Judith Butler Quotes

I think we have to ask, not, what "Gender trouble" is today but where "Gender trouble" is today.

It's not my concern. It's your concern. I just keep working. I keep posing certain questions and I think there are times when people think "What happened to the Judith Butler I used to know?" or "She's not doing gender trouble. Does that mean she refuses it or she's disavowed it?" And I would say no. I have not refused or disavowed anything.

I would say that I'm a feminist theorist before I'm a queer theorist or a gay and lesbian theorist.

I'm writing a review of three books on feminism and science, and it's about social constructionism. So I would say I'm a social constructionist, whatever that means.

I think I never expected "Gender trouble" to have any particularly revolutionary effect so whatever effects it has, I'm always surprised.

Sexuality is to feminism what work is to Marxism.

It seems to me that "Gender trouble" will always be important to try and open up our ideas of what gender is. So, I don't know if it's revolutionary, but maybe it still has something to say to those issues.

I think it was Elisabeth Shue who said that if you start a movie with a woman seen through a man's eyes, that woman is objectified by him throughout.

Postmodernism is an academic theory, originating in academia with an academic elite, not in the world of women and men, where feminist theory is rooted.

I love talking about women because they are a constant study and you're always learning.

I think feminism has had a major impact on anthropology.

I see many more men who are feminist, or at least who have learned about life in the context of feminism.

I'm really interested in women of different generations... I think there is no one female experience.

I'm of the opinion that gender is a social construct.

We're still stuck in male, female, feminism. I don't believe in, you know... I believe in gender equality.

When I sat down to make a list of characters in history who exhibited curiosity, most were women. I thought it was sheer accident, and then I began to wonder.

I still think it's important for people to have a sharp, ongoing critique of marriage in patriarchal society — because once you marry within a society that remains patriarchal, no matter how alternative you want to be within your unit, there is still a culture outside you that will impose many, many values on you whether you want them to or not.

I don’t think there’s any such thing as male objectification

How did it come to be that you think men and women are the same? Well, there's a simple answer to the question: Feminism.

I'm glad that we have a history at all and that we can talk about feminist history. But I do think that it doesn't really pay attention to the complexity and the nuance that is feminist thought.

Patriarchy has no gender.

I'm supposed to have a Ph.D. on the subject of women.

Feminist theory has left an indelible mark on my own critical—and creative—thinking . . . For me, everything I questioned about what it meant to be a man – and how much my sexuality would perpetually challenge those meanings—could be found in arguments posed by feminists. What can I say? I identified.

In my opinion, no feminism worthy of the name is not methodologically post-marxist.

In our patriarchal world, we are all taught - whether we like to think we are or not - that God, being male, values maleness much more than he values femaleness... that in order to propitiate God, women must propitiate men.