Chapter 3 of Judith Butler's "Gender Trouble", titled "Subversive Bodily Acts", explores how various feminist and queer theorists have challenged normative and oppressive constructions of gender and sexuality, offering alternative ways of understanding the body, language, and identity that can subvert the heterosexual matrix and open up new possibilities for gender expression and politics.
Butler divides the chapter into four sections, each focusing on a different theorist or perspective. In the first section, Butler critiques Julia Kristeva's concept of the semiotic for subordinating it to the symbolic order of language and culture, and suggests that abjection can be a site of resistance and transformation, rather than a source of fear and shame.
The second section examines Michel Foucault's analysis of Herculine Barbin and the historical contingency and disciplinary power of the sex/gender system. Butler proposes that Barbin's ambiguous body can be seen as a performative challenge to the binary logic of sex and gender.
The third section discusses Monique Wittig's radical lesbian feminism, which rejects the category of sex as a political construct that serves the institution of heterosexuality. Butler praises Wittig's critique of the linguistic and symbolic violence that creates and maintains the gender binary. She also admires Wittig's experimental fiction, which seeks to invent a new language and a new mode of embodiment that transcends the categories of sex and gender. However, Butler disagrees with Wittig's claim that lesbianism escapes or abolishes gender altogether. She argues that lesbianism exposes the instability and performativity of gender.
The fourth section explores how bodily acts can subvert gender norms and produce new forms of identity. Butler draws on examples such as drag, cross-dressing, butch/femme identities, and transsexuality to show how gender can be performed in ways that parody, critique, or resignify its conventional meanings. She argues that these acts create new possibilities for gender through repetition and citation, but cautions that they are not inherently subversive, and depend on their context and reception.
The chapter concludes with a reflection on the political implications of gender performativity. Butler argues that gender is not a fixed or natural expression of one's sex or sexuality, but a variable and contingent construction that is subject to change and transformation. She affirms that gender is not a single or uniform category, but a plurality and diversity of styles and strategies. She also suggests that gender is not only a personal or individual attribute, but a social and collective phenomenon that requires solidarity and alliance among different groups and movements. She calls for a feminist politics that acknowledges and celebrates the multiplicity and complexity of gendered lives, rather than imposing a normative conception of women or gender.
Butler's central argument in chapter 3 is that the categories of sex and gender are constructed through cultural and political processes, rather than being stable, natural, or immutable. Therefore, the binary framework of sex and gender is challenged by individuals who do not fit neatly into either category, and by feminist and queer theorists who propose new categories and vocabularies that resist both the binary and substantializing grammatical restrictions on gender. Monique Wittig's theory is particularly relevant, as it proposes a radical reorganization of the description of bodies and sexualities without recourse to sex, and without recourse to the pronomial differentiations that regulate and distribute rights of speech within the matrix of gender.
Back to: Gender Trouble - chapter 1 summary, Chapter 2 summary