Decoding Gender: Biology Or Performative Act?

What decides what your gender is? Some argue that it is a biologically based thing that a person truly has no choice in. With the study of hormones and how they differ in men and women, this has been a decently proven theory. Although, this is not the only form of belief that is held about gender and what makes a person at in accordance to their gender. There are people, like Judith Butler, who believe that a gender is a performative act. This means that some hold the belief that you are not actually born with a gender, but you develop and act in accordance to one as you grow up within your society. To be very clear gender being performed is very different than gender being performative. When we say gender is being performed it means that

When looking at sissy boys and tom girls it is clear to see that they have a much more difficult time fitting into what the culture feel in the normal. This results in these individuals who don’t fit into the normal cultural standards to end up being bullied and teased. Even when you looked at how the parents treat children who are not necessarily fitting into the normal culturally acceptable way to act based on their gender you see them treating the child differently. It is like when a dad sees his son playing with dolls and tells him to stop because doing this somehow makes his son less of a boy. Judith Butler would argue that there is no point in trying to get males and females to somehow fit want is considered a normal gender role. That really these gender roles where constructed for no real reason and therefore have no really importance and don’t really need to be

They would believe that to dress or do things that the opposite gender did is bad and can cause you to those you identity. Those that create the sumptuary laws believe that gender is very much black and white. Judith Bulter would have been completely okay with the cross-dressing and the gender fluidity. She doesn’t think who have to be one gender or another and that your gender isn’t a fact about you but something performative about you. She believes that who you are as a person is not tied so much into what gender that you are but much more into what you actually do in the world. So, while those who made the sumptuary laws believes clothes make the man or women, Judith Bulter believes that they