Editing Performativity (section)

==== Theoretical criticisms ====
Several criticisms have been raised regarding Butler's reading of performativity. The first is that the theory is individual in nature and does not take into consideration such factors as the space within which the performance occurs, the others involved, and how others might see or interpret what they witness. It has also been argued that Butler overlooks the unplanned effects of the performance act and the contingencies surrounding it.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=Lloyd |first=Moya |date=April 1999 |title=Performativity, Parody, Politics |url=http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/02632769922050476 |journal=Theory, Culture & Society |language=en |volume=16 |issue=2 |pages=195–213 |doi=10.1177/02632769922050476 |issn=0263-2764}}</ref>

Another criticism is that Butler is not clear about the concept of subject.  It has been said that in Butler's writings, the subject sometimes only exists tentatively, sometimes possesses a "real" existence, and other times is socially active.  Also, some observe that the theory might be better suited to literary analysis as opposed to social theory.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Brickell |first=Chris |date=July 2005 |title=Masculinities, Performativity, and Subversion: A Sociological Reappraisal |url=http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1097184X03257515 |journal=Men and Masculinities |language=en |volume=8 |issue=1 |pages=24–43 |doi=10.1177/1097184X03257515 |issn=1097-184X}}</ref>

Others criticize Butler for taking [[Ethnomethodology|ethnomethodological]] and [[Symbolic interactionism|symbolic interactionist]] sociological analyses of gender and merely reinventing them in the concept of performativity.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Dunn |first=Robert G. |date=1997-09-01 |title=Self, Identity, and Difference: Mead and the Poststructuralists |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1533-8525.1997.tb00760.x |journal=The Sociological Quarterly |language=en |volume=38 |issue=4 |pages=687–705 |doi=10.1111/j.1533-8525.1997.tb00760.x |issn=0038-0253}}</ref><ref name=":1">{{Cite journal |last=Green |first=Adam Isaiah |date=March 2007 |title=Queer Theory and Sociology: Locating the Subject and the Self in Sexuality Studies |url=http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9558.2007.00296.x |journal=Sociological Theory |language=en |volume=25 |issue=1 |pages=26–45 |doi=10.1111/j.1467-9558.2007.00296.x |issn=0735-2751}}</ref>  For example, A. I. Green<ref name=":1" /> argues that the work of Kessler and McKenna (1978) and West and Zimmerman (1987) builds directly from [[Harold Garfinkel|Garfinkel]] (1967) and [[Erving Goffman|Goffman]] (1959) to deconstruct gender into moments of attribution and iteration in a continual social process of "doing" [[masculinity]] and [[femininity]] in the [[performative interval]].  These latter works are premised on the notion that gender does not precede but, rather, follows from practice, instantiated in micro-interaction.