Abstract:
Postmodern thinkers and literary studies investigate how things get represented or misrepresented in the mainstream narratives especially in the areas related to class, race, gender, sexuality and identity. Postmodern discourses postulate blurring boundaries and binaries and negating fixed categories. Identity is thought to be in constant flux and unstable. Postmodern feminist discourses inculcate the features of postmodernism and feminism to constitute a different approach and understanding of underlying issues within its framework. One of the concerns that postmodern feminism addresses is the gradual acceptance of gender fluidity. Gender-like identity is represented in a state of fluidity by many postmodern writers. In postmodern feminist thought, gender and sexual identities are looked upon as plural/fluid structures and challenge metanarratives like patriarchy, family and marriage that endorse heterosexuality. The objective of this article is to examine literary studies from the light of postmodern feminist discourses laid down by Judith Butler, AdrienneRich and others with a specific attention to Manju Kapur’s A Married Woman. The paper examines that the text makes a deliberate attempt to bring female desire to the centre and challenges heterosexual normativity imposed by family and marriage. The article also concludes that such literary texts become a negotiation for space and acceptance of alternate forms of sexualities within the dominant group.
Key Words: Gender, sexuality, queer, heterosexuality, desire, construct
Feminist movements in the 18th and the 19th centuries fought for equality of sexes, right for suffrage and abolition of gender discrimination. It also questioned the roles played out by men and women. Simone de Beauvoir in The Second Sex (1945) brought the idea of women as the ‘other’ and the man as the ‘self’. Betty Friedan in The Feminine Mystique (1963) advocated political and equality rights for women. Judith Butler’s theory of performativity and constructed nature of binaries in Gender Trouble: Feminism and Subversion of Identity (1990) brought a new dimension in gender and postmodern feminist discourses. The idea of gender fluidity arises with the evolving nature of gender and sexual identities. Postmodernist thinkers questioned metanarratives like colonialism, patriarchy, heterosexuality and believed that these structures are manipulative mechanisms to oppress and silence the other, thus creating a divide and binaries. Hence the need to break free from the shackles of fixity and structures was felt. In gender and feminist discourses, the metanarrative of heterosexuality was thrown into question and a liberal thought was administered to other sexual identities such as gay,lesbians, bisexuals, hijras and other transgender identities. Postmodern feminist discourses inculcate the features of postmodernism and feminism to constitute a different approach and understanding of underlying issues within its framework. One of the concerns that postmodern feminism addresses is the gradual acceptance of gender fluidity. Postmodern discourses postulate blurring boundaries and binaries and negating fixed categories. Identity is thought to be in constant flux and thus unstable. Similarly gender identity was also perceived. Gender, like identity, is represented in a state of fluidity in many postmodern writers. Texts like Ismat Chugtai’s Lihaaf, Abha Dawesar’s Babiji (2005), Cobalt Blue (2013) by Sachin Kundalkar and many others have explored the idea of female desire and queer sexuality. The present paper is an attempt to look into Kapur’s A Married Woman from postmodern queer perspective as this text brings female desire and gender fluidity to its centre. The ideas put forward by Postmodern feminists like Judith Butler, Adrienne Rich and others are used to study the text from this critical thought. The text deserves scholarly attention as it allows us to apply and analyse using postmodern feminist discourses. Judith Butler’s theory of performativity is applied because the text aligns with the idea of subversion of gender performances and liquified notion of pre-defined roles and fixation including one’s sexuality. In the study of postmodern feminism and sexuality, this text forms a major paradigm of transgression and shifts from conventional school of thought. Prior researchers have focused on relationships, familial ties, feminist ideologies and thematic exploration of Kapur’s fiction, but no concrete exploration has been done on the underlying idea of female desire, sexuality, related myth within heterosexual matrix. This article therefore aims to situate Kapur as a true postmodern feminist and locates the text as a counter narrative to fixed gender categorization and sexuality imposed by the power structures. Hence this study contributes to the existing field of knowledge and fills the research gap.
