You could always ask some of us to write garage pieces on our blogs, and then source them.

If you'd like to do a gender studies critique of Elizabeth Bishop's "Exchanging Hats" for me to quote, be my guest!

I actually thought about putting some of my own lines in quotes in the paper and then making up a reference, but if I got caught, she might say it was academic dishonesty and flunk me. I wouldn't be plagiarizing, since they would be my own thoughts, but I doubt she would care about that.

I'm on 5 pages now, only 2 more to go.

Here's my critique: "Ouch. My head hurts!"

One of the reasons that now that I have my BA and have started working on my Masters, I realize that while I am still intensely fascinated by the subject, I have no drive to do that footwork that many of the profs require. I am to the point where I can learn just as much without their help.

If you'd like to do a gender studies critique of Elizabeth Bishop's "Exchanging Hats" for me to quote, be my guest!

http://drguy.joeuser.com/index.asp?AID=149644

I can BS with the best of them.

I am now on page six, and only halfway through the poem. I'm still BSing the whole thing, though I have managed to add in two "outside sources" that honestly have very little to do with the topic, but they each provided one sentence that was useful to me.

Gideon: This doesn't make my head hurt, it just makes me feel very bored. She's not a good poet at all! I want to take a nap after each page I write!

Lotherius: I respect most of my professors and am more than happy to do the work. However, most of them are reasonable in their requests. I picked a difficult topic for my Medieval Lit research paper because my Prof loved the idea, but since not many people have written on it, he's helping me find a little extra research. And, of course, everyone in the class is writing on different subjects which means little to no competition for sources. This woman is just not thinking clearly. She has to get these graded fast, so she didn't give enough time to write the paper. I'm fine with the due date, just not the assignment date.

Doc: That was great, and I really wish I could use it in my paper. Alas, I'm afraid my Prof loves this poet and she would probably not like it so well if I agreed with you in my paper. *sigh* I hate having to lie just to get my degree. But, that's life: kiss butt, get the degree, then you can have your own opinions. (Ok, I have some profs who don't mind if I don't like what they like, but not many.)

How about the time that I almost got kicked out of my School Counseling MA program for missing a space in between my header and the first line on my page (I couldn't get Word to work right on my computer).

My professor called me into his office and asked me if school counseling was what I *really* wanted to do...all because my paper wasn't quite formatted correctly.

Thank heavens I moved to Vegas and started teaching. I'm now doing my masters in reading and literacy and am much happier. I'm not saying I wouldn't love school counseling, I'm sure I would, but looking back, it totally wasn't a good fit for me. Blah.

I need to write a paper tonight too...so here I go. Good luck with yours SHE. I'm writing mine on Codine and tramadol. Freakin headache won't go away. This should be wonderful. lol

I suppose I should admit that I didn't start the paper until today, which might also account for my being stressed. I started the research the day we got the assignment, I just didn't feel like writing the paper.

Good luck with yours SHE.

Good luck with yours as well. I'm lucky I don't have a headache, I just have a case of the lazies.

TADA! It is finished! And, here is my paper:


I Act, Therefore I Am
Performative Gender in Elizabeth Bishop’s “Exchanging Hats”

Feminism began with the women’s movement in the 1960’s. Short on its heels was the Gay and Lesbian Liberation Movement. Where philosophers and theorists were concerned with the role of women: what makes a woman, what has her historical position been, other thinkers were wondering about gender roles in general. They wanted to explore femininity and masculinity as they applied to both sexes. They made distinctions between sex and gender. They questioned the “normalcy” of heterosexual sexual acts and the “perversion” of homosexual sexual acts. Some, like Judith Butler, even argued that gender does not exist in nature. Butler’s thesis is that gender roles are like the roles an actor plays on stage. Through a repetitive performance, we form our gender as society allows. They write the script, and through repeating our lines, we become our parts. These ideas, like other philosophical ideas of their times, found their way into literature. Elizabeth Bishop’s “Exchanging Hats” is a good example of literature questioning gender roles and their stability. Looking at this poem through Butler’s essay, one can see how gender roles are changeable, fluid, and yet structured in such a way that one cannot simply change roles at will, though experimentation is possible.

