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Gendering Knowledge
Ann Brooks
Theory Culture Society 2006; 23; 211
DOI: 10.1177/026327640602300246

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Problematizing Global Knowledge – Poetic Knowledge 211
Gendering Knowledge
Ann Brooks
Keywords epistemology, gender, modernity,
reflexivity
Introduction
The intersection of gender analysis and global
knowledge by social, gender and feminist theorists
has given rise to new epistemological frameworks.
A number of conceptual and theoretical problems
central to these new epistemologies are raised in
the process. These include: relationships of
intimacy in late modernity; reflexivity and gender
identity; relationships between sex, gender and
embodiment; and masculinities and sexualities.
Reflexivity, Modernity and Specific Gender
Practices
Gender was always framed within a collectivist set
of epistemological paradigms along with class,
race, ethnicity and nationality. However, as Beck
and Beck-Gernsheim (1995: 5–6) observe, ‘as
people are released from roles, especially gender
roles, that modern capitalist society prescribed,
they are encouraged more and more to build up a
life of their own’. Within what Beck defines as a
‘new modernity’ is a fragmentation and differenti-
ation of life patterns and an erosion of convention-
alized life careers and relationships.
The conceptualization of this ‘new modernity’
in socio-cultural and gender terms as understood
by Beck and others is a highly Westernized notion
of modernity. Beck (2000) distinguishes between
a ‘first modernity’, signalled by collective full
employment and the existence of both nation-
states and welfare states, and a ‘second
modernity’, in which increased individualization,
gender revolution and globalization come about.
In this Western conceptualization of the ‘new
modernity’ traditionally conceived notions of
gender, of feminine and masculine, are breaking
down, which poses additional challenges to
relationships of intimacy. There are now multiple
masculinities (Connell, 1996) and femininities and
new epistemological frameworks to accompany
them. Plummer (2003) formulates a sociology of
intimacy based on an understanding of choices
about gender and a reconceptualization of
traditional gender categories such as masculinity
and femininity. Far from a positive representation
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Page 211
of relationships of intimacy as suggested by Beck
and Giddens, Plummer shows how gender
relationships have very negative connotations
including:
‘gender wars’ as men and women seem increas-
ingly incapable of living with each other . . .
side by side with this, newer concerns over
bisexuality and polyamory [described by
Plummer as relationships where there is
multiple love], gender benders and gender
blenders, queers, lesbian daddies, dykes . . .
and transgender warriors. (Plummer, 2003: 6)
Conceptualizing modernity in non-Western
contexts produces a very different understanding of
reflexivity and gender identity. As I have noted
elsewhere (Brooks, 2003), in Southeast Asia, the
intersection of gender, family values and multi-
culturalism is a pervasive phenomenon impacting
on reflexivity and identity. Religion and ethnicity
give a further inflection to the debate. The under-
lying issues around religion, ethnicity and class
intersect with gender and impact on the debate
around both ‘Asian’ family values and gender
identity. The rhetoric emerging from many of the
governments in Southeast Asia has deliberately
tied issues of gender identity to debates around
‘Asian family values’, nation building and questions
of national identity. Whether the particular inflec-
tion is Confucian or Islamist, modernity, reflexiv-
ity and gender identity has a different frame of
reference.
Thus modernity within non-Western contexts
lends itself to a very different conceptualization of
gender and a very different framing of gender
identity. Within non-Western contexts a more
appropriate model to understand gender may be
that of ‘divergent modernities’ or ‘multiple moder-
nities’. Within an Asian context, Asian women are
creating non-Western conceptualizations of
modernity. As Roces and Edwards (2000: 4–5)
note, in doing so ‘it reaffirms the distinctiveness of
a particular national subjectivity from a putative
hegemonic Westernising identity’. An expression
of this can be seen in Malaysia where the use of
the veil has been seen as an attempt to embrace
modernity in non-Western terms (Stivens, 1998).
Problematizing the relationship between
modernity, reflexivity and gender, Gole (2002:
174) considers: ‘The public visibility of Islam and
the specific gender, corporeal and spatial practices
underpinning it’, through the practice of veiling. In
12_poeticknowl_062574 10/5/06 10:22 am
212 Theory, Culture & Society 23(2–3)
writing about the contemporary veiling practices
of Muslim women, Gole highlights the significance
of gender in the public visibility of Islam and
shows how women become important religious
and political agents through the emergence of the
veil as the symbol of politicized Islam. Gole (2002:
181) shows that:
The Islamic headscarf is deliberately appropri-
ated not passively carried and handed down
from generation to generation. It is claimed by
a new generation of women who have had
access to higher education . . . Instead of assim-
ilating to the secular regime of women’s eman-
cipation, they press for their embodied
difference (e.g. Islamic dress) and their public
visibility.
