Judith Butler’s “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution”
Some Definitions for Butler’s Reading
- Phenomenon: A thing which appears, or which is perceived or observed; a particular (kind of) fact, occurrence, or change as perceived through the senses or known intellectually; esp. a fact or occurrence, the cause or explanation of which is in question.
- Phenomenology: a. Philos. The metaphysical study or theory of phenomena in general (as distinct from that of being).
b. gen. The division of any science which is concerned with the description and classification of its phenomena, rather than causal or theoretical explanation. - Illocution: An act such as ordering, warning, undertaking, performed in saying something.
- Epiphenomena: a. Something that appears in addition; a secondary symptom. Also transf.
b. spec. in Psychol. Applied to consciousness regarded as a by-product of the material activities of the brain and nerve-system. - Episteme: Scientific knowledge, a system of understanding; spec. Foucault’s term for the body of ideas which shape the perception of knowledge at a particular period.
Quotations to Ponder from Butler
Remember, our conversations aren’t to find the last word. Discussions of gender and media happened before this class and will happen long after this class. We’re really just trying to get a handle on our moment in time (think “episteme” from above). One could immediately come out swinging and claim Butler is misguided and obtuse, but the better approach is to try to understand why she concludes the way she does. This is a tough read, so let’s focus on some key places in the text:
- Thesis…perhaps…p. 521: “the acts by which gender is constituted bear similarities to performative acts within theatrical contexts”
- p. 519: “gender…is an identity constituted in time–an identity instituted through a stylized repetition of acts”
- “…bodily gestures, movements, and enactments of various kinds constitute the illusion of an abiding gendered self”
- p. 520: “the possibilities of gender transformation are to be found in the arbitrary relation between…a different sort of repeating, in the breaking or subversive repetition of that style”
- p. 520: “Feminist theory has often been critical of naturalistic explanations of sex and sexuality that assume that the meaning of women’s social existence can be derived from some fact of their physiology”
- p. 521: “the body is a historical situation,…a manner of doing dramatizing, and reproducing a historical situation”
- p. 522: “those who fail to do their gender right are regularly punished”
- How so? Think of examples where women or men appear to perform roles opposite of the gender. Can you think of a situation where one gender is not punished for performing the opposite gender’s prescribed role?
- pp. 522-523: “The personal is thus political inasmuch as it is conditioned by shared social structures, but the personal has also been immunized against political challenge to the extent that public/private distinctions endure”
- In the context of this class, consider our discussions on the INDIVIDUAL and how our culture promotes an ideology of individualism.
- Our culture wants to believe that there’s a private self, in a vacuum, that is simply personal preference.
- Break with capital-F Feminism…perhaps…p. 523: “one ought to consider the futility of a political program which seeks radically to transform the social situation of women without first determining whether the category of woman is socially constructed in such a way that to be a woman is, by definition, to be in an oppressed situation.”
- Uh-oh…what is she suggesting? Think about our discussions of feminism not being monolithic.
- What’s to gain from holding onto the distinction of the binary categories of men and women?
- Barker & Jane discuss this topic of Butler’s when they bring up her warnings on using labels coined by oppressors: queer, gay, trans, etc. (might) “continue to echo [their] past pejorative usage” (p. 369).
- p. 524: “one way in which this system of compulsory heterosexuality is reproduced and concealed is through the cultivation of bodies into discrete sexes with ‘natural’ appearances and ‘natural’ heterosexual dispositions”
Visuals for Butler: Butler Explained with Cats and Performance Vs. Performativity video