#gender Trouble

[disaster-theysbian]

Gotta say, I've been out as a lesbian for 3 years and nonbinary for a year and a half. And I've noticed something.

Just because someone *always* gets your name and pronous correct, and angrily calls out anyone who forgets, doesn't necessarily mean they support you.

Conversely, just because someone struggles to remember your name and pronouns, or can't wrap their head around gender neutral/neo pronouns at all, doesn't necessarily mean they DON'T support you.

This is applicable to any situation really not just queer shit. Watch what people do, not just what they say, and you will find your friends. Someone might shower you with compliments and have common interests with you, but what happens when you tell them no? Do they get angry when they are corrected? Do they have kind things to say about other people?

My colleagues wouldn't know a gender-neutral pronoun if one hit them in the face with a dictionary, but they make sure I've had a lunch break and get home safely. They have my back if I have a difficult patient. They defend me against other staff members who like to create drama and bitch about people as if they're still in the school playground. If someone has something to say about me being a big ol' queer, they make it known that discrimination has no place in our unit.

My best friend in the whole entire world forgets my name and pronouns every day. When the organisers of her therapy group changed "men and women" to "people" and "he/she" to "they" in order to be more inclusive, there was outcry. Everything from the "it just doesn't sound right" grammar-policing nonsense to the "f*cking special snowflakes are offended by everything". She came down on them like a ton of bricks. She said if the organisers hadn't told them that it was changing, that they wouldn't have noticed. She told them they obviously haven't loved someone outside of the gender binary and they were missing out. She then told them how she had seen me grow and develop since I came out, and how in awe she was of the person I had become. No, she doesn't understand it at all, but why should that mean that she can't be there for me and appreciate how happy I am to be able to be me? Why should that mean, because you lot don't understand it, that someone with the same issues as the rest of the therapy group feels unsafe and unwelcome and doesn't get their issues resolved? As a result, a few of them changed their minds, INCLUDING HER OWN FATHER, and the rest at least shut the hell up about it.

ON THE FLIP SIDE...

A queer person who used my correct name and pronouns delighted in making me walk on eggshells, inventing reasons to be angry with me, convinced me I was a terrible person and even went as far as to try and turn me against my own therapist. They tried to tell me that my therapist only said I was a good person because she was paid to, and that because they themselves had a psychology degree that they could tell I had all these complexes and needed to work hard to be a good person, and it was unlikely I'd never get there. (I chose to listen to my therapist and stop being friends with this person).

A queer person who used my correct name and pronouns continued to do things that made me uncomfortable when I asked them to stop. Never said in as many words "you're not allowed to hang out with your friends" but conveniently had an emergency every time I had plans, and accused me of being uncaring if I needed my own space. They knew I had difficulty asking for help, but still got angry with me when I asked because I didn't ask "soon enough".

A queer person who used my correct name and pronouns told me they would look after me and they didnt. .

A queer person threatened to misgender me MORE when I corrected them.

I'm just saying, that if you choose to yeet everyone who doesn't get your name and pronouns right... that doesn't necessarily make you safe. We live in a very binary world. As much as we want that to change, it won't if we ignore or shout at the bits we don't like. (Believe me, I've tried).

[f--e-u-e-r-t-r-u-n-k-e--n]

Collection of notes: On the confusion between gender and personality. Allowing confusion. Allowing not knowing how to define.

[I've been wanting to make a collection of notes for a while then I saw this interaction between users and thought it was time to contribute. but without the intention of making fun of them. Mocking attitudes prevent people from daring to research and learn.]

Personality n. the enduring configuration of characteristics and behavior that comprises an individual’s unique adjustment to life, including major traits, interests, drives, values, self-concept, abilities, and emotional patterns. Personality is generally viewed as a complex, dynamic integration or totality shaped by many forces, including hereditary and constitutional tendencies; physical maturation; early training; identification with significant individuals and groups; culturally conditioned values and roles; and critical experiences and relationships. Various theories explain the structure and development of personality in different ways, but all agree that personality helps determine behavior. >APA Dictionary of Psychology.

