Gender Studies and Queer Theory (1970s-

present)
Gender(s), Power, and Marginalization
Gender studies and queer theory explore issues of sexuality, power, and marginalized
populations (woman as other) in literature and culture. Much of the work in gender
studies and queer theory, while influenced by feminist criticism, emerges from post-
structural interest in fragmented, de-centered knowledge building (Nietzsche, Derrida,
Foucault), language (the breakdown of sign-signifier), and psychoanalysis (Lacan).
A primary concern in gender studies and queer theory is the manner in which gender
and sexuality is discussed: "Effective as this work [feminism] was in changing what
teachers taught and what the students read, there was a sense on the part of some
feminist critics that...it was still the old game that was being played, when what it
needed was a new game entirely. The argument posed was that in order to counter
patriarchy, it was necessary not merely to think about new texts, but to think about them
in radically new ways" (Richter 1432).
Therefore, a critic working in gender studies and queer theory might even be
uncomfortable with the binary established by many feminist scholars between
masculine and feminine: "Cixous (following Derrida in Of Grammatology) sets up a
series of binary oppositions (active/passive, sun/moon...father/mother, logos/pathos).
Each pair can be analyzed as a hierarchy in which the former term represents the
positive and masculine and the latter the negative and feminine principle" (Richter 1433-
1434).
In-Betweens
Many critics working with gender and queer theory are interested in the breakdown of
binaries such as male and female, the in-betweens (also following Derrida's interstitial
knowledge building). For example, gender studies and queer theory maintains that
cultural definitions of sexuality and what it means to be male and female are in flux:
"...the distinction between "masculine" and "feminine" activities and behavior is
constantly changing, so that women who wear baseball caps and fatigues...can be
perceived as more piquantly sexy by some heterosexual men than those women who
wear white frocks and gloves and look down demurely" (Richter 1437).
Moreover, Richter reminds us that as we learn more about our genetic structure, the
biology of male/female becomes increasingly complex and murky: "even the physical
dualism of sexual genetic structures and bodily parts breaks down when one considers
those instances - XXY syndromes, natural sexual bimorphisms, as well as surgical
transsexuals - that defy attempts at binary classification" (1437).
Typical questions:

 What elements of the text can be perceived as being masculine (active, powerful)
and feminine (passive, marginalized) and how do the characters support these
traditional roles?
 What sort of support (if any) is given to elements or characters who question the
masculine/feminine binary? What happens to those elements/characters?
  What elements in the text exist in the middle, between the perceived
masculine/feminine binary? In other words, what elements exhibit traits of both
(bisexual)?
 How does the author present the text? Is it a traditional narrative? Is it secure
and forceful? Or is it more hesitant or even collaborative?
 What are the politics (ideological agendas) of specific gay, lesbian, or queer
works, and how are those politics revealed in...the work's thematic content or
portrayals of its characters?
 What are the poetics (literary devices and strategies) of a specific lesbian, gay, or
queer works?
 What does the work contribute to our knowledge of queer, gay, or lesbian
experience and history, including literary history?
 How is queer, gay, or lesbian experience coded in texts that are by writers who
are apparently homosexual?
 What does the work reveal about the operations (socially, politically,
psychologically) homophobic?
 How does the literary text illustrate the problematics of sexuality and sexual
"identity," that is the ways in which human sexuality does not fall neatly into the
separate categories defined by the words homosexual and heterosexual?

Here is a list of scholars we encourage you to explore to further your understanding of

this theory:

 Luce Irigaray - Speculum of the Other Woman, 1974

 Hélène Cixous - "The Laugh of the Medusa," 1976
 Laura Mulvey - "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema," 1975; "Afterthoughts on
Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema," 1981
 Michel Foucault - The History of Sexuality, Volume I, 1980
 Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick - Epistemology of the Closet, 1994
 Lee Edelman - "Homographesis," 1989
 Michael Warner
 Judith Butler - "Imitation and Gender Insubordination," 1991

