A Study On Judith Butler’s Social Gender

Judith Butler is a famous American post-structuralism philosopher as well as an influential feminist pioneer in the late20th century. Her research covers a wide range of topics, mainly including feminism, Queer theory, Body Theory and Performative Act and so on. She re-examines the relationship between "sex" and "gender", thinks that "sex" and "gender" are not the same, as to the latter,"gender", was reconstructed by the society. As a representative feminism theorist, she founds her own set of theory, which covers a variety of fields, contributes a lot to cultural studies.This thesis mainly studies Judith Butler’s Gender Theory and its impact on current society, especially on women. Butler’s Performative Theory is a fresh new set of open-minded theory founded in an open perspective, starts from two dimensions, i.e. the "discourse" and "performance". The reconstructions of women’s gender and women’s identity are based on the deconstructions of sex and gender. Butler’s theories create Butler style "trouble" for sex and gender study. This kind of "trouble" becomes a driving force that subverts our inherent understanding of gender and brings "trouble" to present developmental course of feminism. However, this kind of "trouble" stirs a promotion to the awakening of women and serves as a guide, leading them to discover this cruel world in reality.This thesis is composed of five parts.Introduction gives an overview of Butler and her main theories, and then illustrates the reason of choosing this topic, and a literature review on the related researches at home and abroad.The first chapter explains the definition of sex, gender and body as well as the complex links among them.Cuts in an angle of "subject", second chapter explores the relationship between Foucault’s "power" and Butler’s "subject", then analyses the respective steps of how Butler uses "Performative Act" to construct "gender" in details.The third chapter further explores Butler’s theories and their enlightening significances to the minds of modern people, especially the impact on materialistic society, female identity and feminism.Based upon the analysis above, the conclusion part points out that Judith Butler constructs "gender" in her own way in the meantime of her deconstruction of the traditional sex, thus contributes to the reconstruction of female identity.