Anneli Xie
Prof. Alice Friedman
ARTH 321: Gender, Sexuality, and the Design of Houses
2019/02/05
Prof. Alice Friedman
ARTH 321: Gender, Sexuality, and the Design of Houses
2019/02/05
Reading response: Domesticity and the Politics of the Plan: Single vs. Hybrid Types
In “Gender Trouble”, Judith Butler argues that “genders can be neither true nor false” but are rather produced under measures of performativity. Performativity, then, is the manner in which identity is formed through actions and behaviors – performance – rather than through an intrinsic essence. Butler argues that the way we express ourselves through body language, speech, dress codes, and behaviors, all work to produce and re-produce what is considered gender. She also comes to state that “because gender is not a fact, the various acts of gender create the idea of gender, and without those acts, there would be no gender at all.” (140) In her chapter labeled “Subversive Bodily Acts,” Butler explores this idea extensively in relation to what she calls “parodies of gender identity,” (137) such as drag, cross-dressing, sexual stylization of butch/femme, explaining that there is a complex relationship between the performer and the performance, giving insight to how “drag implicitly reveals the imitative structure of gender itself,” (137) and that the re-contextualization of gender identity – through parody – takes away the claim of a natural or intrinsic gender ever existing. Similarly, Jack Halberstam, in “Gender,” suggests that while drag queens tend to “embody and enact an explicitly ironic relation to gender,” drag kings “disorient spectators and make them unsure of the proper markings of sex, gender, desire, and attraction.” (118) The distinction between the two, exists perhaps, to go back to Butler, because drag queens are a “parody of hegemonic, misogynist culture,” (138) “creating a unified picture of a woman,” (137) whereas drag kings enter a different sphere of being – according to Halberstam, performing masculinity in intensely sincere modes (118) (rather than theatrical?) Joan Scott in “Gender” further pulls on Butler’s theory, adding that gender should also be studied as a way of signifying power differences and relations. If gender is then an act of performance and perpetuity, then performance also has the potential to challenge these social constructs. Performance thus does not only stay as a site for gender oppression, but also opens up potential for gender resistance.
The idea of gender resistance also comes up in several of the readings on the creation of the ideal American middle-class family home, although in a less apparently radical way. Both Gwendolyn Wright’s “Victorian Suburbs and the Cult of Domesticity,” Clifford Clark’s “The American Family Home,” and Alice Friedman’s “Woman and the Making of the Modern Home,” argue that the rise of the middle-class dwelling in the United States allowed women to take control over the domestic realm, thus gaining them some measure of independence. Wright explains a stark contrast between men and women, with each gender antagonistic to the other; women represented the home, the suburb, the domestic, whereas men represented the city and the industry. Clark further draws on this, saying that women were expected to be masters of the household (32), “powerful centers of family morality and authority” (36) but complicates the issue by saying that they were “yet often pictured […] as weak and prone to nervousness [and thus] caught between contradictory ideals.” (36) Similarly, Clark hints at the idea of performance and performativity in his discussion of the tensions (of public and private realm) that existed within the ideal middle-class home. Clark discusses, for example, children, and say that they were to be obedient, helpful, and subordinate to their elders; yet were also given their own rooms and an opportunity to privacy. (35)
This contradiction between the public and private identity relates back to Butler’s discussion of gender perfomativity, as well as acts as a powerful link into understanding Frank Lloyd Wright’s work with female clientele, as discussed by Susan Bandes in “Affordable Dreams,” and Friedman’s “Woman and the Making of the Modern Home.” As Friedman suggests, “the houses Wright designed for his women clients are among his most interesting and innovative works.” (11) Because of the unconventionality of female clients, and especially those of non-traditional ways of living – Barnsdall wanting her home to be centre of a theatrical community, Dana treating her house as a cultural center, Winkler and Goetsch being two women living and working together, etc – Wright had to come up with unconventional solutions. Friedman further suggests, and here again tying back to the idea of performance and performativity, that “women clients sought […] to implement change […] a response to the gendered social roles of the culture in which they lived,” (28) and that in all of these examples, the home becomes “a theater of representation.” (24) Similarly, the readings discussing the formation of the middle-class ideal, all emphasize a wish for the house to be an expression of the self and the moral development of that self. Speculating on this, the wish of having a performative representation – in the shape of one’s home – becomes as related to performativity as the acts and behaviors of different gender ideals; the house becomes a body and the body a house.
