Performativity Trouble: Postmodern Feminism and Essential Subjects

Abstract

An important theme within postmodem feminism is that essentialist notions of women and naturalized conceptions of the human subject are unnecessary and troubling ingredients for feminist political theory and practice (Alcoff 1988; Ferguson 1988; Hekman 1990; Mouffe 1992). Perhaps no one has advanced this claim more forcefully than Judith Butler through her use of the idea of performativity. According to Butler, our gender, sex and self are the effects of publicly regulated performances. In contrast, I argue that her notion of performativity is too pure to provide an account of our identities. Moreover, it is not obvious that we would be better off understanding ourselves as the effect of publicly regulated performances. This does not mean that a feminist politics would be better off with essentialism. Rather, I suggest that political practice can probably do without either an essen tialist or performative understanding of the subject.