“"Gender trouble" is old. I mean, you know, in New York, it is old. I mean it's sweet. I mean people are really kind about it but it's like a former love affair you had and you're done.” PeopleKnowsKindMeanDoneTroubleNew YorkSweetAffairGenderFormerLove AffairMean PeopleFormer Love 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 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
“It's not like it's a brand new vocabulary that permits to have a new reality. It's rather a new vocabulary that lets us see that our lives have always been more complex than traditional categories allow. So, I think, you know, maybe the introduction of new words permits us to rethink what we've taken for granted about what forms bodies take, what the name is for certain kinds of sexual, intimate relations, how we think of a life.” ThinkingKnowsKindBodyRealityFormCertainNamesTakenOur LivesRelationComplexesTraditionalBrandsGrantedIntimateCategoriesPermitVocabularyIntroductionBrand NewTaken For GrantedNew Words Author:Judith Butler
“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.” PeopleThinkingKnowsMeanDoeUsedCertainHappenedTroubleConcernRefuseGenderButlersPosing Author:Judith Butler
“In the US the problem has been, for instance, that Nazis have rights of free expression, right? But other kinds of racist speech is not protected. And you have to link the speech to conduct or to a certain kind of threat against minority population. I know that in Europe, this kind of framework doesn't exist in the same way so it's very difficult to make the analogy.” KnowsWayKindHas BeensProblemCertainDifficultRightsExpressionSpeechEuropeThreatPopulationInstanceMinoritiesRacistLinksProtectedNaziFrameworkAnalogiesFree Expression Author:Judith Butler
“I have also been invited to talk to psychologists and psychoanalysts and I liked that very much. Because, they are the ones who are bringing a lot of very, you know, problematic ideas about sexuality and gender into psychiatric and psychological settings. And I like having some influence there.” KnowsIdeasInfluenceGenderSexualitySettingPsychologicalSettingsInvitedPsychologistPsychiatric Author:Judith Butler
“I am not sure that I know enough about the pre-history of 9/11 to agree or disagree. But I did think at the time that the [George W.] Bush administration took a number of cues from the Israeli government, not only by drawing on and intensifying anti-Arab racism, but by insisting that the attack on US government and financial buildings was an attack on "democracy" and by invoking "security at all costs" to wage war without a clear focus (why the Taliban?), and by suspending both constitutional rights and the regular protocol for congressional approval for declaring war.” ThinkingKnowsWarEnoughGovernmentNumbersDemocracyClearFocusRightsSecurityBuildingCostRacismAgreeFinancialDrawingAdministrationNot SureDisagreeApprovalIsraeliTalibanDeclaringInsistingProtocolConstitutional RightsDeclaring War Author:Judith Butler
“People need to know who I am and where I'm coming from.” PeopleKnowsNeedsWho I Am Author:Judith Butler
“I do know that some people believe that I see gender as a "choice" rather than as an essential and firmly fixed sense of self. My view is actually not that. 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.” PeopleKnowsFeelsShouldBelievePersonsSelfMatterRealityChoicesTermViewsEssentialsShould HaveDetermineGenderFixedSense Of Self Author:Judith Butler
“I know that some subjective experiences of sex are very firm and fundamental, even unchangeable. They can be so firm and unchanging that we call them "innate". But given that we report on such a sense of self within a social world, a world in which we are trying to use language to express what we feel, it is unclear what language does that most effectively. I understand that "innate" is a word that conveys the sense of something hired-wired and constitutive. I suppose I would be inclined to wonder whether other vocabularies might do the job equally well.” KnowsWorldFeelsTryingWellsDoeSelfUseMightWould BeJobsLanguageGivenSocialSexWonderFundamentalsFirmReportsVocabularySubjectiveInnateSense Of SelfUnchangingUnchangeableUnclear Author:Judith Butler
“Whether or not we continue to enforce a universal conception of human rights at moments of outrage and incomprehension, precisely when we think that others have taken themselves out of the human community as we know it, is a test of our very humanity.” ThinkingKnowsHumansMomentsHumanityCommunityTakenRightsTestsUniversalHuman RightsConceptionOutrageIncomprehension Author:Judith Butler
