"...we have to start to question what the relation is between complying with gender, and coercion."- Judith Butler
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLnv322X4tY
The question one asks upon viewing this poignant clip is why it is that we have this need for conformity to gender norms. And when the "feminine" or "masculine" is not displayed in the way society expects, why does this illicit so much anxiety? In the extreme it leads to violence as in Butler's story or the murder of Matthew Shepard in Wyoming. But there are also many ways in which one is made to "comply" and thus go against oneself...simply to avoid discrimination or alienation.
5 comments:
Pretty crazy stuff. I've thinking more and more about this idea of the production of difference. Particularly dialectical but seemingly dichotomous difference (I.e. gender, or west vs. rest). Does it cater to our desire for knowing, perhaps of feeling right (in the sense of I know I am operating as a good male by taking such and such an action (and therefore feel comfortable with myself)), ... I'm not sure, but it's crazy how we seem to cling to these seemingly dichotomous forms in-order to feel safe with the world. Perhaps we need to seek radical new-ways of self-assurance rather than reactionary norms that don't fully take into account who we wish to be.
The violence in this and other similar cases against homosexuals is brutal. My question is where does that violence stem from. This takes me back to our lectures on the nature of violence in humans. This type of violence against homosexuals is no different than the atrocities and violence of slavery, against racism. These people are brutally killed because they are different than their murderer. Butler puts it so plainly and what should be obvious....this boy was murdered because of the way he walked. At what point and where do people draw the lines on violence. Its interesting that feelings of fear, insecurity and anxiety can conjure up these brutal acts of violence. Do these feelings of safety and security transfer to our allowance of leaders of waging war in the name of security and safety.
I read a book in my Theatre for Social Change class that relates a lot to this.
The book is called -Covering- by Kenji Koshino if you want to check it out.
Basically the main point is that nowadays in less outwardly racist/sexist/heteronormative societies, people tend to accept differences but only if they are largely "hidden" or "covered". In a case like the one Butler discusses, the boy may not have been attacked if he revealed he was gay because that identity has gradually come to be seen (in some places like the SF Bay Area) as almost essential ie. "natural"- he cannot help that. Gay people still face discrimination however in less overt ways by being asked not to "flaunt" and to act as "normal" as possible since their actions/appearance should, supposedly, be under their control (unlike in the case of sexuality). If the story Butler told was set in a theoretically "progressive" area, Yoshino would argue that the boy was attacked because he failed to change how he walked to blend in, not because he was attracted to men.
Of course, in many places being a man attracted to men would make you a target of violence, but I like how -Covering- looks at cases where their is not such a strict correlation of sexual orientation = cause of discrimination
He also looks at race and gender and more- really quite interesting, and touches on the ideas of nature vs. nurture/culture that we talk about in class.
A few weeks ago, in a similar case, an 18 year old college boy, named Tyler Clementi, jumped of the George Washington Bridge after his roommate secretly broadcasted him being intimate with another guy over the internet. Clementi committed suicide because of his roommates bullying and humiliation against his sexuality. Similar to what Butler was talking about, people are hated for the sole reason of being different. Neither the boy who was walking differently nor Clementi did anything to instigate the people who ended up taking their lives. It seems as if gender norms are so engrained into our society that if acted against cause deadly fear and anxiety. I also liked when Jessica asked.. if this same feeling of security is transferred over to the allowance of letting our leaders wage war for similar reasons. Maybe we need to take a second look at how society reacts to this feeling of fear to something different and new.. that something new definitely not always being a bad thing.
The Tyler Clementi case and the many more less well known instances of suicide committed by homosexuals due to their homosexuality are even more striking occurrences to me. That is because, whereas the case in Wyoming was an outward display of violence by outsiders on an individual, what causes a person to hate themselves so much as to take their own life? It's Foucault's story retold. When it comes to the policing and reinforcement of gender roles, we are our own wardens. Perhaps similar to the way that -Coverings- asserted that we accept differences in others as long as they are sufficiently masked to fit with in the spectrum of what society sees as normal behavior, so to do we hold ourselves to the same standard. Each of us sees ourselves not as we would like to, but as we assume the rest of the world sees us. So, when something happens to puncture the nice little plaster cast we present to the world, it is no longer the outside world that comes and berates us back into line, but we ourselves who are the punishers, we are the executioners who tie the noose around our own necks.
But this does not only pertain to those of us who by dint of birth lie outside the "norm." Society totes around for all to see, perpetuated by billboards, magazines, books and movies, even religion, the image of the ideal person, perfection personified. We see this and think "This is what I am supposed to be, so I need to do everything in my power to become this." However, it is impossible for anyone to achieve this because the very perfection of this image strips this ideal of any humanity, and it's impossible for a human to become something that is unhuman. That is why this image can only exist in the static world of pictures and written words. Perfection cannot be sustained in the real world with real people. But so pervasive is this image in our everyday lives that we refuse to see this and so are doomed to strive but never attain.
Some of us do accept the impossibility of it all and embrace our differences to the ideal. But others cannot and it is here that the seeds of one of the most insidious forms of violence are sown, self-violence, the kind that leads someone to jump off a bridge.
Post a Comment