A Study of the Construction of Female Identity: John Fowles’ The French Lieutenant’s Woman

2015 ◽  
Vol 37 ◽  
pp. 321
Author(s):  
Narjes Tashakor Golestani
Keyword(s):  
Gender Roles ◽  
Gender Identity ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
Judith Butler ◽  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
John Fowles ◽  
Construction Of Identity ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
The Social

The issue of identity and female consciousness as one of the major concerns of feminists has always been polemical, for there are different attitudes in formulating gender identity and consequently defining what a woman is. As its theoretical framework, this study relies on Judith Butler’s theory of gender and sexuality and studies the construction of identity in the female characters of John Fowles’ The French Lieutenant’s Woman. Judith Butler, a feminist constructivist, stresses the effect of socially constructed gender roles on creating gender identity and proposes her performative theory of gender and sexuality. In her theory Butler argues that gender is not what one is but what one does. In this sense, gender is not a stable identity from which various acts proceed; rather it is an identity constituted through a stylized repetition of normative gender roles and performances. Regarding gender as performative reveals that, what is taken as an internal essence of gender is actually fabricated through the regulatory frame of interacting discourses. It has an imitative structure which can be deconstructed. The study, thus, focuses on the effect of prescribed gender roles and norms in the process of identity formation, and examines Ernestina Freeman as a conformist character who constitutes her identity by taking on the ideal gender norms of the era and Sarah woodruff who tries to renegotiate and reenact those roles and constructs a sense of self which transcends constraints of the social and cultural hegemonic frame.

Reading identity: American and Irish Women’s book clubs, culture, and identity

2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 128-152
Author(s):  
Christy Craig
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Book Club ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
The United States ◽  
Book Clubs ◽  
High Status ◽  
Construction Of Identity ◽  
The Social ◽  
Reading Identity ◽  
Capital Development

This research examines the role of reading and book club attendance in the lives of Irish and American women’s fiction readers who actively participate in women’s book clubs utilizing mixed methodology, including ethnographic observation, participation in book club meetings, and in-depth narrative interviews. Women in Ireland and the United States used reading to develop a sense of self and to learn about the social world, as well as to construct their own identities, often in contrast to expected norms of feminine identity. Women in Ireland utilized reading and book clubs to develop knowledge and understanding; women in the United States were influenced to increase their status in order to potentially secure or retain a high-status romantic partner. At the same time, important key themes relating to social positionality and social networks, capital development, and the construction of identity were similar and central to women in both cultural environments. Reading was deeply entrenched in the identities of the women in this study and attending book clubs allowed them to continue engaging literature, construct identities, and gain knowledge about the world around them.

Sexuality and Gender Identity: From a Discursive to a Relational Analysis

1998 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 483-504 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Burkitt
Keyword(s):  
Gender Identity ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Judith Butler ◽  
Sex And Gender ◽  
Social Formation ◽  
Relational Analysis ◽  
The Social ◽  
Sexuality And Gender ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Discursive Constructions

This paper concentrates on the recent controversy over the division between sex and gender and the troubling of the binary distinctions between gender identities and sexualities, such as man and woman, heterosexual and homosexual. While supporting the troubling of such categories, I argue against the approach of Judith Butler which claims that these dualities are primarily discursive constructions that can be regarded as fictions. Instead, I trace the emergence of such categories to changing forms of power relations in a more sociological reading of Foucault's conceptualization of power, and argue that the social formation of identity has to be understood as emergent within socio-historical relations. I then consider what implications this has for a politics based in notions of identity centred on questions of sexuality and gender.

Devenir mujer en el siglo XXI, una comprensión psicoanalítica. / Becoming a woman in the XXI century, a psychoanalytic perspective.

2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (08) ◽  
pp. 215-225
Author(s):  
Lorena Biason J. ◽  
Marcela Ramírez M.
Keyword(s):  
Identity Formation ◽  
Decisive Role ◽  
Projective Identification ◽  
Social Aspect ◽  
Social Imaginary ◽  
Social Construct ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Complex Process ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Individual

Desde la idea de un psiquismo social y en el entendimiento que el individuo es una construcción social, se interroga el psiquismo de la mujer, quien en su devenir y en su complejo proceso de adquisición de la identidad, encuentra como fuente de sentido desde lo social, la ley patriarcal imperante que la ubica en un lugar de menor valor en la sociedad.Los padres, principalmente a través de la identificación proyectiva, juegan un rol determinante en la recreación de estas significaciones imaginarias sociales y el psicoanálisis, con un constructo teórico que no puede conceptualizar sino desde lo social, podría banalizar un sistema de violencia, mediante un sistema racional y socialmente construido. Based on the idea of a social psychism and understanding the individual as a social construct is that we look at the female psychism. The occurrence and development of the women’s psyche, as well as her complex process of identity formation finds a source of meaning, from the social perspective, in the prevailing patriarchal law which positions her in a place of less value in society.Parents, mainly through projective identification, play a decisive role in the recreation of these social imaginary meanings. Psychoanalysis, with a theoretical construct unable to conceptualize but from the social aspect, might trivialize a system of violence by means of a rational and socially constructed system.

