Judith Butler Quotes on Knowledge
Butler's Gender Trouble (1990) reframes gender not as the expression of an inner essence but as a performative effect of repeated stylized acts whose iteration generates the appearance of natural sex. The doctrine extends Austin's speech-act theory and Foucault's analysis of discursive power into a critique of the substantive metaphysics of identity that organizes both ordinary social practice and the categories of feminist theory. Excitable Speech and the later work develop the political implications: subjects are constituted through the very norms they may also subvert, and the conditions of agency are inseparable from the conditions of subjection.
Quotes
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“Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity" (1990)”
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. -
“If the immutable character of sex is contested, perhaps this construct called ‘sex’ is as culturally constructed as gender; indeed, perhaps it was always already gender, with the consequence that the distinction between sex and gender turns out to be no distinction at all.”
Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity" (1990) -
“Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity" (1990)”
If the immutable character of sex is contested, perhaps this construct called ‘sex’ is as culturally constructed as gender; indeed, perhaps it was always already gender, with the consequence that the distinction between sex and gender turns out to be no distinction at all. -
“Gender is a kind of imitation for which there is no original; in fact, it is a kind of imitation that produces the very notion of the original as an effect and consequence of the imitation itself.”
Imitation and Gender Insubordination" in Inside/Out (1991) edited by Diana Fuss -
“Imitation and Gender Insubordination" in Inside/Out (1991) edited by Diana Fuss”
Gender is a kind of imitation for which there is no original; in fact, it is a kind of imitation that produces the very notion of the original as an effect and consequence of the imitation itself. -
“Indeed it may be only by risking the incoherence of identity that connection is possible.”
Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of "Sex" (1993) -
“Perhaps the promise of phallus is always dissatisfying in some way.”
The Lesbian Phallus and the Morphological Imaginary" (1993), later published in The Judith Butler Reader (2004) edited by Sarah Salih with Judith Butler -
“The Lesbian Phallus and the Morphological Imaginary" (1993), later published in The Judith Butler Reader (2004) edited by Sarah Salih with Judith Butler”
Perhaps the promise of phallus is always dissatisfying in some way. -
“We must fight those who are committed to destruction , without replicating their destructiveness. Understanding how to fight in this way is the task and the bind of a nonviolent ethics and politics.”
Chapter One | p. 64