics and language. For Judith Butler, the simple categories of “woman” and “man” are in reality super complex because of factors such as class, ethnicity and sexuality. She points out that these categories also empower a patriarchal society. Though ultimately she challenges the common idea that sex is biological and gender is culturally constructed. According to Judith Butler, both sex and gender are constructed! “Sexed bodies can not signify without gender and the existence of sex prior to discourse and cultural imposition is only an effect of the functioning of gender.” In other words, sex and gender construct each other. This is important because Judith Butler wants people to trouble the categories of gender through performance and in a way remove the gendered pronouns.

In a way Butler is asking to reconstruct the English language in such a way that gender-based pronouns cease to exist. To her, that will be progress towards a less gender based society. The idea of how language and society intertwine, support and complicate each other has been discussed throughout the whole semester, but in Butler’s case she is literally giving us the first action to take, which she makes sound simple, yet I could not see working out for a very long time. For example, I think reteaching our current society the English pronouns would not be very welcoming (because people aren’t crazy about change) and so a change as big as that would take A lot of time. People tend to stick to what they know because it makes them feel comfortable. The moment something as common as the pronouns are challenged then people will get uncomfortable. An uncomfortable society leads to a restless a society, that acts out without thinking (most of the time violently). Point being, that what Butler calls out for is not a simple task, yet I do think she is correct that sex and gender are constructed. Society constructs what it means to be of a certain sex and how one should behave since they’re from a certain sex. Society is what claims that sex is biological so technically that means society chose that, which technically means it constructed that idea.