Marie89, Cixous and Butler

“If one ‘is’ a woman, that is surely not all one is; the term fails to be exhaustive, not because gender is not always constitutes coherently or consistently in different historical contexts, and because gender intersects with racial, class, ethnic, sexual, and regional modalities of discursively constituted identities” (193). Both Cixous and Butler speak of the binary in their articles, expanding upon the fact that gender has taken on a subject-like persona. In this sense, the female and the male are separate entities that are specific in their characteristics and do not vary at all. Both authors expand on the fact that gender is not necessarily a subjective description, being either all female or all male, but rather one may obtain characteristic of both the female and the male. The idea that “women” are presume to be the object of feminism feed to the argument that there is, in fact, a binary within our culture. As stated, “Feminist critique ought also to understand how the category of ‘women,’ the subject of feminism, is produced and restrained by the very structures of power through which emancipation is sought” (192). The idea of the binary also goes back to earlier in class when we discussed how the binary opposition is at work within our society. We continuously feel the need to label aspects of our culture as to organize our thoughts and ideas and to feel comfortable with concepts. Another way in which we do this is through othering in that we are not ok with that which is different so we must either categorize it or exoticize it. The binary is an extremely prevalent concept today as it is at work in almost every aspect of our culture. Both Butler and Cixous agree that we will not be able to make any change as far as feminism is concerned until the binaries are broken down. The world is not black and white as it is argued by the authors, and it will take much time for our society to realize the fact that we are ignorant of the gray area as it scares us. In other words, “And the feminist subject turns out to be discursively constituted by the very political system that is supposed to facilitate its emancipation” (192).