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Summary Lecture notes Introduction to Gender studies
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Lecture notes Introduction to Gender studies, 2018/2019 at Utrecht University.
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Lecture notes Introduction to Gender studiesLecture 1 ABK - Gender as a social construction
Gender studies is a relatively new discipline.
→ Gender as a social construction: one is not born... , but rather becomes…. But, this can
be contested as well. Are we born with it, can we change what we are born with? There is
something biological there, but why did we name people women and men and what does
that mean? What do we do with other sexes than women/men?
-Lexica: A group of vocabulary that belongs together. All the words that you have, influence
on how you think/believe.
-Today we have more lexica to describe our bodies/the other/the world/our
consciousness(es) than ever. This did not always exist, this has only recently become
accessible to us in such a way that it circulates more freely. (last 20 years)→ such openness
is fraught with the complexities of power/ only specific slivers of the public sphere are really
‘open’ (university vs. at home) ->negotiate multiple spaces. The Netherlands may be
relatively open minded, that doesn’t mean this is always the case.
->Gender and sexuality relate to each other, but are not synonymous.
->Gender studies comes out of a history of difference between men and women. Many
theorists are French; there was something happening after WWII, but the theories weren’t
popular there-> translated to English in America. Utrecht is a special university in gender
studies in the world with it’s reputation (translating, ground-breaking work). Gender studies
are not the propriety of the Global Northern institutions, the question of gender and their
rights has been brought up in other parts of the world as well-> and as such we must work
comparatively across intellectualisms throughout the world.
->Shift from binary women-men to gender (2000s). Power: women’s studies is possessive
(“our” studies); gender studies allows many more people to be part of that.
-Explosion of ‘gender’ isn’t only about us becoming aware of our biology/bodies/sexuality,
but also because of encountering other cultures and how they deal with our
biology/bodies/sexuality (1. more travelling. 2. more multicultural societies).
These conversations are very difficult and sometimes painful (very personal): scholars now
say that it’s okay to not get along, as long as the dialogue is there.
TO UNDERSTAND HOW THE MEANINGS WE
ASCRIBE TO WORDS ARE CONTINGENT ON
TIME, PLACE, AND ALSO BODIES -> Let us look at a word that is still used, but whose
connotations have changed over the century.
→ The word “androgynous” what then was considered as subversively male has now
become a desired feminine aesthetic. They now seem pretty traditional and not radical; at
the time it was very radical.
HOW WE DESIRE EACH OTHER AND COME TOGETHER AS INTIMATELY SOCIALLY
(NORMATIVE) BEINGS: These two concepts aren’t necessarily the same.
->What we do in our intimate lives; whom we are with desirously at a certain moment in life
,is not necessarily the same as
-> how we behave in our socialized sexual selves
-> furthermore, how each person or community socializes (brings to the public sphere)
gendered and/or sexualized behaviour.
-Gender is something that is presexual. We are born, the doctor says (before you are born)
that you are a boy/girl. We grow up, we begin to desire other people. We “join” together
(sexually and socially): influences how we want to perform as a social person. → What we
do in our intimate lives; whom we are with desirously at a certain moment in our life is not
necessarily the same as how we behave in our socialized sexual selves. ->What is my
sexuality and what is my gender? → Gender = presexual, because sexuality comes later in
life. (Thus, transgender has nothing to do with sexuality).
HOW CERTAIN PEOPLE HAVE LITERALLY COMPROMISED THEMSELVES TO
CHANGE PUBLIC DISCOURSE AROUND GENDER AND SEXUALITY: expanding
vocabularies for how we desire and interact; privately, semi-privately and socially. ->The
notion of desiring, the private, and the public function differently across times and spaces,
and differently based on how differently racialized public cultures work (ex: homosexual,
lesbian shift to ‘same-sex desiring’).
How same-sex desiring has become normative in certain public spaces, yet remains in
others a complex terrain. (ex: Wolfenden report 1957; prominent men arrested for same-sex
“offenses”, committee recommended that “homosexual behaviour between consenting adults
in private should no longer be a criminal offence”)
-Individuals were forced into painful life experiences because they weren’t accepted
(sometimes to the point of death), and it is still going on, to change current public discourse.
