Judith Butler: Part 4/6

[cate7791]

Rats. I think I might follow the French and the German better if the audio and video was synchronized.

[dryan22]

I don't think it's more radical to think of more than two people in a marriage, but I'd be willing to bet if it had a chance to be acceptable for a while, we'd only discover it's not worth the trouble. You make all these long-term contracts, only to find people change over time invalidating them. What do you need the contract for? Other than to say the two of you have joined your finances for a while.

[utterlydazzling]

she looks like a guy could she be conforming to a masculine role i dont know ???

[dryan22]

@utterlydazzling Why would YOU thinking she looks masculine need to correlate with HER conforming to masculinity?

[JBtlw95]

Wow..she's going far with the three marriage thing, but that's what's so great about her. I think what's really interesting about Judith Butler is she asks questions that aren't even questions because they are so much considered basements in our society. And I think that's really great because sometimes those basements don't correspond with the evolution of human understanding and the discovers we make over ourselves. Laws have to change with those evolutions

[nogocologne]

"Meisterdenkerin" der Gender-Theorie ist d. jüd. US Philosophin J.Butler.Wie viele aus diesem Theoriemilieu homosexuell&kinderlos, vertritt sie die Ansicht die Geschlechterdifferenz sei „keine Tatsache“.Dieser radikale Subjektivismus kennt nur mehr noch die sexuelle Selbstverwirklichung.Tatsächli­ch ist die Gender-Ideologie eine Form des Heile-Welt-Kitsches mit dem Wunsch nach individ. Rundumbefriedigung, vergleichbar der klassenlosen Gesellschaft der Internationalsozialisten

[killingallthefiles]

why is the sound not synchronised?

[newfan7]

You must know that Butler is not a material beeing at all. She herself and her sexuality are only the result of a discourse. - Well then it's very easy: She does not exist and is only an illusion like a ghost.

Don't talk about her and don't believe anymore in illusions and she will disappear very soon. - Matter is dead if there is no ghost and we are all ghosts as Berkeley asserted. - Muhuhahahahaha ... Aaahahahaha ... !!!

[eleanor7rigby]

Ugh i never said such a thing stop twisting my words

[michelangeli23]

Butler's is truly the "philosophy" of the chandala. Her "thought" is nothing more than the mindless reification of re-sentiment. And how naively she gives herself away at 0:39! This is philosophy as will-to-power, a mere attempt to universalise her own inferior position.

[SpinozaBenedictus]

@michelangeli23 Are you serious?

[IZn0g0uDatAll]

@michelangeli23 Ha.

[scotty123123]

Her question "why two? " is unbelievably idiotic. It's like asking why we don't have eight eyes. We "fall in love", as those of us who have ever love will experience, with one other person at a time. This is an empirical reality, which clearly has a basis in our genotype.

[scotty123123]

Perhaps it's possible to love more than one person at a time, but this isn't the common experience - societal institutions will emerge from common experience.

[eleanor7rigby]

the how do you explain polygamy in countless cultures?

[nunobranco22]

i disagree. its a completely valid question. she asks why is marriage allowed between two people only. pure convention. plus ure assuming marriage and love are the same thing which is a huge jump.furthermore i think u can fall inlove with more than one person. the idea of romantic 1-1 love is socially constructed too. u can fall inlove with and object or an animal. or god forbid a child. what are we allowed to love?

[Rmahda]

those are all great points to think about, "what are we allowed to love?"

[nunobranco22]

what are accepted objects of love and what are not. what is pathological and who makes these distinctions?

great lessons. Butler interrogates. Butler thinks and she articulates her thinking rather well. agree or disagree she's a clever individual.

[scotty123123]

The social exclusion she claims to have experienced probably relates less to her "sexual identity" as she imagines, than to her unusual mannerisms, posture and personality. Not that being unusual is a bad thing. But the unfortunate reality is that people simply don't care about your sexual identity so much, if you're otherwise "neatly packaged" or presentable.

[eleanor7rigby]

Typical response by a straight male that has never experienced any kind of oppression or discrimination over being. You have no idea what it's like for people who are not normative so stop trying to undermime their struggles.

[newfan7]

Oh no, I know what oppression and discrimination is and I am fighting against it. I know the risks and dangers when people like Butler will get more power.

This is not a struggle for another kind of identity but an attempt to set on a new sort of standards made by a minority. - Well this is wrong and must be rejected.

