Judith Butler’s View on Performativity

Performativity is a multi-facets concept with various origins and contemporary usages in diverse fields such as: law, linguistics, philosophy, gender studies, performance studies, etc. With regard to gender studies, some theorists, notably Jacques Derrida and Judith Butler, have the view that even commonplace communication and speech acts are performative, i.e., they serve to define and maintain identity. Based on this trend, performativity reverses the idea that an identity is the source of more secondary actions such as speech and gestures. On the contrary, it inquires into the construction of identities as they are caused by performative actions, behaviors, and gestures. Butler purports that all gender is a set of performances, similar to stage performances, that are culturally and socially scripted.