Judith Butler: gender performativity

• A. A fixed biological essence determined at birth
• B. A repeated set of stylized acts that produce the appearance of a stable identity ✓
• C. A purely individual choice made independently of social norms
• D. A psychological trait located inside the mind of each person

Why: Butler argues that gender is not a pre-existing essence but is constituted through the repetition of stylized acts, gestures, and speech that over time create the illusion of a stable gendered self.

• A. Hermeneutic interpretation
• B. J.L. Austin's speech act theory and the notion of performative utterances ✓
• C. Kant's transcendental idealism
• D. Hegel's dialectic of master and slave

Why: Butler adapts J.L. Austin's concept of performative utterances, statements that do not merely describe but actively bring about what they name, to argue that gender is enacted through repeated acts rather than simply expressed.

• A. Gender is an act of theatrical pretending that people consciously choose to do
• B. Gender identity is produced through ongoing social and bodily performances rather than expressing a prior truth ✓
• C. Only actors and performers have a gender in the true sense
• D. Gender should be evaluated by how well a person performs social roles

Why: Performativity means that gender is brought into being through repeated performances that are shaped by cultural norms; there is no 'true' gender underneath the performance that the performance merely reflects.

• A. They have no influence, since gender is entirely self-created
• B. They constrain and shape the possible ways gender can be performed, with enforcement through social sanction ✓
• C. They only matter for biological sex, not for gender
• D. They were abolished once individuals gained legal rights

Why: Butler emphasizes that performances occur within a framework of regulatory norms, and deviations are often punished through social disapproval, so gender is neither freely chosen nor fully determined but constrained.

• A. A person's DNA encoding their sex chromosomes
• B. A child learning to walk, speak, and dress in ways culturally coded as masculine or feminine through repeated practice ✓
• C. A hormone level measured in a blood test
• D. A legal document recording a person's birth sex

Why: The repeated learning and enactment of gendered bodily habits, speech, and dress over time is exactly the kind of stylized, norm-shaped repetition that Butler identifies as constituting gender.

• A. Gender essentialism
• B. Performativity ✓
• C. Biological determinism
• D. Gender binarism

Why: Butler's central concept is performativity: gender is not a fixed inner essence but is constituted through the repeated stylization of bodily acts over time, which produces the appearance of a stable gendered self.

• A. The doer is a natural, pre-existing self that gender merely expresses
• B. The doer is biologically determined by sex
• C. There is no pre-existing doer; the doer is produced through the performance itself ✓
• D. The doer is entirely independent of cultural norms

Why: Butler argues that the 'doer' is not prior to the acts but is constituted through them. Identity is an effect of performance rather than its cause, which is why she writes that gender is performed rather than expressed.

• A. That gender identity is always stable and coherent ✓
• B. That gender is a social construction
• C. That sexual orientation is socially shaped
• D. That language influences thought

Why: Butler questions the assumption that identity is a unified, stable foundation. She argues that the coherence we attribute to gender categories is produced through regulatory norms, and that this coherence is always precarious and open to disruption.

• A. Traditional marriage ceremonies
• B. Drag performance ✓
• C. Religious ritual
• D. Academic lectures

Why: Butler discusses drag as a parody that reveals the imitative structure of gender itself. By exposing that heterosexual gender norms are copied from no original, drag shows that gender is performative and can be subverted.

• A. Gender causes social problems that must be solved
• B. Gender is a source of disruption and instability within normative systems, and its disruption can open possibilities for change ✓
• C. Gender is inherently confusing for individuals
• D. Gender should be eliminated from language entirely

Why: The title Gender Trouble plays on the idea that gender is both a site of trouble for regulatory norms and a source of trouble when its fixed meanings are disrupted. Butler sees subversive repetition as a way to unsettle these norms.

• A. A fixed biological essence determined at birth
• B. A stylized repetition of acts that produces the appearance of a stable gendered identity ✓
• C. An innate psychological trait independent of social behavior
• D. A purely individual choice made without social constraint

Why: Butler argues that gender is not a pre-existing substance but is constituted through the repeated, stylized performance of bodily and social acts, which over time creates the illusion of a stable gendered self.

