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How are you working your trap?

Also: dressing for 'the female gaze,' rodent boyfriends, the body in crisis, and more in the weekend roundup.

Tracy Clark-Flory

Jun 16

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green and pink flower bud — A trap of sorts. Photo: Carla Quario

Last week, we had a rare date night at the restaurant where all the other parents I know do their date nights. I was gesticulating wildly while talking about the research I’d been doing—all of it related to gender and the self. Then Judith Butler walked by.

Judith. Butler.

And while I was in the middle of talking about some real Judith Butler shit, no less. It felt a little cosmic. Of all my time living in and around Berkeley (my whole life), a sighting in this particular moment?

There was an internal explosion. Maybe they heard it because Butler looked my way and we locked eyes for a meaningful (to me) moment. Whatever expression I had on my face, I’m sure they are very familiar with it. I can only imagine what it must be like to be an academic rock star. Famous but not. To some, you’re bigger than the biggest celebrities.

I spent the rest of dinner glowing, barely able to talk about anything else. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve pulled Gender Trouble off my shelf to skim through once again, review the underlined text, re-read my margin notes. When I came home that night, I found a quote I’d added to my research notes just earlier that day: “Performativity has to do with repetition, very often the repetition of oppressive and painful gender norms… This is not freedom, but a question of how to work the trap that one is inevitably in.”

It’s a perennially interesting question: How are you working your trap?