Judith Butler is one of our key theorists, and her work on gender performativity is essential to understanding current debates around gender and sexuality. Unlike many of the theorist we study, Butler is alive and well and is in the process of publishing a new book!
This article in the Guardian gives a nice a straightforward primer on her theoretical perspectives. In particular, this quote really clarifies what can be a complex and difficult to understand concept:
“Performative” speech acts are the kind that make something happen or seek to create a new reality. When a judge declares a sentence, for instance, they produce a new reality, and they usually have the authority to make that happen. But do we say that the judge is all-powerful? Or is the judge citing a set of conventions, following a set of procedures?
Gender performativity is NOT, therefore, simply how we 'act' our gender, though this is an important concept in itself. The ways in which we act, walk, talk, dress, and how these may be seen as masculine, feminine, or more fluid have an active affect on the world around us. This can challenge conventions and expectations, but due to the complex nature of gender performativity, can also serve to reinforce certain hegemonic expectations of gender. Yet,
At the same time, none of us are totally determined by cultural norms. Gender then becomes a negotiation, a struggle, a way of dealing with historical constraints and making new realities.
This idea of a negotiation is completely essential to all aspects of media studies, from the negotiation we have with our gender identity, to the negotiations we have with the director every time we watch a film and must choose which aspects of the ideology to accept or reject.