Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (Routledge Classics)

Butler's gender critique has been a helpful resource for me in my own work. In this book Butler challenges varying constructions of gender and how such constructions are constituted. She defends all variations of sexual expression and breaks down patriarchal forms of discourse through the application of a variety of feminist critiques. Her writing is dense, complicated, and sometimes difficult to follow, but the careful reader will find her contribution challenging and worthy of spirited dialogue.

Judith Butler is one of the most prominent feminist theorists of our times, and her work should be read by anyone who seriously wants to grapple with issues of genderism, bi-genderism, trans-genderism, inter-genderism, and post-genderism. Her challenging writing style is necessary to really let you break out of the binaries that are both constructive and obstructive to our thinking. Butler's central thesis - "that, in a way we are all transvestites" - challenges popularly held views of tranvestite-ism, and destabilizes traditional modes of constructing gender identity. Most people think that they're not transvestites because they do not go out wearing the clothing of the opposite sex. These people need to read this book!

The most subversive thing that one can do in a gendered sociality is to redefine themselves, and hence redefine others, by crossing genderly bound, genderly bounded, and genderly constructed mediations. The mediations both keep us from ourselves and keep us from one another, and in becoming other we transgress and transform these mediations in a constant struggle and constant negotiation for self, society, and bi-individuality.

This book is necessary for anyone living in today's world.

Butler, Judith. "Gender Trouble", Routledge, 2007.

Critiquing Gender

Amos Lassen and Literary Pride

When I first started studying gender issues, I discovered Judith Butler and she has been a hero of mine ever since. She challenges you with her theories of sex, gender and sexuality. Her book "Gender Trouble" has been deemed a classic by those who follow her theoretical approach.
"Gender Trouble" has been very important in shaping modern queer theory with its premise that it is time for us to rethink how we understand gender issues and sexual orientation and preference. Butler gives us a classist approach to understand gender but the problem here seems to be that her study concentrates on modern white upper class academia. Some of her ideas could quite naturally apply to all of us if we throw the class ideas out. To destabilize gender from its binary classification would indeed be a liberating experience but Butler has not challenged all of society or the entire social order. Because writing is engaging in political activity, Butler challenges the existing patriarchy found in many places of the world today. Because of this the book may read as more of an elitist manifesto than a handbook that we all can use. To me it was easy enough to take her ideas and formulate my own theory of how we should look at gender and sexuality and regardless of her elitism, there is a g great deal of valuable information to be found in her book.
Butler poses the idea of nature versus nurture as important to the idea of gender and this is challenging in itself. But even more interesting is our approach to labeling. When we look at the labels we use today--male/female, masculine/feminine, man/woman--we see a distinct binary. Looking further at the issue of sexuality, we get sexuality/sexual orientation. There seems to be nothing that falls in between.
Butler has truly allowed me to see how I regard the world and how so many others look at society. Gender is not an easy topic to discuss and Butter does so with great agility and knowledge on a very touchy issue. We ask ourselves what we think of when we use the words "heterosexual", "homosexual" and just plain "sexual". What is it about these words that give them permanency and meaning? Better yet, why do these words conceal thought rather reveal it? Gender is "performative" in the words of Michel Foucault, the French existentialist. Is it indeed a role worn on occasion or is it a cultural activity that often repeats itself?
Many complain that it is difficult to understand the language that Butter uses. I do not agree. To understand Butler, you must put yourself into the frame of mind that you want to understand what she has to say. She says a lot and to read her is to get a better understanding of what the gender issue is all about.

Readers who are willing to tolerate labyrinthine sentences and brain-cramping scholarly vocabulary and who already have a working understanding of Freud, Lacan, Foucault, and deconstruction will find in Butler a challenging, highly stimulating theorist of sex, gender, and sexuality.

Readers looking for a breezy and accessible discussion of gender roles in modern society should definitely look elsewhere.

While I recognize the importance of this text on the shaping of current queer theory and agree with Butler that we need to rethink our understanding of sexual orientation and gender dichotomies, I am nevertheless bothered by the absence of economic and racial issues in her work. Indeed, her dry, tedious, at times inaccessible writing style reeks of classism. This is a shame because I do believe that many of her ideas could truly benefit people living outside of white, ruling-class academia. After all, the destabilization of the gender binary is a liberating notion for everyone, regardless of one's economic position. However, by not de-centering whiteness and addressing class, Butler's work, like most postmodernist theory, does not go far enough in challenging the social order. Queer capitalism is after all still capitalism. Needless to say, how one writes is in itself a political act. Had Bultler been truly interested in emancipating large numbers of people oppressed by the patriarchy it seems to me that she would have written the book in a more approachable manner. Of course, by calling this book elitist, I do not wish to reinforce the condescending notion that poor people are stupid. To the contrary, I believe that people oppressed by poverty and racism have much that they could teach to white, ruling-class intellectuals like Judith Butler. Interestingly, Butler's title for this book was inspired by the highly offensive John Waters movie, "Female Trouble", a depraved movie that brutally ridicules women of size, poor women, and transgendered women. Though Butler no doubt thinks that the title of her book is clever and witty, I find it a disturbing indication of Butler's indifference to real human suffering. Instead of wasting your money on this pretentious book, why not donate that money instead to your local battered women's shelter or lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community center?