How Have Notion of the Performative Affected Gender Identity - Essay Example

345528 - How have notions of the 'performative' affected the way that gender identity is thought about. or What does it mean to perform our identity[-ies]? --------- Postmodern feminists have argued that established notions of women and naturalized conceptions of the human subject are not necessary. In fact, they consider these as obstacles for feminist political theory and practice. Central to these claims are the concepts of sex, gender, and gender identity. The idea of `performative’ has been used to reinforce the postmodern feminist claim. Sex identifies the biological differences between men and women. One is born either a male or female. Contrary to the perceptions of many feminists, gender does not consider men or women but it refers to social relationship between them. In case, even the transgender is included, gender identity refers to the feeling that a person is male, female or transgender. There are many factors that contribute to the formation of gender identity. Some of them are, society, family and factors that exist before birth. Since the 1970s, feminists have insisted upon the difference between sex and gender. It is essential to make the distinction because one’s sex does not determine one’s gender. The feminists argue that in a predominately heterosexual society, sexuality in marriage is institutionalized. The family unit needs only two genders, and a causal relationship does not exist between sex and gender. Feminist philosopher Judith Butler extends the sex/gender distinction by asserting that both gender and sex are not completely natural. Culture, society and language naturalize gender and sex through a process of repetition and general public belief in the correct performance of their designated sex and gender. Before sex and gender enter into the context of culture, society, and language, there is no authentic, innate man or woman. Butler proposes that the `being of gender’ is metaphysical, in the sense that there is no original gender identity based on sex. Consequently, sex is always already gender. Therefore Butler effectively does away with biological essentialism of feminist programmes. According to Butler, gender is like an act that is rehearsed. It is like a script which we, like actors, transform the script into a reality by repeating again and again. the actions required by the script. “For Butler, the distinction between the personal and the political or between private and public is itself a fiction designed to support an oppressive status quo: our most personal acts are, in fact, continually being scripted by hegemonic social conventions and ideologies”(Felluga, 2006). Butler sees gender not as an expression of what one is, rather as something that one does. According to Butler’s theory, homosexuality and heterosexuality are not fixed categories. A person is merely in a condition of “doing straightness” or “doing queerness”. (Lloyd, 1999) Judith Butler's (1990) defined gender as "the repeated stylization of the body, a set of repeated acts within a rigid regulatory frame which congeal over time to produce the appearance of substance, of a 'natural kind of being',". This positions the concept of gender in the context of perfomative identity. Consequently, gender is defined as simple ideology that is subject to radical changes in varying social contexts. Under the influence of Foucault, Butler developed the notion of the performativity of gender in which “gender identity is a performative accomplishment compelled by social sanction and taboo” (Butler 1988).  For Butler, the construction of a gendered identity is achieved through stylized repetition of acts (Butler 1988). Thus gender is a daily, habitual, learned act. It is based on cultural norms of femininity and masculinity. According to Butler, gender is performative, i.e.,there is no identity behind the acts that supposedly "express" gender. These very acts constitute the illusion of the stable gender identity. Whether it is man or woman, if the appearance of “being” a gender is only an effect of acts that are influenced by culture, there is no foundation for universal gender which is strictly constituted through the practice of performance. Just like the gender `man’, the gender "woman" remains contingent and subject to to interpretation and "resignification." Therefore Butler calls people to question the categories of gender through performance. Judith Butler was influenced by theorists who analyzed “speech acts,” or the power of authoritative words to both say and do at the same time, for e.g. “I now pronounce you man and wife.” According to Butler, gender also works in the same way. Girls are culturally taught and trained or conditioned to learn countless subtle ways to groom and arrange bodies to be feminine and attain approval as “normal”. This is an example of physical performative which affects the way gender identity is thought about in a culture that categorizes people into man or woman. Both consciously and unconsciously women and men continually “cite” gender norms in their day-to-day behavior. Usually they don’t realize it because thy are internalized in a stereotyped manner through their day-to-day activities such as such as wearing dresses and makeup, shaving one’s underarms and legs, sitting with legs crossed, and playing with dolls. Perhaps the best example is that even the simple act of filling out a form and circling the “Mr.” prefix is a performance of gender. Due to such stylizations of the body and habits of mind supplied by cultural norms, gender is among the first things one notices about another person, and not much a result of biological differences. Feminists argue that such norms are oppressive because a person’s social legitimacy and normalcy is dependent on conforming to one of the two genders. In her 1990 book `Gender Trouble’, Judith Butler created the term `Gender Performativity’. Accroding to Butler, gender is the effect of reiterated acting. It produces the effect of a static or normal gender. The effect creates what canbe be considered to be `true gender’ because it is generally accepted. Also it is sustained by tacit or implicit collective (social) agreement to perform, produce, and sustain discrete and polar genders as cultural fictions. The fiction of `true gender’ is obscured by the credibility of the associated creations and punishments – for those who do not agree to believe in them. Butler calls the performative acts as `performative’. The performatives exist within performativity in the larger social and invisible world. Clearly, gender performativity is socially constucted. This aspect is most obvious in drag performance because it is most visible. At the emotional level, even in the case of love of a child for its parents, the child's ability to grieve the loss of the same-sex parent as a viable love object is barred. The concept of Performativity has its roots in speech act theory and in pragmatics of language. The most influential author is John L.Austin. The concept is relevant to situations where a statement or proporsition may itself constitute the purpose for which it is meant, for e.g. `performative utterences’. According to J.L. Austin (Austin 1962, 1955), language in use is a social action. He developed the notion of performativity. When the act of expressing something constitutes the object, for e.g. when “I now pronounce you man and wife” is said, action of marrying is done. Marriage is performed by stating thus. However it should be noted that performative utterances are not subject to truth claims. They are neither true nor false.  