How does Judith Butler's gender performativity theory contend with the existence of trans people ?
To the best of my understanding, Butler claims that gender is a performance based on our surrounding culture so how does this deal with trans people who have something so innate that they behave as the other gender despite them being treated as the other.
Is Julia Serano's criticism of Judith Butler's theory of gender performativity a misunderstanding of the idea itself?
Trans activist Julia Serano wrote in 'Excluded:' "After all, if gender and sexuality are entirely social artifacts, and we have no intrinsic desires or individual differences, this implies that every person can (and should) change their gender and sexual behaviors at the drop of a hat in order to accommodate their own (or perhaps other people’s) politics. This assumption denies human diversity and, as I have shown, often leads to the further marginalization of minority and marked groups." I understood that Butler was not saying there is no natural variance in desires etc., but more that the gendering of those behaviours is what is constructed and so 'unreal.' Or am I incorrect in my understanding? Butler has conceded that she needed to pay more attention to trans experiences, but I never got the impression that she was implying that a trans person's experience was any less 'real' than that of a cis person. She has been criticised a lot by trans writers though, so I'm wondering if anyone could weigh in on this.
Aside from the linguistic deconstruction of the terms 'heterosexual' and 'homosexual', does Judith Butler's concept of gender performativity also necessitate the impossibility of the biological/biochemical act of being attracted to only one type of chromosomal sex?
For instance, would her theory also suggest that no one could be intrinsically attracted to one type of body (bodies that carry penises versus bodies that carry vaginas versus bodies that carry intersex genitalia), and that everyone has the potential to be attracted to everyone? I'm just really confused by this and would appreciate some help--I'm sure there are faults in the question itself, I realize this, but I hope I am getting across my confusion.
What are the political repercussions of Judith Butler's notion gender performativity?
I have been reading Butler's Gender Trouble and there seems to be implicit political effects of her take on gender performativity as she deconstructs gender through the simultaneous deconstruction of other feminists and psychoanalysts. However these repercussions are, at best, implicit.
Why does Judith Butler hold that gender is performative?
It's common to think of gender as something that you are. You're either a man or a woman. Judith Butler, by contrast, argues that gender is something that you do. Loosely put, most people see gender as a noun while Butler sees it as a verb. It's not that you have an essence as a man or woman that you express. It's that the expression itself is what constitutes being a man or woman. That is, Butler holds that gender is performative. It's not an identity from which a pattern of action originates. Rather, it just is the pattern of action. If you wear gender-coded clothing, style your hair in a gender-coded way, etc., you're not expressing the manhood or womanhood that you hold deep down. You're simply acting out the expectations of a male or female. Now, I do agree that this is an illuminating way of thinking of gender. But consider how the mainstream views the concept of being a woman. What would happen if a person with masculine facial structure performed the actions popularly associated with being a woman? Unfortunately I believe that most people would simply see them as a man dressing, speaking, and acting like a woman. It's hard for people to see past the physical features. Butler may be right that a just world would adopt her definition, but the current world uses a different definition. To be a woman, you need to not only act in a certain way. You also need to look a certain way. Interestingly, Butler's view of gender reminds me of how Westerners treat nationality. You don't have to look a certain way to be an American. If you act like an American, people will see you as an American. Even if you were born on the other side of the world, you can study English, spend time with Americans, and then be accepted as part of the group. Nationality is performative. It's not a stable identity that was locked in at birth. No matter where you were born, you can take on the American spirit. In that sense, Butler's view takes the Western ethos to its logical conclusion. If we treat gender like we treat nationality, we'll reach a logically consistent place. In times past, Western countries considered you a second-class citizen unless you fit into a certain racial mold. You couldn't just act like an American. You also had to be perceived as White. And in present-day America, this is still the case with gender. People don't just accept you for how you act. You need to have a certain appearance. Conversely, many non-Western countries treat nationality like we treat gender. To be Japanese, for example, you can't just act like a Japanese. You need to look the part too. Even a White or Black born and raised in Japan won't be considered Japanese. They'll always be a foreigner, even if they speak no other language and know no other culture. They nail the performative aspect of being Japanese, but without the appearance to go along with it they're forever seen as an outsider. Many such people end up feeling like they were born in the wrong body. They'd feel more comfortable if what they look like on the outside matched how they feel on the inside. But consider what it would be like to be half Japanese. If you speak Japanese at a native level, act like a typical Japanese, and follow Japanese fashion trends, you'll start to come off as Japanese. But if you speak with an accent, act differently than they expect, and follow fashion trends from overseas, you'll instead begin to come off as a foreigner. Those born half Japanese tend to pick a side. They either leverage everything Japanese about them to pass as a Japanese, or they embrace their foreign characteristics in an effort to be seen as exotic. It's natural for such people to see being Japanese as performative. With their behavior they determine perception. Unlike someone born fully non-Asian who will forever be foreign, someone born half Japanese can more or less pass as Japanese if they implement all the right nationality-coded actions. Now, just like race isn't binary gender isn't either. You can be fully White, fully Japanese, half Japanese and half White, a quarter Japanese and three-quarters Black, or anywhere in between. You can also transcend the typical racial lines in a way that's difficult to describe with the popular stock of race-related terminology. In the same way, you can be a masculine man, a feminine woman, or anywhere in between. You can also have a mix of traits that defies any attempt to pigeonhole you as one or the other. Race, sex, and gender are a continuum. They're a spectrum of physical and mental traits. With that said, I believe that Butler's assertion that gender is performative relates to her life circumstances. Like a half-Black half-Japanese person who can leverage their behavior to pass as either Black or Japanese, Butler looks more masculine at times and more feminine at others. If you look at photos of her, there are times she could pass as a man and times she's clearly a woman. Neither identity is more or less correct. It's up to her how she wants to present herself to the world. To be clear, I don't mean to trivialize her work, criticize her appearance, or cast her in a negative light. Not everyone fits neatly into Japanese or not Japanese, and in the same way not everyone fits neatly into man or woman. If you look to the people around you like a man, but you feel in your heart like a woman, then you're transgender. Your sex doesn't match up with your gender. Analogously, a White born and raised in Japan would often have transracial feelings. Their race isn't aligned with their culture. But for those with their left foot in one world and their right in another, it's natural to feel like gender or race is performative, for that's what determines how you're received. Butler's work gives a voice to such people.
