Thought I'd go ahead and post some thoughts here before finalizing my piece. (And here's me hoping it's an appropriate choice for a text.)
The lyrics to this song have been traditionally taken, especially at surface value, to refer to Elliott Smith's eventual suicide ("give me one good reason not to do it"); it's been contested that the lyrics instead refer to Smith's drug addiction, as evidenced by other lyrics. What's interesting is that often, especially on the internet (where users are uninhibited by identity), people become upset when it's suggested that the song really is about his drug addiction. What this seems to indicate is that, on some level, Smith's suicide is more socially "acceptable" than his drug addiction, because it does less to directly subvert the authority and control bio-power had over his life.
Bio-power's shift away from control through death, which, according to Foucault, has become power's limit (138), may help explain why such strong feelings surround these two interpretations of the text. Suicide, which was once a crime in that is was a way to usurp the power of death, the sovereign's "right to kill," is now considered to be closer to a "right" than a crime: "the individual and private right to die, at the borders... of power that was exercised over life" (139). Though tragic, Smith's decision to take his own life was exactly that: his decision. Under the system of bio-power, this is much less of a direct subversion of power, which may explain to some extent why the song's audience is tentatively accepting of this interpretation of the lyrics.
However, in both discussions I have had personally regarding "King's Crossing" as well as discourse I have observed online, tension arises when this interpretation is contested with the alternative interpretation that the song is actually about Smith's drug addiction. Indeed, some phrases in the song - for example, "all I want to do is inject my ex-wife," with "ex-wife" being slang for a past heroine addiction - are explicit drug references. Thus the line "Give me one good reason not to do it" changes meaning from the decision to exercise a personal and individual right to death to an outright declaration that Smith wishes to return to drug use. This, again, is a personal choice, but it does more, perhaps, to usurp power than does suicide. Under the relatively new construct of bio-power, Smith is directly subverting both of the two poles. First, he subverts the disciplines by personally altering his body as a machine - adversely affecting and ultimately preventing the optimization of his body's capabilities, thwarting the extortion of its forces and usefulness and diminishing its overall docility in relation to society as a whole. Second, he subverts the regulatory controls inherent to bio-power by personally altering his level of health, life expectancy and longevity, and particularly a condition (drug usage) which causes these biological processes to vary. Because bio-power seeks the calculated management of life, ...It is possible that it is this direct subversion and usurping of power over and throughout life that makes Smith's audience uncomfortable with the reading of the lyrics as they pertain to drug usage (rather than suicide).
Alternately, this could also be read as an effect of bio-power in that Smith's life is being disallowed by society until the point of death. If his depression and drug addiction are viewed as biological processes, then they do indeed fall under the second pole of bio-power; that is, the regulatory controls, which supervise the level of health, life expectancy and longevity (to name a few) of the human body. While Smith's drug usage
This reading can be supported directly by the text. "All I want to do is inject my ex-wife" and "I'm going on a date with a rich white lady" are both references to hard drugs (presumably heroine and cocaine, respectively) that, significantly, are characterized by the opposite gender, imbuing drugs with a kind of sexual significance that lies at the axes of the two poles of bio-power. The seductive quality of drugs robs Smith of his personal power to resist or avoid them, influencing his decisions heavily. In a sense, as sex is such an intrinsic part of bio-power, it is bio-power that is exerting its authority over his life and not Smith making a personal decision to use or not use drugs.
This is not the only sexual imagery present in the piece, however. "Because I took my own insides out/It don't matter 'cause I have no sex life" is more challenging to understand. The first line seems to indicate a deliberate act - "I took," reminiscent of the pre-bio-power "take/let" power construct - but this emptiness is brushed aside because it doesn't matter, as the singer "has no sex life." Looking at this lament through the lens of bio-power, and particularly the axes of regulatory controls, the act of taking is rendered unimportant or meaningless by the body's inability to propagate and the lack of sex inherent to the act of taking. Literally, the act of removing one's own insides renders the body incapable of procreation, one of its main functions and the biological end to sex and continuation of a bloodline.
Thus the song is a conflicting mix of attempts to subvert the bio-power construct and said construct's inherent control over the singer's life and actions.
