Queer Theory

Question 1

Queer definition

Answer 1

Umbrella term for anyone outside the heterosexual norm

• challenge norms

Question 2

Essentialism

Answer 2

a belief that things have a set of characteristics that make them what they are

Question 3

Queer theory

Answer 3

social theory about gender and sexual identity; emphasizes the importance of difference and rejects ideas of innate identities or restrictive categories

• more than sexual preferences
• political

Considered less formal theory

• loosely bound critical standpoint

Goals

• Deconstructionism
• Anti essentialism

Question 4

Gender Essentialism

Answer 4

Gender is biologically determined

• immutable
• cannot be changed

Queer theorists challenge this

• challenge and deconstructs theories to get to route of what causes rights based inequality

Question 5

TERF

Answer 5

Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist

Question 6

Who coined queer theory?

Answer 6

Teresa de Lauretis

Question 7

Queer Theory

4 points

Answer 7

1. See sexual power embodied in different levels of social life, expressed discursively, and enforced through boundaries and binary divides.
2. Problematization of sexual and gender categories (anti-essentialism) (believes fluid identity)
3. Reject rights-based strategies. Favour politics of transgression which leads to deconstruction & decentering. (Want true change, don’t want to be same as heteros)
4. Willingness to interrogate areas that are not obviously about sexuality

Question 8

Judith Butler

Answer 8

Founder of CriticalTheory program at UC Berkeley

• illuminate how feminist discourses reproduce exclusionary understandings of sex and gender
• sex and gender are products of discourse
• we cannot easily separate the two

Question 9

Judith Butler Gender is…

(4)

Answer 9

Gender is

1. socially constructed (Not inherent)
2. Historical (changes over time)
3. Restricted (by social, cultural, and institutional power dynamics)
4. Performative (no one is a gender from the start, doesn’t exist until interacting with others)

Question 10

Critiques of Queer Theory (4)

Answer 10

• too far when discursively producing identities? negates people’s real experiences centered around their identities.
• Shouldn’t reject political action based around identity.
• inaccessible (complicated for average person, philosophical)
• often generated by white middle-class

Question 11

Big Three vs. Queer Theory

Answer 11

Functionalism

• procreation downfall

Conflict Theory

• gender and sexuality used as tools to exploit marginalized positions

Interactionism

• sexual behaviour and gender markers are symbolic, only have meaning in interpersonal relationships and interactions

Question 12

Queer Theory came from…

Answer 12

Post Structuralism (critique) - not focusing on ramifications of identity categories

Social constructionism (Critique) - does not go far enough into questioning the formation of categories

Question 13

Queer Theory examines…

Answer 13

how power works to institutionalize/ legitimate various forms of gender expression while stigmatizing others

Question 14

“queering”

Answer 14

critically examine and question something from the norm

Why is everything so heteronormative?

Question 15

Judith Butler 4 points

Answer 15

1. Gender is socially constructed

ex. colours (pink & blue), clothing

2. Gender is historical

ex. men in power, history beauty standards

3. Gender is restricted (social, cultural)

ex. exclusionary (private school for men), wage gap

4. Gender is performative

ex. interacting

Question 16

Challenge gender =

Answer 16

fluidity of gender