Passage One

Is there“a”gender which persons are said to have，or is it an essential attribute that a person is said to be，as implied in the question“What gender are you”?When feminist theorists claim that gender is the cultural interpretation of sex or that gender is culturally constructed，what is the manner or mechanism of this construction?If gender is constructed，coulditbeconstructeddifferently，ordoesits constructedness imply some form of social determinism，foreclosing the possibility of agency and transformation?Does“construction suggest that certain laws generate gender differences along universal axes of sexual difference?How and where does the construction of gender take place? What sense can we make of a construction that cannot assume a human constructor prior to that construction?On some accounts，the notion that gender is constructed suggests a certain determinism of gender meanings inscribed on anatomically differentiated bodies，where those bodies are understood as passive recipients of an inexorable cultural law．When the relevant“culture”that“constructs”gender is understood in terms of such a law or set of laws，then it seems that gender is as determined and fixed as it was under the biology-is-destiny formulation．In such a case，not biology，but culture，becomes destiny．

Simone de Beauvoir suggests in The Second Sex that“one is not born a woman，but，rather，becomes one．”For Beauvoir，gender is“constructed，”but implied in her formulation is an agent，a cogito^[18]，who somehow takes on or appropriates that gender and could，in principle，take on some other gender．Is gender as variable and volitional as Beauvoir's account seems to suggest?Can“construction”in such a case be reduced to a form of choice?Beauvoir is clear that one“becomes”a woman，but always under a cultural compulsion to become one．And clearly，the compulsion does not come from“sex．”There is nothing in her account that guarantees that the“one”who becomes a woman is necessarily female．If“the body is a situation，”as she claims，there is no recourse to a body that has not always already been interpreted by cultural meanings;hence，sex could not qualify as a prediscursive^[19]anatomical facticity^[20]．Indeed，sex，by definition，will be shown to have been gender all along．

In a move that complicates the discussion further，Luce Irigaray argues that women constitute a paradox，if not a contradiction，within the discourse of identity itself．Women are the“sex”which is not“one．”Within a language pervasively masculinist，a phallogocentric language，women constitute the unrepresentable．In other words，women represent the sex that cannot be thought，a linguistic absence and opacity．Within a language that rests on univocal signification，the female sex constitutes the unconstrainable and undesignatable．In this sense，women are the sex which is not“one，”but multiple．In opposition to Beauvoir，for whom women are designated as the Other，Irigaray argues that both the subject and the Other are masculine mainstays of a closed phallogocentric signifying economy that achieves its totalizing goal through the exclusion of the feminine altogether．For Beauvoir，women are the negative of men，the lack against whichmasculine identity differentiates itself;for Irigaray，that particular dialectic constitutes a system that excludes an entirely different economy of signification．Women are not only represented falsely within the Sartrian frame of signifying-subject and signified-Other，but the falsity of the signification points out the entire structure of representation as inadequate．The sex which is not one，then，provides a point of departure for a criticism of hegemonic Western representation and of the metaphysics of substance that structures the very notion of the subject．

The discursive construction of“the body”and its separation from“freedom”in Beauvoir fails to mark along the axis of gender the very mind-body distinction that is supposed to illuminate the persistence of gender asymmetry．Officially，Beauvoir contends that the female body is marked within masculinist discourse，whereby the masculine body，in its conflation with the universal，remains unmarked．Irigaray clearly suggests that both marker and marked are maintained within a masculinist mode of signification in which the female body is“marked off，”as it were，from the domain of the signifiable．(From Gender Trouble by Judith Butler)

True or False Statements

1．Judith Butler at the beginning of this passage has raised a series of questions because she doesn't agree at all with feminists．

2．de Beauvoir is quoted in the next paragraph because obviously her idea“one is not born a woman，but，rather，becomes one”is regarded as fresh and innovative by Butler．

3．Sex or gender only makes sense on the basis of discourse．

4．Though Irigaray disagrees with de Beauvoir，they look at women's issues from a similar perspective．

5．The principal difference between the two feminist scholars lies in the symbolic order through which genders are supposed to be constructed．

6．We can see from their disagreement that de Beauvoir would propose a head-on competition with men in order to gain women's equality while Irigaray would prefer to invent a totally new way of signification which exclusively belongs to women．