Gender performativity
Encyclopedia
Gender Performativity is a term created by post-structuralist
feminist
philosopher
Judith Butler
in her 1990 book Gender Trouble
. In it, Butler characterizes gender
as the effect of reiterated acting, one that produces the effect of a static or normal gender while obscuring the contradiction and instability of any single person's gender act. This effect produces what we can consider to be 'true gender', a narrative that is sustained by "the tacit collective agreement to perform, produce, and sustain discrete and polar genders as cultural fictions is obscured by the credibility of those productions – and the punishments that attend not agreeing to believe in them." The performative acts which Butler is discussing she names to be performative and within the larger social, unseen world, they exist within performativity.
The socially constructed aspect of gender performativity is perhaps most obvious in drag
performance, which offers a rudimentary understanding of gender binaries in its emphasis on gender performance. Butler understands drag cannot be regarded as an example of subjective or singular identity, where "there is a ‘one’ who is prior to gender, a one who goes to the wardrobe of gender decides with deliberation which gender it will be today". Subsequently, drag should not be considered the honest expression of its performer’s intent. Rather, she suggests that what is performed "can only be understood through reference to what is barred from the signifier within the domain of corporeal legibility".
Butler suggests in both "Critically Queer" and "Melancholy Gender", that the child/subject's ability to grieve the loss of the same-sex parent as a viable love object is barred. Following from Sigmund Freud
’s notion of melancholia
, such a repudiation results in a heightened identification with the Other that cannot be loved, resulting in gender performances which allegorize and internalize the lost love that the subject is subsequently unable to acknowledge or grieve. Butler explains that "a masculine gender is formed from the refusal to grieve the masculine as a possibility of love; a feminine gender is formed (taken on, assumed) through the incorporative fantasy by which the feminine is excluded as a possible object of love, an exclusion never grieved, but ‘preserved’ through the heightening of feminine identification itself".
Amelia Jones
proposes that this mode of viewing gender offered a way to move beyond the theories of the gaze
and sexual fetishism
, notions which by the late 1980s, Jones viewed as outdated ways of understanding women's societal status. Jones believes the performative power to act out gender is extremely useful as a framework, offering new ways to consider images as enactments with embodied subjects rather than inanimate objects for men's viewing pleasure.
and performance
even when pressed to define a clear division. Generally, it is considered that the performativity describes the process of discursive production and performance as a specific type of self-presentation.
According to Butler, gender performance is only subversive because it is "the kind of effect that resists calculation”, which is to say that signification is multiplicitous
, that the subject is unable to control it, and so subversion is always occurring and always unpredictable". Moya Lloyd suggests that the political potential of gender performances can be evaluated relative to similar past acts in similar contexts in order to assess their transgressive potential: "Even if we accept that there are incalculable effects to all (or most) statements or activities, this does not mean that we need to concede that there are no calculable effects". Conversely, Rosalyn Diprose lends a hard-line Foucauldian
interpretation to her understanding of gender performance’s political reach, as one’s identity "is built on the invasion of the self by the gestures of others, who, by referring to other others, are already social beings". Diprose implies that the individual’s will, and the individual performance, always be subject to the dominant discourse of an Other(s), so as to restrict the transgressive potential of performance to the inscription of simply another dominant discourse.
Post-structuralism
Post-structuralism is a label formulated by American academics to denote the heterogeneous works of a series of French intellectuals who came to international prominence in the 1960s and '70s...
feminist
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
philosopher
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
Judith Butler
Judith Butler
Judith Butler is an American post-structuralist philosopher, who has contributed to the fields of feminism, queer theory, political philosophy, and ethics. She is a professor in the Rhetoric and Comparative Literature departments at the University of California, Berkeley.Butler received her Ph.D...
in her 1990 book Gender Trouble
Gender Trouble
Gender Trouble by Judith Butler is a highly influential book in academic feminism and queer theory. It is also the book credited with creating the seminal notion of gender performativity. It is considered to be one of the canonical texts of queer theory and postmodern/poststructural feminism.-...
. In it, Butler characterizes gender
Gender
Gender is a range of characteristics used to distinguish between males and females, particularly in the cases of men and women and the masculine and feminine attributes assigned to them. Depending on the context, the discriminating characteristics vary from sex to social role to gender identity...
as the effect of reiterated acting, one that produces the effect of a static or normal gender while obscuring the contradiction and instability of any single person's gender act. This effect produces what we can consider to be 'true gender', a narrative that is sustained by "the tacit collective agreement to perform, produce, and sustain discrete and polar genders as cultural fictions is obscured by the credibility of those productions – and the punishments that attend not agreeing to believe in them." The performative acts which Butler is discussing she names to be performative and within the larger social, unseen world, they exist within performativity.
