The topic of gender performativity has become a broad one. Gender is not about biological sex, it is the progressive social reconstruction and conforming to performative rituals that influence one’s behaviour and their gender identity. The environment around a person and the media influence determines whether the person’s gender is feminine or masculine. If one performs all the activities that are termed ‘feminine’, it constructs the gender of that particular person. Judith Butler, an American Philosopher and a gender theorist implies the absence of a biological basis to performative behaviour. He played a significant role in redefining and shaping feminism.
According to Judith Butler, “Gender is the repeated stylization of the body, a set of repeated acts within a highly rigid regulatory frame that congeal over time to produce the appearance of a substance” (Butler, 1988 p. 523). It is not just a process; it has to entail consistent and regular repetition of certain rituals. One is not free to choose their gender; the script is already written with what Butler calls, ‘rigid regulatory frame’ (Butler, 1988). All gender roles are constructed by society, and these expectations are passed down the hierarchical generation. Butler also enforces a significant point, femininity and masculinity are not inherent, and evidence is in this modern society. Traditionally, sports were a male-dominated field and beauty, and makeup was a female one. Nowadays, women are participating in sports and men applying make up, for example, Jeffrey stars. This is an example that gender is just a cultural meaning attached to biological sex.
Harry Best, a student wrote about her disappointment with gender social roles. Her school expects the female members of the school choir to wear dresses. She further explains that the female members of the choir may appear ‘female’, but their gender is not female. Gender branched out to more than just masculinity and femininity. There is transgender, agender and gender non-binary (Harry, 2017). Harry states that her gender expression is masculine besides her being biologically female. She opts to wear masculine outfits and have a masculine haircut. Harry’s birth name is Hannah, but after growing and conforming to particular societal constructs, she found herself relating and fitting in the men’s world more. She then changed her name to Harry. Harry’s story is evidence of Butler’s argument ‘There is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender; identity is perfomatively constituted by the very ‘”expressions” that are said to be its results.’
Gender Identity on Social Media
Social media is also a tool of influence on gender performativity. It is a channel of expression. One’s social media presence can inform about their gender identity because society has created a checklist that confirms how women behave and how men behave. Women are expected to dress, look and behave in a certain way, and men too have their share of expectations.
A study of all online users shows that there 6% more women are on social media than men (Webb & Temple, 2015). Women are highly avid users of social networking sites such as Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat as opposed to men. Social media was created as a channel to display the social construct of what femininity means because women are regularly exposed to these constant messages that reassure their gender identity and behaviour (Webb & Temple, 2015). Women that are continually watching female social media influencers on YouTube and Instagram doing their makeup, hair, wearing specific dresses and shoes conform to that as a norm. They regularly re-evaluate their behaviour and physical display to fit into those standards that are presumed the proper display of femininity.
There tons of stereotypes displayed by social media about female and male genders. Men are portrayed as adventurous, authoritative, highly in control of their emotions and sexually aggressive. Women, on the other hand, are portrayed as sexual objects that are dependent, highly emotional and highly obsessed with their appearances. This is what the society cultivates into and then creates a whole picture of what it means to be female. Women are also depicted in being in quite submissive positions and men in highly elevated positions. Marilyn Monroe, an icon of the western world, was the representation of femininity. Her expression and presentation have been used to create cultural norms. I can classify my social media page as a perfect example of a social media display of femininity influenced by female icons that were there before my existence. “One is not simply a body, but, in some very key sense, one does one’s body and, indeed, one does one’s body differently from one’s contemporaries and from one’s embodied predecessors and successors as well” (Butler,1988 p. 272).
The act that one does, the act that one performs, is, in a sense, an act that has been going on before one arrived on the scene. Hence, gender is an act which has been rehearsed, much as a script survives the particular actors who make use of it, but which requires individual actors to be actualized and reproduced as reality once again.”(Butler, 1988)
. I was born in a society where femininity is about all the cute stuff; I would say that was the script I was introduced to. So I grew to love pictures of flowers, cute pets such as the dogs and cats in my gallery and some pictures that display me a beautiful female. This is not far from how most women that have conformed to the norm. It will be an out of the ordinary case if a man’s social media is painted with such pictures. The man would be termed as expressing ‘feminine tendencies’.
The first day of my twenties; this kind of caption already shouts femininity. It is expected when women are more expressive in their platforms. They are not afraid of letting the public into their private life, and they are prone to posting almost everything about their day to day lives. If I scroll through a man’s social media, I will rarely find such a caption because men like to keep their issues private. They only post facts, argumentative topics about society, sports or politics.
Femininity is displaying the ideal of female as physical beauty. We were also born to a society that believes crowns are a symbol of strength and power. In this picture, I have conformed to all the stereotypes that define me as feminine. I have applied makeup as expected, worn a long royal dress, jewellery and a crown. My female predecessors wore this, and my successors will believe that this is the proper standard of femininity. This is what Butler terms as rehearsed gender. If I was not introduced to the concept of a crown equates royalty, I would not term it as the jewellery of significance. And the fashion and beauty products I use are not out of general knowledge but instead come from feminine influencers that I have watched and admired.
Far from physical beauty, social media also creates an idea that some of the cutlery, food or drinks we use are automatically feminine. No one came and taught us that this was the way, but this inherent behaviours and continued exposure to this kind of believe already gives us a preconceived notion. In that picture, there is a wine glass and chocolate dessert. Whichever person that hears the word chocolate automatically relates it with femininity. Butler said that the regular practice of these frameworks is automatically adopted as the norm and perceived as natural. You would like to think that wine is mostly related to men and beer to women, chocolate to women and barbecued meat to men is a natural cause of nature. This may not always be the case; you will find men that like chocolate and women that like to barbecue. But them being against the script is termed as ‘defiance’, the men will be branded too feminine and the women too masculine. But the truth is, we were introduced to this concept, and it was so normalized that to a greater extent, its source is ignored.
Women are naturally thrilled by minor things, and men are more emotionally stable. A pattern of these staircases would amuse me enough to the extent of me taking a picture, but masculine men would be more likely to ignore it.
Gender should be innovative, with consistent efforts of reprogramming and recreating new norms. In the traditional concept of gender, patriarchy is preeminent. It’s only now that social media has given women a platform to rejuvenate their power and to voice out their grievances. It is also time to relinquish the tendencies of punishing people that decide to follow their script and free from societal expectations.
As much as all evidence points to Butler’s argument. Women behave in an expected way, and men in an expected way. Gender is what is cultivated, invariably and relentlessly. However, these continuous act should not be mistaken for as natural. It limits the power and the ability to shun down some of the instituted gender barriers and creating a new concept of masculinity and femininity.
References
Butler, J. (1988). Performative acts and gender constitution: An essay in phenomenology and feminist theory. Theatre Journal, 40(4), 519-531.
Felluga, D (2002). Modules on Butler: On Performativity: Introductory Guide to Critical Theory. Purdue Article.
Best, H. (2017). The everyday Effects of Gender Identity and Expression. M Journals.
Webb, L., & Temple, N. (2015). (PDF) Social Media and Gender Issues. Retrieved September 02, 2020, from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/297056278_Social_Media_and_Gender_Issues