Some people still see this current public discourse and possibilities as a “privilege”. -> Many
big changes on part of gender/sexuality etc. in society were because of individuals.
(Example: Homosexuality becoming legal in the UK because of an actor). In the fight for
rights (or in society in general, such as with celebrities as Whitney Houston), often certain
groups will ask individuals that belong in more than one category to choose (Example:
Bayard Rustin; African-American vs. gay). ->The Danish Girl; Lili. Transgender= I feel I am
another gender that is ascribed to me by society. Autopsy-> turned out she had female
genitalia inside her body. Not only mental, science states it can also be biology. Intersex; If
gender is based on can you reproduce or not: some can, some can not, some don’t care.
->Difficult. There are more intersex people than people with down syndrome.
HOW WE GENDER AND HAVE GENDERED OURSELVES, OTHERS
How certain bodies are treated epistemologically: histories of sexual desire as partially
based on colonializing and racialized histories.
-Academy legitimises new ideas about gender and sexuality. The notion of desiring, the
private, and the public function differently across times and spaces, and differently based on
how differently racialized public culture works. Thus, notions as “lesbian”, “homosexual” are
different in different cultures, while white women in gender studies in the west impose their
notions on other cultures.
, -Intersex: Determination systems in humans (Male=XY and Female=XX) aren’t “full-proof”;
assumes a two-sex system-> Who has come up with this system, narratives of science?
(Chromosomes, internal organs, external organs, psyche).
→ Today, a derogatory term: Hermaphrodite; all individuals in the species have both male
and female reproductive organs, so humans aren’t hermaphroditic in today’s parlance.
An intersex person may have biological (chromosomal, gonadal, genital, congenital)
characteristics of both the male and females sexes.
->Gender is the notion that at some point biology got us here by reproduction between men
and women; is this true? No, there are for example intersex people that can reproduce-> we
grew up with the idea of men/women.
-Transgender:
● self-identification of gender that does not correspond to either masculine or feminine,
also non-identification with gender assigned at birth
● transexual: identification or “desire” to be the opposite sex of that assigned at birth,
but is not this desire also biologically determined?
● The polemics around the question of psychology in the order of scientific disciplines.
THE PHENOMENA THAT SHAPE US: WE ‘BECOME’ WHO WE ARE THROUGH OUR:
TIME/S, PLACE/S, BODY/IES, BIOPOLITICS
CONSEQUENCE:
AS A RESULT WE GAIN EXPERIENCE OF OURSELVES AND OTHERS AND IN TURN
WE DIRECT OUR “INTENTIONALITY” (HUSSERL) ONTO OTHER PHENOMENA
(BODIES, THINGS, PLACES)
-Phenomenon= something that comes up, but isn’t really real. Takes place in a certain
time/place and with gender body. -> Gender is a phenomenon: who I am in any given space
and time is completely different. It may influence what we are (not) capable of doing (power).
→ The phenomena that shape us; we become who we are through our time(s), place(s),
bodies, biopolitics. (“Me” was something else a century ago). → Result: I am a effect of, but I
also have effect on.
→ Butler’s article: “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in
Phenomenology and Feminist Theory” (1988)
There is no original/primary gender… at least if there is it is completely socially constructed.
To many, to a normalized heteronormative notion, male/female is the original. Butler will
counter this notion that such a normative binary notion of gender even exists.
Philosophical study of STRUCTURE [SX] of experience and consciousness.
-> Which contexts (place; time; physical and social circumstances and how these
circumstances are indexed by society) have made us “become” who we are?
-> How do we negotiate ourselves intellectually, emotionally, and intimately to these
designations? How much agency do we have?
-> Do we do this alone or in small groups, or do we organize to lay claim to rights en masse?
-Performative act= when I enter in a relationship with somebody else, I am performing
something (including with myself, such as in a mirror). Gender is a performance (I perform
being a woman). Some performances feel more true to myself than others. ->My
performance/acts affect somebody else.
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