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Essay

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Judith Butler describes gender as “an identity instituted through a stylized repetition of acts”. In other words, it is something learnt through repeated performance. How useful is this idea in understanding gender is represented in both the Score and Maybelline advertising campaigns?

My aim for this essay is to present all the knowledge about wave feminism and the gender as performance such as Butler and the representation of the two other CSPs Score and Maybelline. I will argue that looking at the construction of being male and female is all about civil rights and should be talked more about femininity.

I would suggest that gender as Performance by Butler is “Our gendered identities are not naturally given but constructed through repetition and ritual.” where individuals change their identities over and over again through the act of others. Judith Butler discusses the ideas of gender representation such as gender is fluid, changeable, and plural a set of categories to be played out and performed by individual subjects in individual moments in time and space. I would also suggest that feminist critical thinking emphasis on the differences among women due to race, ethnicity, class, nationality, religion and fluid and multiple subject positions and identities, therefore it suggests that in the mid 90’s they have low recognisable characteristics.

I would like to explain how theoretical approaches around gender, feminism and representation can be linked to the CSP’s.

First and foremost Mulvey gives us the idea that the male gaze is the act of depicting women and the world, in the visual arts which refers back to the 3rd wave feminists. Mulvey says “It is said that analysing pleasure, or beauty, destroys it.” for instance the female viewer must experience the narrative secondarily, with the male. Kilbourne also assumes the connection between the advertisements of women in public health issues which include violence , eating disorders and addiction. Woolf looks into the third wave feminism about the response of challenges and input about some of the definitions of femininity that grew out of that earlier period.

To begin with the theoretical ideas of Score, it considers its historical, social and cultural contexts, as it relates to gender roles, sexuality and the historical context of advertising techniques. The Score advert was produced in the year of decriminalisation of homosexuality and as such, the representation of heterosexuality could be read as signalling more anxiety than might first appear. Butler believes that there can be no gender identity as it can produce a series of effects as well as Woolf’s point on femininity.

Maybelline afterwards touches on the issue of gender representation, ethnicity and lifestyle. The ad, like its 1960s counterpart, uses an aspirational image showing two friends who do not conform to masculine and feminine ideals but are nonetheless powerful: happy in their own skin, confident in their bodies and their sexuality. 

The historical knowledge about societal changes in 1967 as it relates to gender roles, sexuality and the historical context of advertising techniques. In 1967 it is believed to be a time of slow transformation in western cultures with legislation about changing women’s attitudes, along as men in society. This was a way to see the advert to be negotiated.

In the late 1960’s and between the early 1970’s, feminist critical thought became much more prominent where a greater acceptance of birth control and divorce, abortion and homosexuality was pronounced during the counter cultural movements.

I would like to announce the idea of the 2nd wave feminism to be approached by resulting in the term of second wave feminism which was directed by organisations.

Jonathon Dollimore gave the idea of ‘all this should not be seen as a straightforward displacement of dominant conservative attitudes‘, where in the early part of the 20th Century, the international alliance of women worked to get women the right to vote.

The Score advert was produced in the year of decriminalisation of homosexuality and as such, the representation of heterosexuality could be read as signalling more anxiety than might first appear. The reference to colonialist values can also be linked to social and cultural contexts of the ending of Empire.  I believe they use a mixture of indexical symbols as it relates to a jungle as they are dressed in safari clothing and there is a platform where the material is a leopard which could suggest they are in a forest as they also have the bushes or trees behind them as there background.

After the recent demise of gay icon George Michael, several gay men had paid tribute to the singer recalling how he was a huge inspiration when they were growing up and helped make their coming out easier, furthermore Judith Butler suggests that that’s why people behave different so they fit into society. I also believe that in the Maybelline advert the whole campaign suggesting is youthful and empowering such as the slogans like ‘let’s get bossed out’. The advert emphasises a lot on the product itself. When watching the advert they try to approach by using the colour gold which illustrates how they are trying to make the product sound like it will shine your world and make you look very satisfactory towards others.

Referring back to Maybelline, society in nowadays makes the attempt to understand what it means to be oppressed as a woman. This is where the experiences of white middle-class or to ignore the completely experiences the other women occurred. The development and articulation of intersectionality began to take place because of this cause.

