What does Judith Butler mean by the social construction and performativity of both sex and gender - Essay Example

? Judith Butler: The Social Construction and Performativity of Gender and Sex Judith Butler: The Social Construction and Performativity of Gender andSex Introduction Judith Butler is a post-structural philosopher who examined the construction of sex and gender within the post-modern world. The theories that she promoted were founded on the idea of social construction and performativity as they were ascribed to both gender and sex. Post-modern thinking provides for the belief that society is not constructed because of natural imperatives, but is designed by the repetition of acts that construct human truths. Social construction designs the way in which interaction takes place. The concept of performativity provides for an understanding that roles of gender and sex are the product of acts that are repeated and ritualized in order to define what is meant by those terms. Even deviances from what are considered norms become socially constructed towards the identifiers of sex and gender. While Butler discusses these concepts under the umbrella of choices made, she clarifies later that what she means is while social construction of both sex and gender are created through the choices made, they are by no means voluntary choices. The compulsion to enact gender or sex through the acts that are considered non-conforming are also enacting gender and sex that has been designed by society. The development of ways in which to name different gender types, such as transgender and transvestitism provide ways in which to legitimize and understand how those enactments of gender and sex are a part of human existence. The following paper critically examines the concepts of social construction and performativity in order to understand what Butler means as she discusses gender and sex in these terms. Through looking at examples of human existence in order to understand her intentions, the foundational elements of her philosophy emerge. Post-modernism Post-modernism, according to O’Brien (2009, p. 368) is “the elimination of universal and dichotomous categorizations of, particularly, the identity and the recognition of co-existing social realities or truths, as well as knowledges and identities”. The post-modern concept of identifying the construction of society is based upon the idea that almost any part of social interaction is the result of the choices to continue to act in manners that replicate, even if evolve, the behaviors and ideas about the world in which human beings live. Under this type of thinking there is almost no absolute truth, but constructed truths that define the individual, the roles within society, the manner in which those roles are acted, and the way in which the constructed reality becomes an interrelated set of norms that are undeniable and virtually unquestionable. Butler (1993) discusses how the term post-modern was ascribed to her rather than taking on the role of a post-modernist on her own. She seems to be concerned with the habit of the post-modernist to make sweeping generalizations when being critical about the state of the world. Butler (1993) writes of Charles Jenckes who described a temporal collapse, which for Butler signaled that there could be no postmodern because there was a void after the modern period. This collapse was a sign that there was no ontological foundation on which to build theory. Therefore, it is difficult to refer to Butler as a post-modernist, but at the same time many of her theories can be set into a post-modern framework Butler herself, however, does not see the concept of a post-modern framework. Hesse-Biber and Leavy, (2007, p. 86) write that Butler feels that post-modernism is a catch-all idea which has no boundaries to time or meaning. Where O’Brien (2009, p. 368) discusses post-modernism in terms of breaking down barriers to truth, Butler describes postmodernism as a non-existent and ill-defined concept in which whatever exceeded modernism was lumped in order to find a way to discuss that which came after modern thinking. However, where Butler seeks to find truths that are framing belief about gender and sex, she is ascribing to the ideas that suggest that the ‘truth’ is something that defies biology but is seated in the belief that what is experienced is the result of construction. Social Construction The primary idea that is most commonly held that Butler rejects is that gender is a performance that is added onto sexuality. She defines the body as an extension of the self and the use of it as a way of serving the social order. The body is part of the control of the individual and how the individual lives is related to the determination of the type of body (Hacking 2001, p. 8). The interactions of the body to others is the way in which gender and sex are performed, which is constructed through interactions and definitions that help to assert the desire of enacting gender and sex with the roles. While it is not uncommon to see discussions about gender as constructed, it is more uncommon to see where the idea of sex is discussed in