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Performative: Difference between revisions
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{{quote|“When we say that gender is performed, we usually mean that we’ve taken on a role; we’re acting in some way... To say that gender is performative is a little different, because for something to be performative means that it produces a series of effects. We act and walk and speak and talk in ways that consolidate an impression of being a man or being a woman ... We act as if that being of a man or that being of a woman is actually an internal reality or something that’s simply true about us, a fact about us. Actually, it’s a phenomenon that is being produced all the time and reproduced all the time, so to say gender is performative is to say that nobody really is a gender from the start.”<ref>Judith Butler, ''Your Behavior Creates Your Gender'' (2011)</ref>}} | {{quote|“When we say that gender is performed, we usually mean that we’ve taken on a role; we’re acting in some way... To say that gender is performative is a little different, because for something to be performative means that it produces a series of effects. We act and walk and speak and talk in ways that consolidate an impression of being a man or being a woman ... We act as if that being of a man or that being of a woman is actually an internal reality or something that’s simply true about us, a fact about us. Actually, it’s a phenomenon that is being produced all the time and reproduced all the time, so to say gender is performative is to say that nobody really is a gender from the start.”<ref>Judith Butler, ''Your Behavior Creates Your Gender'' (2011)</ref>}} | ||
If gender is “performative” in this way — and this encapsulation seems a distance from what was traditionally meant by “biological sex”, though the two have since become conflated — then it stands to reason that where one can choose one’s performance, then one’s gender can be whatever one chooses it to be. | If gender is “performative” in this way — and this encapsulation seems more like “male role model” and “female role model”: this is a distance from what was traditionally meant by “biological sex”, though the two have since become conflated — then it stands to reason that where one can choose one’s performance, then one’s gender can be whatever one chooses it to be, and indeed might be neither, if you can summon the energy to maintain a different vector despite the embedded conventions of society. All the world’s a stage. | ||
Fair enough, as far as that goes: but we will duck out of further extrapolations of what this might mean in practice, since they run fairly quickly into a kind of political ''grand guignol'' that does no-one any favours. But it is an interesting starting point, deserving serious attention. | Fair enough: this does not even seem especially controversial, as far as that goes: but we will duck out of further extrapolations of what this might mean in practice, since they run fairly quickly into a kind of political ''grand guignol'' that does no-one any favours. But it is an interesting starting point, deserving serious attention. | ||
3. (''Technical, and not really in use these days'') Relating to an utterance by which the speaker performs a particular act merely by making the utterance (e.g. “I [[guarantee]]”, I “[[represent]]” or I “[[promise]]”). | 3. (''Technical, and not really in use these days'') Relating to an utterance by which the speaker performs a particular act merely by making the utterance (e.g. “I [[guarantee]]”, I “[[represent]]” or I “[[promise]]”). | ||