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Aula 6 JUDITh BUTLER META To introduce students to Judith Butler by placing some emphasis on her representativeness to feminism in general and gender studies in particular OBJETIVO To provide a sketch of her early life and education To make explicit a connection between her work and feminism To introduce students to a few issues addressed by her in one of her books pRERREQUISITO Notions about the formation and development of gender studies Notions of the main concepts employed in gender studies Familiarity with the relationship between literary theory and gender studies Luiz Eduardo Oliveira José Augusto Batista dos Santos 84 Literatura de Língua Inglesa V IntroductIon In lesson II you were introduced to some basic information on gender studies We talked about its a definition tenets as well as the main terms that part of the terminology commonly used by scholars from this field Additionally we outlined a brief history of its development Such knowl edge will be of great avail for this present lesson since we now intend to get you familiarized with a scholar whose work has yielded international acclaim for its contribution to gender studies in particular and feminism in general Furthermore other fields somehow linked to feminism also profited from her writings as it seems to be the case with Queer theory 1 to which her Gender Trouble a book to which we will come back later is considered as one of the founding texts Right from the outset we should make a remark on the reception her work has been met Since the 1990s when her Gender Trouble Feminism and the Subversion of Identity was first published Judith Butler experienced a rising wave of success which culminated one might say in her becoming an academic superstar Over 100000 copies of her book has been sold and she has been widely cited in various works produced under the influence of feminism Therefore despite the criticism that no scholar no matter how brilliant is unable to appease she is rather popular in academic circles as well as in activist movements of feminist orientation However one can not say likewise concerning the conservative sections of society according to which her work is the root of many social issues Her visit to Brazil at the beginning of this year for example provoked a hostile response from religious conservative groups whom accused her of creating a theory that has destabilizing families by her suggestion that gender identities are not as fixed or natural as it has been thought until recently Cover ofthefirstedition Ver glossário no final da Aula 85 Judith Butler Aula 6 In any case our primary interest is to provide a sketch of her life and some of the issues she addresses in her work which are of great value for gender studies and feminism not to get involved in the debate over the controversial nature of her arguments and assertions We will leave this for a future occasion when you are proficient in the matter early lIfe and educatIon Judith Pamela Butler was born in February 24th 1956 in Cleveland Ohio Her family was of Jewish ascendancy which might partly explain her later interest in Zionism of which she is an energetic critic and the IsrealiPalestinian conflict both of which she has explicitly addressed as in her 2012 book Parting Ways Jewishness and the Critique of Zionism Such circumstances will play a significant role in her introduction to philosophy According to her she first started to study philosophy in her synagogue under the supervision of a rabbi to whom she had been sent for having become a disciplinary problem in the Hebrew school class see interview at httpswwwyoutubecomwatchvRf4px4KyqbY Such experience allowed her to read widely and eventually provided her with a consistent foundation upon which she would build her intellectual career While in high school she attended two college courses on philosophy one being an introduction to philosophy and the other on ethics Later she went to Bennington and after two years she transferred to Yale where she received her BA in 1978 and her PhD in 1984 Her graduate student experience coincided with the emergence of womens studies as an academic discipline during which period she engaged herself in womens groups These exchanges certainly had some impact on her later produc The Theodor W Adorno Awardis present edto Judith Butler in 2012 Fonte httpsenwikipediaorgwiki TheodorWAdornoAwardmedia FileAdornopreis2012judithbutlerfelix semmelrothffm289jpg 86 Literatura de Língua Inglesa V tion since she has been a prominent supporter of such groups and an activist herself whose engagement manifests itself through her travelling around the world delivering talks on gender as well as other relevant topics appertaining sexuality From the 1990s onwards she has been the recipient of many prizes and awards that have rendered her success evident in academia In 2008 she was given the Mellon Award for her exemplary contributions to schol arship in the humanities Four years later her work was honored with the Theodor W Adorno Award a highly coveted German prize recognizing her accomplishments in gender sexuality critical theory and moral philosophy She has also been elected Doctorate of Letters honoris causa by a number of universities