terms of construction. For Butler, the social construction is not limited to how behavior related to gender occurs, but also how sex itself is generated. More specifically, when she discusses the idea of sex and gender, it begins with a constructed reality (Jagger, 2008). One of Butler’s more common examples is that of the transgendered individual. A historic case of ‘Joan/John’ can illustrate how gender can be innate and will defy the constructed reality. The patient known as ‘David’ had most of his penis cut off during his circumcision and so the doctor suggested raising him as a girl. The child did not adjust to being a girl and by the time he was in his teens, he had embraced his gender identity and become a boy. In this case, the concept of the construction of gender would seem to be countered. John, when he was forced to be Joan, was unhappy with his toys, his dress, and many of the gender identifiers that were forced on him so that he would become a girl. This would seem to indicate that performing gender is biologically driven. Butler contends that he was attempting to achieve a sense of self, and was using what he knew to be gender norms to achieve that goal. However, her theories come to a rather thin place when positioned against this story (Stryker and Whittle 2006, p. 192). The concept of sex and gender being the result of performance seems interesting but in this case of Joan/John, it seems there is some proof that simply treating someone like the opposite gender does not achieve the result of them trans-gendering their body. While Butler has made an interesting claim that the sex and the gender are both created, it would seem that adaptation to one gender or the other is within the body, rather than applied to the body. Lee (2006) suggests that transgendered bodies are proof that gender is not a social construction. What she suggests is that transgendered bodies are the problem that proves that social construction cannot be the explanation for the move towards gender behavior. Although Butler sees it as the way in which gender is expressed, even if it is being expressed through behaviors that deviate from the norm, that it is expressed in the ways that it is expressed, proves that gender is constructed and has created identifiers, even when it is not being adapted in the usual manner. Performativity Performativity comes from two ideas about performative acts. On the one hand, an act of performativity is defined by a linguistic concept in which a statement is made that suggests an act in the premise. In other words, ‘I promise you’, ‘I love you’, or ‘I pronounce you’ are all statements of something being performed. Butler has taken this concept and translated it into bodily acts. Fletcher (2008, p. 76) makes a comparison between linguistic performativity and Butler’s bodily performativity in that the speech performativity is concerned with conventional speech, then maybe Butler’s bodily performativity is based upon convention. The concept of performativity is that it is an act that is repeated which becomes ritualized and this creates the concept of sex and gender. Butler (1999, p. xv) writes that gender is something that is manufactured through a “sustained set of acts…what we take to be an ‘internal’ feature of ourselves is one that we anticipate and produce through certain bodily acts, at an extreme, an hallucinatory effect of naturalized gestures”. Gender is something that is created through the perpetuated belief about what identifies gender and reinforced through repetition of the acts that reinforce this belief. Performativity is defined by its position in history and in context with society. One of the ways in which society creates performance is through naming categories. Transgender, as an example, takes the concept of gender and suggests that there is a new category of gender. There is a politics of naming gender, which then creates a space in the public through which to take what is secret and silent and provides a discourse in which to make it public and eventually will allow acceptance of performances that are not considered within initially accepted norms (Krolokke and Sorensen 2006, p. 41). Butler had to qualify her statements in order to take into consideration those who would test the boundaries of performativity. Some speculated that there was a matter of choice in those challenges to conforming standards of gender. Butler made it clear that gender performativity was not a matter of choice or ‘volunteerism’ (Reinelt & Roach 2006, p. 313). The drive to challenge social norms is as much defined by social norms as the conforming ideas about gender. The performance of gender is conscribed by the expectations of society, even when society believes that the performance deviates from what is expected. The deviation itself is a norm that has been constructed. The performance of what is considered non-normative can be described as revealing competencies, when gender itself is not being challenged. Krolokke and Sorensen (2006, p. 40) use the example of boys playing hopscotch or girls being proficient on a video game. While these performances are generally considered