JUDITH BUTLER: BIOGRAPHY, IDEAS AND QUOTES - PHILOSOPHY - 2025

Judith Butler is a renowned American philosopher who has stood out for her work in the areas of gender equality, identity, and power. Butler's ideas, which defy the conventional world view, are considered an emblem for the new generation of thought that began in the 1990s.

One of the great reasons why Butler is so recognized is for her involvement with the LGBT community, made up of the words lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual.

By Andrew Rusk from Toronto, Canada (Judith Butler), via Wikimedia Commons

She has openly defended the rights of the members of this community, being herself an important member of it; She lives with her son and with her partner, the political scientist Wendy Brown.

Butler's theories about the way gender and sex work have been a great influence on modern philosophy, particularly the French school of philosophy. Furthermore, her ideas have modernized the thinking of the 20th century feminist philosophical schools.

Biography

Youth

Judith Pamela Butler was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on February 24, 1956. Her parents were of Israeli origin, believers in the Jewish religion. She began philosophical thinking at a very young age by modern standards, when she was 14 years old.

Her parents enrolled her in a Hebrew school, which she attended during her childhood and adolescent years. In this school, the ideas of Jewish ethics were instilled in her, which gave way to her future life as a philosopher.

One of the rabbis at the Jewish school she attended managed to instill in her various ideas of philosophy, which caught Butler's attention and set her on the path to that career. These philosophy classes were originally a punishment, because Judith used to talk a lot in class as a child.

Advanced Studies

His first university institution was Bennington College, but soon after he enrolled at the prestigious Yale University. There he was awarded a scholarship to study at the University of Heidelberg, where he studied in 1979.

He obtained a Ph.D. degree in Philosophy from Yale University, which was awarded to him in 1984. As for his philosophical beliefs, these are closely related to the German origins of this science.

Its main beliefs derive from German idealism and from the work of the Frankfurt School. However, phenomenology has also influenced Butler's thinking throughout his career.

Professional work

One of the branches to which Butler has contributed the most is poststructuralism. This term refers to the large number of philosophical contributions generated by 20th century thinkers, such as Butler herself, taking inspiration from French thought.

Francocentric ideas play an important role in the work of the philosopher and in her development since the early 1900s.

During the last years of the last century, Butler devoted himself to teaching at various universities in the United States. She was a professor at Wesleyan University, George Washington University, Johns Hopkins University and finally at Columbia University.

In 1998 she was appointed Professor of Rhetoric and Comparative Reading at the University of California and, from 1987 to the present, has written more than 14 philosophical works.

The most important book he wrote, as far as social impact is concerned, is called "Gender Issues: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity."

This book presents feminism and the female gender in a unique way, considered one of Butler's most significant contributions to modern feminist philosophy and movement.

Ideas about feminism

Gender Issues: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity

This book by Butler, his most recognized, can be interpreted as an external intervention towards feminism. This book questions the existence of a unit that encompasses the feelings of women.

The book talks about the differences between feminism seen from the point of view of a white woman, and feminism that a woman of color may be subject to. The social differences between the two races are used by Butler to explain the differences between the feelings of women.

Furthermore, this book takes up the problem of exclusion in a new way. Butler describes the nature of naming "men" and "women" as violent.

The author assures that these two categories are part of a binary system, to which not all people wish to belong. It is these people, who feel excluded from the system, who are most affected by the fact that there are only two categories.

The main theory that Butler defends is that gender is a term constructed by society, as a consequence of socialization, and conceived by the majority of people on a global scale.

Gender theory

One of the main theories, which served as an innovation for the feminist and LGBT movement, is that which explains gender as something constituted by words and actions. In other words, the sexual behavior of each person is what defines their gender, which should not necessarily be "male" or "female".

Butler theorized extensively about the nature of gender. According to their theories, sexual behavior is not based on a natural essence dictated by gender, but quite the opposite. Human behavior creates the illusion that a particular gender exists.

Gender, according to this theory, is made up of a series of actions that, erroneously, are thought to be the results of belonging to one gender or another. The gender of a person is judged according to their actions; that is, gender exists from the actions of each individual, not in a prescribed way.

There may be deviations in what constitutes a gender. In fact, Butler considers them inevitable. It is from these gender variations that the concept is interpreted by societies.

Nature

The reason that Butler treats the concept of gender so closely with the concept of feminism is because of the similar nature that the two terms share.

In addition, Butler theorizes that a person is not able to decide which gender he belongs to. Each person has an "individual identity", which is part of their being and is impossible to modify. It is formed and reflected from the actions carried out by each individual in their social environment.