Gender is a term which is normally understood as someone being a man or a female. The process of gendering occurs right from birth and is embedded in one’s psyche so strongly that it becomes almost natural to confine to one’s gender roles and practices that are being set as per the ‘codes’ of a given society and its culture. Now anything other than this binary and categorization of male and female is considered ‘other’ ‘deviant’ and ‘queer’. Postmodern gender theorist, Judith Butler, in her notable work, Gender Trouble argues that gender operates everywhere and is a set of ‘performances’. Performance of gender creates gender. According to Butler's theory, gender is essentially a performative repetition of acts associated with male or female. All actions that are considered appropriate for men and women have been transmitted and repeated to produce a situation or environment that both maintains and legitimizes a seemingly natural gender binary. The crux of Butler's argument in Gender Trouble is that the coherence of the categories of sex, gender, and sexuality—the natural-seeming coherence, for example, of masculine gender and heterosexual desire in male bodies—is culturally constructed through the repetition of stylized acts in time. Butler understands gender, along with sex and sexuality, to be performative. Butler claims that gender is performatively created and there is no pre-existing gender identity. She states:
There is no gender identity behind the expression of gender; that identity is performatively constituted by the very ‘expressions’ that are said to be its results. (Gender Trouble 34)
Following Foucault, Derrida and other poststructuralists, the idea of identity formation as construct is deferred. Like other identities, gender and sexuality become constructs and being either imposed or naturalized to legitimize the dominant discourses. Butler argues that gender is not voluntary but is being constructed for being used to regulate power relations. She goes ahead in comparing gender performance to theatre performances. Whatever we do and practice is mere gender performance. Social and cultural codes make it appear ‘natural’. This tendency to naturalize and fixation of categories is what postmodern discourses on identity, race or class deconstruct.
Under patriarchal social structures, heterosexual practices are the accepted norm. Heterosexuality becomes a dominant discourse and other sexual practices are detested, ‘othered’ and thrown to the periphery. Heteronormative boundaries limit sexual orientation. For Butler, gender and heterosexuality are constructed phenomena, made to appear natural. Butler aims to break the supposed links between sex and gender so that gender and desire can be "flexible, free floating and not caused by other stable factors". The idea of identity as free and flexible and gender as a performance paves way for queer theory. Judith Butler claims that identities such as homosexual and heterosexual are very limiting in nature. They do not allow us to perceive things far beyond. Heterosexuality is a way of imposing power and limiting the nature of thinking and performance of women, particularly in order to perpetuate the male supremacy in the patriarchal regime. For Butler, identity categorization in terms of gender becomes a site of regulation. She believes that identity forms through repetition or imitation and therefore is not original.
Culturally imposed ideas can limit one's gender and sexuality. Postmodern theorists argue that identities get constructed for us and remain to be fixed but they are not so. Identity is in constant flux and is fluid in nature. Fixity and stable nature of identity is questioned and a more flexible form of identity gets explored. In Undoing Gender (2004), Butler discusses how ‘performativity’ is ‘automatic or mechanical’ and argues that desires do not emerge from personhood but from social norms. Butler distinguishes ‘Performance’ from ‘Performativity’ saying that ‘Performativity’ means an act that not only communicates but also creates an identity. This becomes source of construction of gender categories and identities. Butler’s ideas greatly influenced and mobilized understanding of gender, sexuality and queer representations.
With these discourses, queer theory developed, challenging the ‘socially constructed’ categories of sexual categorization and identity.Queer theory deploys the tenets put forward by poststructuralists and like the concept of fragmented identities, hold sexuality as fluid and dynamic. It defies the heterosexuality as standard norm and explores the idea of multiple sexualities like bisexuality, homosexuality or lesbianism. Any fixity in sexual orientation is called into question. Queer theory thus questions the traditional binary constructions of sexuality. The heteronormativity which makes heterosexuality the privileged social norm is contested through the discourse of queer sexualities.
