Judith Butler Masculinity

Judith Butler questions the notion that certain gendered behaviors are a result of learning the performance of gender behavior, that which is associated with masculinity and femininity. She argues that it is a social construction that is only true to the extent of it being performed. Gender as defined in Undoing Gender is a “practice of improvisation within a scene of constraint,” which is within a social context.
The stylization of the body, gestures, movements and enactments create these performances of a gendered self. Butler’s ideas on gender performativity can visually be seen the photographic pieces by Claude Cahun and Collier Schorr. Both artists utilized photography to create a direct and visual representation of their ideas on
the fluidity of gender and creating a representation of an individual whose gender is quite unclear, thereby challenging preconceived judgements, opposing heteronormative expectations and creating a discourse around masculinity as a performance and how “restrictively normative conceptions of sexual and gendered life” can be undone . Each of artists arrive at the same concept and realization, but what is fascinating is the process and how they work and use their photography. Not much was known about Claude Cahun until the late 1980s. It was only when their self-portraits, where they portray themselves as ambiguously gendered, were included in an exhibition go surrealist photography. Claude was direct and open about rejecting the social constructs of sexuality and gender through shaving their head and choosing a gender neutral name. Cahun has described themselves as neuter who was a biologically born woman who embodied the conventional tropes of masculinity. In, Disavowals, they wrote: “Shuffle the cards. Masculine? Feminine? It depends on the situation. Neuter is the only gender that always suits me. It is thought that Cahun began taking self-portraits in about 1913 , beginning their lifelong journey of examining gender by using themselves as the subject. Cahun was a radical artist and activist of their time whose identity changed for every self portrait they took.
Sometimes they explicitly look like a man or a woman, sometimes androgynous making it even harder to distinguish their persona’s gender. With their own body, Cahun reinvents how one perceives themselves, recreating their identity with every setting of a photograph.Theatricality and performance heavily influenced their work. In their work entitled What do you want from me? (Fig.1) Cahun poses in front of a camera creating a self-portrait through a double exposure. Two heads, emerge from the same body, a siamese twin becomes the focus the photograph. The faces confront each other, one is alert and looking off to the side of the photograph. The other head turns more inward, towards its twin figure. The other side of its face faces the opposite direction from the viewer and we only see one eye, seemingly disconnected and lulled. Cahun photographed themselves with a shaved head, adding a curious and strange quality to the surrealist photograph. The duality of the forms within the photography suggests a sort of split personality, two opposite minds in one body. The head on the left, the one that looks out of the frame, seems to be the one that’s haunted and tortured by the other figure thereby seemingly alarmed at the moment the photo was taken. The figure on the right emits a sort of mischievous affect, amplified by looking slyly and conniving at the other
figure. Cahun’s body of work has been considered radical at the time they were made, where conversations about gender and sexuality were outside of the normal social convention. It was a time where masculinity and a binary system of gender immensely dominated the social structure and rigid enforced. Though not much has changed through out the years. Cahun could be hailed as one of the first artists of their time to challenge these systems through their appropriation of a new identity. A modern photography explores the same concepts Cahun. Collier Schorr also utilizes photography to undermine the gender construct but through androgynous models. Schorr’s photograph, Two Shirts (Fig.2) share similarities and sentiment with Claude Cahun’s What Do You Want From Me (Fig. 1). Schorr’s photograph takes place in a more modern setting. A model poses for Schorr, wearing two light collared shirts. The model’s sleeves are rolled up revealing muscular arms. Set against a white background, the model stares intensely towards the viewer. Their arms are slight raised to the side as if ready to engage in a taunting pose. Their tough expression seemingly a facade created for the camera. Their gender identity become more ambiguous because of the models facial structure. Feminine features can be deduced through the shape of their lips, nose and eyes. The model is performing for the camera. They perform masculine gestures through the open chest, open arms, and furrowed brow with eyes that look down, in an effort to create an identity. Further more, like Cahun, the model’s head is shaved eliminating any sort of indication of their gender. Schorr has been known for photographing adolescent boys who are slowly growing into their more masculine features. Schorr is best known for her unique photography, finishing her studies in at the School of Visual Arts in New York. Her photographs are often composed of costumes, props and iconic images that are coupled with symbols of gender, stereotypes and identity. When talking about her work in an interview Schorr says, “[I have] conflicting obsessions, one is twin-ship and the other is opposition. It’s about people that look that same but aren’t the same, its about boys that look like girls or girls that look like boys. boys that look like soldiers that aren’t.” Her portraits builds on the idea that the viewer may not be sure of what they are looking at, this in turn makes the viewer unsure of what they are. Two Shirts is one the portraits that blurs the boundary that prevents any male subject to be presented or present themselves as female. The photograph incites questions about the conventional gender, and unsettles the heteronormative expectations by focusing on the details of normative masculine behavior. Masculinity becomes iterated as a form of performance, the neutrality of gender of the model exhibits how an individual can perform the other gender. Schorr is able to juxtapose two conflicting images of heteronormative expectations, challenging gender-politics and creating tension in the discussion of sexual identity. Through Cahun’s self portraits and Schorr’s models, both photographers support Judith Butler’s notion of gender as a form of performance. The performance of masculinity is central to their medium of photography Cahun uses their own body to recreate a male persona of themselves and Schorr depicts a model who performs the expected gestures linked to masculinity. The performance takes place in different forms but it is a performance nonetheless. Both Cahun and Schorr uses photography to manipulate what is depicted as opposed to using photography as a form of documentation. The creation of costumes, use of props, and use of iconic imagery coupled with symbols of gender, stereotypes and identity amplifies Butler’s concept. Their photographic explorations, although from completely different time periods, appropriate identity to form questions, conversations and tensions about the conventional binary. Working differently for the same idea, Cahun uses their won body to create multiple identities whose gender fluctuates for each portrait while Schorr employs the help of models who look androgynous and captures them in even more ambiguous settings, poses and gestures. Both pieces, What do you want from me? (Fig.1) and Two shirts (Fig.2) , subvert the heteronormative expectations and preconceived judgements of masculinity and the gender binary and explore the fluidity of gender.