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History[edit]
The history of gender studies looks at the different perspectives of gender. This discipline examines
the ways in which historical, cultural, and social events shape the role of gender in different
societies. The field of gender studies, while focusing on the differences between men and women,
also looks at sexual differences and less binary definitions of gender categorization.[44]
After the universal suffrage revolution of the twentieth century, the women's liberation movement of
the 1960 and 1970s promoted a revision from the feminists to "actively interrogate" the usual and
accepted versions of history as it was known at the time. It was the goal of many feminist scholars to
question original assumptions regarding women's and men's attributes, to actually measure them,
and to report observed differences between women and men.[45] Initially, these programs were
essentially feminist, designed to recognize contributions made by women as well as by men. Soon,
men began to look at masculinity the same way that women were looking at femininity, and
developed an area of study called "men's studies".[46] It was not until the late 1980s and 1990s that
scholars recognized a need for study in the field of sexuality. This was due to the increasing interest
in lesbian and gay rights, and scholars found that most individuals will associate sexuality and
gender together, rather than as separate entities.[46][47]
Although doctoral programs for women's studies have existed since 1990, the first doctoral program
for a potential PhD in gender studies in the United States was approved in November 2005.[48]
In 2015, Kabul University became the first university in Afghanistan to offer a master's degree course
in gender and women's studies.[49]

Women's studies[edit]
Main article: Women's studies

Women's studies is an interdisciplinary academic field devoted to topics

concerning women, feminism, gender, and politics. It often includes feminist theory, women's
history (e.g. a history of women's suffrage) and social history, women's fiction, women's health,
feminist psychoanalysis and the feminist and gender studies-influenced practice of most of
the humanities and social sciences.

Men's studies[edit]
Main article: Men's studies

Men's studies is an interdisciplinary academic field devoted to topics

concerning men, masculism, gender, and politics. It often includes feminist theory, men's history
and social history, men's fiction, men's health, feminist psychoanalysis and the feminist and gender
studies-influenced practice of most of the humanities and social sciences. Timothy Laurie and Anna
Hickey-Moody suggest that there 'have always been dangers present in the institutionalisation of
"masculinity studies" as a semi-gated community', and note that 'a certain triumphalism vis-à-vis
feminist philosophy haunts much masculinities research'.[50]

Gender in Asia[edit]
See also: Women in Asia

Certain issues associated with gender in Eastern Asia and the Pacific Region are more complex and
depend on location and context. For example,
in China, Vietnam, Thailand, Philippines and Indonesia, a heavy importance of what defines a
woman comes from the workforce. In these countries, "gender related challenges tend to be related
to economic empowerment, employment, and workplace issues, for example related to informal
sector workers, feminization of migration flows, work place conditions, and long term social
security".[51] However, in countries who are less economically stable, such as Papua New
Guinea, Timor Leste, Laos, Cambodia, and some provinces in more remote locations, "women tend
to bear the cost of social and domestic conflicts and natural disasters".[51]
One issue that remains consistent throughout all provinces in different stages of development is
women having a weak voice when it comes to decision-making. One of the reasons for this is the
"growing trend to decentralization [which] has moved decision-making down to levels at which
women's voice is often weakest and where even the women's civil society movement, which has
been a powerful advocate at national level, struggles to organize and be heard".[51]
East Asia Pacific's approach to help mainstream these issues of gender relies on a three-pillar
method.[52] Pillar one is partnering with middle-income countries and emerging middle-income
countries to sustain and share gains in growth and prosperity. Pillar two supports the developmental
underpinnings for peace, renewed growth and poverty reduction in the poorest and most fragile
areas. The final pillar provides a stage for knowledge management, exchange and dissemination on
gender responsive development within the region to begin. These programs have already been
established, and successful in, Vietnam, Thailand, China, as well as the Philippines, and efforts are
starting to be made in Laos, Papua New Guinea, and Timor Leste as well. These pillars speak to the
importance of showcasing gender studies.[51]