Adrienne Cecile Rich, an American poet, essayist and feminist is notable for her famous 1980 essay on “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence”. Adrienne Rich argues that heterosexuality is not "natural" or intrinsic in human instincts, but an institution imposed upon by many cultures and societies which transits women to a subordinate situation. In this very essay, she used the term ‘compulsory heterosexuality’ to represent how institutions like family and marriage proliferate heterosexuality as legitimate and standard. Heterosexuality thus becomes the dominant discourse that ‘others’ deviant forms of sexualities such as lesbianism which is considered a threat to dominant form. Lesbianism demonstrates a contrary to the established norms and beliefs set by heterosexual family system.
She argues that heterosexuality itself is a powerful political institution that subordinates women and permits "male right of physical, economical, and emotional access" to women. According to her, women can explore other forms of sexuality like lesbianism and practice with their free will. It was not written to widen divisions but to encourage heterosexual feminists to examine heterosexuality as a political institution which disempowers women. Rich sees lesbian existence as an act of resistance to this institution, but also as an individual choice. Lesbian identity throws heterosexuality into question and challenges it. She argues that it is a kind of resistance to compulsory heterosexuality to a cultural system that forces women to desire for men. That woman should have their own sexual preferences and shall not have anything forced unto them. Rich claims that women may not have a preference toward heterosexuality, but may find it imposed, managed, organized, propagandized, and maintained by society. She observes:
The assumption that ‘most women are innately heterosexuals’ stands as a theoretical and political stumbling block for many women. It remains a tenable assumption, partly because lesbian existence has been written out of history or catalogued under disease; partly because it has been treated as exceptional rather than intrinsic; partly because to acknowledge that for women heterosexuality may not be a ‘preference’ at all but something that has had to be imposed, managed, organized, propagandized and maintained by force is an immense step to take if you consider yourself freely and ‘innately’ heterosexual…. (Rich 119)
Rich argues that women constantly receive messages from society through myths, oral narratives that uphold patriarchal systems and heteronormativity. She contests that lesbianism was prevalent in society but they never came to the forefront in the pages of history. Heterosexuality is constructed in the mainstream patriarchal discourse in order to regulate power and establish codes that suit men. According to Rich, history never traces lesbian experiences and such practices were categorized as ‘the other’ and unacceptable.
This argument which Rich emphasized on is applicable to our Indian context as well. Our ancient science and history do talk about various forms of sexual behaviours and sexuality. We can understand from our scriptures, testimonials, epics, sculptures and other art forms, that gender fluidity and queer tendencies are not western imports to our society but were very much prevalent in ancient Indian history. Our mythology, folk narratives, sculptures depict the relevance of various sexual transformations among gods and goddesses. Vedas, Ramayana, Mahabharata and Puranas and regional folklores stand testimony to this idea of fluid sexuality, whatsoever the reason.
Vanita and Kidwai, scholars who worked extensively on such themes examined the existence of homoerotic love in Indian cultural context. Queer scholar, Ruth Vanita’s work on Indian sexualities covers a wide range of queer representations, from historical to the literary and popular culture. Ruth Vanita and Kidwai in Same Sex love in India: Readings from Literature and History (2000) deconstruct the myth that homosexuality is a western import. While normative heterosexuality and marriage still exist as a cultural norm, such transgression was also prevalent in ancient times. The writers also argue that such relations could be traced in ancient literature. Literary texts like Vatyasana’s Kamasutra, temple sculptures from Konark and Khajuraho display a wide range of sexual practices prevalent in Indian society.
Of late, literature in both English and regional languages have represented sexuality and queer sensibility in various ways. Literary works like Ismat Chugtai’s Lihaaf (The Quilt) (1941), R Raj Rao’s Hostel Room 131, (2010), Shoba De’s Strange Obsession (1992), Anita Nair’s A Ladies Coupe and Rahul Mehta’s Quarantine,(2010), a collection of short stories deal with homosexual themes. Theatre artists like Mahesh Dattani have also dealt with similar themes pertaining to gay voices and their rights. Tolerance towards the third gender or transgender groups is the recurring theme among contemporary writers. In recent past, the treatment of sexual minorities has received increasing attention in academic writing and visual media. Plurality of identities and considering gender/sexual identity as fluid and a matter of choice as propagated by the poststructuralists finds place in contemporary literature. Western writers like Derrida, Foucault, Butler, Lacan have influenced the Indian minds as well. Although these subjects were very much prevalent in ancient Indian society, they were considered obscure and obscene in the Indian scenario. The violent reactions to Indian films like Fire, Girlfriend stand testimony to this. However, there is an increasing change in the way these subjects are looked at.