Personality psychology. The branch of psychology that systematically investigates the nature and definition of personality as well as its development, its structure and trait constructs, its dynamic processes, its variations (with emphasis on enduring and stable individual differences), and its maladaptive forms (i.e., personality disorders). The field rests on a long history of theoretical formulation (e.g., trait theories, psychoanalytic theories, role theories, learning theories, type theories) that has aimed to synthesize cognitive, emotional, motivational, developmental, and social elements of human individuality into integrative frameworks for making sense of the individual human life. It has also developed numerous tests and assessments to measure and understand aspects of personality. >APA Dictionary of Psychology. Questioning is a word that is used when people may question who they are sexually attracted to (…) is also used when people may question the feelings they have about their own gender. >Robie Harris "It's perfectly normal : changing bodies, growing up, sex, and sexual health" Effective Personality is a multidimensional construct, with a psychometrically confirmed structure, consisting of four spheres: Self Strengths (self-concept and self-esteem); Self Demands (motivation, expectations and attributions); Self Challenges (decision making and coping with problems); and Self Relationships (empathy, assertiveness, communication).

The first sphere, Self Strengths, refers to two questions: Who am I and How do I value myself? On the other hand, the sphere of Demands of the Self would answer: What do I want, what expectations do I have to achieve it, and on whom or on what does it depend for me to achieve it successfully? The third dimension asks: What do I do when faced with a problem? How do I make the right decisions when faced with a problem or difficulty? Finally, the sphere of Relationships of the Self poses the question: How do I relate to others? (Martín del Buey and Martín Palacio, 2012). (…) Gender differences are the discrepancies in men and women at the cultural, social and value levels, which have been transmitted over the years through the socialization process. The report made by the National Institute of Statistics of Chile (2011) shows the gender inequality between men and women with respect to the roles played by each one, as well as the different responsibilities of one and the other are also presented. Gender roles are the behaviors accepted as masculine or feminine, so they are directly related to the tasks and performances assigned to men and women differently (Instituto de la Mujer, 2013). "the processes of adaptation of gender roles have been strengthened to the extent that it is socially recognized that gender inequalities produce profound inequities that affect the development of women in all spaces of social, public, private and institutional life" (Instituto Nacional de Estadística de Chile, 2011, pp.12). Gender stereotypes refer to those beliefs and ideas imposed and rooted in society about the characteristics, aptitudes and attitudes that each gender should have (Instituto de la Mujer, 2013). Some examples of female stereotypes consider women to be dependent and emotional; while some examples of male stereotypes consider them to be courageous, rational, independent, decisive, etc. The United Nations Development Program shows that the Chilean woman is mainly represented as a mother, but also as a hard worker and fighter; while the image of the Chilean man is related to irresponsibility and machismo, as well as the provider figure. >Castellanos Cano, Silvia; Guerra Mora, Patricia; Bueno Álvarez, José Antonio. DIFERENCIAS DE GÉNERO EN PERSONALIDAD EFICAZ EN UNIVERSITARIOS CHILENOS International Journal of Developmental and Educational Psychology, vol. 5, núm. 1, 2014, pp. 131-139 Asociación Nacional de Psicología Evolutiva y Educativa de la Infancia, Adolescencia y Mayores. Badajoz, España A quarter of a century ago, philosopher Judith Butler (1990) called upon society to create “gender trouble” by disrupting the binary view of sex, gender, and sexuality. Key to her argument is that gender is not an essential, biologically determined quality or an inherent identity, but is repeatedly performed, based on, and reinforced by, societal norms. This repeated performance of gender is also performative, that is, it creates the idea of gender itself, as well as the illusion of two natural, essential sexes. In other words, rather than being women or men, individuals act as women and men, thereby creating the categories of women and men. Moreover, they face clear negative consequences if they fail to do their gender right.

Butler’s notion of performativity echoes a range of social psychological approaches to gender and gender difference. What we social psychologists might call gender norms and stereotypes (e.g., Eagly, 1987; Fiske and Stevens, 1993), or gender schemas (Bem, 1981) provide the “scripts” for what Butler’s describes as the performance of gender.

