Intersectional Failure And Patriarchal Society

Response to Question 4
After reading Judith Butler's quote, what I think she is essentially saying is that drag is when one gender dresses and acts like the other; copying the characteristics of that gender. Drag is typically the "male" emulating an overdone "female,” almost satirical. It is not done out of spite but rather as a celebration of both genders. She also touches upon the fact that gender is nothing but an impersonation. Our gender is ultimately decided by how we act, dress and live our lives. There is no original gender that creates the baseline for all other genders. For example, being biologically born a female does not restrict one’s gender to female. Simple anatomy is not enough to label a person either male or female. Gender
Lorde and Rich both believe both intersectional failure and patriarchal society are the driving force for why women are oppressed. Rich would mention how politics concerning women are dominated and decided by mostly men in government. Very few if any women hold roles in government, leading the majority of decisions to be made by men. Laws and policies regarding abortion, rape, abortion, birth control, prostitution, and others should be decided by the people who most relate and experience these issues, like women. Many of these policies do not fall in the favor of women, furthering the oppression and control of women. Female success is severely inhibited, monitored, and restricted by the reigning patriarchal power. Rich also would articulate on the damage intersectional failure has done and how “women in the world must fight for their lives on many fronts at once” (Rich 218). Intersectional failure is when the variety and multitude of backgrounds women come from fail to be recognized and valued as synergistic whole versus smaller, independent factors. Due to this failure, women are forced to “fight for their lives on many fronts at once,” meaning each component that makes them up like ethnicity and gender are being oppressed, discriminated, or ignored. For example, a black woman has to fend off and survive a life where she is discriminated for being both black and a women, both enduring racism and sexism. The mixture of damages from both intersectional failure and patriarchal society are the causes for the blanket of oppression surrounding