Ensemble

American philosopher Judith Butler wrote Gender Trouble, her first book, in 1990 out of a critical commitment to feminism, and in recognition of the struggles of people that fall outside of prevailing gender norms. Butler introduces the notion of ‘performativity’, borrowed from linguistics to explain how our view of the world is guided by the way we speak about it. She applies this to the construction of gender, proposing that gender comes into being through repeated speaking and acting as a woman or a man. In ‘performing’ a gender, we constantly reshape the norms of that gender that are passed down. For Butler, working in language presents an opportunity to deviate from current standards and, in doing so, to gradually shift meanings and realise social change. Camille Paglia is an American cultural critic known for her polemical ideas on feminism and sexuality. A controversial figure – identifying herself as transgender – but rejecting contemporary gender studies, she is often described as an “antifeminist-feminist”. Her most famous and lengthy publication Sexual Personae seeks to demonstrate “the unity and continuity of Western culture” through the study of sexual personae from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson. Paglia’s comparisons of select examples of art and literature from high and low cultures, and controversial enthusiasm for pornography and male paedophilia are, as argued by some critics, merely gimmicks, which mask her glorification of male dominance and the unquestionable conservative trajectory of Western culture.