In your last post, you asked some questions:
>What does she [Judith Butler] mean by the 'materiality of sex'. What for that
>matter does she mean by sex? The act, or the biologicality of certain forms
>of being? Is there any need for a sex gender distinction?
[I realize these may not be central to the thrust of your ongoing discussion
with Malcolm and Quetzil, but since I'm not at all interested in debating
the actuality of the past, I thought I would respond to what did interest
me. You may have intended these as rhetorical questions-- if so, please
forgive my over-earnest reading of your post, and disregard this reply]
When Butler talks about 'sex', I beleive she's refering to what you call
"the biologicality of certains forms of being", i.e. peoples' bodies. She
does not mean *fucking*.
On the need for the sex/gender distinction:
* you* may not need this distinction. But many Anglo-American feminists need
it precisely because such a distinction allows us to distinguish between
stuff that might be "naturally female" vs. something that is a product of
socially-constructed "femininity". The sex /gender distinction is useful
because it allows women like my aquaintence Jill to say things like "sex is
the tits and gender is the bra". Feminists find this useful because it
allows us to drive a wedge between what we are told women *should* be, and
what we actually *are* (or, more to the point, what we might be able to
become). In other words, the sex/gender distinction can help feminists make
arguments about the nature of "woman" in such a way that feminist causes
are advanced.
(Depending on your political point of view, you may or may not find this
necessary, useful, or even interesting. However, that's got little to do
with the fact other people may find it to be all of those things).
_Gender Trouble_ tries to re-evaluate this strategy, and comes to the
conclusion that the sex/gender distinction doesn't actually solve the
problem it attempts to solve-- Butler argues that what were questions of
sex are simply deferred onto gender : basically, using this way out of the
problem amounts to sweeping the dirt off the rug into the hall, and from the
hall to underneath the same rug. Or as Butler puts it: " the distinction
between sex and gender turns out to be no distinction at all" (p. 7). In
other words, she argues that the sex/gender distinction has only limited
usefulness, and should be discarded. She then goes on to argue that there
are other ways to (attempt to) escape the binary sex/gender system that do
not involve recourse to such dubious categories as "the natural". See the
concluding chapter in _Gender Trouble_ : "From Parody to Politcs" for more
on her suggestions.
I hope that my attempt to answer your questions has been satisfying. Again,
my apologies if I've misunderstood your intentions-- it's hard enought to
recognize certain rhtorical devices when you're sitting in the same room as
someone; I'm afraid without such non-verbal clues, I'm rather
conversationally inept.
OH, BTW, the Somer Brodribbs book you mention _Nothing Matters_ . . . do you
have a full citation for it? It sounds interesting.
not fighting any power at all, just e-mailing people,
chloe
[OK now before any of you armchair philosophers out there in
foucault-mailing-list-land decide to bombast me with posts asking "what do
you mean, binary/sex gender system?", and "what do you mean 'the dubious
category of the natural'", and "why would anyone want to challenge gender
roles anyway?" and other such remarks, I'm telling you in advance that I'm
not going to discuss them here or anywhere else. Try alt.politics.feminism,
I'm sure someone there will rise to the bait. :-)]
***************************************************************
"The women who hate me cut me
as men can't Men don't count.
I can handle men. Never expected better
of any man anyway.
But the women,
shallow-cheeked young girls the world was made for
safe little girls who think nothing of bravado
who never got over by playing it tough" Dorothy Allison
***************************************************************
>What does she [Judith Butler] mean by the 'materiality of sex'. What for that
>matter does she mean by sex? The act, or the biologicality of certain forms
>of being? Is there any need for a sex gender distinction?
[I realize these may not be central to the thrust of your ongoing discussion
with Malcolm and Quetzil, but since I'm not at all interested in debating
the actuality of the past, I thought I would respond to what did interest
me. You may have intended these as rhetorical questions-- if so, please
forgive my over-earnest reading of your post, and disregard this reply]
When Butler talks about 'sex', I beleive she's refering to what you call
"the biologicality of certains forms of being", i.e. peoples' bodies. She
does not mean *fucking*.
On the need for the sex/gender distinction:
* you* may not need this distinction. But many Anglo-American feminists need
it precisely because such a distinction allows us to distinguish between
stuff that might be "naturally female" vs. something that is a product of
socially-constructed "femininity". The sex /gender distinction is useful
because it allows women like my aquaintence Jill to say things like "sex is
the tits and gender is the bra". Feminists find this useful because it
allows us to drive a wedge between what we are told women *should* be, and
what we actually *are* (or, more to the point, what we might be able to
become). In other words, the sex/gender distinction can help feminists make
arguments about the nature of "woman" in such a way that feminist causes
are advanced.
(Depending on your political point of view, you may or may not find this
necessary, useful, or even interesting. However, that's got little to do
with the fact other people may find it to be all of those things).
_Gender Trouble_ tries to re-evaluate this strategy, and comes to the
conclusion that the sex/gender distinction doesn't actually solve the
problem it attempts to solve-- Butler argues that what were questions of
sex are simply deferred onto gender : basically, using this way out of the
problem amounts to sweeping the dirt off the rug into the hall, and from the
hall to underneath the same rug. Or as Butler puts it: " the distinction
between sex and gender turns out to be no distinction at all" (p. 7). In
other words, she argues that the sex/gender distinction has only limited
usefulness, and should be discarded. She then goes on to argue that there
are other ways to (attempt to) escape the binary sex/gender system that do
not involve recourse to such dubious categories as "the natural". See the
concluding chapter in _Gender Trouble_ : "From Parody to Politcs" for more
on her suggestions.
I hope that my attempt to answer your questions has been satisfying. Again,
my apologies if I've misunderstood your intentions-- it's hard enought to
recognize certain rhtorical devices when you're sitting in the same room as
someone; I'm afraid without such non-verbal clues, I'm rather
conversationally inept.
OH, BTW, the Somer Brodribbs book you mention _Nothing Matters_ . . . do you
have a full citation for it? It sounds interesting.
not fighting any power at all, just e-mailing people,
chloe
[OK now before any of you armchair philosophers out there in
foucault-mailing-list-land decide to bombast me with posts asking "what do
you mean, binary/sex gender system?", and "what do you mean 'the dubious
category of the natural'", and "why would anyone want to challenge gender
roles anyway?" and other such remarks, I'm telling you in advance that I'm
not going to discuss them here or anywhere else. Try alt.politics.feminism,
I'm sure someone there will rise to the bait. :-)]
***************************************************************
"The women who hate me cut me
as men can't Men don't count.
I can handle men. Never expected better
of any man anyway.
But the women,
shallow-cheeked young girls the world was made for
safe little girls who think nothing of bravado
who never got over by playing it tough" Dorothy Allison
***************************************************************