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13SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS VOLUME 3 I ISSUE 4 I 2022 _ISSN: 2181-1601
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GENDER TROUBLE IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY: HOW CAN BUTLER'S WORK INFORM EXPERIMENTAL SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGISTS' CONCEPTUALIZATION OF GENDER?
Ozodbek Karimov Diyora Gulomova
Andijan State University
ABSTRACT
This article focuses on gender equality and its issues, based on research conducted in several countries. Psychological theories of gender tend to revolve around the question of whether gender is a natural, biological fact (Freud: 'anatomy is destiny'), or whether gender is a socially-constructed category which culture socialises/conditions children into: i. e. boys and girls learn to be boys and girls. Gender research is vital because love, care, and reproduction are basic dimensions in life, and yet, the meaning of gender is contested. Gender research offers updated empirical knowledge about gendered practices, norms, and discourses in politically significant ways.
Keywords: Butler's work, performativity, social psychology, expectations, interactionally emergent.
A quarter of a century ago, philosopher Judith Butler (1990) called upon society to create "gender trouble" by disrupting the binary view of sex, gender, and sexuality. She argued that gender, rather than being an essential quality following from biological sex, or an inherent identity, is an act which grows out of, reinforces, and is reinforced by, societal norms and creates the illusion of binary sex. Despite the fact that Butler's philosophical approach to understanding gender has many resonances with a large body of gender research being conducted by social psychologists, little theorizing and research within experimental social psychology has drawn directly on Butler's ideas. In this paper, we will discuss how Butler's ideas can add to experimental social psychologists' understanding of gender. We describe the Butler's ideas from Gender Trouble and discuss the ways in which they fit with current conceptualizations of gender in experimental social psychology. We then propose a series of new research questions that arise from this integration of Butler's work and the social psychological literature. Finally, we suggest a number of concrete ways in which experimental social psychologists can incorporate notions of gender performativity and gender trouble into the ways in which they research gender. A quarter of a century ago, philosopher Judith Butler (1990) called upon society to create "gender trouble" by disrupting the binary view of sex, gender, and sexuality. Key to her argument is that gender is not an
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essential, biologically determined quality or an inherent identity, but is repeatedly performed, based on, and reinforced by, societal norms. This repeated performance of gender is also performative, that is, it creates the idea of gender itself, as well as the illusion of two natural, essential sexes. In other words, rather than being women or men, individuals act as women and men, thereby creating the categories of women and men. Moreover, they face clear negative consequences if they fail to do their gender right.
We argue that Butler's philosophical approach to understanding gender has many resonances with, and implications for, a large body of gender research being conducted by social psychologists. Indeed, Butler's notion of performativity echoes a range of social psychological approaches to gender and gender difference. What we social psychologists might call gender norms and stereotypes or gender schemas provide the "scripts" for what Butler's describes as the performance of gender.
We are not the first to point out the relevance of Butler's work to social psychology. Bem (1995) drawing on Butler's work, argued in that as gender researchers we should create gender trouble by making genders that fall outside of the binary visible, in order to disrupt binary, heteronormative views of gender within and outside of psychology. Minton (1997) argued that queer theory more broadly, which challenges the binary, heteronormative system of sex and gender, should inform psychological theory and practice. Similarly, Hegarty (1997) uses Butler's arguments regarding performativity to criticize neuropsychological research that essentializes sexual orientation, pointing out the ways in which it ignores historical and cultural variation in sexuality and excludes women and other minorities. However, despite these calls for gender trouble over 20 years ago, we believe that social psychology, and experimental social psychology in particular, has yet to truly step up and answer the call. Despite past acknowledgments of the importance of Butler's work by social psychologists, in particular by qualitative psychologist, to our knowledge, little theorizing and research within experimental (and quantitative) social psychology has directly drawn on Butler's ideas. This is despite the fact that there are identifiable similarities in broad theoretical ideas espoused by many social psychologists with an interest in gender and Butler's ideas. Thus, we argue that there is great value in (again) promoting the ideas Butler puts forward in Gender Trouble to social psychologists. While experimental social psychological perspectives on gender have been concerned primarily with the origin and perpetuation of gender stereotypes, Butler's work is more political in her explicit call to create gender trouble. The political nature of the work is perhaps one reason why experimental social psychologists have been reluctant to build on and integrate Butler's ideas in their work -but, we would argue, it is indeed one of the reasons they should. Combining these two perspectives seems potentially fruitful, bringing together Butler's theorizing and her call
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for social and political change with established experimental social psychological theory and empirically testable hypotheses.
