Gender And Power
ENG 296
2/5/19
Mitch Lewis
The concept of gender has become a hot topic in the recent political climate with both sides believing that science backs up their claims and opinions. Many feminist theories have evolved in response to the rampant heteronormative power structure that has remained in place since the creation of this country. However, some of these very responses have in fact reinforced some of the very same norms that feminism has fought to dissolve. Gender as defined in Gayle Rubin’s “The Traffic in Woman” describes femininity only within a very narrow heteronormative scope that can be violently presumptuous. Gender was being described as how one engages sexually within this heteronormative frame of reference. The language around gender is directly linked to power relations within a hetero dominated society. Basically, if one did not conform to the very gender specific roles that the power structure of heteronormativity had put in place to define gender identity for men and women. There is no common identity for men and women. There is no common definition for what is a man or what is a woman. However within feminist responses to power, a singular definition for what a woman is defined as is presented which in itself is detrimental to the complex and indefinable concept of gender.
The essence of the concept of Paulo Freire is an educational process that focuses on the environment of students. Freire believes that students should understand their reality as part of their educational activities. An essential place in the philosophical and pedagogical concept of Freire is “critical thinking.” (It is not enough that the student can read the phrase “Eve saw the grapes”: the student must learn to see Eve in her social context, find out who produced the grapes and who benefited from such work.)
Basic concepts of the Freire pedagogical concept:
1. Practice – it is not enough for people to gather and discuss to learn something about their social reality. It is necessary to act together, transforming the environment.
2. Generative themes – according to Freire, each epoch is characterized by a set of ideas, concepts, hopes, doubts, values, and tests that are in dialectical interaction with their opposites and striving for completion.
3. The experience of rebirth – Freire believes that those who consciously dedicate themselves to people should continually explore themselves anew.
4. Dialogue – dialogue involves the equality of participants.
5. Critical awareness is the process of developing a critical attitude towards social reality through thinking and action.
6. Coding is a way to gather information to create a picture of real situations and people.
7. Decoding is a process in which a group of people begins to identify themselves in different situations until they feel part of the case.
The banking concept of education is a concept in which “knowledge is a gift presented by those who consider themselves knowledgeable, to those who, in the opinion of the first, do not know anything.
However, Freire at the same time warns and says that any philosophical-pedagogical system is profoundly historical, in other words, applicable only in a specific historical period in a place.
Theory of gender identity
The central thesis of the work of Butler is: What exactly do we consider the normal gender behavior of men and women? Today, this is a kind of political dogma, which is set by society with the help of repetitive practices, primarily speech normalization. Men and women are required to behave in a certain way. At the same time, there is still such a thing as heteronormativity, the meaning of which is that there is a canon of gender, sexual relations.
Butler saw this as a political issue. Her thesis was that to declare equality between men and women is not enough. That is, feminism before Butler pursued a false goal – he defended, in fact, the very same identity that was imposed on all previous history and society. Women wanted to be equal and free, but they still had to have the standard female virtues.
Further, Butler turns to queer theory. Queer in English means “other.” In the broad sense of the word, this is any person who is different from a particular predetermined normative pattern. In the context of the gender theory, queers are people who do not consider it possible for themselves to conform to either the standard model of a man or the standard model of a woman, and then this list of standard gender identities can be continued. Queer are people who have invented their character for themselves or, at least, have stated such a goal. Butler sees a more compelling reason for the political struggle with the government, and she articulates for himself the tasks of emancipation. It turns out that the government treats people of their own gender identity.
Butler’s idea is that gender role is created artificially (this is called the performative theory of gender identity). The society, being in constant repetition, offers us an individual character – assuming that we will react to it and behave in an appropriately respectful manner.