Judith Butler's 'Performative Gender'

Image - Angela (Head) by Catherine Opie, 1992

There is a spectre haunting Cambridge - the spectre of Butlerian performativity. What this statement lacks in fluidity it makes up for in verity, as the bacterial spread of this particular theory continues to gain momentum (here I am thinking of good bacteria, like Yakult). Over the last few weeks, I've heard of more and more people trying to get to grips with Judy B in order to apply her to their various disciplines - History of Art, English Literature, Drama, Sociology, Politics, Queer Theory and Anthropology. I'm no expert on theory but I'm eager to fan the flames of this subversive zeitgeist, by introducing the idea of performative gender and its cultural inscription through what Butler calls the heterosexual matrix.

You have two options here, you can continue to read my wanky but well-intentioned blogpost or you can follow this handy link to one of Butler's particularly insightful journal articles on JSTOR Performative Acts and Gender Construction: An Essay in Phenemonology and Feminist Theory (1988). If you're filthy keen, do both.

Butler challenges the notion of identity as a static category into which an individual places his or her self, or as a category imposed onto individuals. Life experiences, and the different identifications one will hold through their life, cannot be captured by the boundaries of 'identity'. The notion of subjectivity that Butler develops draws upon semiotics and sees gender as a floating signifier - a construct into which different meanings can be injected - because there is no 'essence' of gender within individuals, nor is gender something towards which one works. For Butler, 'gender' is a performative accomplishment brought about through the 'stylized repetition of acts'. So, gender, as an illusion, is created by the performance of certain acts which are deemed to be gendered.

This can be made more easy to understand by running with Butler's performative metaphor (one which is often invoked in sociology, known as 'the dramaturgical analogy'). The actor David Tennant received great praise for his performance as Hamlet on stage and screen - his was an accomplished performance, one which was validated by many of the critics and one in which he was able to capture something of the character of Hamlet. But Tennant does not have an 'Inner Hamlet' that he was expressing; the coherence of his Hamlet derives from the skill and craft of his performance. Tennant, after all, made a very strong Dr Who - his solid performance as Hamlet did not inhibit him in this. As an actor, he was able to perform numerous dramatic characters with his competence - he may have even 'brought his characters to life', but as vivid as indecisive Hamlet is, and as passionate his Dr Who, the happenings at Elsinore and the travels of the Tardis are fiction. Likewise with gender. For Butler, our 'gender identities' are characters that are made to seem real through the skill and frequency of our performances. To give the example of masculinities, certain of the dramatis personae are the main characters on the stage of gender - the macho, the heroic, the muscular, the leader, the powerful - whereas certain other characters are marginal - the passive, the sensitive, the thoughtful, the slender, the effeminate.

A strong performance of gender is able to convince the 'audience' that the 'character' being enacted is real - that it is not a performance but a reality. It is an illusory fiction, and at the intersection of gender performance and gender/power relations, certain characters become more desirable to enact. It takes artistic ability to be a strong Laertes, but when the audience looks through the programme, they want to know who is playing Hamlet.


Next up is the notion of the 'heterosexual matrix' through which one's subject position is rendered coherent if it consists of "a stable sex expressed through a stable gender... that is oppositionally and hierarchically defined through the compulsory practice of heterosexuality‟ (Butler, 1990: 206). This is the idea of normative or compulsory heterosexuality, derived from Adrienne Rich. Deviations from heternormativity, which encompasses not only heterosexuality but normative gender performances and a normative sex, cause consternation, discipline and Othering. To be recognised as a normative individual requires a strict dichotomisation between male and female (when the distinction is not so clear cut for those who are intersex), it requires that the gender performed matches the sexed body (so a biological male acts masculine, a biological female acts feminine). Finally, the individual needs to desire the opposite sex. The straight bloke and the straight lass.

The 'policing of the matrix' can be found in how the three matrices (sex, gender, sexuality) are made to interact. I can give the example of pink socks as an example, referring here not to the sexual accident but the actual literal socks which are pink. In our society, pink is made to express femininity (female gender). You see this clearly enough in card shops and clothes shops (especially for children). What then of the boy who wears pink socks. What possible impact could come about from it? Having enjoyed doing this little experiment myself once before, I can report that I have worn pink socks one day with the kids in one of the schools I have worked in, and their reaction was far greater than if I had just made another fashion blunder. 'Are you gay?' was one of the first things asked. The subversive gender performance (wearing the colours of the 'other side') implies subversive sexuality. Now, I might be a bad example here, but a straight is just as able to wear pink socks without it nudging them into homosexuality. Gender performances are seen to express sexualities - in some of my own research, it was explained to me by 10 and 11 year old boys that 'wearing skinny jeans makes you feel kinda gay' and that if you zip up your jacket to the top, 'it means you like the bum'. It's a strange logic, but one that functions by its disguise within the model of the heterosexual matrix.

