Gender and Sexuality (Cont'd)

"Gender and Sexuality" Prezi presentation



A little bit more about Queer Theory:

The gender performativity theory that Judith Butler described in her book Gender Trouble was based on J. L. Austin's performative language theory. According to Austin, there are two types of language: constative and performative. Constative language describes something that already exists, while performative language actually "brings something into being." Two examples that Storey provided were "The sky is blue," and "I now pronounce you husband and wife," for constative and performative languages, respectively (Storey 161).

Butler believes that gender is a kind of performativity. We usually think that the nurse exclaims "It's a girl," and gives the newborn a pink blanket because the baby was born a girl. Quite conversely, those very expressions that we think of as results of the "identity" of the baby (being a girl) are what performatively create the so-called gender identity: "[...] one is not born a woman, one becomes one [...]," Butler stated (Storey 161). Each gender expression comes with a set of rules and expectations that parents, schools, and the media will work relentlessly to reinforce the "naturalness" of genders. Genders are, therefore, not "natural," but rather "naturalized" (Storey 160-162).

Taking YouTube as an example, we can see that technologies like YouTube which allow easy access to media content can really change "performativity as cultural ritual, as the reiteration of cultural norms" (Storey 162). Seeing Chris Crocker and the like on YouTube makes people realize that "one is not born a woman, one becomes one; but further, one is not born female, one becomes female; but even more radically, one can if one chooses, become neither female nor male, woman nor man" (Storey 161).

Another interesting thing we want to point out is that on social networks like Facebook, specifying your sex (male or female) doesn't dictate your gender. Because "gender is not the expression of biological sex," you can specify--in addition to your sex---that you are interested in men, or women, or both (Storey 161).