Judith Butler is an American philosopher who has formulated several theories that have changed gender studies, questioned feminism and also brought her many opponents. The thinker brings, in one of her works, the idea of a performative genre, that is, as the sum of repetitions of socially practiced behaviors throughout history. One of her main works is gender problem, released in 1990. She's Jewish, a lesbian, a feminist — though she questions the feminism —, anti-racist, anti-lgbtphobic and libertarian.
Read too: Hannah Arendt — a philosopher known worldwide for her studies on totalitarian regimes
Topics of this article
- 1 - Summary about Judith Butler
- 2 - Video lesson on Judith Butler
- 3 - Biography of Judith Butler
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4 - Main works of Judith Butler
- → Gender Problems, by Judith Butler
- → Bodies That Matter, by Judith Butler
- → Undoing gender, by Judith Butler
- → Precarious Life, by Judith Butler
- → The Force of Non-Violence, by Judith Butler
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5 - Judith Butler's Theories
- → Theory of performativity
- → Feminism
- → queer theory
- 6 - Quotes by Judith Butler
Summary about Judith Butler
Judith Butler is a philosopher, lesbian, mother and author of several works that have revolutionized gender studies.
She was born in the United States in 1956.
Her main work is gender problem, released in 1990.
Her theories concern mainly performativity theory, feminism, and queer theory.
Her political views are feminist, anti-Zionist, anti-racist, anti-lgbtphobic, and libertarian.
Video lesson on Judith Butler
Biography of Judith Butler
Judith Butler born on February 24, 1956, in Cleveland, Ohio, in the U.S and is of Jewish origin. She is married to political scientist Wendy Brown, with whom she has a son., Isaac (to whom she dedicates some of her books).
Her Philosophy degree was taken at Yale University, from where she also obtained her PhD., in 1984. Her thesis, whose title was Subjects of Desire: Hegelian Reflections on the 20th Century Franc (Subjects of Desire: Hegelian Reflections in Twentieth-Century Franc), was later published as a book.
At the beginning of one of her most famous works, gender problem, tells that Her interest in Philosophy stemmed from the inquiries and consequent punishments of her Jewish upbringing., having been advised many times by her parents' rabbi and by the community.
Judith Butler Professor of Comparative Literature in the Department of Rhetoric at the University of California, in Berkley, California. There, she founded the International Consortium of Critical Theory Programs and the Critical Theory Program. Her too Professor of the Hannah Arendt Chair at the European Graduate School, in Saas Fee, Valais, on Switzerland. [1]
Makes up several social organizations, such as:
Jewish Voice for Peace (Jewish Voice for Peace);
Center for Constitutional Rights (Center for Constitutional Rights);
American Philosophical Society (American Philosophical Society).
Do not stop now... There's more after the publicity ;)
Major Works of Judith Butler
Butler has a vast production, both individually and in partnerships and as an organizer of collections of articles. See, below, which are the main works of Judith Butler and what they approach.
→ gender issuesby Judith Butler
Published in 1990, one of Judith Butler's major books is also one of her first: Gender issues: feminism and the subversion of identity is an avant-garde work that interrogates the customary gender roles and binarism that underpin society.
butler exhibits a non-essentialist point of view and suggests the conception of gender performativity. The work influenced and continues to influence a lot not only academically, but, above all, in the feminist and LGBTQIA+ movement; and has also generated commotion and manifestations from more conservative sectors of society.
→ bodies that matterby Judith Butler
Published in 1993, Bodies that matter: the discursive limits of “sex”deepens the theory around gender performativity, opposing criticisms and misunderstandings in the interpretations of his work and clarifying that performance is not something isolated.
→ undoing genderby Judith Butler
Published in 2004, the work undoing genderis essential for understanding what gender means and the role it plays in social life, approaching it as a social construction. It also talks about gender performance and its political implications, as well as about feminism, queer theory and post-structuralism. Easy to read, the book points out real and didactic examples of the theory in everyday life.
→ precarious lifeby Judith Butler
Published in 2004 and departing a bit from gender studies, the work Precarious life: the power of mourning and violence, written after September 11, 2001 attacks, reflects on what ethically binds us to otherness.
→ The strength of non-violenceby Judith Butler
Published in 2020, The strength of non-violence: an ethical-political bond reflects on how non-violence can be used as a means to resist the oppressive system, which can be done aiming at a real political transformation. It can also be a means of addressing other social issues such as racism and sexism.
Also access: Virginia Woolf — an English author whose works are feminist in character
Judith Butler's Theories
Judith Butler's political views are feminist, anti-Zionist, anti-Lgbtphobic, anti-racist and libertarian. For this reason, in his vast academic production, Butler has written on various topics. The main ones are: performativity theory; feminism; and queer theory.
