Gender Performance and The “Silence” of the Patriarchy

In pages 135-141 of “Gender Trouble” by Judith Butler, she discusses how societal law is ingrained in society so deeply that individuals believe that these laws of society are inherently a part of them. She connects this to gender identity, exploring how the idea of gender is one of these societal laws. In this, she highlights that gender is something that is performed, rather than being something that people are, using drag as an example of how gender is a performance. However, in her text, Butler leaves gaps and silences that show the “unconscious” ideas that are left unsaid.

What Butler is not explicitly stating is the role of the Patriarchy. Butler explains how gender performance is a “strategy of survival” in society (139). When gender performance does not follow the roles that society has assigned to it, then the individuals are punished. Butler states, “Discrete genders are part of what ‘humanizes’ individuals within contemporary culture, indeed, we regularly punish those who fail to do their gender right” (139-140). By not following the societal laws of gender performance with masculinity and femininity, individuals are deemed less “human”. This then affects how they are treated, their rights, and just their quality of life in general.


In the text’s silence about patriarchy, it does not address the power imbalance between masculinity and femininity. In a patriarchal society, femininity is given less value, and in a sense, “dehumanized” anyway. It values men, and anyone else is inherently “the other”. By reading into these silences, we are pointed to the root causes that keep these gender roles in place.


What these silences also point to are the inescapable limitations on anyone who is not a man. Non-men benefit from performing gender according to societal laws (femininity) because it helps them avoid societal punishment. However, even if they conform to these laws, they are still devalued simply because they are not men.


However, men are also harmed by patriarchy. A patriarchal society requires men to fit hegemonic masculinity to be fully valued, which already harms any man who does not fit hegemonic standards– Men of color, queer men, disabled men etc. Even when men meet the standard of hegemonic masculinity, these standards can be isolating and damaging for the mental health of men. This is significant because it shows how gender performance, while not benefitting anyone, is still followed by everyone, so why is this the case?


The silences in Butler’s text that withhold discussing patriarchy and power dynamics between feminine and masculine point to how deeply ingrained these norms are. It suggests that gender performance is something we’re trapped in because it is something that society has drilled into us so deeply that it’s hard to imagine existing outside of it. It shows how there is a lack of free will because of “societal laws.” We are still motivated to act in ways society values, even if these ways hurt us.

One thought on “Gender Performance and The “Silence” of the Patriarchy”

  1. Yes! I also found the Butler text very fascinating. I agree that there is an implicit silence about the role of the patriarchy and the hierarchy ingrained in the performance of gender roles. Thinking about that in the context of “surviving” alongside cultural expectations to avoid social punishment, it makes me think about how drag can be extended beyond the idea of rebelling against those expected norms and instead placed in the conversation about free will. If gender performance has no basis or “origin”, like Butler says, then drag is performing based on the stereotypical cultural expectation of what gender looks like. But gender expectations change, and although societal laws are based in patriarchal ideology, I wonder if drag can also be thought along the lines of mocking the concept of gender period, rather than rebelling against the binary expectation of gender performance?

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