Judith Butler

In the play M.Butterfly, David Henry Hwang uses a relationship between Rene Gallimard, a french diplomat, and Song Liling, originally thought to be an actor but is then revealed to be a Chinese spy, to create a tragedy. After Gallimard falls in love with Song and separates from his wife he learns that Song is, in fact, a man. The audience’s opinion of his refusal to accept that his lover could be another man allows for several interpretations of Hwang’s reasons for writing this piece and what…

Women and men are unequal in many ways and including access of opportunity and power. Feminist scholars challenge traditional ways of how we view sex and gender by highlighting gender as a key factor in structuring the way in which we live our lives. Butler argues that gender is not an expression of what one is, rather as something that one does. 'There is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender’. Gender is not entirely dependent on biological traits. There are cultural meanings…

Gender Gap and Gender Identity Since the early 1990’s there has been an on-going debate surrounding boys’ underachievement in relation to reading, it has been a highly contentious area of concern among educationalists and government officials (Younger & Warrington, 2005). However, this issue is not a new phenomenon, before now it has gone on unnoticed or been deemed irrelevant. In the 17th century, the philosopher John Locke (2007) raised concerns with boys’ poor language skills compared to…

Our Language “For others, it is to share and spread also those words that are meaningful to us. But primarily for us all, it is necessary to teach by living and speaking those truths which we believe and know beyond understanding,” from “The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action” by Audre Lorde. Within our society women are viewed with a lower status than men just because of their use of indirect speech. This is mainly due to how children are brought up within their cultures and…

Defining a person’s gender based on social expectations can create confusion, self-doubt and self-loathing for failing to meet those expectations. Butler expressed, “...There may be forms of ‘gender’ within homosexuality which call for a theorization that moves beyond the categories of ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’... Is there perhaps a specific gender pain that provokes such fantasies of a sexual practice…

In this dissertation, I will examine the novel Little Women (1868), written by Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888) in order to explore whether the concept of gender is more of a social construct than a biological reality. My study will focus on analysing the lived experiences of the March sisters, Jo, Amy, Meg and Beth as portrayed by Alcott in the novel. Through my analysis of the March sisters, who are growing up to develop into conventional women against a particular socio-historical context, I…

Butler speaks about the idea of how memory does not exist in narrative form on it’s own. We must use the act of translation in order to create a narrative. This includes anytime we even share our own story we must translate the memory into a narrative. This…

A world is made up of different elements: water, earth, and life. Elements that define a human’s life. These elements also create a certain equality in humanity which spreads peace across the lands. In present day, there is a large issue circulating across the nation, and that is racial inequality. Even though this particular issue has been present for an abundance amount of time; the only difference between racial inequality in the twentieth-century United States and in the present is that…

Fatal transgression: Dorian Gray as a symbol of symbolic insupportability Presented with the task of understanding socially constructed self in The Picture of Dorian Gray, it is virtually impossible to evade the questions of gender and sexuality. In the years since its publication, Dorian Gray’s depictions of homoeroticism have garnered much speculation, controversy, and reinterpretation. The aim of this paper is to address commentary on constructions of normative gender behavior, and how…

Billy Wilder’s Some Like It Hot, is one of the more popular comedic works of its time. The movie showcases genres of romance, crime and comedy while creating an obvious juxtaposition of male and female characters. The movie highlights central themes regarding gender and sexuality. Marilyn Monroe’s character represents the quintessential cinematic female fantasy, as she represents the seemingly all too innocent, naive, sensual and sexual female representation that she has been largely popularized…