Feminist Theory & "Women's Issues" Discussion Thread: All Gender Identities Are Encouraged To Participate

sometimes you have to enjoy the struggle of the text

if you're worth your academic salt

max that doesn't rule out the fact that the big concepts inside those books could have been expressed more clearly if that were really an important goal or something that was rewarded within the discipline

the standard that some of you want to hold philosophical writing to seems to be the exact unexamined norm that much of the writing you're antagonistic to is setting out to unravel, which might account for a problem with it not being the thing you think it has to be

― dayove cool (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, February 15, 2012 4:51 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

eh, i don't think it's that at all. i don't object to complex ideas or sentences, so long as they're the best way to get an idea across. i do get annoyed by shitty, lazy writing. and i hate shitty lazy writing that bends over backwards in to convey really simple ideas in a hideously complex fashion, especially when the motive is so obviously a form of intellectual self-aggrandizement. how do you know whether or not your "brilliant" idea has to be conveyed in a complex fashion? you try to convey it as simply as possible and go with what works best. what you DON'T do is arrange it into endlessly looping unbroken chunks generously larded w jargon, redundancy and vague references to other texts. that's a ploy, and everybody knows it.

Max that is a wonderful post, it perfectly illustrates the pleasure and search for meaning, understanding without having to know every single thing that has been said about a certain subject before, without having to know the 'canon'.

many xps

i think the idea that "big concepts" are sitting there outside language waiting for a nice clean signpost is one of the problems "poststructuralist" philosophers are wrestling with

i was just gonna add but i see you did already rrrobyn that i see that highblown stuff the way i see medical journal articles. the cramped, tediously precise language of a clinical trial or w/e is not at all the way anyone, even a medico, would speak with clarity about the subject---it's just how you go around splaining it

^ this!
and it's okay and i don't think it limits the information to the realm of the "experts" either

i don't know, if you think philosophy is trying to bring about new concepts and ideas as a way of tactically engaging with the world, then those concepts are going to be unrecognisable at first. things to be grappled with.

that's a ploy, and everybody knows it.

"everybody" is working so hard here i feel sorry for it

it's one level of the information, and then it gets talked about at another level and so on (in class, in the media, in another discipline, by other people who use different words to express their ideas, etc etc)
xp

I think it's definitely a zen/patience thing. And honestly, I think I was maybe a little young, myself, to really be able to critically read Derrida or Deleuze or whoever 'successfully', you know? I honestly didn't entirely understand the COURSE when I took it, lol.

Maybe I could do with circling back to some of this stuff and actually reading it with more context now than I had back then.

Fwiw, Butler has actually copped to deliberately using language in a non-straightforward way, viz. the preface to the 10th-anniversary edition of Gender Trouble:

It would be a mistake to think that received grammar is the best vehicle for expressing radical views, given the constraints that grammar imposes upon thought, indeed, upon the thinkable itself. But formulations that twist grammar or that implicitly call into question the subject-verb requirements of propositional sense are clearly irritating for some. They produce more work for their readers, and sometimes their readers are offended by such demands. Are those who are offended making a legitimate request for “plain speaking” or does their complaint emerge from a consumer expectation of intellectual life? Is there, perhaps, a value to be derived from such experiences of linguistic difficulty?

It's not that the concepts are unrecognisable, it's that they are dressed up in clothes to make them look more out-there, more unrecognisable than they really are. And that's when I get a real case of the Emperor's New Footnotes about it.

albeit a completely unsubstantiated one

'gender trouble' isnt exactly a book for 'gender amateurs'

lol

i was just gonna add but i see you did already rrrobyn that i see that highblown stuff the way i see medical journal articles. the cramped, tediously precise language of a clinical trial or w/e is not at all the way anyone, even a medico, would speak with clarity about the subject---it's just how you go around splaining it

― i love pinfold cricket (gbx), Wednesday, February 15, 2012 5:03 PM (35 seconds ago) Bookmark

"tedious precision" is by no means the problem that i and (i think) others are objecting to. some tedious, hard-science-style precision would be great. careful building and clarifying of concepts. frequent summaries. would be awesome. the problem is the endless, airy abstractions that clearly take pleasure in adding a few hundred extra words wherever possible.

ooh I like that quote, jaymc..

'consumer expectations of intellectual life' lmao

xp

yeah jaymc, this is why i said that "difficult" writing can have purposes other than "to make you, the hard-working reader on the street, feel bad"

tautologies were my biggest problem. when the paragraph becomes part of a chapter long ourobourous that you need a flowchart to parse...

but I was a rube, to be honest. probably still am.

It's not that the concepts are unrecognisable, it's that they are dressed up in clothes to make them look more out-there, more unrecognisable than they really are. And that's when I get a real case of the Emperor's New Footnotes about it.