We are not the first to point out the relevance of Butler’s work to social psychology. Bem (1995) drawing on Butler’s work, argued in that as gender researchers we should create gender trouble by making genders that fall outside of the binary visible, in order to disrupt binary, heteronormative views of gender within and outside of psychology. Minton (1997)

To be clear, Butler does not argue that biological processes do not exist or do not affect differences in hormones or anatomy. Rather, she argues that bodies do not exist outside of cultural interpretation and that this interpretation results in over-simplified, binary views of sex. In other words, biological processes do not themselves result in two “natural,” distinct, and meaningful, categories of people. The two sexes only appear natural, obvious, and important to us because of the gendered world in which we live. More specifically, the repeated performance of two polar, opposite genders makes the existence of two natural, inherent, pre-discursive sexes seem plausible. In other words, Butler views gender as a performance in which we repeatedly engage and which creates the illusion of binary sex. She argues:

“Because there is neither an ‘essence’ that gender expresses or externalizes nor an objective ideal to which gender aspires; 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. Gender is, thus, a construction that regularly conceals its genesis. The tacit collective agreement to perform, produce, and sustain discrete and polar genders as cultural fictions is obscured by the credibility of its own production. The authors of gender become entranced by their own fictions whereby the construction compels one’s belief in its necessity and naturalness.” (p. 522) >Thekla Morgenroth and Michelle K. Ryan, Gender Trouble in Social Psychology: How Can Butler’s Work Inform Experimental Social Psychologists’ Conceptualization of Gender?

The second critical theory of gender is queer performative. This theory revolves around any gender action that varies from heterosexual behavior. Any gay, lesbian, transsexual, bisexual, transgender, etcetera person is in the gender queer group. The word queer refers to straying from the normalcy of heterosexuality to any abnormal sexual or gender preference (Wood). Researchers of the queer performative theory realized that because gender changes in all people and people do gender, categorizing gender as a verb makes more sense.

The interchangeability of gender traits in stereotypical straight and queer people is easy and often done. The gender identity of a person is fluid and not a rigid structure (Wood). Gender identity change is common now in most every group of people.

Respect and knowledge of all types of gender queer people is a major goal in this theory (Wood). If all races, groups, and sexes are to be respected then shouldn’t all other traits? Queer performative theory has two main points to convey. The first point is how gender should not bind a person’s attributes and characteristics. Physical traits can always change. People dye their hair other colors, get braces, lose weight, and go bald. Queer performative aims to prove that gender just like those physical characteristics can be changed. The term “man” interchanges from an eighteen year old, to a WWII veteran, then to a bedazzled drag queen. Consequently, the term woman interchanges between a young bride, to Cat Zingano, to Marilyn Monroe. The sex of a person is only one part of a whole human being (Wood). People cannot look to the sex of another person for the gender stereotype they wish to impose upon them. Even biological sex characteristics get murky at times. Back in 1629, a court was troubled with the case of manservant T. Hall (Meadow). Hall was both womanly and manly to the people around. The people physically checked Thomas/Thomasine and when they could not prove or find a sex, court order Hall to wear both women’s and men’s clothing at all times (Meadow). Nearly four hundred years ago this case was given and stories nowadays hardly have changed. The second main idea of queer performative is how our gender is in a constant state of flux (Wood). We could never live completely without changing out gender outlook. Identities are performed when dads watch baseball meanwhile bottle-feeding their newborn child. Gender identities are expressed when second grade girls do not cry when they are teased but retaliate with force. Some girls love to be girls; others just like to be themselves without any boundaries at all. I grew up in dresses. I actually had to learn how to crawl on my hands and feet because my knees would become caught in the skirts. When I grew and was in grade school, I still wore dresses very often. However, I would fight, kick, and hit any boy or girl who said any harm to my friends or me. Gender is not a wall or structure! >Critical Theories of Gender. https://www.azwestern.edu/sites/default/files/awc/student-success-center/15-03-02_Critical_Theories_of_Gender.pdf

[Takes references from "Wood, Julia T. Gendered Lives: Communication, Gender, and Culture. 10th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Pub., 2013. Print".]

