remediating protest: blog

blogpost 4: Exposing Vulnerability: Gendered Bodies and Performative Resistance

Judith Butler's work, "Gender Trouble," provides an incisive theoretical lens for examining gendered body and challenges the essentialist views of gender as a biological inevitability. They propose that gender is a social construct, performed through the repeated enactment of societal norms. They posit, "The body is not a self-identical or merely factic materiality; it is a materiality that bears meaning, if nothing else, and the manner of this bearing is fundamentally dramatic". By this, Butler means that the body is not a neutral, pre-cultural entity, but rather it derives its meaning and significance through the social performances that constitute gender. The gendered bodies in the works of Vasyakina, Petrushevskaia, and Yusupova can be seen as sites where societal norms and expectations around gender are both inscribed and subverted through performative vulnerability.

Utkin offers a vital perspective on how public displays of vulnerability can serve as a form of resistance against oppressive state structure. In works such as those by the art collective Voina and the performances by Petr Pavlensky, vulnerability is not merely a condition but a deliberate strategy to confront and challenge societal and political norms. For instance, he discusses how these performances in Putin's Russia intimate public displays, serve as potent acts of political resistance that render the personal pains and vulnerabilities of the artists into public spectacles of defiance.

In contemporary Russian literature and art, the notion of vulnerability has emerged as a compelling form of expression and resistance, particularly when intertwined with gender and bodily performance. Authors like Vasyakina in her "Wind of Fury – Songs of Fury" utilize the vulnerability of the female body as a powerful critique of patriarchal structures. Vasyakina's raw poetic language exposes the systemic objectification and violence against women, portraying a poetic speaker who, emerging from societal margins, confronts and challenges the oppressive gazes that attempt to reduce her to a mere object.

Similarly, Liudmila Petrushevskaia's "Among Friends" explores the vulnerability of aging women, neglected by a society that valorizes youth and beauty. Through a reunion of long-separated friends, Petrushevskaia delves into themes of isolation, decay, and the loss of identity, revealing the cruel societal dismissal of the aging woman's body.

Lida Yusupova takes a different approach in "The Verdicts," using the stark, bureaucratic language of Russian court documents to craft a series of poignant poems that give voice to the voiceless—victims of gender-based violence and marginalized groups. Her transformative use of legal language into lyrical poetry illuminates the systemic abuse and silencing faced by these individuals, emphasizing their vulnerability and resistance.

These powerful works by Vasyakina, Petrushevskaia, and Yusupova underscore how vulnerability can be harnessed as a potent artistic and political force, challenging patriarchal norms, state oppression, and societal indifference. Through their provocative portrayals of gendered bodies and lived experiences of marginalization, these writers denaturalize entrenched notions of gender, identity, and embodiment. Their narratives of vulnerability destabilize rigid conceptions of the self, echoing Butler's assertion that gender is not an innate truth but a socially constructed performance. By exposing the fault lines in society's treatment of those who deviate from restrictive norms, their works assume vulnerability as a means of defiance and a call for empathy, recognition, and transformative change. Ultimately, these incisive explorations reveal the potential of embracing vulnerability – a radical act that refuses to remain silenced or unseen, demanding instead a more expansive understanding of identity, justice, and what it means to inhabit a body in the world.

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  1. Thank you, Violetta, for the extremely well-written blog post! I liked how you took the theories of gender performance and vulnerability that we have been discussing over the past couple of weeks and applied them to a variety of texts, comparing and contrasting how different authors use them in their works. I especially appreciated your discussion of vulnerability in Yusupova's text. Clearly, the documentary aesthetics she employs are used to push forward a narrative that takes into consideration the vulnerability that women experience at the hands of the Russian legal system. One suggestion I have for you if you are interested in further developing this topic is to explicitly consider the intersection between Butler’s theory of gender performance and Utkin’s definition of vulnerability (which is also, interestingly, rooted in Butler’s work). For example, what are the performative aspects of vulnerability as described by the three authors? And how is the vulnerability that is described gendered? Including a discussion of Utkin’s framework of queering might be a productive way to blend the two theories into a singular and coherent analysis. Another alley of analysis you could explore is to what extent the vulnerability described by Utkin and put into practice by Vasyakina, Petrushevskaia, and Yusupova relies on a biological, physical body. Can vulnerability also be used in regard to more ephemeral violence such as that rendered via microaggressions, social exclusion, and mental abuse? Overall, I really enjoyed reading your post and am grateful for the thoughts it spurred.