Judith Butler

Judith Butler
Butler in March 2012
Born	Judith Pamela Butler (1956-02-24) February 24, 1956 Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.
Education	Bennington College Yale University (BA, MA, PhD)
Partner	Wendy Brown
Era	20th-/21st-century philosophy
Region	Western philosophy
School	Continental philosophy third-wave feminism critical theory queer theory postmodernism post-structuralism performative turn
Institutions	University of California, Berkeley
Doctoral advisor	Maurice Natanson
Main interests	Feminist theory political philosophy ethics psychoanalysis phenomenology discourse embodiment sexuality gender theory Jewish philosophy
Notable ideas	Gender as social construction gender performativity
Influences Karl Marx Michel Foucault Louis Althusser Theodor Adorno J. L. Austin Luce Irigaray Monique Wittig Emmanuel Lévinas Jacques Derrida Jacques Lacan Maurice Merleau-Ponty Sigmund Freud Gayle Rubin Friedrich Nietzsche G. W. F. Hegel Simone de Beauvoir
Influenced Susan Stryker Sandy Stone Jasbir Puar Andrea Smith Pussy Riot

Judith Butler (born February 24, 1956) is an American philosopher. Butler was born in Ohio. Butler got a PhD in philosophy from Yale University in 1984. They live in Berkeley, California, with their partner Wendy Brown. In 1990, Butler's book Gender Trouble was published by Routledge. It is considered an important work in modern feminism. In the book Butler talks about their theory of gender performativity, which is that gender, along with sex and sexuality, is a type of performative speech rather than an expression of human biology. In other politics, they have supported Palestine and the Democratic Party, including Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris.

Early life

Butler was born a female in Ohio and went to Hebrew school. They studied at Bennington College in the 70s before moving on to study philosophy at Yale University. They publicly classified themselves as non-binary in 2020.