cathik's review against another edition
My english isn't good enough to really grasp what the author is saying
rebeccaalexis's review against another edition
(writing a sincere review as if i didn't read this to further clarify something my good friend marysia mentioned in passing several months ago... straying away from discourse street i just want to accessibly immortalize my thoughts and opinions)
gender has become one of the philosophical questions of our current age; what is gender, does gender truly exist, is gender established or instituted, can gender be neutralized, etc.
"Undoing Gender" is an elegant and lengthy composite series of essays, most if not all text referential to each other, intended for those interested in and/or having foundational knowledge in philosophy (reoccurring references to Foucault's "history of sexuality" and Hegel's concept of desire, namely the desire for recognition), psychology and cultural feminism/feminist history and theory. the essays themselves are to a degree accessible without prior academic knowledge, theories are non-complex and presented in straightforward, easy-to-follow writing- though one would benefit from autodidactic research before and throughout the text. if the literary accessibility wasn't up for question, i would say this is essential queer reading. one could also "cherry-pick" essays based on interest.
many interpret Butler's ideology as ejective and dismissive of "male" and "female", the presented argument being that "male" and "female" are roles that we act out and perform, and the implication of gender as a performance would mean that there is an infinite quantity of possible performances rather than just two- the diminutive concept of two genders is embedded in political, legal and contemporary social discourse as it is bound with power and normativity, and this affects the livelihood of those that exist outside of the institution of the gender binary (Butler illustrates several excellent examples of this). Butler argues that "male" and "female" are parodies of their preexisting meanings, or rather, devoid of their meaning entirely (adding my own personal reference to baudrillard's theory of hyperreality and locke's value of semiotics: we are making meaning).
as a gender abolitionist, i agree with Butler's theoretical perspective offering an account of how the binary of masculine and feminine comes to exhaust the semantic field of gender ("To assume that gender always and exclusively means the matrix of the “masculine” and “feminine” is precisely to miss the critical point that the production of that coherent binary is contingent, that it comes at a cost..."). while my personal belief is that we are limited by language thus creating a question of developing a new legal, political, medical, social and literary lexicon theory for legitimating gender complexity (beyond the limiting singularity of the "two genders")- Butler elegantly organizes their theories on gender in short essay-format; their lived experiences as a caucasian non-binary lesbian, a long-standing community activist and university professor in the state of California being woven into their thought and taking into account the experiences of other groups. i enjoyed how they also openly assessed a critique from French philosopher Sylviane Agacinski on their own work in previous gender and queer theory, responding to bioessentialist comments and a strained homophobic remark with humour, and Butler can be quoted in another essay "I'm no great fan of the phallus." i laughed, love a comedic edge to a lengthy, serious read.
i have 26 pages of notes- this took me almost five months of casual, on-and-off reading from my living room to the downtown coffee shop hungover on a couple of hours of sleep. while i began autodidactic research on gender complexity online as a teenager and studied sexuality and gender theory as a young adult in university, coming to identify as a gender non-conforming lesbian in between, "Undoing Gender" has not given nor has it radicalized my scope of preexisting thought on the subject. instead, i would say it has echoed experiences and further organized philosophical inquisitions on gender- developing my aforementioned lexicon on gender complexity. like if Butler and i took a long walk together and i, having to take a longer route home, was left with a widened lens and a few literary references as a treat. something to enjoy and think about. i want to avoid the discourse. i am not walking down that street.
i enjoyed a couple of essays in particular; On Limits of Sexual Autonomy (how gender reduces us to the politics of our bodies), Natural/Cultural/State Law (how Western politics govern gender and sexuality), Longing for Recognition (references to the Hegelian rubric of the desire for recognition), the End of Sexual Difference (gender politics and postulation of identity), Butch Desire (comprehension of lesbian masculinity), and "Gender Trouble" & the Question of Survival (Butler's personal commentary addressing their previous text on queer theory, dated 14 years prior, and their lived experiences since publishing this text- i particularly enjoyed their involvement in activism as well as their lens on drag as a gender performance through the angle of a masculine lesbian. my favourite quote from the series in general is "one could describe me as a bar dyke who spent her days reading Hegel and her evenings, well, at the gay bar, which occasionally became a
drag bar." as this illustrated a familiarity and connected the little distance that exists between Butler and i.
