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Media Representations

Butler and gender performativity

  • 3 things to know
  • Components 1 and 2

Overview

Butler's first proposition on identity and butler's third proposition.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Key term

Explain Butler's claim about repetition, and distinguish performativity from a performance.

Key term

Which theorist argues that gender is performatively constructed?

Key term

State Butler's first proposition on identity.

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    Which theorist argues that gender is performatively constructed?

    Model answer

    Judith Butler makes that argument. Butler holds that identity is produced by the very expressions said to result from it.

  2. 2

    State Butler's first proposition on identity.

    Model answer

    Butler argued that identity is performatively constructed by the expressions said to be its results. Gender is manufactured through a set of acts.

  3. 3

    What does Butler say lies behind the expressions of gender?

    Model answer

    Butler argues that no gender identity sits behind the expressions of gender. The expressions are not the outward sign of an inner truth.

  4. 4

    State Butler's third proposition.

    Model answer

    Butler argued that performativity is a ritual repeated over time rather than one act. Repetition is what makes gender appear stable.

  5. 5

    Distinguish performativity from performance.

    Model answer

    A performance implies an actor who exists before the role. Performativity claims that the repeated acts bring the identity into being.

  6. 6

    Why does Butler describe gender as a ritual?

    Model answer

    Daily repeated acts of dress, speech and gesture reproduce gender. Ritual repetition hides the fact that gender is produced.

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