Sometimes, those wearing face masks, such as surgical masks or N95 respirators, are asked whether their doing so is performative. The question is often a veiled judgment.
It might be a surprise, but yes, wearing a mask is in fact performative.
But, by performative I do not mean “pretending-to-be-better-than-you-virtue-signaling” or “less-than-fully-committed” or even “look-at-me-and-my-fake-attempts-to-avoid-sickness,” as suggested by people vehemently opposed to or suspicious of such visible safety measures.
Especially in 2025—five years now into the on-going pandemic—when severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2, more frequently known by its less alarming name, COVID-19) denialism, misinformation, and recklessness are pervasive across all social institutions and among all rungs of society, wearing a mask around others is a performative act that creates a particular, deliberate reality for mask wearers—and non-mask wearers alike. This is all the truer given the continuing pushes for mask bans.
Emerging from John Austin’s and later Judith Butler’s insights, performativities are the actions, behaviors, and words in our lives that do something in the present.
Borrowing from the classic example: Imagine a priest specifically announcing “I now pronounce you husband and husband” at the culmination of a wedding. The words “I now pronounce you” are performative. Those words create new cultural, legal, and social realities between the couple and their society. Informed consent is another example of a performative act.
Thus, consider Sam, a composite based on a variety of experiences shared with me, as well as my own personal experience.
Imagine that before Sam enters the hospital for their X-ray and bloodwork, they place their N95 mask around their face, tightly covering their mouth and nose. Sam’s performative mask wearing creates specific realities.
For Sam, this careful, deliberate, performative action creates a hospital encounter that is substantially safer, as the chance that they will be infected by SARS-CoV-2 (or any number of other airborne viruses, like measles) is greatly reduced. Properly wearing the mask is also a “mark” of sorts. If, say, wearing a dress performatively creates a gender identity frequently marked “woman” and having a very short haircut performatively creates a gender identity frequently marked “man,” then Sam wearing a mask performatively creates an identity that is marked by them being informed, them caring about their health and safety, and them caring about the health and safety of others. The resulting performative reality created by wearing a mask is not necessarily entirely pleasant. Due to wide-spread misinformation about SARS-CoV-2, Sam, unfortunately, might be isolated, ostracized, and even interrogated by others (including medical professionals!).
For patients, guests, and, especially, providers who choose not to wear a mask, another specific yet still performative experience results. Seeing a mask may remind them of their own battle with Long COVID and of the millions sick and disabled so far due to the destruction caused by SARS-CoV-2. They may regret constantly “raw dogging the air,” as it has been bluntly put by online activists. They may have a general fear of internalizing the dangers SARS-CoV-2 presents and know they should do better. Or they may be victims of how many of those with the knowledge to do better—including healthcare and public health professionals, bioethicists, disability studies scholars—have abdicated responsibilities for promoting safety in our new, post-December 2019 world.
A compounding factor is that the hospital Sam uses currently has a policy requiring that everyone wear a mask in clinical areas. (The policy only requires surgical masks and says masks are to prevent the spread of influenza viruses. There is no mention of SARS-CoV-2. That the policy only requires surgical masks instead of more effective KN95 or N95 masks and only applies to clinical areas and doesn’t even mention SARS-CoV-2 is an issue for another day.) This bare-minimum policy is not enforced and is gleefully ignored writ large, as evidenced by patients, guests, nurses, receptionists, physicians, housekeepers, and others interacting without masks or with masks only around their chin.
Sara Ahmed coined a concept to describe such phenomena when actions or words “do not bring into effect what they name”: non-performative.
The non-performativity of such masking policies still results in words and inactions having consequences, in inaction doing things. Just not the explicitly stated. What, then, is the purpose of a masking policy? What is such a policy doing?
Such an unenforced—and thus disregarded—policy as the one used at the hospital Sam visits specifically creates dynamics where masks are communicated as actually being unimportant and unnecessary. Messages are created without words: “Airborne viruses aren’t to be feared.” The non-performativity of an ignored masking policy creates an illusion of normalcy. And yet the mere existence of the (effectively non-existent policy) also allows for a shedding of responsibility: People who may complain about a SARS-CoV-2 infection could be told that they willfully ignored policy.
Thus, even though there is an extremely high degree of non-compliance, the masking policy and its words are still doing things—just not what they name.
We might even look at the initial masking policy and ask whether it was ever intended to be followed. Does education accompany the policy? Are there enforcement mechanisms? Are there consequences for violations (such as termination of services or termination of employment)? Without such measures, any masking policy might even be deemed deliberately and aggressively non-performative and hostile toward people who do follow the rules.
And this further raises questions related to nonmaleficence. Do No Harm. This prima facie principle of healthcare ethics should also be performative. Sam’s hospital visit should be one guided by policies and practices that performatively enact, that constantly create and recreate the best opportunities for appropriate, safe care.
An unenforced and disregarded masking policy renders “Do No Harm” a non-performative.
Special thanks to Maxwell J. Smith, PhD, MSc; to Jennifer S. Bard, JD, MPH, PhD; and to Daniel S. Goldberg, JD, PhD for the encouragement to write about this topic.
Andrew Joseph Pegoda, PhD (@AJP_PHD) holds a doctorate and two master’s degrees and is a Lecturer at the University of Houston.