The song can be read as a whole, then, as Smith's frustration with his inability to subvert the outside power (bio-power) controlling his life. Looking outside the text and with a purely speculative eye, this may explain to some extent why Smith took his own life - again, with the advent of bio-power, death, being power's limit, became an individual and personal right: the right to die. If, as the lyrics state, Smith had limited or damaged personal authority over his body - not only in terms of drugs and biological processes, but also in relation to his body as a machine (and here I'm referring to the lyrics which directly reference capitalism) - then perhaps the only way he was able to subvert the two axes that comprise bio-power was to exercise this private right, thus ensuring bio-power's authority over and throughout his life ended.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Bio-power, part 2
Bio-power:
- was a critical component in the development of capitalism. This is because capitalism required 1) "the controlled insertion of bodies into the machinery of production" (141), and 2) the adjustment of the phenomena of population to economic processes. Bio-power was also necessary to regulate/encourage the growth of both of these factors, "and life in general without at the same time making them more difficult to govern" (141), which goes back to the idea of the body as a machine (the first pole of bio-power): the parallel increase of the body's usefulness as well as its docility. Procedures of power characterized by this first pole, or "the disciplines" (139), regulated this area and enabled the body (entirety of the population) to be inserted into and regulated within the capitalist system.
- has many forms and modes of application. "The investment of the body, its valorization, and the distributive management of its forces were at the time indispensable" (141), probably because they were needed to the rapid growth and expansion of modern (capitalist) society.
- can be defined in its simplest form, perhaps, as the power that regulates and controls various aspects of the human body and human species, yet is simultaneously derived from that which it controls. And what it controls relies on the power that controls it for the same reason; as Foucault says, "against this power that was still new in the nineteenth century, the forces that resisted relied for support on the very thing it invested, that is, on life and man as a living being" (144). What served as the controlling power also established itself as a new belief system: people did not aspire towards such antiquated goals as the coming of the emperor of the poor, etc., as "what was demanded and what served as an objective was life, understood as the basic needs, man's concrete essence, the realization of his potential, a plenitude of the possible" (145).
- at the turn of the eighteenth century dictated that "Power would no longer be dealing simply with legal subjects over whom the ultimate dominion was death, but with living beings, and the mastery it would be able to exercise over them would have to be applied at the level of life itself; it was the taking charge of life, more than the threat of death, that gave power its access even to the body" (142-143).
- brought life and its mechanisms (e.g. the body) into the realm of explicit calculations and made knowledge-power an agent of transformation in human life. That is, bio-power played a huge role in redistributing the order of the classical episteme and went on to regulate
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Bio-power
Starting in the 17th century, there was a major shift in the structure of power from the "right to kill" (take life/let live) to the "control over life" (foster life/disallow to the point of death).
"As soon as power gave itself the function of administering life" (138) writes Foucault, "its reason for being... made it more and more difficult to apply the death penalty." That is, once power's function became the administration of life, it became pointless, or at least extreme, to administer death, given that once a life has been taken, there can be no further power exerted over said life.
So now that it is throughout life, rather than through the threat of death, that power exercises control; death is no longer a viable basis for power because, quite simply, "death is power's limit" (138). Death is the very moment in which a life may escape power, because it is, as Foucault says, a private moment.
Why is it no longer possible to control a population through power derived from the right to kill? Well, remember that the sovereign "exercised his right of life only by exercising his right to kill, or by refraining from killing" (136), which is more or less how power functioned in earlier societies. What happens in the 17th century to provoke a (gradual) change? Most likely this is primarily related to the advancement of civilization, etc. etc. In the face of a changing, growing, unpredictable population, a new power had to take the place of the old one, and it had to be capable of controlling more complex factors than before. This isn't simply ordering subjects about under the threat of death should they disobey; this is a whole new level of complexity and order, and as society evolved, power constructs had to evolve alongside it.
Why bio-power? Perhaps because those were the elements that needed to be controlled: the body as a machine, and the "specifies body," the body as it pertains to biological processes.
Here's the fun part.
WHAT IS BIO-POWER?
Bio-power is comprised of these two areas, which Foucault refers to as "poles." The first, again, deals with the body as a machine. The disciplines (an anatomo-politics of the human body) and their procedures of power ensure the body's disciplining, the optimization of its capabilities, the extortion of its forces, the parallel increase of its usefulness and its docility, its integration into systems of efficient and economic controls. More simply, the body, as a machine, needs to be both productive (to society) and controllable.
