Talk:Gender performativity

As described -- I don't have the original reference -- this processus is an ideological causal loop. What created gender before there were "people's performances of what they believe about gender"? Ideas of gender arose out of nowhere? A divine edict fell down from on high? What?! --Ide Cyan 02:10, 15 December 2006 (PST)

Can you describe the problems with the concept on the main page? Or if you're saying I've described the theory inadequately, can you improve it? --LQ 05:11, 15 December 2006 (PST)

I do not have access to nor have I read the book by Judith Butler, so, in the absence of a direct quote, I can't ascertain whether you've described its propositions adequately or not, and can only criticise the subject based on how you've described it. --Ide Cyan 14:59, 15 December 2006 (PST)

Ide, how is the idea of gender performativity any more of a causal loop than other cultural phenomena? As far as I remember (I read Gender Trouble over 10 years ago), Butler does not attempt to explain where gendered behaviors came from originally (which is an impossible task if you ask me); her approach is to dig into the psychological and sociological aspects using postmodern theories by Irigaray, Lacan, etc. to show how we enact and pass along gendered behaviors now. I took down a lot of quotes from the book, so maybe I can add some more content to the main page to explain this a little more. --Therem 13:18, 16 December 2006 (PST)

All this ontological idealism is making me dizzy. Now you're comparing concepts and phenomena? Naturally, it's much easier to bend a concept than a phenomenon to circular logic. In the abstract you can conceptualise any cultural phenomenon as a self-sufficient causal loop. But even cultural phenomena must be material in some way, if they're neither transmitted via telepathy nor enacted purely in the mind. And you need to look for something more than ideas to substantiate material phenomena. Otherwise, it's no wonder you can't find a cause for them. --Ide Cyan 02:10, 17 December 2006 (PST)

Ide, I still don't see how the theory of gender performativity involves circular logic. It's only circular if the end connects to the beginning, and as I said, the historical origin of gender ideas is never hypothesized in Butler's work. As I interpret the theory, gender is passed along in a line, source unknown, end point unknown. What she writes about is the present and what we can observe NOW of how people learn to act the part of their assigned and/or chosen gender. She DOES have some big problems with the idea of objective truth (which I think is what you are referring to when you say "phenomena") for reasons that she goes into at some length. Short version: there is no "truth" without a mind to perceive it, and the mind is never free of its own perspective. This is a bit of a dilemma that haunts postmodern theory (and existentialism before it), but I don't think it should be waved away as an absurd idea. It has its value. --Therem 11:04, 17 December 2006 (PST)

Circular logic? "cultural notions of gender are produced by people's performances of what they believe about gender." In other words: Ideas of gender are produced by people's performances of their ideas of gender. The end connects to the beginning. It's perfectly loopy, and rooted in idealism. Ideas can motivate actions, sure, but ideas themselves come from nothing? Ideas generate themselves? The origin of ideas is unimportant or unknowable? What mystifying nonsense.

"Truth", as you put it, as perception, isn't at all the same thing as phenomena. As actions. As material reality. These things exist, whether you qualify them one way or another. A punch to the face may be a great idea or a cause of pain, depending on your "perspective", but it'll still leave bruises, even if you're knocked unconscious and aren't aware enough to perceive it. Likewise, that "performance" stage through which gender goes between the mists of "notions of gender" and "beliefs about gender" isn't imaginary, and there are consequences to it beyond "notions of gender", as well.

--Ide Cyan 09:45, 19 December 2006 (PST)