Flexner Book Club Blog

Living and working in New York City since May has made me hyper-aware of my body—more so than anywhere else I have lived. From being packed into a subway car like a sardine every morning to worrying about the “business casual” balance when getting dressed, the boundaries and presentation of my body have played a leading role in my thoughts this summer, to my dismay. For this reason, I greatly enjoyed sitting down with The Judith Butler Reader and reading the first essay, “Variations on Sex and Gender,” in which the centrality of the body to human experience and its role in gender presentation is explored.

“Variations on Sex and Gender” sparked my thinking about a matter I have mulled over several times before, removed from any Butler reading. This matter is my question about gender deviance and if one can ever be truly deviant, as projects of deviance seem to merely borrow from gender norms, but “rearrange” or present them in a seemingly rebellious nature. For example, even androgyny operates relative to gender norms because enacting it entails removing any definitively “male” or “female” markers from one’s gender performance. Thus, although the act of androgyny is deviant in its escape from the gender binary, it still relies on constraining norms to inform its construction.

My questions about exactly how deviant one can be were partially answered by Butler’s discussion of gender as choice on page 26 of the reader. Furthering Beauvoir’s work, Butler explores the vast “social constraints upon gender compliance and deviation…” (27). I am fairly certain Butler confirms my worry that in order to adopt a specific type of body—normative or deviant—you are operating in “a world of already established corporeal styles” and either reformulating or reproducing these predefined “styles” of gender (26). Thus, gender and gender deviance seem to be a choice, but a choice that operates within the boundaries of gender norms. The fluidity of gender one can explore is perhaps deceiving because, as Butler states, it is “a freedom made burdensome through social constraint” (27).

Despite the help from Butler in “Variations on Sex and Gender,” I am still perplexed and inquisitive about forms of gender deviance and exactly how deviant they can be, but consider gender deviance to be a valuable springboard for social progress, regardless of the extent to which it operates in relation to gender norms.

In “Variations on Sex and Gender,” Judith Butler argues that gender is a fiction, albeit a compelling fiction “disguised . . . as natural truth”(37). Butler debunks the myth of gender by explaining how it has sustained and continues to sustain itself as a convincing cultural organizer. “Human existence is always a gendered existence” (27) – one cannot exist without having a gender category imposed on one’s self by others, who are informed by their cultural moment and context. If this imposition doesn’t begin in utero – what pregnant mother isn’t repeatedly asked, “Do you know the sex yet?” – it definitely begins at birth, when parents are told, “It’s a boy!” or “It’s a girl!”

These seemingly only available options for what a child “is” at birth are considered to be of the utmost importance: “we assume that . . . [anatomical] traits will in some sense determine th[e] child’s social destiny, and that destiny . . . is structured by a gender system” (31). Thus, there is a never a time when we’re not gendered – traits that a structuring system has chosen to be the most salient (i. e. anatomical parts) become seemingly and inevitably tied to an inescapable gendered future. Indeed, gender becomes a “destiny,” determined by both the body and by those who witness and categorize that body.

But these impositions at birth do not create gender in that moment. Rather, “gender is . . . an origination activity incessantly taking place” (26). Gender is never “fixed in form” (26) and thus not a “fixed” essence – rather, gender is defined not as something that constitutes our being but rather as something that our actions constitute across time. That gender is “incessantly taking place” points to an “incessant” un-fixedness of gender: if gender is always happening, then it cannot be considered constant.

This notion of gender not being constant and thus potentially being in flux brings up a number of questions for me about gender’s generative (in)capabilities. Does gender’s constant motion allow for space, expansion within gender categories (even if still restricted by these very categories)? Or is the “incessant” motion an illusion and actually motionless, merely repetition of the same acts that constitute gender without expanding available norms? If there is space for “man” and “woman” to be constituted by more acts, is this capacity undermined by the fact that there will always be a limit (i. e. the very demarcation of “man” and “woman”)? Are we constantly negotiating these limits? Does negotiation end, or does there come a point when new limits and categories need to be conceptualized?