[emotional-moss]

“I remember, I guess it must’ve been about six or seven years ago, when I first asked people to tell me their pronouns, and I thought, “Well, I didn’t ask before.” I figured if someone wanted to let me know, they would. But then I thought, “Oh, you know what? You have to ask this because otherwise people will assume.” They’ll just make normative assumptions on the basis of whatever their perception is, and perceptions are not reliable. And now I do do that, and I also introduce my own. It seems important that I found my way to they, which I like a lot, and I’m just sorry I didn’t have it at my disposal when I was younger. It would’ve saved me a lot of grief.”

— Judith Butler in Judith Butler Knows What Makes Transphobes Tick by Them magazine

[queer-questions-and-polls]

hi! I generally id as a girl and I don’t know if I want to change that, but I’ve noticed that I really like when people use they/them for me. I haven’t officially changed my pronouns or anything but i’ve had people who don’t know me well use they/them for me just as a default. And it feels so nice! It makes me feel happy and kinda excited whenever it happens, so i’m considering changing my pronouns. However, I don’t know that I necessarily want to stop identifying as a girl.

Is it okay to use they/them and not be nonbinary? Does it mean that I am nonbinary if i want to use them?

(it’s ok if you don’t know! i’m just looking for a second opinion :)

You can use whatever pronouns you like! I'm glad you found a set that makes you happy!

It doesn't class you as nonbinary unless you would like to use that label. I do know more specific terms that fall under nonbinary if you wanted to know more specific labels?

As for the id as a girl I can sort of relate, I classifiy myself as nonbinary but like people using masculine terms like: king, handsome, etc) or he/him pronouns if they find they/ them too hard they kinda feel the same honesty.

Hope I could be of help!

[mrsdallowayszoloft]

[haveyoureadthisqueerbook]

[christinedepizza]

“Within lesbian contexts, the "identifcation" with masculinity that appears as butch identity is not a simple assimilation of lesbianism back into the terms of heterosexuality. As one lesbian femme explained, she likes her boys to be girls, meaning that "being a girl" contextualizes and resignifies "masculinity" in a butch identity. As a result, that masculinity, if that it can be called, is always brought into relief against a culturally intelligible "female body." It is precisely this dissonant juxtaposition and the sexual tension that its transgression generates that constitute the object of desire. In other words, the object [and clearly, there is not just one] of lesbian-femme desire is neither some decontextualized female body nor a discrete yet superimposed masculine identity, but the destabilization of both terms as they come into erotic interplay. […] Clearly, this way of thinking about gendered exchanges of desire admits of much greater complexity, for the play of masculine and feminine, as well as the inversion of ground to qure can constitute a highly complex and structure production of desire. Significantly, both the sexed body as "ground" and the butch or femme identity as "figure" can shift, invert, and create erotic havoc of various sorts. Neither can lay claim to "the real," although either can qualify as an object of belief, depending on the dynamic of the sexual exchange. The idea that butch and femme are in some sense "replicas" or "copies" of heterosexual exchange underestimates the erotic significance of these identities as internally dissonant and complex in their resignification of the hegemonic categories by which they are enabled. Lesbian femmes may recall the heterosexual scene, as it were, but also displace it at the same time. In both butch and femme identities, the very notion of an original or natural identity is put into question; indeed, it is precisely that question as it is embodied in these identities that becomes one source of their erotic significance.”

Gender Trouble, Judith Butler, 1990

[holeymolars]

"Jewelle Gomez suggests that butch and femme were the first instances of transgender within queer culture, the brave and unexpected appropriation of gender roles, the practice of gender trespass. But transgender presents a quandary that any future theorization of butch/femme will have to address. Heather Findlay articulates part of the problem here when, implicitly refuting Gomez' postulation of a continuity between butch/femme and transgender, she asks whether there are any butches left in San Francisco who are not in the process of becoming men. On the one hand, lesbian scholarship wants to affirm the specificity and irreducibility of the butch as part of lesbian history and culture: a butch is not a man, and ought not to be seen as trying to be one. On the other hand, what do we make of the number of butches who seek to cross over the line between butch and man? If we do not try to think through that relation, how will we be able to acknowledge and understand the desire is clearly motivating an increasing number of butches as they make the transsexual turn?