The second of the two poles focuses on the "species body" (139, Foucault's words again) - that is, the body as it relates to biological processes. The regulatory controls (a bio-politics of the population) supervise those processes, which include "propagation, births and mortality, the level of health, life expectancy and longevity, with all the conditions that can cause these to vary" (139).
Bio-power's highest function is not the right to kill but to "invest life through and through" (139); again, power cannot be exercised through or over death, given that this is explicitly defined by Foucault as the limit of power. Rather, bio-power is power exerted and controlling throughout the duration of life, which allows for greater specificity than the comparatively simple "take life/let live" dichotomy. Thus, bio-power is a calculated management of life: it seeks to achieve the subjugation of bodies (first pole, the body as machine) and the control of populations (second pole, the species body).
"As soon as power gave itself the function of administering life" (138) writes Foucault, "its reason for being... made it more and more difficult to apply the death penalty." That is, once power's function became the administration of life, it became pointless, or at least extreme, to administer death, given that once a life has been taken, there can be no further power exerted over said life.
So now that it is throughout life, rather than through the threat of death, that power exercises control; death is no longer a viable basis for power because, quite simply, "death is power's limit" (138). Death is the very moment in which a life may escape power, because it is, as Foucault says, a private moment.
Why is it no longer possible to control a population through power derived from the right to kill? Well, remember that the sovereign "exercised his right of life only by exercising his right to kill, or by refraining from killing" (136), which is more or less how power functioned in earlier societies. What happens in the 17th century to provoke a (gradual) change? Most likely this is primarily related to the advancement of civilization, etc. etc. In the face of a changing, growing, unpredictable population, a new power had to take the place of the old one, and it had to be capable of controlling more complex factors than before. This isn't simply ordering subjects about under the threat of death should they disobey; this is a whole new level of complexity and order, and as society evolved, power constructs had to evolve alongside it.
Why bio-power? Perhaps because those were the elements that needed to be controlled: the body as a machine, and the "specifies body," the body as it pertains to biological processes.
Here's the fun part.
WHAT IS BIO-POWER?
Bio-power is comprised of these two areas, which Foucault refers to as "poles." The first, again, deals with the body as a machine. The disciplines (an anatomo-politics of the human body) and their procedures of power ensure the body's disciplining, the optimization of its capabilities, the extortion of its forces, the parallel increase of its usefulness and its docility, its integration into systems of efficient and economic controls. More simply, the body, as a machine, needs to be both productive (to society) and controllable.
The second of the two poles focuses on the "species body" (139, Foucault's words again) - that is, the body as it relates to biological processes. The regulatory controls (a bio-politics of the population) supervise those processes, which include "propagation, births and mortality, the level of health, life expectancy and longevity, with all the conditions that can cause these to vary" (139).
Bio-power's highest function is not the right to kill but to "invest life through and through" (139); again, power cannot be exercised through or over death, given that this is explicitly defined by Foucault as the limit of power. Rather, bio-power is power exerted and controlling throughout the duration of life, which allows for greater specificity than the comparatively simple "take life/let live" dichotomy. Thus, bio-power is a calculated management of life: it seeks to achieve the subjugation of bodies (first pole, the body as machine) and the control of populations (second pole, the species body).
The "repressive hypothesis" vs. "sexuality"
Thought it might be useful, seeing as Foucault is to be a foundational text for the course, if I defined some of the recurring terms and things I ought to remember for later, so here goes!
So! The repressive hypothesis, then. This is NOT what Foucault believes, but rather a theory which explains the history of sexuality (since the 18th century) as one of repression. In theory, since the rise of the bourgeoisie, 1) energy spent on purely pleasurable activities is disapproved of, and 2) sex is something private/practical and meant to be between a husband and wife. Sex outside of this construct is "repressed," and so discourse on sexuality is confined to marriage. The theory mandates that, if we are to free ourselves from this sexual repression, we must talk freely and openly about (as well as enjoy) sex/our sexuality (and if anyone would like to clear up for me which of those last two terms is appropriate to use here, by all means, let's have it then).
Here is also probably a good time to explain WHY Foucault doesn't agree with the repressive hypothesis. More discourse isn't needed regarding sex because sex has practically BECOME discourse; we've gone on about it for so long that we've effectively regulated a vast multitude of its many aspects. What we really need to do is bin all the discourse and everything related to "sex" as an ideal if we're going to rebel, NOT talk about sex more (as the repressive hypothesis would suggest), and focus on the body and pleasure (whatever that means).
