Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory

Make a list of qualities generally associated with men and a list of qualities generally associated with women. What kind of gender acts might you see performed by the people around you or in the media that reinforce or contradict these qualities?

Butler repeatedly cautions against feminist organizers essentializing womanhood. What dangers can you see in attempting to define women as a natural category? Where can you see these issues playing out today?

Butler details how gender roles are the result of the sedimentation of historical and cultural situations, and then, in the end, says, “Gender is not passively scripted on the body, and neither is it determined by nature, language, the symbolic, or the overwhelming history of patriarchy” (531). Is this a contradiction? If not, what is Butler’s intent in saying that gender is shaped by history but not determined by it?