scholarly journals How the construction of women in discourse explains society’s challenge in accepting that females commit sexual offences against children

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 155-165
Author(s):  
Claire de Motte ◽  
Gabriella Mutale
Keyword(s):  
Gender Roles ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Secondary Analysis ◽  
Secondary Data ◽  
Sexual Offences ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Sexually Aggressive ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
The Social ◽  
And Gender

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the way gender and gender roles are socially constructed by those who have experience of females committing sexual offences against children. Design/methodology/approach Using a discursive approach, supported by membership category analysis, a secondary analysis of qualitative data illustrates how the social construction of gender and gender roles impacts on society’s perception of females who commit sexual offences against children. Findings Discourse analysis found three patterns employed within conversation that demonstrate how the construction of women influence society’s incomprehension of females who commit sexual offences against children: women can be trusted, women do not manipulate and groom and, women are not sexually aggressive. Research limitations/implications A limitation of this study is the use of secondary data, which cannot provide the richness or detail found in primary accounts from people with this lived experience. The difficulty in accessing this sub-population highlights the hidden nature of the topic and the need for further research in this area. Originality/value This is the first study to explore how gender discourse is used in discussions of females who commit sexual offences against children. The value of this exploration highlights the need of society to adjust their perceptions of the offending capabilities of women and to ensure the experiences of people who experience this form of sexual abuse receive support.

Highlighting the chameleon nature of power

2003 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 323-354
Author(s):  
Edythe Weeks
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
Self Esteem ◽  
Black African ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
The Social ◽  
Racist Ideology ◽  
System Power ◽  
Race Analysis

This essay uses a poststructural/critical race analysis, and provides a specific example of how the social practice of labeling serves to create major ideological effects, which produce and reproduce unequal race-based power relations. Certain U.S. citizens are ascribed/branded with the seemingly politically correct label, “African-American”. Many believe that the shift from “Black” to “African-American” in 1988 was the result of Blacks exercising political power and achieving a hard-won right to change their identity. Also many view the new label as the common sense preferred alternative to “Black”. This article deconstructs the term “African-American” and views it within the context of the macro and micro interactive forces of politics, economics, sociology, history and socio-cultural phenomena. Instead of the intended purpose of fostering a sense of self-esteem, the label has also served to reinforce the socially constructed binary dualisms characterizing “Blacks” as being fundamentally different from “Whites”. Moreover, the notion of Black pride, self-esteem and heritage are concepts with the power to shift culpability and blame onto the victims of a race-based system. Power appeared to have been exercised by Black/African-Americans. However, the shift to African-American was not the result of autonomous thinking. It was a “reflex without reflection” (Billig 1991:8). It “echoed” dominating ideological structures of power. The “new” label unwittingly serves to further perpetuate racist ideology inherited from a foundational institution of slavery. America can enjoy the image of having a culture of freedom, equality and egalitarianism, while maintaining justifiable race-based political, social and economic inequality gaps.

Disillusioning Gender

2018 ◽  
Vol 66 (2) ◽  
pp. 243-261 ◽  
Author(s):  
Britt-Marie Schiller
Keyword(s):  
Gender Identity ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Masculinity And Femininity ◽  
The Social ◽  
Erroneous Beliefs ◽  
Gender Categories ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Internal Sense

Illusions are not errors but erroneous beliefs motivated by wishful ideas and fantasies. To disillusion gender is to challenge the traditional Freudian construction that splits masculinity and femininity into agency versus passivity, the first with power, the second without. Disillusioning femininity as impotent frees up potency and power as generativity. Disillusioning masculinity as phallic and omnipotent opens the masculine subject to permeability and vulnerability. Illusions regarding the transgender include the idea that there are only two gender categories and the idea that gender identity is generated solely from an internal sense of self. The wish “to be seen as” or “to pass as” one gender or the other shows that social structures exceed the individual. At least for now, the disillusionment of gender with which we are left marks a tension between the internal sense of gender identity and the social structures of gender.

scholarly journals An exploratory study on prejudice based on gender identity or sexual orientation perceived by users in social networks

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Guilherme Colucci Pereira ◽  
Maria Cecília Calani Baranauskas
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Orientation ◽  
Gender Identity ◽  
User Interfaces ◽  
Exploratory Study ◽  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
Digital Systems ◽  
The Social ◽  
Lgbt Community ◽  
Lgbt People ◽  
Network Interfaces

Although research in HCI has been increasingly covering gender and sexuality, the experience of lesbian, bisexual, gay, and transgender (LGBT) people is still underexplored. We aimed to inquiry whether digital systems user interfaces reproduce or not oppressions based on gender identity or sexual orientation. By conducting a survey, we gathered some oppressive situations that LGBT people have faced online. Our results suggest that not only the user interfaces reproduce such prejudice, but that the LGBT community perceives it in the social network interfaces and content there posted. Also, current tools fail fighting and preventing oppressions, which impacts the decision of using a network and users’ comfort.

