Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity

One of the most talked-about scholarly works of the past fifty years, this volume is as celebrated as it is controversial. Arguing that traditional feminism is wrong to look to a natural, 'essential' notion of the female, or indeed of sex or gender, the author starts by questioning the category 'woman' and continues in this vein with examinations of 'the masculine' and 'the feminine'. Best known however, but also most often misinterpreted, is the author's concept of gender as a reiterated social performance rather than the expression of a prior reality.