As Gole points out, Muslim women find them-
selves a visible representation of ‘difference’ from
both a sometimes hostile West and a confused and
divided Islam. Gole (2002: 183) maintains that
the practice of veiling does not reflect a subjuga-
tion of Muslim women to traditional religious
practices: ‘On the contrary, it bears a new form,
the outcome of a selective and reflexive attitude
that amplifies and dramatizes the performative
signs of “difference” . . . the new covering suggests
a more rather than less potent Islam.’ Traditionally
denied any visible presence in the public sphere,
Muslim women’s representation of contemporary
Islam has redefined both gender roles and repre-
sentations of women. The relationship between
gender, Islamization and religious practice has had
a strong impact on reflexivity and gender identity.
In countries in Southeast Asia and elsewhere,
modernist versus traditional Islamist positions can
be seen to be played out around issues of marriage,
polygamy and embodiment. As Stivens (1998:
113) notes, ‘the subtext of these contests is that
women have been deployed as bearers of correct
religious dress and behaviour and as keepers of a
revivified private sphere, “the family”’. Such
reconceptualizations of gender and identity have
posed serious challenges to conventional epistemo-
logical frameworks and to contemporary theoriz-
ing around reflexivity and identity.
Deconstructing Sex, Gender and
Embodiment
Reconceptualizing sex and gender has been a rela-
tively recent development among gender and
feminist theorists and activists, characterized by
significant epistemological shifts. These reconcep-
tualizations of the relationship between sex,
gender and embodiment have problematized
conventional understanding of such relationships.
In fact it was not until gender had become more
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Page 212
established as a category that sexuality became
more amenable to investigation. In addition, sexu-
ality itself came to be seen as another axis of
inequality. The relationship between sex and
gender became increasingly seen as a sphere of
epistemological conflict, particularly within
feminist and gender theorizing. Debates raged
initially over sex and sexuality (see below);
however, the emphasis shifted to the interrogation
of both sex and gender. Some argued that ques-
tioning sex as well as gender facilitates a more
complete social understanding of the distinction
between women and men. Other theorists
maintain that the sex/gender distinction is no
longer useful and that if both sex and gender are
social constructions, we should return to using the
term ‘sex’ (Grosz, 1995).
In Volatile Bodies (1994), Grosz argued for a
re-examining of notions of female corporeality and
for interrogating the body within sexuality and
ethics. Grosz (1994: 58, 187) holds a view of the
materially sexed body, maintaining that ‘the body
is constrained by its biological limits’, and also
notes that ‘the kind of body inscribed’ makes a
difference to the meaning and functioning of
gender that emerges. However, she also observes
that social norms structure our perception and
understanding of male and female identities. As
Shilling (2005: 68) notes: ‘We are left with a body
that is positioned by, and unalterably tied to, the
sexual norms of society.’ Shilling correctly
acknowledges that Grosz does not overstate the
significance of the ‘body’s “malleability” (as with
Giddens’s focus on individual reflexivity) or its
determination (as with Bourdieu’s notion of the
habitus)’ (Shilling, 2005: 67). However the prob-
lematic inherent in Grosz’s model is her failure to
establish criteria on which to judge between the
two positions. Regardless of Grosz’s emphasis on
an autonomous ‘sexed corporeality’, Shilling
observes that she shares with Bourdieu a perspec-
tive on the body’s positioning in society which ties
into the dominant structures of social class or
sexuality, and hence to a substantially modernist
view of gender identity. Elsewhere, Grosz (1995)
argues for an explicit ‘sexualization of knowledges’
in order to explicate the impact that ‘sexed corpo-
reality’ may have on how we understand knowl-
edge, as well as how governing knowledges are
codified and understood. Thus, for Grosz, sex, as
well as gender, is an important dimension in the
problematics of epistemological frameworks.
