Judith Butler: Your Behaviour Creates Your Gender
You may be asked to evaluate Butler's theory for questions on online media or the television industry. However, the theory may also prove useful elsewhere, particularly for magazines.
Gender performance - the notion of performing the characteristics commonly associated with a gender
Gender performativity - how the world reacts to your performance of gender
For Butler, gender is not constructed from the moment of birth, but is something that is learned and reinforced through reactions to our gender performativity.
Examples of gender as performance in Woman magazine - remember that while Butler will probably not specifically come up for magazines*, she is still extremely useful in terms of analysis
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- Alfred Hitchcock's name is presented in a far larger font than Grace Kelly, reinforcing patriarchal hegemony. Cultivates an ideological perspective that men are more important, more powerful, and also more creative.
- Sexualisation and objectification: the symbolic connotation of the low cut top and the sexualised direct mode of address reinforces the notion that women are there to be looked at by heterosexual men.
- John Berger: men act, women appear
- Hitchcock and wife: a binary opposition is formed between the stern and powerful Hitchcock and the soft, kind and stereotypically unthreatening Mrs Hitchcock. Constructs a message of conformativity and hegemonic roles within a relationship
- Pull quote: "they're like snow capped volcanoes" - clear example of objectification, and a patriarchal expectation that women should be prim and proper and yet sexually active. The Madonna and whore complex, cultivated and reinforced through religion and also media
- A singular and restrictive representation of women is presented in order to construct a target audience. Motivated by financial reasons
- Deeply heteronormative representation of women
Examples of gender as performance in Humans (we rushed this a bit and I totally pinched these notes from Alfie)
- Intra-diegetic gaze - joe looks at anita in a way that reinforces her sexuality (the male gaze) and her value as a 'woman' is established through her sexual attractiveness
- Matty challenges gender stereotypes, as she is a tomboy likes violence, and is interested in technology. This reflects the socio-historical context of the show
- However, arguably since Matty subverts gender expectations, she is constructed as somewhat unlikable and even villainous, ultimately reinforcing hegemonic notions of what is acceptable and appropriate for different genders