Gender Performance
The research shows that the traditional gender which groups people, say, women with common interests and characteristics, performs an unwitting reification and regulation of gender relations (Taylor 200418-23). This further reinforces the binary view of gender relations in which human beings are grouped into clear cut groups such as women and men. Butler points out that rather than gender performance open up possibilities for people to form and choose their own individual identity, it in very flexible terms confine the action of the people within the provision of the culture (Butler 1990 23-29). This paper seeks to examine Butlers argument that gender is culturally constructed with the original intention disputing that biology is destiny formulated with a succinct reference to EduardStella performance of gender.
Understanding Gender Performance
Butler notes that feminists strongly rejected the idea that biology is destiny formulated in the view of gender, but subsequently developed an account of patriarchal culture, which assumed that feminine and masculine representation of man and woman would inevitably be built by gender, which in the end makes the entire concept of destiny as inescapable (Butler 199015-23). The evidence of historical and anthropological positions that understand gender as a relation among culturally and socially constituted subjects lies within the precincts of specifiable contexts.
In other words, as Gauntilet concludes, rather than gender being a fixed attribute in the person, it should be understood as a fluid variable with the ability to shift and change in different contexts and times (Gauntilet 200212-17). For instance, the very fact that sometimes women and men say that they feel more like their opposite gender, shows an experience of a gendered cultural identity that denies the prepositions of gender being biologically destined.
In addition to this, certain cultural configurations of gender have captured a very hegemonic perspective. In other words, these cultural orientations of gender have come to seem natural in our culture as it is present today. Butler suggests that gender troubles associated with subversive action are relevant in the mobilization, subversive confusion and proliferation of genders through the whole question of struggling with identity (Butler 199031-36). As a case in point, Santiago highlights how gender trouble works in cultural constructions (Santiago 1994 23-29). Stella, an exuberant, beautiful and sensuous woman is ready to explore herself in what she calls, taking New York by storm. Understanding that she is beautiful, she spends her time picking up men and shooting the breeze. However, Stella does this only at night and on weekends but during weekdays, she changes her identity to Eduard, a clerk at a Brazilian consulate. All these predispose that her gender performance is inquires into the question of gender trouble as indicated in the struggles to establish her identity.
In a recent survey, it is apparent that we all put on a gender performance, whether in tacit or explicit ways, traditional or not and, therefore, choosing to be different about our gender is analogous to changing gender norms, and, thus, resulting in the binary understanding of gender in the light of masculinity and femininity (Gauntilet 2002 32-39).
However, Butler underscores that gendered productions demonstrates the extent, to which issues of gender can be performed independently as ones biological sex (Butler 199025-41). For instance, sex and gender match in a reflection of what is understood to mean unshakable conviction. For example, EduardStella performance of gender combines a sexual intrigue with social and political orientations. In her two identities, Stella is feminine and becomes masculine when she doubles upon as Eduard (Santiago 1994 31-37). This dual existence of gender is a performance that concisely that disputes the notion that gender is biology destined or formed. Furthermore, gender performance is argued to take the dimension of passing as the embodiment of ones new gender.
Whilst the study focused explicitly on gender as construed in light of sex, Taylor contend that transsexual makeovers are gender performances indicators that conforms to a system that insists on being either male or female, but which must not go passed the mindsets of doing certain duties as prescribed by the society (Taylor 200445-51).In the case of EduardStella, the applicability of gender performance as a concept, has been previously considered that transsexual members in the society are not the only ones who summon the courage to by pass the societal expectations in how people of certain gender should be viewed.
Gender Polarization
It is appreciated that the factor of male or female genitalia counts heavily on the identification of gender and influences its performance. For example, Eduard Stella was forced at least culturally to dress, walk, speak and run as a woman, and that is why she performed gender roles of a woman during the weekends and at night and still operated like Eduard, a man, during the weekday. The predominance in the performance leaned on the masculine side thus, terming StellaEduard case as homosexual. This factor is culturally a taboo and thus gave EduardStella no piece of mind or leeway to do as he pleases.
Gender polarization appears to expand the question of biological difference to the extend that men and women are inevitably vulnerable to the feeling that their femaleness or maleness can not be taken for granted but must instead be accomplished, worked at or protected from loss through misbehavior within the parameters of culture and society. The strength of such an approach, according to Butler, rests on the understanding that gender performance is not a natural or historical behavior but it is an effect of gender polarization (Butler 199046-51). Taylor further assert that gender is displayed in reaction to the structural demands of patriarchy in the society (Taylor 2004 25-32). Such a phenomenon exclusively relies on the elements of distinguishing men from women. As a result, gender performances are part of these elements which borders the provinces of cultural demands.
