Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity
Abstract
One of the most talked-about scholarly works of the past fifty years, Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble is as celebrated as it is controversial. Arguing that traditional feminism is wrong to look to a natural, 'essential' notion of the female, or indeed of sex or gender, Butler starts by questioning the category 'woman' and continues in this vein with examinations of 'the masculine' and 'the feminine'. Best known however, but also most often misinterpreted, is Butler's concept of gender as a reiterated social performance rather than the expression of a prior reality. Thrilling and provocative, few other academic works have roused passions to the same extent.
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Gender roles and heteronormativity come to be conceived as something natural through everyday gender interactions.
“Everyday gender interactions mean that boys and girls learn to conform to a single gender category, to do gender, so that gender roles and heteronormativity come to be conceived as something natural (Butler, 2011).”
From “It’s just a joke”: gender, sexuality and trivialisation in adolescent online violence such as cyberhate, cyberbullying, and online grooming (2025) · cites this paper as Butler, 2011
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- Authors
- Butler, J.
- Affiliations
- University of California, Berkeley (US)
- Corresponding author
- Butler, Judith
- ORCID
- Butler, Judith
- Venue
- Routledge eBooks
- Publisher
- Routledge
- Published
- 2011-09-22
- OpenAlex
- W4230707309
- Cited by
- 613
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 66 · 2025: 92 · 2024: 59 · 2023: 67 · 2022: 59 · 2021: 64 · 2020: 71 · 2019: 29 · 2018: 61 · 2017: 17 · 2016: 17 · 2015: 2 · 2014: 4 · 2013: 4
- FWCI
- 1.94
- Type
- book
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Routledge eBooks (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Gender Studies › Gender and Feminist Studies
- Social Sciences › Gender Studies › Feminist Theory and Gender Studies
- Social Sciences › Gender Studies › Feminism, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
- Keywords
- Judith Butler, Gender Trouble, gender performativity, feminist theory, critique of essentialism, sex and gender, the feminine, gender construction, philosophy of gender
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