The construction of gender identity, gendered
subjectivity and the gendered body is a major area
of interest for gender knowledge. Judith Butler’s
(1990) deconstruction of sex and gender is the
most influential epistemological contribution to
the debates. Butler shows that once sex and gender
12_poeticknowl_062574 10/5/06 10:22 am
Problematizing Global Knowledge – Poetic Knowledge 213
are treated as separate categories there is no reason
to argue for a gender binary. Butler maintains that
bodies become gendered through the continual
performance of gender; in other words gender is
‘performative’. However, the concept of the
‘performative’ as understood by Butler does not
imply a performance. Performativity as developed
by Butler has a different etymology. Butler draws
on a notion of ‘performativity’ deriving from
linguistics which draws on a process of ‘citations’
or repetitive practices based on normative struc-
tures. As used by Butler, linguistic performatives
are forms of speech, which by their utterances
bring what they name into being. In other words,
sex is materialized, according to Butler, through a
complex of citational practices. Butler’s work
among others has made a significant contribution
to the development of new epistemological frame-
works which explore the intersection of gender
and sexuality and which attract gender, feminist
and queer theorists challenging binary models of
gender and sexuality.
Gender and feminist theorists have also prob-
lematized forms of global knowledge which legiti-
mate dominant forms of sexuality, including
heterosexuality and ‘hegemonic masculinity’
(Connell, 1996). In Connell’s critique of hegem-
onic masculinity, he shows how there is no single
clearly articulated masculinity or femininity in
Western societies – just culturally prescribed
forms which may take a different form at differ-
ent points in time. In addition, the dominant
hegemonic form is embedded in institutional
ideology, e.g. religious doctrines, mass media,
education, wage structures, welfare policy, etc.
Connell shows that hegemonic masculinity is
constructed in relation to women and to
subordinate masculinities. It is pivotal to the domi-
nance of heterosexual hegemony and marriage.
Not only is hegemonic masculinity important ideo-
logically, it also has significant epistemological
implications for gender.
Dominant models of sexuality and masculinity
clearly have implications for what kind of knowl-
edge is constituted, reproduced, circulated and
legitimated. Gender and feminist theorists have
sought to problematize the epistemological frame-
works within which such dominant paradigms
exist. This does not, however, assume consensus
around what counts as knowledge within gender
and feminist theory, and ‘paradigm wars’ have
constantly surfaced around gender epistemologies.
As Oakley (2004: 192) notes, ‘[p]aradigm wars –
in which one can unfortunately find oneself caught
. . . are one example of the gendered social tensions
produced within a patriarchal social structure’.
Epistemological schisms have characterized the
gender/sex relationship, particularly around sexual
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Page 213
practices, pornography and reproductive technolo-
gies. Internal schisms characterized the relation-
ships between feminist theorists and activists,
including lesbian feminists, sex radicals and queer
theorists. ‘Sex wars’ developed between feminists
themselves and between lesbian and gay theorists
and activists. Schisms have also characterized
lesbian and gay movements, particularly around
‘normal’ and queer theory. As Plummer (2003: 44)
comments: ‘Linked to these epistemological
conflicts is the argument over “queer family
values”. Such decision about rights and choices is
as fundamental to the gay community as it is to
the heterosexual community.’
New Epistemological Directions
Plummer, in Intimate Citizenship, observes that
‘we are probably living simultaneously in
traditional, modern and postmodern worlds’
(2003: 8). The ‘paradigm wars’ around gender
epistemology are certainly still operating on all
three levels. Feminist theorists still debate the
relevance of feminist knowledge production
within dominant hegemonic structures such as
global knowledges. However, in the postmodern
world the questions posed are which groups are
these models relevant to: which women? or which
genders? For many gender groups, as Plummer
(2003: 54) notes, gender is not a fixed identity
and thus cannot have any citizenship rights. This
highlights the fundamental epistemological
dilemma in relation to gender (or any other
category): the classic problem of universals and
differences. As Plummer (2003: 59) observes in
framing his new conception of multiple citizen-
ships, ‘the women’s movement, the lesbian and
gay movement, the ethnic and post-colonial
movements have raised a host of potential new
identities that demand recognition and lay claim
to rights and obligations’.
References
Beck, U. (2000) Brave New World of Work.
Cambridge: Polity Press.
Beck, U. and E. Beck-Gernsheim (1995) The
Normal Chaos of Love. Cambridge: Polity
Press.
Brooks, A. (2003) ‘The Politics of Location in
Southeast Asia: Intersecting Tensions around
Gender, Ethnicity, Class and Religion’, Asian
Journal of Social Sciences 31(1): 86–106.