Judith Butler[edit]
Main article: Judith Butler

The concept of gender performativity is at the core of philosopher and gender theorist Judith Butler's
work Gender Trouble. In Butler's terms the performance of gender, sex, and sexuality is about power
in society.[10][53] She locates the construction of the "gendered, sexed, desiring subject" in "regulative
discourses". A part of Butler's argument concerns the role of sex in the construction of "natural" or
coherent gender and sexuality.[54] In her account, gender and heterosexuality are constructed as
natural because the opposition of the male and female sexes is perceived as natural in the social
imaginary.[10]

Writing Gender Studies and Queer Theory (1970s-present)

Gender studies and queer theory explore issues of sexuality, power, and marginalized
populations (woman as other) in literature and culture. Much of the work in gender
studies and queer theory, while influenced by feminist criticism, emerges from post-
structural interest in fragmented, de-centered knowledge building (Nietzsche, Derrida,
Foucault), language (the breakdown of sign-signifier), and psychoanalysis (Lacan).
(Literary Theories and Schools of Criticism)

Criticisms[edit]
Historian and theorist Bryan Palmer argues that gender studies' current reliance on post-
structuralism – with its reification of discourse and avoidance of the structures of oppression and
struggles of resistance – obscures the origins, meanings, and consequences of historical events and
processes, and he seeks to counter current trends in gender studies with an argument for the
necessity to analyze lived experiences and the structures of subordination and power.[55] Authors
Daphne Patai and Noretta Koertge propose in the book Professing Feminism: Education and
Indoctrination in Women's Studies that the attempt to make women's studies serve a political
agenda has led to problematic results such as dubious scholarship and pedagogical practices that
resemble indoctrination more than education.
Rosi Braidotti (1994) has criticized gender studies as "the take-over of the feminist agenda by
studies on masculinity, which results in transferring funding from feminist faculty positions to other
kinds of positions. There have been cases... of positions advertised as 'gender studies' being given
away to the 'bright boys'. Some of the competitive take-over has to do with gay studies. Of special
significance in this discussion is the role of the mainstream publisher Routledge who, in our opinion,
is responsible for promoting gender as a way of deradicalizing the feminist agenda, re-marketing
masculinity and gay male identity instead."[56] Calvin Thomas countered that, "as Joseph Allen Boone
points out, 'many of the men in the academy who are feminism's most supportive 'allies' are gay,'"
and that it is "disingenuous" to ignore the ways in which mainstream publishers such as Routledge
have promoted feminist theorists.[57]
Gender studies, and more particularly queer studies within gender studies, were repeatedly criticized
by the Vatican. Pope Francis spoke about "ideological colonization",[58] saying that "gender ideology"
threatens traditional family and fertile heterosexuality. France was one of the first countries where
this claim became widespread when Catholic movements marched in the streets of Paris against the
bill on gay marriage and adoption.[59] Bruno Perreau has shown that this fear has deep historical
roots.[60] He argues that the rejection of gender studies and queer theory expresses anxieties about
national identity and minority politics. Jayson Harsin studied the French anti-gender theory
movement's social media aspects, finding that they demonstrate qualities of global right-wing
populist post-truth politics.[61]
Teaching certain aspects of gender theory was banned in public schools New South Wales after an
independent review into how the state teaches sex and health education and the controversial
material included in the teaching materials.[62]

8. Gender Studies and Queer Theory

Gender theory came to the forefront of the theoretical scene first as feminist theory but
has subsequently come to include the investigation of all gender and sexual categories
and identities. Feminist gender theory followed slightly behind the reemergence of
political feminism in the United States and Western Europe during the 1960s. Political
feminism of the so-called "second wave" had as its emphasis practical concerns with the
rights of women in contemporary societies, women's identity, and the representation of
women in media and culture. These causes converged with early literary feminist
practice, characterized by Elaine Showalter as "gynocriticism," which emphasized the
study and canonical inclusion of works by female authors as well as the depiction of
women in male-authored canonical texts.

