EN 2012 Lecture Notes - Gender Trouble, Heteronormativity, Foreplay
Document Summary
Reading the fem(me)inist manifesto" by duggan and mchugh jan 31. A proposal or working proposition: fem(me) is the je ne sais quoi of desiring difference prior to any determination of sexual preference or gender identity. Femme is the performativity, the insincerity, the mockery, the derision for foreplay. The bet, the dare, the bringing to attention of the suitor, the one who would provide (her) pleasure. The performer who demands performance in return, the player who brings. Femme is neither an ideal nor a category. She steals the show (she is the show) of difference, but she cannot be fixed as a pleasure into play. certain effect in itself. ". Femme is always inter-actionable, never onanistic or narcissistic. Mirrors are not the pool in which she drowns; they are the instrument or metaphor of her essential irony. Her perspective is always partially extrasensory berger"s women watch themselves being watched". In her doubled gaze, virility risks itself utterly (nietzsche understood this risk well)