More important to the feminist debates about difference and equality, Butler argued against an essential feminist subject-and, as such, against utopian visions of matriarchy-on the grounds that such a position adhered to entrenched patriarchal norms. Whereas before Butler many prominent feminists thought it necessary to counter patriarchy with a politics of female solidarity-identity politics-Butler posited that “there is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender that identity is performatively constituted by the very ‘expressions’ that are said to be its results.” In other words, Butler contended that the female “self,” or individual, was non-existent apart from the culture that had created it. Lead amongst them was the philosopher Judith Butler, whose 1990 book, Gender Trouble, read widely in academic and activist circles, took the social constructionist theory of gender to drastic new heights, well beyond an earlier paradigm expressed by those like Kate Millett and Carol Gilligan. Some of the leading feminist thinkers of the early 1990s conceptualized a theoretical approach unprecedented in its radical assault on gender norms. I quote from my book to give you a taste of how I have rendered Butler someone to be historicized, no more, no less (the following passage is from pages 162-163 in A War for the Soul of America): Richard White has written that “history destroys without malice.” By putting Butler in my historical narrative of the culture wars, an obvious choice for a historian, I have managed to destroy (without malice) the sense of wonder that I experienced upon my first encounter with her. An important figure, no doubt-the title of Chapter 5 of my book, after all, is “The Trouble With Gender”-yet merely another figure. Since then, as I became an intellectual historian of the culture wars (becoming so by performative repetition!), Butler has for me seemingly turned into merely another figure in an historical drama I have sought to narrate. Judith Butler wowed me the first time I read her challenging and groundbreaking book Gender Trouble, and her even more demanding follow-up, Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex. If you haven’t read the previous posts, be sure to do so:Ĭlaire Potter, Books that Matter: 25 Years of Gender TroubleĪndy Seal, Making Trouble: What is So Difficult About ButlerĮran Zelnik, Gender Trouble and the “Somatic Turn” Utne ReaderĪn impressive and challenging book from one of the leading intellectuals of our time.Below is my belated contribution to the fantastic roundtable on Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble that Andy Seal organized. Hers is a unique voice of courage and conceptual ambition that addresses public life from the perspective of psychic reality, encouraging us to acknowledge the solidarity and the suffering through which we emerge as subjects of freedom. Frames of War is an intellectual masterpiece that weds a new understanding of being, immersed in history, to a novel Left politics that focuses on State violence, war and resistance. Judith Butler is the most creative and courageous social theorist writing today. Judith Butler is quite simply one of the most probing, challenging, and influential thinkers of our time.
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