This is a trend in social thinking and ideas.
The social construction of gender is a theory in feminism, and sociology about the origin of gender difference between men and women.[1] According to this view, society and culture create gender roles, and these roles are prescribed as ideal or appropriate behavior for a person of that specific sex. Some supporters of this theory argue that the differences in behavior between men and women are entirely social conventions, whereas others believe that behavior is influenced by universal biological factors to varying degrees, with social conventions having a major effect on gendered behavior.
Performativity is language which effects change in the world and functions as a form of social action.[1] The concept has multiple applications in diverse fields, such as linguistics, philosophy, anthropology, law, gender studies, performance studies, and economics.
Performativity was first defined by philosopher of language John L. Austin as the capacity of speech and communication to act or to consummate an action. Common examples of performative language are making promises, betting, performing a wedding ceremony, an umpire calling a strike, or a judge pronouncing a verdict. Austin differentiated this from constative language, which he defined as descriptive language that can be "evaluated as true or false".
Influenced by Austin, philosopher and gender theorist Judith Butler argued that gender is socially constructed through commonplace speech acts and nonverbal communication that are performative, in that they serve to define and maintain identities. This view of performativity reverses the idea that a person's identity is the source of their secondary actions (speech, gestures). Instead, it views actions, behaviors and gestures as both the result of an individual's identity as well as a source that contributes to the formation of one's identity which is continuously being redefined through speech acts and symbolic communication. This view was also influenced by philosophers such as Michel Foucault and Louis Althusser.
Performativity has become a catchword in the humanities, the social sciences and popular culture. In 2016, New York magazine went so far as to declare: 'It's Judith Butler's World'. But while performativity has been developed in the context of gender, it has much deeper implications. It's a way of making strange that which feels intuitive, of challenging us to take a second look at what appears self-evident. Performativity encourages us not only to see the world differently, but to imagine how we might do it differently. As the philosopher Alva Nöe puts it in Strange Tools: Art and Human Nature (2015): 'it is our nature to acquire second natures'.
