Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist

Theory
Author(s): Judith Butler
Source: Theatre Journal, Vol. 40, No. 4 (Dec., 1988), pp. 519-531
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
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 PerformativeActs and Gender
Constitution:An Essay in Phenomenology
and FeministTheory

Judith Butler

Philosophers rarelythinkaboutactingin thetheatrical sense,buttheydo havea

discourseof 'acts' thatmaintains associativesemanticmeaningswiththeoriesof
performance and acting.Forexample,JohnSearle's'speechacts,'thoseverbalas-
surancesand promises whichseemnotonlytorefer toa speakingrelationship, but
toconstitute a moralbondbetweenspeakers, one oftheillocutionary
illustrate ges-
turesthatconstitutes thestageoftheanalytic philosophy oflanguage.Further, 'action
theory,' a domain ofmoral philosophy, seeksto understand what itis 'to do' prior
toanyclaimofwhatoneought thephenomenological
todo. Finally, theory of'acts,'
espousedbyEdmundHusserl,MauriceMerleau-Ponty and GeorgeHerbert Mead,
among others, seeks to explain themundane way in which socialagents constitute
socialrealitythroughlanguage,gesture,and all mannerof symbolic socialsign.
Thoughphenomenology sometimes appearsto assume the existence of a choosing
and constituting to
agentprior language(whoposes as the sole source ofitscon-
stituting acts),thereis also a more radicaluse of the doctrine of constitution that
takesthesocialagentas an object ratherthanthesubjectofconstitutive acts.
WhenSimonede Beauvoir claims,"oneis notborn,but,rather, becomes a woman,"
she is appropriating and reinterpreting thisdoctrine ofconstituting actsfromthe
phenomenological tradition.' In thissense,genderis in no waya stableidentity or
locusofagencyfromwhichvariousactsproceede;rather, itis an identity tenuously
constituted intime-an identity instituted
through a stylizedrepetitionofacts.Further,
genderis instituted through thestylization ofthebodyand,hence,mustbe under-
stoodas themundanewayin whichbodilygestures, movements, and enactments
ofvariouskindsconstitute theillusionofan abidinggenderedself.Thisformulation

JudithButleris an Assistant
Professor at GeorgeWashington
ofPhilosophy She is the
University.
in Twentieth-Century
authorofSubjectsof Desire: HegelianReflection France.Shehas
publishedarticlesin post-structuralist
and gendertheory.

'For a furtherdiscussion of Beauvoir's feministcontributionto phenomenological theory,see my

"Variationson Sex and Gender: Beauvoir's The SecondSex," Yale FrenchStudies172 (1986).

519

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520 / Judith
Butler

moves theconceptionof genderoffthe groundof a substantialmodel ofidentityto

one thatrequiresa conceptionofa constituted socialtemporality.
Significantly,ifgender
is institutedthroughacts whichare internally discontinuous, then the appearanceof
substance is preciselythat,a constructedidentity,a performative accomplishment
whichthemundanesocialaudience,includingtheactorsthemselves,cometobelieve
and to perform in themode ofbelief.Ifthegroundofgenderidentityis the stylized
repetition of acts throughtime,and not a seeminglyseamless identity,then the
possibilities gendertransformation
of aretobe foundin thearbitrary relationbetween
of
such acts, in the possibility a different
sort of in
repeating, the breakingor sub-
versiverepetitionof thatstyle.

Throughthe conceptionof genderacts sketchedabove, I will tryto show some

ways in whichreifiedand naturalizedconceptionsof gendermightbe understood
as constitutedand, hence,capable ofbeingconstituteddifferently. In oppositionto
theatricalor phenomenologicalmodels whichtake the genderedselfto be priorto
acts not only as constituting
its acts, I will understandconstituting the identityof
theactor,but as constituting thatidentityas a compellingillusion,an objectofbelief.
In thecourse of makingmyargument,I will draw fromtheatrical, anthropological,
and philosophicaldiscourses,butmainlyphenomenology, toshow thatwhatis called
genderidentityis a performative accomplishment compelledby social sanctionand
taboo. In its verycharacteras performative resides the possibilityof contestingits
reifiedstatus.

I. Sex/Gender:Feministand PhenomenologicalViews
Feministtheoryhas oftenbeen criticalof naturalisticexplanationsof sex and sex-
ualitythatassume thatthemeaningofwomen's socialexistencecan be derivedfrom
some factof theirphysiology.In distinguishing sex fromgender,feministtheorists
have disputedcausal explanationsthatassume thatsexdictatesornecessitatescertain
social meaningsforwomen's experience.Phenomenologicaltheoriesof humanem-
bodimenthave also been concernedto distinguishbetweenthevariousphysiological
and biologicalcausalitiesthatstructurebodilyexistenceand the meanings thatem-
bodied existenceassumes in the contextof lived experience.In Merleau-Ponty's
reflectionsin ThePhenomenology ofPerceptionon "the body in its sexual being,"he
takesissue withsuch accountsofbodilyexperienceand claimsthatthebody is "an
historicalidea" ratherthan "a naturalspecies."2Significantly,it is this claim that
Simonede Beauvoircitesin TheSecondSexwhen she setsthestageforherclaimthat
"woman,"and byextension,anygender,is an historical situationratherthana natural
fact.3
In bothcontexts,the existenceand facticityof thematerialor naturaldimensions
of the body are not denied, but reconceivedas distinctfromthe processby which
the body comes to bear culturalmeanings.For both Beauvoirand Merleau-Ponty,

2MauriceMerleau-Ponty,"The Body in its Sexual Being," in ThePhenomenology

ofPerception, trans.
Colin Smith (Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1962).
3Simonede Beauvoir, The SecondSex, trans. H. M. Parshley(New York:Vintage, 1974), 38.

