Theories of Gender Performativity – Butler

Gender is created in how we perform our gender roles – there is no essential gender identity behind these roles, it is created in the performance. Performativity is not a singular act but a repetition and a ritual that becomes naturalised within the body. Any feminism concerned only with masculinity and femininity excludes other forms of gender and sexuality. This creates ‘gender trouble’ for those that do not fit the heterosexual norms. Butler is an important postmodern writer and has influenced Queer theory – theory which deconstructs and aims to destabilise apparently fixed identities based on gender and sexualities.