― White Chocolate Cheesecake, Thursday, February 16, 2012 1:07 AM (30 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it seems to me that the language is intended to place such-and-such in an ongoing ~discourse~; it's not that the ideas are intended to be unrecognizable, it's that the writer is in conversation with ideas that have a history, and the work is an attempt to become a properly contextualized part of that history.

love that butler

hoos otm

well i'm just paraphrasing deleuze.

the problem is the endless, airy abstractions that clearly take pleasure in adding a few hundred extra words wherever possible.

when this is done, it seems to me to be more in the vein of what max was saying re: poetic texts - working through the ideas through writing, writing as conversation with previous texts, writing as process, etc

here is my consumer expectations for intellectual life: 'if you want many people to read and understand what you say, you should attempt to make your language as readable and understandable as possible.'

i think the idea that "big concepts" are sitting there outside language waiting for a nice clean signpost is one of the problems "poststructuralist" philosophers are wrestling with

― dayove cool (Noodle Vague), donderdag 16 februari 2012 2:02 (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

OTM, and not just for "poststructuralists". It's a problem for most philosophers now (though in a way all philosophers are poststructuralists now in this day and age). The desire from the reading audience (students, media) and even institutions like universities, right now is focused so much on popularised philosophy, the kind that borders on sociology, that it leaves no room for "hardcore" philosophy. Another subject and future thread all together, but still.

lol judith butler is pretty well cited so i'd saying she is doing as well as she wants to in that regard.

xp

the plain reader be damned imo.

out.

if you think philosophy is trying to bring about new concepts and ideas as a way of tactically engaging with the world, then those concepts are going to be unrecognisable at first. things to be grappled with.

― judith, Wednesday, February 15, 2012 5:05 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

this is simply untrue. i reject this thinking entirely. it's what causes these people to dress up their perfectly ordinary ideas (and that's the crux) in ridiculously overblown language. new ideas can easily be communicated clearly. perfect example in that quote from upthread. the point boiled down to: "the structures of oppression are not fixed. rather, they exist in time. consequently, they must be reasserted." but this basic and easily grasped concept was dressed up in piles of gibberish in order to make it seem more serious, difficult and "academic-y".

i don't think most academics want some kind of consumer majority to read and understand what they say!
if they did, they'd be journalists or romance novelists or something!
xps

eh, i don't think it's that at all. i don't object to complex ideas or sentences, so long as they're the best way to get an idea across. i do get annoyed by shitty, lazy writing. and i hate shitty lazy writing that bends over backwards in to convey really simple ideas in a hideously complex fashion, especially when the motive is so obviously a form of intellectual self-aggrandizement. how do you know whether or not your "brilliant" idea has to be conveyed in a complex fashion? you try to convey it as simply as possible and go with what works best. what you DON'T do is arrange it into endlessly looping unbroken chunks generously larded w jargon, redundancy and vague references to other texts. that's a ploy, and everybody knows it.

― Little GTFO (contenderizer), Thursday, 16 February 2012 01:01 (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"keep it simple"

so no one should feel stupid reading those texts - they are difficult and require a certain level of education/knowledge rather than a certain level of intelligence. as with science, it takes an interpreter/another writer/media/etc to translate the meat of the text so that everyone can understand it and see how it fits in everyday life (which it may or may not do...)

This was exactly what I was asking about upthread; who are the interpreters that people in gender studies would trust/recommend? I'm not looking for a single book that unlocks all the secrets at once, but some recommendations for the layperson that give a feel for the landscape. If the answer is "it's not that easy, you can't isolate this area of thought and jump in" or "it's like poetry, the value of the text is not in the content and is therefore unsummarisable" that's ok too I guess.

max that doesn't rule out the fact that the big concepts inside those books could have been expressed more clearly if that were really an important goal or something that was rewarded within the discipline

― iatee, Thursday, February 16, 2012 1:01 AM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is what i'm getting at though--in an important way, i think, someone like butler ~isn't really talking to us~. she's not writing for her ideas to be understood by some imagined mass audience that's unfamiliar with the ground she's exploring. she's very much talking to, say, Althusser, more than she's talking to you or me.

like (i think?) emily said upthread--she's doing the experiments, so to speak, we're just here to write about the implications of the results.

the plain reader be damned imo.

out.

― dayove cool (Noodle Vague), donderdag 16 februari 2012 2:14 (52 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

seconded.

this, actually

i don't think most academics want some kind of consumer majority to read and understand what they say!
if they did, they'd be journalists or romance novelists or something!
xps

― obliquity of the ecliptic (rrrobyn), Thursday, February 16, 2012 1:14 AM (52 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

riki wilchins queer theory gender theory is a p good layperson entrylevel guide

And Hoos completely otm

It's just odd, the way I can read a Dale Spender book and a Robin Lakoff book and ... I've forgotten the third author in that particular set but ... how I can read these three books on linguistics, in a series, or by themselves, and they form part of a discourse about linguistics, and part of a discourse about "women" and yet, they hold up individually, and I can understand them, without an intimate knowledge of the 2000 year history of language.