The socially constructed aspect of gender performativity is perhaps most obvious in drag
Drag (clothing)
Drag is used for any clothing carrying symbolic significance but usually referring to the clothing associated with one gender role when worn by a person of another gender. The origin of the term "drag" is unknown, but it may have originated in Polari, a gay street argot in England in the early...
performance, which offers a rudimentary understanding of gender binaries in its emphasis on gender performance. Butler understands drag cannot be regarded as an example of subjective or singular identity, where "there is a ‘one’ who is prior to gender, a one who goes to the wardrobe of gender decides with deliberation which gender it will be today". Subsequently, drag should not be considered the honest expression of its performer’s intent. Rather, she suggests that what is performed "can only be understood through reference to what is barred from the signifier within the domain of corporeal legibility".
Butler suggests in both "Critically Queer" and "Melancholy Gender", that the child/subject's ability to grieve the loss of the same-sex parent as a viable love object is barred. Following from Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...
’s notion of melancholia
Melancholia
Melancholia , also lugubriousness, from the Latin lugere, to mourn; moroseness, from the Latin morosus, self-willed, fastidious habit; wistfulness, from old English wist: intent, or saturnine, , in contemporary usage, is a mood disorder of non-specific depression,...
, such a repudiation results in a heightened identification with the Other that cannot be loved, resulting in gender performances which allegorize and internalize the lost love that the subject is subsequently unable to acknowledge or grieve. Butler explains that "a masculine gender is formed from the refusal to grieve the masculine as a possibility of love; a feminine gender is formed (taken on, assumed) through the incorporative fantasy by which the feminine is excluded as a possible object of love, an exclusion never grieved, but ‘preserved’ through the heightening of feminine identification itself".
Amelia Jones
Amelia Jones
Amelia Jones is an American art historian, art critic and curator specializing in feminist art, body/performance art, video art and Dadaism. Her written works and approach to modern and contemporary art history are considered revolutionary in that she breaks down commonly assumed opinions and...
proposes that this mode of viewing gender offered a way to move beyond the theories of the gaze
Gaze
Gaze is a psychoanalytical term brought into popular usage by Jacques Lacan to describe the anxious state that comes with the awareness that one can be viewed. The psychological effect, Lacan argues, is that the subject loses some sense of autonomy upon realizing that he or she is a visible object...
and sexual fetishism
Sexual fetishism
Sexual fetishism, or erotic fetishism, is the sexual arousal a person receives from a physical object, or from a specific situation. The object or situation of interest is called the fetish, the person a fetishist who has a fetish for that object/situation. Sexual fetishism may be regarded, e.g...
, notions which by the late 1980s, Jones viewed as outdated ways of understanding women's societal status. Jones believes the performative power to act out gender is extremely useful as a framework, offering new ways to consider images as enactments with embodied subjects rather than inanimate objects for men's viewing pleasure.
Political potential and limits
Butler suggests that "[t]he critical promise of drag does not have to do with the proliferation of genders…but rather with the exposure of the failure of heterosexual regimes ever fully to legislate or contain their own ideals", though such remarks fail to indicate how the inadequacies of heterosexual regimes might be explicitly exposed. Much of the discussion surrounds Butler’s inability to differentiate clearly between notions of performativityPerformativity
Performativity is an interdisciplinary term often used to name the capacity of speech and language in particular, as well as other non-verbal forms of expressive action, to intervene in the course of human events. The term derives from the work in speech act theory originated by the analytic...
and performance
Performance
A performance, in performing arts, generally comprises an event in which a performer or group of performers behave in a particular way for another group of people, the audience. Choral music and ballet are examples. Usually the performers participate in rehearsals beforehand. Afterwards audience...
even when pressed to define a clear division. Generally, it is considered that the performativity describes the process of discursive production and performance as a specific type of self-presentation.
According to Butler, gender performance is only subversive because it is "the kind of effect that resists calculation”, which is to say that signification is multiplicitous
Multiplicity (philosophy)
Multiplicity is a philosophical concept that Edmund Husserl and Henri Bergson developed by analogy with Riemann's description of the mathematical concept. It forms an important part of the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze, particularly in his collaboration with Félix Guattari, Capitalism and...
, that the subject is unable to control it, and so subversion is always occurring and always unpredictable". Moya Lloyd suggests that the political potential of gender performances can be evaluated relative to similar past acts in similar contexts in order to assess their transgressive potential: "Even if we accept that there are incalculable effects to all (or most) statements or activities, this does not mean that we need to concede that there are no calculable effects". Conversely, Rosalyn Diprose lends a hard-line Foucauldian
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault , born Paul-Michel Foucault , was a French philosopher, social theorist and historian of ideas...
interpretation to her understanding of gender performance’s political reach, as one’s identity "is built on the invasion of the self by the gestures of others, who, by referring to other others, are already social beings". Diprose implies that the individual’s will, and the individual performance, always be subject to the dominant discourse of an Other(s), so as to restrict the transgressive potential of performance to the inscription of simply another dominant discourse.