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Passage: Performance theory in anthropology suggests that social roles are not innate but are 'performed' through repetitive actions. This view, often applied to gender, argues that 'manhood' or 'womanhood' is not a biological fact but a cultural script that individuals learn to enact. Through dress, gesture, and speech, individuals cite and recirculate the established norms of their society. Because these performances are constant, they give the illusion of an underlying, stable identity. However, because performance is always a repetition, it is also a site of potential subversion. By slightly altering the script, individuals can challenge the very norms they are supposed to uphold, exposing the artificiality of the social roles they play. The author implies that gender identities are:

1. Cultural scripts maintained through repetition but open to modification.
2. Natural expressions of a person's inner, stable psychological state.
3. Random actions that have no consistent meaning in society.
4. Biological imperatives that cannot be changed by social influence.

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