Indian writer Devdutt Pattnaik’s considerable number of works operates within the mythological framework of Indian epics, puranas and scriptures in Hindu tradition and the very notion of fluidity of gender and sex. His works point out how in our mythological narratives, the divine powers transcend to different sexualities for various reasons. His recent work, Gender and Sexuality in Indian Mythology exemplifies these notions.
Devdutt Pattnaik argues:
When the queer is pointed out in Hindu stories, symbols and rituals (‘why does Krishna braid his hair as a woman’s plait and wear a nose ring like a woman? Why does the Goddess take on the masculine role of a warrior, with a female companion by her side, as she rides into battle on a lion? Why is Shiva half a woman but Shakti not half man?’), they are often explained away in metaphysical terms. No attempt is made to enquire, interrogate and widen vision. Thus, is queerness rendered invisible... (Pattnaik 31)
Prior to the argument above Pattnaik also states:
The celebration of queer ideas in Hindu stories, symbols and rituals is in stark contrast to the ignorance and rigidity that we see in Indian society. (Pattnaik 27)
Devdutt points out the irony that our mythologies are filled with such transitions in forms and we accept it, worship our Gods in terms of values and morality but they stand in contrast when we see how these subjects get treated in Indian society.
Against this theoretical framework, Manju Kapur’s A Married Woman (2002) makes an interesting study as it aligns with these critical discourses and challenges heterosexuality by bringing lesbian desire to its centre. The text breaks the fixed doctrines of heteronormativity and generates the idea of fluidity in terms of sexuality. In most narratives, this female desire is accidental or made as a passing reference. But in this text, Kapur makes lesbian relation move from secret private spaces to public domain. Manju Kapur is a contemporary Indian novelist who is much acclaimed for her first book Difficult Daughters (1998) which won her the Commonwealth Booker prize for the Eurasia region. She has written on various subjects, most often dealing with the middle class desires and sensibilities. She also uses Indian history to parallel her plot and reflect the undercurrents. Kapur’s A Married Woman revolves in two parallel plots; the story of Astha’s married life which soon transits to a lesbian relation and the sensitive Ram janma Bhoomi and Babrimajzid issue. The two parallel narratives interface to reveal the underlying notions. Astha, deviates from heterosexual relationship to finding solace in lesbian affair with Pipee who is the widow of a Muslim anti-communal activist which makes the relationship more complex. She is first involved with her husband Aijaz while writing a script for the play about the Babri Masjid issue. Her move from heterosexual desire to lesbian desire resonates gender/sexual fluidity. Although she has everything any woman would desire, there is a sense of incompleteness which makes her join a theatre group. Her life reaches a turning point when she meets Aijaz Ahmed, a history teacher and the founder of The Street Theatre Group, in which Astha is involved. Aijaz motivates and awakens Astha’s social spirit and socializes her thinking. Astha writes a script on the burning issue of Babri Masjid issue to be dramatized in her school. There develops a tender relationship between Astha and Aijaz during this course. Later, Aijaz and his group are burnt alive for staging such controversial topics. Inspired by Aijaz’s works and ideas, Astha emerges as a social activist and takes part in rallies against her family’s wishes. She resists placing herself in the patriarchal order of being confined to domesticity and family life and comes out in the public forum to fight for the right cause. She meets Pipeelika, Aijaz’s widowed Hindu wife at Ayodhya, the sacred birthplace of Shri Ram. The initial friendship between the two gradually transits to a lesbian relation. The writer consciously makes the first meeting point of the lesbian characters in Ayodhya, symbolically suggesting for tolerance and acceptance.