[eleanor7rigby]

Oh please.

Gimme a fucken break.

You don't even know what she stands for. She's not talking about stablishing dictatorship of the queer or whatever. She's simply saying that the concept of 'gender' should be deconstructed into a more inclusive term (or preferable disappear.) that'll allow these people to insert themselves in society and be able to live without being oppressed-

Ugh my dad says just that, he says that the world would basically end if "the feminists "seize power...LOL

[newfan7]

What's going on with you Eleanor? It seems to me you have thought about some things but I am not shure about the results. Please tell me what you think about identity and sexuality now.

[eleanor7rigby]

Well I dont know what you mean buy your question.

About identity I agree with her that it is something that is socially imposed and created. I beleive that the way we think ourselves is a result of society adn culture and that includes gender, race, etc

I dont think people have an fixed esence, but rather, it is constructed

[jclj9000]

If you believe that sexuality is constructed, I'll ask you a question I asked you before: do you agree with President Ahmedinejad that "there are no homosexuals in Iran"?

[28g34ajbsd]

Iran is also a place where most sex-change operations are conducted.

[eleanor7rigby]

how about you?

what do you think about identity and sexuality?

[newfan7]

@Eleanor: Well I think there is a deep connection between someones sex and sexual orientation and his identity. 'Social construction' is very less important and Butler made this mainly to provoke people.

Sexuality is not only to be man or woman or hermaphrodite it is also the kind of it. You can be hetero, homo, bi or trans and it's all based on biology and chemistry. Some is determined by genetic information (homo or hetero) and another influence comes from pregnancy (bi or trans).

[CharlesLed]

@scotty123123 Judith Butler would probably argue that to be "neatly packaged" in the way you're suggesting would be to conform to gender norms or to sexuality norms, or (if they're not what you're talking about) at least to some kind of "presentable" normalised form of behaviour. It's precisely that kind of "unfortunate reality" that Butler IS talking about.

[Navidnak]

I disagree, and I think you miss out on her work if you focus on a single "difference" and on inclusion. Is it her "unusual mannerisms", "sexual identity", Jewishness, trouble with discipline as a child, (ad infinitum) that is the original source of "deviance"? Judith doesn't ask the questions she asks in order to knock on society's door, saying "hey, let me in", but to pound on its door and say, why is your house even built this way? and to question the logic by which it lets people in.

[BenNCM]

@scotty123123 what total utter bull shit you talk. As if you know Judith Butler better than you she knows herself!!!

I mean, who the fuck are you exactly? I agree. No one.

[eleanor7rigby]

Biology/Medicine is considered to be the maximus authority and it is only it what gets to decide what is going to be socially permisible and acceptable.

For instance: hermaphroditism.: It is required that someone must insert themselves as either man or woman in society and that is backed by the medical discourse which claims that the only way of existing is by being either man or woman.

[newfan7]

Hi Eleanor! I think that you mean social construction in the way of making ideas.

Well to me ideas are no 'social products' because they are made by thinking and only a second order but more individual result. But shure there is a normative aspect in it for building terms in a common language.

I told you about this way Butlers of thinking about gender and the problems with it. As you know ideas can be a kind of pure fantasy or fiction which is not representing your real life.

[eleanor7rigby]

...that things do not exist or are not real. But its not like that: Something being socially constructed doesnt make it any less real. However it does mean that it is not universal in humanity and transcultural and tranhistorical.

Im not necesarilly saying that biology is irrelevant, but that its importance when it comes to gender is way too exagerated and often granted all authorisation to determine what a man is or a woman. And that is just what I am opposed to.

[eleanor7rigby]

Sex and bodies need to be interpreted socially, and that is why the vary from culture to culture, It is that interpretation what forges and conditions peoples identity and thought about them.

It is also culture what explains male domiantion and sexual oppresion, as well as gender roles,

[newfan7]

Eleanor: (3) Well let's summarize it: The problem is not biology but it could be antisocial behaviour and it is primarily the way of thinking and I think that Butlers is totally wrong.

May be your problem comes from Butlers way of thinking. First it looks good providing seemingly a solution but then you'll find no way out of this intellectual trap.

Real beeing is not a question of interpretation but of feeling what you feel by perception and concequent thinking about it by 'you'(!).

