Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory

Performative acts and gender constitution: An essay in phenomenology and feminist theory
Jared O'Leary
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In this episode I unpack Butler’s (1988) seminal publication titled “Performative acts and gender constitution: An essay in phenomenology and feminist theory,” which unpacks the notion that gender is a performative act that is socially and historically constructed.

  • welcome back to another episode of the

    csk8 podcast

    my name is jared o'leary each week of

    this podcast alternates between

    an unpacking scholarship episode where i

    unpack some scholarship in relation to

    cs education and an episode where i

    interview a guest or multiple guests

    this week's episode is an unpacking

    scholarship episode where i continue a

    little mini-series on gender

    in particular i'm going to unpack a

    paper by judith butler

    titled performative acts and gender

    constitution an essay in phenomenology

    and feminist theory

    this paper was published in the theater

    journal in 1988.

    fatter summarize this particular paper

    into a single sentence

    i would say that this seminal paper

    unpacks the notion that gender is a

    performative act

    that is socially and historically

    constructed so here's actually the final

    couple of sentences in the paper itself

    this is from page

    about to talk about

    quote gender is not passively scripted

    on the body

    and neither is it determined by nature

    language the symbolic

    or the overwhelming history of

    patriarchy gender is what is put on

    invariably under constraint daily and

    incessantly

    with anxiety and pleasure but if this

    continuous act isn't mistaken for a

    natural or linguistic given

    power is relinquished to expand the

    cultural field bodily

    through subversive performances of

    various kinds end quote

    okay so this particular paper begins

    with an introduction

    that unpacks what it means to become a

    woman or to become a gender

    so here's a quote from page 519-520

    now it's a long quote but i'm going to

    kind of like rephrase it

    after i i state it quote when simone de

    bouvier

    claims one is not born but rather

    becomes a woman

    she is appropriating and reinterpreting

    this doctrine of constituting

    acts from the phenomenological tradition

    in the sense

    gender is no way a stable identity or

    locus of agency

    from which various acts proceed rather

    it is an identity

    tenuously constituted in time an

    identity

    instituted through a stylized repetition

    of acts

    further gender is instituted through the

    stylization of the body

    and hence must be understood as the

    mundane way in which bodily gestures

    movements and enactments of various

    kinds constitute the illusion

    of an abiding gendered self this

    formulation moves the conception of

    gender off the ground of a substantial

    model of identity to one that requires a

    conception

    of the constituted social temporality

    significantly if gender is instituted

    through

    acts which are internally discontinuous

    then the appearance of substance is

    precisely that a constructed identity

    a performative accomplishment which the

    mundane social audience

    including the actors themselves come to

    believe and to perform in the mode of

    belief

    if the ground of gender identity is a

    stylized repetition of acts through time

    and not a seemingly seamless identity

    then the possibilities of gender

    transformation

    are to be found in the arbitrary

    relation between such acts

    in the possibility of a different sort

    of repeating in the breaking or

    subversus repetition of that style

    end quote okay so that was a long quote

    but given that this

    is an article written for a theater

    journal talking about acting and actors

    and performing think of that lens of

    gender is a role or a character that you

    are taking on and performing

    within a play in this case this play

    is in society so you are trying to

    adhere to a particular role that has

    been

    set historically for you someone has

    given you the script

    and you are having to learn how to act

    out that script so it is socially

    constructed

    and historically constructed through

    those who have

    acted out the gender roles before you

    and continue to act them out

    with and against you in society so a

    little bit further down on page 520

    here's a quote

    quote what is called gender identity is

    a performative accomplishment compelled

    by social sanction and taboo

    end quote okay so if we think of this as

    what is a social sanction and taboo

    a gender identity you are performing

