Gender Performativity

962 Words2 Pages

There is an ongoing debate on the issue of gender and some scholars, present gender as being similar to sex. However, according to Butler (270) defines sex as the state of being either biologically female or male; with this definition, Butler refutes the traditional binary opposition amid biological sexes, holding that the conception of binary biological sex is a product of social construction. On the other hand, gender is defined as the behavioral, psychological, cultural traits that are traditionally associated with the binary conception of biological sexes that is either male or female. In the traditional setting, gender or rather gender identity was believed to be a direct expression of an individual’s biological sex, but Butler refuted this assumption
Gender identity is defined as the outcome of the habitual performative acts that an individual partakes and which are controlled and given shape by the culturally and socially enforced gender norms. The outcome of gender identity there was the illusory effect that demonstrated that an individual’s gender was based on the roles that they were expected to carry out either feminine or masculine and which were viewed as natural because they are associated with the biological sex of the individual. This paper seek thereby to carry an evaluation of the theory of gender performativity developed by Butler and as it is presented in “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution.” Butler (271) defines gender performativity as the product of repeated actions over time, which forms an individual’s sense of gender identity. In this regard, the repeated stylization of the human body through a set of acts that are repeated within a regulatory frame that is highly rigid generates the appearance of the substance of the natural being. In

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