Unclassifiable Wanking Behaviours

Picture the scene. Cambridge is currently in the middle of a heatwave and on Parker's Piece, the population is making full use of the green space. The place is heaving. Families have came along and three generations are playing frisbee together. Couple laze about together. Solitary individuals sleep or read. Kids run about playing games. But there is an anomaly. An anomic anomaly.

As a friend and I were sitting on the grass, a young man walked over - probably about my age - and he was wearing trainers, a t-shirt and some pretty short shorts. He was in our direct eye-line, so was pretty noticable to begin with. I mentioned to my friend that - yes - he has both his hands down his boxers. He was part of a group of around 7 or 8 men, ranging in age from him to probably about 30 - between them all, they were kicking a football about.

Being of the sociological inclination, my friend and I pounced on this and began to question it. I thought that maybe he was patting his genitals in a sort of 'comfort touching' way because he felt uncomfortable being around all these older masculinties. She thought there was something slightly homosexual about it. Both were pretty valid.

But he confounded these expectations with the rhythmical pumping of his right hand - slow at first, but gradually increasing in speed. My friend and I had nothing in our collaborative experience to account for this. Bright sunny day, public place, about 5pm - he's pumping fist.

There was more.

The football floated over to him and he ran to collect it and, in his haste to do so, his junk fell out of the now-unbuttoned front of his shorts.

"It's out Taz, his cock is out now!", I said to her, far too audibly. He span round, having kicked the ball and yes, to confirm, he had breached. Noticing, he just tucked himself back in and shouted over "It happen sometimes". So he had heard my exclamation but this was not enough to curb his enthusiasm and within a minute or so, he was once again shaking coconuts from the veiny love tree.


My friend and I spend an inordinate amount of our time people-watching and people-analysing, since we are among a small minority of students who can categorise that activity as being vaguely like revision. Usually, we have some analytic framework which we can apply to help explain what prompts an individual to behave in one way rather than another. Usually, from the way someone stands or from something in their accent, you can pick up some little hint about their background, some glimmer of experience which might help explain them.

Not this guy. This was more than the mildly well-known phenomena of the 'chav with hands down pants' as discussed here by our friends over at Scally Central. This wasn't some sort of laid-back masculine posturing and it wasn't directed for an audience. Admittedly, he walked over to a group of girls and asked for a cigarette, withdrawing one sweaty mitt only to prise the fag from her hand, but he also approached an Asian family with his hands plunged down there.

It was the pumping. Why would that be a desirable thing to do on the middle of Parker's Piece. He wasn't really that exhibitionistic about it - he wasn't looking for a reaction. He didn't seem to be doing it just for the pleasure.

There was some sort of code in his fist, but we weren't privy to it. Confused, we left the field and I cycled home.

'The Gayest Kid Ever' - Gender, Sexualities and School

When in primary schools, I've quite often heard it said that a child is really gay. More recently, it was said that one boy is the Gayest Kid in the World. When a teacher says something like this, I usually doubt it carries any malicious intent and it is rarely said in an overtly condemnatory manner, but it remains a fixed character judgement and one which is harmful.

It is a textbook example of the concepts of the heterosexual matrix and normative heterosexuality in action.

The heterosexual matrix is the lens through which individuals in society make sense of the world through presupposing a coherent identity - eg male (sex), masculine (gender) and attracted to women (sexuality). By thinking through the heterosexual matrix, any deviation from the norm is one category affects how people conceive of the others. For example, an individual with an indeterminate biological sex becomes suspected of having a deviant gender, or an abnormal sexuality - see the sexual fetishisation of Thai 'ladyboys'.

Normative heterosexuality works closely with the heterosexual matrix, and provides a hegemonic validation for certain sexual and gender identities - making some identities normal and some abnormal. The processes of normative heterosexuality may be quite difficult to identify; this is exactly why they are so potent. In the establishment of a sense that certain genders are abnormal or unnatural or immoral or ungodly, you see the deployment of different discursive paradigms - in turn psychiatric, biological/eugenicist, ethical or delusional - which seek to present heterosexuality as the norm.

