57 pages • 1 hour read
Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity
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Conclusion Summary: "From Parody to Politics"
In her conclusion, Butler rehashes her major arguments and circles back around to the question that motivated the beginning of her work: do we need this thing called women to have coherent feminist politics? Her answer is no, we do not need it. If we were to disconnect politics from some “ready-made subjects” (203) called women, who are firmly constrained by the terms of the debates about gender and sex identity, “a new configuration of politics would surely emerge from the ruins of the old,” (203), Butler concludes.
Conclusion Analysis
Butler’s major contribution to this ongoing conversation about gender is an elaboration on her idea that gender is made by doing, not a thing one expresses. This notion of gender does not require that there be some true, essential core inside of a person that is expressed through gender. Although heterosexual gendering is part of the dominant culture/ideology (what Butler calls hegemony), even the gender of heterosexuals is performative. Butler’s notion of gender as performative is also attentive to how what looks natural looks like that because of what she alternately labels as sedimentation, or a congealing of conventions—how we dress, gestures we make, how we walk. These actions are part of a public repertoire that has a traceable history.
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By Judith Butler