Feminist gender theory is postmodern in that it challenges the paradigms and

intellectual premises of western thought, but also takes an activist stance by proposing
frequent interventions and alternative epistemological positions meant to change the
social order. In the context of postmodernism, gender theorists, led by the work of
Judith Butler, initially viewed the category of "gender" as a human construct enacted by
a vast repetition of social performance. The biological distinction between man and
woman eventually came under the same scrutiny by theorists who reached a similar
conclusion: the sexual categories are products of culture and as such help create social
reality rather than simply reflect it. Gender theory achieved a wide readership and
acquired much its initial theoretical rigor through the work of a group of French
feminist theorists that included Simone de Beauvoir, Luce Irigaray, Helene Cixous, and
Julia Kristeva, who while Bulgarian rather than French, made her mark writing in
French. French feminist thought is based on the assumption that the Western
philosophical tradition represses the experience of women in the structure of its ideas.
As an important consequence of this systematic intellectual repression and exclusion,
women's lives and bodies in historical societies are subject to repression as well. In the
creative/critical work of Cixous, we find the history of Western thought depicted as
binary oppositions: "speech/writing; Nature/Art, Nature/History, Nature/Mind,
Passion/Action." For Cixous, and for Irigaray as well, these binaries are less a function
of any objective reality they describe than the male-dominated discourse of the Western
tradition that produced them. Their work beyond the descriptive stage becomes an
intervention in the history of theoretical discourse, an attempt to alter the existing
categories and systems of thought that found Western rationality. French feminism, and
perhaps all feminism after Beauvoir, has been in conversation with the psychoanalytic
revision of Freud in the work of Jacques Lacan. Kristeva’s work draws heavily on Lacan.
Two concepts from Kristeva—the "semiotic" and "abjection"—have had a significant
influence on literary theory. Kristeva’s "semiotic" refers to the gaps, silences, spaces, and
bodily presence within the language/symbol system of a culture in which there might be
a space for a women’s language, different in kind as it would be from male-dominated
discourse.

Masculine gender theory as a separate enterprise has focused largely on social, literary,
and historical accounts of the construction of male gender identities. Such work
generally lacks feminisms' activist stance and tends to serve primarily as an indictment
rather than a validation of male gender practices and masculinity. The so-called "Men’s
Movement," inspired by the work of Robert Bly among others, was more practical than
theoretical and has had only limited impact on gender discourse. The impetus for the
"Men’s Movement" came largely as a response to the critique of masculinity and male
domination that runs throughout feminism and the upheaval of the 1960s, a period of
crisis in American social ideology that has required a reconsideration of gender roles.
Having long served as the de facto "subject" of Western thought, male identity and
masculine gender theory awaits serious investigation as a particular, and no longer
universally representative, field of inquiry.

Much of what theoretical energy of masculine gender theory currently possesses comes
from its ambiguous relationship with the field of "Queer theory." "Queer theory" is not
synonymous with gender theory, nor even with the overlapping fields of gay and lesbian
studies, but does share many of their concerns with normative definitions of man,
woman, and sexuality. "Queer theory" questions the fixed categories of sexual identity
and the cognitive paradigms generated by normative (that is, what is considered
"normal") sexual ideology. To "queer" becomes an act by which stable boundaries of
sexual identity are transgressed, reversed, mimicked, or otherwise critiqued. "Queering"
can be enacted on behalf of all non-normative sexualities and identities as well, all that
is considered by the dominant paradigms of culture to be alien, strange, unfamiliar,
transgressive, odd—in short, queer. Michel Foucault's work on sexuality anticipates and
informs the Queer theoretical movement in a role similar to the way his writing on
power and discourse prepared the ground for "New Historicism." Judith Butler
contends that heterosexual identity long held to be a normative ground of sexuality is
actually produced by the suppression of homoerotic possibility. Eve Sedgwick is another
pioneering theorist of "Queer theory," and like Butler, Sedgwick maintains that the
dominance of heterosexual culture conceals the extensive presence of homosocial
relations. For Sedgwick, the standard histories of western societies are presented in
exclusively in terms of heterosexual identity: "Inheritance, Marriage, Dynasty, Family,
Domesticity, Population," and thus conceiving of homosexual identity within this
framework is already problematic.