Judith Butler: Part 1/6

Playlist: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=7431C65C01DDAB10

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Judith
• Butler
• Gender
• Trouble
• Queer
• Theory

[Ilkamy]

BECAUSE woman's work is never done; is underpaid or unpaid or boring and we're the first to get fired & what we look like is more important than what we do

and if we get beaten or raped it's our fault we must have provoked it

and if we love women it's because we can't get a "real" man

and if we don't want a pregnancy we're made to feel guilty

and if we stand up for our rights we're aggressive and "unfeminine"

and if we don't we're typical weak females

and for many more reasons WE ARE FEMINISTS!

[rjohnson8692]

@pigley17 you should really read her books before you try to argue with her. she accounts for all of you supposed contradictions regarding the female body... butler has also never proposed her own looks as proof of her theories.

[DrownedBeliefs]

@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.

[cikuuzis]

@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.

[DrownedBeliefs]

@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.

[DrownedBeliefs]

@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.

[cikuuzis]

@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.

[cikuuzis]

@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.

[DrownedBeliefs]

@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.

[cikuuzis]

@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.

[DrownedBeliefs]

@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?

[cikuuzis]

@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.