Back to gay kids. The first hurdle is the entrenched presumption, ingrained in Western culture since Rousseau, of childhood innocence. The willful (willed?) ignorance of child sexuality is something which has been problematised by Foucault in theory, and by the research of Emma Renold, among others, in educational research. The lengths to which schools and adults go to prevent displays of child sexuality stand in hypocritical contradiction to the denial of its existence - why strain to prevent the manifestations something which doesn't exist?

Children have sexualities and sexual cultures - most of you need only think back to when you were 9,10,11 to know this - but this isn't the topic here.

When the teachers say that a certain child is - as I have recently heard from a teacher - 'the gayest kid ever', they are quite clearly not talking of sexualities whatsoever. They were not implying anything about the sexual practices of the particular 7 year old boy - instead, the teacher makes the potent conflation of sex/gender/sexuality.

In my time in schools, I have not once heard a teacher refer to any of her young female pupils as a big lesbian, certainly not the biggest lesbian ever. In only a handful of schools can I recall girls policing other girls so explicitly, using terminology of female homosexuality. It appears to be a phenomenon curiously weighted against male children that they must prove their straight sexuality, rather than have it presumed or rendered invisible, as with girls. The Gayest Kid Ever's gendered identity is only problematic because of his biological sex, and because of the 'asymmetry' between the two. Male (sex) children should act like boys (gender); sexuality is called into question for those who don't.

In terms of gender identity, the school and the playground are dangerous places for a boy in the process of constructing his sense of self, his subjectivity, in the situated context of the different masculine identities available to him. Most boys will play the game of masculinity. They will go out into the playground or sports field every lunchtime without fail for an hour of football: they might not be in the mood for it, it might have been played unfairly for years, they might want to do something else, they might (shock horror) dislike football, but most will still play. Not the Gayest Kid in the World though. Having seen the procession of injured peers pass by him, and witnessing the bullying and fights, he decides he'd rather have something else as a hobby. But if football is a site for the construction of masculinity, to be playing outside the touchlines positions the Gayest Kid in the World alongside the other excluded people - the girls, the younger kids, the women, the disabled and the bullied.

When a teacher says that a child is the Gayest Kid in the World, what I think they are trying to do is somehow 'apologize' for the gender of the child - the hushed-tones way in which the 'information' about these children is given to me, as an outsider, almost seems like I am being given a disclaimer. There isn't usually any overt malice, but the child is nonetheless barricaded into this paradoxical master status. The atypical gender performance of a 7 year old boy - be it through something as stereotypical as being 'overdramatic' or things like disliking football or being tactile - calls into question their sexuality (which is thought not to exist).

Nobody benefits from this. From being told about his 'gayness' I know nothing more about the child, other than that the teachers perceive him to be different enough from the rest of the boys that he warrants his own label. As male children (sex) who perform their gender differently by not behaving like the other boys (gender) are gradually pushed to the side and silenced, all that remains to be seen is a narrow vision of boys doing their gender 'properly'. These boys get into fights, argue, don't voice their frustrations except in outburst and the same teacher who would label the Gayest Kid in the World would explain away these conflicts with "Boys will be boys".

So long as teachers are complicit in constructing the one-sided battle between Real Boys and the Gay Kids, boys will be boys, but these boys might not want to be boys in this way. So long as schools perpetuate the heterosexual matrix, gender violence will be inflicted on their children.

Jack Straw, Pakistani Men and White Girls

Jack Straw has made headlines with the bold claim that Pakistani men sexually target vulnerable white girls in the UK as 'easy meat' as a result of the values of their cultural heritage. In the wake of the arrests of Abid Mohammed Saddique and Mohammed Romaan Liaqat, the 'ringleaders' in a gang of Pakistani men alleged to have befriended and groomed vulnerable 12-18 year old girls in Derby. He acknowledges that it is not a problem isolated to the Pakistani community, but goes on to state that there is a specific cultural problem emanating from the Pakistani cultural heritage.

I cannot accurately say whether he is right or wrong in his claim but it seems to me as though he has turned a sex issue into a race issue - is it that the exploitation of women is somehow a more worthy point of discussion if the women are presented through a racialised lens as the white victim? Different cultural backgrounds do inevitably carry different notions of masculinity and different views of women - social attitudes about the 'proper place' of women and the correct mode of man-wife relations will sculpt active lived behaviours.

