Hello, /lit/; /pol/itician here (Conservative). Would it be

>>8472383
No.
You will spend the time better reading something that isn't shit, like Hilaire Belloc or Tocqueville or Kirk.

Yes. It's always good to expand your world view by reading things that directly contradict it. allow yourself to be more expansive and live and experience things more complexly.

>>8472391
>>8472396
Both of these are correct, depending on how you approach the book.

If you aren't respectful, open-minded, or flexible, the you may as well not waste your time slogging through something just to fuel your edge.
If you're genuinely interested in learning about gender then obviously you should read it.

>>8472396
>>8472408
Yes, I am willing to expand my world view. I am willing to listen to any political view.

But, can I ask, does Butler deny biological reality in her text? (I read a summary)

It's obvious to me that gender roles are performed, and humans are pressured by society (in my view rightfully) to fulfil those roles.

But her suggestion that gender doesn't exist outside of that seems to me to be denying biology.

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

>>8472419
'sex' and 'gender' are different. sex is biological, gender is more complex.

>>8472427
On what basis?

>>8472436
Ideological.

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>>8472436
how is a biology system and social performance different? On the basis that performance is not based on anything but the social conditions, and biology is based on biological conditions. Are you retarded?

>>8472419
That's literally the reason the word 'gender' exists in the first place (except as a grammatical term). The word gender was borrowed from linguistics because people wanted to describe something cultural. If you want to talk about biology, you use 'sex'. There's a reason we don't talk about what gender a chaffinch is.

>>8472436
Briefly, gender is the expectations and standards imposed on sexes by society

>>8472419
>But her suggestion that gender doesn't exist outside of that seems to me to be denying biology.
Humans can't perceive all biological markers or decide on one for sex. Biological make up just isn't that important day to day for humans. Gender and how it's performed do have a greater relevance than biology to our day to day choices than any biology; it's not so much a denial of biology as having a sense of perspective about its importance to humans which is pretty small.

Similarly, almost everyone on the planet knows that the earth revolves on its axis in an orbit around the sun, and so the sun can neither "set" nor "rise", but everyone would think you're a complete sperger if you brought that up when some attractive female shape asked you to come watch a sunset with her three hot friends. The dick wants what the dick wants, and sometimes it wants traps just as much as women or sexrobots, and will shut the fuck up about science while the sun sets to get into their squidgy bits.

>>8472419
Butler is then asked about the way in which she apparently ignores biological constraints on bodies, most obviously the fact that male bodies can't produce children whilst female bodies can]. Yes, there will be that exasperated response [to what I do there], but there is a good tactical reason to reproduce it. Take your example of impregnation. Somebody might well say: isn't it the case that certain bodies go to the gynaecologist for certain kinds of examination and certain bodies do not? And I would obviously affirm that. But the real question here is: to what extent does a body get defined by its capacity for pregnancy? Why is it pregnancy by which that body gets defined? One might say it's because somebody is of a given sex that they go to the gynaecologist to get an examination that establishes the possibility of pregnancy, or one might say that going to the gynaecologist is the very production of "sex" - but it is still the question of pregnancy that is centaring that whole institutional practice here.

Now, it seems to me that, although women's bodies generally speaking are understood as capable of impregnation, the fact of the matter is that there are female infants and children who cannot be impregnated, there are older women who cannot be impregnated, there are women of all ages who cannot be impregnated, and even if they could ideally, that is not necessarily the salient feature of their bodies or even of their being women. What the question does is try to make the problematic of reproduction central to the sexing of the body. But I am not sure that is, or ought to be, what is absolutely salient or primary in the sexing of the body. If it is, I think it's the imposition of a norm, not a neutral description of biological constraints.

