Have you ever heard of the phrase "doing gender"? Or have you heard someone call gender a "performative act"? Do you know what that means? Let's talk about it!
If you get into the more epistemological and theory side of feminism, you'll definitely run into these concepts. Even if you aren't confronted with these concepts or theorists directly in conversation, knowing the terms, who coined them, and (most importantly) their meaning and impact will definitely help in knowing how to word things in convoersations.
Judith Butler & gender performativity...
Judith Butler is an important feminist theorist when it comes to the theories of post-structuralism and queer theory (among others). Butler's additions to feminist theory are helpful when we want to talk about deconstructing what gender is, what the category of "women" even means, and how some feminisms have excluded people that don't perfectly fit the stereotypes of being a woman (that is, being straight, looking traditionally feminine, etc.).
One of this influential scholar's most notable works, Gender Trouble, argues that this hypothetical category of "women" is misleading and ineffective. When we try to identify what makes someone a woman, we quickly realize we're relying on gender norms, stereotypes, and the values of the oppressor to define the gender of woman.
To argue this point, Butler makes the claim that gender is performative. This means that gender is not something innate within us. Gender is something we engage with and repeat our performance of everyday. It's something we learn from others, something we practice, perform, and act out with our choices.
"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 is simply true about us, a fact about us, but 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." (Judith Butler in Dr. Zuleyka Zevallos' "Judith Butler on 'Gender Performativity'")
West and Zimmerman & doing gender...
Similarly to Butler's claim that gender is performative, Candace West and Don H. Zimmerman argue that gender is a "routine, methodical, and recurring accomplishment" (Doing Gender, 126).
Gender is an act that all individuals engage in. The gender norms set out for us influence the way we do gender, and our doing of gender simultaneously continues to produce gender.
"We argue that gender is not a set of traits, nor a variable, nor a role, but the product of social doings of some sort...Our object here is to explore how gender might be exhibited or portrayed through interaction, and thus be seen as 'natural,' while it is being produced as a socially organized achievement." (West & Zimmerman)
What does this mean for feminism?
Once we recognize that gender is performative and something we actively engage in, and not something innate or biologically-driven, we can start to apply this to our feminist approach.
Gender performativity supports the argument that the gender binary is socially constructed and ineffective as a system for accurate categorization.
It also supports the argument that trans women are women, and trans men are men.
It validates gender non-conforming folks' identity as well as how they choose to express themselves. If they dress more feminine or speak more masculine, we know that those gender expressions are all performative acts and so it doesn't negate or disprove their gender identity.
It encourages us to think more critically about who feminism is for, to look beyond the idea that all women can be unified into one single category. It pushes us to recognize the nuance of identity and lived experiences.
It also opens up the conversation of redoing or undoing gender as well.
Other helpful resources for your learning...
"Judith Butler: on COVID-19, the politics of non-violence, necropolitics, and social inequality" by Verso Books with Amia Srinivasan (video)
"Barbara Grabher, 'Doing Gender in Events: Feminist Perspectives in Critical Event Studies'" episode of the Critical Theory podcast (podcast)
"13 Women Open up About What Being a Woman Means to Them in 2020" by Elly Belle with Well and Good (article)
Citations
Challenging feminism's focus on the category of "women" and its political implications
Transitioning from the concept of "doing gender" to "undoing gender"
Transcript of an interview with Judith Butler on gender, race, and contemporary social justice
Gleeson, J. (2021, September 7). Judith Butler: 'We need to rethink the category of woman'. The Guardian.
Shouting out trans women and their contributions to social justice
Sanchez, N. (2021, March 17). Trans women are women: Avoiding the mistakes of our predecessors. ACLU Pennsylvania.
The concept of "doing gender"
Brief interview with Judith Butler on gender performativity
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