Bishop’s poem begins, “Unfunny uncles who insist / in trying on a lady’s hat,” (1-2). First, looking at the scene Bishop presents, the reader can see a man, probably slightly older, around his family: brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews, and is trying on the hat of one of his sisters. The hat is the representation of the female gender role and the uncle is merely experimenting with the different role. However, the tone of Bishop’s line implies that this is more than a man trying on a woman’s hat. The adjective describing the uncles is not “old” or “silly”, but “unfunny”. Why are the uncles unfunny? Perhaps it is because the uncles, deep inside, do not mean their actions as a joke. There is some part of them that might desire to wear the hat in earnest and not in jest. If this is the case, the uncles are not funny because they do not truly mean to be. Or perhaps the uncles are unfunny because they joke is too close to reality. If gender is merely the actions of a person, then this action would imply a blending of roles, male and female together. Butler distinguishes between the theatrical and social roles and explains why transvestitism is acceptable on stage but not in life,

“In the theater, one can say, ‘this is just an act,’ and de-realize the act, make acting into something quite distinct from what is real. Because of this distinction, one can maintain one’s sense of reality in the face of this temporary challenge to our existing ontological assumptions about gender arrangements; the various conventions which announce that ‘this is only a play’ allows strict lines to be drawn between performance and life.” (907)

These uncles are not on the stage, but sitting in public, trying their jokes. There is only the separation of comedy, which could be similar to the separation provided by the stage, yet the uncles aren’t funny. The joke does not succeed, it “falls flat” (3). The narrator of the poem feels the lack of comedy in the situation and realizes there is sincerity in the action. The narrator feels with the uncles as she understands the desire to try on other roles. She writes, “we share your slight transvestite twist / in spite of our embarrassment” (4-5). However, those who watch the uncles realize that the behavior is not fully socially acceptable because they feel embarrassed. They may not fully realize or understand why they feel this embarrassment, but they feel it.

Because Bishop writes that they do “share” in the uncles “slight transvestite twist”, she once again removes the separation from such acts that typically make such experimentation tolerable. Margaret Dickie writes that Bishop is “renowned for her as an observer” and David Kalstone writes “[such poems] allow her simultaneously to be a keen observer – the figure who ‘tells’ the poems scrutinizes every detail to extract her meaning – and yet to identify with figures absent, withdrawn, practically lifeless” (Dickie 132;Kalstone 20). The narrator here, like the poet, describes the scene both as an observer and as a participant. Once again, the slight separation exists and disappears, as though the stage or joke originally allows the observer to stand apart, but the separation disappears and the narrator shares in the desire to try on different hats.

But what does it mean to try on different hats? What signification does it truly have? Continuing on in the poem, Bishop writes, “Costume and custom are complex” (6). Judith Butler believes that the seemingly natural appearance of “gender” is not natural, but constructed through the repetition of stylized acts. These acts are not individually chosen, but are formed and repeated historically. Deviation from the roles brings punishment. The costumes, or the performative acts create the customs, or the genders. The hats are representations of the performative acts which are parts of the genders. Certain kinds and types of hats are “The headgear of the other sex” not because each sex has a predetermined nature, but because the bonnet has been repeatedly used as a symbol for woman, and the cap a symbol for man (7). The other sex is not defined, as Sedgwick would say, by its difference to the other: female is not determined by its opposition to male, but is defined by that which it repeatedly does. Even Halberstam believes there is such a thing as masculinity that is its own entity as defined by language and society, not by acts. However, the desire to experiment with the with “the headgear of the other sex” implies that the gender is not structurally rigid but fluid in a way that allows for experimentation. This does not mean that experimentation is allowed without retribution, but it is possible.

Gender in not only formed by stylized performative acts, but by the public repetition of stylized performative acts. Signs of such public repetition can also be found in Bishop’s poem. The unfunny uncles “insist / in trying on a lady’s hat” while the “Anandrous aunts, who, at the beach /(…)/ keep putting on the yachtsmen’s caps / with exhibitionistic screech” (1-2;9-12). Dressing is typically a private action, yet what one wears becomes a public act once one steps through their door. What the uncles and aunts are doing are also overtly public. The uncles are undoubtedly drawing attention to themselves in their attempts to be funny, just as the aunts are drawing attention to themselves with their “exhibitionistic screech.” The uncles are obviously in public as the narrator is in the audience, while the aunts are known to be in public because the speaker tells the reader that they are at the beach.

Bishop also makes it clear that the actions are also repetitive in nature by telling the reader that the uncles “insist” and the aunts “keep putting” on putting on the hats that symbolize the other gender. However, repetitive action is typically the action that forms gender, while these repetitive actions are going against the “normal” actions of putting on the proper and gender approved hats.
This does not mean that the aunts and uncles are changing the now formed gender roles because they are punished for their behaviors. The uncles are seen as unfunny, which would imply that those around him disprove of his behavior. The aunts condition could be worse. Bishop describes them as “anandrous” which is a botany term for a flower that lacks stamens. I take this description to mean that the aunts are unmarried and lack men in their lives as the stamen is the male part of the plant. On the other hand, the lack of stamen could simply imply that the aunts have no actual desire to be male or have male tendencies, they are only pretending, or that “fashion” may have changed in such a manner that society finds it acceptable for women to wear such hats. The last is most likely as the poem goes on to state, “the tides of fashion never lag. / Such caps may not be worn next year.” (15-16) These lines could mean that if the caps are worn too often, it becomes identity.