Butler understands the body that enacts gender as situated in culture and history, but this situated-ness might not necessarily foreclose possibilities for expansion. Butler writes, “The body . . . interpret[s] anew a historical set of interpretations . . . [and] becomes a peculiar nexus of culture and choice . . . ‘existing’ one’s body becomes a personal way of taking up and reinterpreting received gender norms” (28-9). While “choice” is always informed by culture and history, that there is room for individuals to “tak[e] up and reinterpret received gender norms” suggests a possibility for expansion within already designated categories of gender. The “re” in “reinterpretation” creates space for new interpretations, and thus newly defined acts that constitute gender.

Looking at different aspects of history reveal that this has indeed been the case for centuries. Those performative acts that constitute a “woman” in 2011 are not the acts that would have constituted a recognizable or socially sanctioned “woman” in others times and places. While a small example, clothing is one way gender is enacted. Katharine Hepburn ’28 was an outlandish woman in her time for wearing trousers (FYI, a Jeopardy! clue from earlier this week informed me that they were tailored by Brooks Brothers). Nowadays, if a Mawrtyr wears a dress to class, she is remarkably distinct from her sweatpants-clad classmates. While still restricted by the category itself, the boundaries and contours of “woman” and “man” are not necessarily as fixed as they may seem in a given time and place. While how much these boundaries change (and how much they can change) are still questions, the gradual reinterpretation of gender norms across time has allowed for a continually shifting repertoire of acts that constitute “man” and “woman.”

While it may be the case, then, that “to choose a gender is to interpret received gender norms in a way that reproduces and organizes them anew” (26), how “anew” it can be organized within a cultural system is questionable since the ultimate aim of gender is “to renew a cultural history in one’s own corporeal terms” (26). If one can only “renew” gender within the system that has both endowed one with gender norms and dehumanizes those who don’t act in accordance to those norms, “organizing [norms] anew” may be more likely to reproduce those norms rather than reinterpret those norms. As long as those norms are there and constantly “renewed” across time (thus making anything besides the norm unavailable), then possibility for ways of acting beyond those norms are limited.

So is there a way to expand beyond those norms? Butler warns us that “transcendence of sex altogether” (32) is not the route to smashing the gender binary. Getting “beyond” (32) gender is problematic because its very “beyondness” would be both defined by and still in relation to those structures that gender would supposedly transcend. Butler posits that another way to achieve the “dissolution of binary restrictions [is] through the proliferation of genders” (32). Energies must be directed toward “cultural innovation rather than myths of transcendence” (32).

But what kind of “cultural innovation” could lead to the “proliferation of genders?” If culture can define the norm, does innovation mean allowing for gendered acts that are deviations from the norm to become visible and thus possible to be re-enacted by individuals? Can these alternative gendered acts ever become mainstream, or must they (or will they) always be characterized by their divergence from the norm?

The possibility of expanding categories, as I began to mull above, seems a way to create space within given categories, but when might acts actually begin to break the bounds of one category and become one of these newly proliferated genders?

While gender is defined by acts, gender is still labeled, and it’s the naming of the gender that helps organize its constitutive acts. Is there a way to transcend category? Is that even the point? If gender is the acts that constitute it, then it already exists beyond the categories. Are the acts and the categorization of these acts inextricably linked? Does “cultural innovation” necessitate categories?

Butler suggests that we may come to a time when “individual women do not recognize themselves in the theories that explain their unsurpassable essences to them” (37) – but if gender is constantly informed by its cultural context which is informed by history, then is it ever actually possible for individuals to get to a place where they wouldn’t “recognize [herself] in the theories” that tell them who they are (or who they should be)? Gender never stops – that it is “incessant” means that changes and expansion can happen gradually, making this place of non-recognition seem to be an impossibility. As gender happens, norms shift and are continually transmitted, making one seemingly always capable of recognizing themselves (or who they are told they should become) in culturally prescribed norms. But if the acts that constitute the norm can proliferate, then perhaps that is how gender as an act (even if not as a category) can proliferate.