    your identity however you identify

    whether you identify as non-binary as

    male

    female however you identify whatever you

    do to perform that identity

    will either receive some kind of

    affirmation

    or support from others or somebody might

    look at it and go

    that's not how you're supposed to behave

    as a blank gender

    identity okay so the rest of paper is

    going to kind of unpack this stuff

    that's been talked about in this very

    first introduction

    so the first main section of this paper

    intro is called sex gender

    feminist and phenomenological views and

    by the way there's a slash between sex

    and gender

    so the main gist of the opening part of

    this particular part of the paper

    is that feminists have argued that sex

    and gender are two different things so

    sex being biological and gender being

    social

    so here's a quote from page 520 quote in

    distinguishing sex from gender

    feminist theorists have disputed causal

    explanations that assumes that sex

    dictates or necessitates

    certain social meanings for women's

    experience end quote and butler goes on

    to argue that

    this construction of a gender such as a

    woman

    as a man or i'll add in the term

    non-binary

    is historically situated and culturally

    situated

    so depending on where you live the

    communities that you live in

    and the histories of those communities

    and how they view different types of

    gender

    there might be different variants on

    roles that you play

    so let's say you identify as a woman

    within a particular culture

    there are going to be certain social

    norms or expectations

    of what it means to act as a woman

    within that particular culture

    however if you take that sort of

    behavior and the

    sort of performative role and then put

    it into another completely different

    culture

    maybe on the other side of the world

    there are a different set of norms and

    expectations

    that when you try and enact what you

    think it means to be a woman they might

    look at you and go

    that's not how a woman is supposed to

    act around here again this applies to

    any kind of gender identity

    in other words the social views or norms

    or expectations

    for an identity such as a gender

    identity

    is situated within that culture and it

    is

    influenced by historical acts behaviors

    laws etc alright so i'm going to read

    another quote this is from page 521 an

    apologies if i

    mispronounce his name quote marlou ponti

    maintains not only that the body is an

    historical idea but a set of

    possibilities to be continually realized

    in claiming that the body is an

    historical idea morlu ponti

    means that it gains its meaning through

    a concrete and historically mediated

    expression in the world

    that the body is a set of possibilities

    signifies a

    that its appearance in the world for

    perception is not predetermined by some

    manner of interior essence

    and b that its concrete expression in

    the world must be understood

    as the taking up and rendering specific

    of a set of historical possibilities

    end quote so in other words that the

    ways that your body appears in the world

    is not some innate thing that is

    predetermined by

    what butler refers to as an interior

    essence and that if we look at this from

    a theatrical standpoint

    we are actors who are performing

    a specific set of historical identities

    that have been predetermined

    for us so here's a quote from page 521

    and 522

    quote to do to dramatize to reproduce

    these seem to be some of the elementary

    structures of embodiment

    this doing of gender is not merely a way

    in which embodied agents are exterior

    surfaced open to the perception of

    others embodiment clearly manifests a

    set of strategies

    or what satra would perhaps have called

    a style of being

    or foucault a stylistics of existence

    this style is never fully self-styled

    for living styles have a history and

    that history conditions and limits

    possibilities

    consider gender for instance as a

    corporal style

    and act as it were which is both

    intentional and performative

    where performative itself carries the

    double meaning of dramatic

    and non-referential in quote so

    apologies if i mispronounce

    sartra s-a-r-t-re now because butler

    considers gender to be a performance

    quote

    those who fail to do their gender right

    are regularly punished end quote from

    page 522

    quote gender is thus a construction that

    regularly conceals its genesis

    the tacit collective agreement to

    perform produce and sustain discrete and

    polar genders are culturally fictions

