Monday, October 6, 2008
Butler- Subject of Feminism?
In reading Butler's Gender Trouble, I became extremely puzzled by what she is trying to say about subjects. On page four Butler writes, "Indeed, the question of women as the subject of feminism raises the possibility that there may not be a subject who stands 'before' the law, awaiting representation in or by the law." This quote seems very problematic to me. To me, this implies that the category of women has been too misrepresented to fit into our legal system; which still seems problematic. Did anyone else get confused by this, or did anyone else completely understand?
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4 comments:
I'm sure you already talked this out in class today, I'm sad to have missed it... Anyways, I think that what Butler is trying to get at is that the whole categorization of sexes, the dialect itself, the entire institution of naming binaries is the problem. Butler says that our formation of language and politics that represent "women" actually produces the subject of "woman". Butler says that she is "discursively constituted by the very political system that is supposed to facilitate its emancipation" (3). Does Butler think it is possible to live outside our social and political institutions? Outside the gendered boundaries produced by these systems of power? What exactly do you find problematic with this quote? Do you think that the category of "women" has been represented appropriately in our legal system?
I don't think it is necessarily possible to transcend ideology, which are established through and by institutions. However, there seems to always be room for agency even in language which acts as the very roots of ideals.
With that said, we are faced with the problem of representation as Butler puts it in her opening chapter to "The Psychic Life of Power", that in a sense we gain our subjectivity through subjection.
Does this mean we need to reconsider the very idea of what it is to be subject, questioning the "I" which comes to constitute endless categories of identity such as gender? Is this even possible?
To the last question, I don't think the legal system has represented women appropriately. On a basic level there are obviously issues of wage distribution, welfare, etc. however, is it even possible to represent "women" without the representation of categories of race, class, age, sexuality, etc.
Finally, I don't think it is possible for representation to exist fully through any kind of legal system (this is not to abolish law) or even more broadly outside of institutions. There always seems to be an outlier of some sort, moreover, I think we need to look at identity as fluid rather than stagnant. This approach wouldn't be able to fully represent people but I think it would be able to constantly readjust itself in order to make room for marginalized peoples in a sense providing more room for agency...
Any thoughts??
Angelo, I totally agree with looking at gender as fluid rather than stagnant, dynamic rather than static. I think constantly reconsidering what it means to be a subject within the framework that constructs us, realizing the forces which help produce us, examining the linguistic trends that help us chop up the world into understandable and graspable pieces, is very important in constantly re-shaping how we talk about things in relation to how they are. As Butler points out, dialogue is culturally specific and historically bound. We need to interrogate the power relations which condition and limit dialogue possibilities. How is this even possible though? If we can't pinpoint the enemy, who do we blame and what do we change? Do we need someone/something to blame in order to fix this situation? Is it only a matter of constantly reconstructing our dialogue? Constantly reflecting on how we are constructing categories which produce subjects?
I don't think there is any enemy to pinpoint nor do I think we can seperate that enemy from ourselves in a sense. Considering power acts through us I don't think we can really get "ahead of the game" nor fix the problem. Once we think we fix a problem with some kind of "radical practice" it becomes stuck in an ideology, there is no answer to something fluid.
Yes, it does seem to be a matter of constant interrogation of how subject are produced. However, what does this interrogation entail? There seems to be some problematics in recent "liberal" reforms of representation that I mentioned in my previous posting on Butler. I think one way to interrogate/discuss the production of bodies is to look into the production of labour...
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