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Judith ButlerBodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex
Nonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult | Published in 1993A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Authorial Context: Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble and Previous Works
Bodies That Matter (1993) is the third book by Judith Butler. It is preceded by Subjects of Desire: Hegelian Reflections in Twentieth-Century France (1987) and Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. Subjects of Desire focuses on Hegel’s influence on French poststructuralism, especially on theories of subjectivity. This book explores the formation of subjects in society as informed by historical, ideological, and discursive contexts. Following Hegel’s dialectical method of analysis, Butler analyzes the processes of cultural identification in a nuanced way. They also consider the psychoanalytic notion of desire an important element of subjectivity.
Gender Trouble, published in 1990, is Butler’s most famous book. It significantly influenced their career direction and activist work. In this book, Butler challenges second-wave feminism’s assumptions about fixed identities, such as the categories of “men” and “women.” They question the basic understanding of sex and gender, arguing that both notions are cultural constructs. They analyze the works of Simone de Beauvoir and Julia Kristeva, criticizing their gender essentialism. In Gender Trouble, Butler introduces the notion of performativity, countering gender essentialism. The concept of performativity suggests that gender is not an internal truth that subjects express but rather a set of behaviors and actions that are learned and repeated. These performances contribute to the stabilization of gender categories, creating the illusion of a natural, essential gender identity. The repetition of these acts helps to maintain and reinforce societal norms and expectations surrounding gender. They propose drag as a way of destabilizing the traditional understanding of gender. In 2021, Butler gave an interview articulating the ideas presented in Gender Trouble and their relevance in today’s political, social, and cultural context (Gleeson, Jules. “Judith Butler: ‘We Need to Rethink the Category of Woman'.” The Guardian, 7 Sep. 2021).
Bodies That Matter continues the work Butler started in their previous books, focusing on the relationship between the materiality of the body and the performative acts that constitute gender identity. They examine how the body is not a passive entity but is actively involved in the performance of gender through gestures, movements, and expressions. Furthermore, Butler extends their engagement with philosophical binaries, such as sex/gender, matter/discourse, and inside/outside. They propose different concepts and symbols, such as the lesbian phallus and the term “queer,” to disrupt and rework entrenched assumptions.
Butler is a nonbinary person who prefers the pronouns they/them and she/her and identifies as a lesbian. Their ideas have been widely influential in rethinking the categories of sex and gender. At the same time, Butler has been extensively criticized by more traditional feminist scholars and activists, who have accused them of reducing gender and sexuality to discourse and language. They have also been criticized for writing in difficult, elitist, and self-distancing prose. In response to such criticisms, Butler has argued that there is value in approaching challenging and unfamiliar issues using demanding, nuanced language.
Intellectual Context: Post-Structuralism and Its Reception in the US
Judith Butler’s work is influenced by poststructuralism, and many scholars consider Butler to be a poststructuralist. Poststructuralism is a philosophical framework that emerged in mid-20th century France and involved reworking ideas inherited from structuralism. Structuralism posits that social phenomena are defined by underlying structures of relations. For example, Claude Lévi-Strauss examined how different societies have different norms because of their unique familial and kinship structures.
Poststructuralism accepts the existence of underlying structures and relations but rejects the notion of stable, universal structures and emphasizes the fluid, contingent nature of meaning, identity, and knowledge. Key figures in French poststructuralism are Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, and Jean Baudrillard. Other figures, such as psychoanalysts Jacques Lacan and Julia Kristeva and feminist philosopher Hélène Cixous, are sometimes regarded as poststructuralist thinkers and at other times not. In general, the concepts of structuralism and poststructuralism—and which thinker belongs to which movement—remain contested.
In the US, poststructuralism gained prominence in the latter half of the 20th century, particularly within academic circles in fields such as literature, philosophy, cultural studies, and gender studies. Judith Butler, who studied at Yale University, was influenced by poststructuralism through the seminars of Jacques Derrida and Paul de Man. Derrida spent two decades teaching in the US while Butler was a student. Paul de Man, an influential Belgian-American literary scholar, built on poststructuralist philosophy in his work.
Poststructuralism challenges traditional disciplinary boundaries and encourages interdisciplinary approaches. Its influence extends beyond philosophy and literature to fields such as sociology, anthropology, political science, and more. However, especially in the US, poststructuralism faces criticism for its perceived obscurity, difficulty, and rejection of stable meanings. Some critics have argued that it has led to relativism and a lack of commitment to social or political causes—for example, arguing that the idea of gender as a social construct could lead to overlooking gender-based violence or other forms of discrimination rooted in sexism or anti-trans bias. Still, Butler was deeply influenced by poststructuralism as the framework provides tools for analyzing power dynamics, language, and identity in cultural practices and social structures.
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