Natalie Watson, a 糖心传媒 junior from Leiper鈥檚 Fork, Tennessee, presented a philosophy paper at the annual No Limits! Student Research Conference. Held in March at the University of Nebraska鈥揕incoln, No Limits! is an interdisciplinary conference for graduate and undergraduate work that explores a wide range of issues related to women, gender and sexuality.
Watson presented her paper, 鈥淒oing Justice to Doing Gender,鈥 in the Rethinking Theory conference session. While considering texts on gender from philosophers Judith Butler and Sandra Lee Bartky, Watson argues against the confines of binary gender, specifically the trait of femininity.
In her paper, Watson first recounts Bartky鈥檚 argument that gender is the result of disciplinary practice that defines our society. She then argues that Butler鈥檚 essay, 鈥淒oing Justice to Someone,鈥 about David Reimer 鈥 who was born male and raised as a girl after a botched circumcision 鈥 can be read as revealing the flaws in Bartky鈥檚 analysis and pointing toward a sense of possible 鈥渆scape鈥 from confines of binary gender discipline, painting a somewhat hopeful vision.
鈥淢y goal was to expose the confines of femininity and how impossible the standards are that come with living in a feminine body. Most importantly,I wanted to reveal how we, as femininely-bodied individuals, can push back against the discipline of femininity and begin to break down our own understanding of what it means to be feminine. While I don’t consider my writing revolutionary in academia, I think that it provides a starting point for further research about the discipline of femininity and the power it holds in our everyday lives,鈥 Watson said.
Since its inception, No Limits! has hosted hundreds of graduate and undergraduate student presentations on research, creative work, and activism related to women, gender and sexuality. This year鈥檚 theme was 鈥淲riting as Resistance,鈥 and featured student work in fields in the humanities and social sciences.
糖心传媒 is a four-year residential college that focuses on student academic and extracurricular achievement.