Large bodies of research into the issue of gender and gender performances portend that to gender, biological sex is socially and culturally constructed (Gauntilet 200237-43). Butler reinforces this argument by posing that discourse of gender hides the discursively of sex by constituting gender as culturally produced. Thereby, gender performance is a discursive apparatus embedded in culture. A stating point for analyzing gender performance begins with eschewing gender as stable trait. However, Taylor outlines that looking at gender performance requires examining genders continual production (Taylor 200476-81). With regard to this, gender construction is never finalized nor done. For example, like EduardStella, one may knock a door like a man and enter a room like a woman but to continue being like a woman or man, it is imperative that one must continue displaying cues that signify woman or man.
Rationale of Gender Performance
The theories of gender according to Butler question the conception of gender as a natural order (1990 112-117). The relevance of gender in the contemporary culture is evident in the roles expected of both men and women. For instance, women and men have different reproductive strategies in the question of biology. However, in the dimension of culture and gender performance, men are expected to court, propose, woo, seduce and on a lighter note, it is men who rape. This contrasts sharply with the genetic inheritance where women have the best chance of choosing whom to copulate with and get children. In a cultural outlook, gender performance is evident in the fact that women have been construed to be adaptive and therefore, they resist courtships in order to evoke a more competitive display among the men. In other words, sexual activity and the attendance free floating lust are looked at in the lens of gender performance, as a cultural orientation that presents men as adaptive in their roles.
According to Butler, gender roles and performance is more classified and keenly looked at in terms of moral preferences (1990123-129). The biological conception of gender, which is static, tasks both male and female as agents of reproduction and can succeed in projecting copies of their genes into the future. On the contrary, Gauntilet argues that this can not be construed as gender because, gender performances determines the male success as typically achieved by effective competition, while female success rest on the paradigms of relationships (200256-62).
As a result, for masculinity, morality is at its ideal and alluring when its is a morality of justice, and the theoretical principle that places restraints upon aggressiveness, competition and self serving tendencies are cultural constructions that are dynamic and subject to change within the parameters of technological advancement and education in developing communities. For femininity, gender performance is a moral obligation which is suffused with images of relationships and caring for others all pictured in emotions and affective approaches. Taylor (2004 87-93) therefore, summarizes that gender performance of morality is an ethic of inhibiting ones nasty self among the men and releasing of the caring self among the females.
Perhaps, the most intriguing question that holds the perspective of gender as culturally constructs is whether thee issue in sexual roles is an anachronistic biology. Butler (1990156-161) explains that the contemporary aggression is how cultural evolution has extended this instinct. For example, when Eduard father was embarrassed by his sons homosexuality, he employed every tactic including using the contact of his friend Colonel Vianna to get Eduard a job in the Brazilian consulate but the contemporary evolution as pictured up above leads to the colonel turning out to be gay and extending the web of homosexuality with Eduard.
Gender Performance and Civilization
The new civilized form of societies tend to have more complex social and political structures that create newer possibilities of indefinite social expansions, which comes fore in the constructions of gender roles. Gauntilet (200245-51) outlines that in the events of all this, more and more people are organized into a more territory with their lives revolving around the inevitable limit of their gender performances placed on by culture. These civilized societies however, through the eminent lack of inherent values and the possibility of liberalism, they allow themselves to grow to encounter new external limits in forms of one another. Accordingly, this overarching power holds them in the light of choosing what is appropriate to their life and somehow deviates from the traditional expectation of societys gender performance.
In a more subtle approach, gender performance is a phenomenon that is continually shaped by varied factors such as interaction forces, psychological appreciation, and time. A recent study postulates that as people stepped outside the threshold into civilization, they inadvertently stumbled in a chaotic niche with regard to gender performance (Taylor 2004127-131).The relations among societies are virtually controlled and they are dependant on ungoverned systems that impose unchosen necessities.