[jclj9000]

Is it also culture that explains "male domination" (however you define it) and gender roles in chimpanzees, silver back gorillas, gibbons, baboons, macaques, spider monkeys and orangutans, just to name a few of our close relatives?

[newfan7]

Well I think 'male domination' is not a question of culture but of natural and social reasons. It has some advantages that male individuals are more powerful than females for protecting and leading a social group.

Female individuals are occupied by their mother role and thus responsible for children. Pregnancy and suckling can only be done by female individuals and is necessary for surviving of the whole species. - I think it has simply evolutionary advantages for all mammals.

[shackleton12]

@newfan7

"I think"?? thats putting it a bit strongly!! to be fair right, u didnt come up with that, its the position common to all that want to justify patriarchy

the whole 'male biological superiority' thing is a classic example of how doxa get subsumed into either reader or nature. the doxa 'males are better' has been placed into naturek so we can pretend its more valid than any othe rstupid belief

[newfan7]

@shackleton12:

I think it doesn't make any sense to fight against nature abilities. I don't know if 'patriarchy' was ever a real thing in the last 200 years. May be sometimes before in the middle age there had been such conditions - but with restrictions.

Well I think there is a natural superiority in some human faculties for men because they are more innovative an responsible as women. To me it's a new and false belief that there aren't any differences between men and women.

[TricycleTim]

@newfan7 No one has ever suggested, to my knoweldge, that are not any differences between men and women. It is a question of how these differences are constructed. Men are more responsible than women?????? Presumably, if that were true, we should give all child care responsibilities to men!

[newfan7]

@TricycleTim:

The difference between man and woman is mainly given naturally by their different biology - that's a fact! - If children are small women will do the best job for their education but when they grow older men are very important to teach them in morality, ethics and responsibility.

Men have normally a deeper insight in world and in understanding its mechanisms. - Butler is some of the examples that some women don't understand the real nature of human beeings and are silly!

[TricycleTim]

@newfan7 I am sorry but it is not a fact.You are entitled to your opinions, but they are loaded with assumptions and ideologies, as well as a profound lack of education and reading. There is a vast body of literature and research that contradicts what you say. Try getting an education!

[newfan7]

@TricycleTim: Well that's only your opinion!

[TricycleTim]

@newfan7 Unfortunately it is not. It is the opinion of every university, certainly in the UK and the USA. As I say, you are entitled to your opinion but I would suggest you may try reading a book before you slag off one of the world's great thinkers, who has won countless academic awards, and is widely respected throughout scholarship. Enjoy life in the trough of ignorance!

[newfan7]

@TricycleTim:

Why should I believe the contructions of an abnorm person as butler is. This is the same failure like Freud made in building a theory on pathological issues. Books cannot show reality as it is and mainly give you the thoughts of the author.

If you go out in this world and communicate with men or women you'll find some differences between them which have nothing to do with culture. - Otherwise take a look on children and you'll see that boys and girls are different.

[TricycleTim]

@newfan7 Research is precisely about going out into the world and doing a lot more than communicating. It is about undertaking rigorous empirical rsearch. Let me repeat - no one is saying that boys and girls are not different, not Butler - the question is how this difference is constructed. You represent a worrying anti-intellectual trend, fostered by illiterates such as George Bush, and demonstrating a failure of public education. End of correspondence. Good luck with your stupidity!

[newfan7]

@TricycleTim:

Well the problem is that some are ignorant about the 'observer effect'. The difference between boys and girls is mainly constructed by biology and may be there is an ideological influence too.

The main issue you don't see is that all theories of Butler a.o. are intellectual constructions by and for themselvses. This is the reason of a different perception and thinking in itsself and thus this people are manipulating and deceiving themselves and unfortunately others!

[TricycleTim]

@newfan7 Hysterically laughable! Of course discourse is a construction. Again, no one disputes this. But you make the enormous, and totally unfounded leap, to suggest that this is manipulating and deceiving! I Absiolute nonsense. As I say, try going back to school! Bye! Thanks for the laugh though!

[newfan7]

@TricycleTim: Well accept the truth if you like or not!

- Thinking is a way of building a kind of own reality.

[TricycleTim]

@newfan7 This is getting even better. So your views are 'the truth', but you, presumably are not being manipulative? And you praise thinking yet show no evidence whatsoever that you have made any attempt to engage with Professor Butler's ideas, describing them as 'silly'. I do not have tiome to correspond more. Bye! One day, I hope you will try and get an education.

