“If the category were to offer no trouble it would cease to
be interesting to me: it is precisely the pleasure produced by the instability
of those categories which sustains the various erotic practices that make me a
candidate for the category to begin with.”
-Judith Butler
Judith Butler, a rhetoric professor at our very own
University of California Berkeley, presents many theories around gender in
society. She discusses the matter from
the point of view of a lesbian, as she is one herself. In her book The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader, she speaks about what it means
to “be” a lesbian. She reveals that
gender tends to be a performance—one that through repetition becomes what you
are. She claims that gender, as a
self-verifying entity, has no actual precedent, and that the cultural construct
that society has made it into is full of impossible loopholes. The complexities of gender performance are
not limited to the lesbian and gay communities, but rather something that we
all partake in. Through photos from
various photographers, I will apply and elaborate on Judith Butlers statements
regarding gender as drag.
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