Gender Trouble :
Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (Thinking Gender
Series) by Judith
Butler.
The classic text on
performativity.
This is a densely written but repeatedly rewarding study of the constructions of gender
and sex as they relate to women, lesbians and gay men, and, to follow the logic of
Butler's argument, all of us. This work shows not only the relativity of our cultural
understanding of femininity but also the limits of our scientific understanding of
female-ness. For feminists, Butler's book offers a much-needed examination of what exactly
the female subject is and how woman is defined in (or by) our particular culture. Butler
goes far beyond Foucault in examining sexuality as socially constructed and, in the
process, offers valuable insights to (and critiques of) the writing and thinking of
Beauvoir, Kristeva, Lacan, and Wittig. The book's one flaw is a turgid, sometimes
redundant prose (i.e. phrases like "judical law" and "'he' [sic]") all
too common in technical and philosophical writing, especially, alas, of the postmodernist
variety. But once the reader survives the first quarter of the book, he [sic] will find
Butler's observations not only accessible but fascinating and, for whatever it's worth,
socially important.
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