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 PERFORMANCEACTS AND GENDER CONSTITUTION / 521

the body is understoodto be an activeprocess of embodyingcertainculturaland

historicalpossibilities,a complicatedprocess of appropriationwhichany phenom-
enologicaltheoryofembodimentneeds to describe.In orderto describethegendered
body, a phenomenologicaltheoryof constitution requiresan expansionof the con-
ventionalview ofactsto meanboththatwhichconstitutes meaningand thatthrough
whichmeaningis performedor enacted. In otherwords, the acts by whichgender
is constitutedbear similaritiesto performative acts withintheatricalcontexts.My
task,then,is toexamineinwhatwaysgenderis constructed throughspecificcorporeal
acts, and what possibilitiesexistforthe culturaltransformationof genderthrough
such acts.

Merleau-Pontymaintainsnot onlythatthe body is an historicalidea but a set of

possibilitiesto be continuallyrealized.In claimingthatthebodyis an historicalidea,
Merleau-Pontymeans thatit gains its meaningthrougha concreteand historically
mediatedexpressionin the world.Thatthebody is a set of possibilitiessignifies(a)
thatitsappearanceintheworld,forperception,is notpredetermined bysomemanner
of interioressence, and (b) thatits concreteexpressionin the world must be un-
derstoodas the takingup and renderingspecificof a set of historicalpossibilities.
Hence, thereis an agency which is understoodas the process of renderingsuch
possibilitiesdeterminate.These possibilitiesare necessarilyconstrainedby available
historicalconventions.The body is nota self-identical or merelyfacticmateriality; it
is a materiality thatbears meaning,ifnothingelse, and the mannerof thisbearing
is fundamentally dramatic.By dramaticI mean only thatthe body is not merely
matterbut a continualand incessantmaterializing of possibilities.One is not simply
a body, but, in some verykey sense, one does one's body and, indeed, one does
one's body differently fromone's contemporaries and fromone's embodiedprede-
cessorsand successorsas well.
It is, however,clearlyunfortunate grammarto claimthatthereis a 'we' or an 'I'
thatdoes its body, as ifa disembodiedagencyprecededand directedan embodied
exterior. Moreappropriate,I suggest,would be a vocabularythatresiststhesubstance
metaphysicsof subject-verb formations and reliesinsteadon an ontologyofpresent
participles. The 'I' thatis its body is, necessity,a mode of embodying,and the
of
'what' thatitembodies is possibilities.Buthereagain thegrammaroftheformulation
misleads, for the possibilitiesthatare embodied are not fundamentally exterioror
antecedentto the process of embodyingitself.As an intentionally organizedmate-
riality,the body is always an embodyingofpossibilitiesboth conditionedand cir-
cumscribedbyhistorical convention.In otherwords,thebodyisa historicalsituation,
as Beauvoirhas claimed,and is a mannerof doing, dramatizing,and reproducing a
historicalsituation.
To do, to dramatize,to reproduce,these seem to be some of the elementary
structuresof embodiment.This doing of genderis not merelya way in whichem-
bodied agentsare exterior,surfaced,open to theperceptionof others.Embodiment
clearlymanifestsa set ofstrategiesor whatSartrewould perhapshave called a style
of being or Foucault,"a stylisticsof existence."This styleis neverfullyself-styled,
forlivingstyleshave a history,and thathistoryconditionsand limitspossibilities.
Considergender,forinstance,as a corporeal style,an 'act,' as it were, whichis both

