WVU WGST Queer Theories

WGST 360: Queer Theories • Center for Women's and Gender Studies • West Virginia University

[unnamed-narrator]

Queerness is essentially about the rejection of a here and now and an insistence on potentiality or concrete possibility for another world.

Jose Esteban Munoz, Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity (2009)

How cool to see a quote from our book on the first page of my “queer futurity” search! When I think of queer futurity, I think of this quote. It is a pocket-size definition in itself. I am interested in the language used, such as “potentiality” and “concrete possibility” because it leaves room for trial, error, and growth. Queerness as a future is not concrete, but exists as hope and an end-goal that is sought out and culminating every day. As told by the band Paramore (a favorite group of mine) in their song Turn It Off, “...On the way we’re working towards a goal that’s non-existent, it’s non-existent, but we just keep believing.”  

- Allie M.     

[the-queer-feminist]

A piece of the abundance of graffiti on the walls of my favourite place.

[wvuwgstqueertheories]

1. Original image: Queer Theory

2. Selfie: Queer

3. Original: Heteropatriarchy 

4. Original: Queer Futurity 

5. Selfie: Queer Futurity 

[theendofempire]

heteropatriarchy:

Heteropatriarchy ensures male right of access to women. Women’s relations - personal, professional, social, economic - are defined by the ideology that woman is for man. Heteropatriarchy is men dominating and de-skilling women in any of a number of forms, from outright attach...

[vintagetoyarchive]

HASBRO: 1959 LEAVE IT TO BEAVER Money Maker Game

[wvuwgstqueertheories]

When thinking about heteropaternalism--and paternalism in general, really--I often think about 1950s sitcoms like Leave it to Beaver, Father Knows Best, and the Donna Reed show. Paternalism celebrates and reinforces patriarchal ideology because it positions male privilege and domination as necessities for order. Whether we are talking about the domestic sphere, the nation state, or foreign policy, this underpinning of paternalistic discourse positions those in power as benevolent and necessary forces of governance.

-Heather M.

[meinebuecherliebe-deactivated20]

So Relaxing. auf We Heart It - http://weheartit.com/entry/168446685

[wvuwgstqueertheories]

Ok, so, I just saw Louis C. K. for the first time this weekend and all I could really think of during it was settler colonialism. Enjoy, because it's early and people should have something to giggle at. ~Julia

[stoicmike]

There are three universes: my universe, your universe and the universe. — Michael Lipsey

[icha-icha-akatsuki]

I’m reading about how the institutionalized structures set up in corporate - based universities, while streamlining the factory model of education established within the last century, is destroying our ability and capacity for critical thinking and freedom of expression and thought, therefore...

[wvuwgstqueertheories]

The original post states that the video is about masculinity, but it also explores how masculinity plays into rape culture and how we self-identify. Masculinity and femininity have always been tricky, tedious words for me. The more questions I ask about them, the more questions I end up with. The vlogger (if that's the correct term in this case) seems to find traditional views of masculinity harmful to not only male victims of rape, but men in general. In an attempt to gain the image of masculinity, they put their physical and mental health at risk. How much are we willing to risk? Are we reaching for unachievable ideals?

[wvuwgstqueertheories]

Sexuality: This video discusses why sex and sexuality are so fascinating to society as a whole and presents various theories as to why that is.  For starters, the author discusses what makes sex taboo, why we even use the term sexuality, and what constitutes the "norm" regarding sex and ideas about sex.  The author also covers Foccault's four centers of sexuality: center 1 being public focus on and hypersexualization of women's body (media, e.g.), center 2 being the sexualization of children (i.e. breastfeeding and young children's body shaming), center 3 being the publicizing of reproduction and sex (laws about abortion, reproduction, etc.), and the fourth center being the normalization of certain types of sex (e.g. marital, hetero, vanilla).

[wvuwgstqueertheories]

We talk about intersectionality and I often identify as an intersectional feminist. I just found out, though, that the term 'intersectionality' was coined in 1989 by a Black woman named Kimberlé Crenshaw and focused directly on the intersection of sex and race for Black women in the United States. 

I read the paper that the term is taken from and I'm conflicted. One one hand, intersectionality was always presented to me as a term to encompass the ways a person is individually affected by different oppressions, but, on the other hand, I'm reminds me of all the ways that White feminists have repurposed and appropriated identities to fit their own feminist agenda. 

It kind of feels like a feminist failure, to be using a word or an identity that doesn't belong to me, and I'm not quite sure how to reconcile that. 

