Week 2- Anna Wakefield
Gender performance is something that everyone participates in daily. We act upon preexisting gender constructs and reinforce them by trying to imitate or embody the constructs. When we perform our gender, we are making a definitive statement to the world. We not only make a statement about ourselves, but we make a statement about what we consider to be a proper representation of whatever gender and/or role we have placed ourselves or have been placed in. Through our clothing, body language, and interactions with one another we not only claim to be a certain gender, but we contribute to the discourse that makes up our ideas of gender.
Personal perceptions of gender constructs develop throughout our lives depending upon the people we grew up with and the cultural circumstances in which we were raised. They may not be natural but we hold them dear. We know what boy means and what girl means. At least, we think we know. This is problematic because we are taught and most likely believe that gender roles are natural, while in fact they are learned perceptions. Everyone holds personal biases which means we tend to have very definitive beliefs about gender roles. Because we have had no other choice than to associate with one of the two gender options, we tend to be a bit limited in our capacity to question these existing gender roles. Unfortunately, this means that sometimes we position ourselves in opposition to some people or situations we may not fully understand just because they are new to us or contradictory to what we have been taught.
Richardson suggests “hyper performance of gender� as a means to diminish the power of these preexisting norms. When a woman fails to shave or a man decides he wants to wear women’s clothing, they are challenging the social constructs. Although they may not completely change the way most people think of gender they have raised questions which is important in confronting the current conventions. The more deviations from the norm we can see, the more closely we can examine our own perceptions of gender roles.