    as cultural fictions is obscured by the

    credibility of its own production

    the authors of gender become entranced

    by their own fictions

    whereby the construction compels one's

    belief in its necessity and naturalness

    the historical possibilities

    materialized through various corporal

    styles are nothing other than

    those punitively regulated cultural

    fictions that are alternatively embodied

    and disguised under duress end quote

    it's from page 522

    so we socially are going off of the

    historical constructions of what it

    means to be blank

    identity and we then are furthering

    that by performing that identity by

    buying into the narrative that

    is written before us historically

    and is being co-written by us socially

    in the world that we are in so if you

    identify as a man

    the ways that you behave the ways that

    you dress the words that you use

    how you carry your body the acts that

    you do the hobbies that you have

    all of those things fit within certain

    historical

    and socially constructed expectations

    around what it means

    to identify as a man and in the last few

    decades

    more recently in the last decade or so

    there have been discussions in the u.s

    in particular about people who are born

    with a sex

    that does not match their gender

    identity and people are resisting

    that somebody is going against what

    society is telling them they should be

    based off of their sex

    so if somebody is born as a man and they

    identify as a woman

    then they take on these gendered roles

    related to being

    a woman and some people do not

    understand

    that process and what it means to

    perform these kinds of identities

    and so there's been a lot of random

    discussions around bathrooms

    and pronouns and all sorts of other

    random stuff

    well as a non-binary individual i find a

    lot of the discussions and assumptions

    problematic

    i like that we're actually having some

    kind of a dialogue about it

    as opposed to not talking about it so as

    uncomfortable as those discussions are

    and as

    uncomfortable as like this podcast is to

    try and

    frame things in a way that can be

    understood by people who agree with me

    and

    also disagree with me i think these kind

    of discussions are important which is

    why i'm bringing this particular

    episode to this little mini series

    that's on gender

    butler's paper is seminal it is a very

    important paper to talk about

    in relation to cs and cs education and

    i'll have some questions

    towards the end of this episode that

    unpack it more i want to dive deeper

    into butler's notion of performativity

    so here's a quote from page 523 quote my

    suggestion

    is that the body becomes its gender

    through a series of acts which are

    renewed

    revised and consolidated through time

    from a feminist point of view

    one might try to reconceive the gendered

    body as the legacy of sedimented acts

    rather than a predetermined or

    foreclosed structure essence or fact

    whether natural cultural or linguistic

    end quote

    again going back to the discussion on

    trans individuals non-binary individuals

    etc this kind of discourse helps shed

    light

    on the idea that people who do not

    identify as cisgendered

    so in other words a person whose gender

    aligns with the sex that was assigned at

    birth

    so for example if on your birth

    certificate it says that you were male

    and you identify as male then that

    person is a cis male

    now if as myself my

    sex was assigned at birth as male

    but i do not agree with that assignment

    in terms of my gender

    i fall within the trans community in

    terms of

    not being aligned with between the

    gender and the sex that was assigned at

    birth

    so i personally identify as non-binary

    however there are many different types

    of other

    genders outside of the male female

    binary that exist within the trans

    umbrella

    like genderqueer trans non-binary

    gender fluid et cetera there's many more

    now as butler is saying it is through

    this series of acts

    within social context that

    our gender identities are renewed

    revised

    and consolidated through time it is

    through these experimentations over time

    that we continue to get to know

    and better understand our identities

    or even bear witness to the changes in

    identities over time

    such as a gender fluid individual now

    one of the interesting quotes that's

    from page

    futility of a political program

    which seeks radically to transform the

    social situations 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 end quote now i'm going to

