Final Post

Trying to articulate what I learned in this course would take a lot of time considering the amount of material we covered. I came in with only a minimal amount of academically gained knowledge about feminism, the queer community, and queer theory. This caused some conflicts in my head. I had an idea of feminism as a primarily political collection of ideologies. Since they are perceived to be founded upon political struggle, it can be difficult to isolate the theoretical from the political, and think about feminist and queer theory without immediately attempting to link them to political reality. In my first post, I even suggested that perhaps feminists should resist abstractedly theorizing for theorizing’s sake. In other words, if it is a discussion that does not lead to a practical improvement in the lives of real people, drop it. Through readings and discussion, I learned the importance of continually questioning, and how keeping an open dialogue is what is most practically beneficial for both theoretical inquiry, and real life. Though feminist theory and the political struggle faced by women and members of the queer community are inexorably linked, using this course to primarily concentrate on discussing theory and literature allowed me to think about ideology in a more abstract way.

Gender was also a topic which we frequently discussed, and I tried to use this opportunity in developing my own theory of gender. Intersex birth in particular, brings up many questions in relation to gender, and presents a direct challenge to the perceived gender binary in our society. As a result, we have learned, society often designates one part of that binary for people born with conflicting anatomies. Identity may be the most important part in designating gender. It may be beneficial to stop thinking about gender so categorically. Instead, perhaps the gender a person identifies themselves as is the gender they are, and since identity is subject to change, perhaps gender is fluid and also subject to change.