[newfan7]

@TricycleTim: Go and educate yourself you idiot!

[TricycleTim]

@newfan7 I have a first degree, a masters and a PhD. What higher level of education do you require? You, I suspect, struggled at high school. Am I right?

[newfan7]

@TricycleTim:

Your academic title is no guarantee for cognition!

Well I asume you've a PhD. in psychology - right?

[TricycleTim]

@newfan7 Well, it comes very close to a guarantee of cognition. Do you also assume that qualified medical doctors know nothing about medicine, qulaified vets nothing about treating animlas, and qualified engineers nothing about building? Hystericallly stupid. No, my PhD is not in pschology. You have not answered my question - did you struggle at high school? On welfare? No one takes you seriously? aaaahhhhh....go back to school!

[newfan7]

@TricycleTim:

Well dream on good man but the way you argue shows me that you not learned the way of critical thinking especially in your own field. I would be very disappointed if you are a philosopher. So what is your profession? Linguistics, medicine, natural science?

Well I've studied some years in natural science but I was disappointed about it. I think you are right that many things are teached there in a mainly dogmatic way. - Critisism is normally blown away in this field.

[newfan7]

A very important point for social behaviour is the chemistry of love and sex for choosing partners and having a stable partnership. Important substances were found in the sweat and thus smelling each other is necessary for good sex. In brain there are some substances like oxytocin and vasopressin released by love and sex (orgasm) which lead to a deep relationship and a strong bonding. - The problem nowadays we have are negative effects of some artificial chemicals and contraceptives.

[newfan7]

The problem with Butler is that gender is only an intellectual term for her and not a form of lived social and sexual activity. But in reality gender couldn't be separated from sexuality: A man is a man and a woman a woman.

But o.k. this might be very difficult for homos and their role in our society. Normally they don't become mothers and fathers and thus never have a real gender in view of children. I think this people have to define another form of gender as 'outsiders'. - Sorry!

[eleanor7rigby]

newfan: But in reality gender IS separated from sexuality! If it weren't, homosexuals and asexuals wouldnt even exist!

And gender is also separated from sex: transexuality.

If it weren't all male individuals would be hetersexual men. and all females would be heterosexual women, Sex, gender, and sexuality are different things.

""""But o.k. this might be very difficult for homos and their role in our society....... Sorry! """"

Sorry! but that paragraph made you sound ignorant and bigoted!

[newfan7]

Biology, Psychology and Medicine are making some intellectual concepts about sex, gender and behaviour. This are also a kind of ideas and not representing real life as social communication.

To get an authentic feeling of what gender or identity really is you have to practicise it in relationships living love and friendship and not in making ideas about how should it be or searching it in abtract theories. - If someone is abnormal as 'herma' he is this because of his other biology.

[newfan7]

Well eleanor I think you are wrong with your opinion because you can't really separate sex and gender. There may be a diffrence in culture and behaviour of course but identity is related to sex mainly and not on social behaviour.

A homo has also another chemistry than a hetero and of course other feelings in relation to people. There will be an effect if he adopt children and become a father/mother but I think this will be another kind or class of gender then that of a hetero.

[eleanor7rigby]

WHY AREN'T MY COMMENTs SHOWING?

newfan: I replied to you already like three times but they aren't showing...

:s

[newfan7]

Well Eleanor I think script comments cannot show but only tell us something.

[eleanor7rigby]

newfan: I dunno why my comments didn't show yesterday but here it goes again:

I don't think you undertsand what people mean by 'social construct' and I also dont get what you mean by an 'intelectual construct'.

I dont know if it is the language barrier but I am also confused as to why you are saying that having a partner and having sex is needed to forge an identity. I dunno why me having a 'partner' has any relevance here....

[newfan7]

Eleanor: Well I think you have got a little part of it by making the difference between social and intellectual construct.

A social construct is based on a lived reality: Having sex, flirt, masturbation and feeling it. An intellectual construct is more based on pure thinking, imagination and an abstract discourse without having the real feelings about what you are talking. Gender can mean both a lived practic of behaviour or a theoretical construct and Butler talk about the second.

[newfan7]

@eleanor: 'This comment is beyond idiotic ... '. - What do you mean with this?

[eleanor7rigby]

'I'm always slightly dis identified from any given position. I don't belong well in any stablished category.