    unpack this a little bit more

    towards the end of this particular

    podcast so keep that in the back of your

    mind

    so the second section of this paper is

    titled binary genders and the

    heterosexual contract

    now in this paper butler begins by

    talking about how

    by putting genders into binaries and

    making it quote natural

    to have male and female genders

    attracted to each other

    it ostracizes anything outside of the

    heteronormative lens that is being used

    in these social acts or dialogues or

    discourses

    in other words it's basically saying if

    you do not fit within male and female or

    if you do not fit within

    a male female relationship then you are

    other or less than or an outsider or

    different

    now thankfully since this paper was

    initially written

    in 1988 there have been a lot of changes

    socially

    policy wise etc that have helped dispel

    this notion

    of the false binary and the

    heteronormative lens that is frequently

    used

    in discourse within the us however we're

    still having to fight for rights

    for people who exist outside of the

    binary and

    people who do not fall within a

    heterosexual

    relationship now further in this section

    butler describes how we as individuals

    are acting

    within social norms and if as it was

    in relatively recent time if people are

    not able to express their gender

    and sexuality within social settings

    this sets the precedent or the unspoken

    understanding that it is not okay to

    identify outside of what is considered

    to be the norm

    so to be more explicit with what i'm

    saying if we think of how

    individuals who are not heterosexual had

    to hide

    their sexuality publicly and had to

    engage in

    sexual acts and relationships and

    romance

    outside of the public eye because it was

    considered

    to be not a part of the accepted

    performance of what it means to be in a

    relationship

    or to have asexuality tying it back into

    gender

    people within the trans community have

    had to hide in the u.s

    their identities because it does not fit

    within what was considered to be

    the norm in the u.s here's a quote from

    page 526

    quote when this conception of social

    performance is applied to gender

    it is clear that although there are

    individual bodies that enact these

    significations

    by becoming stylized into gendered modes

    this action

    is immediately public as well there are

    temporal and collective dimensions to

    these actions

    and their public nature is not

    inconsequential indeed the performance

    is

    affected with the strategic aim of

    maintaining gender within its binary

    frame

    understood in pedagogical terms the

    performance renders social laws explicit

    end quote so if we think about this

    particular

    quote and what i was just rambling about

    this gets at the idea of why

    representation is

    important so for example if we do not

    see certain identities within

    certain careers like computer science by

    having

    media such as posters and videos and

    curricula

    created to include a diverse range of

    identities

    then we might be implicitly stating

    certain kinds of identities

    are welcome within computer science

    while others are not

    so if you listen to the episode two

    weeks ago that talked about how

    course materials can be gendered and

    forward a certain notion that certain

    genders

    are acceptable within computer science

    while others are not this can be highly

    problematic

    so we as educators need to think through

    how are we

    acting out genders and what identities

    not just gender but any identities are

    we encouraging

    and enabling within the resources and

    projects and experiences that we design

    facilitate teach whatever in computer

    science education

    again the performance renders social

    laws explicit

    so if we have projects that are 100 male

    or 100 involve heterosexual

    relationships or 100 percent

    involve only white individuals all of

    these

    are performing those social laws that

    say that this

    is accepted while other things are not

    whether we intend that or not that's how

    it can be perceived by students by

    community members

    etc so if you haven't listened to the

    episode that i did two weeks ago make

    sure you take a listen to that

    and the following episodes are going to

    unpack this a little bit more

    and one of the examples is actually

    going to talk about how some of these

    gender norms are different in other

    countries

    so stay tuned for upcoming episodes now

    not only is representation

    important but it's also important to

    understand that

    there are social expectations involved

    with different identities and how we

    perform those identities

    now here's a quote from page 528 and if

    you've listened to the unpacking

    scholarship episodes

    that talk about padol ferreira's book

    pedagogy of the oppressed think of this

    in relation to

    lenses in not just relation to gender

    but other forms of oppression

    related to identities that i talk about

    in those other episodes which i'll link

    to in the show notes this is from page

    quote genders then can be neither true

    nor false

    neither real nor apparent and yet one is

    compelled to live in a world in which

    genders constitute

    unavocal signifiers in which gender is

    stabilized

    polarized rendered discrete and

    intractable in effect

    gender is made to comply with a model of

    truth and falsity which not only

    contradicts its own performative

