Gender is on one hand complicated, and on the other, quite simple. The norms of our world are what makes breaking with gender stereotypes a traumatic experience for many. Although we have heard the phrase “just be yourself,” if your version of your best self does not coincide with the norms of the time, then that advice is sure to lead to ostracization. All people want to feel included, especially in their most intimate communities. Judith Butler’s “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory,” the author delves deep into the history of societal gender norms; her paper, alongside contemporary examples from popular culture, can show readers how gender norms are not as set in stone as our culture purports them to be.

In Judith Butler’s essay “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory,” the author explains that despite the way gender has historically been linked with one’s birth sex, it has never been a steady identity in and of itself. Instead, gender and the cultural norms surrounding it are perpetuated and evolve through social agents. Butler names a number of these social agents as being language, gesture, and symbolic social signs (Butler, Judith, 519). Gender is not set in stone, but rather is a spectrum. Recently, I have been going through and watching the late Patrick Swayze’s filmography. I believe he was a good example of what Butler was talking about. As a horse rancher and chain-smoking stoic, he fits all of the stereotypical trademarks of manliness. However, he was also a classically trained dancer. During interviews, especially during the press run of the film Dirty Dancing, often talked about how people back home often didn’t understand how a man like him could be into ballet. Funnily enough, they accepted it because he was from such a tough family, and himself, from a very young age, showed a lot of grit and determination. Artists have always been generally progressive on subjects such as gender identity. To make art means breaking down one’s world and critically analyzing the norms in it. Throughout the years, there have been many artists who have exemplified Butler’s feminist theory.

Gender identity is kept rigid in our society because allowing full expression of one’s gender identity means breaking down the norms that govern our entire reality. Butler writes, “One may want to claim, but oh, this is really a girl or a woman, or this is really a boy or a man, and further that the appearance contradicts the reality of gender” (Butler, Judith, 527). The musician Arca, who makes an experimental noise-pop and has collaborated with major figures in the music industry such as Kanye West and Lady Gaga, often portrays herself as a non-binary machine in her music videos. Arca said she identifies as a trans woman, going by she/her pronouns, yet in the music, she embraces technology as a metaphor for being off the binary of not only gender but the limits of what can be considered pop music. She plays with images of computers and wires, using them as cultural symbols for both the new age, yet also a sort of soullessness. However, she embraces that lack of emotion not as a hindrance, but rather as a way to transcend one’s humanity, including negative emotions, such as bigotry or self-hatred. Arca does not see herself as succumbing to technology, but rather as an organism adapting around it. This relates to the aforementioned section of Butler’s paper, where she mentions cultural symbols and how they can be picked up by individuals and internalized as part of their identities. Although Butler is specifically referencing gender expression specifically in her writing, I believe her theory could be easily re-contextualized to fit many aspects of one’s personality. The media we consume and our aesthetic interests often define us to one extent or another. For an artist as forward-thinking as Arca, for example, her futurist beliefs are directly intertwined with her gender identity. While for a man such as Patrick Swayze, dancing was his way of balancing out the rigid and traditionally macho lifestyle, as well as a way to connect to his mother; yet most people are still struck by how easily he was able to channel feminine energy during his romantic films, which is what made him such a star in Hollywood. This shows how gender expression, in addition to social variables such as language and symbols, can also be adopted simply through one’s relationship with technology, family, or any number of outside influences.

Butler concludes that deviations from the performance of gender often lead to ridicule. She compares gender to a theatrical stage here by mentioning how theatrical performances can be met with censorship, bad criticism, or even violence (Butler, Judith, 527). This definitely parallels the experience that many trans people have when coming out. Although the concept of being trans has been normalized a bit since it first hit the public discussion, there are still many places in the United States and abroad where stepping out in one’s desired gender expression can mean retaliation. This risk doubles for marginalized communities. Unlike artists like Arca, who have the privilege of wealth, people in a poor socioeconomic position are incredibly at severe risk of being victimized. Seeing gender as a performance and making that the norm would give a lot of people a lot of emotional freedom since it would allow them to try things they had always wanted to do, yet were afraid of being ridiculed over.

Gender should, by the end of this paper, feel much more complicated than it appears at first. For one, the intersections between race and gender are evident. Artists of a certain caliber are allowed to express themselves openly because they have the favor of the public behind them. Individuals without public support are always living in fear of whether to live authentically or to conform in order to avoid any backlash. Looking at Butler’s essay, in conjunction with how artists of an elite economic hierarchy express themselves, shows how economics, as with anything else in our hyper-capitalist society, is intertwined with gender.

WORK CITED

Butler, Judith. “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory.” Theatre Journal, vol. 40, no. 4, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988.

This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license.