Dr. “FOR AN INCLUSIVE INTERACTION: DOING GENDER: NORM-RELEVANCY OR PERFORMATIVITY?”

Abstract

Gender and gender terms are widely discussed in social sciences. Still, in the frame of analytic philosophy, this is much to discuss. One of the most important contributions to this is Jenkins' argument on gender identity. Jenkins defends that "the norm-relevancy account" is a good candidate for the target concept of gender identity as it meets some specific desiderata argued. (Jenkins 2018) (P1) Nevertheless, Jenkins' norm-relevancy account creates a suspicion on its account as it does not sufficiently meet all desiderata as it appears. The tension does not end here. In this paper, based on Jenkins' account, I follow Butler's (1999) account of the performativity of gender for a wider space of gender identity. In the scope of this paper, Butler's account of performativity (O1) constructs the main objection route toward Jenkins' norm-relevancy account of gender. So long as Jenkins' account of gender identity preserves norm-relevancy account as the target concept; it seems that doing gender as a process and the recognition of non-binary and some specific identities are not sufficiently met according to relevant social ontology. This also matters for interaction among people and for the question about how they apply their interaction standards for daily lives in relevant public domains.