there is a redoubling in a sense as i had previously mentioned i spent my teenage years reading some queer theory then studying some queer theory in university (i point to an emphasis on some). it's possible, this text being dated 2004, that Butler was always forming my foundational concepts on gender complexity and nonconformity. Butler can be quoted in their ending note as having written both "Gender Trouble" and "Undoing Gender" to expose a pervasive heterosexism in feminist theory and try to imagine a world in which those who live at some distance from gender norms, who live in the confusion of gender norms, might still understand themselves not only as living livable lives, but as deserving a certain kind of recognition. since the publication of this text, the question of social transformation and politics changed in the interim- the way we, even i having come-of-age within the many ideologies of gender in the current era, have seen significant widespread change, though not completely and not always positive, Butler having initially conceptualized a foundation for gender complexity and gender theory through the philosophical and political framework is what makes "Undoing Gender" not only essential queer reading, but should be ostensibly recognized as laying the groundwork for answering the current philosophical question of our generation- what is gender?
anyway i have a library fee to pay... (i actually don't)
gender has become one of the philosophical questions of our current age; what is gender, does gender truly exist, is gender established or instituted, can gender be neutralized, etc.
"Undoing Gender" is an elegant and lengthy composite series of essays, most if not all text referential to each other, intended for those interested in and/or having foundational knowledge in philosophy (reoccurring references to Foucault's "history of sexuality" and Hegel's concept of desire, namely the desire for recognition), psychology and cultural feminism/feminist history and theory. the essays themselves are to a degree accessible without prior academic knowledge, theories are non-complex and presented in straightforward, easy-to-follow writing- though one would benefit from autodidactic research before and throughout the text. if the literary accessibility wasn't up for question, i would say this is essential queer reading. one could also "cherry-pick" essays based on interest.
many interpret Butler's ideology as ejective and dismissive of "male" and "female", the presented argument being that "male" and "female" are roles that we act out and perform, and the implication of gender as a performance would mean that there is an infinite quantity of possible performances rather than just two- the diminutive concept of two genders is embedded in political, legal and contemporary social discourse as it is bound with power and normativity, and this affects the livelihood of those that exist outside of the institution of the gender binary (Butler illustrates several excellent examples of this). Butler argues that "male" and "female" are parodies of their preexisting meanings, or rather, devoid of their meaning entirely (adding my own personal reference to baudrillard's theory of hyperreality and locke's value of semiotics: we are making meaning).
as a gender abolitionist, i agree with Butler's theoretical perspective offering an account of how the binary of masculine and feminine comes to exhaust the semantic field of gender ("To assume that gender always and exclusively means the matrix of the “masculine” and “feminine” is precisely to miss the critical point that the production of that coherent binary is contingent, that it comes at a cost..."). while my personal belief is that we are limited by language thus creating a question of developing a new legal, political, medical, social and literary lexicon theory for legitimating gender complexity (beyond the limiting singularity of the "two genders")- Butler elegantly organizes their theories on gender in short essay-format; their lived experiences as a caucasian non-binary lesbian, a long-standing community activist and university professor in the state of California being woven into their thought and taking into account the experiences of other groups. i enjoyed how they also openly assessed a critique from French philosopher Sylviane Agacinski on their own work in previous gender and queer theory, responding to bioessentialist comments and a strained homophobic remark with humour, and Butler can be quoted in another essay "I'm no great fan of the phallus." i laughed, love a comedic edge to a lengthy, serious read.
i have 26 pages of notes- this took me almost five months of casual, on-and-off reading from my living room to the downtown coffee shop hungover on a couple of hours of sleep. while i began autodidactic research on gender complexity online as a teenager and studied sexuality and gender theory as a young adult in university, coming to identify as a gender non-conforming lesbian in between, "Undoing Gender" has not given nor has it radicalized my scope of preexisting thought on the subject. instead, i would say it has echoed experiences and further organized philosophical inquisitions on gender- developing my aforementioned lexicon on gender complexity. like if Butler and i took a long walk together and i, having to take a longer route home, was left with a widened lens and a few literary references as a treat. something to enjoy and think about. i want to avoid the discourse. i am not walking down that street.
