Chelsea Swan

Leading on from my thoughts on the inner and outer self I wanted to talk about performed femininity and what it means to me. I see this as an aspect of the outer self. In that post I spoke about playing the part that society expects in order to exist safely and achieve goals.

Part of this is hiding yourself, your thoughts, beliefs, image in order to avoid being seen as Too Much, too loud, outspoken, beautiful, ugly, selfish, easy, sexual, frigid, the list goes on. I have always been too much. I AM TOO MUCH.

There is also the internalised guilt, internalised shame.

Performative femininity is the unrealistic, socially constructed , restrictive standards, symbolic actions and aesthetics, placed on women through societal ideals.

The term Performative Femininity was popularised by Judith Butler to talk about the behaviours exhibited in order to be perceived as a woman or a man. We are all playing roles, not always consciously, we have been socialised to the point that they are indistinguishable from ourselves. It does not mean it is right or wrong, just that these systems are not innate.

It is not innate, we are not born pre-programmed to act and dress as women, to like female things and not like male things. We have been conditioned, brought up.

Dana Lesilie: “the once unorthodox notion of ‘playing a version of yourself’ has become a way of life due to the historical and contemporary narrative that has been written for women, which feminist artists have exploited for their own artistic expression”

I tend towards hyper femininity, and enjoy those who practice bimbofication. It is a type of armour to use these expectations to make ourselves more than. To over do the performance. To recognise it and use it in our self creation.

However, there is that toxic side of feminism that internalizes self hate, and looks down on women who continue to be feminine, continue with the performance, as if it makes you less able to stand up to misogyny if you have pink nail varnish. There are those women who put other women down for being too girly, who like to think they are not like other girls. They forgot that we are all playing a part. Performing the non-feminine is still performance.

Girls absorb these rules by osmosis. It permeates our environment. It almost seems innate. It is difficult to separate oneself from it. It is hard to view ourselves without the performance. There is always an audience, even when alone.

It is exhausting to be:

• caretaking
• taking on the emotional labour
• primping
• dressing up
• monitoring body language
• monitoring speach
• Keeping up to date with athetics
• forcing positivity, smiling, laughing at shit jokes
• maintains safety (excluding oneself from walking alone or at night)
• dieting
• self depricating
• cleaning
• avoiding expression, passion, loudness, anger.
• playing the role requiered

How are we to feel capable of being ourselves if we are always living an attempt at fitting the mold, a gaze, or the audience that is constructed of all our socially required selves.

These parts of femininity which are most often mocked, suppressed, and rejected, I believe, are the ones that hold the greatest power to fully realise ourselves and free us to be as we wish to be.

However, how do we make the hidden visible, how do we stop performing.?

Or, how do we face the duality and realise the performance, that you are not yourself, you are not as you perform or as others see you, in order to better realise the inner self?

Other questions include;

• How is the performance of femininity used by the artist to protect, project, or hide?
• How does performaative feminity and our expectation of womanhood affect how we view art by women? Is it considered less authentic because it is performed?
• Can we view art by women separately to performance and gender?
• Can the female artist escape gendered performance?

Project: the artist creates works that are intended to shock or engage the viewer to question, to relate, or to feel something. The female experience is used or subverted to drive meaning. They project themselves or their femininity through the work. Artists such as Nan Goldin

Protect: The artists meets at least some expectations. The work fits in with what is expected of a woman or of a female artist. The works content or style legitimizes or reduces the opportunity for ridicule or scorn. It fits into the systems of the society, scholars, the media or galleries.

Hide: The work is a creation not of true self but of other self which hides the artist. Ideas are processed through a not real self. It is not the artist but the idea that we see.