Patriarchal social constructs place the woman firmly in one role -the role of the femme in Brigid ’ s case - because men , and only men , find value in these roles : that is , this ( reductively ) interpolated who women were if they behaved this way , and how they should be treated ’ for the purposes of sublimating male anxiety . Spade , however , comes very close to discovering that both of these roles rely on performativity within this scene and throughout the novel . He might consider both acts to be a masquerade to conceal a non-identity ( Doane 2005 , 138 ) rather than a performative action ( defined by the repetition ), which draws from more than one gendered social construct . This might , in turn , belittle Brigid ’ s feminist , performative act that restricts her from truly belonging to these labels , as her undefinable and fluid interior gender only champions over the patriarchal structure when it - and she – remain undefinable . when Spade notices her attempts to mask her indefinability , it belittles her feminist performance – yet here the same indefinability ‘ champions over the patriarchal structure ’ when the fluidity of her gender is unnoticed . Such unnoticeability is suspended between direct agency and the social gaze .
Conclusion
While the novel as a whole does encourage us to read Brigid as a performer , it cannot consider the option that she is performing both gender roles . However , her repeated use of “ corporeal signs ” ( Butler 1999 , 186 ) from both the femme and the angel suggests that Brigid uses performativity to correlate herself with not one , but two social constructs of gender in order to remain to be undefinable by that very standard . The action of performing both reminds us that adhering to even one these roles relies on performativity , and thus showcases the hollow nature of such roles . Brigid therefore undertakes multifaceted performativity in order to truly belong to neither of those labels and utilise both in accordance with the situation and escape patriarchal judgement in her undefinable nature whist simultaneously creating a ‘ parody ’ of the structure itself .