SO. Sexuality isn't what makes us what we are or what defines us in any way - it's a social construct that (to some extent) controls us (which is sort of a given, seeing that's it's part of "power" - specifically, it's a huge part of what controls our society). Once again: Sexuality is not what we are. Mind you, sexuality IS, according to Foucault, historical fact - part V tells us as much (because "sex" is the platonic ideal, which is a bit of a puzzlement, while sexuality is real in that it's been a component of power for some time now). Sexuality is very much something that exists, but it exists not as some aspect of what or who we are but rather as a (factual and very real) political construct. And it's this political construct that becomes part of biopower/biopolitics (but more on that later).
This is, I think, where we get into the "right to kill"/"power over life" thing going on. If I'm going to be really simplistic about this, the idea of blood in relation to power (pre-18th century) falls under "right to kill," while sexuality as a power construct falls under "power over life." So sexuality isn't what makes us what we are at all, but rather a social construct that (to some extent) controls us. And it's more or less omnipresent, judging by what we talked about in class on Monday.
Right then. I've beat it into my head by now that sexuality is a social and political construct that (at least in part) regulates our modern society. Fantastic. Now sexuality is part of biopower/biopolitics, or else Foucault probably wouldn't be talking about it in this text. And part V of the text is pretty explicit that sexuality has "power over life." Does that mean biopolitics by definition is the practice of controlling society through biopower?
I'm going to have to come back to that. I want to wrap up the post by doing a bit of a versus match-up: the "repressive hypothesis" as a power construct versus "sexuality."
The repressive hypothesis, I think, falls under the "right to kill" school of thought. Everything under this hypothesis is supposed to deal with the heterosexual married couple as a means for self-preservation and continued existence. If "perversions" are a threat, then they must be repressed ("killed") except that doesn't really work. It's like trying to commit genocide, i.e. impossible. "Take life"/"let live" is a very narrow form of control and it doesn't work in the complex modern century (fun fact: we're no longer a feudal society).
So sexuality, then, is a similar power but much more complex, and it regulates everything through discourse rather than repression ("killing"). Sexuality is not, then, our essence, but rather a social construct through which we are controlled.
Perhaps by "sexuality" I am really referring to "biopower" (or at least a component of biopower)? Sexuality is still technically a part of the repressive hypothesis, so in employing the term "sexuality" to describe Foucault's rejection of the repressive hypothesis in favor of this other philosophy, I am using the term in a very particular way, and maybe one that is unfair. Thoughts, anyone?
So! The repressive hypothesis, then. This is NOT what Foucault believes, but rather a theory which explains the history of sexuality (since the 18th century) as one of repression. In theory, since the rise of the bourgeoisie, 1) energy spent on purely pleasurable activities is disapproved of, and 2) sex is something private/practical and meant to be between a husband and wife. Sex outside of this construct is "repressed," and so discourse on sexuality is confined to marriage. The theory mandates that, if we are to free ourselves from this sexual repression, we must talk freely and openly about (as well as enjoy) sex/our sexuality (and if anyone would like to clear up for me which of those last two terms is appropriate to use here, by all means, let's have it then).
Here is also probably a good time to explain WHY Foucault doesn't agree with the repressive hypothesis. More discourse isn't needed regarding sex because sex has practically BECOME discourse; we've gone on about it for so long that we've effectively regulated a vast multitude of its many aspects. What we really need to do is bin all the discourse and everything related to "sex" as an ideal if we're going to rebel, NOT talk about sex more (as the repressive hypothesis would suggest), and focus on the body and pleasure (whatever that means).
SO. Sexuality isn't what makes us what we are or what defines us in any way - it's a social construct that (to some extent) controls us (which is sort of a given, seeing that's it's part of "power" - specifically, it's a huge part of what controls our society). Once again: Sexuality is not what we are. Mind you, sexuality IS, according to Foucault, historical fact - part V tells us as much (because "sex" is the platonic ideal, which is a bit of a puzzlement, while sexuality is real in that it's been a component of power for some time now). Sexuality is very much something that exists, but it exists not as some aspect of what or who we are but rather as a (factual and very real) political construct. And it's this political construct that becomes part of biopower/biopolitics (but more on that later).
