Gender as performance : girls narrating their gender identity negotiations

Abstract

Working from a post-structuralist framework, specifically drawing on the theories of Judith Butler, this thesis explores gender as a dynamic social construct that is affected by social discourses. In this work I engaged tween girls in discussion groups and writing activities about gender, and here I present a discussion of the girls’ descriptions of their gender performances. This thesis outlines how the girls negotiated the discourses surrounding girlhood and gender in order to be intelligible as girls to those inhabiting the public and private spaces they entered. Through presenting girls’ experiences, this thesis argues that gender is not determined at birth, but is, rather, a continual performance with no definite end. This performance is influenced by, and negotiated with, discourse, social space, perceived social expectations and understandings of gender, and by the desire to be intelligible as girls in a normative sense that aligns with the dominant social view.