Butler dos

To go back really quickly to Foucault, the construction of power becomes important in how Butler wants to discuss gender/sex/sexuality:

"In this sense, the matrix of gender relations is prior to the emergence of the "human" [sic]" Butler, Bodies that Matter, p 7

TO bring it back to Foucalt and discourse, we cannot create the gender relations without first creating the genders to have the relations. Again, it is all through what is NOT said about and through the discourse. What is not said is especially important and serves to make the gender roles and expectations even stronger in society. Discourse again, is: (paraphrased from my notes from this class and another class where we discussed discourse)
• Discourse is closely tied to power and knowledge (think of it as a triangle with truth- so power-knowledge-truth). Discourse is what makes (constructs) a topic. In this case, gender is preformative, as is sex (because we see it as the opposite)
• Power and knowledge are created through a discourse of economy- knowledge doesn’t need to be true, it needs to be able to be passed off as true, creating and created by power. In mass media, we are creating what is popular through our conversations, and the same is very much true for gender and sex.


Photo from: http://art.transindex.ro/images/__leo/hetikep/kepeslap/kepeslap_596.jpg