But I'm not also somebody who happily trascends them all- I'm not in favor of happy transcendance'

[newfan7]

Well may be you are a lesbian or a bi!? Then it will be difficult to give you a real identity or better building it up for me and thus you have to use a woman for doing this procedure. - Good Luck!

[eleanor7rigby]

This comment is beyond idiotic and unworthy of an actual response.

You are embarrasing

[newfan7]

Gender as doing or behaviour? That means a man making travesty is really a woman in doing so and not playing a role.

We all know that isn't the truth and this is contructed and not the real identity of a man. Thus Butler is wrong with her theory.

[mredyap]

I don't think Butler is saying that. Butler does NOT say that if you're not a man, you're a woman.

[eleanor7rigby]

OMG How brilliant.........you are NOT.

First speak decent English if you want to be taken seriously,

Then I suggest you actually read Butler because you dont know what you're talking about.

[newfan7]

Homosexuality is even discribed in ancient time and an old practic in greece long before. The discourse about things and procedures is always changing and yes it doesn't change biological and social facts.

Do you really think(!) that thinking is changing the world? Is a thing not existent if you haven't a word or term for it? Do you believe something does not happen when you don't speak about it?

Some are so stupid that they believe there is no existence without speaking.

[eleanor7rigby]

Discourse in not only thinking. In fact it has nothing to do with it. Discourse materialises through the actions that are a consequence of its words. There's nothing idealist about discourse, it has very concrete manifestations. The reason madmen are now treated as having a desease is because of a medical discourse.

Homosexuals only existed when the homosexual identity was invented. Before that, nobody thought of themselves as 'gay'. They were just engaging in sodomy or homosexual activity.

[newfan7]

@eleanor: I agree that a discourse is much more than thinking and thus I told you about building identity within this process. Yes words are a form of acting too but you cannot have sex with it which is important for a real identity.

The manifestation of words in speech acts can never give you a real identity. That is the point that is mostly criticized on Butlers thoughts. You need body acts and contact (sex) for your real identity. But I agree that you cannot think without words.

[newfan7]

I agree that the reason of mind diseases is a false form of discourse (especially lying) or in general communication. If you treat is with the normal medical discourse it will be much more manifestated and will become worse. You can read Watzlawick or M. Rosenberg on this point.

I disagree about 'homosexual identity' and normal identity too because practicising sex is much more important as talking about it. Talking and thinking will give you an intellectual form of it but not more.

[eleanor7rigby]

My point about madness is that it only became a mental desease when the medical psychiatric discourse took charge of it.

Something similar happened with homosexuality.

Both categories were produced socially. Im not talking about the very sexual acts, but only after producing those categories did people start thinking of themselves as being 'gay'

[newfan7]

Eleanor: I disagree on mental deseases in the point that someone is ill only by making a diagnosis. But if you make a patient believing this you can make him much more ill than before because the diagnosis could be wrong. Anyone can be ill without a diagnosis having a virus or a mental disorder etc. I guess that a m.d. mostly is made by an antisocial(!) discourse e.g. by lying or deception. A discourse on homosexuality thus can be social or antisocial but is still a discourse not sex.

[eleanor7rigby]

Also, I wasnt only talking about words. what I meant by the 'materialisation of discourse' is that discourse becomes material with the actions that are a result of it. When people act in society they are always immersed into a discourse which dictates their behaviour.

[newfan7]

Eleanor: On discourse: You can practicize sex (starting with a flirt) or you can only talk about it and that's a great diffrence which can primarily been felt. You can on with this discourse up to a high intellectual and abstract level but you won't have sex and it is impossible to get an authentic and real identity with such an intellectual discourse. Of course an intellectual discourse will have results by building beliefs or imaginations. You will set feelings on pure ideas/faith.

[jclj9000]

"discourse becomes material with the actions that are a result of it."--do you speak English?

[newfan7]

Please excuse me that my english isn't as sophisticated as Butlers or yours!

[gertrud2007]

it is always uncomfortable to question your own identity. that's why people find refuge in natural sciences. it's easier, more comfortable, "better to live with". facts don't bleed, so to say.

[jclj9000]

The natural sciences have done more to shake people's sense of identity over the past 500 years than any other field. It is biology, geology and physics that have eroded the foundations of religion and the religious conception of man. It is biology and genetics that have overthrown categories of race.

