An Analysis Of Judith Butler 's Exploration Of Gender, Sex, And Sexuality Essay

Always “Like a Girl” commercial was not only a hit in the media world, but a hit to the hearts of many women across the nation. In this commercial Always attempts to reach out and inform Americans of the damage caused to a female’s confidence when they do finally hit that age in their lives where insecurities begin to exist. Positively using their credibility and reputation to target a worldwide issue among woman so that it gains enough awareness to hopefully get fixed. Women working their whole lives to break society’s doubt so that they aren’t classified under another demeaning stereotype when asked, “What does it mean to do something ‘Like a Girl?’’’.

In Octavia Butler’s Dawn the idea of gender is deconstructed and reformed from the typical human’s definition. Often people do not consider the role of gender in society today. Usually the first thing one notices when meeting someone new is their gender or their presumed gender. However, there becomes a problem when the person whose gender we perceived identifies as a different gender. Butler forces the reader to examine how they judge and perceive gender. While the ooloi are actually “its” their personalities seem to imply a certain gender. The transgender community often brings up this issue because these assumptions of gender based on our judgments of what defines a male and what defines a female can skew how a transgender person is treated and addressed. In Chapter One of Gender Through the Prism of Difference by Anne Fausto-Sterling, the idea of expanding the number of genders based on one’s biological differences is examined through the five sexes theory. By now the concept of gender being defined solely by one’s biology has mostly been left in the past but the question remains of how do we truly define gender? How does being outside of the social norms that Michael Warner talks about cause us to feel shame when discussing our gender and our perceptions of gender? In this essay, I will argue that preconceived notions of gender create shame when a person’s own perception of their gender does not fit the social norms. This stigma around the limited and strict definitions

Society is often seen to have different biases or perspectives on topics such as the role and perception of women. The short story, “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid, consists primarily of a catalog of commands and instructions, the purpose of which is to make sure that the mother’s daughter is constantly in check and not getting into any trouble. Jamaica Kincaid utilizes a wide range of techniques such as symbolism and diction in order to showcase the theme of how the depiction of women rely mainly on how they present themselves in the public and how they are so easily described as impure or filthy.

The sexualisation of women in advertising has become a very prominent and controversial issue in today’s society. Many brands, products and campaigns we are presented with portray women as being available and willing sexual objects, who exist to cater to the male gender. Gucci is one such brand that does this, focusing on emphasizing the sexual appeal of the female gender in order to sell their products, because as advertisers know: ‘sex sells.’ This new cultural shift can however, be seen as politically regressive for women, as the ideology it brings negatively impacts how women are viewed by society and how they view themselves.

One of the many offensive gender stereotype sayings is “You throw like a girl.” Men often do not want to have anything to do with that statement. In James Fallows report he states, “Having been trained (like most American boys) to dread the accusation of doing anything ‘like a girl,’ athletes were said to grow into the assumption that women were valueless, and natural prey” (138). This suggests how women are looked down upon by men and their own society when competing against men in athletics. To reach supporters of feminism and to appeal to pathos, the author uses offensive language toward women, such as “valueless” and “natural prey”. These insulting words may hit the emotions of women. With just the usage of

The present account will discuss the phenomenon “throwing like a girl” and the contributing factors to the gender differences depicted in Iris Marion Young’s “Throwing Like a Girl.” In Part One, I will provide a reconstruction of Young’s argument set out in her essay. In Part Two, I will give a critique of her argument.

“You throw like a girl.” “You run like a girl.” “You look like a girl.” It’s common sense that these phrases are not at all compliments but rather gender-based insults. Since when did the physical capacities of a young girl stacked up against a boy turn into an insult and a limitation? Is being a female individual something derogatory, something to be shameful about? Young girls are taught to be weak, fragile and soft-spoken while it’s openly accepted and even encouraged for boys to have hard opinions, to be strong and tough and exert power. They’re constantly put into a place of doubt by the media, parents and their social community.

Kate Chaplin says that many people that say “you act like a girl this are saying, “That femininity is related to emotional or physical vulnerability. That crying is weak. That having compassion is powerless. That talking about how something affects you is insubstantial.” , this quote is a perfect example of showing how people think when they say “you act like a girl” It mentions that people refer once again to the feminine side to a girl and not instead the powerful individual we all see ourselves as.

This book features a collection of Judith Butler’s essays and her primary intention with this collection is to “focus on the question of what it might mean to undo restrictive normative conceptions of sexual and gendered life” (12). These essays look at the construction of gender and the way certain conceptions of it are normalized and reproduced in potentially harmful and limiting ways. Butler uses a feminist poststructural framework to critique the normalizing/marginalizing views of gender that exist because the “terms that make up one’s own gender are, from the start, out-side oneself, beyond oneself in a sociality that has no single author (and that radically

Judith Butler questions the belief that behaviors of either sex are natural. She proposes a rather radical theory that gender is performative and that sex is constructed. When gender is being performed, it means that someone would take on a role, acting in such a way that gives society the idea of their gender and constructs part of their identity. To be performative means that we produce a series of effects.Gender is constructed and is not in any way connected ‘naturally’ to sex.

In this essay I discuss that "doing gender means creating differences between girls and boys and women and men...." (West & Zimmerman 2002:13) I am concentrating on the female perspective, how societyputs forth expectations of what is 'natural' or biological even though, in some cases, it can be quite demeaning and degrading. I am using some examples from the local media and also a few childhoodexperiences that have helped me to now strongly suspect that the quote from Simone Beauvoir (1972) "One is not born a woman, but rather becomes one" most likely has quite a bit of truth to it.

Judith Butler’s approach in “From Undoing Gender” lets the audience see a different side of opinions regarding gender. Judith’s presence and way of speaking lets us look at things in a way we never had before. She demonstrates her way of thinking, acknowledges other peoples ways of thinking and also goes outside the box in creating her own definition of undergoing gender.

In 1990 Judith Butler first published her book Gender Troubles, where she questions gender roles. Butler theorizes that gender, as in male and female, is a type of societal/gender colonialism created to keep people who do not fall within the gender roles from being part of the mainstream society. In her 1999 preface, in which she addresses the impact her book had in the decade since its original publication, Butler expresses the concern she had with the “heterosexual assumption in feminist literary theory (61).” Butler utilizes the works of other feminist philosophers to further demonstrate the inconsistency, and disconnect between fighting for women rights and fighting for human rights. Judith Butler makes an interesting argument on the failure to recognize the spectrum of gender, however, she makes a compelling argument on the use of language perpetuating a patriarchal society.

What necessary tasks does Judith Butler identify for feminist criticism? How is her articulation of and response to these tasks characteristically "postmodern"?

Since its publication in 1990, Gender Trouble has become one of the key works of contemporary feminist theory, and an essential work for anyone interested in the study of gender, queer theory, or the politics of sexuality in culture. This is the text where Judith Butler began to advance the ideas that would go on to take life as "performativity theory," as well as some of the first articulations of the possibility for subversive gender practices, and she writes in her preface to the 10th anniversary edition released in 1999 that one point of Gender Trouble was "not to prescribe a new gendered way of life [...] but to open up the field of possibility for gender [...]" Widely taught, and widely debated, Gender Trouble continues to offer a powerful