This is, I think, where we get into the "right to kill"/"power over life" thing going on. If I'm going to be really simplistic about this, the idea of blood in relation to power (pre-18th century) falls under "right to kill," while sexuality as a power construct falls under "power over life." So sexuality isn't what makes us what we are at all, but rather a social construct that (to some extent) controls us. And it's more or less omnipresent, judging by what we talked about in class on Monday.
Right then. I've beat it into my head by now that sexuality is a social and political construct that (at least in part) regulates our modern society. Fantastic. Now sexuality is part of biopower/biopolitics, or else Foucault probably wouldn't be talking about it in this text. And part V of the text is pretty explicit that sexuality has "power over life." Does that mean biopolitics by definition is the practice of controlling society through biopower?
I'm going to have to come back to that. I want to wrap up the post by doing a bit of a versus match-up: the "repressive hypothesis" as a power construct versus "sexuality."
The repressive hypothesis, I think, falls under the "right to kill" school of thought. Everything under this hypothesis is supposed to deal with the heterosexual married couple as a means for self-preservation and continued existence. If "perversions" are a threat, then they must be repressed ("killed") except that doesn't really work. It's like trying to commit genocide, i.e. impossible. "Take life"/"let live" is a very narrow form of control and it doesn't work in the complex modern century (fun fact: we're no longer a feudal society).
So sexuality, then, is a similar power but much more complex, and it regulates everything through discourse rather than repression ("killing"). Sexuality is not, then, our essence, but rather a social construct through which we are controlled.
Perhaps by "sexuality" I am really referring to "biopower" (or at least a component of biopower)? Sexuality is still technically a part of the repressive hypothesis, so in employing the term "sexuality" to describe Foucault's rejection of the repressive hypothesis in favor of this other philosophy, I am using the term in a very particular way, and maybe one that is unfair. Thoughts, anyone?
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Fragmentation of sexuality and the growth of perversion
So here is a thing that is stuck in my head from class last Wednesday (9/14): the fragmentation of sexuality. Thinking back to the list of paraphilias - the fact that these are so clearly defined and laid-out for us is yet another embodiment of the (presumably Victorian, at least initially) practice of controlling something through discourse rather than repression/taboo. These things aren't taboo in and of themselves, but by describing each paraphilia in such specific terms, and both by setting up a mechanism for talking about these specific fetishes and by providing a mechanism to decide what is "normal" and what is "abnormal," we have, through discourse, created a mechanism by which to judge sexuality that is infinitely more effective in labeling something "abnormal" or unacceptable, taboo, etc., than would be a mechanism created through actual taboo, repression, and/or silence.
Writing that out helps me wrap my head around the idea of controlling/hiding away/repressing various aspects of sexuality through talking about it, rather than refusing to talk about it. And in talking about it, we very naturally define ourselves in terms of our sexuality, because we can all identify with, or not identify with, certain aspects of sexuality.
So where does the fragmentation of sexuality come into this? (Took awhile to get to my actual point, didn't I.) The short version: by dividing sexuality into various paraphilias, permutations, and so-called abnormalities, we simultaneously sort ourselves into groups depending on which aspects we identify with. The simplest example of this is, perhaps, homosexuality, where being homosexual becomes an identifying characteristic for a rather large percentage of people, setting them apart.
But how much of that is perpetuated by sexuality and how much is perpetuated by people? Drawing from personal experience, I play for a roller derby team, and homosexuality is more or less traditionally part of the sport. There is a strong homosexual vein running through derby culture, and it's impossible to separate that out. And then, on some level, maybe we desire or intend to be divided into groups based on such characteristics - you get other derby leagues discriminating against heterosexual players and referees (in extreme cases, but it does happen), so to some extent, this group of people is deliberately separating themselves. Alternately, I suppose this could also be explained as a backlash to the forces which separated them as a population in the first place. Either way, "gay culture" as a whole is the most easily-identifiable example of sexual fragmentation, and I think it occurs both through the way we talk about sexuality and the way those defined by their sexuality as a fragmented group or population then go on to define themselves.
Here is the part where I change topics abruptly (because this is one I was having trouble with and then the light bulb suddenly went on).
Foucault says again and again things like: "The growth of perversions is not a moralizing theme that obsessed the scrupulous minds of the Victorians. It is the real product of the encroachment of a type of power on bodies and their pleasures" (48).
