iReasearch学术科研网

Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble is one of the most talked-about scholarly works of the past fifty years, which is both highly celebrated and controversial. Arguing that traditional feminism is wrong to look to a natural, ‘essential’ notion of the female, or indeed of sex or gender, Butler starts by questioning the category ‘woman’ and continues in this vein with examinations of ‘the masculine’ and ‘the feminine’. Best known however, but also most often misinterpreted, is Butler‘s concept of gender as a reiterated social performance rather than the expression of a prior reality. This is thrilling and provocative work, and it is fair to say few other academic works have roused passions to the same extent.