an analysis of foucault and butle on power sex and identity
Introducition
Power as a concept of societal contract between one another has developed through relationships as a means to have a sort of significance.
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Conclusion
As humans living in society, we develop an understanding of the word “power”. As children our parents had power over our actions, as students our teachers had the ability to punish us, and as citizens those in authority could castigate us for breaching the law. Through these relationships we were able to grasp that through our relationships we were able to affect one another. Though we come to realize the general meaning of power and what it implies, a concrete definition of power in society is difficult to generate.
In his two excerpts, “The Body of the Condemned” and “Method”, Michel Foucault attempts to explain this complex notion. According to Foucault, power is not a singular relationship between two entities in which one possesses control over the other, but an interconnected web of power relationships in which every body exercises some level of power. Foucault explains in “Method” that situations stated above (the relationship between authority figure and child) are products of the force relations between bodies operating together (92). The ‘bodies’ that are at play in this discussion may consist of institutions, individual people, groups, ideas, etc. Power, he continues, comes from every relation of two bodies (93). This implies that power is not generated in a top-down method, as with a parent having complete control over a child, but rather in an interconnected web in which each entity is both the giver and receiver of forces.
Excerpts from The Foucault Reader further describe these interconnections and how power affects the roles of bodies. He states “…power-knowledge, the process and struggles that traverse it and of which it is made up, that determines the forms and possible domains of knowledge” (175). Foucault relates power and resistance in a way that is similar to the bidirectional force relationship he explained in “Method.” Within the relations between bodies are inherent struggles between bodies that exhibit a different amount of force upon each other, and out of these struggles comes the product of knowledge.
Also arising from the notion of force relations is the idea of disciplinary power. According to Foucault, this power is key in producing what he calls docile bodies, which are bodies “…that may be subjected, used, transformed, and improved” (180). To demonstrate this idea, he uses the concept of the soldier and how it changed from the 17th to 18th centuries. The idea of a good soldier morphed from one who was born with certain aspects that define him as a naturally good soldier to one that can be trained via disciplinary power (179). Therefore a soldier is a docile body that has been acted upon by the forces of the government and military, which subsequently molded the person into a soldier.
I believe the same occurs in the way that identity is inscribed into our bodies and that our bodies are produced through identity categories. For example, using Foucault’s reasoning one may say that we are disciplining ourselves into outwardly performing our gender. When we are born we become a docile body that takes on gender characteristics given by society. This may be different based on when and where we are born, as social institutions change. Foucault’s theory of the multidirectionality of forces that make up power would be able to include gradually changing forces among bodies that may change concepts such as gendering. However, Foucault’s theory falls short in that we do not all conform to the heteronormative view of gender. One may reason that this is an act of resistance to bodies that have greater force, though I believe it is too simplistic to say that this is merely a power struggle. Foucault’s theory may be sufficient in explaining the ability for certain bodies to resist forces and overcome oppression, as he stated that power relations are not unidirectional. However, I believe there is a difference between a person resisting a force, such as a child defying orders or the LGBT community having a protest for their rights, and simply not complying to the identity category that is most common.
In her piece “Bodies that Matter,” Judith Butler presents an argument about the materialization of sex that also displays this identity gap as in Foucault’s argument. Butler states that “…’sex is a regulatory ideal whose materialization is compelled…’sex’ is an ideal construct which is forcibly materialized through time” (235-36). In other words, a person is given a certain sex, which is both biological and social. Due to the biological makeup of the child’s genitalia, the child is raised to display certain characteristics that are common for that particular sex. She continues her argument by stating that it is the reiteration of this materialization of sex the produces the sexualized product (239). This sexualized product is also a product of Foucaultian power relations, as the forces of parents, societal norms, peers, etc. all contributed to the sexing of the child, therefore producing a power relation between the child and other bodies at play in the society. However, the identity gap is still present, in that there are people who defy the norm and preforms a different gender despite the sexing of forces from other bodies in society.
Further resources;
http://www.iep.utm.edu/foucfem/#H4
References:
Butler, Judith. “Bodies that Matter.” Feminist Theory & the Body: A Reader. Eds. Janet Price and Margrit Shildrick. NY: Routledge, 1999. 235-45.
Foucault, Michel. The Foucault Reader. Ed Paul Rabinow. NY: Vintage, 1984. 170-187.
Foucault, Michel. History of Sexuality, Vol 1: An introduction. Trans. Robert Harley. NY: Vintage, 1978. 92-102.
