1. Gender and identity is represented in many ways in which are communicated by us subconsciously all the time. Depending on your gender and how you wish to be represented, we undertake specific actions physically, verbally and non-verbally to communicate our gender and identity automatically.
2. For example, as a male you could represent your gender by dressing in a more masculine way, having facial hair or even by the way you smell.
3. By doing these different actions, society puts you into these constructed identity groups.
4. Judith counter-types these ideas that of gender representation. She doesn’t believe that certain actions should factor into how your gender is represented, such as why is body building regarded as a male thing to do? She thinks that these stereotypes and identifications are not fixed or definite states.
5. However Judith is implying that there is no “repetitive” acts that can depict who you are, its all a false idea created by humanity because that’s what is normal, however as we move and and as me mature we realise everyone does what they want and people don’t live by what others think or depict of them. Some people are born a gender but then change because they feel that isn’t who they are, and as the days go on, that is more and more publicly accepted by humanity and people will not need to put on a particular front to be a certain way in order to fit in.

Judith at home notes

Judith illustrates and creates the idea that there arennot specific aspects or qualities that make you your supposed gender, gender is a title and has nothing to do with the how you behave. You can choose and change your gender, be yourself and choose what person you want to be and whatever you do will not change who you are and who you identify yourself as. Judith Butler writes to identify and break the idea that genders have stereotypes and specific acts they carry out like football for men, netball for woman, pints for men and wine for women.

Judith Butler: ‘gender as performance’

identity can be a site of contest and revision‘

Butler (2004:19)

In many ways Judith Butler counterpoints earlier ideas of gender representation, for example, some of the ideas presented by Laura Mulvey seem to suggest that gender is fixed – male/female – that it is structured by institutions and those powerful individuals who are able to exert power and control – Weinstein et al. While still recognising those argments presented by Mulvey, Jean Kilbourne, Sut Jhally and others, Butler suggests that gender is fluid, changeable, plural a set of categories to be played out and performed by individual subjects in individual moments in time and space.

Put another, it suggests that we have multiple identities that are performed to different people, in different social settings, under different social conditions. For example, look at categories such as lipstick lesbian, butch and femme, girly girl and so on, which illustrate the multiple, plural nature of identity, representation and performance with feminist critical thinking. Which can be explored and mapped out into similar studies on male identity (again see work by Sinfield, Dollimore and others).

The idea of identity performance is explored further in another post: Representation, Identity & Self. However, to understand the approach of gender as performative is to recognises a ‘phenomenon that is being reproduced all the time‘, which perhaps suggests that ‘nobody is a gender from the start.’ The question for Butler (and for students of media and cultural studies) is therefore: how does gender get established and policed? Which, of course, is why we look at her ideas in subjects like Media Studies.

SCORE- The male in score is placed higher then the females which suggest that the man has more power over the females as he is being held up by them. Also the slogan “get what you always wanted” suggests that men always wanted women to go after them as the male figure in this advert is getting swarmed by females and they are trying to protect him and reach up to him. Also the females in this advert are shown in skimpy outfits which shows off a lot of their skin to show to men who see this advert that they get skinny girls who will show skin off to them.

MAYBELLINE- The advert as a whole is extremely cringy. But with this make up advert they have a male using the product as well and jot just a female which shows a change in society. In the advert they also specify where they are which gives us the idea of how wealthy they could be due to the fact that they are in a big well known expensive city. As well they have the characters all in dull colours to show the switch between before using the product and after using the product.

Judith Butler is a gender theorist whose work has influenced political philosophy, ethics, and the fields of third-wave feminism, queer theory, and literary theory. Butler has written many books which explore gender identity. Much of Butler’s early political activism centred around queer and feminist issues, and they served, for a period of time, as the chair of the board of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission. Over the years, Butler has been particularly active in the gay and lesbian rights, feminist, and anti-war movements.

Butler writes “Gender reality is performative which means…that it is only real only to the extent that it is performed”. I believe that Butler means by this is that gender is a social construct and it is only as real as we make it to be, and it does not actually exist.

She states ‘We need to rethink the category of women’ In order to have more rights for women, the meaning of being a women need to be rethought of which can be done as historically the meaning of gender is able to change as the normality of it is by being reenacted, refused or recreated and today this will include trans women in the category of the female gender.

In the Score advert, the women create their identity as a ‘stylised repetition of acts’ as females as they are typically ‘girly girls’ and they create a repetitive performance by having the features of a ‘girly girl’ as they have long hair that is styled and this is seen as typically feminine, as well as their makeup done and wearing outfits that fit the female shape instead of covering themselves up. This supports the Laura Mulvey’s theory as it is shown that gender and sexuality are fixed due to the indexical signs of heterosexuality of the women and the men showing the man has the attention from the women as the strapline states ‘Get what you’ve always wanted’ and their gaze shows admiration towards the man and one of the women’s hand is reaching towards him as though she wants his attention.

Shayla is portraying herself as a female in the Maybelline advert as she too has the typical feminine look with long hair and is wearing makeup. There is also the repetitive performance of her portraying herself as female by advertising the makeup.

However, Manny defies the typical masculine look as he is wearing makeup which is typically more feminine. This relates to Butler as