I do not deny certain kinds of biological differences. But I always ask under what conditions, under what discursive and institutional conditions, do certain biological differences - and they're not necessary ones, given the anomalous state of bodies in the world - become the salient characteristics of sex. In that sense I'm still in sympathy with the critique of "sex" as a political category offered by Monique Wittig. I still very much believe in the critique of the category of sex and the ways in which it's been constrained by a tacit institution of compulsory reproduction.

http://www.theory.org.uk/but-int1.htm

>>8472500
>female

>>8472436
Semantics

>>8472501
(continued)
It's a practical problem. If you are in your late twenties or your early thirties and you can't get pregnant for biological reasons, or maybe you don't want to, for social reasons - whatever it is - you are struggling with a norm that is regulating your sex. It takes a pretty vigorous (and politically informed) community around you to alleviate the possible sense of failure, or loss, or impoverishment, or inadequacy - a collective struggle to rethink a dominant norm. Why shouldn't it be that a woman who wants to have some part in child-rearing, but doesn't want to have a part in child-bearing, or who wants to have nothing to do with either, can inhabit her gender without an implicit sense of failure or inadequacy? When people ask the question "Aren't these biological differences?", they're not really asking a question about the materiality of the body. They're actually asking whether or not the social institution of reproduction is the most salient one for thinking about gender. In that sense, there is a discursive enforcement of a norm.

>>8472504
>turning down head from sexy co-eds
your choice i guess. may your science keep you warm while your house is on the dark side of the planet next.

>>8472383
Judith Butler is a mentally ill person and is not worth reading

>>8472501
>>8472507
Okay, I need to bring up an issue I have with her writing style even though I haven't read Gender Trouble yet.

I'll echo what I've seen some critics say and say that her language is overly-complex.

Not that I had much difficulty understanding what she was saying there, but surely simpler language would open her ideas up to more people?

>>8472522
>>turning down head from sexy co-eds
I can assure you that I have never done that.

>>8472550
did you seek assurances about their chromosomes first?

>>8472472
But aren't gender roles linked to biology?

Males and females have differing roles because biologically they are best suited to those roles, generally.

Sure, society does have expectations of the sexes to fulfil these roles, but it's because of evolutionary psychology moreso than it is any form of 'oppression'. Of course, it would be authoritarian-and therefore "oppressing" (though I hate to use that term)-if the government legislated these things as mandatory, but in the end they're optional.

>>8472555
Whose?

Butler is literally the main reason why feminism is in the state it is today.

Take that as you will.

>>8472550
Everyone knows the true FOXE is 100% homo and would never let a roastie near him

>>8472573
>muh idealism

>>8472557
>are best suited to those roles, generally.
Are they? Says who?

>>8472583
I believe you missed my joke.

>>8472573
So its a good introduction to feminism huh? Anyone got a pdf?

>>8472588
Impersonation is no laughing matter

>>8472557
I'll meet you halfway.

Many of them did use to be mandatory. The feminist movement helped to change that and gave women more freedom. Now that many of the issues aren't written into law, there's still that societal expectations of the gender roles, such that if a person of one gender just so happens to want to do something that's generally associated with the opposite gender, they are often mocked or bullied or seen as a weirdo, or out of place, etc. You could forgive somebody for calling that oppressive.

>>8472590
OP here. I found one.

https://selforganizedseminar.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/butler-gender_trouble.pdf

>>8472603
thanks bruv

>>8472586
Says evolutionary psychology, and to some degree biological make-up. Males are generally stronger than females, and females are more emotional and caring, generally.

Do you mean you're a conservative from /pol/?

If so then you need to read some works by proper conservatives like Burke. Not saying don't read Butler, but I doubt someone from /pol/ knows much.

>>8472596
So, it's soft power, is what you're saying?

Okay, I can accept that.

>>8472596
are you saying that people having negative opinions of other people is oppression

>>8472615
>but I doubt someone from /pol/ knows much.

Don't generalise us. We're not all "14/88 gas the Kikes, race war now!" double digit IQ types.

>>8472616
It depends on who you ask. There are varying degrees of feminism, despite what it seems like on the internet.

>>8472590
It's a good introduction to contemporary tumblr feminism at least.

