Judith Butler: The Implications Of Misrepresentation Of Women

888 Words2 Pages

Judith Butler describes the political reasons behind many feminists’ insistence on defining ‘woman. ' The political system we have had in the West needs representation of women to spread visibility and legitimize women’s issues in politics (I, 2). To achieve this representation, feminists had to create a language that defines ‘woman. ' Conversely, as Butler discusses, trying to define ‘woman’ poses problems of misrepresentation (I, 2). Some feminists’ assert that they are defining women merely as a political strategy; however, Butler says, even for strategic reasons, there are consequences to defining ‘woman’ (I, 6). Western feminists relied on universalizing not just the word ‘woman, ' but the patriarchy as well; women in countries where they suffer many oppressions gave Western feminists a legitimacy in politics to act urgently against misogyny (I, 5). Butler states that representation should not be the only method to political action; “identity of the feminist subject ought not to be the foundation of feminist politics” (I, 8). She calls feminists to break away from identity politics; to break free from attempting to define ‘woman’ (1, 7).
Feminists wanted to avoid the problem of ‘biology is destiny, ' so they separated gender from sex; gender being cultural and sex being biological (II,9). However, …show more content…

She believes the ‘incompleteness’ of the word ‘woman’ is in our favor. To Butler, language dictates our lives and to make the language more definitive; then we are limiting ourselves. Butler believes the oppression we face is because our oppressors have the limited language to explain people and if the person cannot be explained then, to the oppressor, they are abnormal. However, she also believes that much social justice movements have mimicked the oppressors by trying to identify the oppressor 's identities (IV, 18) which are a simplification of power dynamics and is problematic since it encourages ranking of

Open Document