My counter argument is about Maybelline as I believe that their product doesn’t give the impression to attract the audience to buy the product. This is because noticing them in a new York apartment with some mascara in a golden luggage doesn’t engage the audience enough to know if it is a good product or not. In other words putting on mascara doesn’t change your whole appearance, therefore there should be no need for the colour gold to be shown throughout the advert.

The score post is more contradictory as its audience is aimed at the male gander suggesting that it is quite decriminalisation of homosexuality and as such, the representation of heterosexuality could be read as signalling more anxiety than might first appear. The idea that you will get what you have always wished for suggests that the 3 women at the back suggest that the man are getting their attention from them and the 2 women at the front suggest that they could be showing off on their looks and how lucky the man is which could also explain that the advert is sexualising them.

In terms of applying queer theory to feminist critical thought, Judith Butler, among others expressed doubt over the reductionist, essentialist, approach towards the binary oppositions presented in terms of the male and female gender.

Exploring the notion of intersectionality, it gives us the response that feminism is not universal, singular or homogeneous as it is a reductionist and essentialist way of seeing the world itself. Bell Hook shows us the way of exploring the ideas of the world by highlighting the concepts such as ‘female’, ‘feminist’, ‘feminine’, which approaches sexuality, class, age, education, religion and ability.

In conclusion, I was able to identify and explain the connections and representation about Score and Maybelline and its link towards Judith Butler and how feminism is shown.

Essays, Exam Prep, Feminist Critical Thinking, Notes

judith butler

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Judith Pamela Butler is an American philosopher and gender theorist whose work has influenced political philosophy, ethics, and the fields of third-wave feminism, queer theory, and literary theory. In 1993, Butler began teaching at the University of California, Berkeley, where they have served, beginning in 1998, as the Maxine Elliot Professor in the Department of Comparative Literature and the Program of Critical Theory. They are also the Hannah Arendt Chair at the European Graduate School.

Butler is best known for their books Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990) and Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex (1993), in which they challenge conventional notions of gender and develop their theory of gender performativity. This theory has had a major influence on feminist and queer scholarship. Their work is often studied and debated in film studies courses emphasizing gender studies and performativity in discourse.

Butler has supported lesbian and gay rights movements, and they have spoken out on many contemporary political issues, including criticism of Israeli politics.

Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity was first published in 1990, selling over 100,000 copies internationally, in multiple languages. Gender Trouble discusses the works of Sigmund Freud, Simone de Beauvoir, Julia Kristeva, Jacques Lacan, Luce Irigaray, Monique Wittig, Jacques Derrida, and Michel Foucault.

Butler offers a critique of the terms gender and sex as they have been used by feminists. Butler argues that feminism made a mistake in trying to make “women” a discrete, ahistorical group with common characteristics. Butler writes that this approach reinforces the binary view of gender relations. Butler believes that feminists should not try to define “women” and they also believe that feminists should “focus on providing an account of how power functions and shapes our understandings of womanhood not only in the society at large but also within the feminist movement.” Finally, Butler aims to break the supposed links between sex and gender so that gender and desire can be “flexible, free floating and not caused by other stable factors”. The idea of identity as free and flexible and gender as a performance, not an essence, is one of the foundations of queer theory.

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Judith butlers book ‘Gender Trouble’

Essays, Exam Prep, Feminist Critical Thinking, Notes

third wave feminism

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Third-wave feminism is an iteration of the feminist movement. It began in the United States in the early 1990s and continued until the rise of the fourth wave in the 2010s. Born in the 1960s and 1970s as members of Generation X and grounded in the civil-rights advances of the second wave, third-wave feminists embraced individualism in women and diversity and sought to redefine what it meant to be a feminist. The third wave saw the emergence of new feminist currents and theories, such as intersectionality, sex positivity, vegetarian ecofeminism, transfeminism, and postmodern feminism. According to feminist scholar Elizabeth Evans, the “confusion surrounding what constitutes third-wave feminism is in some respects its defining feature.”