Once an act has been repeated often enough, it becomes a defining characteristic or creator of a gender. Allen J. Frantzen writes of Butler, “She sees gender as ‘an activity, a becoming’ and believes that sexed bodies can be the occasion for a number of different genders” (455). And Butler writes, “Consider the further consequence that if gender is something that one becomes – but can never be – then gender itself is a kind of becoming or activity.” (112) Since gender is an activity and a becoming, that means it is not stable and rigid. Gender roles, like fashion, can and do change in time. The fact that they “may not be worn next year” could mean that they cannot be worn as to not repeat them often enough to change gender roles, or that if they are already a part of the gender role, they will be removed in the future. Butler would not have believed that the uncles and aunts are trying on these hats as a matter of choice. Frantzen states, “Butler has said explicitly that ‘taking on a gender role as a choice’ is explicitly what she does not mean by performative gender; rather that she means ‘the notion of choice or self is produced as an effect of a certain compulsory repetition.” (456)

Bishop continues the images by putting the reader into the poem, “Or you who don the paper plate / itself, and put some grapes upon it, or sport the Indian’s feather bonnet,” (17-19). These further images are not identified with either male or female gender roles. To wear a paper plate with grapes on it is extremely strange, perhaps even perverse, “-- perversities may aggravate / the natural madness of the hatter.” (20-21) The stranger the hats, the more the hatter wishes to experiment. His madness, or desire to experiment only worsens as he continues to experiment. To those who believe that gender is unbending and dictated by sex, any step outside of bounds upsets those that are already anxious even if they do not realize it.
Bishop questions the stability of the performances to maintain the appearance of stable gender and social roles by asking what happens if they hats fail. “And if the opera hats collapse / and crowns grow draughty, then, perhaps, / he thinks what might a miter matter?” (22-24) Once the acts that create gender roles can be questioned, why not the acts that create social roles? Supposing that a woman can wear a sailors cap and a man can wear a lady’s hat then the opera hat that denotes wealth can be worn by the poor and the crown that denotes power now sits atop a figurehead, then what is to say that the man wearing the miter can truly speak to God?

Gender theorists all saw gender as changeable. Gayle Rubin saw that “modern sexual arrangements have a distinctive character which sets them apart from preexisting systems.” (889) She saw the acts as the same throughout history, but changes in society changed what they meant. Foucault also saw the perversion and acceptance of certain acts as different in different cultures and times. However, Foucault did not see that the involvement in certain acts naturally constituted one’s identity, but was only seen to do so with the advancement of science. “The sodomite had been a temporary aberration; the homosexual was now a species.” (896) Butler did take this idea and add repetition as a key factor in performative gender acts. Sedgwick saw gender as being the result of the binary nature of language. Halberstam saw masculinity as not being the representation of maleness, but still saw it as being an entity unto itself. It is, however, Butlers views of performative gender that best fit an analysis of Bishop’s “Exchanging Hats.” The hats as representations of performative acts, show how gender roles are made up of acts that can be attempted by anyone because they are not impossible to act for those of the opposite chromosomal sex.




Works Cited

Butler, Judith . Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of
Identity. New York: Routledge, 1990.
Butler, Judith. "Performative Acts and Gender Constitution."
Literary Theory: An Anthology. Ed. Julie Rivkin, Michael
Ryan. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 1998. 900-911.
Dickie, Margaret. "Seeing is Re-Seeing: Sylvia Plath and
Elizabeth Bishop." American Literature 65 (1993): 131-146.
Foucault, Michel. “The History of Sexuality.” Literary Theory:
An Anthology. Ed. Julie Rivkin, Michael Ryan. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 1998. 892-899.
Frantzen, Allen J. "When Women Aren't Enough." Speculum 68
(1993): 225-471.
Halberstam, Judith. “Female Masculinity.” Literary Theory: An
Anthology. Ed. Julie Rivkin, Michael Ryan. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 1998. 900-911.
Kalstone, David. Becoming a Poet: Elizabeth Bishop with Marianne
Moore and Robert Lowell. New York: Farrar,Straus & Giroux,
1989.
Rubin, Gayle. “Sexual Transformations.” Literary Theory:
An Anthology. Ed. Julie Rivkin, Michael Ryan. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 1998. 889-891.
Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. “Epistemology of the Closet.” Literary
Theory: An Anthology. Ed. Julie Rivkin, Michael Ryan. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 1998. 912-921.

Alas, I'm afraid my Prof loves this poet and she would probably not like it so well if I agreed with you in my paper. *sigh* I hate having to lie just to get my degree.

Oh well, next time I will be kinder to the poet.

Good luck!  Glad you are almost finished.