The questions posed by transgender promise to become some of the most vexing and most important for the radical theorization of gender in the next decade. Is transgender a betrayal of lesbian identity, or is it the radical extension of the butch/femme challenge to gender norms? Does it support the most idealized and recalcitrant forms of gender norms, or does it expose the way in which every body 'becomes' its gender? Does it to submit to a medicalization and normalization of the gendered body, or is it an active appropriation of medical and surgical resources in the services of making a life more liveable? Can we say for sure whether cosmetic surgery that seeks to enhance the ideal femininity of a body is radically different from transsexual surgery, or that either are radically distinct in their cultural meanings from piercing, as Lisa Walker asks? These questions have no easy answer, for once we accept that gender norms constitute our desire and fantasy, and seek to enter into the rearticulation of those norms, do we occupy a place outside of that circle by which we can judge: this is subversive, this is not; this is radical, this is reactionary? Making life liveable, taking lesbian lives out of the shackles of shame, developing a vocabulary that is rich enough to sustain such lives in language, may sometimes entail entering int radical uncertainty over what the borders of being a lesbian are."

Judith Butler, Afterward in butch/femme: Inside Lesbian Gender, edited y Sally R. Munt, 1998

[considermycat]

Absolutely love this, from Judith Butler

From the 1999 preface to Gender Trouble

[homophobicgerardwayau]

Ok, I’m going to foolishly weigh in on the Gerard gender theorising and pronouns debate. I don’t really have an audience so whatevs. But i do have thoughts 💭. I’m seeing a lot of reductive posts that lack nuance or critical thinking (the internet). Here’s the thing. We need to remain cognisant that at the end of the day none of us interact with ‘Gerard the Person’. We interact with ‘Gerard the Concept’. The rockstar, the artist, the cultural icon etc.

There is a filter, constructed by Gerard themself in response to a culture that must know him, by virtue of his fame and the deeply personal nature of his work. We only see what we are allowed to see through said filter. And when fans speculate and theorise, they are bringing their own biases and interpretations to a limited portrait of a person, a double that stands in to take the criticisms (and disproportionate praise) that comes along with being a successful artist.

I bring this up because when we jump up and down getting mad at people for publicly using “she” pronouns for example, we need to remind ourselves of a couple of things:

Gerard the Person likely does not have the hours in a day to worry about what pronouns people online are using for him. From interviews over the years, we can deduce that he has come to terms with fame and worked through much of his trauma associated with it. He has also expressed that he doesn’t care about pronouns. At present, this squabble is happening laterally between fans and does not involve him in any direct way. He does not need defending (what is he being defend from? Being gnc or trans is neither morally good or bad) from being misgendered. It seems the sticky point is ‘misgendering’ in general, which is a much broader discussion. One that is particularly hard to have when we are all out here with some kind of minority related trauma.

Because he is not a whole person, but an icon to us (it is difficult to conceptualise of someone as both simultaneously) we all tend to project a whole lot of ourselves onto him, more than we would someone we know personally. This is how being an icon works. Here we project different ideas about our own gender and sexuality and our differing conceptualisations of gender altogether. Personally, while I would not label Gerard as trans online, by my own personal definition of transness, he is part of our family. The issue is not defining him as trans by our own metrics, as we are entitled to our own conceptualisations of transness (I am of course, speaking from within the community). We should take into account that trans is not a clearly definable label. For example, there are people that are medically (for lack of a better word) trans that do not see themselves as trans. All of this is to say that people see something in Gerard that reflects back parts of themselves. Being trans is one of those things, whether Gerard defines himself as such or not.

The way I have seen Gerard called ‘she’ online, often seems in jest and I chose to engage with these types of posts in good faith and with a sense of humour. I assume that most people making these posts are aware that wearing a skirt does not make someone a woman. I feel that a lot of the ‘Gerard is secretly a woman’ is just a projection of a posters own insecurities around gender non-conformity or quite simply the desire to feel that they are in on something others aren’t, in turn making them feel closer to the ‘Gerard’ that they have constructed in their head. Instead of calling these folks trans misogynists, I think it would be more helpful to ask the ‘truther’ why they think they are so fixated on it and why would it matter if Gerard came out as something? What would it change other than give you a sense of validation?