• A. Dialectic
• B. Sublimation
• C. Iterability ✓
• D. Hegemony

Why: Iterability, drawn partly from J.L. Austin and Derrida, refers to the way a practice must be repeated to persist, and Butler uses it to explain how gender norms are reproduced through repetition.

• A. The doer exists first and then chooses which gender to perform
• B. There is no pre-existing doer; the doer is produced through the performance itself ✓
• C. The doer is always biologically determined and merely expresses itself
• D. The doer and the performance are entirely separate and unrelated

Why: Butler famously states that there is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender; identity is performatively constituted by the very expressions that are said to be its results.

• A. That drag performers are rejecting gender altogether
• B. That gender is an imitation without an original, exposing the performative nature of gender itself ✓
• C. That gender is determined by sexual desire alone
• D. That gender norms are universal across all cultures

Why: Butler uses drag to show that the 'original' gender it imitates is itself a copy, revealing that heterosexual gender identities are performative imitations rather than natural origins.

• A. A neutral surface untouched by cultural meaning
• B. A purely biological entity separate from social practices
• C. A site on which cultural meanings are inscribed and materialized through repeated acts ✓
• D. An internal essence that gender merely expresses

Why: For Butler, the body is not a passive given but is shaped and materialized through culturally regulated repetitions, so bodily gender is produced through performance rather than existing prior to it.

• A. Sex is a biological fact that individuals consciously act out in daily life.
• B. The material body is not a pre-discursive given; the category of 'sex' works through repeated norms that materialize bodies over time.
• C. Sex differences are entirely absent, and only gender is real.
• D. Individuals can choose their biological sex through medical intervention alone.

• A. Constative utterances
• B. Performative utterances
• C. Presuppositions
• D. Implicatures

• A. A fixed essence that remains unchanged across all social contexts.
• B. The repeated citation of norms, which both sustains identities and creates the possibility of their subversion.
• C. The biological process of cell division in reproduction.
• D. A psychoanalytic term for the unconscious repetition of trauma.

• A. Because gender is determined entirely by genetics and cannot be changed.
• B. Because gender norms are compulsory and are not chosen by a pre-existing subject who stands apart from them.
• C. Because performances are always carried out in private rather than public.
• D. Because Butler believes gender only exists in written texts, not in bodies.

• A. It places too much emphasis on the body as a source of identity.
• B. It assumes sex is a natural, pre-cultural base on which culturally variable gender is built, leaving the 'natural' sex unquestioned.
• C. It denies that any differences between men and women exist.
• D. It relies too heavily on Marxist economic categories.

• A. A fixed biological essence determined at birth
• B. A stylized repetition of acts that produces the appearance of a stable identity ✓
• C. A purely individual choice that a person makes once and for all
• D. A psychological trait that exists independently of social behavior

Why: Butler argues that gender is not a pre-given substance but is constituted through the repeated, stylized performance of bodily gestures, acts, and speech that over time create the illusion of a stable gendered self.

• A. That gender is always an accurate reflection of biological sex
• B. That the appearance of gender can be imitated, revealing that the 'original' gender is itself a copy without a true origin ✓
• C. That drag performers are seeking to become the opposite sex
• D. That gender norms are universal across all cultures

Why: In Gender Trouble, Butler argues that drag exposes the imitative structure of gender itself: if gender can be performed and parodied, then the heterosexual 'original' that it appears to copy is also an effect of performance rather than a natural ground.

• A. Repeating a single act exactly the same way every time to preserve norms
• B. Repeating gender norms in ways that expose their constructed nature and open possibilities for displacing them ✓
• C. Refusing to perform any gender at all
• D. Repeating the speech of others without any change in meaning

Why: Because gender is produced through repetition, repetition is never a perfect copy. Subversive repetition exploits the slippage in each iteration, using parody and exaggeration to reveal that norms are not natural and can be reworked.

• A. Parody reinforces the authority of the norms it imitates
• B. Parody reveals that the original norms have no essential ground, thereby destabilizing their claim to naturalness ✓
• C. Parody is only meaningful when performed by heterosexual actors
• D. Parody helps individuals fully escape social norms altogether

Why: By imitating and exaggerating dominant gender ideals, parody shows that those ideals are themselves imitations without an original. This undermines their claim to be natural and creates space for alternative configurations of gender.

