Judith Butler Gender Identity Analysis

Deploying Professor John Carl Flugel’s Psychology of Clothes in conjunction with queer theory — particularly the theories of Judith Butler, this essay will attempt to examine the concepts of gender and identity in relation to artist Grayson Perry, ‘Britain’s pre-eminent transvestite’ through the lens of adornment.

Gender can be defined as a set of different attributes and behaviours that comply to the socially constructed masculine/feminine binary. Adornment, has historically, at least from the 17th century onwards in Western society (Wilson, 1985, p. ), been a highly significant gender divisive tool useful for deciphering apparent ‘identities’, “in the case of an individual whom we have not previously met, the clothes he is wearing tell us

This notion can be translated in terms of dress in that men have had the practicality of bifurcated pants for the best part of dress history, while women’s legs remained encircled in dresses and skirts thus, we have preconceived notions that dresses are strictly to be worn by women and trousers by men. Though the latter of these gendered garments has fully come into public acceptance as an article that can be worn by women too. A man in a dress, however, remains in contemporary society more of a stark view than a woman in trousers due to the fact that it is accepted that women may dress in the style of men for reasons comfort and practicality as opposed to the vision of a man wearing a dress which is often considered perverse or comical. Clothing and other forms of adornment, i.e, the use of make-up; the styling of hair, etc are integral elements of cross-dressing and thus play a huge role in this

The primary functionality of bodily adornment is one much contested between the three headings of modesty, protection and decoration. However, Flugel, among many of his peers and historians of dress conclude that decoration was and still is the main objective for adornment (1930, pp. 15-25). Clothing in this case can often be regarded as an outward projection of one’s inner identity, e.g the fashion of subcultures, punks’ rebellious use safety pins as adornment signify that the wearer identifies with punk movement, etc. Thus, in our gendered society the wearing of a dress is intrinsically linked with the feminine gender and the concept of identifying as a woman.

Cross-dressing challenges this binary structure, in some cases, while in others it reinforces the normative practices pertaining to gender. A figure like Grayson Perry, who unapologetically presents himself as ‘a man in a dress’ subverts this preconceived gender role that dresses are for women, whereas in other instances — EJ for example, who was previously referenced, in conversation with Grayson Perry notes that his own aversion to and fear of wearing a dress as a transgender man feeds further into the restrictive masculine/feminine binary. (Channel 4, 2016, b)