Editing Performativity (section)

=== Gender studies ===
[[Judith Butler]] theorized gender as constructed by repeated acts. Acts that people come to perform in the '''mode''' of '''belief''' which cite existing norms, analogous to a script. Butler sees gender not as an expression of what one is but as something that one does. The appearance of a gendered essence is merely a "performative accomplishment".<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Butler |first1=Judith |date=1988 |title=Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3207893 |journal=Theatre Journal |volume=40 |issue=4 |page=520 |doi=10.2307/3207893 |jstor=3207893 |access-date=May 3, 2024}}</ref> Furthermore, they do not see it as socially imposed on a self that is prior to gender, as the self is not distinct from the categories which constitute it. According to Butler's theory, homosexuality and heterosexuality are not fixed categories. For Butler, a person is merely in a condition of "doing straightness" or "doing queerness," where these categories are not natural but historical and socially constititued.<ref name=":0" />

"For Butler, the distinction between the personal and the political or between private and public is itself a fiction designed to support an oppressive status quo: our most personal acts are, in fact, continually being scripted by [[hegemonic]] [[social conventions]] and [[ideologies]]".<ref>{{Cite web |last=Felluga |first=Dino |title=Introduction to Judith Butler, Module on Performativity |url=https://www.cla.purdue.edu/academic/english/theory/genderandsex/modules/butlerperformativity.html |access-date=2006-10-30 |website=www.cla.purdue.edu}}</ref>