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

“Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory” is a 1988 article published in Theatre Journal by philosopher and gender theorist Judith Butler (who uses they/them pronouns). It is a foundational work for Butler’s idea of “performative gender,” which they went on to develop and complicate in later work. This article draws from phenomenology, theater studies, anthropology, and linguistics to show how gender can be understood as performative in both a theatrical and philosophical sense. Theatrically, gender functions as a script that members of the culture perform and, through performing, bring to life. Philosophically, gender is created through a series of “performative acts”—a type of ritualized action that serves to create many elements of society.

Butler opens with an exploration of the term “act,” which encompasses phenomena as varied as an actor performing a role and a performative speech act—such as promising, where the act of speaking a promise brings the promise into existence. Another kind of act creates and reinforces a social reality. Gender identity is one such created social reality. Many theorists have noted that gender roles are not completely determined by physiological sex characteristics, and they differ across individuals, cultures, and periods. Yet, many people still have a sense of gender identity. Butler investigates the formation and meaning of gender, describing it as “an identity tenuously constituted […] through a stylized repetition of acts” (519). Butler offers a theory for how gender comes to exist as a compelling social category: it is created through the performance of “gender acts”—a performance so convincing that even the actors come to believe in its reality.

In Section I, “Sex/Gender: Feminist and Phenomenological Views,” Butler discusses the similarities and differences between the feminist and phenomenological definitions of the body. Although gender is not wholly dependent on physiological sex characteristics, it is a form of embodiment. The embodied nature of gender is part of what makes it such a powerful construct. Both feminist and phenomenological philosophers differentiate between sex—the physiology of the body—and gender—the meaning of the body in terms of masculinity and femininity. From the phenomenological perspective, history and culture determine the possible meanings of the body, while the body itself materializes those possibilities, dramatizing and reproducing them. “Doing gender” is a performance not just because it is playing a role, but because it recreates and reinforces the existence of the role.

Butler’s feminist theory, similarly to phenomenology, sees theory and practice as interrelated. The key example is of course the oppression of women, where patriarchal political structures create patriarchal patterns of thought and feeling—such as the idea that women are inferior intellectually—and these patriarchal thoughts help to replicate patriarchal political structures by discouraging women from accessing education and taking positions of authority. Butler is wary of feminist organizers who, for the sake of solidarity, argue from the position that the essential nature of womanhood involves being oppressed. This definition makes it impossible to reach true equality.

In Section II, “Binary Genders and the Heterosexual Contract,” Butler draws on ideas from the field of anthropology, where theorists like Gayle Rubin have argued that the structures of kinship in many societies are based on categorizing women as commodities to be traded between men. To maintain this categorization, cultures develop taboos and punishments for alternative sexualities and gender presentations, which motivate and are motivated by a cultural assumption that heterosexuality and specific gender roles are “natural.” This assumption of naturalness then becomes an argument supporting laws and practices that formalize gendered oppression.

The formalization of gendered oppression means that although, in theory, people might be able to freely perform their preferred gender acts, there are strong reasons why they cannot. One reason is that the culture determines what gender possibilities exist, and it becomes difficult if not impossible to imagine alternatives. The other reason is that the cultures regulate gender acts. Social stigma and gendered violence are tools societies use to maintain their gender structures.

In Section III, “Feminist Theory: Beyond an Expressive Model of Gender,” Butler acknowledges that the theory of gender acts does not prescribe a particular political program and that some feminist theorists may consider it counterproductive. Butler confirms that it is at odds with the type of feminist theory that treats “femaleness” as an essential category or a singular perspective. However, the theory of gender acts offers a tactic for resistance. Gender is not written onto passive bodies. Bodies must perform gender to make it real, and because of the need to continually perform gender, subversive performances of gender can change and expand the set of cultural possibilities.