Today's class follow up

I wanted to follow up a bit on Sosi's great question -

why does Butler want to dismantle the notion of "sex" as a fact or truth -why does she want to think of identity, at this very fundamental level, as also constructed rather than innate.

I think that when we consider men and women as stable entities, even if we layer "constructed gender" over them, we maintain an idea of there being a "norm" on top of which there can be deviation or disruption. Butler wants to argue that when we consider people or behaviors that fall outside of the norm as "disruptions" or "deviations" we do so as a way to STABILIZE, rather than truly dismantle, the concept of the norm to begin with. If transgendered or otherly-gendered, or non-normatively gendered (or non-normatively desiring) people are not to be considered as "other," as merely "disruptions," then we must get rid of the whole notion of there being stable norms from which some might deviate.

The very radical notion at the base of her theory is the that any faith we have in a stable immutable identity is false. All aspects of identity are constructed, or better, in the process of being constructed. Thus, we perform selves at all times. This allows for a kind of agency, but it also does not allow for a concrete self who is "doing" the performance. Very destabilizing indeed. And very different from, say, playing a part, or pretending.

Also, I'm going to the experts with the question about the difference b/w Cixous and Irigaray. I will let you know what I find out, if anything, from my colleagues. If you wish to read further on either of these thinkers, you might begin by going to JSTOR where you will find essays that date from the mid 70s to the present. From our reading, Irigaray is more concerned with redefining female sexuality and female subjectivity, in rethinking Lacanian theory from a feminist perspective. Cixous's work includes a this as well, but presses forward into thinking about writing itself, thinks about how feminine writing can work to express feminine subjectivity and in doing so become a site of liberation. We will understand this idea more deeply as we read into Kristeva.

Julie