خلاصة:
The present paper seeks to view language through the prism of gender as social practice as delineated by Judith Butler. Following up on the notion of gender as an entity distinguished from biological sex, she tends to base the notion of a set of normalizing practices that determine gender identity. In so doing, she believes that gender is discursively made or constructed performatively. In her view, the social discourse aligns economic power with a manly power structure where women are dismissed altogether. On the other hand, social and linguistic structures are closely inter-related and serve to perpetuate the dominance and imposed gender identity the latter one of which is actualized through imitated performativity. The article also explores dimensions of gendered practice regarding subjectivity and repression. Butler’s views, though quite intriguing for post-structuralists and postmodern scholars, have been criticized on the grounds that it fails to empower women, follow a political agenda, promise any moral basis.
ملخص الجهاز:
On the other hand, social and linguistic structures are closely inter-related and serve to perpetuate the dominance and imposed gender identity the latter one of which is actualized through imitated performativity.
Among many conceptualizations of language, that of Judith Butler seems to be quite unique in addressing the issues of gendered act and the way language (as discourse) contributes to shaping feminine and masculine identities.
By intelligible, Butler (ibid) is referring to the socially acceptable gender roles that individuals come to perform, that fit nicely into the binary gender categories of masculine and feminine, and heterosexual.
Gendered subject within speech Following Butler, we are constantly involved in practicing and reiterating the force of language by performing linguistic acts.
According to Butler through repeating gendered roles we come to perform our identities based on the social pressure or normative discourse that governs society.
Repression Butler believes that socialization within the masculine signifying economy can have negative effects on the unconscious psyche suggesting that the normalization of heterosexuality is so insidious that it has become an accepted part of Butler’s concept of normative violence can be useful in understanding how we come to continually establish and maintain our cultural and gendered patterns of behavior.
Interestingly enough, in this way, the social structure with its dominant discourse limits the possible gender representations through normative, repeated performativity which in turn dictates sexual desire.
As mentioned earlier, Butler draws upon speech acts as performativity so that the nature of sex can undergo changes from a purely biological concept to a socially constructed entity.