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Summary Of Butler Purports, By William Butler

1145 Words5 Pages

Butler’s account of gender differs from the traditional essentialist accounts of gender which are rooted in one’s supposed biological sex, by arguing that the traditional essentialist account is oppressive as it forces individuals to identity as either male or female and this in turn represses desires, actions, thoughts and the way of living of the individuals; these do not correspond with the assigned sex or gender (Butler 279). The result of this oppression is the normalized binary gender classifications that are believed by the society at large to align with the biological sex. Biological sex as Butler purports is also socially constructed, implying that in the view of gender performativity, the social construction of what is presupposed …show more content…

The individual in this case goes against the binary classifications of gender by being in a position to resist or rather contest what has been established as social roles that the society expects from him or her. For instance, the case of a woman engaging in roles that have been socially constructed as masculine, implying that they should be performed by men such as driving in Saudi Arabia. The woman demonstrates subversive performance, because according to the Saudi Arabia society, driving in public should be performed by men. Subversive reflects the extent of the imitative structure through which the hegemonic gender is produced and disputes the claims made by heterosexuality on the originality and naturalness. However, subversion that takes place through performance is not an easy process neither is it automatic; for instance an individual waking up in the morning and deciding the gender that he or she will adopt for the day; this would imply the commodification of gender, which does not exist. The notion of subversion is that the formation of individuals presupposes gender in a specific manner, because gender is not chosen and gender performativity is not a radical occurrence of voluntarism. Gender perfomativity aligns with the repetition and most especially the repetition of the painful and oppressive gender customs. In this regard, telling whether something is subversive is not easy because subversiveness is not an object that can be measured or calculated, but rather one that needs to displace and mime the

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