The third wave is traced to the emergence of the riot girl feminist punk subculture in Olympia, Washington, in the early 1990s, and to Anita Hill’s televised testimony in 1991—to an all-male, all-white Senate Judiciary Committee—that African-American judge Clarence Thomas, nominated for and eventually confirmed to the Supreme Court of the United States, had sexually harassed her. The term third wave is credited to Rebecca Walker, who responded to Thomas’s appointment to the Supreme Court with an article in Ms. magazine, “Becoming the Third Wave” (1992). She wrote:

“So I write this as a plea to all women, especially women of my generation: Let Thomas’ confirmation serve to remind you, as it did me, that the fight is far from over. Let this dismissal of a woman’s experience move you to anger. Turn that outrage into political power. Do not vote for them unless they work for us. Do not have sex with them, do not break bread with them, do not nurture them if they don’t prioritize our freedom to control our bodies and our lives. I am not a post-feminism feminist. I am the Third Wave.”

The rights and programs gained by feminists of the second wave served as a foundation for the third wave. The gains included Title IX (equal access to education), public discussion about the abuse of women, access to contraception and other reproductive services (including the legalization of abortion), the creation and enforcement of sexual-harassment policies for women in the workplace, the creation of domestic-abuse shelters for women and children, child-care services, educational funding for young women, and women’s studies programs.

Feminist leaders rooted in the second wave such as Gloria Anzaldúa, bell hooks, Cherríe Moraga, Audre Lorde, Maxine Hong Kingston, and other feminists of color, sought to negotiate a space within feminist thought for consideration of race. Cherríe Moraga and Gloria E. Anzaldúa had published the anthology This Bridge Called My Back (1981), which, along with All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave (1982), edited by Akasha (Gloria T.) Hull, Patricia Bell-Scott, and Barbara Smith, argued that second-wave feminism had focused primarily on the problems of white women. The emphasis on the intersection between race and gender became increasingly prominent.

In the interlude of the late 1970s and early 1980s, the feminist sex wars arose as a reaction against the radical feminism of the second wave and its views on sexuality, therein countering with a concept of “sex-positivity” and heralding the third wave.

Rebecca Walker in 2003. The term third wave is credited to Walker’s 1992 article

Exam Prep, Feminist Critical Thinking

Judith butler: ‘gender as performance’

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‘identity can be a site of contest and revision‘

Unlike Laura Mulvey who presents gender as being fixed (male/female) structured by powerful individuals who are able to have control and institutions: Butler suggests gender is fluid, changeable ‘a set of categories to be played out and performed by individual subjects in individual moments in time and space.’

Butler also suggests we have different identities performed to different people, in different social settings, in different social conditions, supporting the fact gender is a performance.

The different examples of feminine attitudes (tomboy/girlygirl) illustrate the plural nature of gender.

Gender as performative is recognised as  ‘phenomenon that is being reproduced all the time‘ and that ‘nobody is a gender from the start.’

QUOTE FROM JUDITH BUTLER IN AN INTERVIEW TO USE;  

‘The historical meaning of gender can change as its norms are re-enacted, refused or recreated.’

Feminist Critical Thinking, Representation, Theory

first wave of feminism

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In the past men were regarded greater at creating literally pieces and writings then woman were. Virginia Woolf stating that simply if women were not stereotyped and given equal opportunities to men originally, then more literacy pieces would have been made. These opportunities being not regarded as worse or beneath men and given the correct education and same rights as men.

“Me Too” was initially used in this context on social media in 2006, on Myspace, by sexual assault survivor and activist Tarana Burke.[4] Harvard University published a case study on Burke, called “Leading with Empathy: Tarana Burke and the Making of the Me Too Movement”.[5]

Similar to other social justice and empowerment movements based upon breaking silence, the purpose of “Me Too”, as initially voiced by Burke as well as those who later adopted the tactic, is to empower sexually assaulted individuals through empathy and solidarity through strength in numbers, especially young and vulnerable women, by visibly demonstrating how many have survived sexual assault and harassment, especially in the workplace

Feminist Critical Thinking, Notes, Representation

third wave feminism

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third wave feminism is different to feminism of the 60s (similar but different) third wave feminism tries to embrace plural identity’s 9multiple identitys0 this is called intersectionality

‘rebellion of younger women against what was perceived as the prescriptive, pushy and ‘sex negative’ approach of older feminists.’ (344)Barker and Jane (2016 p. 344)