We should remember that the topic of Gerard’s relationship to gender and sexuality is unavoidable once we get into the nitty gritty of his work. Deconstruction/reconstruction of identity and the gender politics of violence are some of my favourite ideas that Gerard revisits over and over again. It is there by design and it is also part of the character he plays by design. Kids are picking up on something but it’s the lack of media literacy that leads them down these strange roads of thinking. We should try to be sympathetic if we can. Why? Because if it’s trans people doing the transvestigating then it all comes down to the lack of representation that we all feel. Gerard shouldn’t have to carry that weight of course, which is probably one of the reasons why he doesn’t use labels for himself. He has the privilege of ‘hiding in plain sight’ as he calls it, and that is his choice to make.

The discussion then shouldn’t be be weather it is wrong to wonder about another person’s gender and sexuality (if we weren’t curious, how would we ever find others like ourselves?). It should be how should we treat others? It should be as simple as don’t send someone fan fiction of themselves.

As a community, we should be redirecting this energy into figuring out how to put Gerard’s gender into the hormone injection. I think this would solve a lot of societies problems lol.

[7vyntheefaerie]

thinking abt this b/f twitter discourse where i saw someone say if you aren’t prepared for the possibility of being alone for the rest of your life, you aren’t b/f. the discourse was abt the availability of partners being abysmal when you’re b+s/f. and the person was like (replying 2 a fem), “if you expect to easily be able to date butches/studs, you’re not b/f.” i don’t necessarily agree and think that person was being harsh 2 someone expressing their frustration with lesbian loneliness.

but, there is some truth to it! & i wld argue it’s not b+s/f specific but smthn lesbians & even queers in general experience.

i think oft abt being a transmasc femme and how my gender discount me from a majority of butches n studs dating preferences which hurts! cus it don’t matter how often it get said online that all femmes aren’t cis. or that non-cis femmes are loved. cus that don’t show up irl. like i have a gr8 community irl & online but romantically, the love is not! there and it make me feel like i will end up (romantically) alone fr. it make me sad 2 not b able 2 express my lesbianism romantically. add these feelings on top of my very strict standards of being blk4blk, t4t on top of wanting someone im actually attracted 2 and politically aligned with and the situation starts feeling hopeless.

not being able 2 express my lesbianism through romantic affection & s3x is getting old. might add onto this l8r.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

“Gender ought not to be construed as a stable identity or locus of agency from which various acts follow; rather, gender is an identity tenuously constituted in time, instituted in an exterior space through a stylized repetition of acts. The effect of gender is produced through the stylization of the body and, hence, must be understood as the mundane way in which bodily gestures, movements, and styles of various kinds constitute the illusion of an abiding gendered self. This formulation moves the conception of gender off the ground of a substantial model of identity to one that requires a conception of gender as a constituted social temporality. Significantly, if gender is instituted through acts which are internally discontinuous, then the appearance of substance is precisely that, a constructed identity, a performative accomplishment which the mundane social audience, including the actors themselves, come to believe and to perform in the mode of belief."

“If gender attributes, however, are not expressive but performative, then these attributes effectively constitute the identity they are said to express or reveal. The distinction between expression and performativeness is crucial. If gender attributes and acts, the various ways in which a body shows or produces its cultural signification, are performative, then there is no preexisting identity by which an act or attribute might be measured; there would be no true or false, real or distorted acts of gender, and the postulation of a true gender identity would be revealed as a regulatory fiction. That gender reality is created through sustained social performances means that the very notions of an essential sex and a true or abiding masculinity or femininity are also constituted as part of the strategy that conceals gender’s performative character and the performative possibilities for proliferating gender configurations outside the restricting frames of masculinist domination and compulsory heterosexuality.”

-- Judith Butler, “Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity”

[As an aside, it’s no wonder Judith Butler was the winner of the Bad Writing Award in 1998. She’s an astonishingly terrible writer.]

