“When some people rejoin with “All Lives Matter” they misunderstand the problem, but not because their message is untrue. It is true that all lives matter, but it is equally true that not all lives are understood to matter which is precisely why it is most important to name the lives that have not mattered, and are struggling to matter in the way they deserve.” PeopleWayImportantMatterProblemNamesStruggleMessagesUnderstoodDeserveUntrue Author:Judith Butler
“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.” IfsKnowsTryingStillsImportantIdeasSeemsIssuesTroubleGenderRevolutionary Author:Judith Butler
“I do think it's important that we experiment with new vocabularies. That new words help us conceptualize our social existence in a different way.” ThinkingWayImportantDifferentHelpingSocialExistenceExperimentsDifferent WaysVocabularyNew Words Author:Judith Butler
“I think maybe it's more important to know the traditional concepts we have for thinking about how bodies are feminine or masculine or how sexuality is, straight or gay. These categories very often fail to describe the complexity of who we are.” ThinkingKnowsImportantBodyFailingGayConceptsSexualityTraditionalComplexityWho We AreFeminineCategoriesMasculine Author:Judith Butler
“I think it's important to live with a certain danger and a certain risk.” ThinkingImportantCertainRiskDanger Author:Judith Butler
“The important thing is to think about theory in life in that way. And I think we don't have to be theorists, we don't have to have gone to the academy, or to the university to learn theory and to be a theorist of gender.” ThinkingWayImportantGoneTheoryImportant ThingsUniversityGenderAcademyTheorists Author:Judith Butler
“It's important that if one opposes discriminatory speech, one opposes all kinds. That is that one decides on a principle that it will include all minorities. But if the protection of one minority against another minority is what is happening, then I worry about that.” IfsKindImportantPrinciplesWorrySpeechHappeningsProtectionAll KindsMinorities Author:Judith Butler
“Popular sovereignty has to be given by a people to itself, and this is the important meaning of self-determination.” PeopleImportantSelfGivenDeterminationSelf DeterminationSovereigntyPopular Sovereignty Author:Judith Butler
“Nothing is more important for transgender people than to have access to excellent health care in trans-affirmative environments, to have the legal and institutional freedom to pursue their own lives as they wish, and to have their freedom and desire affirmed by the rest of the world. This will happen only when transphobia is overcome at the level of individual attitudes and prejudices and in larger institutions of education, law, health care, and kinship.” PeopleWorldImportantHappensCareLawDesireIndividualWishLevelsAttitudeEnvironmentOvercomingPrejudiceInstitutionsAccessPursueHealth CareExcellentTransgenderTransAffirmativeKinship Author:Judith Butler
“Whether one wants to be free to live out a "hard-wired" sense of sex or a more fluid sense of gender, is less important than the right to be free to live it out, without discrimination, harassment, injury, pathologization or criminalization - and with full institutional and community support. That is most important in my view.” WantImportantHardSexCommunityViewsSupportGenderDiscriminationInjuryFluidHarassmentCommunity Support Author:Judith Butler
“Sometimes there are ways to minimize the importance of gender in life, or to confuse gender categories so that they no longer have descriptive power. But other times gender can be very important to us, and some people really love the gender that they have claimed for themselves.” PeopleWayImportantSometimesImportanceGenderCategories Author:Judith Butler
“If gender is eradicated, so too is an important domain of pleasure for many people. And others have a strong sense of self bound up with their genders, so to get rid of gender would be to shatter their self-hood.” PeopleIfsImportantSelfWould BeStrongPleasureBoundsGenderDomainHoodSense Of SelfStrong Sense Of Self Author:Judith Butler
“Intersectionality has made an important contribution to social and political analysis, asking all of us to think about what assumptions of race and class we make when we speak about "women" or what assumptions of gender and race we make when we speak about "class." It allows us to unpack those categories and see the various kinds of social formations and power relations that constitute those categories.” ThinkingKindMadeImportantPoliticalSpeakSocialRaceClassRelationAskingVariousGenderAnalysisAssumptionContributionCategoriesFormationIntersectionalityImportant Contributions Author:Judith Butler
“I think there is a demand. The demand is for a radical economic and political restructuring of the world. And most people would say that's impossible. And it may or may not be achieved, but I think that's less important than articulating what a just and fair world can be.” PeopleThinkingWorldMayImportantPoliticalImpossibleEconomicDemandFairsRadicalRestructuringArticulating Author:Judith Butler
“The problem with Antigone is that she stood up to the despot Creon, but in such a way that she ended up dying. So she bought her defiance with her death. The real question I ended up asking was, "What would it mean for Antigone to have stood up to Creon and lived?" And the only way she could have lived is if she had had a serious social movement with her. If she arrived with a social movement to take down the despot, maybe it would have taken 18 days only, like in Egypt. It's really important to be able to re-situate one's rage and destitution in the context of a social movement.” IfsWayMeanImportantRealProblemAbleSocialTakenDyingMovementSeriousAskingRageEgyptDefianceStood UpSocial MovementsDespotsReal QuestionsAntigone Author:Judith Butler
“It is always brave to insist on undergoing transformations that feel necessary and right even when there are so many obstructions to doing so, including people and institutions who seek to pathologize or criminalize such important acts of self-definition. I know that for some feels less brave than necessary, but we all have to defend those necessities that allow us to live and breathe in the way that feels right to us. Surgical intervention can be precisely what a trans person needs – it is also not always what a trans person needs.” PeopleImportantTransformationBraveBreathe Author:Judith Butler
“I agree completely that nothing is more important for transgender people than to have access to excellent health care in trans-affirmative environments, to have the legal and institutional freedom to pursue their own lives as they wish, and to have their freedom and desire affirmed by the rest of the world. This will happen only when transphobia is overcome at the level of individual attitudes and prejudices and in larger institutions of education, law, health care, and kinship.” PeopleWorldImportantCareDesireIndividualWishAttitudeEnvironmentOvercomingPrejudiceAgreeHealth CareExcellentTransgenderKinship Author:Judith Butler
“No matter whether one feels one's gendered and sexed reality to be firmly fixed or less so, every person should have the right to determine the legal and linguistic terms of their embodied lives. So whether one wants to be free to live out a "hard-wired" sense of sex or a more fluid sense of gender, is less important than the right to be free to live it out, without discrimination, harassment, injury, pathologization or criminalization - and with full institutional and community support.” ImportantRealityTermCommunitySupportDetermineGenderDiscriminationInjuryHarassment Author:Judith Butler
“It's my view that gender is culturally formed, but it's also a domain of agency or freedom and that it is most important to resist the violence that is imposed by ideal gender norms, especially against those who are gender different, who are nonconforming in their gender presentation.” ImportantDifferentViewsViolenceIdealsGenderAgencyNormDomainPresentation Author:Judith Butler
“What is most important is to cease legislating for all lives what is liveable only for some, and similarly, to refrain from proscribing for all lives what is unlivable for some.” ImportantCeaseRefrain Book:Undoing Gender Source: Undoing Gender
“Sexual harassment law is very important. But I think it would be a mistake if the sexual harassment law movement is the only way in which feminism is known in the media.” IfsThinkingWayImportantWould BeLawMistakeKnownFeminismMediaMovementFeministHarassment Author:Judith Butler