It is also to be noted that the scope of examination of performativity is extended beyond just the formal features that accomplish something. It is anlyzed and evaluated as a relationship between form and communicative function which interacts in complex ways in reality that is socially constructed (Bauman 1990). Butler’s performative model is a radical version of social constructionism. It is based on the Austinian argument that that some speech acts have the power to bring into being that which they name, i.e., they are `performative’. Butler applied this concept to the context of sex and gender embodied identities and argued that certain gendered practices (verbal or non-verbal) are repeated, not only the basis of the formation of sexed bodies, but also by the very idea of ‘sex’ that society considers to be the realm of nature. We or the society classify all bodies and we refer and describe the bodies on the basis of the categories rather than the other way round. Therefore ‘materiality’ of sex is not something that exists prior to our or society’s knowledge of it. In fact it is the opposite -- social categories and practices construct the ‘materiality’ of bodies as sex entities. Therefore sex identity is the effect of repeated acts. Judith Butler skilfully uses the concept of performative force of linguistic utterances by adopting Foucault’s constructivist approach in her discursive model. According to her, language ‘interprets’ rather than describes the object we refer to. In the process of interpretation of the object, we formulate its characteristics. However the process of ‘interpretation’ is conditioned by many factors that are beyond biological matter. For e.g., social factors, relations and processes involved in it. By following Foucault’s constructivist tenet of social life, Butler positions power, conflict of interests and group hierarchies at the centre of her model. Consequently, particular speech acts are performative in the sense of ‘producing’ social phenomena. This is due to the Austinian linguistic effect and also because the speech acts are rooted in particular social relationships, which govern and constitute differentiated, competing and hierarchical social groups. Thus power relationships are integral part of the performative process. Based on this analytical framework, Butler argues that the materiality of bodies as ‘sexed’ entities is not grounded solely in biological substance. Bodies exist as unspecified biological matter whose concrete features are made culturally and socially relevant. Therefore these ‘exist’ in and through the socially relevant categories and practices used to describe and refer to them. Thus according to Butler, our gender, sex and self are the effects of publicly regulated performances. In contrast, it can be argued by using her notion of performativity, we cannot really explain or given an account of our identities. Also her model does not explain or even provide an analytical framework to know whether we would be better off by understanding ourselves as the effect of publicly regulated performances. There are many criticisms of Butler’s model. She has been accused of neglecting the physical reality of the body. For e.g., Bordo argued that in Butler’s model, body is like a ‘text’ and the constraints of the materiality of the body are neglected. Another criticism of Butler’s argument is that it neglects the constraining force of the ‘materiality’ of social reality. For e.g. according to Jackson, Butler’s model discounts the world of ‘things’in favour of ‘words’. Another critic Bourdieu charged that Butler is proposing a form of ‘radical voluntarism’. Bourdieu and Jackson point out that Butler failed to acknowledge that categories and practices are ‘deeply rooted in things (structures)’. Above all, individuals cannot play roles according to their free will. Critics also point out that Butler is unable to clearly distinguish between notions of performativity and performance. Generally, performativity is considered to describe the process of discursive production and performance as a specific type of self-presentation. Even Sociologists have criticized Butler’s model, mainly due to her allegedly radical idealism, particularly the ontological model proposed in her discursive performative account. An important theme within postmodern feminism is that essentialist notions of women and naturalized conceptions of the human subject are unnecessary and troubling ingredients for feminist political theory and practice (Alcoff 1988; Ferguson 1988; Hekman 1990; Mouffe 1992). Perhaps no one has advanced this claim more forcefully than Judith Butler through her use of the idea of performativity. According to Butler, our gender, sex and self are the effects of publicly regulated performances. In contrast, I argue that her notion of performativity is too pure to provide an account of our identities. Moreover, it is not obvious that we would be better off understanding ourselves as the effect of publicly regulated performances. This does not mean that a feminist politics would be better off with essentialism. Rather, I suggest that political practice can probably do without either an essentialist or performative understanding of the subject. The main limitation of Butler’s application of the concept of performative and its notions is that the methodology is individualistic. It’s main constraint is that it results in classical opposition between individual and society. This opposition creates another perspective that merely supports resistance of the individual to hegemonic norms. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- BIBLIOGRAPHY 1. Butler Judith(1988), “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory.” Theatre Journal 40(4)). 2. Clancy “Performativity: Draft of 3W Encyclopedia Entry,” 9 August 2004 http://culturecat.net/node/498), 25 Novemeber 2007. 3.Gender performativity, 25 November 2007 4. Irene Rafanell “Durkheim and the performative model: Reconfiguring social objectivity”, Sociology Department University of Edinburgh. 25 November 2007 5. Austin, J.L(1962 ,1955),  “How To Do Things With Words”. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 6. Bauman, Richard and Charles Briggs (1990), “Poetics and Performance as Critical Perspectives on Language and Social Life,” Annual Review of Anthropology 19. 7. Butler Judith (1997), "Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory." In Katie Conboy, Nadia Medina and Sarah Stanbury, eds., Writing on the Body: Female Embodiment and Feminist Theory, pp. 401-417. A Gender and Culture Reader. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. 8. A Gender and Culture Reader. New York: Columbia University Press, Theatre Journal 40(4). 9.Felluga, Dino. "Modules on Butler". Retrieved on 10/30/06 from 25 November 2007. 10. Lloyd, Moya (1999), "Performativity, Parody, Politics", Theory, Culture & Society, 16(2), 195-213. 25 Novemebr 2007. Read More