gender specific, the performance of gender specific actions shows that there is proficiency without violating the gender identity. As a point of fact, in pointing out that the performance defies stereotypical gender types, the performance is reinforcing the identification with a gender. In other words, in saying ‘I am a girl and I can still fix a car’ continues the identification with femaleness and reinforces the idea of socially constructing the maleness of the act of fixing a car. Krolokke and Sorensen (2006, p. 41) wrote that performativity comes from a tension that occurs between agency and the foundational norms. The Body The concept of the body and what it means is central to the discussions that Butler has made concerning sex and gender. For Butler the body is a conduit, a vulnerable medium through which people relate to one another. Lloyd (2013, p. 46) quotes Butler who wrote that the body “implies mortality, vulnerability, agency: the skin and flesh expose us to the gaze of others but also to touch and to violence”. This concept of the body as vulnerable falls into step with feminist discourse on the need for the female to have ownership of her body. Through owning the body, a woman should have a right over what happens to it, which is uniquely different than the experience of a man. Butler has challenged this notion and discusses the vulnerability of the body for both man and woman and that from birth the right to determine how the body is treated by others is not within the control of the individual. Butler (2006, p. 26) connects the vulnerability of the body to the events on September 11, 2001 in New York when the World Trade Towers were brought down by terrorists, along with the attacks on the United States Pentagon and likely the White House had the flight being directed there been successful. Butler (2006, p. 25) reminds her readers of this problem of ownership and that not only is the body subject to the will of others, but the vulnerability Butler does believe that there is some materiality through which the concept of man and woman are defined. Although her argument is that gender and sex are constructed realities, she concedes that there are some surface differences that construct sex, but she continues to argue that it is construction that defines identities that are either sexual or gender based (Salih 2001, p. 42). Conclusion What Judith Butler means through social construction and performativity of gender and sex is that the identity that comes from sex and gender are constructed through the ascribed behaviors that one adapts in order to express that identity. The body expresses what sexual identity the individual decides to adapt, while the mind adapts to the gender so that he or she fits into society. The body is not owned by the individual, but subject to the influence and participation of others as life is experienced. This leaves the body vulnerable and impacts the beliefs the individual has about their identity. This means that the body is somewhat separate and this accounts for the deviances that occur in enacting gender and sex. Butler’s belief is that through developing an idea of identity in relationship to gender and sex, the individual is reflecting norms, whether the behaviors are considered normal or not. Bibliography Butler, Judith. (1999). Gender trouble. Feminism and the subversion of identity. London: Routledge. Butler, Judith (1993). A skeptical feminist postscript to the postmodern. In Readings, B. Postmodernism across the ages: Essays for a postmodernity that wasn't born yesterday. Syracuse: Syracuse Univ. Press. Butler, J. (2006). Precarious life: The powers of mourning and violence. London: Verso. Butler, Judith. (2011) Bodies that matter. London: Routledge Classics. Fletcher, L. (2008). Historical romance fiction: Heterosexuality and perfomativity. Aldershot, Hants, England: Ashgate. Hacking, Ian. (2001). The social construction of what?. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge Univ. Press. Hesse-Biber, S. N., & Leavy, P. (2007). Feminist research practice: A primer. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications. Jagger, Gill (2008). Judith Butler: Sexual politics, social change, and the power of the performative. London: Routledge. Krolokke, Charlotte., & Sorensen, Ann Scott (2006). Gender communication theories & analyses: From silence to performance. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. Lee, R. (2006). Why feminists are wrong: How transsexuals prove gender is not a social construction. Philadelphia: Xlibris Corp. Lloyd, Moya. (2013). Judith Butler: From Norms to Politics. Oxford: Wiley. O'Brien, J. (2009). Encyclopedia of gender and society. Los Angeles: SAGE. Reinelt, J and Roach, J. R. (2006). Critical theory and performance. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Salih, Sara (2001). Judith Butler. London: Routledge. Schilt, K. (2010). Just one of the guys?: Transgender men and the persistence of gender inequality. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Stryker, Susan and Whittle, Stephen (2006). The transgender studies reader. London: CRC Press. Read More