Judith Butler

Butler rejects the idea of feminism as ‘identity politics’. Instead of defending and liberating
women as an identity group, Butler argues that feminism should engage in the subversion of
identity itself. As such Butler's theory of performativity is a part of the broader project of
‘Poststructuralist' feminism which sought to do away with identity politics of any kind.
‘Identity politics’ refers to the political movements that have developed in opposition to practices
that discriminate against and subordinate, a group of people on the basis of their particular
identity such as being black, being a women, being gay, being Muslim, being disabled and the
movement seeks recognition and respect for that identity, by developing solidarity and support
amongst the members of the identity group; and by defending the social, economic and political
interests of the members of this group. In the case of feminist identity politics, this means
celebrating ‘Women’ and things that are traditionally seen as ‘feminine’; seeking to develop
solidarity between women, working towards ‘global sisterhood’.
However the concept of identity politics has been challenged by many, including black women,
third world feminists and lesbian feminists who have argued that whilst feminist identity presents
itself as being for all women it has in fact been led and shaped by a particular group of women-
that is, white, western, middle-class, straight, women. And it has overlooked or misunderstood
problems faced by other specific groups of women.
Poststructuralist feminism argues for the abandonment of identity politics altogether and for the
destabilization of categories, including the category of ‘women’ itself. Butler’s theory of
performativity can be understood in the context of this poststructuralist feminism.
The theory of performativity, especially in the context of gender studies, is associated with US
philosopher Judith Butler. In her 1990 book ‘Gender Trouble’, Butler introduced the idea that
gender is ‘ performative’- that gender is produced as a reality through its repeated performance.
We experience gender as a concrete reality, as an indisputable fact, not because gender
difference is innate, divine law or physical necessity , but because gender roles are performed
and copied and repeated and have been repeated so many times and with such daily frequency
that we come to experience gender as a hard, inescapable, reality. Butler also added that ‘sex,
the supposedly ‘pre-cultural’ physical difference between men and women , is the effect not the
underlying cause of gender. Butler developed her theory of performativity as a response to
homophobia and the immense violence that it inflicts- which Butler refers to as the ‘regime of
compulsory heterosexuality’. By talking about gender as performative she aims not only to
describe the production of gender but also to identify practices through which the rules and
violence governing gender identity can be challenged.
Butler rejects the long established belief that sex is physical and inborn and gender is cultural.
Butler argues that gender is not the cultural expression of a biological, pre-cultural sex. Rather
the whole idea of biological sex-difference is an effect of gender performance. This is not to say
that sex-difference is not real, but that, it is a reality that has been created through the long and
enormous efforts of people playing their gender roles well, performing as though there was a
fixed biological sex-difference that divided all living bodies into just two categories (man and
woman) . Interestingly, this suggests that the idea of sex-difference (as a universal, fixed,
dualistic category of biological difference and cause of identity) is as open to transformation,
contestation and disruption as is gender.
It would be a mistake , however , to think of the performance of gender in terms of self-
conscious actors choosing their role and learning their lines. Rather the conscious actor, the doer
(that does the performing) is constituted in the act of performance. Performativity has an
‘iterative structure’. This means that all performances of gender repeat and imitate previous
performances. Our capacity to perform a gender derives from our experience of gender,
performances that we imitate. This means that how we do gender is not a matter of choice; we
can only imitate, what we have experienced before. Most importantly we cannot choose not to
perform. All performances of social life (performing human, performing citizen, performing
student, solider, technician, parent, paramedic……) are gendered. To participate in social life, to
be able to perform at all, we are forced to perform a gender.
However sometimes performance can also challenge mainstream, existing and normalized way
of doing things. Gender can be ‘misperformed’, we can perform our gender in ways that breaks
the rule of gender. Not only does this mean breaking the rules on a particular occasion; mis-
performance of gender can also upset the entire array of gender rules that we experience as
inescapable, or ‘ biological fact’. Performances of gender that challenge the gender shatter the
illusion that there are only two genders- man and woman – and leads to a recognition of the
great diversity of genders, sexualities, bodies and pleasure .
The belief that sex is the cause (rather than the effect) of gender has the powerful effect of
naturalising gender roles and forecloses all possibilities of thinking and recognizing the existence
of bodies that do not fall into the categories of men and women. Cross-dressing performances
mock ‘real’ gender performance and undermine the force of the gender norm, showing that
gender (and equally sex) is a matter of performance, not of fixed nature.

Critique
A fundamental problem that is posed by the rejection of identity politics is this: where does
agency come from, if not from the solidarity and ‘subjecthood' of the identity group? Indeed,
many have argued that the rejection of feminist identity politics altogether denies agency to
women. However Butler responds to this by saying that repetitive gender performances not only
help in consolidating the norms but may also result in subverting/challenging the norms. Just as
in the case of the term 'queer'. For long queer was sees as a pejorative term till it was reclaimed
as a term that was progressive, critical and creative and was worn with a sense of pride. Herein
lies the power of agency...