{"id":1915,"date":"2009-02-10T17:25:25","date_gmt":"2009-02-10T22:25:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/?p=1915"},"modified":"2009-05-25T10:57:28","modified_gmt":"2009-05-25T15:57:28","slug":"lloyd-agency-between-constraint-and-freedom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/2009\/02\/10\/lloyd-agency-between-constraint-and-freedom\/","title":{"rendered":"Lloyd agency between constraint and freedom"},"content":{"rendered":"

The primary political aim of Gender Trouble<\/span> is to make life possible for those who, within the terms of the dominant heteronormative regime, are presently unintelligibile (36).<\/p>\n

One of the merits of the idea of becoming a gender is that it suggests that gender is not to be thought of as imposed on subjects, as it is sometimes characterized within feminism (as when authors talk of women being ‘culturally constructed’) … the concept of gender as becoming introduces the idea that gendering, in part at least, is a ‘self-reflexive process’ (SG: 36) Moreover, if it is a self-reflexive process, this means that the courses of action open to us are never entirely constrained.<\/p>\n

The difficulty with reading ‘becoming’ entirely in this way, according to Butler, is that it might appear to suggest that the subject (the ‘I’) somehow precedes its gender and that it orchestrates entirely its own becoming as a gender. … If, as it clearly is, agency is involved in becoming a gender, then it must be a form of agency that is embodied. And this means that it is one that is always in some way constrained by the historical discourses that invest our bodies with meaning. When we endeavour to become a particular gender we aim, by and large, to approximate the historical and cultural norms that define what that gender ought to be: how it should look, walk, talk,sit, and so forth. As such, our becoming is always constrained by cultural norms, taboos, conventions and even laws. <\/strong>This is why those who fail to approximate the gender ideal, either deliberately or unintentionally, may be severely punished for their failure. Does this mean, however, that no alteration in the norms of gender is possible? No, it does not (39-40).<\/p>\n

… the difficulty in producing a version of agency capable of negotiating between constraint and freedom <\/strong>… (40).<\/p>\n

gender produces sex<\/span><\/p>\n

Gender does not describe something that IS<\/em><\/strong> (an essence), rather it refers to a process \u2014 a series of acts. In this sense, a gendered identity is made manifest only at the moment of its enactment.<\/p>\n

There is no being behind doing, effecting, becoming: “the doer” is merely the fiction added to the deed \u2014 the deed is everything.<\/p>\n

Gender is thus a doing, \u2014 an activity \u2014 but not one undertaken by a subject ‘that might be said to pre-exist the deed’ (GT:33) (42)<\/p>\n

As a consequence, there is no such thing as a natural (gendered) body; the gendered body is a construct of the acts that generate ‘its reality’ <\/strong>(GT: 173) (42).<\/p>\n

Drag is important to Butler’s argument not because she conceives of it as THE practice most likely to undermine heteronormativity, but because it is A practice that sheds light on how heteronormativity naturalizes the relation between sex, gender and desire. It is significant because of if its capacity to denaturalize all three constitutive elements (sex, gender and desire) of the law of heterosexual coherence’, as well as their relations to one another (GT 175). As a practice, therefore, it can be tide back to the question of cultural intelligibility. A gendered identity, as an effect of the heterosexual matrix, is generated only through the necessary and perpetual repetition of particular acts and gestures. Precisely because gender identity relies on repetition, however, it is inherently unstable. Drag exemplifies how this instability can be exploited. It symbolizes a way of resisting prevailing gender norms such that it exposes the work of fabrication that takes place in the production of any identity \u2014 coherent or not (44).<\/p>\n

What political possibilities are the consequence of a radical critique of the categories of identity?<\/h3>\n

Developed out of her radical reading of Beauvoir, the idea that a gendered identity is produced only as it is enacted had a profound influence on both feminist and queer thought. Although, at first sight, it might appear that the theory of performativity resembles the sociological idea of sex-role socialization (adopted by several feminists in their explorations of gender), the two are in fact, quite distinct. The reason is that they are based on different assumptions. Socialization theory assumes that a gendered identity is acquired by sexed subjects learning certain gendered practices. This means, first, that sex is seen as prior to gender, a view that Butler rejects, and, second, that logically there must be a time when sexed subjects are un-gendered \u2014 the time before they learn the gendered practices in question. For Butler, however, to be a person is always already to be gendered. The declaration at a child’s birth of its sex is a gendered (and gendering) declaration. It constitutes them as male or female. (Indeed, with advances in ultrasound, this occurs BEFORE birth now.) The theory of performativity is distinct from socialization theory in a second way, in that the latter assumes the very presupposition that performativity contests: that there is a ‘doer behind the deed’. Gender is performative, for Butler, because it exists ONLY in the acts that constitute it<\/strong>. Or, to put it less obliquely, a gendered identity is produced through specific bodily gestures, practices, declarations, actions and movements. A gendered identity is thus an effect of doing gender. The theory of gender performance thus permits Butler to advance an innovative theory of subjectivity <\/strong>(48).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The primary political aim of Gender Trouble is to make life possible for those who, within the terms of the dominant heteronormative regime, are presently unintelligibile (36). One of the merits of the idea of becoming a gender is that it suggests that gender is not to be thought of as imposed on subjects, as … Continue reading “Lloyd agency between constraint and freedom”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[83,78,94],"tags":[109],"class_list":["post-1915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-agency","category-butler","category-sexual-difference","tag-whoa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1915"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1915\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3375,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1915\/revisions\/3375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}