[eleanor7rigby]

Did you know that the homosexual identity didnt exist until the 18th century? Tahat women up until a few centuries ago were considered a second sex, a variation of men?

The reason that changed, is because the discourse changed. Not biology.

There were no homosexuals, no transexuals, no madmen until those categories were socially created.

[jclj9000]

Absolute tripe. Homosexuality and homosexual behaviour do not depend on "discourse" to exist. How a society views them, of course, varies enormously from culture to culture, but the phenomena exist independently of their perception. Or do you agree with Mahmoud Ahmedinejad that "there are no homosexuals in Iran"?

[newfan7]

Yes I agree with you and that's what I am saying to Eleanor and others too. I hope she will understand it some day!

[beateeolb]

Judith is great!

[jclj9000]

Utter, utter, utter bollocks. This is why universities are increasingly being swallowed by business schools and the hard sciences--because no one with any common sense can tolerate this barking mad rubbish. This woman and her pompous bloviating wouldn't last 5 minutes in a biology department, because the scientists would tear her to shreds.

[cublight]

"bollocks", "barking", "rubbish" "common sense" : it seems hard sciences and/or a MBA equipped you on the contrary with brilliant analytical tools ...

[jclj9000]

Nope, my degree is in fact in the social sciences, and it equipped me with rigorous analytical skills. My comment was not an attempt at analysis, however, but an instance of invective--because that is all that Butler and her flaky little androids merit.

[JustADasein]

She wouldn't last 5 minutes in a biology department because her degree is not in biology, that is an obvious point. Secondly, common sense in my opinion at least does not exist, belief in such a notion presupposes that things are easy to understand and that they become more difficult because of obfuscation in part because of people like Judith Butler. Perhaps she does blur the lines, making things difficult but in the end she raises difficult questions the hallmark of a first rate philosopher

[jclj9000]

You suggest that common sense "doesn't exist" and imply that things are not "easy to understand"; yet you also suggest that it's "obvious" why she wouldn't last in a biology department. Common sense suggests there's a contradiction there.

Now, if you do agree that she wouldn't last in a biology department, common sense would also dictate that you shouldn't be pontificating about gender. The idea that gender can be detached from biology is, obviously, absurd.

[eleanor7rigby]

Newsflash: gender is a social construct.

And if your view about it is so restricted to biology then I am really skeptic of you being involved with social sciences.

She is a philosopher. She's not talking about genes. She's talking about the dominant discourse about gender and offering an alternative

[newfan7]

@'eleanor': First learn reading my name, than become aware that gender is NOT a 'social construct' and thus get the idea that gender is an intellectual construct.

Butler isn't a real philosopher she has got a professorship in literature and rhetoric. But anyway I think she hasn't done her personal homework really.

If you make 'social constructions' you have to use theories of communication or systems which are based on individuality and hence you must make a relation on feelings.

[eleanor7rigby]

God give me strenghth.--......

Seriously, what you say makes no sense,what's your first language? Because this mindless blablering is undecipherable.

Anyway, wtf you really need to learn the meaning of 'social contruct'. Gender and sex are not synonims. Sex is only anathomy. Gender IS asocial construct. Ask any anthropoligist or sociologist and they'll agree with me.

[newfan7]

@eleanor: Gender should be a social construct, but Butler makes a intellectual one oft it. Social construct cannot be something which isn't lived by people. That means: If you have no partnership then there will be no gender for you.

May be you can talk about other people having gender but you have no authentic feelings based on your own behaviour. So why do you talk about something without life experience? Otherwise talk about this issue with your partner to get it clearly.

[jclj9000]

"strenghth"

"blablering"

"'social contruct'"

"synonims"

"anathomy"

"anthropoligist"

What is your first language?

[eleanor7rigby]

Spanish is.

And funny how you could only point out my typos.

[jclj9000]

You speak excellent English. But I don't think you should jump all over newfan7 for his/her weaker command of English when your posts include errors of this type.

[eleanor7rigby]

You are right. I shouldnt have pointed out his english mistakes like that.

And thanks.

[jclj9000]

If your view of gender excludes biology, you have been ingesting far too many psychotropic drugs.

[eleanor7rigby]

I'm not talking about sex, but gender, Gender is much more about social roles than it is about cromosomes.

I'm not exluding biology completely, but it is less relevant than the social construction that has result around that biology. Every culture interprets gender in a different way. Gender has been more a product of history than of genes,

[newfan7]

The problem with you is that gender is only an intellectual term for you and not a form of social acting.

