Undoing Gender

Paul-Michel Foucault is a historian and philosopher who has had a broad influence on a myriad of fields. His notable works, including Madness and Civilization (1961), The Birth of the Clinic (1963), The Order of Things (1966), Discipline and Punish (1975), and The History of Sexuality (1976) cross boundaries of various academic fields, seeking to reevaluate human history and existence. Foucault is French, and he studied in Paris during the 1940s and early 1950s, as outlined in Didier Eribon’s 1989 biography, Michel Foucault. One of Foucault’s primary focal points in his work is power, both in analyzing power as an existing concept and questioning the justifications, impacts, and origins of power in society. Alongside power, Foucault examines the subject, how the subject is formed, and what it means to have freedom as a subject. Foucault consistently uses history as the lens through which these topics are detailed.

In Undoing Gender, Butler cites many of Foucault’s ideas, including his thoughts on power and the subject, sexuality, and confession. Foucault is generally regarded as one of the most influential thinkers of the postmodern period, a point which supports Butler’s argument that a radical reexamining of Foucault’s ideas can revolutionize contemporary fields of thought. Though Foucault is often regarded as a structuralist, Butler frequently deconstructs thoughts and concepts with the aid of Foucault’s writings, and his ideas run throughout Undoing Gender as formative and supportive of Butler’s own claims. Rhetorically, citing Foucault both adds credibility and opens new avenues of discourse for Butler as an author. Because Foucault’s ideas were innovative in their respective fields, Butler uses Foucault’s radical positions to further these innovations, creating even more avenues for future discussion.

Luce Irigaray is a French feminist philosopher and linguist, best known for her contributions to how language interacts with issues of feminism, sex, and sexuality. Her major works include Speculum of the Other Woman (1974), This Sex Which is Not One (1985), and The Forgetting of Air in Martin Heidegger (1999). Though Irigaray is an active feminist activist, she does not belong to a specific movement. Like Butler, Irigaray’s focus, which began with women, expanded in the 1990s to include discussions of men and women together. Though Irigaray opposes sex and gender discrimination, Butler notes how, like Braidotti, Irigaray supports the idea of sexual difference to combat the oppression of women. Irigaray’s studies often center on langue and how language interacts with and influences sex and gender. For example, Irigaray illustrated how language is used to suppress femininity in the West, exploring the language used by both men and women.

Like Foucault, Irigaray is frequently cited in Undoing Gender. Fundamentally, Irigaray and Foucault cross two of the paths on which Butler seeks to form their criticism of sex and gender through history and language. Irigaray’s ability to integrate language, semantics, and semiotics into arguments in this field allows Butler to further their own views on the importance of inclusion, which often builds on the influential power of language. Though Butler hints at points on which they and Irigaray might differ, the text does not serve as a comprehensive comparison of Butler’s and Irigaray’s views in the way that Butler does with Braidotti and Agacinski. Instead, Butler cites Irigaray to enhance credibility and further distinct arguments without repeating another author’s contribution in full.

Sylvaine Agacinski is a French philosopher and feminist, best known for her contributions to the women’s rights movements in France. Agacinski is credited with the creation of a French law that requires half of all seats held by each political party to be held by women. Agacinski’s main theoretical framework is the fundamental necessity of sexual difference in understanding reality and the human condition. As such, Agacinski promotes the idea of a sexual binary between men and women, in which she wants equity and fairness across the sexes.

In Undoing Gender, Butler frames Agacinski as an opposing figure, noting Agacinski’s views on gay marriage. In line with how France initially legislated gay marriage, Agacinski believes that gay couples should be allowed to marry, but they should not be allowed to adopt, have children, or receive reproductive assistance. The basis for Agacinski’s perspective is an abstract concept of “French culture,” which Agacinski expands into the universal, much as the Lacanians do with the symbolic order. Butler criticizes this perspective, specifically, noting how each culture sees itself as universal, and yet no culture can be universal that excludes the other from itself. Butler uses Agacinski as an example from which they expand their argument against the normalization of heterosexuality and legal recognition. As such, Agacinski serves as a representative of conservative interests within feminist movements, which Butler opposes in favor of greater inclusivity.

Rosi Braidotti is an Italian-Australian feminist philosopher known for her work in examining binary differences, such as those of nationality, gender, sex, and humanity. Braidotti focuses on positive difference, rejecting concepts of negation that would lead to a conclusion of similarity. Braidotti’s focus on European history and continental philosophy has led her to become an important theorist in examining European identity, globalization, and sexuality. Braidotti’s nomadic feminist theory does not advocate direct opposition to the hegemonic structures of patriarchy, instead advocating for a continuous process of becoming within the category of the other.

Butler highlights Braidotti because of their conflicting opinions on sexual difference as a foundational element of intelligibility. However, Butler notes that they agree with Braidotti in many other areas, asserting that they both envision a more inclusive and nonviolent future. Nevertheless, Braidotti’s feminism, much like Agacinski and Irigaray, adheres to the foundation of sexual difference, from which Butler departs in favor of Foucault’s views on how power structures the subject. Sexual difference, summarized as the separation between male and female, forms the basis of many feminist ideas since the core reflection of feminism is the issue of how women are underprivileged and oppressed under an inherently male patriarchy. Butler’s view, however, is that these foundations need to be modified to allow greater inclusion, while Braidotti advocates embracing sexual difference in a process of transformation.

Gloria Anzaldua in a Chicana feminist and queer theorist. Her best-known work is Borderlands/La Frontera (1987), which is written in a mix of English and Spanish. The work explores the intersections of postcolonialism, feminism, and queer theory, using mixed language to create a literal border between her own ideas and those of monolingual people. Butler cites Anzaldua in Chapter 10 as an example of the innovative work occurring in the borders between disciplines, emphasizing the way inclusivity is becoming increasingly critical for a global society. Additionally, Anzaldua incorporates theories of sexuality and gender into her works, which display how the heteronormativity of the modern era creates a linguistic barrier similar to that between English and Spanish.