Butler: Bodies that matter IntroductionIntroduction: p. 1-23

‘it is the instabilities, the possibilities for rematerialization, opened up by this process that mark one

domain in which force of the regulatory law can be turned against itself to spawn rearticluations that

call into question the hegemonic force of that very regulatory law’ (Butler, 1993, p. 2). The fact that

bodies ‘never quite comply with the norms’ suggest that looking again can bring attention to the

injustices of our world.

‘Sex is, thus, not simply what one has, or a static decription of what one is: it will be one of the norms

by which the “one” becomes viable at all, that which qualifies a body for life within the domain of

cultural intelligibility’ (Butler, 1993, p. 2).

Judith Butler’s ‘disidentification’ (Butler, 1993, p. 4), believe it to be a key factor to the reopening or

democratic space and socially critical thought.

From Construction to Materialization

‘no direct access’ (Butler, 1993, p. 5) to gender as it is socially constructed.

NB: ‘If gender is constructed, then who is doing the construction?

Normalcy as ‘the divine performative’? (Butler, 1993, p. 6).

NB: For as Judith Butler writes the matrix of gender, from birth, bounds us to a norm (Butler, 1993).

This is in response to 7/8 in how ‘girling’ occurs.

Performativity as Citationality

‘the ideal that is mirrored depends on that very mirroring to be sustained as an ideal’ (Butler, 1993, p.

14).

‘heterosexual hegemony’ (Butler, 1993, p. 15) gender performativity and agency are conditioned by

the regimes under the control of the elite i.e. heterosexualnormalcy.

Trajectory of the Text