    fluidity

    but serves a social policy of gender

    regulation and control

    performing one's gender wrong initiates

    a set of punishments

    both obvious and indirect and performing

    it well

    provides the reassurance that there is

    an essentialism of gender identity after

    all

    that this reassurance is so easily

    displaced by anxiety

    that culture so readily punishes or

    marginalizes those who fail to perform

    the illusion of gender essentialism

    should be signed enough that on some

    level there is social knowledge that the

    truth

    or falsity of gender is only socially

    compelled and in no sense ontologically

    necessitated

    end quote okay so some concrete examples

    of this

    as an example before i found the

    terminology

    to identify as non-binary in high school

    i shaved my legs which as somebody who

    was male presenting

    was not socially acceptable and needless

    to say led to

    a lot of interesting commentary by my

    peers

    as another example think of what might

    happen if

    a very masky looking individual were to

    start wearing a dress

    cut that the ways in which people

    respond to seeing

    that expression of gender identity can

    reaffirm that there are correct and

    incorrect ways

    to fit within a particular identity and

    that internal dialogue of a person who

    internally does not fit with the

    identity that society has

    prescribed them can cause a lot of harm

    mentally physically socially emotionally

    etc

    to an individual so for example if you

    have a student

    who identifies outside of the sex that

    was assigned to them at birth

    depending on the community that they're

    in and their peers or you as a teacher

    or other administrators or other family

    members and community members

    depending on how you structure that

    social environment can have a huge

    positive or negative impact on that

    student this doesn't just apply to

    gender identity but any type of identity

    so something that we as educators really

    need to consider and i've got some

    questions at the end

    that i'm still thinking through and i

    think the field should also think

    through that i'll share here

    pretty soon before i do that i just want

    to say that there is one

    final section in here that is called

    feminist theory beyond an expressive

    model of gender

    and i've already read one quote related

    to that at the start of this podcast and

    i will read one more

    very shortly okay so as always in these

    unpacking scholarship episodes i just

    want to share some lingering questions

    or thoughts that i have

    while reading this particular paper the

    first one that i have is when are we

    unintentionally reaffirming gender

    expectations and binaries

    through performative acts related to cs

    education so for example if you listen

    to the interview with sarah judd which

    i'll include a link to in the show notes

    sarah talks about how in the computer

    science classes that they're in

    in school in k12 setting had these

    notions of

    what it meant to be a female in

    cs it had these preconceived notions of

    what it meant to be

    a female or woman in computer science

    education

    interested in it so it came with

    assumptions like oh well if you identify

    as a girl then you like to help people

    and you like to

    have things with rainbows and ponies in

    it and you don't like to talk about

    nerdy things like star wars etc so

    depending on how we set up our classroom

    environment

    and the ways that we communicate with

    the students that we work with and the

    assumptions that we make in terms of

    oh you are blank gender identity

    therefore you must like blah blah blah

    those assumptions can reaffirm gender

    expectations

    and binaries through the performative

    acts that we are doing while teaching

    so it's something to consider not only

    in relation to gender but other

    identities as well to use

    some verbage from some academic

    discourse we are essentializing or

    engaging in a process of cultural

    essentialization where we are taking an

    identity and saying

    you are x identity therefore you must

    think y

    and z without actually getting to know

    children as individuals

    so the next question that i have is how

    do we balance between finding solidarity

    within a marginalized

    identity and challenging the social

    construction of that identity so here's

    a quote

    that is from page 530 quote

    certainly it remains politically

    important to represent women

    but to do that in a way that does not

    distort and reify

    the very collectivity the theory is

    supposed to emancipate end quote

    so in other words yes it's important to

    organize

    and find solidarity within marginalized

    identities however

    we have to understand that it is not a

    unified identity and

    we should in some way try and challenge

    the construction

    or apparent unification of that identity

    so an example that a professor used in a

    class that i took

    was going through a process of centering

    de-centering and re-centering so one way

    to describe this

    might be to center around a particular

    particular identity

    so for example myself getting to know

    and understand

    my perspective as a non-binary

    individual and finding others

    who identify similarly with their gender

    identity

    decentering might be trying to find

    other identities perspectives

    ways of being that exist outside of my

    own

    to try and better understand many

    different perspectives and voices around

    gender re-centering is then the process

