Summary
Judith Butler's "Undoing Gender" argues that to "do" one's gender sometimes necessitates "undoing" dominant notions of personhood, challenging the regulation of sexuality and gender within psychology, aesthetics, and social policy. The book revisits Butler's earlier concept of gender performativity, now framing the critique of gender norms within the context of human persistence and survival. It examines how dominant norms constrain recognizable personhood and addresses new kinship, psychoanalysis, the incest taboo, transgender, intersex, diagnostic categories, social violence, and the processes of social transformation.
Butler considers the "New Gender Politics," a confluence of movements related to transgender, transsexuality, and intersex issues, and their intricate connections to feminist and queer theory. Readers gain insight into how the regulation of gender and sexuality impacts the very definition of a person, and how challenging these regulations is tied to survival and the emergence of new political possibilities.
Key concepts
- Gender Performativity — A reconsideration of the idea that gender is not a stable identity but is constituted through repeated actions and expressions.
- New Gender Politics — A contemporary political landscape shaped by movements concerned with transgender, transsexuality, and intersex identities.
- Regulation of Sexuality and Gender — The societal and institutional mechanisms that govern and constrain sexual and gender expression and identity.
- Constraints on Recognizable Personhood — The ways in which dominant norms limit who is considered a legitimate or identifiable person.
From the book
Description: Butler addresses the regulation of sexuality and gender that takes place in psychology, aesthetics, and social policy. These essays deepen her treatment of issues introduced by earlier work on the relationship between power and the body, the meaning & purpose of the incest taboo, and the problems of kinship.
"Undoing Gender constitutes Judith Butler's recent reflections on gender and sexuality, focusing on new kinship, psychoanalysis and the incest taboo, transgender, intersex, diagnostic categories, social violence, and the tasks of social transformation. In terms that draw from feminist and queer theory, Butler considers the norms that govern--and fail to govern--gender and sexuality as they relate to the constraints on recognizable personhood. The book constitutes a reconsideration of her earlier view on gender performativity from Gender Trouble. In this work, the critique of gender norms is clearly situated within the framework of human persistence and survival. And to "do" one's gender in certain ways sometimes implies "undoing" dominant notions of personhood. She writes about the "New…
Description: First Published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.