Submitted by Necessary_Tadpole692 t3_10x97jk in philosophy
ddrcrono t1_j7tojg5 wrote
I used to follow this sort of reasoning, but I've adjusted my position from "It's completely performative" to "A significant amount is performative."
My main issue with Butler's reasoning is that it, like a lot of philosophy, makes matters difficult for itself by being too ambitious. Much like the rationalists and empiricists argued that everything came from reason and experience respectively, arguing that every single matter of gender is performative puts an incredible burden on her case. Even a single compelling counter-example undermines the main claim. I want to emphasize, however, that this is an issue I find is broadly present in a lot of philosophy. Maybe it's just because people want to make bold and exciting claims. Or maybe you need to do that to get published. I'm not sure of the more practical considerations at play for these philosophers.
Anyway, as anyone who's not very dedicated to feminist ideology would see, my position here is very unambitious. I'm saying, essentially, that there are probably at least some aspects of gender/sex that aren't performative - learned from society, or so on.
What I would argue is pretty simple - because of some simple differences in men and women biologically, the greatest of which is childbirth, there has been a natural division of labour that's been present in nature since before we were even humans, and, over millennia that difference in division of labour has even caused us to evolve to have some biological differences (like how men tend to track motion better but women distinguish colour better. Differences in fat content and muscle mass, and so on).
I think that what likely happened is that these differences generally worked their way into our cultures and became exaggerated and stereotyped over time. I think the fundamental differences are more of a matter of convenience of division of labour that became exaggerated over time - and this is why you'll also see in certain society that gender roles can be quite different. There are some differences, but they're more subtle than most people who believe in them make them out to be. Societies are typically what exaggerate them.
Now if you want to get into semantics you could say that this practical division of labour is performative, but I would just say that I prefer to use the word practical because I think it's more indicative of what's really going on. Yes, people do perform to societal expectations, but people also make choices that are practical, and while that's less dramatic and interesting, I think it's at least part of the truth of the matter.
Overall I'm still quite amenable to the position that a significant amount of gendered behaviour is performative; I just think that saying that all of it is is getting overly ambitious.
InterminableAnalysis t1_j7u0ayo wrote
>because of some simple differences in men and women biologically, the greatest of which is chlidbirth, there has been a natural division of labour that's been present in nature since before we were even humans, and, over millenia that difference in division of labour has even caused us to evolve to have some biological differences
To be fair, Butler doesn't deny anything about the distribution of physical traits on bodies, but rather approaches the issue in terms of how an understanding and establishment of the concept of gender and sex are constituted within a culture.
>Yes, people do perform to societal expectations, but people also make choices that are practical, and while that's less dramatic and interesting, I think it's at least part of the truth of the matter.
The performative is not contrasted with the practical, and is also not equivalent to a performance. The operative word, "performative", comes from linguistics and denotes a speech act which, instead of describing something, instead causes an effect or makes some change in the world. An example Butler uses is that of a judge: a judge passes a sentence in a court of law by combining the authority given to them as having power over certain legal procedures with their linguistic capacity to communicate such a sentence, and thereby produces a performative utterance. But just as we wouldn't say that the judge thereby created their own authority or even the law, but are citing cultural conventions, so in the various acts constitutive of cultural conceptions of gender, one "cites" those conventions of gender. That's why, oddly enough, Butler's theory of performativity actually seems to agree with you when you say that we shouldn't go for the position that "it's all just performativity". The kind of freedom that Butler talks about in this regard is to realize that while we may be determined to some extent by our culture and its conventions, we aren't thereby fully determined.
>Overall I'm still quite amenable to the position that a significant amount of gendered behaviour is performative; I just think that saying that all of is is getting overly ambitious
I think the ambitiousness in Butler's work on gender has to do with its approach as, not just a sort of incremental/social theory of gender (which we can find similarly in de Beauvoir, for example), but its particular position on how various acts concerning an understanding and establishment of gender are necessarily tied to the past in a way in which gender, a social classification, comes to be seen as merely natural and original. Though I admit that some of the more mainstream misunderstandings of Butler's work are the overly ambitious kind that you mention.
ddrcrono t1_j7yaju5 wrote
My reply to this train of thought is that I would emphasize that I think that practical considerations are not always cultural / performative. Butler uses the example with the judge because her argument leans on the idea of social norms; that is not what I am talking about in my examples.
My line of argumentation is simply that one group of people is better suited to tasks than another for entirely practical, biological reasons.
At the most basic initial level this is in no way performative. It is very much the same as how someone with bigger muscle mass will end up lifting the heavy things and the short person will crawl into difficult to get into spaces. There is nothing of a performance in any sense of the word, merely people doing what they are naturally good at.
I want to re-emphasize that I am not arguing that she doesn't have a point in general. I think that small differences exist in nature and culture, which develops over time comes to emphasize those differences, and what Butler sees may be largely performative, but it is not entirely and solely performative, which is an incredibly difficult kind of case (the "all" structure of her argument, which I think may just be to seem controversial. She may not even truly believe it) to make for even the most modest of claims.
