Psychology of Gender – Essentialism and Feminist theories

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In the introduction to “Global women’s studies” Burn explains how one of the 4 key themes in the field is the multicultural, intersectional, contextualized approach. In particular she stressed the importance of recognizing the similarities and differences among women all over the world.

A similar idea is expressed in postmodernism in art, (any of a number of trends or movements in the arts and literature developing in the 1970s in reaction to or rejection of the dogma, principles, or practices of established modernism). In absence of a unique strong art style or theory, the “Artworld” borrowed theories from psychology, sociology, semiotic in order to better explain the multiplicity of contemporary art pieces.

Essentialism is one of the theories used especially to explain and study work of art that defined feminist. According to essentialism Race, Sex, Gender, and Sexuality are figured as ‘rational’, ‘objective’ and ‘apolitical’. Social construction theory, on the other hand, argues against essentialized views of identity in favor of historical and cultural approaches and methods. The difference between these two theories is that essentialism believes qualities such a sexuality and gender are mainly caused by biological factors while social construction theory shows that society has more influence on these qualities than biology.

One example that comes to my mind is in order to better explain this concept is the body of work of Catherine Opie, which tides in together with the distinction in definition between gender and sex discussed by Crawford in the second chapter of “Transformations”.

Catherine Opie is an american photographer interested in challenging and deconstruct the idea that all women share a set of biological characteristics that define them as part of a single group. In her work she presents portraits of people with stereotypical female and male features. I chose a couple of photos from the exhibition “Being and Having”, 1991: the thirteen color photographs that make up the series are variations on a single composition: exaggerated masculine facial hair and other macho props, Opie’s subjects are shot against a brilliant yellow background while they stare directly into the camera. Each closely cropped image is presented in a wooden frame bearing the pseudonym etched in cursive script: Chicken, Con, Ingin, Papa Bear, and so on. Deliberately playing with the signs of gender, Opie’s photographs interrogate the notion of gender identification as stable, unified, or even natural.

It is like Opie is showing the theory by Judith Butler in her book“Gender Trouble”, (1990) where she challenges the notion of identity as a static category into which an individual places his or her self, a category imposed into individuals. Life experiences, and the different identifications one will hold through their life, cannot be captured by the boundaries of ‘identity’. ‘Gender’ is defined as a performative accomplishment brought about through the stylized repetition of acts. So, gender is created by the performance of certain acts which are deemed to be gendered.