On Tue, 7 May 1996, Gregory A. Coolidge wrote:
> you are quite correct on two accounts. Butler does deny that there is
> anything
> which could be called the nature of Woman, and she clearly is, despite
> her denial, a post-structuralist. What makes her a post-structuralist is that
> she appropriates the non-essential, socially constructed subject of Foucault
> (the archetype post-structuralist) as the foundation of her theoretical
> apparatus. This is quite apparent in 'Bodies That Matter", where she
> pays homage to Foucualt, in the introduction, and where she strongly
> maintains that there is absolutely no essential humanness which determines
> one's sex. One's sex(identities, desires, behaviors) are entirely social
> constructions (although one's sex is not the exact duplicate of any particualr
> norms, practices, etc.).
I'm not sure where Judith Butler's argument ends here and where
yours begins, but I find the above simplistic and totalizing. Of course
one's sex is not entirely composed of "social constructions-" what about X
and Y chromosomes, sex hormones, sperm and eggs, genitalia, etc.? You
have simply avoided the age-old nature/nurture problem and asserted a
totalitarianism of "nurture." Sexual "identities, desires, behaviors"
occur at the nexus of one's biology and one's societal constructions: and
an analysis of these constructions can no better contain sexual behavior
than a biological reduction can contain the permutations of society and
its "constructions."
To disagree
> with an earlier post, 'fucking' (how one acts sexually, with whom, and for
> what reasons) is a part of one's 'sex' (one's sexuality) that is created
> as a material element within a body that is inundated by power.
It is dangerous here to equate "sex" with "sexuality"...isn't that
precisley what Foucault suggests we avoid doing in the first volume of
H.S.? Though I agree to some extent that "how one acts sexually, with
whom, and for what reasons" is to SOME extent (again we should be aware of
both biology and society) created by power structures acting within the
body, I'm not sure why you call this creation a "material element."
Butler
> maintains that heterosexuality (fucking only those of the opposite sex) is
> the dominant discursive formation in Western society, although it is not
> complete in its hegemony, since many diverse sexualities reveal themselves
> (are performed) within the formations of power.
Isn't heterosexuality also the dominant discursive formation within the
physio-chemical "language" of biology, as well as within "Eastern",
"tribal" and "native" societies?
> >
>
Jed Olson
Univ. of Calif, San Francisco
> you are quite correct on two accounts. Butler does deny that there is
> anything
> which could be called the nature of Woman, and she clearly is, despite
> her denial, a post-structuralist. What makes her a post-structuralist is that
> she appropriates the non-essential, socially constructed subject of Foucault
> (the archetype post-structuralist) as the foundation of her theoretical
> apparatus. This is quite apparent in 'Bodies That Matter", where she
> pays homage to Foucualt, in the introduction, and where she strongly
> maintains that there is absolutely no essential humanness which determines
> one's sex. One's sex(identities, desires, behaviors) are entirely social
> constructions (although one's sex is not the exact duplicate of any particualr
> norms, practices, etc.).
I'm not sure where Judith Butler's argument ends here and where
yours begins, but I find the above simplistic and totalizing. Of course
one's sex is not entirely composed of "social constructions-" what about X
and Y chromosomes, sex hormones, sperm and eggs, genitalia, etc.? You
have simply avoided the age-old nature/nurture problem and asserted a
totalitarianism of "nurture." Sexual "identities, desires, behaviors"
occur at the nexus of one's biology and one's societal constructions: and
an analysis of these constructions can no better contain sexual behavior
than a biological reduction can contain the permutations of society and
its "constructions."
To disagree
> with an earlier post, 'fucking' (how one acts sexually, with whom, and for
> what reasons) is a part of one's 'sex' (one's sexuality) that is created
> as a material element within a body that is inundated by power.
It is dangerous here to equate "sex" with "sexuality"...isn't that
precisley what Foucault suggests we avoid doing in the first volume of
H.S.? Though I agree to some extent that "how one acts sexually, with
whom, and for what reasons" is to SOME extent (again we should be aware of
both biology and society) created by power structures acting within the
body, I'm not sure why you call this creation a "material element."
Butler
> maintains that heterosexuality (fucking only those of the opposite sex) is
> the dominant discursive formation in Western society, although it is not
> complete in its hegemony, since many diverse sexualities reveal themselves
> (are performed) within the formations of power.
Isn't heterosexuality also the dominant discursive formation within the
physio-chemical "language" of biology, as well as within "Eastern",
"tribal" and "native" societies?
> >
>
Jed Olson
Univ. of Calif, San Francisco