A Study On Judith Butler’s Theory Of Gender Performativity

Judith Butler is the founder of post feminism, represents the latest research on feminist studies, gender studies and queer theory fields. Especially the theory of gender performativity that she proposed, with a strong vitality and prospective, caused a great repercussions in the feminism fields. This paper around the gender performativity is divided into the following four parts:The first parts:The theoretical basis of gender performativity. The word"Performativity", related to these aspects:the philosorhy of language, repetition and citation of discourse, power discourse. Originated from Austin’s speech act theory, Austin thinks that,language are performatives which can encourage people to action. So, first investigated speech act theory, then investigated Derrida’s absorption and subversion about Austin’s theory, and he proposed a theory of language about repetition and citation. The last investigated Foucault’s discourse theory. And also focus on the Freud’s psychoanalysis theory and Lacan’s theory of subject formation.The second parts:Genealogy criticism—proposed gender performativity. Butler’s critical strategies—genealogy criticism are highly destructive and subversive, which came from Nietzsch and adapted from Foucault. First, butler criticized subject/women which as a basis for feminist theory and movement. Second, she criticized the debate of essentialisim and constructivism, as well as the consistency of sex/gender/sexuality, proposed a subversive conclusion:sex was cultural construction, found the compulsory heterosexuality was the operating menchanism behind sex. Last, she criticized the stability of gender/identity, which shakes the stability between them.The third parts:The theory framework of gender performativity, this is the core part of the paper, which is divided into three parts:First of all, the connotation of gender performativity. Mainly from three aspects:the first, gender performativity is a speech act; the second, no subject before gender performativity; the third, the theatrical dimension of gender performativity. Secondly, gender performativity—body’s performance, to investigated the relationship between gender performativity and body, also three parts:the first, Body inscription? Butler put forward the idea of body; the second, materiality of body and gender performativity; the third, political subversion of body, which emphasized on the subversiveness of body performance to the hegemony mechanism. Last, gender performativity—doing gender, which emphasized on the discuss about gender performativity is not only in theory, but also connected with daily life, undoing gender can also be regarded as the purpose of gender performativity. Also three parts: the first, the voice of sex minority, which discussd the living conditions of sex minority; the second, dispel the gender norms. Against the gender norms, proposed the significance of undoing gender; the third, undoing gender: collaborative performances, reflection on the collaborative performances between individual and the norms, the individual and the groups.The forth parts:Influence and critical practice of gender performativity theory, from which the perspective of gender performativity theory impact on the Queer Movement, as well as analysis of queer film, discussing the critical practice.