You should know that I am a feminist. What does that mean? For one thing, it means that when a friend tells me about a colleague who compares a challenging situation to having “a nagging wife,” and she tells me that her response was that she had neither been nor had a nagging wife and therefore did not follow his metaphor, I feel anger for the situation and pride for my friend. We defend our gender in the face of foolish comments (and oppressive behavior)—but not without wondering, after all this time, why we still have to do so.

I am fortunate that in my daily life I rarely have to show my Feminist badge. I rarely encounter asides, jokes or direct statements belittling women. In fact, I occupy a place where power and privilege are not easily assigned to one sex. The lines of gender are not clearly drawn, gender is not definitive, and in lieu of a binary, I embrace a continuum.

Yet, gender questions pervade daily life, sometimes in silly ways. A few years ago, we brought home a black Lab puppy, Woofie. Named after a babyhood toy of our son’s, the dog had neither a gender-defining name nor any gender-associated colors for her leash or collar. All of this was coincidental rather than intentional; it was only in meeting strangers that I even paid attention to the genderization of our dog. I was amazed how many people asked, when encountering Woofie, “Is it a boy or a girl?” My trick was to reply, “She’s gender ambiguous.” I couldn’t carry my politicizing of Woofie’s body to its fullest, because I did start my statement with “she.” But it was interesting to watch people’s reaction to my refusal to tell them what they thought mattered. Did it matter? Usually, people laughed, seeming to acknowledge that their question had been irrelevant. Whereas Butler’s examination of Beauvoir, Sartre and Descartes’ thinking is focused on sex and gender variations of humans, not dogs, I can nevertheless report that I enjoyed the subversive and liberating feelings from these encounters with canine gender non-conformity.

And, of course, gender comes up in non-silly ways too. I have a human friend who is intersex. Did my friend find, as Butler asserts, that “[i]t is not possible to exist in a socially meaningful sense outside of established gender norms”? (27) After going through the first decades of life conforming to established gender norms, and then deviating from those norms somewhat, this friend learned quite late about having been born intersex. How did this new knowledge impact my friend’s “existing” the body? How did the new information affect my friend’s “living one’s body in the world”? (26)

And how can we navigate some of these more complex issues if people are still making smarmy remarks about women?

“I’m in gender jail.”

I heard this from a friend of mine recently, as she expressed her anguish and frustration with the competing demands of new parenthood, her marriage, and her professional ambition. I thought about this while reading the first essay in the Butler reader, “Variations on Sex and Gender: Beauvoir, Wittig, and Foucault.” Unpacking Simone de Beauvoir’s famous statement that “one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman,” Butler asserts that gender is inescapable and continuously enacted. There is no such thing as an ungendered existence, or even an ungendered moment of existence.  Butler explodes the idea that sex is biologically located in our bodies and that gender is a series of cultural constructs.  Instead, we embody ourselves in order to navigate and negotiate past and present (and future) cultural norms.

On one hand, our bodies are specific and real “situations,” and they are loaded with historical ideas and expectations (for example, that men’s bodies are perfect vessels for the intellect; women’s bodies are leaking vessels for nurturing). On the other hand, our bodies are the medium for interpreting, creating, and responding to these myriad historical and cultural beliefs and presumptions.  In this way, one “becomes” a woman or a man.  This becoming is an active, purposeful way for us to be in the world, but it is also effortful and unending. Furthermore, this implies a kind of choice and possibility: that we actively choose our gender. Yet this is a false choice and a false set of possibilities: there is no choice outside of the fairly limited social norms for gender roles.

Butler’s compelling (though undeveloped) example demonstrating the rigidity of choices available to us is motherhood. We think of motherhood as biological and instinctual, whether we talk about the “maternal instinct” or the biological “fact” that oxytocin is released by the brain immediately post-partum, causing a mother to bond with her infant. It is too terrifying and destabilizing to think of it otherwise, as a choice that a woman makes to love and nurture her child. The recent fascination and obsession over the trial of Casey Anthony for allegedly murdering her toddler, Caylee, vividly illustrates this terror. The media attention to Casey Anthony is grounded in her gender: she is Medea, the monstrous mother.

