Gender Is Already Constructed - Essay Example

Butler presents the argument that there exists no gender identity behind the expression of gender. Butler concludes that gender identity is a conclusive performance of roles at specific occasions (Butler, p522). Gender is considered something more than just a performance. In a particular society, gender is already constructed, and therefore any new proper identity is not welcomed. Gender is, therefore, more than performance because appearances are important for gender distinctions. Considering the idea of Butler in a wider context of beliefs will have a significant implication to the social construction of a society. At first, the implication of this idea is the acceptance of the primary philosophy that biology is destiny on issues of gender identity. The acceptance serves to reinforce the alternative rejection of culture as a definition of gender identity and the development of a patriarchal account of a culture that assumes that feminine and masculine genders would build inevitably by culture upon female and male bodies thus making the same biological destiny inescapable. It, therefore, implies that the idea of culture as the definition of gender identity is rejected because of its possibility to create a binary view of gender relations in which human beings are divided into males and females that are two distinct cut groups. The option implication of the idea, therefore, stands to be opening up possibilities for a person to choose and form their own personal identity.

According to Butler, the feminist closed up this option of choosing personal gender identity (Butler, p509). Gender identity needs to be considered as the relation among socially established subjects in identifiable frameworks. Butler’s argument generally implies that gender should not be seen as a fixed attribute in a person and rather it should be considered as a fluid variable that changes and shifts in different times and contexts. Considering the implication of gender identity as presented by Butler, it is worthwhile concluding that every individual puts on a gender performance whether traditional or not, anyway, and therefore it is no longer a question of whether to do a gender performance, but what custom that performance will consider.