among which are that of Belgrade and Fribourg She is currently a Maxine Elliot Professor in the Department of Comparative Literature and the Program of Critical Theory where she has worked since the 1990s Let us turn now to one of her most influential work which has been referred to as one of the foundations to queer theory Brought to light in 1990 Gender Trouble Feminism and the Subversion of Identity advances her argument on gender performativity according to which gender is made by performance or by doing if you will We will come back to it later But first we must provide you with a brief account of some of the topics upon which she touches throughout the first chapter of the book which will be the target of our attention here She starts out by addressing a conceptual debate which has been brought to central stage by third wave feminism namely that of women as the subject of feminism The use of 87 Judith Butler Aula 6 this term women came under heavy criticism from in and outside feminist circles since it has been unable to represent individuals that do not belong to Western European societies In other words it has excluded or failed to address the diversified reality of thirdworld nonWestern women who do not feel represented by this oncesupposeduniversal category of woman Butler asserts that The term fails to be exhaustive not because a pregendered person transcends the specific paraphernalia of its gender but because gender is not always constituted coherently or consistently in different historical contexts and because gender intersects with racial class ethnic sexual and regional modalities of discursively constituted identities As a result it becomes impossible to separate out gender from the political and cultural intersections in which it is invariably produced and maintained 1999 6 Departing from this perspective therefore one cannot say that be ing a woman means the same everywhere anytime in history This realization has been the driving force behind the attacks directed against its alleged universality Along with the rejection of women as a unifying category many are also calling into question the assumption of a universal patriarchy that bears similar traces regardless of its location On this Butler 1999 6 says that The political assumption that there must be a universal basis for feminism one which must be found in an identity assumed to exist crossculturally often accompanies the notion that the oppression of women has some singular form discernible in the universal or hegemonic structure of patriarchy or masculine domination It is probably due to this problematic universal understanding of op pression against women that many Western women seem to be unable to look at a burka 2 as anything other than a symbol of male oppression of which oriental women are victims Is there really something universal about women oppression or women themselves What do you think of the following cartoon by Malcolm Evans Ver glossário no final da Aula 88 Literatura de Língua Inglesa V For her this desire for a unified stable and coherent subject for femi nism is no longer functional for which reason feminists must reformulate its representational politics on some other need Butler also challenges a common distinction that has been made by many feminists between sex and gender You were introduced to it in the second lesson of this course According to her such a binary under standing made it possible for feminists to assert that being born in a male body taken to be a natural fact might not ensue becoming a man which is considered a cultural construct and viceversa In other words sex was to nature as gender to culture Despite the apparent logic of this argument she seems to be suspicious of its veracity Understanding sex from such a dichotomic perspective prevents one to realize a very important aspect that sex is itself a gendered category Therefore it is problematic this radical splitting between these two terms Butler is of the opinion that sex is not necessarily a given an irrefut able natural fact as it has been purported by many people It is otherwise produced by scientific and juridical discourses that need such a binary divi sion that between sex and gender to survive as a prediscoursive fact To put it roughly she seems to believe that one cannot think of sex without the notion of gender since it is through the latter that the former is con structed She adds that If the immutable character of sex is contested perhaps this construct called sex is as culturally constructed as gender indeed perhaps it was always already gender with the consequence that the distinction between sex and gender turns out to be no distinction at all 199911 wwwhttparteseacaiwixsitecom 89 Judith Butler Aula 6 As you can see she suggests that sex is not as natural as one may think Her conclusion is that a distinction based on naturalness versus artificiality in the sense of being man made has no foundation Or she goes even further the very distinction between them seems to be a discursive stratagem whose aim is to conceal the unnatural character of the category of sex to which she concludes that It would make no sense then to define gender as the cultural interpretation of sex if sex itself is a gendered category Butler 