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522 / Judith
Butler

and performative,
intentional where'performative'
itselfcarriesthedouble-meaning
of 'dramatic'and 'non-referential.'
When Beauvoirclaimsthat'woman' is a historicalidea and nota naturalfact,she
clearlyunderscoresthe distinction betweensex, as biologicalfacticity,and gender,
as theculturalinterpretation orsignification ofthatfacticity.
To be femaleis, according
to thatdistinction, a facticitywhichhas no meaning,but to be a woman is to have
become a woman,to compelthebody to conformto an historicalidea of 'woman,' to
induce thebody to becomea culturalsign,to materializeoneselfin obedienceto an
historicallydelimitedpossibility, and to do thisas a sustainedand repeatedcorporeal
project.The notion of a 'project',however,suggeststheoriginating forceofa radical
will,and because genderis a projectwhichhas culturalsurvivalas itsend, theterm
'strategy'bettersuggeststhe situationof duress under which genderperformance
always and variouslyoccurs.Hence,as a strategy ofsurvival,genderis a performance
withclearlypunitiveconsequences.Discretegendersare partof what 'humanizes'
individualswithincontemporary culture;indeed, thosewho failto do theirgender
are
right regularlypunished. Because thereis neitheran 'essence' thatgenderex-
presses or externalizesnor an objectiveideal towhichgenderaspires;because gender
is nota fact,thevariousactsofgendercreatestheidea ofgender,and withoutthose
acts,therewould be no genderat all. Genderis, thus,a construction thatregularly
concealsitsgenesis.The tacitcollectiveagreementto perform, produce,and sustain
discreteand polar gendersas culturalfictionsis obscuredby the credibility of its
own production.The authorsof gender become entrancedby theirown fictions
wherebythe construction compelsone's beliefin its necessityand naturalness.The
historical materialized
possibilities throughvariouscorporealstylesare nothingother
than those punitivelyregulatedculturalfictionsthatare alternatelyembodiedand
disguisedunderduress.
How usefulis a phenomenologicalpointofdeparturefora feminist descriptionof
gender? On the surfaceit appears thatphenomenology shares with feministanalysis
a commitment to groundingtheoryin lived experience,and in revealingtheway in
whichtheworldis producedthroughtheconstituting acts of subjectiveexperience.
Clearly,not all feminist theory would privilege the point of view of the subject,
(Kristevaonce objected to feministtheory as 'too and yetthefeminist
existentialist')4
claimthatthepersonalis politicalsuggests,in part,thatsubjectiveexperienceis not
only structured by existingpoliticalarrangements, but effectsand structures those
arrangements in turn.Feminist theory has sought to understand the way in which
systemicor pervasivepoliticaland culturalstructuresare enacted and reproduced
throughindividualacts and practices,and how the analysisof ostensiblypersonal
situationsis clarifiedthroughsituatingthe issues in a broaderand shared cultural
context.Indeed, the feministimpulse,and I am sure thereis more than one, has
oftenemergedin the recognitionthatmy pain or my silence or my anger or my
perceptionis finallynot mine alone, and thatit delimitsme in a shared cultural
situationwhich in turnenables and empowersme in certainunanticipatedways.
The personalis thusimplicitly politicalinasmuchas itis conditionedby sharedsocial

4JuliaKristeva,Histoired'amour(Paris: Editions Denoel, 1983), 242.

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 PERFORMANCEACTS AND GENDER CONSTITUTION / 523

structures, but the personalhas also been immunizedagainstpoliticalchallengeto

the extentthat public/private distinctionsendure. For feministtheory,then, the
personalbecomesan expansivecategory,one whichaccommodates,ifonlyimplicitly,
politicalstructuresusuallyviewedas public.Indeed,theverymeaningofthepolitical
expands as well. At itsbest,feministtheoryinvolvesa dialecticalexpansionofboth
of these categories.My situationdoes not cease to be mine just because it is the
situationofsomeoneelse, and myacts,individualas theyare,nevertheless reproduce
the situationof my gender,and do thatin variousways. In otherwords, thereis,
latentin the personalis politicalformulation of feministtheory,a suppositionthat
thelife-world ofgenderrelationsis constituted, throughtheconcrete
atleastpartially,
and historicallymediatedactsofindividuals.Consideringthat"the"bodyis invariably
transformed intohis bodyor herbody,thebodyis onlyknownthroughitsgendered
appearance. It would seem imperativeto considerthe way in whichthisgendering
of the body occurs. My suggestionis thatthe body becomes its genderthrougha
series of acts which are renewed,revised,and consolidatedthroughtime.Froma
feministpointofview,one mighttryto reconceivethegenderedbody as the legacy
of sedimentedacts ratherthan a predetermined or foreclosedstructure,essence or
fact,whethernatural,cultural,or linguistic.
The feministappropriationof the phenomenologicaltheoryof constitution might
employthenotionofan actin a richlyambiguoussense. Ifthepersonalis a category
which expands to include the widerpoliticaland social structures, thenthe actsof
the genderedsubjectwould be similarlyexpansive.Clearly,thereare politicalacts
whichare deliberateand instrumental actionsofpoliticalorganizing,resistancecol-
lectiveintervention with the broad aim of instatinga more just set of social and
politicalrelations.Thereare thus acts whichare done in the name of women, and
thenthereare acts in and of themselves,apartfromany instrumental consequence,
thatchallengethecategoryofwomenitself.Indeed, one oughtto considerthefutility
ofa politicalprogramwhichseeksradicallytotransform thesocialsituationofwomen
withoutfirstdetermining whetherthe categoryof woman is sociallyconstructedin
such a way thatto be a woman is, by definition, to be in an oppressedsituation.In
an understandabledesireto forgebonds of solidarity,feministdiscoursehas often
reliedupon the categoryof woman as a universalpresuppositionof culturalexpe-
riencewhich,in itsuniversalstatus,providesa falseontologicalpromiseofeventual
politicalsolidarity.In a culturein whichthefalseuniversalof'man' has forthemost
part been presupposed as coextensivewith humannessitself,feministtheoryhas
soughtwithsuccesstobringfemalespecificity and torewritethehistory
intovisibility
of culturein termswhich acknowledgethe presence,the influence,and the op-
pressionofwomen.Yet,in thiseffort to combattheinvisibility
ofwomenas a category
feministsrun the risk of renderingvisible a categorywhich may or may not be
representative oftheconcretelivesofwomen.As feminists, we have been less eager,
I think,to consider the status of the categoryitselfand, indeed, to discernthe
conditionsof oppressionwhichissue froman unexaminedreproductionof gender
identitieswhich sustaindiscreteand binarycategoriesof man and woman.
WhenBeauvoirclaimsthatwomanis an "historicalsituation,"she emphasizesthat
the body suffersa certainculturalconstruction,
not onlythroughconventionsthat
sanctionand proscribehow one acts one's body, the 'act' or performance
thatone's