→ Theory of performativity
Generally speaking, performativity is thought of as a language and a form of social action, i.e., that brings effect of change. As an isolated concept, it can be seen in several areas, such as economics, law, linguistics, history, philosophy and anthropology. In the latter case, also in gender studies.
The first to conceptualize performativity was the philosopher of language John L. austin, by emphasizing the possibility of speech becoming action. There is, for him, the constative and the performative language. One is merely descriptive, while the other can be expressed in promises, oaths, bets, verdicts, etc. Thus, words become actions.
Also influenced by Michel Foucault, was based on the theory of John L. Austin on performativity that Butler formulated that gender is socially constructed through everyday speech actions and also through non-verbal communication, which are part of performances, as they define and sustain identities. Thus, an individual's identity is not the root of his actions, but the opposite: his lines, his gestures, his way of being in the world exist because they were assigned and socially constructed.
See too: Byung-Chul Han — a South Korean philosopher who was also influenced by Michel Foucault
→ Feminism
Judith Butler she is a feminist, but, for her, feminism is seen as a provocation. The radical change she proposed in the early 1990s in gender studies affected all of feminism in general. She herself is a critic of certain aspects of it, mainly the one that still operates in binary logic.
Feminism, for Butler, it can only be thought of in its expanded sense, and not merely as a defense of the “feminine” or “women”, since, for her, gender identity is questioned all the time.
In this context, the author provocatively asks who is the subject of feminism. While the quick answer would be: the woman, she keeps asking: what is a woman? What makes you a woman? From this, she criticizes feminism which, for her, is exclusive when it does not have a determined subject. It also indicates, historically, the politicization of bodies, which, naturally, are not “men” or “women”, therefore, the “masculine” and “feminine” genders are also artificial, as well as the genders identified by genitals. She exemplifies with transsexual women to close her critique of certain feminisms.
In an article for the magazine Cult, the philosopher Márcia Tiburi also points out that:
[...] Butler's feminism is the defense of a dismantling of every type of gender identity that oppresses human singularities that do not fit, which are not “appropriate” or “correct” in the scenario of bipolarity in which we have become accustomed to understanding relationships between people concrete.|1|
→ queer theory
Queer theory is one of the lines of gender studies. Butler's book Gender issues: feminism and identity subversion is a major milestone for this theory.
queer, which can be translated as “esquisito”, does not find an exact correspondence in the Portuguese language, but it was always considered a pejorative term to treat the population LGBTQIA+. Currently, queer is understood as who doesn't identify and doesn't label themselves in any gender.
Butler problematizes gender by stating that the binary division between male and female is not natural. For this, she uses Michel Foucault and investigates the origins of gender, refuting essentialists, that is, those who relate gender to genitals. It is also based on the philosophy of language.
Considering her critique of who is the subject of feminism, in which she highlights the questioning of the binary division between male and female, she notes that gender does not deliberate identity, and, for that, the philosopher is also based on Simone de Beauvoir (“One is not born a woman, one becomes”). For Butler, gender is thus performative.
Butler also discusses with psychoanalysis, especially with Freud, Lacan and Julia Kristeva, seeking to understand how the masculine/feminine identity is engendered. butler then proposes a subversion of the hardened notion of gender supported by the female/male binary.
When talking about drag-queens, “masculinized” lesbians, “effeminate” gays and their relevance to feminism, Butler infers that there is an imposition and social construction of genders. Therefore, all those who depart from the traditional notion of gender are considered “deviant”, therefore, they are queer.
In this way, if gender is constructed, when a drag queen performs, for example, it is not about imitation, as what is already artificial is not imitated. Therefore, Butler proposes subversion through pastiche, appropriating the literary theory that says that pastiche is deliberately imitating other writers and/or artists.
The idea of performative gender stems from the notion of gender as the sum of repetitions of socially practiced behaviors throughout history that are reenacted.
Quotes by Judith Butler
“Possibility is not a luxury. She is as crucial as bread.”
“I have always been a feminist. This means that I oppose discrimination against women, all forms of gender-based inequality, but it also means that I demand a policy that takes into account the constraints imposed by gender on human development.”
“It is crucial that we resist the forces of censorship that undermine the possibility of living in a democracy equally committed to freedom and equality.”
“I don't believe that literature can teach us how to live either, but people who have doubts about how to live tend to turn to literature.”
“Whatever freedom we fight for, it must be a freedom based on equality.”
“We get lost in what we read, only to return to ourselves transformed and part of a more expansive world.”
“Journalism is a place of political struggle... inevitably."
Note
|1| TIBURI, Marcia. Judith Butler: Feminism as provocation. Cult. Available here.
image credits
[1] Wirestock Creators / Shutterstock
[2] NixZ / Shutterstock
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