>>8472620
It depends on what causes those "negative opinions"

>>8472427
SJW's and trannies are against Bio-essentialism, basically any science that contradicts their ideology

>>8472590
a good introduction to feminism
>>>/pol/

irregardless of whether gender is real or magical, i heard a lot of people saying that Butler is a shit writer, for somebody that read her, is this true?

>>8472633
kill yourself

>>8472548
Heh, I think that's actually a spoken interview so a lot more user-friendly than her written work is.

To a degree it's necessary, though. You have to be precise in your use of terms- if you dumb academic discourse down too far it gets really vague and nobody knows what the hell anyone's talking about.

Of course, if you make it too rarefied you get the same result...

>>8472676
Just like most philosophers in the continental tradition, she assumes a lot of prior knowledge on the part of the reader, and so uses a lot of jargon.

>>8472676
>irregardless
Ouch. Yeah, judging by that you might have gender trouble understanding her.

>>8472676
>whether gender is real
Gah, is this the good old /pol/ 'socially constructed means not real' assumption rearing its head?

Russia is obviously socially constructed- its existence is in no way biologically, geologically or anything else -ogically determined. Does that mean Russia isn't real?

>>8472500
>Humans can't perceive all biological markers or decide on one for sex. Biological make up just isn't that important day to day for humans. Gender and how it's performed do have a greater relevance than biology to our day to day choices than any biology; it's not so much a denial of biology as having a sense of perspective about its importance to humans which is pretty small.

I believe on the contrary that we severely underestimate biological factors. They play a much larger role than culture and shape culture to a large extent. The distinction between sex and gender is partly artificial.

>>8472701
>Gah, is this the good old /pol/ 'socially constructed means not real' assumption rearing its head?

Not him, but what if I, heh, I dunno...

rejected your concepts? ;) :P

>>8472676
>irregardless

I'm fucking triggered.

>>8472747
>>8472687
thanks for your insults anglofags, i learned something new today

>>8472733
Those concepts don't need your approval to have real effects on you if you interact with them. Russia may be socially constructed but it will prevent you from entering its territory for real if you don't request a visa to it.

>>8472751
If English isn't your first language your opinion is inherently less valuable desu

>>8472722
ugh, feminists.

>>8472754
yeah but it ain't gonna stop me from fucking your mum

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>>8472758

>>8472383
Sure. At least to understand better where your opponents are coming from. If you wanna read more pomo shit on a similar topic, try Foucault's History of Sexuality.

It is probably important to understand Butler's argument if you want to be able to understand contemporary identity politics, which are becoming more and more mainstream, but Gender Trouble is a difficult text to understand. Butler is pretty opaque and uses loads of jargon. I really wanted to understand her argument and get something out of this text, but the way it was written did not lend itself to that and I could not make it past the first 50 pages. She demands a lot of prior knowledge of the reader, so actually reading this book may not be worth it. It might be better to just read a good synopsis.

>>8472751
Nice!

Your English is obviously really good. But 'irregardless' does feel like a 'this person reads internet posts more than actual books' red flag. It's a mistake that native speakers who don't read a lot make all the goddamn time.

>>8472926
well you don't have to loose your shit about it

>>8472758
>desu
i don't know if you're just retarding to be pretended

>>8472383
Read all three volumes of History of Sexuality by Foucault first; some other books by Foucault would be a good place to get where Butler is coming from. Butler is heavily indebted to Foucault, both in thinking style and in writing style, although she's even worse than Foucault in terms of use of jargon and density of sentences. I can at least go slowly and carefully and understand Foucault; sometimes even that doesn't help with Butler.

>>8472981
>he doesn't know about the filter
embarrassing desu

New tumbler tripfag is here but I can't filter because I use an app.
Any ones that do that? I use Clover.

>>8473385
im not from tumblr you fag

>>8473393
You have the opinions of tumbler m8 I just want an app that can filter you

>>8473405
no i dont you fag

>>8473385
you can filter on clover

settings>browsing>filters