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524 / Judith
Butler

bodyis, butalso in thetacitconventionsthatstructure theway thebodyis culturally

perceived. Indeed, ifgender is thecultural
significancethatthesexedbodyassumes,
and ifthatsignificance is codeterminedthroughvariousacts and theirculturalper-
ception,thenitwould appear thatfromwithinthetermsofcultureitis notpossible
to know sex as distinctfromgender.The reproductionof the categoryof genderis
enacted on a large politicalscale, as when women firstentera professionor gain
certainrights,or are reconceivedin legal or politicaldiscoursein significantly
new
ways. But the more mundane of
reproduction genderedidentity takesplace through
thevariousways in whichbodies are acted in relationshipto the deeplyentrenched
or sedimentedexpectationsof gendered existence.Consider that thereis a sedi-
mentationofgendernormsthatproducesthepeculiarphenomenonofa naturalsex,
or a realwoman,or anynumberofprevalentand compellingsocialfictions, and that
thisis a sedimentationthatover timehas produceda set ofcorporealstyleswhich,
in reifiedform,appear as thenaturalconfiguration ofbodies intosexes whichexist
in a binaryrelationto one another.

II. BinaryGenders and the Heterosexual Contract

To guaranteethe reproductionof a given culture,various requirements,well-
establishedin the anthropologicalliteratureof kinship,have instatedsexual repro-
ductionwithinthe confinesof a heterosexually-based systemof marriagewhich
requires the reproduction of human beings in certaingenderedmodes which,in
effect,guarantee the eventualreproduction of thatkinshipsystem.As Foucaultand
othershave pointedout, the associationof a naturalsex witha discretegenderand
with an ostensiblynatural'attraction'to the opposing sex/genderis an unnatural
conjunctionof culturalconstructsin the serviceof reproductiveinterests.5
Feminist
culturalanthropologyand kinshipstudieshave shown how culturesare governed
by conventionsthatnotonlyregulateand guaranteetheproduction,exchange,and
consumptionofmaterialgoods,butalso reproducethebonds ofkinshipitself,which
requiretaboos and a punitiveregulationof reproductionto effectthatend. Lev'i-
Strausshas shown how the incesttaboo worksto guaranteethe channelingof sex-
ualityintovariousmodes of heterosexualmarriage,6 Gayle Rubinhas argued con-
vincinglythattheincesttabooproducescertainkindsofdiscretegenderedidentities
and sexualities.7
Mypointis simplythatone way in whichthissystemofcompulsory
heterosexualityis reproducedand concealedis throughthecultivation ofbodies into
discretesexes with 'natural'appearances and 'natural'heterosexualdispositions.
Althoughthe enthnocentric conceitsuggestsa progressionbeyond the mandatory
structuresofkinshiprelationsas describedby Levi-Strauss,I would suggest,along
withRubin,thatcontemporary genderidentitiesare so manymarksor "traces"of

SSee Michel Foucault, The Historyof Sexuality:An Introduction,trans. RobertHurley (New York:
Random House, 1980), 154: "the notion of 'sex' made it possible to group together,in an artificial
unity,anatomicalelements,biologicalfunctions,conducts,sensations,and pleasures, and itenabled
one to make use of this fictitiousunityas a causal principle.
6See Claude Levi-Strauss,TheElementary StructuresofKinship(Boston: Beacon Press, 1965).
7Gayle Rubin, "The Trafficin Women: Notes on the 'Political Economy' of Sex," in Towardan
Anthropologyof Women,ed. Rayna R. Reiter(New York: MonthlyReview Press, 1975), 178-85.

