Do Clothes Make the Woman Questions from Yiining (Kiwi)
Dance and Stance , Rachel Becker is getting ready when another woman comes in telling her "
It looks good, only you've got it parted on the girl's side". Is the social construct of sides justly?
Gender is as Gender Does? , Explain how the quote " There are no women - there are only
drag queens" associates itself with other readings.
Gender is as Gender Does? , How/Why is "citational practice" so important to us (regardless if
it relates to gender)? & is it as important as we think?
Gender is as Gender Does? & Behind the Scenes with Performance Theory , How does the
"western" way of ordering experience tie into performance theory?
Behind the Scenes with Performance Theory , How does Vicki Turner's use of "naturalness"
and "rightness" both contradict and reenforce the title of the article Do Clothes Make the
Woman?
1. I mean it seems like a paltry thing but I have also heard there's a "gay" ear with a single piercing in men, and gender is such a deliberate thing in Western society.
ReplyDelete2. It's a statement about the performative nature of gender. Drag queens are primarily enertainers. I'm personally a big fan of the drag queen "Divine" but the performer behind her was a male-identifying gay man. Divine was female, and unlike many drag queens she portrayed many different kinds of women, from teenage delinquent to suffering housewife. Neverthless after Glen took off the makeup he went back to a male identity. So it's a comment on not just performance but also the emphereal nature of gender.
3. I think citational practice is subconscious and not something we actively note. I don't think of myself as "performing" being a mother, I AM a mother, as much as I am a student etc.
4. Relating to my answer above the idea of a "true self" is Western. We believe that self is static but that's not really true. I am not who I was as a child and many roles subsume into my identity.
5. There was the idea that some people could "pull off" a certain role, but not others. Yet Prom Nite allowed for experimentation. I liked the quote "To destabilize is not to subvert", which seems to be going on. A gender role coukd be destabilized but not subverted.
1. I don't think it's justly, because it shouldn't matter how one person parts their hair, but as Beth states there is such a thing. (sadly)
ReplyDelete2. " There are no women - there are only drag queens" this quote gives me Travesti vibes for obvious reasons. I think the quote entails that gender doesn't matter it the way you present yourself.
3. I don't think citational practice is important. One person does not necessarily need to "show" or in a way "prove" any aspect of their life.
4. I want to agree with Beth on not one is not static. I also believe that I am not who I was 2 years ago so self static is not true.
5. It contradicts it because the choice of words, but over all that passage is about Vicki finding herself.
1. I have never heard of a male side and a female side when it comes to a hair part. I don't know the gender nuances within the lesbian comunity, but I am aware that every culture has theirs, so I assume that it is possible for that to be one.
ReplyDelete2. "There are no women, only drag queens" is remeinecent of travesti for me. I think of how the travestis viewed femininity as something that you do, as opposed to a quality you innately posses. They believed that travesti were more femanine than women and furthermore, that travesti were better women than natural born women.
3. I dont understand the term "citational practice". I have googled it and read a few articles about it, but I still dont really grasp what exactly it is. Everything that I read about it is written in very abstract terms, much like how it is referanced in the current paper.
4. They share simililar ideas and components.
5. I think that they reenforce the title by calling attention to how one is socialized, the ideas of what they deem the natural and right way for a woman to style herself, and how that affects how womanly one is deemed. I think that it contradicts the title by showing that despite how we are socialized belive a woman is to present hersilf, the fact that she does not adhere to those appearance confines, does not make them no longer a women.
1. I do not think the social construct of sides is justly. For one, I think that in this quote this idea of parting your hair on a "girls' side" does not make much sense since I would say that all sides of a woman's head would be a "girls' side" (Kath Weston, 213).
ReplyDelete2. I think that this quote: "There are no women-there are only drag queens"( Kath Weston, 215) in reality is just another way for people to put down women. From what I understand of Drag queens they are gay men who engage in a form of female gender expression and ultimately these men do not believe themselves to be women but performers. So with that in mind, I do not think this quote make much sense. However this quote does remind of some elements from Don Kulick's Travesti ethnographic work.
3. "Citational practice"( Kath Weston 215) is important I think because it demonstrates how gender can be performative. Based on this idea, gender performance is more so about mimicking a kind of preferred gender expression. So based on this practice I think it demonstrates how gender is on going process for many people during their everyday life rather than just a one and done behavior.
4. In Western society, there are certain mannerisms that are categorizes as strictly female or male. So in this way, performance theory is applicable to Western ideas about gender in that if an individual wants society to think of them as either male or female they will only engage in the appropriate mannerisms and behaviors associated with that gender. Gender in this way is constantly being asserted by individuals.
5. This idea of "naturalness" and "rightness" ( Kath Weston 217) contradicts with the titles of this article in that ultimately people imprint their own ideas about gender onto the clothes. So, really it is more so about the person who wears the clothes feeling good about what they are wearing which can determine either of these ideas.
I don’t think that the social construct of “sides” is justly at all, personally it doesn’t make sense to me.
ReplyDeleteI think that the quote might possibly be referring to the idea that gender is performative, specifically in the sense of appearance, style and self expression. In a way this reminded me of the essay “Performing gender identity” by Deborah Cameron, instead of performing gender through style, the boys in the perform gender through the way they speak and the way they present themselves.
Citational practice is important to us because it gives a sense of familiarity and a sense of practicing something we already know. I also think it can be dangerous because it can cause isolation to people who don’t fit the status quo.
I think that the western way of ordering experience ties into performance theory because of the amount of influence the west has, specifically in areas of pop culture and what people will look to see determines style and what is “in”.
Turner’s use of “naturalness” and “rightness” reinforce the title by introducing that there is a right way to perform gender identity but it also contradicts the title because it doesn’t account for the different ways performing gender identity can be expressed.