Judith Butler: Part 1/6

@cikuuzis Put simply, Google realises that 'men are men' is grammatically incorrect - men are MALE (adjectival form), not 'men' (nominalised form). If you instead write 'men are MALE and men should clean the house', it will not correct you. Why? It is grammatically correct. Simple. There isn't any reflection of some secret patriarchy constructed into a bloody search engine. 'Men are men' does not make sense, it isn't going to be prevalent in a corpus search engine.

@DrownedBeliefs Type in translate.google.com this sentence "men are men and men should clean the house". You will see that Google will ask you "Did you mean man are man and WOMAN must clean the house"? It is funny but also means that there is discourse that still sustains this idea no matter in which area you are living.

@cikuuzis Nobody is saying you can't have an opinion on this stuff. We all do. Then again, how can one expect to change viewpoints among those with whom one agrees with? I think most people agree that third world subjugation of women is a bad thing, but we aren't the people who need a talking to about it. This leads me to believe, indeed, that Butler DOES have a problem with the Western hegemony, but, as mentioned, cannot identity what exactly that problem is, hence my dislike.

@cikuuzis You've pretty much proved my point there. You've said it yourself - these AREN'T problems in the 'Western' world. Doesn't this beg the question of WHY we are being told to disestablish the hegemony here, then, when we already have, dare I say, equality? You don't argue with those who agree with you; you don't bite the hand that feeds. She's directing her ideology at the wrong people, if indeed she believes as you say she does.

@DrownedBeliefs According to your view if i am not starving then i can not say that there is problems with poverty. Or in this case if i am not a subject of sexual and/or gender oppression than everything is cool in the world. Worlds does not end with USA or western Europe where these problems are really not a big issue but there are places where there are real problems that stems from these repressive hegemonic ideas.

@DrownedBeliefs Of course in 21th century the level of tolerance is much higher than it was but still world is not that shiny place that you imagine. I am from eastern Europe, ex Soviet block and here still it is dangerous to be, for example, homosexual because here the hegemonic idea that heterosexuality is "natural" prevails and gay people often are victims of hate crimes. You think that if something is not bothering me it does not exist - it is very provincial approach.

@cikuuzis Not at all... The notion of what is 'natural' is vague at best, and untenable at worst. I don't know where you live, but most people are tolerant of sex and sexuality in the 21st century. What is 'hegemonic' reflects the dominant ideology - I think you'd REALLY struggle to find anyone who agreed with your example. Ergo, this not hegemonic, it is a strawman. Wanting to tear down the norms implies they are somehow restrictive. I cannot see that they at all are.

@DrownedBeliefs. Haven`t you heard that some are saying that women are not that smart and designed to operate near the stove because it is "natural"? And in this case the "natural" is the hegemonic idea that is disguised as something that is and will always be and this idea is creation of man. As far there is equity and fairness there is no problems with hegemonic ideas. We can have the overwhelming idea that peace is good - no problem with such a social construct.

@cikuuzis You're begging the question. You're insinuating that anything that reinforces, or creates, a dominant ideology of what to attain within a culture is bad, but WHY must this be the case? What is genuinely bad about a hegemonic idea, of what is female and what is male, bad; in what way is it 'subjugatory'? WHY must we break it down, as Butler wishes?

@DrownedBeliefs I dont think that postmodern theorists are saying that societal constructs are bad per se. Bad is the fact that some states of affairs are constructed to work for hegemony (racial, masculin, scientific etc) and are presented as natural and thus good and worth to sustain. Culture itself is a construct and humans can not live without it, but we must be careful of discourses that are trying to subjugate individuals under their concept of truth.

@OppressedAnarchist I was under impression that in order to debunk ones view it is necessary to get acquainted with it in the first place. Instead you are posting something that i not being said and refuting it like it is Butler`s own position. She is not radical constructivist, nor essentialist on issues concerning sex and gender, but you are trying to position her as being a radical constructivist.

@OppressedAnarchist If you had read her books, for example Bodies that matter, you would see that she is not saying that there is no body as a materiality at all. Here`s what she is saying: "there are, minimally, sexually differentiated parts, activities, capacities, hormonal and chromosomal differences" (Bodies that matter (1993), p.10) But in process of gaining cultural intelligibility, this materiality is fused with discourses, practices, norms that are not neutral at all.

Every one should calm down considering Butler's theories. She merely argues for ironic verbal boasts for those who are oppressed. She's very fatalistic. She doesn't believe the oppressed can ever be treated equally or freed from the oppression. If you read Excitable Speech, Precarious Life, or Gender Trouble you'd be able to see that. She really argues for nothing. I highly recommend reading Professor of Parody by Martha Nussbaum for anyone who'd like to read further.

such a sad, poor woman...

@OppressedAnarchist Evolutionary psychology cannot be dismissed by 'theorizing' queers in the long run. 

@DrownedBeliefs I think she's encouraging people to crossdress if they want. David Reimer was forced into a gender that didn't fit. There's a difference. Also, read "Undoing Gender."

@OppressedAnarchist I find it interesting that you dismiss Butler completely yet you keep coming back to leave comments on this page. Hmmm.

If I have to choose between listening to a "scientist" like Stephen Jay Gould who says that there are objective differences between the sexes or a literary critic (Butler) who says that sex is a social construct I am going to choose someone who actually studied the human body and pick the scientist...

@DecoratedEmergencyX: Judith Butler is only "complex" in that she spews a bunch of subjective post-modernist literary garbage that earned her "worst writer"award among certain academics. Google it this is a fact. Literary Critics should stick to literature... There is a reason Butler mostly appeals to English and Feminist Majors and is disregarded by more serious disciplines like the majority of biologists and anthropologists...

Butlers background is literature. She studied a lot of post modernist literature and came up with the idea that everything is subjective. She goes way too far when she says "sex is a social construct".. I will agree that gender is constructed but to claim that biological difference are socially constructed is insane... She needs to take a biology class !!!!

I agree with a lot of what Butler says; gender IS a societal construct. Then again, why is that a BAD thing? She never elaborates, merely insinuates the notion that societal constructs are inherently wrong. Also, she blatantly encourages crossdressing (e.g., Gender Trouble, Imitation and Gender Insubordination... pretty much everything she's ever written) and I can't agree with that. Look at David Reimer, raised genderless and ending up a manic depressive who committed suicide. It doesn't work.

@aniamourinho apparently she was still going to the jewish school and had to study with a rabbi as well

I agree. No wonder how feminists look like guys. They just reject their own masculinity and desire for power, and use projection because the truth hurts them too much. They are weeping because they can't compete with their looks or physicality. They never speak anything about love and hate or anything qualitative in nature. All they care is about statistics and how their pain would be erased every structure in society would have as many female as they are men. Truth = they still would never be s

im so glad i learned french. :)

dis she say that she stopped going to school and was studying privately with a rabbie or she still going to school and had to study with a rabbie as well? just asking