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 PERFORMANCEACTS AND GENDER CONSTITUTION / 525

residualkinship.The contentionthatsex, gender,and heterosexuality are historical

products which have become conjoined and reifiedas over
natural timehas received
a good deal ofcriticalattentionnot onlyfromMichelFoucault,but Monique Wittig,
gayhistorians,and variousculturalanthropologists and socialpsychologists in recent
years.8These theories,however, stilllack the resources
critical forthinkingradically
about the historicalsedimentationof sexualityand sex-relatedconstructsiftheydo
not delimitand describethe mundane mannerin which these constructsare pro-
duced, reproduced,and maintainedwithinthe fieldof bodies.
Can phenomenologyassist a feministreconstruction of the sedimentedcharacter
of sex, gender,and sexualityat the level of the body? In the firstplace, the phe-
nomenologicalfocuson thevariousactsbywhichculturalidentityis constituted and
assumed providesa felicitousstartingpointforthefeminist effort to understandthe
mundanemannerin whichbodies get craftedintogenders.The formulation of the
body as a mode of or
dramatizing enactingpossibilities offers a way to understand
how a culturalconventionis embodied and enacted. But it seems difficult, if not
to a to
impossible, imagine way conceptualize the scale and systemic character of
women's oppressionfroma theoreticalpositionwhichtakesconstituting acts to be
itspointof departure.Althoughindividualacts do workto maintainand reproduce
systemsof oppression,and, indeed, any theoryof personalpoliticalresponsibility
presupposes such a view,it doesn't followthatoppressionis a sole consequenceof
such acts. One mightargue thatwithouthumanbeingswhose variousacts,largely
construed,produceand maintainoppressiveconditions,thoseconditionswould fall
away, but notethattherelationbetweenactsand conditionsis neitherunilateralnor
unmediated.Thereare socialcontextsand conventionswithinwhichcertainactsnot
onlybecome possible but become conceivableas acts at all. The transformation of
socialrelationsbecomesa matter,then,oftransforming hegemonic social conditions
ratherthan the individualacts thatare spawned by those conditions.Indeed, one
runs the riskof addressingthe merelyindirect,ifnot epiphenomenal,reflection of
those conditionsifone remainsrestricted to a politicsof acts.
Butthetheatrical sense ofan "act"forcesa revisionoftheindividualist assumptions
underlying the more restrictedview of constituting acts withinphenomenological
discourse.As a giventemporaldurationwithintheentireperformance, "acts" are a
shared experienceand 'collectiveaction.' Justas withinfeministtheorythe very
categoryof the personal is expanded to include politicalstructures,so is therea
theatrically-basedand, indeed,less individually-orientedview ofactsthatgoes some
of the way in defusingthe criticism of act theoryas 'too existentialist.'
The act that
genderis, theact thatembodied agents areinasmuch as theydramatically and actively
embodyand, indeed, wear certaincultural is
significations,clearly notone's actalone.
Surely, there are nuanced and individual of
ways doing one's gender,but thatone
does it, and thatone does it in accordwithcertainsanctionsand proscriptions, is
clearlynota fullyindividualmatter.Here again, I don't mean to minimizetheeffect

8See my "Variationson Sex and Gender: Beauvoir, Wittig,and Foucault," in Feminism as Critique,
ed. Seyla Benhabib and Drucila Cornell (London: Basil Blackwell,1987 [distributedby Universityof
Minnesota Press]).

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526 / Judith
Butler

ofcertaingendernormswhichoriginatewithinthefamilyand are enforcedthrough

certainfamilialmodes of punishmentand rewardand which, as a consequence,
mightbe construedas highlyindividual,foreven therefamilyrelationsrecapitulate,
individualize,and specifypre-existingculturalrelations;they are rarely,if ever,
radicallyoriginal.The act thatone does, the act thatone performs,is, in a sense,
an act thathas been goingon beforeone arrivedon the scene. Hence, genderis an
act whichhas been rehearsed,much as a scriptsurvivesthe particularactorswho
make use of it, but which requiresindividualactorsin orderto be actualizedand
reproducedas realityonce again. The complexcomponentsthatgo intoan act must
be distinguishedin orderto understandthe kindof actingin concertand actingin
accordwhichactingone's genderinvariablyis.
In what senses, then,is genderan act?As anthropologist VictorTurnersuggests
in his studies of ritualsocial drama,social actionrequiresa performance whichis
repeated. This repetition is at once a reenactment and reexperiencing a set of
of
meaningsalreadysocially established; it is the mundane and ritualizedformoftheir
legitimation.9 When thisconception of social performance applied to gender,it is
is
clear that althoughthereare individualbodies that enact these significations by
becomingstylizedintogenderedmodes, this"action"is immediately publicas well.
Therearetemporaland collectivedimensionsto theseactions,and theirpublicnature
is not inconsequential;indeed, theperformance is effectedwiththe strategicaim of
maintaininggender within its binary frame. Understood in pedagogicalterms,the
performance renders social laws explicit.
As a public actionand performative act, genderis not a radicalchoice or project
thatreflectsa merelyindividualchoice,but neitheris it imposed or inscribedupon
theindividual,as somepost-structuralist displacementsofthesubjectwould contend.
The bodyis notpassivelyscriptedwithculturalcodes, as ifitwerea lifelessrecipient
ofwhollypre-givenculturalrelations.But neitherdo embodiedselves pre-existthe
culturalconventionswhichessentiallysignifybodies. Actorsare always alreadyon
the stage, withinthe termsof the performance. Justas a scriptmay be enactedin
various ways, and just as the play requiresboth textand interpretation, so the
genderedbody acts its part in a culturally restrictedcorporealspace and enacts
interpretationswithin the confines of alreadyexisting directives.

9See VictorTurner,Dramas,Fields,and Metaphors(Ithaca: Cornell UniversityPress, 1974). Clifford

Geertz suggestsin "BlurredGenres: The Refigurationof Thought,"in LocalKnowledge, FurtherEssays
in Interpretive
Anthropology (New York: Basic Books, 1983), that the theatricalmetaphor is used by
recent social theoryin two, often opposing, ways. Ritual theoristslike VictorTurner focus on a
notion of social drama of various kinds as a means for settlinginternalconflictswithina culture
and regeneratingsocial cohesion. On the other hand, symbolicaction approaches, influencedby
figuresas diverse as Emile Durkheim, Kenneth Burke, and Michel Foucault, focus on the way in
which politicalauthorityand questions of legitimationare thematizedand settledwithinthe terms
of performedmeaning. Geertz himselfsuggests that the tension mightbe viewed dialectically;his
study of politicalorganizationin Bali as a "theatre-state"is a case in point. In termsof an explicitly
feministaccountofgenderas performative, itseems clearto me thatan accountofgenderas ritualized,
public performancemust be combined with an analysis of the politicalsanctionsand taboos under
which that performancemay and may not occur withinthe public sphere freeof punitive conse-
quence.

