Summary
Judith Butler argues that heterosexual hegemony is the force that constructs the material reality of bodies, sex, and gender. Building on her earlier work, Butler analyzes how power operates to produce the very substance of our biological and social identities, demonstrating that what we understand as "sex" is not a pre-discursive given but an effect of specific regulatory norms. The book offers a critical examination of the discursive limits that shape what is recognizable and intelligible as a body, a sex, or a gender, challenging the naturalness of these categories.
Through this analysis, Butler reveals how power actively materializes bodies and establishes the boundaries of what counts as natural or normative in terms of sex and gender. Readers will gain insight into the constitutive role of heterosexual hegemony in shaping material existence and the mechanisms by which certain bodies and identities are excluded or rendered unintelligible. The book engages with the workings of power on the most fundamental dimensions of identity.
Key concepts
- Heterosexual hegemony — The dominant societal power structure that shapes and naturalizes heterosexual norms.
- Discursive limits of 'sex' — The boundaries imposed by language and social discourse that define and constrain understandings of sex.
- Material dimensions of sex and sexuality — The ways in which sex and sexuality are understood as having physical substance and form, which are shaped by power.
- Power — The fundamental force that Butler argues actively forms and regulates bodies, sex, and gender.
From the book
Description: The author of "Gender Trouble" further develops her distinctive theory of gender by examining the workings of power at the most material dimensions of sex and sexuality. Butler examines how the power of heterosexual hegemony forms the matter of bodies, sex, and gender.
Snippet: Butler examines how the power of heterosexual hegemony forms the matter of bodies, sex, and gender.