    of coming back to

    myself and going now that i've learned

    all these other things how do i better

    understand or how have my

    my own identity around gender changed

    through this process

    of centering de-centering and

    re-centering so

    one way we can do this in cs education

    is to potentially create

    personalized projects projects that get

    to know

    individuals so for example an

    interactive collage

    in scratch you create this as a process

    of centering

    where you are creating a collage that

    expresses who you are

    in that moment you can then go through a

    series of projects that de-center around

    other identities outside of dot collage

    so if you identify as somebody who likes

    sports and somebody who likes

    painting and somebody who likes to read

    you could then try and find some

    different

    perspectives or hobbies or identities or

    whatever

    outside of that and learn about it and

    create some projects around that

    that would be a de-centering process

    then a re-centering process or project

    might be coming back

    and saying okay how can i take this new

    understanding

    new ways of being that i now better

    understand and

    reassess my own identity and you engage

    in this process in a cyclical nature so

    you're constantly centering decentering

    re-centering now i will say as a student

    at the time as a grad student when i

    went through this process many of these

    students in that particular class

    felt it was unstabilizing going through

    this process

    and difficult because it was constantly

    going well

    i thought i had this solid understanding

    of who i am as an individual and now

    i'm realizing that one there may have

    been some problematic assumptions that i

    was making and two that identity is not

    as firm as i thought it was it's

    actually fluid and ever changing etc

    so just a heads up in advance if you as

    an individual or the classes that you

    work with decide to go through this

    process of centering decentering

    recentering

    it can be a little un unnerving or

    destabilizing

    going through this process of examining

    your identities

    but it is a very worthwhile process in

    my opinion all right so the final

    question that i have for this particular

    paper

    has an embedded quote in it from page

    so if quote gender reality is

    performative which means

    quite simply that it is real only to the

    extent that is performed

    end quote what other identities besides

    gender might we consider as performative

    and in need of discussing as a field

    so sticking with gender if gender is a

    construction

    socially and is something that is

    performed

    how can we challenge the notion of that

    construction

    and dive deeper in cs research education

    policy discourse etc but what other

    identities

    might be performative in nature and that

    we as a field need to discuss

    thankfully as a field we're starting to

    discuss race more

    we're starting to discuss individuals

    with disabilities whether

    physical neurological etc but what other

    identities

    are potentially performative and that we

    should be

    discussing as a field and i'm not saying

    we shouldn't discuss the things that we

    already are

    we certainly need to do that it's a yes

    and approach that i think that we as a

    field need to kind of kind of figure out

    the point is who is missing from this

    conversation what identities

    are we not discussing as a field and how

    can we engage in a reflective process

    similar to what i discussed in the

    pedagogy of the oppressed miniseries

    where we are trying to examine from

    lenses oppressor and oppressed to figure

    out

    who's missing from this conversation and

    how are they being impacted by this

    all right so those are my lingering

    questions or thoughts for this

    particular paper i know this publication

    and the things that i've talked about

    might take some time to digest because

    these are not simple conversations to

    have but i hope this

    helped you walk away with some questions

    or considerations or thoughts

    that you might be able to take into the

    physical or virtual classrooms that you

    are working with

    if you want to read this paper itself i

    will include a link to it

    in the show notes and i will continue

    this little mini series on gender with a

    discussion on a study

    that has to do with gender and computer

    science education

    in two weeks so stay tuned next week for

    another interview

    and two weeks from now for another

    unpacking scholarship episode thanks so

    much for taking time to listen to this

    episode i hope you all have a wonderful

    week and are staying safe

Article

Butler, J. (1988). Performative acts and gender constitution: An essay in phenomenology and feminist theory. Theatre Journal, 40(4), 519-531.

My One Sentence Summary

This seminal paper unpacks the notion that gender is a performative act that is socially and historically constructed.

Some Of My Lingering Questions/Thoughts

  • When are we unintentionally reaffirming gender expectations and binaries through performative acts related to CS education?

  • How do we balance between finding solidarity within a marginalized identity and challenging the social construction of that identity?

  • If “gender reality is performative which means, quite simply, that it is real only to the extent that it is performed” (p. 527) what other identities besides gender might we consider as performative and in need of discussing as a field?

Resources/Links Relevant to This Episode

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