The performative quality of gender and sexuality is distinct from gendered and sexualized performance. If a performance is something controlled and possibly characterized by a degree of artifice, performativity is talking about something completely different. To say that gender is performative is simply to say that how we understand gender, and how we position ourselves as gendered or sexual beings in relation to others is achieved through the repetition and enactment of these activities. The fact that our community sees these acts as gendered is what makes them so, not the fact that lesbian women or heterosexual men (as some given) enact them. However, the distinction between performance and performative is often blurred in analyses of language and gender, and language and sexuality. Some analysts will move freely between the two epistemologically and discursively. Butler herself sometimes uses "perform" in a way that suggests a mannered and controlled performance, not just a performative act; this reflects the complexity of performativity. She argues that when normative performances conform to our expectations they are likely to obscure the performed nature of identity. What does it mean that a performative view of gender and sexuality claims that gender and sexuality are interactionally emergent and socially contingent? First of all, it means that masculine or feminine identities do not exist outside their expressions. We constitute gendered identities through talk (and other forms of social action). It also means that the rituals (Butler uses this term, echoing Erving Goffman's (1922-82) discussion of interaction rituals (1967)) that we use performatively are situated in a social and historical context. Other gender and identity theorists have made this point too - what it is to enact womanliness is interpretable to the actor and the people s/he is interacting with only in terms of their cultural expectations. Elinor Ochs (1944-) talks about language as being precontextualized by previous iterations of a linguistic routine or by previous speakers' use of a form and as recontextualizing future uses of that routine or form (1990). For example, by adopting "submissive" routines such as deferring to others, using a low amplitude, high-pitched voice, and holding their body in ways that suggest smallness or withdrawal, a speaker performatively may evoke existing cultural tropes of the submissive woman. But the use of these routines also projects forward in time, either maintaining or altering and contesting what has been normative. In Ochs' terms, the routines index womanliness. Thus, normatively gendered language routines may become resources that both genders can draw on creatively, for example, in order to project a new model of feminine leadership, or to project a masculinity that problematizes a normative complementarity
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between males and females. This raises the possibility that any performative act may succeed or not succeed given the social context in which it unfolds. Is Butler's View Compatible With Conceptualizations of Gender in Social Psychology?
Gender has been an increasingly important focus within psychology more generally, and in social psychology in particular (e.g., Eagly et al., 2012). While there is considerable variation in how psychologists view and treat gender, we argue that many of approaches fall into one of three traditions: (1) evolutionary approaches which view binary, biological sex as the determinant of gender and gender differences; (2) social structural approaches which view societal forces such as status and social roles as the determinant of gender stereotypes and, in turn, gender differences; and, not mutually exclusive from a social structural approach; (3) social identity approaches which view gender as one out of many social categories with which individuals identify to varying degrees. In addition, integrative approaches draw on more than one of these traditions, as well as developmental, social cognitive, and sociological models of gender, and integrate them to explain gendered behavior. While none of these approaches is entirely compatible with the argument that binary sex is constructed through the repeated binary performance of gender with gender identity as a by-product of this performance, there are great differences in the extent to which they are in line with, and can speak to, Butler's ideas.