Okay. (That sounds you hear is me cracking my knuckles, mind.) The apparent explosion of the various types of perversions has nothing to do with society becoming more "moral" and identifying more and more perversions to stamp out and everything to do with our ability to put sexuality into words becoming a major force in "identifying" perversions. The "product" (that is, the growth of perversion" is the "product of the encroachment of power on bodies" - and I like the use of enroachment here because in a way, discourse is really a foreign idea to introduce to sexuality. I'm not sure how much (how many?) perversion(s) existed before discourse sought to shape it (and thereby control it), but surely much of it existed before its regulation. I guess what I really wonder is, how much? That is one long list of paraphilias I have sitting next to my laptop as I type. Did we figure these out as we figured out other things - that is, did we give words to define and control "autoandrophilia" (from Wikipedia: "a biological female imagining herself as a male") once we realized things like homosexuality and gender identity "existed"? These ideas naturally build on themselves, but what I'm getting from Foucault is that things like autoandrophilia already existed, but quietly, without being described through language.
Note to self: discuss language's constrictive power later on. It's amazing how it confines and effects sexuality.
Writing that out helps me wrap my head around the idea of controlling/hiding away/repressing various aspects of sexuality through talking about it, rather than refusing to talk about it. And in talking about it, we very naturally define ourselves in terms of our sexuality, because we can all identify with, or not identify with, certain aspects of sexuality.
So where does the fragmentation of sexuality come into this? (Took awhile to get to my actual point, didn't I.) The short version: by dividing sexuality into various paraphilias, permutations, and so-called abnormalities, we simultaneously sort ourselves into groups depending on which aspects we identify with. The simplest example of this is, perhaps, homosexuality, where being homosexual becomes an identifying characteristic for a rather large percentage of people, setting them apart.
But how much of that is perpetuated by sexuality and how much is perpetuated by people? Drawing from personal experience, I play for a roller derby team, and homosexuality is more or less traditionally part of the sport. There is a strong homosexual vein running through derby culture, and it's impossible to separate that out. And then, on some level, maybe we desire or intend to be divided into groups based on such characteristics - you get other derby leagues discriminating against heterosexual players and referees (in extreme cases, but it does happen), so to some extent, this group of people is deliberately separating themselves. Alternately, I suppose this could also be explained as a backlash to the forces which separated them as a population in the first place. Either way, "gay culture" as a whole is the most easily-identifiable example of sexual fragmentation, and I think it occurs both through the way we talk about sexuality and the way those defined by their sexuality as a fragmented group or population then go on to define themselves.
Here is the part where I change topics abruptly (because this is one I was having trouble with and then the light bulb suddenly went on).
Foucault says again and again things like: "The growth of perversions is not a moralizing theme that obsessed the scrupulous minds of the Victorians. It is the real product of the encroachment of a type of power on bodies and their pleasures" (48).
Okay. (That sounds you hear is me cracking my knuckles, mind.) The apparent explosion of the various types of perversions has nothing to do with society becoming more "moral" and identifying more and more perversions to stamp out and everything to do with our ability to put sexuality into words becoming a major force in "identifying" perversions. The "product" (that is, the growth of perversion" is the "product of the encroachment of power on bodies" - and I like the use of enroachment here because in a way, discourse is really a foreign idea to introduce to sexuality. I'm not sure how much (how many?) perversion(s) existed before discourse sought to shape it (and thereby control it), but surely much of it existed before its regulation. I guess what I really wonder is, how much? That is one long list of paraphilias I have sitting next to my laptop as I type. Did we figure these out as we figured out other things - that is, did we give words to define and control "autoandrophilia" (from Wikipedia: "a biological female imagining herself as a male") once we realized things like homosexuality and gender identity "existed"? These ideas naturally build on themselves, but what I'm getting from Foucault is that things like autoandrophilia already existed, but quietly, without being described through language.
Note to self: discuss language's constrictive power later on. It's amazing how it confines and effects sexuality.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Binary sex, male tomboys, and Eddie Izzard
The first thing I'd like to get sorted here is that I'm rubbish at starting blogs, so if anyone from class is reading this, feel free to wait for/skip forward to my later posts, as this one's likely to be primarily rambling.
That said: One of the things that's gotten me thinking from last Wednesday's class is the idea of a binary view of the sexes, as the binary itself is, by definition, a phallic construction. If woman is defined as what man is not - as man's negative - then woman becomes a pretty broad category.
