Judith Butler

• Judith Butler criticised the “restricted meaning of gender to received notions of masculinity and femininity”. Gender goes beyond those traditional binary definitions.
• Since gender is performed, the “bodily gestures, movements and styles” that are used to signify gender identities will be determined by the ideology and customs of that particular society. They can change based on historical and cultural context
• Many theorists believe we are not born with a gender. We learn the roles through the imitation and repetition of behaviour we see, for example, on television and in our social media feeds.
• Butler compared gender to a social drama. In their analogy, men and women are the protagonists in the narrative and we are all expected to perform our roles.
• If you change the script, the new story is “recirculated” through society and the gender identity is revised. For instance, if lots of young boys started wearing dresses tomorrow, our view of what is normal will begin to change.
• Butler concluded gender is not a stable signifier but is “open to intervention and resignification” - gender is a social construct, or performative.
• 'Like a girl' -  denigrates women because it suggests they are weak and ineffectual. Can impact young girls confidence and identity. (real world example)
• Judith Butler compared two French feminists and their thoughts on gender. Luce Irigaray - claimed there was only a masculine identity which “elaborates itself in and through the production of the ‘Other’”. Monique Wittig - argued only the feminine identity was defined because the masculine remained “unmarked and synonymous with the ‘universal’”.
• french theorists - Although these two critical perspectives seem very different, they are both based on the structuralist concept of binary opposition. (can only be described in contrast to one another)