Assess the significance of Judith Butlers work

Assess the significance of Judith pantrymans plumpThe modern means of the word &apos grammatical sex&apos emerged in the 1970s. Its original think was to draw a line between biological sex and how exceptional thoughts and doingss could be defined as either &aposfeminine&apos or &apos manful&apos (Pilcher Whelehan, 2004). The reason for using the word &apos sexual activity&apos was to raise aw arness of the overstate workforcet of biological differences between man cause and women. The popularity of this meaning for the word &aposgender&apos resulted from the efforts of jiffy jounce womens liberationist work in the 1970s. This essay examines how second shake feminism attempted to construct a &apos baronial narrative&apos of women&aposs oppression. It then examines Judith butler&aposs contribution to post-modern womens rightist surmise by means of her performative hypothesis of gender and how this fits into post-modern womens liberationist debates.A product of seco nd range feminism, which began just ab expose 1970, was the attempt to place women within a &aposgrand narrative&apos muniment of their oppression. One of the seminal writers on this narrative was Simone de Beauvoir. Her work in describing how women had go &aposthe other&apos in her book The Second Sex (de Beauvoir, 1961) laid the foundations for what was to go far in the second wave of feminism (Gamble, 2002). De Beauvoir argues that the way in which men think about women is barely in relation to their fantasies, that they have no substance of their own. Unfortunately, for de Beauvoir, women have come to accept men&aposs fantasies of char as constituting their own conception of themselves. For de Beauvoir, it was for women to conceive of themselves in their own damage, to canvass back the power themselves.A animadversion of de Beauvoir&aposs approach was that it tended to rap women for their current condition (Gamble, 2002). The second wave feminists of the 1970s, however, much(prenominal)(prenominal) as Millet (1970), pointed to patriarchate as the root ca white plague of women&aposs oppression. It is patriarchy, so Millet argued, that has become a semipolitical institution, and from this flows all the other forms of women&aposs oppression. Firestone (1970) also in any casek a healthful line against patriarchy, equating women&aposs oppression to a caste or class system. Ideological support for patriarchy, in Firestone&aposs ascertain, has come from institutions much(prenominal) as the family, marriage along with romantic love.These ideas are referred to as constructing a &aposgrand narrative&apos, a way of charting the history and development of grouchy ideas, in this case women&aposs oppression (MacNay, 1997). One of the fusss that much feminist thought has come up against in trying to furnish a &aposgrand narrative&apos of women&aposs oppression is that it is difficult to effectively utilize all women a public identity (Whelehan, 1995) . If the very idea of gender flows from cultural origins, then it is only natural to conclude that gender has unlike meanings in different cultural contexts. How then can a common identity be posited?Other critics such as Richards (1982), examining second wave feminism from a liberal perspective, have seen it as a movement that has failed. Richards sees many of the feminist approaches as being extreme and unattractive, and non focussing, as she sees it, on rational debate. She criticises feminists for utilising &aposeccentric&apos arguments which do not conform to the prescriptive expectations of philosophic debate. Further, she criticises feminism for ignoring the obvious differences between men and women such as women&aposs ability to have children and thitherby presenting an unrealistic picture of utopian gender relations.Another vibrant stream of criticism against second wave feminism has been that it assumes that what is required is a reversal in the relative positions of m en and women. In other words, if women can take the position of men in participation then their oppression will finally be done for(p) (Brooks, 1997). Instead, however, post-modernist forms of feminism have tended to criticise the placing of women and men in oppositional categories. Post-modernist writers, such as Judith pantryman, Brooks argues, help the feminist debate move on from the grand narrative to the focussing on deconstruction and identity (Brooks, 1997).Judith Butler&aposs work as a social theorist has been extremely influential. about of the major themes of her work include important contributions to suspicious conjecture and her criticism of the way in which gender has been constructed (Clough, 2000). Her break by work was Gender annoyance which strongly criticised existing feminist theory on gender such as the work of Firestone and Millet.Butler (1990) points out that feminist approaches have tended to stress the difference between gender and sex. In these per spectives sex is seen as a biological fact, while gender is a cultural construction. The problem for Butler is that this split has gone too far, such that it is not possible to go bad how the sexed body is constituted (Salih Butler, 2004). Rather than splitting gender and sex, then, Butler&aposs work has actually collapsed one into the other (Fraser, 2002). Sandford (1999) explains that this is achieved by wake that gender actually produces sex.Butler (1990) asks whether it is possible to talk about the &apos manly&apos attributes of a man and then talk about their &aposfeminine&apos attributes and stock-still be able to ascribe sensible meaning to the word &aposgender&apos. Butler (1990) argues that when the idea of &aposwoman&apos and &aposman&apos are dispensed with, it is more than(prenominal) difficult to see how these gendered attributes can still be viable. Butler (1990) states that gender cannot necessarily be referred to in terms of these attributes, or as a noun, a t hing of itself, but instead as a verb. In this sense experience Butler considers gender to be performative, to be an act which constitutes itself rather than flowing from some other source.The criticism aimed by Butler (1990) at feminist theory is precisely that it has argued there must be a source for actions. This means that gender cannot be &aposper create&apos of itself it must be performed by something. Butler (1990) provides an example in the relationship between internal craving and gender. Freud&aposs explanation that attraction comes from biological sex is considered by Butler. She argues that sexual attraction, rather than coming from sex, is a process that is learned over time, that is a performance we work on, not something flowing instanter from biological sex.The political implications of this argument are vital, especially for homosexuality. Kirsch (2001) argues that some people in the queer movement have accepted the primacy of biology. This idea is related to e ssentialism which relies on factors such as the &aposgay gene&apos to explain homosexuality. In contrast to this view, a constructionist approach concentrates on the ways in which society encourages certain types of behaviour through social norms. &aposMen&apos and &aposwomen&apos, within Butler&aposs theory, are no longer essentialist universal categories but rather free-floating categories which are socially produced.The norms to which Butler is referring are those which see the body as being directly related to the types of sexual desire and practices that are associated with it (Salih Butler, 2004). intimate desires and practices which do not fit within this matrix are &aposnot allowed&apos. In tell to understand how sexed bodies are produced, Butler uses Lacan&aposs reading of Freud (Salih Butler, 2004). Lacan argues that it is through fantasy that the sexed body is created. Salih (2002) points out that it is Butler&aposs use of Freud that is one of her most important achiev ements. Here, she analyses Freud&aposs idea of the Oedipus interlinking. This is where the child is force to give up its desire for its parents by the incest taboo. Butler reinterprets this by joust that the child desires the parent of the same sex, but pay backs that this is taboo. Sex and gender identities are then formed from this taboo. Butler argues that everyone&aposs gender identity is formed from this homosexual taboo. Butler refers to the formation of gender identity in terms of melancholic identification (Salih, 2002). The place where this identification can be seen, correspond to Butler, is on the body in the form of gender and sex identities. date Butler&aposs theory of performativity along with her work in post-modern feminist theory has been extremely influential, it has also provoked a fair horizontal surface of criticism. Benhabib (1995) has argued that the death of the conquer, which is at the heart of Butler&aposs thesis, leads to an incoherent picture. Benh abib (1995) points out that it is difficult to believe there is nothing behind the mask of gender, that authority appears completely absent. In a parallel argument to Benhabib, Kirsch (2001) makes the point that this negation of the subject has forbid consequences for ideas of identity and collective action. A sense of collectivity, in particular, is a lot seen by those &aposcoming out&apos as providing support. In Butler&aposs theory, however, there is only the focus on the individual. To Kirsch (2001) it seems that Butler&aposs theory tends to reduce the ability of the wider community to provide support to the individual.A more generalised criticism of modern feminism, however it is labelled, is that there is a sense in which it is an exclusive club. Butler&aposs ideas relating to the performativity of gender are only available to a certain restricted group in society white, middle-class, intellectual (Whelehan, 1995). Each feminist sub-movement implicitly creates its own lists of what can be done, and what cannot. Women, therefore, can find it difficult to label themselves as feminists as there are now many apparent bars to entry and negative associations with it (Whelehan, 1995).Perhaps in this sense second wave feminism, as enunciated by Firestone and Millet, provided a vision with which it was easier to associate. In contrast, post-modern perspectives, a category in which Butler&aposs work has been throw away, provide a much more complex and illusory analysis of gender make up, as some critics would have it, devising it harder for those attempting to live outside society&aposs norms.It has been argued that theories such as those put forward by Butler have lead to the need for a new type of feminism (Pilcher Whelehan, 2004). This is precisely because postmodernist thought has jilted the &aposgrand narratives&apos associated with second wave feminism. As a result, women may find it difficult to hire the identity &aposwoman&apos as its nature is so contested in postmodernist thought (Pilcher Whelehan, 2004). This is part of the problem that alleged(prenominal) &apospost-feminism&apos has attempted to address.This leads to an attempt to answer the question What gender am I? Viewed through the influence of Butler&aposs theories, it is increasingly difficult to provide a clear answer. The two answers that are most &aposnatural&apos, antheral or female suddenly become obsolete expressions which appear loose of their previous meaning. With the &apossubject&apos apparently removed from the equation, it is difficult to lay claim to any particular gender. Certainly Butler&aposs theory does not imply that both men and women can travel without hindrance crossways the boundaries of gender, far from it. Naturally society&aposs norms still apply and flush transgressions are carried out in relation to the norms themselves. Ultimately, though, the question comes back to the problem of agency. If it is up to me to choose my gender, as I wish, then who is doing the choosing? When Butler even rejects the idea of there being an actor at all, all meaning fades from the question What gender am I?In conclusion, the second wave of feminism brought a grand narrative view of the history of women&aposs oppression. It pointed to oppression as a political institution enforced through social mechanisms such as the family, marriage and economics.Critics of this approach, however, questioned whether it was possible to set women up in direct opposition to men. Judith Butler responded to the second wave view by collapsing the ideas of gender and sex into each other. Gender, she argues, is performed, and so the subject in feminist thought, was apparently destroyed. But, argued critics of Butler, these notions of gender appear to restrict the political power of feminism, to leave it toothless, without its subject. Attempting to answer the question What gender am I? when viewed in the light of Butler&aposs theory, leads to a sense of confusion. I could be both, I could be either, I could be neither. Is this freedom, or is it just too free-form? ReferencesBenhabib, S. (1995). Subjectivity, historiography, and politics Reflections on the feminism/postmodernism exchange. In S. Benhabib, J. Butler, D. Cornell, N. Fraser (Eds.). Feminist contentions A philosophical exchange. New York Routledge.Brooks, A. (1997). Postfeminisms Feminism, cultural theory, and cultural forms. Oxford Routledge.Butler, J. (1990). Gender Trouble Gender and the depravity of Identity. Oxford Routledge.Clough, P. T. (2000) Judith Butler. In G. Ritzer (Ed.). The Blackwell Companion to Major Social Theorists. Oxford Blackwell Publishing.Beauvoir, S. (1961). The Second Sex. 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