Connecting this with the clip of Eddie Izzard, if "man" is comprised of a very specific set of things, and "woman" is whatever "man" is not, then wouldn't that mean that everyone who doesn't (can't, won't) identify with strictly one sex, and/or everyone whose sex can't be accurately described as one or the other, automatically falls into the category of woman? Under the phallogocentric language and culture of binary sexes, as Butler says, "women constitute the unrepresentable" (p 13 of Gender Trouble; emphasis is not my own). So what constitutes "unrepresentable"? Should transsexuals be classified as unrepresentable on the basis that they were born a particular sex yet now identify (or are) another? Is a transsexual "man" still a man despite being born a woman?
In this day and age, yes, a binary system of sex is technically out of the question (though not out of language and ideology - yet, anyway) because it is physically inadequate to describe the broadened spectrum of sex, let alone gender. But let's look at gender, then. If I'm physically male but identify as female, what changes? I'm still technically male, but I'm going to draw from Eddie Izzard again - much of the humor from the military part of his sketch comes from the audience's inability to fully accept his identity as a "man." Yet clearly he isn't a woman; it's even specified that he fancies women and doesn't consider himself one in any way. Eddie Izzard falls outside the "normal" spectrum of binary gender (obviously), but even if the system is inadequate (in that so many forms of sex and gender identity defy description under it), it's very much ingrained in our minds as a culture, and as such impossible to cast neatly aside to make room for changes in sex and identity.
Basically (and this is terribly boiled-down), if you aren't man, then you're the Other - and I can't understand the category of Other to strictly refer to woman. Quoting Butler again: "...[W]omen are the sex which is not 'one,' but multiple" (13).
So those thoughts are now, at least, out of my brain for the moment. Moving on - I'd like to revisit the terms Eddie Izzard uses in his sketch. The idea of a lesbian in a man's body in particular strikes me as a great way to get people to think about gender identity, because of course if you're a man and you fancy women, it makes you "straight" (or even "normal," depending on who you ask), but it's a clear diversion from what constitutes a male identity. I'm thinking I'll come back to this one later on.
That said: One of the things that's gotten me thinking from last Wednesday's class is the idea of a binary view of the sexes, as the binary itself is, by definition, a phallic construction. If woman is defined as what man is not - as man's negative - then woman becomes a pretty broad category.
Connecting this with the clip of Eddie Izzard, if "man" is comprised of a very specific set of things, and "woman" is whatever "man" is not, then wouldn't that mean that everyone who doesn't (can't, won't) identify with strictly one sex, and/or everyone whose sex can't be accurately described as one or the other, automatically falls into the category of woman? Under the phallogocentric language and culture of binary sexes, as Butler says, "women constitute the unrepresentable" (p 13 of Gender Trouble; emphasis is not my own). So what constitutes "unrepresentable"? Should transsexuals be classified as unrepresentable on the basis that they were born a particular sex yet now identify (or are) another? Is a transsexual "man" still a man despite being born a woman?
In this day and age, yes, a binary system of sex is technically out of the question (though not out of language and ideology - yet, anyway) because it is physically inadequate to describe the broadened spectrum of sex, let alone gender. But let's look at gender, then. If I'm physically male but identify as female, what changes? I'm still technically male, but I'm going to draw from Eddie Izzard again - much of the humor from the military part of his sketch comes from the audience's inability to fully accept his identity as a "man." Yet clearly he isn't a woman; it's even specified that he fancies women and doesn't consider himself one in any way. Eddie Izzard falls outside the "normal" spectrum of binary gender (obviously), but even if the system is inadequate (in that so many forms of sex and gender identity defy description under it), it's very much ingrained in our minds as a culture, and as such impossible to cast neatly aside to make room for changes in sex and identity.
Basically (and this is terribly boiled-down), if you aren't man, then you're the Other - and I can't understand the category of Other to strictly refer to woman. Quoting Butler again: "...[W]omen are the sex which is not 'one,' but multiple" (13).
So those thoughts are now, at least, out of my brain for the moment. Moving on - I'd like to revisit the terms Eddie Izzard uses in his sketch. The idea of a lesbian in a man's body in particular strikes me as a great way to get people to think about gender identity, because of course if you're a man and you fancy women, it makes you "straight" (or even "normal," depending on who you ask), but it's a clear diversion from what constitutes a male identity. I'm thinking I'll come back to this one later on.
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