When one thinks of feminism, it is inevitable that Simone de Beauvoir’s famous claim that “one is not born, but, rather, becomes a woman” will come to mind. Using this as a starting point, and then adding to it the expanse of phenomenology, Judith Butler dissects the notion of gender into its components, and aims at analyzing them, from their origin and throughout their development, in order to prove that gender is in fact socially constructed. Butler clearly separates gender and sex, and explains how they have come to be perceived as inseparable through habits in the society. The perfect example is that of a Doctor, an authority figure, who pronounces the gender of a new-born baby for the first time by inadvertently associating it with the baby’s genitalia. This simple act shows us how the world organizes us, to such an extent that we become objects in the enactment of politics on a larger scale. We are organized into categories, and we ourselves organize in categories, because that is our way of making sense of the world. From that moment of societal constraint onwards, we assume the gender provided to us and we become complicit in this cycle by starting to perform it. As Butler puts is, gender is more or less a consolidation of a number of socially constituted acts on a sexed body through repetition. The materiality of the body is used to show its performativity, or its ability to transform the acts that get soldered to the body, and subsequently become the norm. The most obvious effect of gendering is, as stated by Butler in her essay, the lack of anything natural, the lack of an intrinsic self. We are all a part of it, and what that shows us is that we don’t operate from free will (or a “locus of agency”), but rather that we all acquiesce our impotence in the face of society from fear of becoming a taboo. But what happens when one does break the rules? In theory, we have Michel Foucault’s homosexual, who works against the politics of the state. He is unable to reproduce and therefore poses a direct threat to society itself, which tries to contain or eradicate his existence. Butler proposes another example: that of a transvestite. Everything appears to be fine until the same person happens to be sitting in the seat next to yours on the bus one day. Even worse if there are children around. The transvestite is a taboo; someone who has broken the norm and has to suffer the consequences in the form of rejection.
That seems to be the case with Narcissister, an artist from New York, who is unafraid to toy with issues of gender in her work in quite a controversial manner – through pornography – and thus, comes across as an enemy towards the gender binary ideology of the state. Through her work, Narcissister, a professional dancer and a person of color, brings to the surface questions regarding sexuality and race, and proposes the idea that women should be empowered in order to succeed independently. They don’t need men as a requirement for checking off items on their to-do lists. And what better way to show that than through performance? In Every Woman, she basically takes an activity dedicated to the male gaze – striptease – and performs it in reverse. In doing so, she reaffirms her agency in deciding what she wants or doesn’t want to do, as well as her independence. Narcissister starts the performance almost naked, with a mask resembling Barbie on her face, and proceeds to dress herself using extremely feminine gestures. What is probably most shocking is not the show itself, but rather her decision to pull her clothes from her vagina and butthole, as well as her accessories from an oversized Afro wig. Similarly, in Workout and Man-Woman, brings out the difference between the two genders by performing stereotypes about them. She introduces eroticized elements into her performances, much so than before, including phallic devices and pornographic magazines. As a result, the audience is left questioning what gender means to them and what sexual identity they belong to. Moreover, because she is a person of color, and that she always wears a mask suggestive of a Barbie doll – the white ideal – she complicates her claim even further through a fetishization of race. What it all boils down to, in the end, is the fact that femininity, masculinity and race are all masquerades, if we were to use Joan Riviere’s terminology. As a feminist – her name is a portmanteau of narcissistic and sister (60s – “Sisters can do it for themselves.”) – Narcissister is effectively reinforcing one crucial point in everything that she does: as a woman, she is still able to self-love and self-gratify, without the need for a man.
And that brings the discussion to Caryl Churchill and her equally controversial play – Cloud Nine. Set in an overseas British colony during the Victorian Ages in the first act, and then in 1979 London in the second act, the play reads as a farce about the politics of sex and as a window into how colonialism imposes itself on intimate personal relationships. What struck me when I first started reading it was the cross-gender and cross-race casting, employed not only as a means of facilitating the comic, but also as a way of showing how our society is based on stereotypes, in order to try to correct that limited perspective. Churchill casts a man as Betty – wife to Clive, the head of the family and part of the British armed forces – as a man to show her desire to become empowered as a woman and stand up for herself. In a similar way, Joshua although black is played by a white actor, because in his soul he wanted to be white, he wanted to be as close to the colonizer as possible. The same applies to Edward, Betty and Clive’s son, who is played by a woman to signify his lack of manliness, which his father is desperately trying to correct. On top of all these issues, there is the discussion about sexuality and sexual identity that pervades the entire play. Harry, Edward’s uncle, sleeps with Joshua; Edward sleeps with Harry and so on and so forth; while Betty is dealing with deviant tendencies, which are channeled towards Ellen, the governess to Edward. By the time one reaches the end of the play, s/he is constantly rethinking social norms with regards to gender, race and sexuality.
In conclusion, I am left but to wonder to what extent is society involved in our existence? How much is the effect of our will and how much is an effect from a chain of situations completely out of our control and actually engineered through politics? We ourselves are a construct of the society, just as gender is. We fight constraints as best we can, but sometimes we succumb to them and become complicit in perpetuating the cycle of dependence to politics as a template to survival. Yet how can we change it after so many years? Maybe the answer is in deconstructing taboos: Foucault’s homosexual, the transvestite, the homosocial, Narcissister. In doing so, we understand the power of performing bodies, and consequently we are not afraid to change. Change towards a better world.
Citation:
Butler, Judith.“Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory,” Feminist Theory Reader: Local and Global Perspectives. Eds. Carole R. McAnn and Seung-Kyung Kim. New York: London: Routledge, 2003. 415-426. Print.
Riviere, Joan. “Womanliness as Masquerade” The International Journal of Psychoanalysis (IJPA), vol. 10 (1929).
Churchill, Caryl. Cloud Nine. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1995. Print.
Alexandru Thinks Theater 