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 Medussa,” 1976
• Laura Mulvey – “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” 1975; “Afterthoughts on Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” 1981
• Michele Foucault – The History of Sexuality, Volume I, 1980
• Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick – Epistemology of the Closet, 1994
• Lee Edelman – “Homographies,” 1989
• Michael Warner
• Judith Butler – “Imitation and Gender Insubordination,” 1991

Text Attributions

• Written by Allen Brizee, J. Case Tompkins, Libby Chernouski, Elizabeth Boyle for the Purdue OWL.  Last updated 2010-04-21, no longer available online. Adapted by Octaviano Gutierrez © Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported Licence.