On the other hand, the gender issue as underscored by Butler (199063-69), tries to understand the question that if gender is constructed, could its construction be different or does it imply certain forms of social determinism. It is beyond any reasonable doubt that succumbs to the eminent possibilities of agency and transformation. Social constructions therefore, engender people thus deriving this feature from cultural compulsions in which gender is constructed along the same binary distinction as sex. Significantly, the seemingly inevitable mirroring between sex and gender arises from necessity intelligibility in cultural contexts. For example, intelligible genders are those which in certain senses institute and maintain the relations of continuity, coherence among desires, sex and sexual practices as evidenced in the attempt of EduardStella to maintain homosexuality and thereby achieve high state of success by getting himself members.
In addition to this, the cultural matrix, through which the identity of gender has become intelligible does not follow from the practices of desire or sex from male or female. According to Taylor (200489-94), these matrix of culture regulates our engendered identities thus, acting as an intricate web of cultural and social assumptions. For instance, a socially acknowledged acceptance becomes deeply rooted as a set of knowledge that we as individuals assumes to know about ourselves and these forms our gender identities. In Stella Manhattan, a political Eduard finds himself sucked into the partisan violence in his country involving the communist who believe he is working for the right and the American who think he is aligned to the left a factor that leaves him trapped such that he can not go back to brazil neither can he stay in New York.
The passionate attachment to the same sex is held on the idea of Butler (199091-97) as enclosed in the radical sense of something which does not positively exist or was perhaps excluded from the very beginning. As a result, the sexual differences between male and female does not in any way pose problems of gender identity and argued to be the primary guarantor of loss of peoples psychic lives. Sexual differences can be slightly or crudely equated with the heterosexual symbolic clause that determine what it is to be a man or a woman. Although to some existent, the sexual difference can not be transposed, or symbolized into a symbolic unit, it entirely fixes the subjects sexual identity thus playing a significant role in guiding the gender performance of an individual within the milieu of a culture.
From Stella Manhattan, the construction of gendered identity is fascinating. Santiago (1994 76-82) shows in precisely how the plurality of sexual preference and gendered identity are not only constructed culturally but also shaped by a n individual persons mindset. The binary of masculine and feminine in this view clarifies what is the fundamental principle in gender performance. As such harmony against the conflict as well as the violence of self becomes a considerable factor in the entire question of gender and gender identity. An image which in a dream forms the message of Stella Manhattan story, StellaEduard reacts ambiguously against the categorization of gender and indeed towards the act of gender identification. He is a character that render both his masculine and feminine gender both position and essence and hence his gender draws attention to identity and gender performance as apparent in his homosexuality episodes.
Moreover, the strategies used to construct gender are to some extent fuelled by political manifestations. These strategies eventually gender identity and performance are construed and ultimately deployed within the system of power relation. Towards e end of the story, Santiago gives the reader a sense of a characters dual existence fostered by political situations and to the best of all StellaEduard has his own agenda as he grows more and more frantic and finally one day disappears. This character lives her life on her own terms which shed some light into the issue of gender performance in the context of New Yorks vibrant and chaotic Brazilian community in the early sixties (Santiago, 1994117-124).
It is argued widely that gender is synonymous to sex to the extent that societal expectations are factored in. In the twenty first century, ways of thinking about gender and sexuality are bound to dramatically change and pose a considerable impact on identity and gender performance. In essence liberalism, influence of the media and permissiveness in the society is going to strongly facilitate the growing schemas about the alteration of gender and gender performance which will eventually facilitate what is considered as the acceptable behaviors and roles of a man. This is even on course as Butler (1990203-212) explains that today, the distinction sex in the paradigms of biology as well as the socio-cultural man and woman is normative as gender performance is left largely on the determination of individual persons. In addition gender performances are negotiated due to multicultural diversity explains the emanating difference are dispatched and homogenized without ever dwelling on the profound implications of traditional community specific cultures.
Various scholars have worked out their arguments of gender performance and identity and have given their varied position on the question as a cultural inscription that declines the possible destined relationship with biology. From the forgoing discussion, it is evident that layers of gender performances continue to be changed through the fluidity and permeable boundaries in the digital age. In these terms, gender performance can be seen as a set of stylized gender identities in the cultural regulations that societies as well as individuals use as blue prints to adhere to in a bid towards constructing their intelligible selves. In other words gender is a performance that is confined to what an individual does at a particular time rather than who an individual is. Therefore, it is safe to outline that gender performances and gender issues are flexible, free-floating and not caused by other stable factors such as biology and genetic hereditary.
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