199911 There is yet another concluding point she makes on such a distinction She argues that gender ought not to be conceived merely as the cultural inscription of meaning on a pregiven sex a juridical conception because it must also designate the very apparatus of production whereby the sexes themselves are established Butler 199911 She also points out the problematic circularity of the contemporary debate on gender Firstly she takes up Simone De Beauvoirs argumenta tion according to which one is not born a woman but becomes a woman Beauvoir says she seems to believe in a degree of agency in the construction of gender Butler on the other hand suggests that there is a determinism in the assigning of meanings to anatomically differentiated bodies which are taken as recipients of some sort of cultural law In the case described by Beauvoir there are discursive limits within which gender can be imagin able and realizable To put it differently there are discursive in the broader sense of the term boundaries that condition the assigning of meaning For example if one is born in a female body it is expected by society that one becomes a woman Such limitations are determined by a hegemonic cultural discourse based on binary thinking It is such discourse that labels an individual deviant if they have a female body yet behaves and feels like a man After making some remarks on Beauvoirs notion of gender she moves forward to point out some of Irigarys comments on the impossibility of representing women in a masculineoriented culture For her under such circumstances women will always be defined in relation to men as its opposite or negative Butler concludes that The problematic circularity of a feminist inquiry into gender is underscored by the presence of positions which on the one hand presume that gender is a secondary characteristic of persons and those which on the other hand argue that the very notion of the person positioned within language as a subject is a masculinist construction and prerogative which effectively excludes the structural and semantic possibility of a feminine gender BUTLER 1999 16 As you may have noticed so far we have placed some emphasis on the first chapter of Gender Trouble The reason behind this lies in the fact that the ques 90 Literatura de Língua Inglesa V tions she raises therein seem to be fundamental for those newly introduced to gender studies and the debates that have drawn scholars attention of late From this point onwards however we will continue make a few more remarks in a more cursory fashion since the issues upon which we intended to dwell are already listed above This being said you must bear in mind that Butler uses her first chapter to question the very central assumptions of feminist theory as well as the very language employed by it which she labels problematic by virtue of not being able to dialogue properly with issues of class ethnicity and sexuality At last she will propose a new feminism that is able to critique the notions that form the very basis of identity and gender In the following chapters Butler will occupy herself with more complex theoretical issues such as the critique of patriarchy the way it has been understood and used as a concept within feminism She will turn to the works of important figures such as the anthropologist Claude LéviStrauss whose notion of incest will be discussed the psychoanalyst Joan Riviere on whose description of womanli ness as a masquerade she will focus and eventually Freud In addition she will also allude to the feminist theorist Monique Wittigs thinking of lesbianism and Mary Douglass Purity and Danger 1966 all of which we shall not discuss here since it would prove besides our objectives for this class Towards the end of the book Butler will propose a new intersectional femi nism that is a feminism that will account for differences that have not been dealt with by other versions of feminism Differences such as those of race ethnicity religion class identity etc For feminism to work out it must take such elements into consideration under the pain of speaking for the interests of a particular group only For instance intersectional feminism must be aware that a black woman might have to deal on a daily basis not only with sexism but also racism Same thing could be said about a black poor woman whom in addition to being discriminated against on the grounds of her race and gender she might also face some prejudice by virtue of her social class Is it clear now what intersectional feminism is We really do hope so If not you can always go online and read a few articles about it This will certainly clarify your doubts on the matter There is yet one more point to which we have to come back that of gender performativity This is a central notion in Butlers work But what does it mean Is it possible to translate that into more simple terms We will tried to do it in a concise fashion The very term was coined by her in the book whose first chapter we focused on earlier According to her by gender performativity she means that gender is constituted through a repetition of acts behaviors roles whose play ing we are compelled to do by society Such acts and behaviors are not made by us but imposed on us from a very early age A child is