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Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity Reviews 113 Gender Trouble: one which must be found in an ident­ Feminism and the ity assumed to exist cross-culturally' (p. 4). Following the ideas of Michel Subversion of Identity Foucault, she argues for a feminist Judith Butler genealogy 'to trace the political oper­ Routledge: London 1990 ations that produce and conceal ISBN 0 415 90043 3 Pbk £8.99 what qualifies as the juridical sub­ ISBN 0 415 90042 5 Hbk £30.00 ject offeminism' (p. 5). Yet, in the bulk of her own A book that comes with nuggets of analysis of the 'power regimes of unstinting praise from such names heterosexism and phallogocentrism' as Harding, Haraway, Scott and (p. 32), she completely ignores these Spivak printed on its cover is bound strictures on globalizing theory. to excite expectations- and perhaps 'Gender can denote a unity of experi­ bound to disappoint them as well. ence, of sex, gender and desire, only These writers have found it authori­ when sex can be understood in some tative, brilliant, innovative, start­ sense to necessitate gender - where ling, lucid, witty, provocative, engag­ gender is a psychic and/or cultural ing, subversive, powerful and designation of the self- and desire­ constructive. With some reser­ where desire is heterosexual and vations about its lucidity, I think I therefore differentiates itself would agree with all of these. through an oppositional relation to The book is concerned with ex­ that other gender it desires' (p. 22). ploring the ways in which binary And she says, 'the "unity" of gender is gender identities are presumed to the effect of regulatory practice that flow from given biological sex and to seeks to render gender identity require compulsory heterosexuality. uniform through compulsory hetero­ She takes up the writings of a num­ sexuality' (p. 31), despite the fact ber of, mainly French, theorists: that she is aware that there exist Simone de Beauvoir, Jacques Lacan, societies with radically different Luce Irigaray, Julia Kristeva, regimes of gender and of desire. The Monique Wittig, mobilizing Michel point of Foucault's approach is Foucault's critique of the 'repressive surely to give an historical specificity hypothesis' against the psychoanaly­ to whP.t Butler calls 'the compulsory tic notion of a polymorphous sexu­ order of sex/gender/desire', to show ality 'before' the law of heterosexual that it is a peculiar feature of our civilization. own societies that sexuality has be­ At the beginning of the book, come 'the truth of our being' and the Butler has some trenchant com­ basis of our identity. Feminists from ments on the tendency of feminist the non-Western world have often theory to seek a universal basis for made the same point, in very differ­ feminism. 'The notion of a universal ent theoretical terms: that sexuality patriarchy has been widely criticized is not always central to women's in recent years for its failure to oppression and Western women who account for the workings of gender put it top of the agenda are not oppression in the concrete cultural speaking for feminism world-wide. contexts in which it exists ... That I find Butler's use of the sex/ form of feminist theorizing has come gender distinction confusing. This under criticism for its efforts to distinction is mainly used in certain colonize and appropriate non­ sociological, historical and psycho­ Western cultures to support highly logical circles in the English-speak­ Western notions of oppression' (p. 3). ing world; it does not sit well with On this basis, she questions 'the any of the French work that Butler political assumption that there must engages with. Those writers in the be a universal basis for feminism, French tradition who have problem- Palgrave Macmillan Journals is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve, and extend access to Feminist Review. ® www.jstor.org 114 Feminist Review atized the category of 'woman' have then you open up a space for the not used the term gender. What they critique of gender, including 'the have done is to question whether the ostensible natural facts of sex' of biological category 'woman' has any current scientific fumblings. Seeing stable social significance, not to the body as merely a discursive con­ question the biological category as struction is not the only way of tran­ such. Those in this French tradition, scending mind/body dualism. like Jacqueline Rose or Jane Gallop We are then left with what is, to who have written about the 'con­ me at any rate, a much more inter­ structed status of sexual difference' esting substantive issue: in a world and its contradictions (p. 28), have where there is a 'compulsory order of not been referring to 'sex' in the sex/gender/desire', what are the sub­ biological sense of the sex/gender versive possibilities of overt her­ distinction. Indeed, Butler quotes maphrodism, from one side, or Foucault as saying 'the notion of butch-femme lesbian identities, "sex" made it possible to group to­ from the other? Here Butler offers gether, in an artificial unity, ana­ some incisive criticisms of Julia tomical elements, biological func­ Kristeva, a discussion of Foucault's tions, conducts, sensations, and comments on the memoires of the pleasures and it enabled one to make hermaphrodite Herculine Barbin, an use of this fictitious unity as a causal exploration of Monique Wittig's les­ principle, an omnipresent meaning' bian-feminist strategy. All these sol­ (p. 92). It is precisely this fictitious utions, she says, are self-defeating unity that the sex/gender distinction because they presuppose and there­ was designed to disrupt. If, as Butler fore consolidate the very order they claims, 'the ostensible natural facts appear to contest. The way forward, of sex are discursively produced by instead, involves recognizing that various scientific discourses' (p. 7), gender attributes are performative what follows is not that sex was rather than expressive. Parodic per­ 'gender all along' (p. 8), but that both formances, such as drag and the 'sex' and 'gender' are meaningless. stylization of butch and femme can If, on the other hand, you reject reveal this, and so cause the kind of her principled antifoundationalism gender trouble that Butler wants to (which is merely asserted here) and make. define 'sex' as whatever may eventu­ ally turn out to be the difference at Mary Mcintosh the basis of sexual reproduction, .
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