Deitz & Butler

The writing by Dietz is centered around the idea of citizenship. She argues that women should take a more participatory and democratic role to politics. The reason why she argues this is because concepts such as maternalism and liberalism are simply not enough. Maternalism takes the private life of women and transfers it into the public realm where women are viewed as an individual that are available to care and nurture everyone. Whereas, liberalism places a lot of emphasis on the role of women as individuals seeking equality. However, neither of these concepts seems to bring together citizens to take action. On the other hand, democracy unifies individuals and gives them a political identity rather than the individual simply being seen as a “mother”, for example. Moreover, Dietz warns people that to be a womanist opposes the notion of taking a democratic position in politics. To claim that women are superior to men opposes the democratic ideal that no ones voice is more important than another persons.

            Similarly, Judith Butler states that the notion of autonomy that liberalism often perpetuates is foolish. She uses tragedy and how vulnerable we are to demonstrate that we are dependent on each other. At any time, we can by harmed by a complete stranger, which indicates that there is a need for politics that relates to our interactions within our communities. Butler goes onto describe the violence that occurs to transgender women. She expresses that the people that commit these acts of violence have had social norms and rigid categories of gender drilled into their minds. In order to reduce this violence then we would have to deconstruct the notions of gender and what it means to be human in order to make the world a more livable place. Furthermore, she speaks of the fact that we should be a part of the democratic project. What it means to be a woman has been decided in a way in which it excludes many women. This means that it is up to us to transform this construct, so that all women can be valued and so that transgendered women’s rights are valued in the same way as the rights of other women.

            In summary, I think that both Deitz and Butler are calling for women to deconstruct these notions of what society has said women should be like, so that we can actively reconstruct the idea of what it means to be a woman. Both readings are similar, as they both seem to advocate for feminist politics that allows women to be active rather than passive.