This paper confronts Butler’s theory of gender as an individual act and analyzes its limitations outside the western world. ![]() Judith Butler’s Gender Performativity theory proved to be one of the most salient works of the rather unexplored realm of philosophy. The feminist movement proceeding the Industrial Revolution propelled philosophical and literary works, such as Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex, challenging the traditional perception of man and woman and concomitantly advancing the foundation for gender theory. In other words, much like Newton observes about drag performances of femininity, anybody can put gender expressions on, they are not the “property” to gesture back to Butler, of any body.The question of what it means to be a gendered individual has been left unanswered in light of its variants. Like many queer theorists engaging gender, Halberstam deemphasizes genitals, refocusing on gender expressions. Halberstam convincingly claims “masculinity must not and cannot and should not reduce to the male body and its effects” (1998, 1). In much the same way that drag queen performances reveal femininity as a construct, female masculinity reveals masculinity as a construct. Halberstam argues that female masculinity is created from the “scraps” of male masculinity revealing masculinity as a construct. In Female Masculinity, Jack Halberstam continues the work of disentangling gender from genitals through a series of interpretive readings of literary, filmic, and historical representations. Butler responded to critique by arguing that although discourse does not produce real material sex differences, it organizes these differences, gives them meaning, and renders them legible (Butler 1993). This is likely reminiscent of Anne Fausto-Sterling’s provocation that there are five discernible sexes. In a follow up text Butler argues that “sex” is a regulatory ideal that forces many bodies into a two-part system (1993). Gender Trouble was critiqued for ignoring the materiality of the body and real sex differences. This is similar to Newton’s observation of drag, particularly her suggestion that drag reveals gender as a performance. Importantly, for Butler, since gender must be constantly reperformed, it can be intentionally or unintentionally “troubled” revealing it as an ongoing project with no origin. For Butler, gender is established as consistent and cohesive through its repeated performance (Butler 2006). Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble, originally published in 1990, introduces the term performativity to suggest gender identity is not natural and does not emanate from an essential truth that can be located on or in the body. In fact, Judith Butler, who is often identified as an early and formative player in the creation of queer theory, cites both theorists as influential to her work on performativity. Also, like Rubin, her intellectual investments and theoretical findings were harbingers of things to come. Like Rubin (introduced in Section One), Newton was writing prior to the 1990 “birth” of queer theory. ![]() They know that one type of genital equipment by no means guarantees the ‘naturally appropriate’ behavior” (Newton 1979, 103).Įsther Newton’s Mother Camp: Female Impersonators in America Gay people know that sex-typed behavior can be achieved, contrary to what is popularly believed. Newton writes, “The effect of the drag system is to wrench sex roles loose from that which supposedly determines them, that is genital sex. Of course, this is not a new idea to readers who studied the previous section, but in 1972 the link between sex and gender remained tightly clamped. Newton separated the sexed body from the gender expressed on it suggesting that there is no natural link between the two. ![]() ![]() Newton uses the term drag queen to describe a “homosexual male who often, or habitually, dresses in female attire” (1979, 100). Through a brief intellectual genealogy beginning with Esther Newton’s work on drag culture in the 1970s, moving to Judith Butler’s work on performativity in the 1990s, and concluding with Jack Halberstam’s work on female masculinity, the social construction of gender in explored in this section.Ĭultural anthropologist Esther Newton published Mother Camp: Female Impersonators in America, a groundbreaking ethnography of drag culture in 1972.
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