  1. an emphasis on the differences among women due to race, ethnicity, class, nationality, religion
  2. individual and do-it-yourself (DIY) tactics
  3. fluid and multiple subject positions and identities
  4. cyberactivism
  5. the reappropriation of derogatory terms such as ‘slut’ and ‘bitch’ for liberatory purposes
  6. sex positivity

forth wave feminism

‘Raunch culture is the sexualised performance of women in the media that can play into male stereotypes of women as highly sexually available, where its performers believe they are powerful owners of their own sexuality’Hendry & Stephenson (2018:50)

 4th wave feminism also looked to explore these contradictory arguments and further sought to recognise and use the emancipatory tools of new social platforms to connect, share and develop new perspectives, experiences and responses to oppression, ‘tools that are allowing women to build a strong, popular, reactive movement online‘ (Cochrane, 2013).

Essays, Feminist Critical Thinking, Maybelline, Score

essay

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Question: Judith Butler describes gender as “an identity instituted through a stylized repetition of acts”. In other words, it is something learnt through repeated performance. How useful is this idea in understanding gender is represented in both the Score and Maybelline advertising campaigns?

Introduce the overall aim and argument that you are going to make

Establish your first main critical approach (I would suggest Gender as Performance by Butler, but . . . )

In this essay I am going to make a few arguments based on Butlers idea of gender by linking to ideas such as gender as performance and waves of feminism. Also, in this essay I am going to be using Score and Maybelline to help defend my argument.

Judith Butler presents gender with many different ideas, claiming that it is “an identity instituted through a stylized repetition of acts”.

Butler suggests that gender is not fixed and presented through a stylized repetition of acts. “An identity instituted through a stylized repetition of acts”. For example a woman sitting in a certain way that makes her a woman.

Judith Butler is known as a 3rd wave feminist Third-wave feminism began in the early 1990s, coined by Naomi Wolf, it was a response to the generation gap between the feminist movement of the 1960’s and ’70’s, challenging and re-contextualising some of the definitions of femininity that grew out of that earlier period. In particular, the third-wave sees women’s lives as intersectional, demonstrating a pluralism towards race, ethnicity, class, religion, gender and nationality when discussing feminism.

Develop this approach by using key words, phrases and quotation (Mulvey, Kilbourne, Moi, Wander, Wollstonescraft, Woolf, de Beauvoir, Van Zoonen, Dollimore, Woolf, Levy)

On the other hand,, Laura Mulvey is seen as a 2nd wave feminist engaged in film theory from Britain, best known for her essay on Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. Her theories are influenced by the likes of Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan whilst also including psychoanalysis and feminism in her works.

Indeed feminist critical thought became much more prominent and pronounced during the counter cultural movements of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, which heralded, among other changes: the facilitation of of birth control and divorce, the acceptance of abortion and homosexuality, the abolition of hanging and theatre censorship, and the Obscene Publications Act (1959) – which led to the Chatterly trial. Nevertheless,

Laura Mulvey is a British feminist film theorist. She was educated at St Hilda’s College, Oxford. She is currently professor of film and media studies at Birkbeck, University of London and wrote:

“It is said that analysing pleasure, or beauty, destroys it.”

Apply your theoretical ideas to either or both of the set CSP’s

The quote from Mulvey can be applied to Maybelline because Maybelline is a makeup company which people use to make themselves better looking and to show beauty

Show some historical knowledge about societal changes

Maybelline was made in a time that is different from when Score was made. The Maybelline advert was their first advert that introduced a male actor to promote make up.

The score advert was made in a time when men were seen as more powerful and better than woman.

Establish a secondary theme or idea that you wish to raise (1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th wave feminism, Raunch Culture, Queer Theory, Intersectionality)

It is interesting to note the differences between 2nd and 3rd wave feminism as in 3rd wave feminism characterised by Butler,
“Male and female identities are not naturally configured” – in other words, you can choose who you want to be.

“Popular culture within the process of constructing their sense of identity” – The general idea of genders is constructed by opinions and stereotypes.

“Audiences learn how to perform gender via the media.” – The media in today’s society constructs our own gender identity for us.

“Society constructs a binary view of gender” – A binary view is a social construct made up of two parts that are framed as complete opposites (e.g. male and female).

“Audiences realise they can change their identities”  – They can be whoever you want to be without being held back by society.