Gender is not inherent, but performed. (Judith Butler)
"Rather than understanding gender as a stable and foundational identity, she (Judith Butler) argues that gender is produced over time through a stylized repetition of acts, of bodily gestures and movements, resulting in the illusion of a continuous gendered self. " I found this in chapter 5 - Lovely girls and good men: women and the fraternity of Irish music - of a book titled The Making of Irish Traditional Music by Helen O'Shea, and found the concept enlightening. The whole book rewrites the social and historical narrative of Irish trad music in the context of dominant social constructs, imperialism, culturalism and patriarchy. Butler work in the performativity aspect of gender is seminal.
"Classical Liberal" muses---"UC Berkeley is home to Judith Butler, the inventor of Queer Studies & the idea that gender is a 'performance,'" and that's why there are riots.
JUDITH BUTLER - Lana's "Imitation": melodramatic repetition and the gender performative.
Hi! Anyone, have you got the text Lana's "Imitation": melodramatic repetition and the gender performative by Judith Butler (1990, it was printed in journal Genders)? Unfortunately, I am student from Charles University and I don't have access to online library/database, where the text is....and also I am not really in situation to pay quite a lot of money for one text (precarious academic work). If someone could send me or share it here, it would be really helpful.
What or who is a well-known or common opposition to Judith Butler's gender-is-performative theory?
Presumably her theories on the performative nature of gender are not universally accepted. But does she have any well-known detractors, opponents, or critics of her theory? Is there a name for a group of people who oppose her beliefs? (As there is with 'structuralists' who oppose poststructuralist theories PS sorry for any bad formatting or poor expression, I'm on my phone. Will clarify later as needs be
Judith Butler and Performativity for Beginners (mostly in her own words) Film 165A. 1. A central concept of the theory is that your gender is constructed through your own repetitive performance of gender. This is related to the idea that discourse creates subject positions for your self to occupy—linguistic structures construct the self. Judith Butler explains ‘gender performativity’, a term that refers to the ways in which gender norms are established, policed and resisted. While her academic writing is dense, Butler has a wonderful and engaging way of talking. Below is the transcript. Question: What does it mean that gender is performative? In the second paragraph of her introduction, Judith Butler summarizes her argument of performativity and gender. Butler's core argument is that gender is not, as is assumed, a stable identity, but that it is created through the "stylized repetition" of certain acts (gestures, movements, enactments) over time. These repetitions result in what Butler calls a… Judith Butler’s Concept of Performativity By Nasrullah Mambrol on October 10, 2016 • ( 7). Claiming that “Identity is performatively constituted”, Judith Butler in her path breaking Gender Trouble (1990) formulated a postmodernist notion of gender, in line with the deconstructive ethos and contradictory to the traditional notion’ , that genders are fixed categories. Judith Butler - gender performativity theory. What is the theory? Gender is a performance; it's what you do at particular times, rather than a universal who you are. What is the more advanced understanding? Feminism reinforces a binary view of gender relations in which human beings are divided into two clear-cut groups, women and men.… Judith Butler proposed that gender is performative. What does Butler (1999, 2004, 2011) mean when she uses the term gender performativity and to what extent does her view of gender being performative leave room for gender as astable identity? In this thesisI argue that Butler’s notion of gender performativity implies that that gender identity ... In Chapter 3, Subversive Bodily Acts, of “Gender Trouble,” Judith Butler challenges the ideas of the way society views sex, gender, and sexuality. She does this by examining the body along with the distinction between internal and external identity. In this examination, Butler writes that “‘inner’ and ‘outer’ worlds of the subject is a boarder and boundary tenuously maintained ... Gender identity “is a performative accomplishment,” she writes, “compelled by social sanction and taboo…. Gender is… an identity instituted through a repetition of acts.”For a somewhat more straightforward summary of her theory of “performativity,” see Butler in the Big Think video above, in which she describes gender as a “phenomenon that’s ... Butler writes of three uses for performativity: 1) it “seeks to counter a certain kind of positivism,” which might be with regard to gender or the state, 2) it may “counter a certain metaphysical presumption about culturally constructed categories and to draw our attention to the diverse mechanisms of that construction” and 3) it is also useful in beginning to articulate the processes ... Judith Butler (b. 1956) is a philosopher, third-wave feminist, and reputable proponent of gender theory. She is outspoken on the topics of feminism and LGBTQ+ issues while some of her later work engages philosophical theories of violence. Feminists of the second wave began distinguishing between sex and gender when discussing differences between men and women.…