Straw said "These young men are in a western society, in any event, they act like any other young men, they're fizzing and popping with testosterone, they want some outlet for that, but Pakistani heritage girls are off-limits and they are expected to marry a Pakistani girl from Pakistan, typically". Testosterone is here conflated with a heterosexual desire which needs to be dumped inside somebody for their own sake, before that 'fizzing and popping' explodes like a firework. The way Straw phrases it implies it is better for these men to use girls from Pakistani heritage as the outlet for their raging hormones, as though this is the proper order of things and it is only once this particular 'usage' of women affects white girls that it become exploitative and problematc.

A few days ago, Cameron stated that 'We should not be put off by cultural sensitivities or anything like that. Pursue the evidence, pursue criminality wherever it leads.'

It isn't a matter of being 'put off' by cultural sensitivities, as though the sole purpose of them is to obstruct 'normal' culture - this statement betrays a rhetoric of cultural blindness which though it may appear egalitarian, serves to reiterate the white native cultural imperative.

What about the normalised practices of gender which don't activate cultural sensitivities? Jack Straw speaks of older Pakistani men plying vulnerable white teenagers with gifts as part of their racialised grooming ritual but is it much better to locate your 'easy meat' straining to hold herself up in a bar or club?

Walk Straight

About growing up to be a man

Watch the way you walk, my boy
And straighten up your style.
A feeble posture may well foster
Talk about you child.

First of all let down that smile
The muscles of your cheeks fall down;
You will not convince anyone
Unless you wear a frown.

And when you pass another man
It's vital you ensure
Your eyes don't meet, so watch your feet
And stare straight at the floor.

Don't let your head tilt either side
But stiffen up your neck
And keep it straight, anticipate
You keep yourself in check.

Knuckle up those slender hands
Contort your fingers into fists
Perform your power, make them cower
Wield your manhood from those wrists.

Puff up your chest and soldier on
Deeply gorge on each inhale
In through the nose, and you'll impose
A quite convincing male.

Do not allow, at any cost
To snakelike-wind your hips
But trudge with force and this, of course
Ranks high among my tips.

The length of every manly step
Should roughly be the same.
A lengthy stride, feet parted wide,
And you should meet your aim.

Go placidly amid the boys
And you'll be weak and mild.
Go forcefully, walk straight and frown
And be a man, my child.

by Jonny Walker

What is my gender?

I have few doubts about my sex; upon my last inspection, and in line with all previous examinations, I was undeniably male. But my gender has been proving more difficult to 'classify', not that I want specifically to compartmentalise my identity - it would just be interesting to think about it.

My dissertation is going to be a look at the embodiment and performance of masculinities and opportunities of subverting and transcending the gender order - among primary school children. I will be doing this through observation, classroom activities, group discussions and individual interviews. I can't wait.

The stage I'm in now though is the meaty substantial theoretical overview and literature review which is taking me on a grand tour of Foucault, Judith Butler, Elizabeth Grosz, RW Connell and a whole range of other writers for whom I have to devote around an hour to get through a paragraph. But by god is it interesting, and by god is it making me question the fragile nature of my own gender identity.

So. What is my gender?

I have phrased this question in a different way once before: am I bitch or butch? Ignoring the horribleness of this phrase, it does capture this strange non-understanding of my self in how I am perceived sexually by others. I find it quite hard to gauge whether I am perceived to be 'masculine' by any of the many standard definitions. I'm under no delusions that I am a brooding Clint Eastwood type, or a muscular man-mountain, or a bloke, or a lad. When it comes to 'man points', I would score quite low. I don't like beer. I don't like football. I think Jeremy Clarkson is a xenophobic twat. I don't care about cars. I don't have many straight male friends.

These traits are some which fall within the brackets of 'hegemonic masculinity' - that is, the behaviours, interests and so on, which are seen to be the accepted 'norm' within our society for a man to possess. I don't match them at all.

But then again, I don't see myself as particularly feminine. I may not like beer, but I like cider and am a god of vodka. I may not care about cars, but when I cycle, I am prone to dropping the c-bomb at any driver who kindles my road rage. I wear a tracksuit... OK, clearly I am finding it harder than I thought to list my masculine traits.

If I was to list aspects of my self which are not typically masculine, I would find it far easier. The majority of my friends are female. I am good with kids. I study sociology, and have studied languages and literature. I once shrieked with joy because I saw a boy-duck chasing a girl-duck on the lawn outside my room in college. I sing a lot, often wearing very little. I've been told I am camp.

Funny as this might sound, I have never once seriously considered myself to be feminine. I have always been quite self-aware but I have clearly held on to a quite self-serving notion of manhood which has insulated me against any transgender leanings. My sort of masculinity is the sort that can read a poem out loud effectively, or which relishes in telling stories. I have always considered it masculine to do well in school; which was handy, what with me being such a pasty-faced, homework-doing obedient and pliable milksop. Even in my now dormant relationships with girls, I considered it more masculine to be caring and sensitive, rather than to look forward to ploughing her.