Evolutionary psychology is, we would argue, the least compatible with Butler's view on sex and gender. Evolutionary approaches to the psychology of gender maintain that gender differences are, for the most part, genetic - resulting from the different adaptive problems faced by women and men in their evolutionary past (see Byrd-Craven and Geary, 2013), particularly due to reproductive differences such as paternal uncertainty for men and higher parental investment for women. These differences, it is argued, then shaped our genes - and gender differences - through sexual selection (i.e., gender differences in the factors predicting successful reproduction; Darwin, 1871). These approaches can be described as essentializing gender, that is, promoting the belief that men and women share an important but unobservable "essence." Essentialism includes a range of factors such the degree to which individuals perceive social categories to be fixed and natural (Roberts et al., 2017) and has been shown to be associated with greater levels of stereotyping and prejudice (Brescoll and LaFrance, 2004; Bastian and Haslam, 2006). Evidence further suggests people who hold highly essentialist beliefs of gender are more supportive of what the authors call "boundary-enhancing initiatives" such as gender-segregated classrooms and legislation forcing transgender individuals to use the bathroom associated with the sex they were assigned at birth (Roberts et al., 2017).
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Thereby, essentialism, and the resultant stereotypes and prejudice, contribute to the reinforcement of the status quo.
The Renaissance in Central Asia resulted in the greatest achievements in the political, economic and spiritual life of society. During this period, political and legal sciences, new literature and art, medicine, philosophy, and a new aesthetic consciousness were created.1
The article examines the most important issues of the formation of the rule of law and civil society in modern Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan has a rich experience of political life, features of political consciousness and develops in unique and difficult conditions. Thus, it turned out that it is wrong to copy a simple copy of the political experience of the Western world.
The paper investigates the essence of spiritual potential as well as its role in modern
3
society.
Founded as a statesman in the history of the Baburi dynasty, he became one of the world's most famous historians with his book "Boburnoma" written in Uzbek.4 Future Research Directions In the previous section, we have outlined how some of the issues raised by Butler, such as the negative reactions to those who fail to do their gender right, have already received considerable attention in the social psychological literature. Other aspects of her argument, however, have received very little attention and hold the potential for interesting future research. We identify two broad ways in which Butler's work can inform and shape future social psychological research: (a) engendering new research questions which have not yet been investigated empirically, and (b) challenging our way of studying gender itself.
In this paper we put forward suggestions for ways in which Judith's Butler's (1990) notions of gender trouble could be integrated into experimental social psychology's understanding of gender, gender difference, and gender inequality. We have outlined her work and discussed the extent to which prominent views of gender within psychology are compatible with this work. Moreover, we suggested potential avenues of future research and changes in the way that we, as researchers, treat gender. We believe that, as experimental social psychologists, we should be aware that we may
1 Tolibjonovich, M. T. (2021). EASTERN RENAISSANCE AND ITS CULTURAL HERITAGE: THE VIEW OF FOREIGN RESEARCHERS. ResearchJet Journal of Analysis and Inventions, 2(05), 211-215.
2 Nasriddinovich, A. A. (2021). STRUCTURE, MODELS AND CHARACTERISTICS OF CIVIL SOCIETY. STRUCTURE, 7(4).
3 Talantbek, M., & Omonillo, E. (2022). SPIRITUAL POTENTIAL AND ITS ROLE IN MODERN. " Yosh Tadqiqotchi" jurnali, 1(2), 58-62.
4 Madumarov Talantbek Tolibjonovich, & G'ulomjonov Odiljon Raximjon o'g'li. (2020). The place of the Baburian dynasty in world history. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF DISCOURSE ON INNOVATION, INTEGRATION AND EDUCATION, 1(2), 57-60. Retrieved from http://summusjournals.uz/index.php/ijdiie/article/view/94
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inadvertently and performatively reinforce the gender binary in the way in which we do research - in the theories we develop, in the measures that we use, and in the research practices we undertake. By taking on board Butler's ideas into social psychology, we can broaden our research agenda - raising and answering questions of how social change can be achieved. We can provide a greater understanding of the psychological processes involved in creating gender trouble, and in resisting gender trouble - but above all, we are in a position to create our own gender trouble.
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