i enjoyed a couple of essays in particular; On Limits of Sexual Autonomy (how gender reduces us to the politics of our bodies), Natural/Cultural/State Law (how Western politics govern gender and sexuality), Longing for Recognition (references to the Hegelian rubric of the desire for recognition), the End of Sexual Difference (gender politics and postulation of identity), Butch Desire (comprehension of lesbian masculinity), and "Gender Trouble" & the Question of Survival (Butler's personal commentary addressing their previous text on queer theory, dated 14 years prior, and their lived experiences since publishing this text- i particularly enjoyed their involvement in activism as well as their lens on drag as a gender performance through the angle of a masculine lesbian. my favourite quote from the series in general is "one could describe me as a bar dyke who spent her days reading Hegel and her evenings, well, at the gay bar, which occasionally became a
drag bar." as this illustrated a familiarity and connected the little distance that exists between Butler and i.
there is a redoubling in a sense as i had previously mentioned i spent my teenage years reading some queer theory then studying some queer theory in university (i point to an emphasis on some). it's possible, this text being dated 2004, that Butler was always forming my foundational concepts on gender complexity and nonconformity. Butler can be quoted in their ending note as having written both "Gender Trouble" and "Undoing Gender" to expose a pervasive heterosexism in feminist theory and try to imagine a world in which those who live at some distance from gender norms, who live in the confusion of gender norms, might still understand themselves not only as living livable lives, but as deserving a certain kind of recognition. since the publication of this text, the question of social transformation and politics changed in the interim- the way we, even i having come-of-age within the many ideologies of gender in the current era, have seen significant widespread change, though not completely and not always positive, Butler having initially conceptualized a foundation for gender complexity and gender theory through the philosophical and political framework is what makes "Undoing Gender" not only essential queer reading, but should be ostensibly recognized as laying the groundwork for answering the current philosophical question of our generation- what is gender?
anyway i have a library fee to pay... (i actually don't)
tgzink01's review against another edition
4.0
More of a 3.5 rounded up, becomes a little too vague and circular. She asks exceptional questions but sometimes I got lost reading through her thought process.
marystevens's review against another edition
1.0
Before I read Judith Butler, I would have identified myself as a woman. But she says I'm wrong. At the most basic level I'm not necessarily a woman.
Butler sees gender as performance. Butler says anatomy has cultural framing. It is Performance, not an essence. Gender is performed without ones being conscious of it.
"Terms that make up ones own gender are outside oneself, beyond oneself in a sociality that has no author." Anatomy and sex have cultural framing. They are not natural, not essential, not pre-cultural.
You could have fooled me!
She says all this in incomprehensible jargon. I guess that's why she's a philosophy professor.
Believe it or not, her philosophy has caught on, in college campuses all across the country. Well. I just thought you should know. It was news to me.
On the subject of social norms Butler writes "The task of all these movements seems to me to be about distinguishing among the norms and conventions that permit people to breathe, to desire, to love, and to live, and those norms and conventions that restrict or eviscerate the conditions of life itself" and later she says "What is most important is to cease legislating for all lives what is livable only for some, and similarly, to refrain from prescribing for all lives what is unlivable for some." This, at least, makes sense.
Butler sees gender as performance. Butler says anatomy has cultural framing. It is Performance, not an essence. Gender is performed without ones being conscious of it.
"Terms that make up ones own gender are outside oneself, beyond oneself in a sociality that has no author." Anatomy and sex have cultural framing. They are not natural, not essential, not pre-cultural.
You could have fooled me!
She says all this in incomprehensible jargon. I guess that's why she's a philosophy professor.
Believe it or not, her philosophy has caught on, in college campuses all across the country. Well. I just thought you should know. It was news to me.
On the subject of social norms Butler writes "The task of all these movements seems to me to be about distinguishing among the norms and conventions that permit people to breathe, to desire, to love, and to live, and those norms and conventions that restrict or eviscerate the conditions of life itself" and later she says "What is most important is to cease legislating for all lives what is livable only for some, and similarly, to refrain from prescribing for all lives what is unlivable for some." This, at least, makes sense.
comradebibliophile's review against another edition
1.0
Constant conflations of sex with gender. Annoying lack of citations for assertions made. Callous minimisation of child sexual abuse. Abounds in Freudianism (bear in mind Freud had no sound reasoning or empirical evidence for his assertions either). Wilfully obtuse language & writing. A woeful piece of scholarship. Would be risible if it had not become so culturally influential in such a detrimental way.