I guess my gender quandary comes about because of the way in which I have deployed 'masculinity' as though it was an empty word, wholly decontextualised, in order to legitimate my existing behaviours, proclivities and interests.

A really interesting aspect of what I have been reading and researching is theorising 'the body'. A lot of recent feminist work has focused on the perceptions, deployment, modification, commodification, adornment and identification with the body. Something I have found particularly engaging was Arthur W. Frank's work on 'bodily use in action' and the different ways one can relate to one's own body. I don't really appreciate it enough to blog about it yet, but will do shortly. Instead, I'll just talk about my body a bit. One thing I do remember from Frank's work is the notion of a 'mirroring body', which is the relationship whereby your relationship with your body is largely visual. You see your body as a vessel, as something observable, to be controlled and sculpted, made to react, made to perform. It is interested in the external. This is the part that pre-occupies me. My perception of my body is based upon how I perceive others perceive it - which is difficult. If ever you see me contorted and in need of help when I'm on my bike, it will be because I am attempting - again - to see what my legs and arse look like from behind whilst cycling.

I am 6 foot 2, which certainly helps me to put up at least a weak veneer of masculinity, if only because there aren't many Amazonian six foot women about. Six foot ought to be the preserve of the masculine body, but I still feel I would fall short if I was striving to put forward the hegemonic body. I am not imposing as a person, but for quite a while through my teenage years, I thought that my body was. From what I can gather, it wasn't. I don't have a dominating physical presence - I notice this mostly when children laugh at me when I try and discipline them, even though I cast a shadow over their entire body when I stand.

Is it the body itself, or how you adorn it that sculpts its gendered reception? I feel different when I think my body looks different - for example, I went out cycling last night in a sporty garb of tracky bottoms, trainers, sports jacket. I looked more convincingly 'masculine' than my attire usually presents - and I felt it too, I felt as though people passing me by were receiving me in a different way. Without wanting to turn this into a soft-porn fiction though, I got back from the bike ride and stripped off for the shower and saw myself in the mirror. Naked, I noticed that despite the height, despite the cock, lack of breasts etc I have quite a feminine shape. I have a really pronounced curvature in my lower back. Interesting.

I feel little closer to understanding my gender - society says feminine, brain and body say masculine.

Let's fly back briefly into childhood. As I mentioned, my dissertation is going to be looking at the performance of gender in primary schools, so a lot of my reading has focused upon gender, identity and sexualities in both the primary and secondary school spaces. This has brought back a lot of memories, some of them quite painful, relating to my gendered self in its emerging state.

One thing I had forgotten completely, and was surprised it came back, was that in Year 7 I did a gifted and talented art project for a week, which involved a visiting sculptor coming in and working with selected pupils from 3 or 4 different secondary schools. Five were chosen from my school and I was the only boy. I remember that the majority of students from other schools were boys, and I remember also that I stuck with the girls from my own school. I remember hearing the boys from other schools ridiculing me every single day, and I remember doing nothing about it. I remember on one day, one of them shouting from one side of the room to the other - "Oy Jonny, are you gay? Are you actually gay?" Naturally, no teachers intervened on this one. I felt victimised, but more than anything, I was left wondering how they could tell. How, after not having even spoken to me, could they make such an observation?

And a few more, since this is basically the therapy I can't afford. I remember one maths lesson, when my weak weak masculinty shines out like a permissive beacon of timidity. The teacher was talking, and this boy - a 'hardo’ (what I would today call a heteronormative hegemon or something like that) – he just got up out of his chair, walked across the classroom, leant over me and reached into my school bag and took a packet of crisps out of it, and walked back to his chair and started eating them. Then he looked over at me and crushed them. I did absolutely nothing. My coping mechanism (well, mechanism) was to ignore it – guided maybe by the logic of the milksop “It takes a bigger man to walk away”. Many many more like that. A boy stamped on my shin, intentionally, in a PE lesson – the PE teacher saw it but ignored it, I did nothing but try and hold back the tears.

The weird thing; I didn’t think then, and don’t now, that I was bullied. I know the kids who got bullied and I was fine compared to them. What I went through was just the daily grind of any body which doesn’t ‘fit’ the mould of being a ‘boyo’ or whatever. I wasn’t victimised, relatively. The boys who had it worst must have endured a living hell.