Gender undone: subversion, regulation and embodiment in the work of Judith Butler
Open accessAbstract
Judith Butler’s philosophical writings on identity have provided inspiring, if occasionally ‘troubling’, ways of rethinking gender. A key contribution has been the challenge to conventional social constructionist ideas and thinking on subjectivity. In developing a paradigm of performativity, Butler’s work takes us beyond the territory of identity secured in much previous feminist poststructuralist debate. She does so in part by providing an ontological critique—a type of ‘queering’ if you will—of such seemingly knowable categories as ‘man’, ‘woman’, ‘girl’ or ‘boy’. In addressing the radical interruption in identity theorising offered in Butler’s writing, we consider the arresting claim that identity is a type of ‘doing’ that is only made manifest at the point of action. To explore the theoretical, empirical and political issues at stake, we draw especially upon Butler’s writings on identity and ally this to some of our own ethnographic research on gender, youth and schooling. Here, we explore young people’s compulsion to enact and display stylised forms of gender embodiment, and the spectacular enactments of transgression that can elicit a practice of gender dissimulation. Our focus is upon the subversion, regulation and embodiment of gender identities and its implications for the sociology of education.
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Focus groups may encourage uniformity of responses because participants perform gender identity to the wider group.
“One of the possible limitations of focus groups is that they encourage uniformity of responses since participants perform their gender identity (e.g., ideal femininity) to the wider group (Nayak & Kehily, 2006).”
From Teen Girls’ Experiences Negotiating the Ubiquitous Dick Pic: Sexual Double Standards and the Normalization of Image Based Sexual Harassment (2021) · cites this paper as Nayak & Kehily, 2006
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- Authors
- Nayak, A., & Kehily, M. J.
- Affiliations
- Newcastle University (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Nayak, Anoop
- ORCID
- Nayak, Anoop
- Venue
- British Journal of Sociology of Education
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2006-09
- Volume
- 27
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 459-472
- ISSN
- 0142-5692 (ISSN-L)
- 1465-3346
- OpenAlex
- W2033404415
- Cited by
- 120
- References
- 23
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 7 · 2020: 4 · 2019: 5 · 2018: 7 · 2017: 4 · 2016: 9 · 2015: 11 · 2014: 4 · 2013: 8 · 2012: 14
- FWCI
- 15.36
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- doi.org
- Locations
- British Journal of Sociology of Education (publishedVersion)
- Open Research Online (The Open University) (submittedVersion)
- Open Research Online - ORO (The Open University) (submittedVersion)
- Newcastle University ePrints (Newcastle Univesity)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Gender Studies › Gender, Sexuality, and Education
- Social Sciences › Gender Studies › Gender and Feminist Studies
- Social Sciences › Cultural Studies › Posthumanist Ethics and Activism
- Keywords
- Judith Butler, gender identity, performativity, social constructionism, subjectivity, queering, gender embodiment, gender subversion, gender regulation, youth, school education, sociology of education, feminist poststructuralism
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