Butler a reading of Beauvoir: gender as a performing act

Abstract

Between Beauvoir and Butler, we will question whether the "becoming woman" establishes the distinction between sex and gender, becoming a mode of acculturation that, in addition to the anatomical differentials, designates a performance in transformation. From Beauvoir, we will see: situated, subjectivity is established between civilization and intercorporeal relations. Marking the woman as the second sex, Beauvoir ratifies the ambiguity as a human factor, weaving reflections to the freedom, oppression, recognition and feminine condition. Of this, Beauvoir is questioning that Butler interrogates the genders. By tracing the incipient use of gender in "becoming woman," Butler suggests revisions to the phenomenological notions of subject, body, situation, and sexual difference. It promotes a performative conception where the genre is a constant becoming. It describes how the genres are constituted, considering that there are no ideal genres. Thus, becoming gender means that as a body we dramatize and style it. Criticism, this performance personifies a way of acting where repetition, innovation, necessity and contingency are re-signifiable.