Astha explores her identity and sexuality in different cross sections of her life; her heterosexual conjugation before marriage, heterosexual union in marriage with Hemant, her feelings for Aijaz in her extra marital affair and then to lesbian desire in Pipeelika. Her sexual identification is in constant fluidity allowing her to experiment with her individual self and desires. Unlike in most narratives where the queer desire is pictured in silence and secrecy, Kapur makes a deliberate attempt to move it from closed spaces to open arenas; it doesn’t mean that the two women explore their bodies in public but share their intimate relationship by moving out together to theatres to travelling together. The relationship is not confined to bedrooms and having sexual intimacy but what Kapur does is to bring the bonding between two women and how they experience joy in sharing and caring for each other. Kapur gestures that female desire includes companionship, love and bonding and not just sexual fantasy. The deliberate inclusion of queer sexuality is suggestive of non-binary androgynous identity.
As mentioned earlier, gender fluidity and its gradual entry and acceptance in the mainstream discourse is a path breaking achievement in gender studies. One of the key ideas discussed is the cultural conditioning that takes place in the process of gendering as male and female.We perform and behave everyday in specific ways as expected in the society. These acts are nurtured, conditioned in the mindset that it seemingly appears natural. This naturalization and internalization paves the way to behave and conduct based on our genders. As Butler has rightly pointed that Gender is a social construct and is subject to change. Pramod K. Nayar (2009) also points in his book, Contemporary Literary and Cultural theory,
Postmodern theories of gender argue that gender is not a fixed or stable category across the world. Gender, like a text, is a performance, the playing out of roles, that has to be repeated (‘cited’) and validated within specific social and cultural contexts, but which is also open to contest and negotiations. (Nayar130).
Her transition from heterosexual norm to homosexuality or lesbianism is kind of resistance to dominant discourses of patriarchy, family structures and sexuality. The emergence of lesbian discourse is itself a threat to normative heterosexuality. Cheryl Clarke in Lesbianism, An Act of Resistance, comments:
“Women are kept, maintained and contained through terror, violence, and the spray of semen. Lesbianism is an ideological, political and philosophical means of liberation of all women from heterosexual tyranny. The lesbian rejects male sexual/political domination, defies his world, his social organization, his ideology and his definition of her as inferior. The lesbian defines herself and rejects the male definitions of how she should feel, act, look and live” (Clarke 128)
Astha’s conduct in the initial pages of the text conforms to the patterns of behaviour dictated by the society. From this naturalized tendency of behaviour she moves on to the deviant; through her sexual preferences and desire for another female. Women convince themselves that it is normal to behave in such a way as they observe others performing the same.De Beauvoir (1984) stated in The Second Sex that the woman was designated as the ‘Other’. The ‘Other’ is termed so because women have continually been subservient to the male. Predefined roles are set for men and women and any reversal is seen as unusual and unnatural. Eagleton (2008) examines thus:
Men were the idealized rational, full participants as workers in the public arena of the economy and politics, women were dependents, to be protected and kept close. (Eagleton12)
Further he adds, “For most women, the home is a site of social relations that are structured by power and inequality” (15). Home and family play an important role in shaping one’s psyche. Astha is caught between her feminine responsibilities as a mother and her personal freedom. The text also brings to the forefront how women constantly negotiate with their choices as a mother, daughter, wife and individual aspirations within the social framework. Astha too is a victim of her gendered surroundings which makes her confined to her gender roles, leaving personal desires aside. As Butler states, “There is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender . . . Identity performativity constituted by the very 'expressions' that are said to be its results'' (Butler 33).
