Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (Thinking Gender Series) - Softcover

Judith Butler

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0415900433 ISBN 13: 9780415900430

Publisher: Routledge, 1989

Ever since feminist theory introduced the distinction between sex and gender, the question of what it means to be a woman has preoccupied feminist thought. In Gender Trouble Judith Butler questions whether it is possible to "be" a woman at all or, for that matter, any gender.

Review:

In a new introduction to the 10th-anniversary edition of Gender Trouble--among the two or three most influential books (and by far the most popular) in the field of gender studies--Judith Butler explains the complicated critical response to her groundbreaking arguments and the ways her ideas have evolved as a result. Nevertheless, she has resisted the urge to revise what has become a feminist classic (as well as an elegant defense of drag, given Butler's emphasis on the performative nature of gender). The book was produced, according to Butler, "as part of the cultural life of a collective struggle that has had, and will continue to have, some success in increasing the possibilities for a livable life for those who live, or try to live, on the sexual margins." An attack on the essentialism of French feminist theory and its basis in structuralist anthropology, Gender Trouble expands to address the cultural prejudices at play in genetic studies of sex determination, as well as the uses of gender parody, and also provides a critical genealogy of the naturalization of sex. A primer in gender studies--and sexy reading for college cafés. --Regina Marler

About the Author:

Judith Butler teaches in the Department of Rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley.