Performing Gender Identity - Essay Sample

Published: 2021-08-15
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Sewanee University of the South
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Literature review
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Notably, different genders can be identified in different ways. Deborah uses a recording done by one of her students during an informal male talk to determine if the conversation would bear out a generalization about gender differences in conversational styles. Deborah notes that there is a speculation on the reasons that distinctive masculine and feminine behavior are present and easily recognizable in popular books. It is clear that conversation often follow a certain pattern in different genders.

In essence, Deborah points out a significant point by Butler that femininity or masculinity are not what people are or the traits they have but rather the effects produced when people do different things. The author further explains that gender, on the other hand, is the repeated stylization of the body which with time an appearance of substance of a natural way of existence. Notably, Deborah emphases Butlers point of view that gender is socially constructed and not a natural phenomenon where men and women are not just born but they slowly and gradually become. She goes further to add that gender has to be constantly reaffirmed and constantly performed in the public.

The author sheds an interesting light on the performative aspect on gendered speech in gender identification. She first notes that speech just like gender is a repeated stylization of the body. Therefore, the masculinity or the femininity style of conversation is thought as repeated acts by people who are trying to constitute themselves proper men and women in the society. While traditionally it was assumed that people talk the way they do because of who they are, resent approaches suggest that people are who they are because of the way they talk. Therefore, type and style of speech is paramount in determining the masculinity and the femininity of a person.

In the conversation between four men recorded for Deborahs analysis, she found that the conversation was quite a masculine conversation that mainly focused on topics about a game that was playing, women and wines. Although there is evidence of a gay sequence in the conversation, it has little to do with their suspected sexual preference. Although there are a few conversations that lead to the line of gay individuals in the group, it is almost impossible to conclusively confirm it. It is also not possible to say that the talk is between male or female genders.

The reason is that the conversation has a remarkable cooperation mature which is common among informal female conversations. In addition, there is also the aspect of competition during the conversation which is not uncensored in nature. Lastly, there is a lot of deconstructing oppositions which displays the competitive verses cooperative behavior in a conversation. It is a characteristic that is common to the male gender. Therefore, it is difficult to clearly tell the identity of the specific gender in the conversation. Therefore, Deborah easily views it as a heterosexual masculinity from the study of identity and performability.

To conclude this discussion, it is easy to identify peoples gender from the manner they talk. It is worth mentioning that speech just like gender is not inborn but it is repeatedly styled to a persons choice and preference. Therefore, it is possible to differentiate different genders from speech.

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