Judith Butler

1990 'Gender Trouble'

• Well known as a theorist of power, gender, sexuality and identity
• Butler argued that feminism had made a mistake by trying to assert that 'women' were a group with common characteristics and interests.
• That approach Butler said, performed 'an unwitting regulation and reification of gender relations' - reinforcing a binary view of gender relations in which human beings are divided into two clear-cut groups, women and men
• Rather than opening up possibilities for a person to form and choose their own individual identity, feminism had closed the options down.
• Feminists rejected idea that biology is destiny but developed an account of patriarchal culture which assumed masculine and feminine genders would inevitably be built, by culture upon 'male' and 'female' bodies, making the same destiny just as inescapable.
• Rather than being a fixed attribute in a person, gender should be seen as a fluid variable which shifts and changes in different contexts and at different times.
• 'The experience of a gendered, cultural identity is considered an achievement.'
• Sex is seen to cause gender which is seen to cause desire. This is seen as a kind of continuum
• Butler 'Smash the supposed links between these, so gender and desire are flexible, free-floating and not 'caused' by other stable factors'
• Butler - 'There is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender; ... identity is performatively constituted by the very "expressions" that are said to be its results.'
• Certain cultural configurations of gender have seized a hegemonic hold e.g. they have come to seem natural in our culture as it presently is but, she suggests it doesn't have to be that way
• Rather than proposing some utopian vision, with no idea of how we might get to such a state, Butler calls for subversive action in the present
• We all put on a gender performance, whether traditional or not, anyway, and so it is not a question of whether to do a gender performance, but what form that performance will take.
• By choosing to be different about it, we might work to change gender norms and the binary understanding of masculinity and femininity.

Queer Theory

• Queer theory is based upon an idea that our identities are not fixed and do not determine who we are
• Suggests it is 'meaningless' to talk about women or any other group, as many identities consist of so many elements, that to assume people can be seen collectively, on the basis of one shared charateristic is wrong
• It proposes we deliberately challenge all notions of fixed identity, in varied and non-predictable ways

Queer theory: Critics

• Some do not like queer theory as it is deemed unappropriate/deviant
• Tim Edwards 'Sexualities' - gave a list of reservations

1. For most people, their sexual identity isn't particularly fluid, it's suprisingly constant really
2. Queer theory cheats, by focusing on cultural texts, where it is easier to find gender or sexual ambiguties
3. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, for example, deconstructs sexual categories and dualisms in a bunch of 'elite' literary texts. Others have taken this to be an account of real social life
4. Judith Butler's followers similarly ignore real-life oppression and instead support their optimistic worldview by gazing at gender-blending movies and photography. Discrimination at home and at work, for everyday gay people, are forgotten about in this approach.
5. Butler's argument that gender exists at the level of discourse ignores its significance as 'an institutionalised social practice'.
6. The celebration of radical diversity may lead to individualism and fragmentation.
7. By celebrating difference, queer politics makes the 'gay' or 'lesbian' identity all too important.
8. Queer theory celebrates pleasure and therefore puts too much emphasis on sex. It also puts too much emphasis on the visual, and too much emphasis on the young and trendy.
   

Key Theoritical ideas for 'women in contemporary film' case study

Althusser's theory of interpretation
Laura Mulvey's notion of the male gaze

Louis Althusser

• Marxist arguing power exists in different forms
• Via repressive state apparatus (police, economy etc)
• Via ideological means e.g. culture, power of the media exerting a form of hegemony over the public and creating dominant ideologies

How does interpretation fit into this?

• Coined by Althusser in 1971, notion of interpretation is practice of 'misrecognising' yourself or 'false consciousness' - Marxist
• Image presented by the media is an ideal one, which is impossible for us to maintain

Do you feel that you 'misrecognise yourself?'

• Does the media construct identities for you?
• Does it reflect who you are or tell you?
• Do you become complicit in allowing yourself to be presented in certain ways, as a result of being a 'consumer' of the media?

What do Marxism and feminism have in common?

• Both challenge the cultural power of the media to represent reality

Laura Mulvey and the notion of 'the male gaze'

• Coined in 1975, height of feminist studies
• Argues camera is always from a male perspective and has led to objectification of women - binary approach to gender implies that men are active, rendering women as passive
• women were 'complicit' in their objectification, allowing themselves to be 'constructed by men' (similar to false consciousness)

What are arguments against theories?

• Marxist theories present cultural power of media as a form of control and not a flexible instrument, responding to changes
• Is feminism a dirty word? Are women, as a result of their biology all the same? This monolithic approach has been criticised as it does not take into account factors like ethinicity and age
• Critics who assert that we live in a post feminist age, and sexism of the past is now only presented in an ironical way
• David Gauntlett - 'We live in a post traditional society'