made to comply with such acts and behaviors that are seen to express its gender properly The playing of such roles has become so naturalized that people think they are part of ones nature Butler says however that no one is born a certain gender but becomes or constitutes oneself into a given gender Constitutes is a key verb to understand what she says about the performative nature of gender According 91 Judith Butler Aula 6 to her we should not mistake performativity for performance To say that gender is a performance might mislead people to think that it is a costume that can be put on and taken off whenever one pleases It is not quite so Therefore gender is not simply a performance but performative We must then make evident what it means to be performative If some thing is performative it produces certain effects It doesaccomplishes something Butler used the notion of performativity present in the work by JL Austin Doing Things with Words in which he talks about the performative nature of some utterances A frequently mentioned example is that of the I do utterance in a wedding ceremony When someone says this they are not only showing their consent to marry their partner but also validating the wedding ceremony itself since after such a declaration they made into a spouse That is what it means to be performative Another example is when a judge declares someone guilty at a trial Such an utterance accomplishesproduces certain effects In this case it would be the condemnation of the defendant It is a performative speech act as Austin would put it Now how can this be applied to gender When Butler says that gender is performative she is actually asserting that by repeating certain acts roles and behaviors one not only communicates but also creates an identity If one is doing something that is usually taken as feminine one is not only showing other people one is a woman or of this gender but one is turning oneself into a given gender This has a lot to do with what Beauvoir said in her one is not born a woman but becomes one Butler argues in a similar vein one is not born a self one becomes or creates a self through social pressure which makes them conform to reiterate and repeat the norms through which one ends up being constituted It therefore by performing certain acts that a person constructs their own gender Is the notion of gender performativity any clearer now We hope it is conclusIon It is needless to say that there are many more interesting aspects about Butlers work which are worth reflecting upon Only this seems not to be the right moment to undertake such a challenging enterprise Our intent was to tell you a little about her life and focus on some of the issues she addresses in the first chapter of her Gender Trouble given their relevance for feminist theory and the debates that have been taking place in feminist academic circles You should also know that what has been presented is just a small sample of what you will find if you decide to read her work in a more detailed fashion Despite all the controversy surrounding her claims on gender the reading of her books given their farreaching influence seems to be an indispensable step if one wants to get involved in contemporary feminist debates or even understand what has been theorized about gender 92 Literatura de Língua Inglesa V resumo In this class you will see a short biographical sketch of Judith Pamela Butler born in February 24th 1956 in Cleveland Ohio An American phi losopher and gender theorist of international acclaim Judith Butler has influenced feminism queer and literary theory Her books in particular Gender Trouble Feminism and the Subversion of Identity 1990 have been widely used within feminist settings Amongst her main theoretical contributions is the notion of gender performativity ie the fact that gender is consti tuted through a repetition of acts or behaviors which are not natural but socially assigned In addition to offering some biographical notes we will also place some emphasis on the first chapter of the abovementioned book since it addresses issues of great relevance for feminist theory and contemporary debates on gender Also because we think this is a timely occasion to introduce you to such questions atIvIdades Write a summary of the main points discussed in this class Try not to exceed two pages actIvIty comment Esta atividade tem por finalidade principal fazer com que você construa uma síntese dos principais conteúdos desta aula O desenvolvimento desta habilidade será fundamental para estudos futuros próxIma aula Queer Theory 93 Judith Butler Aula 6 glossary 1 Queer theory is a field of critical theory that emerged in the early 1990s out of the fields of queer studies and womens studies Queer theory includes both queer readings of texts and the theorisation of queerness itself Heavily influenced by the work of Lauren Berlant Leo Bersani Judith Butler Lee Edelman Jack Halberstam and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick queer theory builds both upon feminist challenges to the idea that gender is part of the essential self and upon gay lesbian studies close examination of the socially constructed nature of sexual acts and identities Source httpsenwikipediaorgwikiQueertheory Burka 2 also known as