Performativity

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julie Rak
Keyword(s):  
Gender Identity ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
Queer Theory ◽  
Gender Norms ◽  
Judith Butler ◽  
Ordinary Life ◽  
General Acceptance ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Foundational Work ◽  
The Impact

The concept of performativity is foundational to the study of gender, but arguably no concept within gender studies has been more misunderstood and misapplied. A journey through the development of performativity as a critical tool from its beginnings in linguistics and philosophy, to its foundational work in poststructuralism and then its general acceptance within the study of gender shows how and why the concept of performativity is at once obvious and difficult to grasp, connected as it is to ordinary life and speech and to abstract theories of identification, all at once. J. L. Austin proposed performatives as utterances that were not constative, in that they were not verifiable, famously arguing that performatives are illocutionary, because they “do” an action as they are said or written. Austin’s focus included the environment or scene of the utterance, where speakers and situation had to match the intent of the performative in order for it to work. From then on, performatives became the subject of linguistics and speech act theory, and then were important to many critical theorists, notably Shoshana Felman, Jean-François Lyotard, Jacques Derrida, and Judith Butler, all of whom developed postmodern and poststructural approaches to language and representation which saw that performatives offered an alternative route to thinking about how meaning is produced. Poststructuralists interested in the work of language and politics found performatives helpful for thinking about the impact and force of statements. Judith Butler, who in particular is associated with poststructural thinking about performatives, developed a theory of performativity which linked it to ways of doing gender. In her rethinking of performativity and gender, discourse and repetition construct a sense of what gender identity is. Performativity in Butler’s view explains how gender identity constructs subjects and then is connected (often falsely or painfully) to ideas about sex assignment, bodies and sexuality, although the constant repetition of gender norms can result in new and unexpected ways of being gendered. Performativity in Butler’s work is not performance, although it has been widely interpreted that way, because performativity does not assume that a subject pre-exists its discursive construction. The repetition and reiteration of gender norms provides a fiction of interiority and identity for subjects, although Butler leaves open the possibility of the remainder, or excess, that has political potential to make other kinds of gender identities. Performativity was hotly debated within feminist theory, queer theory, and trans theory because Butler’s version of the concept critiqued the work of agency while still insisting on the importance of politics. Eventually, the concept became central to non-essentialist approaches to identity formation.

History of Feminist Approaches to Technology Studies

2011 ◽  
pp. 759-764
Author(s):  
Jennifer Brayton
Keyword(s):  
Gender Identity ◽  
Social Stratification ◽  
Male Gender ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Technology Studies ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

While women have historically engaged with technological practices and processes as designers, producers, users and consumers, technology itself has been socially constructed as a masculine domain and inherent to male gender identity. As a result, women have not been recognized as technological participants, nor have they had their contributions validated. To understand this exclusion, different feminist approaches have been historically utilized to help situate the framing of technology as a masculine domain that is organized by the social structures of patriarchy, capitalism, and social stratification. Feminist approaches have been used to deconstruct the defining of technology as masculine, to illuminate the historical ways in which women have been part of technological fields, and to give evidence of the pleasure and empowerment women can feel with technology.

Resource Mobilization’s Effect on the Social Construction of Identity on Twitter: A Case Study of J.J. Watt’s Hurricane Harvey Relief

2020 ◽  
pp. 216747952093725
Author(s):  
Jake Andrew Kucek
Keyword(s):  
Football Player ◽  
Resource Mobilization ◽  
Active Involvement ◽  
Construction Of Identity ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Celebrity Status ◽  
The Social ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Gaining Insight

Social media provides an area for athletes to engage with a mass audience and, in turn, has users create a narrative about the athlete in a collaborative effort. Using a platform, such as Twitter, offers numerous affordances for network interactions, which result in the shaping of online identities. Gaining insight into how resource mobilization impacts dialog and identity construction of an athlete is essential as sports have the unique ability to reach and influence a broad audience. This article explores how J.J. Watt used resource mobilization on Twitter to aid the Hurricane Harvey relief, and how his identity was socially constructed over a 3-year period. Based on a textual analysis of 2,965 tweets, the results show that Watt was able to use his celebrity status and active involvement to achieve the largest crowdsourced fundraiser in history. Further, Watt’s actions transformed his identity as a football player into a humanitarian.

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