Postmodern feminism addresses these issues and establishes a code that is free from rigid boundaries and gendered experiences. Women are trapped in heterosexual matrix which marriage unquestionably propagates. In the world of categorization, women take the position of being the object and the other.The phallogocentric approach where the male occupies the centre position is thrown into question in postmodern feminist texts. Bringing lesbian desire to the central focus, Kapur challenges this very phallogocentric notion of male subjectivity. According to Butler (1990), women cannot achieve the subject position as this is already occupied by the male race and is governed by phallogocentric ideals. A thorough reading of the text points that “…gender identity is a performative accomplishment compelled by social sanction and taboo.” (Butler 520). According to Butler’s theory of performativity, our performances and acts are based on gender roles and they are subject to change as well. In Butler’s essay, Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory (1988), she says, “In this sense, gender is in no way a stable identity or locus of agency” (Butler 519). Astha becomes a representative of Indian women who accept heterosexuality in silence. Indian women rarely discuss marital relations and sexuality in an open forum as it is considered a taboo. The reason behind this silence for centuries goes to moral codes that culture and society dictates. Considering Pramod K Nayar (2019 Ed.) observation on this;
An important mechanism of regulating women’s sexuality is through discourses of morality. In fact, in most postcolonial nations sexuality is coded as morality: to be moral is to be monogamous, reticent about one’s sexuality/sexual preferences or even being asexual. Thus to articulate sexual desire or preference, or being promiscuous, is immediately classified as ‘immoral’. (Nayar150)
Women’s body, sexuality, desire and identity for self-expression form the central aspect of the text chosen for analysis. The text echoes that women need to take control over their bodies and sexuality. In this context, Astha’s voice is loud and clear. She articulates:
A woman should be self-controlled, strong willed, self-reliant and rational, having faith in the inner strength of womanhood. A meaningful change can be brought only from within by being free in the deeper psychic sense. (AMW 6)
The chosen text for analysis thus becomes an ideal platform to investigate postmodern feminist tenets, there by locating gender fluidity as a major subject for thought. By weaving together the postmodern feminist discourses and textual interpretation, this study brings to light the idea of gender fluidity and situates the text as a seminal postmodern feminist discourse. Kapur candidly problematizes the very notion of love, sexuality, marriage and constructed perceptions on femininity and female body in a socio-cultural framework which relegates women as ‘other’. Thus, Kapur’s A Married Woman is a text that deconstructs ‘normalcy’ and subverts ideas about fixed sexuality. That gender and sexuality is imposed and constructed within the social structure is what the text voices. The text chosen for study no doubt articulates the undercurrents of postmodern feminist discourse on the fluid nature of gender and sexuality. In the light of the postmodern theoretical discourse, this study has attempted to highlight Kapur’s feminist vision, emphasizing women’s subjectivity and sexuality. The text voices for a liberal approach, acceptance and suggests alternative forms of sexuality, thus resisting heterosexual dictum.
References:
- Kapur, Manju. A Married Woman. London: Faber and Faber, 2003 Print.
- Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble; Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, New York, Routledge 1999. Print.
- ---, Performative acts and gender constitution: An essay in phenomenology and feminist theory. Theatre Journal, 40(4), 1988 Print. 519-520. doi: 10.2307/3207893
- Clarke, Cheryl. “Lesbianism, An Act of Resistance.” This Bridge Called My Back: Writing by Radical Women of Color, Ed. Cherrie Moraga. New York: Women of Color Press, 1983 Print. 99-117.
- De Beauvoir, S. The second sex. New York, USA: Random House, 1984 Print.
- Eagleton, M. A concise companion to feminist theory. Cornwall, England John Wiley & Sons, 2008 Print.
- Foucault, M. The history of sexuality: An introduction (R. Hurley, Trans.) (1st ed.). New York, USA: Vintage. (Original work published 1976), 1978 Print.
- Nayar, P. K. Feminisms. In Contemporary literary and cultural theory: From structuralism to ecocriticism New Delhi, India: Pearson, 2009, 116-167.
- ---, Postcolonial Literature: An Introduction. 2008. Pearson, rpt. 2019.
- Pattanaik, Devdutt. Gender and Sexuality in Indian Mythology, Penguin Random House India. 2018 Print.
- Vanita Ruth and Saleem Kidwai. Ed Same Sex Love in India: Readings from Literature and History. New York: Palgrave, 2001 Print.