Develop this approach by using key words, phrases and quotation

Apply your theoretical ideas to either or both of the set CSP’s

Show some historical knowledge about societal changes

Similarly, feminist critical thought became much more prominent and pronounced during the counter cultural movements of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, which heralded, among other changes a greater acceptance of birth control and divorce, abortion and homosexuality.

There was also the abolition of hanging and theatre censorship, and the Obscene Publications Act (1959) which led to the Chatterly trial. Nevertheless, as Johnathon Dollimore wrote: ‘all this should not be seen as a straightforward displacement of dominant conservative attitudes‘ (1983:59).

However, the Score advert was produced in the year of decriminalisation of homosexuality and as such, the representation of heterosexuality could be read as signaling more anxiety than might first appear. The reference to colonialist values can also be linked to social and cultural contexts of the ending of Empire.

Establish a contradictory argument that shows your ability to think and engage

Develop this approach by using key words, phrases and quotation

Apply your theoretical ideas to either or both of the set CSP’s

Summarise your main arguments

Ensure you have a summative, final sentence / short paragraph

Feminist Critical Thinking, Notes, Representation, Theory

feminist critical thinking

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First Wave of Feminism – Suffrage

‘sexism was coined by analogy with the term racism in the American civil rights movement in the early 1960s. Defined simply, sexism refers to the systematic ways in which men and women are brought up to view each other antagonistically, on the assumption that the male is always superior to the female‘(Michelene Wandor 1981:13

  • The formation of the Suffragettes, a women’s rights activist group, in 1903 generated a huge positive impact on the role of women in society at the time. They campaigned for votes for middle-class, property-owning women, highlighting the lack of equality between men and women.
  • Virginia Woolf’s publication of ‘A Room of One’s Own’ (1929) was a key pivotal moment in feminist history. Whilst the theory she fabricated seemed basic, is laid the foundations of what feminism has evolved into today.

Second Wave of Feminism – Reproductive Rights

  • The Women’s Liberation Movement emerged in the late 1960s and proceeded into the late 1980s primarily in the western world.
  • The movement was a political alignment of women and feminism intellectualism which touched upon the facilitation of of birth control and divorce, the acceptance of abortion and homosexuality, the abolition of hanging and theatre censorship, the Obscene Publications Act (1959) and exposed the corrupt mechanisms of the patriarchy.

Third Wave of Feminism – Identity & Magnitude

‘Raunch culture is the sexualised performance of women in the media that can play into male stereotypes of women as highly sexually available, where its performers believe they are powerful owners of their own sexuality’Hendry & Stephenson (2018:50)

  • Coined by Naomi Wolf in the 1990s, the third wave of feminism demonstrated a pluralism towards  race, ethnicity, class, religion, gender and nationality when discussing feminism, rather than just the role of women in society.
  • whilst there was still some aspects of politics, it mostly touched upon the representation and identity of women and was therefore It was a lot more broad than previous waves of feminism.
  • The introduction of social media allowed ideas to be quickly widespread.
  • Ariel Levy states, in her book Female Chauvinist Pigs (2005), that raunch cultures from one perspective is the idea of liberation involves new freedoms for sexual exhibition, experimentation and presentation, however from another perspective it may well encourage a hyper-sexualised climate that over-sexualises women whilst also encouraging women to over-sexualise other women and themselves.

Fourth Wave of Feminism – Empowerment

  • Evolved from the third wave of feminism after the development of the technology era.
  • the emancipatory tools of new social platforms to connect, share and develop new perspectives, experiences and responses to oppression, ‘tools that are allowing women to build a strong, popular, reactive movement online‘ (Cochrane 2013). As such, from the radical stance of #MeToo to the #FreeTheNimple campaign, which Miley Cyrus endorsed and supported the use of new media technologies has been a clear demarcation for broadening out the discussion and arguments that are played out in this line of critical thinking.
Feminist Critical Thinking

Second and Third Wave Feminism

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2ND WAVE OF FEMINISM:

  • 1960/70’s
  • Societal counteraction towards previous feminist ideas and positive change sparked a feminist cultural movement that began to shift societies views on abortion, homosexuality, birth control and divorce etc.
  • Singular, one dimensional. Centred around middle class, white feminists.