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 PERFORMANCEACTS AND GENDER CONSTITUTION / 527

Althoughthe links between a theatricaland a social role are complexand the

distinctions not easilydrawn(BruceWilshirepointsout thelimitsofthecomparison
in Role-Playing and Identity:TheLimitsofTheatreas Metaphor'o), it seems clear that,
although theatrical performances can meet with politicalcensorshipand scathing
criticism,genderperformances in non-theatricalcontexts aregovernedbymoreclearly
punitive and regulatory socialconventions. Indeed, the sightofa transvestite onstage
can compel pleasure and applause while the sightof the same transvestite on the
seat next to us on the bus can compel fear,rage, even violence. The conventions
whichmediateproximity and identification in these two instancesare clearlyquite
different.I want to make two different kindsof claimsregardingthistentativedis-
tinction.In thetheatre,one can say, 'thisis just an act,'and de-realizetheact,make
actinginto somethingquite distinctfromwhat is real. Because of thisdistinction,
one can maintainone's sense ofrealityin thefaceofthistemporary challengeto our
existingontologicalassumptionsaboutgenderarrangements; thevariousconventions
whichannouncethat'thisis onlya play' allows strictlines to be drawnbetweenthe
performance and life.On the streetor in the bus, the act becomes dangerous,ifit
does, preciselybecause thereare no theatricalconventionsto delimitthe purely
imaginarycharacterof the act, indeed, on the streetor in the bus, thereis no
presumptionthatthe act is distinctfroma reality;the disquietingeffectofthe act is
thatthereare no conventionsthatfacilitate makingthisseparation.Clearly,thereis
theatrewhich attemptsto contestor, indeed, break down those conventionsthat
demarcatetheimaginary fromthereal(RichardSchechnerbringsthisoutquiteclearly
in BetweenTheatreand Anthropology"). Yet in those cases one confrontsthe same
phenomenon,namely,thatthe act is not contrastedwiththe real, but constitutes a
realitythat is in some sense new, a of
modality gender that cannot readilybe assim-
ilatedintothepre-existing categoriesthatregulategenderreality.Fromthepointof
view of those establishedcategories,one may want to claim,but oh, thisis reallya
girlor a woman, or this is reallya boy or a man, and furtherthatthe appearance
contradictsthe realityof the gender,thatthe discreteand familiarrealitymust be
there,nascent,temporarily unrealized,perhapsrealizedatothertimesorotherplaces.
The transvestite, however,can do morethansimplyexpressthedistinction between
sexand gender,butchallenges,at leastimplicitly, thedistinction betweenappearance
and realitythatstructures a good deal of popular thinkingabout genderidentity.If
the'reality'ofgenderis constituted bytheperformance itself,thenthereis no recourse
toan essentialand unrealized'sex' or 'gender'whichgenderperformances ostensibly
express.Indeed, the transvestite's genderis as fullyreal as anyonewhose perform-
ance complieswithsocial expectations.
Gender realityis performative whichmeans, quite simply,thatit is real only to
the extentthat it is performed.It seems fairto say thatcertainkinds of acts are
usually interpretedas expressiveof a gendercore or identity,and thatthese acts
eitherconformto an expectedgenderidentityor contestthatexpectationin some

'oBruceWilshire,Role-Playing and Identity:TheLmitsofTheatreas Metaphor(Boston: Routledge and

Kegan Paul, 1981).
"Richard Schechner, BetweenTheatreand Anthropology (Philadelphia: Universityof Pennsylvania
Press, 1985). See especially, "News, Sex, and Performance,"295-324.