Butler, J. (1990) Gender Trouble: Feminism and
the Subversion of Identity. New York:
Routledge.
Connell, R. (1996) Masculinities. Cambridge:
Polity Press.
12_poeticknowl_062574 10/5/06 10:22 am
214 Theory, Culture & Society 23(2–3)
Gole, N. (2002) ‘Islam in Public, New Visibilities
and New Imaginaries’, Public Culture 14(1):
173–90.
Grosz, E. (1994) Volatile Bodies. London:
Routledge.
Grosz, E. (1995) Space, Time and Perversion.
New York: Routledge.
Oakley, A. (2004) ‘Response to Quoting and
Counting: An Autobiographical Response to
Oakley’, Sociology 38(1): 191–2.
Plummer, K. (2003) Intimate Citizenship. Seattle:
University of Washington Press.
Roces, M. and L. Edwards (2000) ‘Contesting
Gender Narratives 1970–2000’, in L. Edwards
and M. Roces (eds) Women in Asia: Tradition,
Modernity and Globalization. St Leonards,
NSW: Allen and Unwin.
Shilling, C. (2005) The Body in Culture,
Technology and Society. London: Routledge.
Performative Knowledge
Vikki Bell
Keywords Butler, Foucault, gender, language,
power, subjectivity, subjectification
‘P
erformativity’ could no doubt be given
various introductions and genealogies.
Understood as part of a movement against
Descartes’ cogito, the notion of performativity
names an approach that refuses to tie the fact that
‘there is thinking’ to identity or ontology. In place
of the certainty that I am – the cogito – is an
argument for ‘co-extensivity’. ‘Thinking’ is only
confirmation that an individual exists within a
discursive world; ‘the subject’, in this rendering, is
co-extensive with his or her outside in the sense that
they are produced by historically varying conditions
that are in turn sustained by their produced
elements. From Nietzsche’s fiery ‘there is no doer
behind the deed’ to Foucault’s image of the Panop-
tican by which he sought to present diagrammati-
cally the exercise of productive power/knowledge
relations, to Judith Butler’s feminist rendering of
the argument, this co-extensivity is a radical critique
of any originary notion of interiority. The sense of
an interiority – what Butler calls the ‘trope’ of inte-
riority – into which the subject him or herself can
‘look’ and thereby enact a conscience, a self, is an
effect, it is argued, of the configurations in which the
subject is ‘caught’.
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Page 214
Stivens, M. (1998) ‘Theorising Gender, Power
and Modernity’, in K. Sen and M. Stivens
(eds) Gender and Power in Affluent Asia.
London/New York: Routledge.
Ann Brooks is author of Gendered Work in Asian
Cities: The New Economy and Changing Labour
Markets (Ashgate, 2006); Gender and the Restruc-
tured University: Changing Management and
Culture in Higher Education (Open University
Press, 2001); Postfeminisms: Feminism, Cultural
Theory and Cultural Forms (Routledge, 1997);
and Academic Women (Open University Press,
1997). She is currently Head of Psychology
and Sociology Programmes at SIM University in
Singapore.
To consider the process of subjectification one
has therefore to attend to the lines of light and
enunciation that literally incorporate the subject
and sustain the subject as it both indicates and
sustains the wider matrix of power. To speak of
‘performativity’ in relation to the subject or
subjectivity is to focus on the practices of this
conditioned element within the various matrices
by which it is sustained. In particular, performa-
tivity has become, via Judith Butler’s thesis, a tool
of analysis by which to interrogate differentiated
subject formation within practices that sustain
lines of power and power effects. Thus, while the
term comes from the study of linguistics, was
coined by J.L. Austin (1962) and was further
elaborated by Searle’s Speech Acts (1969), its
implications and its critical challenges now extend
beyond a theory of language. A performative utter-
ance, for Austin, was one in which ‘the issuing of
the utterance is the performing of an action’
(1962: 163), such that the saying of the utterance
– his classic examples were ‘I do [take this woman
to be my lawful wedded wife]’ and ‘I name this
ship the Queen Elizabeth’ – is not to describe my
doing but ‘to do it’. ‘When I say, before the regis-
trar or altar, &c., “I do”, I am not reporting on a
marriage: I am indulging in it’ (1962: 163). These
utterances are oftentimes taken, erroneously in his
view, to be the outward description, true or false,
of ‘the occurrence of the inward performance’