Comparison Of Eve Sedgwick And Judith Butler
In 1990, both Eve Sedgwick (Epistemology of the Closet) and Judith Butler (Gender Trouble) made significant contributions to the ever burgeoning field of queer studies with theories about sexuality as performance. Following the central Foucauldian thread in which sexual conduct is but a construct specific to one’s cultural context and a factor of historical and cultural connotations, queer theorists proposed gender as a socially and culturally constructed performance. The performance of gender is described as an enactment of a culturally shaped sexual script which is irrevocably linked to the governing discourse on sexuality (power-knowledge). The concept of power to Foucault is that which is enforced not by authoritative top-down legal policing
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One cannot “be” a sexuality, one can only perform an identity related to a gendered sexual role. By repeating and imitating, one can perform an identity but never wholly a sexuality. Like Foucault, Butler acknowledges that there is something beyond the performance: there is an excess of sexuality which is never expressed completely in the role played. Sexuality is more flexible and possibly closer to the nature of the sexual drive than the performance can ever be; sexuality is more authentic than the coding that Butler refers to as gendering, and sexuality can never be encompassed by the gendered role in play. To Foucault and Butler, sexuality is discursive, arising out of linguistic formations; that which Foucault describes as circulated knowledge Butler describes as …show more content…
We play at many different roles and identities, and we are always aware that it's possible that we might lose that identity, or fall out of that role if we don't perform it convincingly. We try to embody norms, to assimilate and belong and we fail and succeed as we play. “Becoming” is a process which manifests in any myriad of ways. Butler maintains that we fail at gender because stereotypes and images we have of gender as the accumulation of effects of social relations become adopted, assimilated, configured and naturalized over time, are exercised coercively; there is a deep social anxiety that pertains to gender norms and gender compliance. And so there is this communal policing which goes on to ensure people are identifiable in their behaviour, gender, sexuality and
One cannot “be” a sexuality, one can only perform an identity related to a gendered sexual role. By repeating and imitating, one can perform an identity but never wholly a sexuality. Like Foucault, Butler acknowledges that there is something beyond the performance: there is an excess of sexuality which is never expressed completely in the role played. Sexuality is more flexible and possibly closer to the nature of the sexual drive than the performance can ever be; sexuality is more authentic than the coding that Butler refers to as gendering, and sexuality can never be encompassed by the gendered role in play. To Foucault and Butler, sexuality is discursive, arising out of linguistic formations; that which Foucault describes as circulated knowledge Butler describes as …show more content…
We play at many different roles and identities, and we are always aware that it's possible that we might lose that identity, or fall out of that role if we don't perform it convincingly. We try to embody norms, to assimilate and belong and we fail and succeed as we play. “Becoming” is a process which manifests in any myriad of ways. Butler maintains that we fail at gender because stereotypes and images we have of gender as the accumulation of effects of social relations become adopted, assimilated, configured and naturalized over time, are exercised coercively; there is a deep social anxiety that pertains to gender norms and gender compliance. And so there is this communal policing which goes on to ensure people are identifiable in their behaviour, gender, sexuality and