Gender IdentityPapers

This influential 2000 article critiques both Judith Butler's theory of the subject and the practice of identity politics in feminism. Hekman proposes a middle ground between modern and postmodern conceptions of the subject while arguing for removing identity from the political realm entirely. The paper challenges fundamental assumptions about how feminism organizes politically around identity categories.

This groundbreaking article challenges the fundamental distinction between 'sex' and 'gender' by demonstrating that 'sex' itself is a social construction. Through examining intersexuality and transsexualism as embodied experiences that disrupt binary categories, Hird reveals how medical and social institutions work to maintain artificial divisions. The paper questions whether emphasizing sexual difference or exposing sex as construction better serves feminist goals for social transformation.

This groundbreaking article explores the productive tensions between Pierre Bourdieu's sociology of practice and contemporary feminist theory. Lovell critically examines Bourdieu's concept of habitus alongside Judith Butler's theory of performativity, revealing how each approach offers unique insights while harboring distinct limitations for understanding gender, agency, and social transformation. The analysis demonstrates how feminist scholars have creatively appropriated Bourdieu's concepts, particularly cultural capital, to illuminate the intersection of class and gender.

This revolutionary article proposes a radical solution to persistent gender inequality: the complete elimination of gender categories. Lorber argues that despite significant improvements in women's status, true equality remains elusive because society continues to be organized around binary gender divisions. She calls for a 'feminist degendering movement' that would dismantle the very foundation of gender categorization rather than simply seeking equality within existing structures.

This influential essay explores gender as a performative act rather than a natural given, drawing on phenomenological theory to argue that gender identity is constituted through repeated stylized acts. Butler challenges essentialist notions of gender and proposes that gender is continuously constructed through performance within regulatory frameworks.

This article proposes an understanding of gender as a routine accomplishment embedded in everyday interaction.

This paper proposes the groundbreaking concept of the 'sex/gender system' to analyze the social origins of women's oppression through a critical synthesis of Marxism, structural anthropology, and psychoanalytic theory.