[Here's a link to the paper, if you're interested.]

[wvuwgstqueertheories]

Keyword Video: Performative in FemTechNet Group and Student Videos

This video attempts to explain Judith Butler's notion of gender performativity.

I'm very interested in gender performativity for a few reasons. First and foremost, I identify as genderqueer. I do so because when I perform too strongly feminine I feel very, ~very~ uncomfortable (e.x. I'm going to have to wear a dress and heels tomorrow night. The thought of having to do that makes me want to play as many video game and drink as much beer as is safe and realistic). I'm in an interesting situation - do I identify as genderqueer because of my desire to perform masculinity, or do I desire to perform masculinity because of my genderqueer identity?

~Julia~

~icha-icha-akatsuki~

[icha-icha-akatsuki]

I was scrolling through my various social media accounts last night when I found this “cute” little video (AND CANT FIND IT AGAIN. SO MAD.) That was supposed to promote acceptance of diversity and unity and all that. It featured a big x-ray style machine with various dancing, playing, or otherwise...

[wvuwgstqueertheories]

Accidentally posted this to my personal tumblr and didn't see it till right now.

[wvuwgstqueertheories]

"I would have rather you come out as a lesbian."

Compulsory homosexuality, from what I understand of it, is the cultural tendency to abide by the hetero/homo binary. In this case, homosexuality is an identity that is expected and no other identity is considered besides its binary partner: heterosexuality. It is an erasure of outer or “other” sexual identities. I have personally come in contact with this compulsory homosexuality with my dad. When I came out to my dad as bisexual, I believe the fact that I was not homosexual bothered him greatly. I remember laying on my bed and trying to keep calm as he walked around my room and angrily perused my all-male band posters on the walls. “What about all this? What was that about?” he said as he looked at it. I was upset and confused as to how he was not understanding what I was telling him. Before going on a engineering education-based rant about what he unknowingly described as binaries, he told me, “I would have rather you come out as a lesbian.” I will never forget that statement. Now with this perspective on compulsory homosexuality, I can understand his perspective a little bit more. I only hope that he is now perceptive of non-hetero and non-homo identities, putting to rest his explicit compulsory homosexuality perception.

- Allie M.

#WGSTQueerTheories #Glossaryterm #compulsoryhomosexuality 

[wvuwgstqueertheories]

Pictured above is one of Matthew Barney’s famous self-lubricating portrait frames. The petroleum jelly housed inside the plastic frame slowly oozes into the portrait from a controlled-release mechanism. The jelly begins mixing with the portrait, perpetually stretching and morphing the canvas. The original picture is lost to us, the portrait locked in a state of perpetual mutation. One of the biggest criticisms of intersectionality: that the product of this thinking is one gargantuan frame encasing an incredibly small picture. Our argument, with its thousand caveats, disclaimers, and “apologies”, becomes lost in its expository framing. Barney’s self-lubricating frames complicate the issue of framing in our work in two ways. First, is challenges us to accept a work that never “finished”. It never settles into one determined form. Secondly, it muddles and distorts our orgininal conception of the artwork. It calls into question our ideas about definition in artwork; where does the “art” start? In the orgininal, un-lubricated portrait or in the portrait’s mutation? The definitive article never existed - forever lost to us.

-Christian Conner

[disabilityhistory-blog]

A long and gut-wrenching list of damaging side effects—painful scarring, reduced sexual sensitivity, torn genital tissue, removal of natural hormones and possible sterilization—combined with the chance of assigning children a gender they don’t feel comfortable with has left many calling for the surgeries to be heavily restricted.

Should We ‘Fix’ Intersex Children? Standard medical practice is often to operate to “normalize” genitals, but some families are fighting back.

lots of intersections with trans and disability justice around the need for bodily autonomy and the need for doctors to stop forcing “normal” appearances on people especially when it causes demonstrable harm.

(via disabilityhistory)

Not too long ago (about 70 years or so) the standard of treatment for intersex births was to do absolutely nothing.  Nothing at all.  Doctors and parents did not cut, mutilate, or remove parts.  They did not do surgeries or prescribe hormones.  Often, parents weren't even told about their child's ambiguous genitalia.  Nowadays, doctors are likely to tell parents that something is "wrong" with their perfectly healthy newborn baby.  If we can understand how wrong it is to cut female babies' genitalia and many can thus understand why it's wrong to cut male babies' genitalia, why can we not understand this?  It's dangerous, unnecessary, and deprives the older, decision-making person autonomy of their own body.