"In the wake of Mr. Kavanaugh’s confirmation, the gender and sexuality scholar Asa Seresin picked up on a feeling in the air..."

"... and put a name to it: 'heteropessimism.' ... Mr. Seresin argued that heteropessimism was defined by 'performative disaffiliations with heterosexuality, usually expressed in the form of regret, embarrassment, or hopelessness about straight experience.' By 'performative,' Mr. Seresin meant that though many women freely admitted that being attracted to men was at best a bummer and at worst a form of masochism, few acted on their beliefs. While expressing a sincere hopelessness, women’s disavowals seemed to be mostly gestural, like a sardonic Etsy mug."

Writes Marie Solis, in "Men? Maybe Not. The election made clear that America’s gender divide is stark. What’s a heterosexual woman to do?" (NYT).

That's a long article, but I chose that excerpt because I have a tag "performative (the word)." Here's the post — from June 11, 2022 — where I created the tag. Interestingly, it was about a David Axelrod piece asking "Should Biden Run in 2024?" Axelrod wrote, "Biden doesn’t get the credit he deserves... And part of the reason he doesn’t is performative." I said:

I should make a tag for "performative." It's a buzz word these days, I believe, and I'd like to keep track of it. 

Did it come from gender studies? The most notable appearance of "performative" in my archive was a quote from the famous hoax "The Conceptual Penis as a Social Construct": "The penis vis-à-vis maleness is an incoherent construct. We argue that the conceptual penis is better understood not as an anatomical organ but as a gender-performative, highly fluid social construct."

And from the field of racial studies, there's this, quoted from a NYT op-ed about Rachel Dolezal (the white woman who identified as black): "But Ms. Dolezal’s view of herself — however confused, or incongruent with society’s — reveals an essential truth about race: It is a fiction, a social construct based in culture and not biology. It must be 'made' from what people believe and do. Race is performative."

And I quoted this, about an "anti-racism" mural in Madison: "[The artist] said her intent is to show the nature of performative allyship and the manner in which white savior complex permeates Madison."

We talked about the word a few days ago, in connection with a Georgetown professor who'd tweeted that the defenders of Brett Kavanaugh "deserve miserable deaths." She called her tweeting "performative."

Oh! Brett Kavanaugh came up back then and again in this new "heteropessimism" piece. Perhaps he is the key to all things performative. But back to the 2022 blog post:

I got some push back in the comments saying that the word "performative" should be restricted to the "How To Do Things With Words" philosophical meaning — speech that performs an act. Indeed, that is the only meaning of the word in the OED. 

But the vogue usage of "performative" that I'm seeing in the media these days isn't that....

If people these days are finding the word "performative" useful, it suggests that they also believe in a more authentic and substantive aspect of life that is deeper and more important than the things we do for show — the theater of politics and society. I hope so! 

But it is also possible that people are coming to feel that there is nothing inside, that it's all performative, that everything is fluid. That's not a new idea, that we are empty and soulless — that Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player/That struts and frets his hour upon the stage/And then is heard no more. 

Ah! Things seemed deeper then! In the new "heteropessimism" piece, "performative" is not a contrast to a more authentic and substantive interior life. It is a contrast to the outward life of activism. That is, it has become completely the opposite of what was once the exclusive meaning — speech that performs an act.

ADDED: The OED now has a second meaning for "performative," traced back to 1996:

Usually depreciative. Of action, speech, behaviour, etc.: done or expressed for the sake of appearance, esp. to impress others or to improve one's own image (typically with the implication of insincere intent or superficial impact).

Here are the examples given: 

1996 — If we are to provide more than merely performative or poetic justice we need clearer blueprints for meaningful social action. C. Kaplan, Erotics of Talk 162 

2014 — When a dude says ‘i'm not perfect’ with performative humility I wanna be like ‘yeah, man, literally no one has ever assumed that.’ @isanaka 30 October in twitter.com (accessed 30 June 2022) 

2022 — These small sacrifices, despite their good intentions, are ultimately performative measures meant to show other cities and countries how adept we are at fighting climate change. Edmonton (Alberta) Sun (Nexis) 4 May a11