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528 / Judith
Butler

way. That expectation,in turn,is based upon the perceptionof sex, where sex is
understoodto be thediscreteand facticdatumofprimarysexualcharacteristics. This
and
implicit populartheory of acts and as of
gestures expressive gendersuggeststhat
gender itself is somethingprior to the various acts,postures,and gesturesby which
it is dramatizedand known;indeed, genderappears to the popularimaginationas
a substantialcore whichmightwell be understoodas the spiritualor psychological
correlateof biologicalsex.12 If gender attributes,however,are not expressivebut
performative, thentheseattributes effectivelyconstitutetheidentitytheyare said to
express or reveal. The distinctionbetween expressionand performativeness is quite
crucial, for if gender attributes and acts, the variousways in which a body shows
or producesits culturalsignification, are performative, thenthereis no preexisting
identityby whichan act or attribute mightbe measured;therewould be no trueor
false, real or distortedacts of gender,and the postulationof a truegenderidentity
would be revealed as regulatoryfiction.That gender realityis createdthrough
a
sustainedsocialperformances means thattheverynotionsofan essentialsex, a true
or abidingmasculinityor femininity, are also constitutedas partof the strategyby
whichthe performative aspect of genderis concealed.
As a consequence,gendercannotbe understoodas a rolewhicheitherexpresses
or disguises an interior'self,'whetherthat 'self' is conceivedas sexed or not. As
performancewhich is performative, gender is an 'act,' broadlyconstrued,which
constructs thesocialfictionofitsown psychologicalinteriority. As opposed to a view
such as ErvingGoffman'swhichpositsa selfwhichassumes and exchangesvarious
'roles' withinthe complexsocial expectationsof the 'game' of modernlife,13 I am
suggesting that thisselfis not onlyirretrievably 'outside,' constitutedin social dis-
course, but thatthe of
ascription interiority is itselfa publicallyregulated and sanc-
tioned formof essence fabrication.Genders, then, can be neithertrue nor false,
neitherreal nor apparent.And yet, one is compelledto live in a world in which
gendersconstituteunivocalsignifiers, in whichgenderis stabilized,polarized,ren-
dered discreteand intractable.In effect,genderis made to complywitha model of
truthand falsitywhichnotonlycontradicts itsown performative fluidity,but serves
a social policy of gender regulationand control.Performing one's gender wrong
initiatesa set of punishmentsboth obvious and indirect,and performing it well
providesthe reassurancethatthereis an essentialismof genderidentityafterall.
Thatthisreassuranceis so easilydisplacedbyanxiety,thatcultureso readilypunishes
or marginalizesthosewho failto performtheillusionofgenderessentialismshould
be signenoughthaton some level thereis social knowledgethatthe truthor falsity
of genderis onlysociallycompelledand in no sense ontologically necessitated.14

'2InMotherCamp(Prentice-Hall,1974), AnthropologistEstherNewton gives an urbenethnography

of drag queens in which she suggests that all gender mightbe understood on the model of drag.
In Gender:An EthnomethodologicalApproach(Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press, 1978), Suzanne J.
Kessler and Wendy McKenna argue that gender is an "accomplishment"which requires the skills
of constructingthe body into a sociallylegitimateartifice.
'3See ErvingGoffmann,ThePresentation ofSelfin EverydayLife(Garden City: Doubleday, 1959).
'4See Michel Foucault's edition of HerculineBarbin:The Journalsof a NineteenthCenturyFrench
Hermaphrodite,trans.RichardMcDougall (New York:PantheonBooks, 1984),foran interestingdisplay

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 PERFORMANCEACTS AND GENDER CONSTITUTION / 529

III. FeministTheory: Beyond an Expressive Model of Gender

This view of genderdoes notpose as a comprehensivetheoryabout whatgender
is or themannerofitsconstruction, and neitherdoes itprescribean explicitfeminist
politicalprogram. Indeed, I can imaginethisview ofgenderbeingused fora number
of discrepantpoliticalstrategies.Some ofmyfriendsmayfaultme forthisand insist
thatanytheoryofgenderconstitution has politicalpresuppositionsand implications,
and thatit is impossibleto separatea theoryof genderfroma politicalphilosophy
of feminism.In fact,I would agree, and argue thatit is primarily politicalinterests
whichcreatethesocialphenomenaofgenderitself,and thatwithouta radicalcritique
of gender constitutionfeministtheoryfailsto take stockof the way in which op-
pression structuresthe ontologicalcategoriesthroughwhich genderis conceived.
GayatriSpivakhas arguedthatfeminists need to relyon an operationalessentialism,
a false ontologyof women as a universalin orderto advance a feministpolitical
program.15 She knows thatthe categoryof 'women' is not fullyexpressive,thatthe
multiplicityand discontinuity of thereferent mocksand rebelsagainstthe univocity
of the sign,but suggestsit could be used forstrategicpurposes. Kristevasuggests
somethingsimilar,I think,when she prescribesthatfeministsuse the categoryof
women as a politicaltool withoutattributing ontologicalintegrity to the term,and
adds that,strictly speaking, women cannot be said to exist.16Feministsmightwell
worry about the of
politicalimplications claiming that women do not exist,especially
in lightof the persuasiveargumentsadvanced by MaryAnne Warrenin her book,
Gendercide.17She argues thatsocial policiesregardingpopulationcontroland repro-
ductivetechnologyare designed to limitand, at times,eradicatethe existenceof
women altogether.In lightof such a claim,what good does it do to quarrelabout
the metaphysicalstatusof the term,and perhaps,forclearlypoliticalreasons,fem-
inistsoughtto silencethe quarrelaltogether.
Butitis one thingto use thetermand knowitsontologicalinsufficiency and quite
anotherto articulatea normativevisionforfeminist theory which celebrates or eman-
cipates an essence, a nature, or a shared cultural
realitywhich cannot be found. The
option I am defending is not to redescribethe world from the point of view ofwomen.
I don't know what thatpoint of view is, but whateverit is, it is not singular,and
notmineto espouse. It would onlybe half-right to claimthatI am interestedin how
the phenomenonof a men's or women's pointof view gets constituted,forwhile I
do thinkthat those points of views are, indeed, sociallyconstituted,and that a
reflexivegenealogyofthosepointsofview is important to do, it is not primarilythe
genderepisteme that I am interested in or
exposing,deconstructing, reconstructing.

of the horrorevoked by intersexedbodies. Foucault's introductionmakes clear that the medical

delimitationof univocal sex is yetanotherwayward applicationof the discourse on truth-as-identity.
See also the work of RobertEdgerton in AmericanAnthropologist on the cross-culturalvariationsof
response to hermaphroditicbodies.
"'Remarksat the Center forHumanities, Wesleyan University,Spring, 1985.
'6JuliaKristeva,"Woman Can Never Be Defined", trans. MarilynA. August, in New FrenchFem-
inisms,ed. Elaine Marks and Isabelle de Courtivron(New York: Schocken, 1981).
17MaryAnne Warren, Gendercide: The Implications
of Sex Selection(New Jersey:Rowman and Al-
lanheld, 1985).