• A. That performativity means gender is a free, voluntary act a person can simply choose at will ✓
• B. That performativity means gender is biologically fixed
• C. That performativity applies only to theatrical settings
• D. That performativity has no connection to speech or language

Why: Butler stresses that performativity is not a voluntary performance like putting on a costume. Gender is compelled by social norms and enforced over time, so individuals cannot simply choose their gender whenever they like.

• A. A fixed biological essence determined at birth
• B. A stylized repetition of acts that produces the appearance of a stable gendered self ✓
• C. A purely individual choice made freely by each person
• D. A psychological trait that exists independently of social norms

Why: Butler argues that gender is performative: it is constituted through the repeated, stylized enactment of bodily and linguistic acts, which over time create the illusion of a pre-existing core gender identity.

• A. The body remains unchanged throughout a person's life
• B. Bodies are shaped and given meaning through cultural norms and repeated practices rather than existing as neutral, prior facts ✓
• C. Bodies only matter when they conform to medical definitions
• D. Physical development is the only thing that determines identity

Why: Butler emphasizes that bodies acquire their intelligibility and significance through discursive and social processes, so the body is not a fixed given but something continually produced and materialized through norms.

• A. The incest taboo as a biological universal
• B. Melancholy, understood as the refusal to grieve lost attachments, which helps explain how gender identifications are formed ✓
• C. Dream interpretation as a method of diagnosis
• D. The stages of child sexual development

Why: Butler reads Freud's essay 'Mourning and Melancholia' to argue that gender identity is partly formed through the melancholic incorporation of prohibited same-sex attachments, which are internalized and never fully grieved.

• A. A scientific model of human reproduction
• B. The framework of compulsory heterosexuality that naturalizes the link between sex, gender, and desire, treating them as coherent and necessary ✓
• C. A legal document defining marriage
• D. A psychoanalytic term for the family unit

Why: The heterosexual matrix describes the grid of intelligibility in which a coherent identity requires that sex, gender, and desire align along a binary, with heterosexual desire as the norm, making other configurations appear unintelligible.

• A. Because drag reveals that gender is a copy without an original, exposing the performative character of gender itself ✓
• B. Because drag shows that men are naturally more theatrical than women
• C. Because drag restores the true, hidden biological sex of performers
• D. Because drag is a form of medical treatment for gender dysphoria

Why: Butler argues that drag parodies the idea of a original, natural gender, showing that the 'inner truth' of gender is itself an effect of performance, thereby destabilizing the assumption that gender expresses a prior essence.

• A. Through biological sex determined at birth
• B. Through the repeated stylized acts of the body that produce the appearance of a stable gender ✓
• C. Through an inner essential self that is expressed outwardly
• D. Through legal documents assigned by the state

Why: Butler argues that gender is not a pre-existing essence but is produced through the repetition of stylized bodily acts, gestures, and enactments that create the illusion of a stable gendered self.

• A. Hegemony
• B. Performativity ✓
• C. Interpellation
• D. Abjection

Why: Butler adapts Austin's idea of performative utterances, which bring about what they name, to argue that gendered identities are performatively enacted rather than merely descriptive of an existing self.

• A. Gender is a choice that individuals make consciously each day
• B. Gender is an ongoing, repeated process of enactment rather than a fixed state of identity ✓
• C. Gender exists only in physical activities such as sports or labor
• D. Gender is determined entirely by one's occupation

Why: Butler emphasizes that gender is continually produced through repeated actions and norms, so it is best understood as an active process of becoming rather than a static attribute one simply possesses.

• A. Strict adherence to traditional gender roles
• B. Parodic repetition, such as drag, that exposes gender as imitation without an original ✓
• C. Abolishing all forms of language
• D. Relying on biological science to define gender

Why: Butler argues that parody and subversive repetition, exemplified by drag, reveal that gender is an imitation with no original referent, thereby exposing and potentially disrupting the norms that claim to be natural.

• A. Because it proves that gender differences are unimportant
• B. Because recognizing gender as produced opens possibilities for contesting norms and expanding the range of livable lives ✓
• C. Because it shows that political systems should be based on biology
• D. Because it asserts that ethics can be reduced to individual feelings

Why: Butler contends that if gender norms are socially produced rather than natural, they can be challenged and transformed, which has implications for political struggle and for ethical concern with who is recognized as a legitimate subject.