This concept is equally applicable for feminism. Women have their own identity, but each identity is unique. That is, there is no unit, not even within the same gender, as Butler theorized in "Gender Problems."

Sex theory

Butler's gender theory goes beyond referring purely to the constitution of the female or male gender. For the philosopher, the very concept of "sex" is part of a series of actions carried out by the individual in society.

According to his theory, sex is constructed through actions because it represents an arbitrarily different identity between one person and another.

For Butler, there are several words and phrases that arbitrarily construct people's perception of gender.

For example, from the moment a girl is born and the doctor exclaims that “it is a girl!”, The perception that one has of that person from the moment of their birth begins to condition.

The philosopher used this theory in conjunction with the rest to explain why there are different perceptions about the gender of people.

Feminism, as she explains, is closely linked to this concept. Each woman builds a different perception of herself in the course of her life.

Criticisms of political feminism

In her book Gender Problems, Butler criticizes the approach that feminist politics has around the feminist movement as such. According to her, the goal that most of the members of this movement want to achieve is exclusive for women, ironically.

The concept of the gender of "woman" that the movement seeks to defend is the traditional concept of being female in general. In other words, the concept that feminist groups have about their ideology revolves around a wrong concept, at least for the philosopher's thought.

The basis of feminist theory only makes sense if you start from the point of view that a woman is heterosexual. According to Butler's theory, this concept is very exclusive for a large percentage of women worldwide.

Traditional ideas of feminism led her to doubt the true nature of the movement. It is difficult to understand how a feminist movement can defend women's rights if the theoretical basis on which it is based is, in essence, incorrect.

Changes to feminism

Based on her criticisms of feminism, she emphasized that she should focus on the subversive (but conscious) destabilization that is done at the term “woman”. This destabilization is achieved through behavioral characteristics that are seen as acceptable to a woman.

In addition, she spoke about “gender parodies” and the erroneous principle of these concepts, which was based on the theoretical flaws regarding the relationship between gender, sex and sexuality.

The concepts used by Butler to describe transvestites encompass a number of ideas regarding the coherence of heterosexuality in society.

For her, transvestites are a manufactured unit that people, within a society, see as a way to neutralize the sex and gender of each individual. Actually, it is a way for them to express themselves.

Theory

Butler's work also served as the foundation for the so-called "Queer Theory." This theory encompasses a series of texts referring to the study of attitudes and behaviors of people belonging to the LGBT community and to the studies of women in general.

Queer Theory is based on the principles of feminism, which ensure that gender is part of the "being" of each person, largely inspired by the ideas of Judith Butler.

The term was coined by an Italian feminist named Teresa De Lauretis, in the early 1990s. The theory focuses on the study of the differences between sex, gender and desire.

Although the concept is often used to refer to bisexual or homosexual people, it encompasses a large number of terms referring to the sexual identity of people.

In fact, queer theory includes people who have decided to change their sex through special operations and even people who dress as if they belong to the opposite sex. The theoretical bases of this concept are closely linked to the ideas that Butler linked to the feminist movement.

Featured phrases

- "We lose ourselves when we read and then, when we return to reality, we are transformed and we are part of a much more expansive world."

- “Love is not a state, a feeling or a disposition. Rather, it is an uneven exchange of wishes between two people who see each other through a distorted vision ”.

- “The possibility is not a luxury; it is something as crucial as food ”.

- “We must face it: we can undo each other. If we can't, it means we are missing something. If this seems to be the case with pain, it is already the case with desire. It is impossible to remain intact in feelings. This may be what you want, but despite the best effort, it is undone by the sensation of smell of the other person, or by the simple memory of how it feels to have been with him.

- "The most important thing is to stop creating laws that can only be complied with by some for all people, and stop making things that are unavoidable for some people in a global sphere illegal."

- "The first step that must be taken for non-violence, which is an obligation that falls on all people, is to begin to think critically, and ask those around us to do the same."

References

1. Judith Butler, The European Graduate School, 2016. Taken from egs.edu
2. Judith Butler - American Philosopher, Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2012. Taken from Britannica.com
3. Judith Butler Quotes, Good Reads Website, (nd). Taken from goodreads.com
4. Judith Butler, Famous Philosophers, (nd). Taken from famousphilosophers.org
5. Judith Butler and The Many Subjects of Feminist Theory, Tiago Lima in Public Seminar, 2016. Taken from publicseminar.org
6. Queer Theory, Wikipedia in English, 2018. Taken from wikipedia.org