What continues to concern me most is the following kinds of questions: what will and what will not constitute an intelligible life, and how do presumptions about normative gender and sexuality determine in advance what will qualify as the "human" and the "livable"? In other words, how do normative gender presumptions work to delimit the very field of description that we have for the human? What is the means by which we come to see this delimiting power, and what are the means by which we transform it?
Before I continue, I would like to make one side note on Butler. Over the years she has become quite well known for her work that has reached audiences outside her field of study in a way very few have been able to. This, despite being another (like Kenneth Burke who was previously discussed in this blog) academic who is noted for writing very densely. This is perhaps one reason why some of her work has passed under the nose of editors without certain changes being made. Certainly, when one is navigating complicated discussions it becomes increasingly challenging to communicate certain thoughts without flaw. Nonetheless, it is difficult to ignore the humor of The Bad Writing Contest of 1998 where Butler was named the "winner", and has subsequently been used as an example in many introductory composition classes illustrating how not to write. As I said, this is not brought up to take away from Butler's work, but just as an interesting side note. *End of digression*
Going For a Walk
In meditating on the questions Butler brings up in her introduction I find myself drawing parallels to the work of Eduardo Bonilla-Silva and his concept of "Color-Blind Racism". Bonilla-Silva suggests that many, in an attempt to not be racist, ignore race completely in order to achieve equality. The basis of this argument is that such a stance trivializes and ignores struggles for equality and allows individuals to forget blatant, wide-spread acts of racism of the past instead of learning from them and making sure they are not allowed to happen again. There is more to this argument, of course, but I hope this allows you to understand the basics.
Butler, in turn, mentions "normative gender presumptions" and how they may "work to delimit the very field of description that we have for the human". In my study of sports commentary it is clear the the twenty-first century has seen a movement toward what could be called "gender-blindness" where phrases such as "men" and "women" are almost non-existent. Butler points to the fact that normative gender presumptions can restrict the individual, while one can observe such boundaries being broken down, or perhaps ignored in the sports commentaries. These two concepts may not be compatible for a side-by-side discussion given the fact that Butler highlights an overt inequality (or is a word like marginalization more appropriate?) among people based on sex, while my observations center around a conscious erasure of these "presumptions". However, I think there may be something here nonetheless. That is, a relationship between Butler's observations and that of sports commentary in the fact that one attempts to correct the other, yet in doing so ignores the fact that a problem exists in the first place.
It's something to think about, at least.
Daniel
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