But I dunno, I just kinda hate most late 20th Century Philosophy. Probably my failing, not philosophy's.

max that doesn't rule out the fact that the big concepts inside those books could have been expressed more clearly if that were really an important goal or something that was rewarded within the discipline

― iatee, Wednesday, February 15, 2012 8:01 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

im sort of of two minds about this -- i think on the one hand yes there are concepts, or versions of concepts, in something like 'gender trouble,' that are easy to express clearly -- "gender is a social construct" is an example.

why doesnt that happen tho? well in some ways it does as 'gender trouble' gets read and taught and its ideas absorded into the mainstream. also youre right 'clarity' is not really an important goal here because who cares? JB is not really writing for msg board posters shes writing for her peers.

more importantly though what many of these ppl are doing (to varying degrees of success) is thinking hard about language and the way it structures our world (vis a vis gender for example). its not really easy to be "clear" about that! i find wittgenstein impenetrable for example and 'everyone' seems to be okay that wittgenstein is hard, because of course its hard to be clear about these things -- wittgenstein says he is climbing a ladder and knocking out every rung as he passes it; similarish to derridas metaphor of writing and erasing at the same time -- but for some reason JB and JD and GD get bum raps even though theyre writing about the same things as LW

i mean i think i see yr point: there are incentives for humanities academics to write in this way. and sure there are -- and there are millions of shitty derrida imitators out there -- but theres constitutive reasons for the style too, reasons that i buy.

anyway rrrobyn and NV are talking about this in much better ways than i am and i have to go do the dishes. fwiw i think the "emperor has no clothes" arg. is kind of mistaken but i dont really like that fable. in my version everyone would turn to the little kid and say "duhhhhhh" and get naked too.

"tedious precision" is by no means the problem that i and (i think) others are objecting to. some tedious, hard-science-style precision would be great. careful building and clarifying of concepts. frequent summaries. would be awesome. the problem is the endless, airy abstractions that clearly take pleasure in adding a few hundred extra words wherever possible.

― Little GTFO (contenderizer), Wednesday, February 15, 2012 7:08 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ha, not to be all 'you know not what you say' but 'careful building and clarifying of concepts' is not what medical writing tends to be about. and definitely not frequent summaries. that's ~didactic~ writing. this is writing that needs to, for the sake of space, tersely attend to all the practically innumerate contingencies (and the papers that splain them) and statistical assumptions that undergird the endeavor. if you want to be peer-reviewed, then erecting a thicket of densely cited and referential technical prose is the way to do it. if you want to be read and understood by ppl that lack the training and shop-talk of yr academic peers, then you ought to take a different tack.

Butler's style is certainly demanding, and I've also read critiques (maybe Nussbaum's? I don't remember) that suggest that her work suffers from not being more rigorously grounded in history and biology. As a somewhat sexually confused 19-year-old, though, I found her theories on gender performativity quite exciting.

xppppppps

I forget if it was actually Spender or Lakoff who was doing the talk-back to Chomsky and which one was doing the talk-back to the other of the pair (because I borrowed those books off a friend doing a PhD in linguistics, they were not mine, also did I mention I'm drunk) but they managed to have this dialogue in a way that they explained what the beef was, and I didn't *have* to read the previous book in order to understand what was being discussed.

I don't get the feeling I'd be able to do that with Butler.

maax's version of the Emperor fable is one of my favorite things btw

to either get this off track or back on track:
i am coming to feminism i guess through a back door. didnt study it all in college, but ive taken a bigger and bigger interest in it since i've been married. my wife didnt study it either and wouldnt categorize herself as a capital f feminist but she is a v strong influence to me and inspires me to be a better person and partner to her and i think learning more abt "women's issues" has been something that has ~opened mah eyes~ wrt my selfishness and privilege as a man.

i'll admit my academic knowledge is nil, i mostly read abt it online. i came to it thru reading a dude who turned out to be an out and out lech psychopath (who still writes p good things, just is personally skeezy 2 me now...hoping some of u know who i'm talking about).

now i'm interested in learning more bc i see sexist power dynamics all the time in my vocation as a teacher. i work in a low income school and gender norms are v traditional and they play out in a number of pernicious and frankly infuriating ways. i often feel pretty helpless in affecting a greater change other than to redirect boys tryina act hard with young women, but i dont know how to do this and still appeal to their "masculinity".

im rambling. short version: str8 married dude/teacher wants to know more about feminism and ways 2 b a feminist ally in lyfe.

lots of xps: judith, thanks for the Wilchins recommendation; I'll check it out.