chadri or paranja in Central Asia is an enveloping outer garment worn by women in some Islamic traditions to cover themselves in public which covers the body and the face source httpsenwikipediaorgwikiBurqa worKs By JudIth Butler 2015 Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly no prelo lan çamento previsto para Novembro 2015 Senses of the Subject 2013 Dispossession the performative in the political com Athena Athanasiou 2012 Parting Ways Jewishness and the Critique of Zionism 2009 Frames of War When Is Life Grievable 2007 Who Sings the NationState Language Politics Belonging com Gayatri Spivak 2005 Giving An Account of Oneself 2004 Undoing Gender 2004 Precarious Life The Powers of Mourning and Violence 2003 Women and Social Transformation com Elisabeth BeckGernsheim e Lidia Puigvert 2000 Contingency Hegemony UniversalityContingency Hegemony Universality Contemporary Dialogues on the Left com Ernesto Laclau e Slavoj Žižek 2000 Antigones Claim Kinship Between Life and Death 1997 The Psychic Life of Power Theories in Subjection 1997 Excitable Speech A Politics of the Performative 1993 Bodies That Matter On the Discursive Limits of Sex 1990 Gender Trouble Feminism and the Subversion of Identity 1987 Subjects of Desire Hegelian Reflections in TwentiethCentury France 94 Literatura de Língua Inglesa V referêncIas Beauvoir Simone 1971 The Second Sex Alfred A Knopf Butler J 1999 Gender trouble Feminism and the subversion of identity New York Routledge JL Austin How to Do Things with Words Second Edition Oxford Ox ford University Press 1975 HttpsptwikipediaorgwikiJudithButler RESUMO DA AULA 6 JUDITH BUTLER A presente aula tem como fito apresentar uma filósofa e teórica denomina Judith Butler reconhecida por suas relevantes contribuições ao feminismo como também à teoria Queer Sua obra mais influente Gender Trouble Feminism and the Subversion of Identity 1990 revolucionou os estudos de gênero à medida que questionou a naturalização das identidades e propôs que o gênero é construído por meio da repetição de atos socialmente regulados Butler desafiou conceitos tradicionais sobre feminismo e identidade propondo uma visão mais flexível e inclusiva A supracitada nasceu em 24 de fevereiro de 1956 em Cleveland Ohio em uma família de ascendência judaica Seu interesse por filosofia começou ainda jovem quando foi enviada a um rabino para estudar ética após apresentar problemas disciplinares na escola hebraica Essa experiência inicial influenciou sua trajetória acadêmica Em sua trajetória acadêmica ainda no ensino médio Butler participou de cursos universitários de filosofia aprofundandose em ética e pensamento crítico A estudiosa deu início aos seus estudos superiores em Bennington College e depois transferiuse para Yale onde concluiu sua graduação em 1978 e obteve seu doutorado em 1984 Durante sua pósgraduação envolveuse com grupos feministas e acadêmicos que discutiam o desenvolvimento dos estudos de gênero área que começava a se consolidar como disciplina A partir da década de 1990 Butler ganhou grande reconhecimento acadêmico e recebeu diversos prêmios incluindo o Mellon Award em 2008 e o Theodor W Adorno Award em 2012 Atualmente ela é professora na Universidade da Califórnia Berkeley onde leciona no Departamento de Literatura Comparada e no Programa de Teoria Crítica Um dos principais conceitos e contribuições teóricas propostos por Butler é a crítica ao feminismo tradicional e à categoria Mulher A supracitada argumentou que a categoria mulher frequentemente utilizada pelo feminismo não pode ser vista como um conceito universal e fixo pois ignora diferenças de classe raça e cultura Essa crítica parte da observação de que a definição de mulher adotada pelo feminismo ocidental exclui experiências de mulheres que não pertencem a esse contexto Butler propõe que a identidade de gênero é fluida e não pode ser reduzida a uma única definição Ademais a autora tece uma crítica à distinção entre sexo e gênero propondo que esta distinção foi aceita por muitos teóricos feministas possibilitando argumentar que ser do sexo masculino ou feminino não determinaria a identidade de gênero Todavia Butler contesta essa disparidade sugerindo que o próprio conceito de sexo já caracterizase como uma construção Há também muitas outras contribuições demasiadamente relevantes propostas por Butler que somaram aos estudos acadêmicos A aula apresenta a autora supracitada como uma das principais teóricas contemporâneas dos estudos de gênero e do feminismo A crítica tecida à noção fixa da mulher sua rejeição das distinção entre sexo e gênero como também sua teoria da performatividade desafiaram conceitos e escancararam caminhos à reflexão sobre identidade e poder Vale salientar também que a ideia de gênero não é vista como uma característica inata mas sim um processo processual e contínuo de construção social sendo o cerne dos debates feministas e na teoria Queer Outrossim a defesa de um feminismo interseccional reconhecido por múltiplas formas de opressão corrobora a busca por um movimento mais incluso e representativo Por fim a aula destaca que apesar das polêmicas e das críticas conservadoras Butler permanece uma figura essencial no campo dos estudos de gênero com grande influência tanto na academia quanto nos movimentos sociais