QUEER THEORY AND FLUID IDENTITIES
QUEER THEORY, DESPITE one interpretation of its name, is not a theory of homosexuality (although it does have some things to say about that). It is an approach to sexuality and, more generally, identity, which builds on some of the ideas developed by Foucault (
This really is odd, though, because almost everybody regards Butler as the creator of modern queer theory. She owes a debt to Foucault and other earlier figures, but the thing we call 'queer theory' today definitely starts with Gender Trouble by Judith Butler.
THE EASY BULLET POINT SUMMARY
We'll need to look at each of these points in more detail to fully understand their meaning and implications, but here's the simple summary of what queer theory is about:
• Nothing within your identity is fixed.
• Your identity is little more than a pile of (social and cultural) things which you have previously expressed, or which have been said about you.
• There is not really an 'inner self'. We come to believe we have one through the repetition of discourses about it.
• Gender, like other aspects of identity, is a performance (though not necessarily a consciously chosen one). Again, this is reinforced through repetition.
• Therefore, people can change.
• The binary divide between masculinity and femininity is a social construction built on the binary divide between men and women – which is also a social construction.
• We should challenge the traditional views of masculinity and femininity, and sexuality, by causing 'gender trouble'.
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Media Gender and Identity David Gauntlett
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