Skip to content Sex and Gender in the Ancient World Blog sex, gender, gender performativity, blog, lecture, sex and gender, classical civilisation Home Blog About Blog One: Gender Performativity in Ancient Greece When examining the ancient world through the lens of gender performativity there are several things that need to be take into consideration. What even is gender? What does ‘gender performativity’ mean? How can gender performativity be seen in the context of the ancient world? Wikipedia, a website that unfortunately much of today’s youth takes for gospel, defines gender as: “Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to, and differentiating between masculinity and femininity”. Wikipedia gender page. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender This explanation however, is too oversimplified to provide an accurate response, for example if a male is perceived as effeminate but still identifies himself as male does this have any impact on their gender? Moreover, the notion of what femininity or masculinity entails, differentiates between cultures which can only mean that these concepts themselves are socially constructed. Judith Butler’s theory takes this idea and delves into it further, criticizing the very notion of gender being binary (consisting of two parts, in this instance male and female). She suggests that such notions have been indoctrinated into individuals since birth (Butler. 2004. 1) and reinforced throughout the individual’s life. “The view that gender is performative sought to show that what we take to be an internal essence of gender is manufactured through a sustained set of acts, posited through the gendered stylization of the body.” Butler. 2007. XV This idea of gender being a social construct can be seen even when examining the cultures of the ancient world. For example, even when just looking at Grecian culture, the gender ideals can vary vastly as apparent by what we know of Athenian women as opposed to that of those in Sparta. In Plutarch’s works about Lycurgus, the lawgiver that historians are unable to confirm as having been real, he compliments the man on his supposed liberation of the Spartan women. “He freed them from softness and delicacy and all effeminacy by accustoming the maidens no less than the youths to wear tunics only in processions, and at certain festivals to dance and sing when the young men were present as spectators.” Plut. Lyc. 14.2 This idea that femininity was the shackle repressing female citizens was a very interesting way of thinking about this rather than focusing on the patriarchal nature of the Grecian society that was repressing them. Moreover, this statement declares that it is his understanding that the Spartan woman merely lacked all femininity rather than having an entirely different idea of what the idea means. Xenophon however, wrote that within Spartan culture, some Athenian ‘feminine activities’ such as weaving were just not considered to be a fit occupation for a female citizen and so it was left to the slaves to make clothes and the likes (Xen. Lac. 4). This demonstrates that unlike Plutarch, Xenophon understood the difference between differentiating gender ideals rather than simply a lack of femininity. I believe that both of these works provide evidence to support the theory of gender performativity because both authors when examining the issue of ‘what it was to be female’ focused on things such as activities and social interactions that would have been introduced to the individual’s through their different cultures. In addition, the very idea that these two different cultures that existed within the same country could have such separate ideas of gender shows that the people are just ‘performing’ the role indoctrinated in them as Butler suggested. Of course, there are many issues when relying on the ancient sources for an insight into the lives of Spartan women in particular. Sue Blundell makes an excellent point that not only were the authors not Spartan and so only had an outsider’s perspective, but they were most importantly not female (Blundell. 1995. 50). This means that even Xenophon, who was not only contemporary to the time but had also lived in and allied with Sparta during his life (Xen. Ab. 5.3.7), could not gain a true understanding of what life was actually like for a Spartan woman. The difference that the ancient authors would perceive between the Spartan women and women from their own cultures often lead to one of two reactions: condemnation or admiration. This admiration though could be seen as a large contributor to the mirage though as it can almost been seen as fetishizing.Bibliography (Further Reading) Bibliography Ancient Plutarch, Lacaenarum Apophthegmata. Frank Cole Babbitt (trans.) 1931. Cambridge; Harvard University Press. Xenophon, Anabasis. Carleton L. Brownson (trans.) 1922. Cambridge; Harvard University Press. Xenophon, Constitution of the Lacedaimonians. E.C. Merchant, G.W. Bowerstock (trans.) 1925. Cambridge; Harvard University Press. Modern Blundell, S. 1995. Women in Ancient Greece. Cambridge; Harvard University Press. Butler, J. (2004) Undoing Gender. New York: Routledge Butler, J. (2007) Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. New York; Routledge Share this: TwitterFacebook Posted byclassciv2020October 26, 2020Posted inUncategorized Post navigation Previous PostPrevious post: Introduce Yourself (Example Post) Leave a Reply Enter your comment here... 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