this took me a long time to read, partly because it's so linguistically dense and partly because there were times where i simply didn't feel like reading it.

this book is obviously very important and influential but it exemplifies what i both love and hate about academia: the careful deconstruction of the real, the privilege given to linguistic practices, the disparaging of "tradition" as they frame it.

i am in no way a traditionalist. in political terms, i'm as leftist as they come, but i'm at a loss as to how such an important project like this tries to convey its message mostly inaccessible to those without some form of training in the disciplines this covers. i understand butler addressed this in the introduction, but i find the explanation lacking.

it's actually quite ironic considering how she keeps critiquing hegemonic linguistic practices and how it seeks to normalise gender ideals when she herself deploys the language that she seeks to skewer. she says it's to disrupt the field but where does disruption end and acquiescence begin?

this is not to say this is a wholly fruitless endeavour on my part. i actually do like what she's saying here—for the most part. freudian incest bullshit will always stagger me whenever i come across it being taken seriously and i am still quite astounded at how so very many academics in very established fields never thought of going outside of their ivory tower and just... seeing how normal people act in regards to their parents, i guess.

still, i mean to compliment this book and i see that i've been drawn into another critique. yet, very genuinely, this book is a landmark text and a seminal work whose very vocabulary has steeped into the average discourse. as a terminally online gen z'er who spends a lot of time fighting people on twitter, the amount of times people namedrop butler is quite frankly astounding considering the denseness of this text.

i cannot, however, honestly give you a judgement as to whether her contributions have been more for the good of society or not. it's a very difficult ask, and i'm not going to answer a question clearly meant for a doctoral thesis than a goodreads review. i'm trying to be as neutral as i can here because, yeah, on the one hand, she made some points; on the other hand, as regards to other points, maybe not so much?

consider this waffling review an exercise in the disruption of goodreads reviews or whatever. i've said a lot of words to end up saying nothing—which is how many might describe her text—but you can say i did say something with this review, which is also how many other people describe gender troubles.