JUDITH BUTLER’S VIEWS

IN GENDER TROUBLE

Vlăduceanu (Buradel) Andreea

 CONTEXT:
Gender Trouble is Judith Butler’s best known work. It was published in
1990. Here are some of the major characteristics of society in that
period:
• World Health Organization removed homosexuality from its list of
diseases;
• Record number of women are elected to high office in the United
States in 1992, the "Year of the Woman“;
• In the United States the Violence Against Women Act was passed
• The third wave of feminism
 BUTLER’S VIEWS IN GENDER TROUBLE:

When asked about her intellectual journey to and from Gender Trouble, Judith says:
“When I started Gender Trouble I proposed to write a book on ‘the
philosophical foundations of gender’ so I was working within some
established set of philosophical norms at that moment. (…) I ended up
writing, I think, an antifoundational treatise on gender.”

- Influenced by: Simone de Beauvoir, Jacques Lacan, Michel Foucault

- The performative theory of gender; she critiques the binary view of gender relationships
and believes feminists have made a mistake in their attempt to define women
- The title alludes to the 1974 John Waters film Female Trouble, which stars the drag queen
Divine
• The cultural-theoretic assumption that gender is socially constructed (the
result of socialization, broadly conceived) rather than innate
• Conventional notions of gender and sexuality are problematic as they
serve to perpetuate the traditional domination of women by men and to
justify the oppression of homosexuals and transgender persons.
• One of the foundational texts of queer theory
• Her performative theory of gender and sex, greatly influenced the
development of cultural theory, gender studies, and some schools
of philosophical feminism in the late 20th and early 21st centuries
 REACTIONS/CRITICISM:
• Anthony Elliott says that the core idea expounded in Gender Trouble is that
"gender is a kind of improvised performance, a form of theatricality that
constitutes a sense of identity“.
• playwright Jordan Tannahill read the entirety of Gender Trouble outside
the Hungarian Parliament Building in protest of Hungarian Prime
Minister Viktor Orbán’s decision to revoke accreditation and funding for
gender studies programs in the country.
• Derek Barker considers Butler to be "one of the most influential voices in
contemporary political theory”.
Significant criticism:
• Susan Bordo has argued that Butler reduces gender to language and has
contended that the body is a major part of gender
• Nancy Fraser's critique of Butler was about the focus on performativity
which distances her from "everyday ways of talking and thinking about
ourselves. ... Why should we use such a self-distancing idiom?"
• Before election to the papacy, Pope Benedict XVI wrote several pages
challenging Butler's arguments on gender
 Conclusions:
• Butler’s views about gender and sex have produced both positive and
negative reactions. Even though there are a lot of people who are
discontent with her performative theory on gender, the importance of her
studies for the gay and lesbian communities all over the world is undeniable.
• Even though her theory may have flaws, if we look at it from a very simple
perspective it normalizes the idea that individuals have the right to choose
the gender and should free themselves of the social conventions
• Through her ideas she highly encourages people to embrace acceptance
towards their peers, whatever gender they choose to assume.
 Bibliography:
1. Butler, Judith, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity,
Routledge Classics 1st Edition, 2006
2. Butler, Judith interviewed by Sara Ahmed Goldsmiths, University of London,
UK, September 2014, Web, 9 Jan. 2020
3. Elliott, Anthony, Psychoanalytic Theory: An Introduction, Red Globe Press; 3rd
ed., 2015
4. Duignan, Brian, article on Judith Butler https://www.britannica.com/
5. https://en.wikipedia.org
6. McRobbie, Angela (January 18, 2009). ”The pope doth protest". The Guardian.