Sexuality is a wide field witk a great spectrum and it is not limited to the pure coitus. Sex starts with flirting (by vocal or body language), then touching each other, then petting and coitus is it's last form.

In all this actions love is very important but not some for ideas or terms. - Sex is loving matter in motion (as a social construct) and primarily a form of energy.

[jclj9000]

You are quite correct when you say that every culture interprets gender in different ways, and no biologist would claim that gender roles are entirely determined by genes. But what is the basis for your assertion that biology is less relevant than social construction or that gender has been more a product of history than genes? That is precisely the question that whole branches of science (psychology, evolutionary psychology, evolutionary biology) have asked--and the answer they come up with...

[jclj9000]

is that our genes matter far more than ever imagined. You can debate at great length to what degree gender roles are determined by history or our genes--and that's worthwhile. But what you simply cannot do is blithely IGNORE science as it it didn't exist, or act (as Butler does) as if its claims belonged to a "different" field of enquiry. They don't. They belong squarely in the field of social science because they make very powerful and disturbing claims about our behavior, claims feminism fears

[eleanor7rigby]

According to Butler, gender identity is not a product of an esencial core sex identity , but it is actually the mean in which the ilusion of that esencial identity is built.

Human beings are only so because of culture. Without it we 're animals. We are so determined by society and culture that notions like 'gender' and even sex cannot exist without them. Most of our reality is socially constructed, but i think that usually people misundesrtand the meaning of that and assume it to mean that ..

[jclj9000]

I'm aware that that is Butler's argument, but I'm saying it is wrong. Science claims that not only is there an "essential sex identity," but that many of the aspects of gender that were once thought to be products of social conditioning are, in fact, merely superficial manifestations of that identity. You may disagree--but if you do, you must directly address the argument and not simply IGNORE it. That is what Butler does--ignore it--and in that sense she's no different from a Creationist.

[eleanor7rigby]

Ok, then how do you . or 'evolutionary biology' explain people who do not fit the ideals of femeninity or masculinity,?

The problem with that line of thought is that those characteristics that are considered to be natural become normativitized and therefore restricitve and coercive

The range of human diversity is so broad that there is no point in making generalisations and all they do is create divisions and exlcude people

Why going by determinant biological ideas when we are much more ?

[newfan7]

Eleanor: (1) Biology is not 'perfect' at all and illness can make a lot of malfunctions too. The normative element on it comes from the society and disambiguate thinking for simplifying it. We use this method in many areas to idealize things e.g. in physics or chemistry.

The main issue is not biology but the dialectic thinking of thesis and antithesis. You can say if someone is not a woman he must be the opposite a man or if someone isn't hetero he must be homo - but this is wrong.

[jclj9000]

Evolutionary biology has nothing whatsoever to say about ideals of femininity and masculinity. If some people designate some characteristics as "natural" while excluding others that are also observed in nature (e.g., homosexuality) they are making an error. That in no way supports Butler's beliefs about gender.

[newfan7]

Not nature is wrong but the ideas and idealistic thoughts of some cracy people. - The reason of such a strange kind of thinking may be a deep pain in their souls.

[jclj9000]

vastly reduced the advantage in conflict given to men over women by virtue of their larger bodies. People like Butler fall back on glib assertions about the patriarchy to describe this pattern, but can never explain WHY it exists. Evolutionary biology, on the other hand, does explain why. Simply put, males are biologically expendable, whereas females are not. Male psychology evolved in tandem with male physiology--they are inseparable--and that is why this key aspect of gender is universal.

[eleanor7rigby]

jclj :and also, about war, you still were not explaining the cause of women oppresion. Sure it was a matter of physiology that men were sent to fight. But its only the social hierarchy that privildged those involved in militar activities what explains male domination.

There were some non western cultures in which even if men were the warriors, war was not a benefited area and instead other activities that women had access to were more priviledged and therefore there was no patriarchy.

[newfan7]

Eleanor: (2) Thus you can see that it is mainly a question (in the way) of thinking and hence of intellectual and not social construction if someone has a problem with it.

The real problem is classical logic thinking: Something is right or it must be wrong without a third or further options. In reality there are other possibilities:

Someone can be wether homo nor hetero but both as bi or trans as none of this. Therefore you have to use another kind of logic as indian reason square.

