Performativity as a Factor of Gender Identity Plasticity

Abstract

The article demonstrates how authority, as a form of address, influences the plasticity of gender. With the aim of exploring performativity as a factor in the plasticity of gender identity, the authors attempt to define how the bearer of gender identity is created.Significant attention is devoted to resisting endowment and realizing authority, which typifies hierarchical relations of status rather than genders. The latter are a consequence of the “capillary” nature of authority and institutionalize discursive practices. Consequently, an attempt is made to identify gender grammatology. For this purpose, classical works by J. Butler, P. Berger, and other authors who advocate for tracing the roots of social phenomena in the reality of everyday life are used.It is revealed that Ukraine is currently in a transitional stage towards postmodernism. A conceptual perspective is proposed, viewing gender as a role daily created. The assumption is made that subjectivity arises from the mechanism of denial, where the denied external becomes a critically immanent characteristic. It is explored that the plasticity of gender is achieved through several stages, including intersubjective interaction through habituation, typification, institutionalization, and legitimation. It is proven that resolving the crisis of traditional gender connotation can be achieved through civic education, capable of overcoming the implosion of mass consciousness, which absorbs pre-formed meanings without any reflection, lacking “neither attribute, nor predicate, nor quality, nor reference.” However, launching a systemic counter-agent instead of a “mental virus” can change parochial-gender perception. Embracing the discursive nature of gender and materialism of its dispositif, “HERstory” can find its voice without being on the other side of the “transcendent” “HISstory.”