F eminist and g ender t heories

SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY IN THE CONTEMPORARY ERA
She seeks to show how a norm can actually materialize a body—that is, how the body is not 
only invested with a norm, but also in some sense animated by a norm or contoured by a 
norm (ibid.).
Specifically, Butler describes a heterosexual matrix in which “proper men” and “proper 
women” are identified as heterosexual. She shows that the essential unity between biologi-
cal sex, gender identification, and heterosexuality is not dictated by nature; indeed, this 
unity is an illusion mediated through cultural systems of meaning that underlie our under-
standing of material, anatomical differences. According to Butler, heterosexual normativity 
“ought not to order gender” (Butler 1990/2006:xiv; emphasis in original). The subversion 
of gender performances (e.g., drag performances) indicates nothing about sexuality or sex-
ual practice. “Gender can be rendered ambiguous without disturbing or reorientating norma-
tive sexuality at all” (ibid.).
Thus, for instance, Butler points out that discrimination against gays is a function not of 
their sexuality, but rather of their failure to perform heterosexual gender norms. Because 
heterosexuality is based on a binary difference between male and female (a person is either 
one or the other), there is a socially constructed gender in which heterosexuality is central, 
which informs our understanding of biology.
Interestingly, then, akin to Harold Garfinkel’s “breaching” experiments, which exposed 
taken-for-granted normative expectations (see Chapter 6), cross-dressing, “kiss-ins,” gen-
der parodies, and so on can be used to transgress and rebel against existing sexual catego-
ries. In short, queer politics seeks to explicitly challenge gender norms to show their lack 
of naturalness and inevitability and to celebrate transgressions from them (Alsop et al. 
2002:96), while postmodern queer theorists seek to upend and “resignify” our gender 
expectations.
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As will be discussed further in Chapter 8, postmodernists tend to eschew metatheoretical 
frameworks as “essentializing.” However, it is difficult not to see postmodernists, including 
Butler, as nonrationalistic in their approach to action. That “there is no reality” anymore 
(only “hyperreality”—Baudrillard—see Chapter 8); that sex is not a “natural” category but 
constituted through social discourse; and that performances create subjectivities (see Butler, 
above) seems a profoundly nonrationalistic orientation to action. In contrast to Goffman, 
who, as we have seen (see Chapter 5), also at times used the term “performance” in a more 
rationalistic way (wittingly constructed, via calculation and even rehearsal), Butler argues 
that we become subjects from our performances. Subjectivity is a process of submitting 
ourselves to socially constituted norms and practices (ibid. 2002:98). This speaks to the 
nonrational realm (see Figure 7.6).
In terms of order, on the one hand, postmodernists such as Butler emphasize the role of 
structured “scripts,” discourses, and preexisting symbolic patterns that reflect a collective 
orientation. In addition, Butler exudes a neo-Marxist emphasis on hierarchical (class, gen-
der, racial) structures, oppression, and corporate control, which also speaks to the collective 
realm (see Chapter 3). She shows how gender performances are tied to relations of ruling, 
in Smith’s terms. On the other hand, however, like Foucault (see Chapter 8), Butler insists 
that regulatory norms and discourses are never wholly determining. One could argue that, 
in the end, Butler’s work seems individualistic because she emphasizes that it is in interac-
tion that subjectivities are formed. Moreover, in contrast to cultural Marxists (e.g., the 

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