Helene Cixous
Cixous is a French feminist who is influenced by both Derrida and Lacan. She is a Lacanian based on Essentialism. Cixous strongly believes that gender and sexuality are a function of language. Cixous is noted for writing in a particular format referred to as ecriture feminine. Ecriture feminine is when one writes through the female body. This way of writing provides a different way to think about sexuality. Mary Klages stated,
"Cixous also discusses writing on both a metaphoric and literal level. She aligns writing with masturbation, something that for women is supposed to be secret, shameful, or silly, something not quite adult, something that will be renounced in order to achieve adulthood...For women to write themselves, Cixous says, they must (re)claim a female-centered sexuality. If men write with their penises...then Cixous says before women can write they have to discover where their pleasure is located."
It promotes her theory that writing is a performance and is very emotional. Through her writing hierarchal oppositions are formed that form binaries. Her writing outlines many perspectives. In the deconstruction of binaries, the binary of man and woman is violent and chaotic in Cixous' perspective. The binaries are unequal. They come back to raw sexuality. She notes that sexual differences are seen as good if they are expressed or closeted. To Cixous, bisexuality is the embodied recognition of both male and female that bridge this binary. Cixous writes in a difficult and disconnected way that contains strong points, but is challenging for a reader.
Judith Butler
Butler on the other hand is very different from Cixous and her beliefs. Butler believes that gender itself is a performance. Butler discusses in detail the concept and action on dressing in drag. Heterosexuality works to stabilize gender as a whole. Within the gender norms there is instability in the roles of the heterosexuals. Butler emphasizes that although one is dressing in drag and trying to defy normalities, you are still identifying as one gender or the other when in drag. Yes, you are disrupting the binary, but you are not changing them. Klages said, "All gender is a form of "drag," according to Butler; there is no "real" core gender to refer to...gender is not just a social construct, but rather a kind of performance, a show we put on, a set of signs we wear, as costume or disguise".
Butler fundamentally believes that there is a natural connection between sex and gender. Sex is defined as something biological, it is between a male/female. Klages stated,
"In feminist theory, "woman" is universal category, which thus excludes ideas of differences among women (differences of race, class, or sexuality, for example). Both types of theory--psychoanalytic and feminist--rely on a notion of "woman" as referring to an essence, a fact, a biological given, hence a universal."
Gender is culturally constructed behaviors that are associated with sex. These are between male/female, boy/girl, and masculine/feminine. Heterosexuality depends on the binary between masculine and feminine. Butler states in "Subjectivity and Gender",
"It is important to emphasize that although heterosexuality operates in part through the stabilization of gender norms, gender designates a dense site of significations that contain and exceed the heterosexual matrix. Although forms of sexuality do not unilaterally determine gender, a non-causal and non reductive connection between sexuality and gender is nevertheless crucial to maintain" (page 248).
Gender then desires sexuality. Sexuality is defined as how we express sexual desire in the direction of a gendered person. Sexuality can be defined as gay, straight, or bisexual. Butler addresses the reader in a very blunt and easy to understand format.
When looking through feminist images (on the wonderful Google images), we found this cartoon. After reading and discussing feminist theory, in particular Cixous and Butler. It reaffirmed a lot of the connotations women have about feminists and what it is to actually be a feminist.
We also found the blog, Postmodern Culture that discusses the Cixous and Butler. If you are interested, take a peak!
Let's compare these two cartoon women. The woman on the left is wearing a pink dress, a color and outfit typically associated with being female. She is blonde, which nowadays is very rare to come by naturally. Thus, her hair is dyed, and it's also obviously been styled to make her more alluring. She has twinkling stars all around her. She's glamorous! Apparently she's also stupid, as she is unable (or perhaps just unwilling) to think a deeper thought beyond a simple ellipsis. She's wearing blush and lipstick, and is consumed with consuming her cocktail while she sits by her expensive Apple laptop in her "Chantel" dress and her "Proda" pumps at her attractive furniture. She looks blissful. This anti-feminist writer is so engaged in looking alluring that she is incapable of contributing anything of merit to society.
ReplyDeleteNow, let's look at the really feminist (hoping to one day be) writer. She is hunched over her “battered old thing” in her t-shirt, non-designer jeans, and glasses on her bare (makeup-less) face. She looks both pensive and grumpy. Her only companion is a spider. She eats microwavable ramen noodles and beans out of a can, which means that she’s so busy thinking feminist thoughts that she can’t be bothered to cook (which might be perceived as a ‘female’ obligation to society). She’s thinking so many thoughts that they can’t even be contained by a thought bubble, even in the malleable universe of a cartoon. She’s also too busy to clean, which might also be perceived as a female obligation.
Both of these positions on feminism are extremely problematic. According to this cartoon, feminists are ugly loners who care about nothing else besides preaching their views on patriarchy and misogyny. Anybody who cares about anything other than this is a simple-minded and unproductive person not to be taken seriously. There are very few people who are either one of the extremes shown in this cartoon. Ramen noodles and jeans are not just for bookish thinkers, and cocktails and makeup are not just for dumbasses.
We posted the cartoon to further depict the preconceived notions of what people picture a feminist and an anti-feminist to be. By no means do we picture it this way. This cartoon was more to further show the points we made in class about the stereotype.
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