Bandes, Susan J. Affordable Dreams: The Goetsch-Winkler House and Frank Lloyd Wright. Kresge Art Museum Bulletin, VI. 1991.
Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble. Routledge, 1990.
Clark, Clifford. Chapter 1. In The American Family Home, 1800-1960. North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press, 1986.
Friedman, Alice. Intro and Chapter 1. In Women and the Making of the Modern House. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998.
Halberstam, Jack. “Gender.” In Keywords for American Cultural Studies. Edited by Bruce Burgett and Glenn Hendler. New York: NYU Press, 2014.
Scott, Joan. “Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis." In American Historical Review 91, no. 5: 1053-1075.
Wright, Gwendolyn. “Victorian Suburbs and the Cult of Domesticity.” In Building the Dream. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1983.
The idea of gender resistance also comes up in several of the readings on the creation of the ideal American middle-class family home, although in a less apparently radical way. Both Gwendolyn Wright’s “Victorian Suburbs and the Cult of Domesticity,” Clifford Clark’s “The American Family Home,” and Alice Friedman’s “Woman and the Making of the Modern Home,” argue that the rise of the middle-class dwelling in the United States allowed women to take control over the domestic realm, thus gaining them some measure of independence. Wright explains a stark contrast between men and women, with each gender antagonistic to the other; women represented the home, the suburb, the domestic, whereas men represented the city and the industry. Clark further draws on this, saying that women were expected to be masters of the household (32), “powerful centers of family morality and authority” (36) but complicates the issue by saying that they were “yet often pictured […] as weak and prone to nervousness [and thus] caught between contradictory ideals.” (36) Similarly, Clark hints at the idea of performance and performativity in his discussion of the tensions (of public and private realm) that existed within the ideal middle-class home. Clark discusses, for example, children, and say that they were to be obedient, helpful, and subordinate to their elders; yet were also given their own rooms and an opportunity to privacy. (35)
This contradiction between the public and private identity relates back to Butler’s discussion of gender perfomativity, as well as acts as a powerful link into understanding Frank Lloyd Wright’s work with female clientele, as discussed by Susan Bandes in “Affordable Dreams,” and Friedman’s “Woman and the Making of the Modern Home.” As Friedman suggests, “the houses Wright designed for his women clients are among his most interesting and innovative works.” (11) Because of the unconventionality of female clients, and especially those of non-traditional ways of living – Barnsdall wanting her home to be centre of a theatrical community, Dana treating her house as a cultural center, Winkler and Goetsch being two women living and working together, etc – Wright had to come up with unconventional solutions. Friedman further suggests, and here again tying back to the idea of performance and performativity, that “women clients sought […] to implement change […] a response to the gendered social roles of the culture in which they lived,” (28) and that in all of these examples, the home becomes “a theater of representation.” (24) Similarly, the readings discussing the formation of the middle-class ideal, all emphasize a wish for the house to be an expression of the self and the moral development of that self. Speculating on this, the wish of having a performative representation – in the shape of one’s home – becomes as related to performativity as the acts and behaviors of different gender ideals; the house becomes a body and the body a house.
References
Bandes, Susan J. Affordable Dreams: The Goetsch-Winkler House and Frank Lloyd Wright. Kresge Art Museum Bulletin, VI. 1991.
Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble. Routledge, 1990.
Clark, Clifford. Chapter 1. In The American Family Home, 1800-1960. North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press, 1986.
Friedman, Alice. Intro and Chapter 1. In Women and the Making of the Modern House. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998.
Halberstam, Jack. “Gender.” In Keywords for American Cultural Studies. Edited by Bruce Burgett and Glenn Hendler. New York: NYU Press, 2014.
Scott, Joan. “Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis." In American Historical Review 91, no. 5: 1053-1075.
Wright, Gwendolyn. “Victorian Suburbs and the Cult of Domesticity.” In Building the Dream. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1983.