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530 / Judith
Butler

Indeed,itis thepresuppositionofthecategoryofwomanitselfthatrequiresa critical

genealogyofthecomplexinstitutional and discursivemeansbywhichitis constituted.
Although some feminist literarycriticssuggest that the presuppositionof sexual
differenceis necessaryforall discourse,thatpositionreifiessexual difference
as the
founding moment of culture and precludes an analysis not only of how sexual
differenceis constitutedto begin withbut how it is continuouslyconstituted, both
by the masculine tradition thatpreempts the universal of
point view, and by those
feministpositionsthatconstructthe univocalcategoryof 'women' in the name of
expressingor,indeed, liberatinga subjectedclass. As Foucaultclaimedabout those
humanistefforts to liberatethecriminalizedsubject,the subjectthatis freedis even
moredeeply shackledthanoriginallythought.'1

Clearly,though,I envisionthe criticalgenealogyof genderto relyon a phenom-

enologicalset of presuppositions,mostimportantamong themthe expanded con-
ceptionof an "act" which is both sociallyshared and historically constituted,and
whichis performative in the sense I previouslydescribed.But a criticalgenealogy
needs to be supplementedby a politicsofperformative genderacts,one whichboth
redescribesexistinggenderidentitiesand offersa prescriptive view about the kind
ofgenderrealitythereoughttobe. The redescription needs to expose thereifications
thattacitlyserveas substantialgendercores or identities,and to elucidateboththe
act and thestrategy ofdisavowalwhichat once constituteand concealgenderas we
ifonlybecause we need to think
is invariablymoredifficult,
liveit. The prescription
a worldinwhichacts,gestures,thevisualbody,theclothedbody,thevariousphysical
attributesusuallyassociatedwithgender,express In a sense, theprescription
nothing.
is notutopian,but consistsin an imperativeto acknowledgetheexistingcomplexity
of genderwhich our vocabularyinvariablydisguisesand to bringthatcomplexity
intoa dramaticculturalinterplaywithoutpunitiveconsequences.

Certainly,it remainspoliticallyimportantto representwomen,but to do thatin

a way thatdoes not distortand reifytheverycollectivity the theoryis supposed to
emancipate. Feminist theory which presupposes sexual difference as the necessary
and invarianttheoreticalpointof departureclearlyimprovesupon those humanist
discourseswhich conflatethe universalwith the masculineand appropriateall of
cultureas masculineproperty.Clearly,it is necessaryto rereadthe textsof western
philosophyfromthe various pointsof view thathave been excluded,not only to
revealtheparticular perspectiveand setofinterestsinforming thoseostensiblytrans-
parentdescriptions ofthe real,but to offer
alternativedescriptions and prescriptions;
indeed, to establishphilosophy as a culturalpractice,and to its tenetsfrom
criticize
marginalized cultural locations. I have no quarrelwith this procedure,and have
clearlybenefited from those analyses.My only concern is that sexual differencenot
become a reificationwhich unwittingly a
preserves binary restriction on gender
identityand an implicitlyheterosexualframeworkforthe descriptionof gender,
genderidentity,and sexuality.Thereis, in myview,nothingabout femalenessthat
is waitingto be expressed;thereis, on theotherhand, a good deal aboutthediverse

'Ibid.; Michel Foucault, Disciplineand Punish:The Birthof thePrisontrans. Alan Sheridan (New
York: Vintage Books, 1978).

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 PERFORMANCEACTS AND GENDER CONSTITUTION / 531

experiencesof women thatis being expressedand stillneeds to be expressed,but

cautionis needed withrespectto thattheoreticallanguage, forit does not simply
reporta pre-linguisticexperience,but constructsthatexperienceas well as thelimits
ofitsanalysis.Regardlessofthepervasivecharacterofpatriarchy and theprevalence
of sexual difference as an operativeculturaldistinction,thereis nothingabout a
binarygendersystemthatis given. As a corporealfieldof culturalplay, genderis
althoughitis quiteclearthatthereare strictpunishments
a basicallyinnovativeaffair,
forcontesting thescriptbyperforming outofturnorthroughunwarranted improvisa-
tions.Genderis notpassivelyscriptedon thebody, and neitheris it determinedby
nature,language,the symbolic,or the overwhelminghistoryof patriarchy. Gender
is what is put on, invariably,under constraint,dailyand incessantly,withanxiety
and pleasure,but ifthiscontinuousact is mistakenfora naturalor linguisticgiven,
power is relinquishedto expand the culturalfieldbodilythroughsubversiveper-
formancesof variouskinds.

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