‘Performativity’ in Gender Discourse, or How Words Make Things: The works of Judith Butler as a Case-Study

Abstract

In this text, we are concerned with one of the modern approaches to gender, which was forged by Judith Butler, getting inspiration from the Speech Act Theory (SAT). The core point of the thesis is that the gender distinctions that exist between men and women, and between gender types, however resulting from social constructions and cultural constructs, their formation and production are actually achieved through the acts of discourse.

The problematic we are raising morphs into three issues: The first issue relates to the identification of the concept of 'performativity' and the meaning of gender being the outcome of discourse acts. The second one is linked to the cognitive and sociological arguments that Butler employed to build the edifice of its thesis: gender as a speech. The third one is related to the uncovering of the situation of exclusion and marginalization experienced by groups of people in modern societies, a situation that is not only produced by unjust policies, but also by discursive actions produced by official social entities that perpetuate and confirm it.