InterminableAnalysis t1_j81msve wrote
I apologize in advance for this sounding sarcastic, but I'm really not sure what it is you think Butler is talking about. Butler isn't talking about how physical traits make certain people more adapted to do certain tasks, so I'm not sure how you're addressing their arguments.
>It is very much the same as how someone with bigger muscle mass will end up lifting the heavy things and the short person will crawl into difficult to get into spaces. There is nothing of a performance in any sense of the word, merely people doing what they are naturally good at.
Note that Butler doesn't use the word performance, and this is important. "Performative" refers to an act which produces a series of effects. In a way, a person lifting a box is a performative act, but it is not necessarily a performance. And Butler doesn't argue that people are performing their gender, but that gender is constituted on performative acts that are essentially non-private.
>what Butler sees may be largely performative, but it is not entirely and solely performative, which is an incredibly difficult kind of case (the "all" structure of her argument, which I think may just be to seem controversial. She may not even truly believe it) to make for even the most modest of claims.
Note that Butler does in fact believe that this performative structure is pervasive, but is also arguing this on the basis of a particular cultural phenomenon, not an all-encompassing concept of gender. The point is that gender identity, as a classification, is essentially a public thing and so is something imposed on people, but not simply or solely imposed, as it is possible to break away from cultural conventions with whatever limited success.
I just want to emphasize two points, since I've been frequently recalling them in this thread and it seems clear that many commenters here are attributing positions to Butler that Butler does not in fact hold:
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Butler is talking about identity, not some trivial form of classification that biologists (for example) construct in order to indifferently talk about certain things. Butler doesn't deny that bodies come with certain physical traits and properties and that these physical traits and properties effect how people are perceived, how they act, etc. What Butler is saying is that, insofar as this physical dimension contributes to an understanding of gender/sex identities, it is a social construction (= decided on in a public context, it does not mean that these classifications are simply fake). But identity is established socially, so that it moves into the everyday (into relations with family, coworkers, friends, strangers). Any analysis of gender that ignores the various ways that it is constituted is not a good analysis, and insofar as scientists are also people living in a society, they also have a pre-scientific understanding of gender which informs their inquiry.
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Performativity is not performance. Butler is not saying that we go out every day and simply act out our gender as though it were a garb one wears or a role one plays on a stage. The term "performative" comes from linguistics and denotes a speech act which, instead of merely describing something, creates an effect. "Open the door" is a performative utterance. On this basis, Butler proposes that gender is a performative phenomenon since, as social system of classification, it is constituted and established in various acts (not only linguistic) which solidify a conceptual determination as if it were an inherent identity (e.g., there is a difference between saying "this person has manly features" and "this person is a man inherently, and expresses manly features due to that fact").
IrisMoroc t1_j7tvusw wrote
>arguing that every single matter of gender is performative puts an incredible burden on her case.
The simplest explanation is that she believes humans are born as blank slates, nature plays zero role in "gender", and that it's all performative. It's all goofy nonsense. It literally rejects all that we know about biology.
It's also operating on a naive mind/body dualism funny enough. It seems to assume that biology would play no role in our personalities which is just wrong. Butler should have done more reading on biology and less on sociology.
But she and her adherents do literally zero testing of their theories ("feminists release groundbreaking new study" is a headline you'll never hear), and tend to make very bold very ambitious claims that are also hopelessly vague. Rather than proving their theories, they go about attacking and shaming people for not believing them. It allows them to never have to interact with reality.
HoneydewInMyAss t1_j7v10cd wrote
Lol, groundbreaking feminist studies are published everyday, you kinda showed your cards with that statement.
It's obvious that you don't know what you're talking about, and that you just have some weird issue with women.
Judith Butler represents one iteration of feminist theory. Grind your axe somewhere else.
ddrcrono t1_j7yb5d8 wrote
I don't agree with the commenter's approach here, but I've also taken a feminist philosophy class, well before the current age where people are much more willing to defend minor disagreements to the death and even then I got the sense that too many difficult or pointed questions were not overly welcome.
I've also noted that feminists who fall out of line with some of the more popular pillars of modern feminist thought/who are critical of it get ostracized for their differences.
This isn't my main area of study, but I find that it is the area of study where people are the most sensitive and questions are the least welcome, which is particularly unusual in philosophy. I can see why some people are frustrated with the state of things even if they express themselves in a way that makes it difficult to take them seriously.
The people who would make more reasonable, moderate level-headed criticisms are likely too afraid to.
ddrcrono t1_j7yas5x wrote
While I think it's easy to provide at least one example to undermine her argument, it is equally easy to provide examples to undermine all / mostly nature arguments. It isn't that the idea of culture/performance is bad, it's the idea that literally every single thing is that I find to be overly tenuous.
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