In many cultures, a persons sex is understood to be our biological make-up, while gender

is understood to have been created by our societal surroundings.

There have been many controversial, complex situations in which people argue
and reflect these facts and ideas.
In a very famous essay by Judith Butler, Performative Acts and Gender
Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory, she discusses the
construction of identity, what happens if one is to break these constructions, and solutions
to this self-made problem.
The construction of identity starts at birth. You are either blue or pink; boy or girl.
Once you are branded as male or female, your identity comes from the world in which
you grow up in and observe. To be within the social norms of gender, there is a certain
way one must dress, act, talk, walk, eat, sit, etc. In Judith Butlers essay she describes
these completed actions as a performative accomplishment. To know that you have
followed the orders of society gives one a successful feeling, in which they are not
abnormal. If followed, these norms are seen in every day society and approved of by
the average population. They shape someones experiences and actions. If broken, then
norms have automatically distorted societies view on differences and are looked at as
negative and toxic.
When we think about the construction of these gender and identity roles, what
would happen if they were to be broken or manipulated? Our initial reaction is judgment
and punishment towards that person. Butler created these assumptions in her essay for
one of many reasons, but for a more personal connection, she herself is a lesbian which
disconnects her from her gender role. This automatically connects her to the struggle of
post judgment after breaking a norm and corrupting the conformed society in which we
all live in and created. Butler states that as women, we materialize oneself in obedience
to an historically delimited possibility. If a woman is in a relationship, there are set
gender roles in which the man supports her, while she depends on him. Most women
force themselves into believing they do not need to pay for the dinner bill, they get doors
opened for them, they are the fragile and emotional ones. If a woman were to redirect
these ideas between genders, it would more than likely cause insecurity and loss of
masculinity from the man.
Within women culture and social structures, a woman is given this name and title
but through certain circumstances, can also be placed into this challenging category.
Politically speaking, Butler feels as though women must be given a definition first only
until those can claim it to be socially constructed to begin with. To be a woman isto
be in an oppressed situation, claims that a larger, more official group of people view us
to be subject to harsh and authoritarian treatment. This relates back to the relationship
status a woman has and how it is regularly viewed by males and females. To void
attention off women, men face a very demanding and forceful role today as well.
Although Butler focuses on the role of women more so than men in many of her

statements, the ideas and concepts remain mutual throughout her essay. The
transformation of social relations becomes a matter, then, of transforming hegemonic
social conditions reflects the political and social context of ruling and domination
within society. To make it so that males do not always have to carry on the male role
and females do not always have to carry on the female role, there needs to be a switch
in the hegemonic description to change the association we tie to these characters.
Although there is not one set of binding solutions to the issue of gendering, Butler
brings her readers attention to us being the problem, rather than them. We need to
relate gender with an individuals personal wants and needs, because what one does is not
dependent on what gender they are but rather who they are and what they know thus far.
She claims that gender reality is performative and it is real only to the extent that it is
performed. This easily supports her view on how to change gendering. If one is male or
female, there sex does not relate to the gender in which they do things for either the
public or themselves. Keeping in mind that there are different genders and we all vary
from each other, the differences in gender can connect people in ways we as a society and
culture could not have imagined.