When my friend complained to me that she felt like she was in prison, it wasn’t because she had no control over her time, or because she couldn’t easily leave her house, it was because she was tired of mouthing platitudes she didn’t feel. She had just returned to work, and she was elated to have adult conversations and do work she finds fulfilling and meaningful. Yet she couldn’t show her enthusiasm to her family, her friends, her parenting group, or even her co-workers, all of whom wanted her to talk about how difficult it must be for her to leave her child in the care of paid caregivers. But her difficulty was in conforming to a rigid set of gender expectations that left her feeling trapped and inauthentic.

Writing about Judith Butler after graduating from colleges turns out to be just as difficult as writing about Judith Butler while in college. Instead of facing up to the daunting task, I procrastinated by watching RuPaul’s Drag Race. Every. Single. Season. And when I finally decided to take a stab at the first essay in our Reader, I found RuPaul’s Drag Race all over the place.

For those who don’t know, RuPaul’s Drag Race (RPDR) is a reality TV-show on the queer-themed TV cable channel, Logo. Superstar RuPaul brings on a dozen virtually unknown drag queens from across the US to strut their stuff in an attempt to become the next drag superstar. They face weekly challenges where they have to do anything from write and record an original song, star in a motivational video for the troops, or design and wear an outfit completely out of hair, all while trying to impress RuPaul with their charisma, uniqueness, nerve, and talent.

At first, I thought RPDR was pretty radical–for a reality show, anyway. The drag queens, while all biologically male, constantly refer to each other as “she” and “her.” RuPaul appears on the show both in and out of drag, and there is complete transparency in the drag process; we see all the contestants put on their make-up, wigs, costumes, and various drag-specific accessories. There is relatively open discussion of gay sex and relationships, and several drag queens talk about being HIV+.

In a world where reality TV is usually mindless brain candy, RPDR seems like departure from the stereotypical notions of gender we’ve come to expect on trashy TV. But disappointingly, examining RPDR through the lens of Butler’s gender theory reveals that this isn’t actually the case.

In discussing terminology surrounding gender and choice, Butler explains the process of embodying a certain gender. She says, “Becoming a gender is an impulsive yet mindful process of interpreting a cultural reality laden with sanctions, taboos and prescriptions” (Variations on Sex and Gender, p. 26). This is precisely what many of the drag queens on RPDR are doing. Are they radically reinventing what it means to be female? No. Many contestants on RPDR take stereotypical markers of femininity to extremes. This means more make-up, huge breasts, the highest heels, and the thinnest body. If anything, this is a radical conformity to traditional notions of what women should be–that is, fitting a stereotypical, heterosexual male fantasy to a T. Ironically, on RPDR, this typically straight male fantasy is mapped out on the body of a gay man.

Some might argue that the drag queens of RPDR expand on and redefine traditional notions of gender. If only this was the case. Butler explains the connections between gender and gender norms, saying, “Less a radical act of creation, gender is a tacit project to renew a cultural history in one’s own corproeal terms” (Variations on Sex and Gender, p.26).  RuPaul’s drag queen contestants are manipulating traditional notions of femininity, whether it be large breasts or high heels, and literally creating new bodies for themselves based on these norms. Instead of redefining gender or gender expression for themselves, they reinforce cultural notions of what it means to be a pretty girl (take a look to see  what I mean).

RuPaul’s Drag Race certainly has radical potential, but it is not in the way that the contestants construct their gender identities. At the end of the day, most successful contestants perform as Dolly Parton-esque caricatures*. There is nothing radical about that.

*Of course, there are drag queens on RPDR that don’t fit this mold and in fact, one such drag queen won the competition in the previous season. Hopefully this is a trend that will continue.