Butler - Subjects of Sex/Gender/Desire

"... The distinction between sex and gender serves the argument that whatever biological intractability sex appears to have, gender is culturally constructed: hence gender is neither the causal result of sex nor as seemingly fixed as sex."

            Judith Butler critiques the distinctions made between sex and gender. What is sex? What is gender? They are both culturally constructed. While yes, I always knew that gender was a social construct, but to argue that sex itself was also culturally constructed seemed incredibly strange to me. While continuing to read Butlers piece I began to draw the connections that both of these are constructed culturally within today’s society. There is no longer a binary of sexes, but multi-levels, and therefore one cannot solidify sex into one specific category. So, back to the question of what is sex? Is it just the biological traits associated with what it is to be male and what it is to be female? I no longer believe that this is the case. Sex according to Butler is culturally constructed much like gender. It is strange to think that men will exclusively relate to male bodies, and females only to female bodies. Society no longer has this binary, and to define behaviors and norms based around the discussion of sex and gender is incredibly problematic.

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            The article goes on to state, "Gender ought not to be conceived merely as the cultural inscription of meaning on a pre-given sex (a juridical conception) gender must also designate the very apparatus of production whereby the sexes themselves are established." Gender is what society believes how specific sex should act, and behave. For example, because of the way men have been socially constructed it is difficult for them to have relationships with other men without be perceived as gay. Male friendships are usually displayed in forms of comedy, in order to avoid the emotional attachment that is usually associated with females, and their friendships. Continuing on, they way females have been socially constructed is that if they have more than one sexual partner they are deemed to be “slutty”, which is ridiculous, because men are applauded for this behavior. Nonetheless, it is obvious that gender is culturally constructed. The discussion however, about sex being culturally constructed somewhat baffles me. Sex; if your born with a penis you are a man, and if your born with a vagina you are a woman. However, if you’re born with a penis and identify as a woman doesn’t that change your sex? Why does it have to be so solidified as Men and Women? Why can’t society wrap their heads around the idea of more than two sexes?

Really Though?

  “Whether gender of sex is fixed or free is a function of a discourse which seeks to set certain limits to analysis or to safeguard certain tenets of humanism as presuppositional to any analysis of gender. The locus of intractability, whether in “sex” or “gender” or in the very meaning of “construction,” provides a clue to what cultural possibilities can and cannot become mobilized through any further analysis.”