The notion of the performativity of gender is concerned with an understanding that, rather than possessing a given gender identity, we are constantly in the process of constructingperforming, doing gender. Gender, in other words, can be seen as being a verb in flux rather than a fixed, essential noun.

This take on gender identity is most strongly associated with Judith Butler. A prolific writer, Butler is the author, for example, of Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity; Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive ...