Butler’s theory of performativity provides a highly deconstructive approach to analysing gender identities and gender relations (1990). Butler, like de Beauvoir, sees gender as a social construction but, where de Beauvoir clearly distinguishes between gender and sex which she sees as fixed and naturally-occurring (inasmuch as men are male and women are female), Butler makes no such distinction. Butler describes gender as “the repeated stylisation of the body, a set of repeated acts within a highly rigid regulatory frame that congeal over time to produce the appearance of substance, of a natural sort of being” (1990: p45). These three points, performativity, intersubjectivity and gender construction, have been drawn together to
construct a methodology in which to show how women who suffer domestic abuse are part of repeated stylisations of the body in the context of repeated acts of male violence explored in this study. The regulatory framework is the element of coercive control in which men display violent behaviours with little reproach.
Within such regulatory frameworks, gender is not something one is but something one does. In an ethnographic study, what someone does, how someone lives, acts, exists, is key to understanding the individual or cultural standpoint. However, Butler disputes the notion that there is a ‘doer’ behind the deed as the gendered person only comes into existence through the performative acts. Rather than this bringing my methods into tension, what ethnography and the performative act functioned to do was make explicit the performative nature of participants’ identities and situate them within the cultural world they occupy. Butler sees these acts as dictated by normative gender expectations to such a degree that the performative aspect of gender is effectively hidden behind the unconscious element of the acts. Butler distinguishes between the unconscious aspect of performativity and ‘performance’ which is a conscious act that an individual (such as an actor) enters into voluntarily. Butler sees gender as pre-existing the physical body, therefore, the category of sex is already pre-determined by gendered cultural practices. In other words “there is no sex that is not always already gender” (Salih, 2002: p55). Many of the literature review findings in chapter two are summed up in this singular sentence. Thus, Butler articulates sex as a constructed and, therefore, political category (Lloyd, 2007). The key aspect of performativity is its emphasis on repetitious acts as it is in these acts (on which it depends) that cultural norms are reinforced, indeed, enforced. In Gender Trouble
Butler saw the repetitious element of performativity as having the potential to produce change. In order to maintain social order, cultural practices must be repeated again and again. However, over time, these repetitious acts are never performed identically but with slight variations which, although almost imperceptible at the time, accumulate to produce new cultural
practices: “regulatory regimes are sustained by reiteration. Reiteration lends itself to resignification. Resignification can lead to reconfiguration of the norms governing society” (Lloyd, 2007: p75). Thus, Butler’s theory of performativity is politically subversive in its ability to both reproduce and contest accepted practices (Mazzei & Jackson, 2012). Repetition is necessary for gender subversion to take place but, according to Butler, subversion must be recognised as such. Therefore, political change requires individuals to be aware of the subversive nature of their actions and to recognise the norm they are subverting. Political subversion, therefore, is a conscious act. In Gender Trouble, Butler saw the potential for transformative resistance in destabilizing existing gender norms, however, in Bodies That Matter she also recognised that same instability as having a dual effect: the enforced reiteration of gender norms through the punitive exclusion of those who resist accepted cultural practices. Thus, Butler’s initially optimistic view of subversive performativity became tempered by the reality of regulatory social forces. However, the potential for subversive acts of performativity still exist as sites of resistance, a point she shares with Kristeva and Foucault (Lloyd, 2007).
It is in questioning apparently stable gender norms, in particular, exposing the pervasive heteronormativity within gender relations, that Butler’s theory of gender performativity makes a significant contribution to feminist theory. Butler de-essentialises gender while also acknowledging the difficulties in determining a subjective identity that it always constrained by social norms (Schep, 2012). Thus, according to McNay, Butler has “systematically elaborated a way of understanding gender identity as deeply entrenched but not immutable and has thereby pushed feminist theory beyond the polarities of the essentialist debate” (1999: p175). Indeed, Butler’s focus on the day-to-day repetitions of gender performativity is a particular strength of her work as it avoids unnecessary universalisation and considers how cultural practices affect individuals (Lloyd, 1999). For my study, gender performativity was key in initiating a reading of participants’ experiences that explored how gender identities
served to keep the women in violent relationships yet ultimately contest such roles by leaving their violent partners. In spite of Butler’s validity in this study, her extensive writings are open to multiple interpretations and, consequently, criticism which will now be considered.