Naomi Wolf

Third-wave feminism began in the early 1990s, coined by Naomi Wolf, it was a response to the generation gap between the feminist movement of the 1960’s and ’70’s, challenging and re-contextualising some of the definitions of femininity that grew out of that earlier period. In particular, the third-wave sees women’s lives as intersectional, demonstrating a pluralism towards race, ethnicity, class, religion, gender and nationality when discussing feminism.

Meaning that feminism became an umbrella term for equality, not just in middle class white women, but for all women with all different expressions and even now its updated to equality for men too.

  • an emphasis on the differences among women due to race, ethnicity, class, nationality, religion
  • individual and do-it-yourself (DIY) tactics
  • fluid and multiple subject positions and identities
  • cyberactivism
  • the reappropriation of derogatory terms such as ‘slut’ and ‘bitch’ for liberatory purposes
  • sex positivity

According to Ariel Levy, in her book Female Chauvinist Pigs raunch culture is on the one hand, the idea of liberation involves new freedoms for sexual exhibition, experimentation and presentation. -women were learning to embrace their sexuality and addressing “taboo” subjects related to sex.

‘Raunch culture is the sexualised performance of women in the media that can play into male stereotypes of women as highly sexually available, where its performers believe they are powerful owners of their own sexuality’

Miley Cyrus was a representative of this.

Feminist Critical Thinking, Notes

feminist critical thinking

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three waves of feminism, the 1960’s was the second.

1st Wave Feminism:

‘sexism was coined by analogy with the term racism in the American civil rights movement in the early 1960s. Defined simply, sexism refers to the systematic ways in which men and women are brought up to view each other antagonistically, on the assumption that the male is always superior to the female‘‘sexism was coined by analogy with the term racism in the American civil rights movement in the early 1960s. Defined simply, sexism refers to the systematic ways in which men and women are brought up to view each other antagonistically, on the assumption that the male is always superior to the female‘

2nd Wave Feminism

‘the feminist literary criticism of today is the product of the women’s movement of the 1960’s’

(Barry 2017:123)

Indeed feminist critical thought became much more prominent and pronounced during the counter cultural movements of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, which heralded, among other changes: the facilitation of of birth control and divorce, the acceptance of abortion and homosexuality, the abolition of hanging and theatre censorship, and the Obscene Publications Act (1959) – which led to the Chatterly trial. Nevertheless,

‘all this should not be seen as a straightforward displacement of dominant conservative attitudes‘ .

(Johnathon Dollimore 1983:59)

3rd Wave Feminism -Raunch Culture

‘rebellion of younger women against what was perceived as the prescriptive, pushy and ‘sex negative’ approach of older feminists.’ (344)

Barker and Jane (2016 p. 344)

by Naomi Wolf , it was a response to the generation gap between the feminist movement of the 1960’s and ’70’s, challenging and re-contextualising some of the definitions of femininity that grew out of that earlier period. In particular, the third-wave sees women’s lives as intersectional, demonstrating a pluralism towards race, ethnicity, class, religion, gender and nationality when discussing feminism.

  • emphasis on the differences among women due to race, ethnicity, class, nationality, religion
  • individual and do-it-yourself (DIY) tactics
  • fluid and multiple subject positions and identities
  • cyberactivism
  • the reappropriation of derogatory terms such as ‘slut’ and ‘bitch’ for liberatory purposes
  • sex positivity

‘a product of the unresolved feminist sex wars – the conflict between the women’s movement and the sexual revolution‘ .Ariel Levy (2006:74)

‘Raunch culture is the sexualised performance of women in the media that can play into male stereotypes of women as highly sexually available, where its performers believe they are powerful owners of their own sexuality’Hendry & Stephenson (2018:50)

Intersectionality:

‘In an attempt to understand what it means to be oppressed as ‘a woman’, some feminist scholars sought to isolate gender oppression from other forms of oppression’. Put another way, there was a tendency to be either ‘preoccupied with the experiences of white middle-class women or to ignore completely the experiences other women’ (Sigle-Rushton & Lindström, 2013, 129)

bell hook advocates media literacy, the need to engage with popular culture to encouraging us all to ‘think critically’ to ‘change our lives’; ethnicity and race, see for example here work ‘Cultural Criticism and Transformation

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.

identity can be a site of contest and revision‘Butler (2004:19)