Performing Gender

Reading Judith Butler's article, I was reminded of the photo of Wolfflin in his study, contemplating a photo, with a classical statuette on his table. This picture is featured in the Juliette Koss article, "On the Limits of Empathy", and of it Koss says "Wolfflin likewise had allowed for a very particular viewer: a cultivated and sensitive individual whose soul might be transported by an exalted experience of art. While never explicitly described, the empathetic viewer was implicitly a man of property whose identity was destabilized within the confines of a relatively private realm, carefully circumscribed by the laws of decorum and propriety." In other words, an educated, elite, white, male, and furthermore, a male who has set the cultural agenda. It is a relief to finally have another perspective, and Butler's article is a fascinating look at the idea that gender is a cultural construct, a role that we play within a society.

Butler describes gender as different from biological sex, or in other words, female as different from woman. I understand that society dictates how men and women should perform their roles, but to a certain extent, biology IS destiny. The act of bearing and raising a child has a huge impact on a woman's identity, and the choices she has to make (or can't make). While I agree with much of what Butler says, I don't think it is possible to completely separate the biological body we are born with from the roles we play in society. Butler says that the body is a mode of embodying possibilities, but I think that the possibilities are in fact limited by that very body; skin color, genetic defects or perfections of health and beauty, and of course the aging process, all dictate what is possible for us. Not every body can do every thing, and what the individual body can do changes over time. We make choices about how to "perform" based on the body we have, like it or not. Butler specifically addresses the role of women, but of course men have to perform roles as well, and as she says "those who fail to do their gender right are regularly punished." I would add that we are lucky to be living in a fairly liberal time and place, with a greater tolerance for variation than many past and indeed current cultures.

The suggestion that "the body is known through its gendered appearance" I don't think is literally true; in our society, I am allowed to dress exactly like a man, in jeans, T-shirt, and hiking boots, say, and still be perceived as a woman, partly because I clearly have a female body under the clothing. In my case, clothing does not make the man.

In the section on binary genders and "the heterosexual contract", I do have some disagreement with Butler. Across most species, heterosexual sex IS necessary for reproduction, and humans share a powerful sex drive with all other living beings - like breathing and eating, it is necessary for the continuation of life. Butler contends that the incest taboo promotes a heterosexual agenda, but I think the incest taboo is really more about preserving a healthy gene pool. An article in the SF Chronicle this morning was about how more and more elephant seals are displaying genetically caused deformities because they went through a genetic bottleneck. (They were hunted to the brink of extinction, fewer than 20 were left by the end of the 19th century, and all 150,000 of todays elephant seals are descended from those 20 ancestors.) I do agree of course, that many, if not most, societies have looked unkindly on homosexuality, for whatever reason, and that it is just as "natural" as heterosexuality.

Performing ones gender wrong exacts subtle and not so subtle punishments from society, and as a woman with an aging body, I find it is becoming harder to perform "femininity",
and that in some ways I have become invisible. I am often happiest when I am off the stage, alone outside, with no human gaze upon me, truly invisible.

So - I agree that gender is an ongoing performance, but I don't think it can be extricated from biological, cultural, familial, or any number of other roles that we are cast in by accident of birth.