Carlota Díaz del Campo Pozuelo, Cristina Castro Ballesteros, Miriam Gil Gómez, Vicente
Aparicio Lorenzo, Jaime Sánchez Salcedo
Write your arguments and the answers of these questions in a word document and submit it
here (don’t forget to write your names). The text should be around 1000 words:
1. What, according to Salih’s discussion of Judith Butler’s work, is gender? What does it
mean to say that gender is performative? How is performativity different than
performance?
According to Salih, gender is not just a process, but a particular type of process. Therefore, with
that it means that it is not something general, but specific. Moreover, Butler has claimed that
gender is performative. For Butler, gender is performative because its constitution is a
consequence of the person’s subjectivity. By behaving the way you behave you are positioned
to a gender position. This position can be aligned with what is considered socially the role of a
woman or man. However, the individual can claim another position. All means that our acts
and choices, to some extent, are related to the creation of our gender.
After this claim, many questions arise about the difference between performance and
performativity and Judith Butler explains that it is pivotal to bear in mind those distinctions. On
the one hand, performance implies that there is a preexisting subject and on the other hand,
performativity refutes and rejects the idea of a subject. The latter idea is connected with the
linguistic concept of the performative act that was useful for Butler in her theories and
formulation of gender identity since it is language and discourse the ones that do gender and
not identity what does language.
2. What are some of the questions that have been raised about Butler’s conception of
gender performativity?
There are many questions that arise from the statement that gender is performative. Firstly, one
of the first questions is what are the implications that gender is performative and whether or not
the notion of performativity could be applied to other concepts such as race or social class.
Secondly, the question that is more significant is the difference between performance and
performativity since the former is extremely related to theatre and actors. Moreover, there are
many debates about the meaning of performativity. Another significant question posed by
sociologists is the contraposition of the “doer” and the “deed” that derives from the idea of