[GreatGrumbledook]

What does such rabble know about the norms? Does she think she makes the rules? I hope she is undone in life, so the world would be at last saved from her pathetic whining! By the way: Why does she always whine about the tender-hearted Jews and their occupation? Hey! By the time French troops did liberate the Holy Country in the first crusade there was real carnage or think of the Mongols! Ok, with a face like hers even Timur or Genghis Khan would have fled in pure horror!

[RationalEmotive]

Ok, you are obviously trolling.

My abduction would be that you are a 20 year old freshman of history and need to demonstrate your mediocre knowledge to us with desultorily rantings, more than fallacies.

You see the connection between nationalism, bigotry and inequality based on gender:

Build on that! There is a branch of social studies now about gender and history, gender and international politics. You might want to get into that.

[GreatGrumbledook]

@RationalEmotive: While I do not care for any whining of a First Christian of the first water like you! Nationalism is a good and healthy thing, a natural force of history and it has nothing to do with gender! It was the wife and mother of renegade Coriolanus who reminded him of his duty towards Rome, France was liberated by a woman: Jeanne, the Maid of Orleans and the great but futile British uprising commanded by Queen Boudicca! Go and hang yourself and spare your country the pains!

[GreatGrumbledook]

For thos who do not knwo what a First Christian is, a quote of Nietzsche will explain: "For these little prigs miscalculate precisely where it matters most. They attack, but everything they attack is distinguished thereby. To be attacked by a "first Christian" is not to be soiled. On the contrary: it is an honor to be opposed by "first Christians." One does not read the New Testament without a predilection for that which is maltreated in it—not to speak of "the wisdom of this world," (...)" &

[GreatGrumbledook]

"(...) which an impudent windmaker tries in vain to ruin with "foolish preaching." Even the Pharisees and scribes derive an advantage from such opposition: they must have been worth something to have been hated in so indecent a manner. Hypocrisy—what a reproach in the mouths of "first Christians"! In the end, they were men of privilege: that is enough - chandala hatred requires no further grounds. The "first Christian" - I am afraid, the "last Christian" too, and I may yet live to see him..."

[GreatGrumbledook]

"(...) is, from his lowest instincts, a rebel against everything privileged: he lives, he fights always for "equal rights." Examined more closely, he has no choice. If one wants to be "chosen by God"—or a "temple of God" or a "judge of the angels"—then any other principle of selection—for example, according to integrity, spirit, virility and pride, beauty and freedom of the heart—is merely "world," evil in itself. (...)"

[GreatGrumbledook]

"(...) Moral: every word in the mouth of a "first Christian" is a lie; every act he performs a falseness of instinct—all his values, all his goals are harmful; but whomever he hates, whatever he hates, that has value. The Christian, the priestly Christian in particular, is a criterion of value." - so much for that and no more whining about Trolls: They are just mythical beast of Nordic mythology (no matter what is written on them in Wikipedia)!

[RationalEmotive]

watch?v=Nrj2sjvymi0

[GreatGrumbledook]

@RationalEmotive: Why? As it cannot be a movie of you First Christian ending your worthless life I am not interested in watching anything you have to offer; how about the rope for free to hang yourself and nothing more?

[GreatGrumbledook]

And if this wimpy Judith Butler creature does not stop at once to desecrate the language of Goethe, Schiller and Nietzsche by using it I will take some serious action against that abuse of the German language! I did not sacrifice blood, sweat, toil and tears to learn it at school just to see the likes of her abuse it! The language of philosophers and poets is unfit for disgraceful wimps like her!

[rosyhappyalways]

redetrigan, may i know please, is judith butler has childern? is she married? Is she straight or not? please answer my question. Or maybe people who knows about judith can tell me please

[cementisfree]

that's besides the point... she's brilliant, that's all we need to know about her personal life

[murse23]

i am disappointed by her opinion!! what kind of love is when there is more than too??i don;t understand that ...

i think that this not only is not marraige or love and realtionship but its only sex and personal incapacity to feel love!!.In that moment you need an open relationship ,marraige

[spiltteeth]

They should produce a video series "Postmodern analyist's gone wild!" You won't beleive what these cultural critics do! Now get Sexy Sorority Post-Structulists !

[allenamerica]

this is the best 9:22 ever on youtube... maybe

[nadiedr85]

she´s awesome !