preview

##thhnomethodology Of Gender Masculinity And The Role Of Women

Decent Essays

performativity. As Butler describes “The term “relationality” sutures the rupture in the relation we seek to describe, a rupture that is constitutive of identity itself” (Butler 2004, 19). In order for a man to perform his masculinity, it is easier when they are compared to a feminine woman. The performance of masculinity or femininity will escalate once these two genders are set side by side, “... power has certain broad historical characteristics, and that it operates on gender as well as on other kinds of social and cultural norms, then it seems that gender is but the instance of a larger regulatory operation of power” (Butler 2003, 41). Masculinity performed by men comes across as a powerful characteristic in a relationship. Through history till now men play and perform the role of the leader in the household for instance, being seen as the man of the house. In most households, the man has the most control over trivial yet symbolically important things such as the upper hand over the remote, sitting at the head of the table and providing the family with the essentials.

Chris Brickell discusses the ethnomethodology of gender performativity and how Harold Garfinkel analysed his understanding. The basic idea of a stereotypical woman would be that she would cook, clean and look after the children while the man would work hard, provide for the family and come home to rest after a hard day of work. Brickell describes, “This “natural attitude” requires one to be either a male

Get Access