Gender Trouble And Bodies: Gender Analysis

In this essay, the topic of gender being constructed as performative will be discussed (Performativity Theory); however, the notion of gender as ‘read’ in societies that include wide diversity will also be explained (using Butler (1990, 1993) and, Jackson and Scott (2002) ). Although Jackson and Scott (2002) have said that Harold Garfinkel in 1967; and has written on the subject of performativity, the topic will be examined with Judith Butler’s (1990, 1993) works of Gender Trouble and Bodies that Matter as they are the most recent research literature that explore the subject in depth. I am going to briefly define gender in relation to performativity; note the extent that gender is indeed performative; and the limitation of seeing gender as

. To understand how gender is formed, it is important to understand what it signifies (Butler, 1993). This signification of gender changes throughout different cultures and creates different categories (men, women and ‘other’ (Schmidt, 2010)) for gender; and how they are performed. Performative acts are identified as ‘authoritative speeches’ that ‘also perform certain action and exercise a binding power’ (Butler, 1993: 171). These acts are reinforced through repetitive recitations and reiterations of the normative gender ‘utterances’ (Butler, 1993). Her theory suggests, these repetitions happen without the will of the performer, in other words, unconsciously. The theory that gender is socially constructed implies that gender can change from culture to culture and time to time. It is also argued that the construction of gender identity of ‘man’ is not exclusive to males or vice versa (Butler, 1990). This means that the gender practices, although each perceived and expected to be performed by a certain sex group can be performed by the other. In this

). Although they argue that it is necessary in the sense that the description and significance of gender is shared through the reading of gender performance and performativity, it is crucial to consider that there has to be an audience with same governing norms to perceive a gender that is being ‘performed’ for gender to be performative. Butler (1993) herself uses the notion that performance and performativity is ‘read’ and this is a crucial point. How could a gender identity be constructed if there is nobody who shares similar understanding of the concept of gender and thus will ‘read’ the gender as performed? This notion of ‘reading’ of the gender performance is important in explaining the limitation of performative gender. To repetitively cite the ‘authoritative speeches’, there has to be an agreed cultural description of gender. The construction of an individual’s own description of gender depends upon ‘reading’ other’s performative gender acts (Butler, 1993). With wider diversities in a society and different identities and their causes such as age and increasing life expectancy; class and social mobility; ethnicity and geographical mobility etc., the description of gender and how it is performed become diversely shared among different groups too. For example, there are