Queer Theory itself tells us that “non-binary” is just a political performance. Basically the “cool” kids trying to make the squares feel square and want to join and conform with the cool kids, as they “complicate” and mess with society. Its entirely contrary nature is no more obvious than the fact it’s defined entirely by what it isn’t, rather than what it is. Being “non-conformist” in a predictable, socially acceptable, conformist kind of way. Hippy, grunge, emo, goth... every non-conformist conformed.

https://oxsci.org/anti-conformity-creates-a-new-conformity/

Despise anything that is “too mainstream”? Want to make a countercultural statement with an alternative style? Your one-of-a-kind look often ironically ends up pretty much the same as your counterculture peers. Intrigued by this counterintuitive phenomena, mathematician Jonathan Touboul at Brandeis University in Massachusetts breaks the problem down by studying how transmission of information through society influences people’s behaviour.

Time is needed for each individual to detect changes in society and react accordingly. While the propagation delay varies among individuals, it is crucial. Touboul’s research focuses primarily on a society with conformists copying the majority and anti-conformists rebelling against it. He then creates a computer model that stimulates how these agents interact. Start out acting randomly, anti-conformists then always undergo a phase transition into a synchronised state,  with each other in opposing the mainstream. Depending on how the anti-conformists interact with the mainstream, the behaviour can become extremely complex. Nonetheless, it is an inevitable result of large populations to create some kind of conformity, even when you set out to go against the norm.

So much for teasing hipsters and e-girls, this research has more than mere meme value. Delays in the propagation of information play an important role in many other areas, such as understanding synchronisation of nerve cells, investment strategies in finance, or emergent dynamics in social science.

Bonus:

“Gender: The socially prescribed and enforced roles, behaviors, and expectations that are assigned to us at birth. These roles determine how you are ‘supposed’ to feel and act based on your body.”

-- Ozlem Sensoy and Robin DiAngelo, “Is Everyone Really Equal?”

Translation:

[ieidolon]

man. the first 150 pages of Gender Trouble were so easy but the last 50 have been akin to grinding my head against an oversized cheese grater

[philosophybitmaps]

[mrsdallowayszoloft]

bro. i’m so tired. PHEW. urgh.

[aliteraryprincess]

December Wrap Up

Good riddance, 2022. I wish you all a happy and kind new year.

Books Read: 9

I’m happy I went out on a high note with reading. Despite the rather unpleasant reread of Gender Trouble, everything I read this month was good (which is because I mostly reread things I already knew I liked). I’m not a huge fan of Shelley’s poetry, but it wasn’t painful or anything. And I discovered that I actually do like Virginia Woolf. I don’t know what my problem was the last time I read Mrs. Dalloway, but this time I loved it! 

The Ordinary Princess by M. M. Kaye - 5 stars ®

Selected Poems by Percy Bysshe Shelley - 3 stars

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley - 4 stars ®

Gender Trouble by Judith Butler - 2 stars ®

Thelma by Marie Corelli - 4 stars

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Other Poems by Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 4 stars

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf - 4.5 stars ®

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys - 4 stars ®

Arcadia by Tom Stoppard - 5 stars ®

On Tumblr:

There’s a nice assortment of things here, including quotes, lists, cat photography, and some photos from my wedding.

November Wrap Up

Book Quotes: The Ordinary Princess by M. M. Kaye

Book Quotes: Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

British Literature III Banner

Cat Photography: Snuggle Boys

Wedding Photos: Reader, I Married Him

Reblogged: YA Horror and Magical Realism Recommendations

All the Fantasy Novels aliteraryprincess Has Read

aliteraryprincess’ Books Read in 2022

On YouTube:

And a great mix here too.

November Wrap Up - 6 books, 2 DNFs, and Nonfiction November!

2023 Reading Goals and Plans - The George Eliot Project, Fairy Tale Friday, & More!

The Book Cover Book Tag

The BookTube Anniversary Tag - 1 year! 🥳

Currently Reading 12/19/22

Christmas Book Haul! 🎄🎁

January TBR - the END of Exam Reading!