A Quote by Judith Butler

Gender is not something that one is, it is something one does, an act… a doing rather than a being.

Judith Butler

Quote Topics

Act Being Does Doing Gender Rather Something Than

Quote Author

Judith Butler
American - Philosopher
Born: February 24, 1956

Gender is not something that one is, it is something one does, an act... a "doing" rather than a "being". There is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender; that identity is performatively constituted by the very "expressions" that are said to be its results. If the immutable character of sex is contested, perhaps this construct called 'sex' is as culturally constructed as gender; indeed, perhaps it was always already gender, with the consequence that the distinction between sex and gender turns out to be no distinction at all.

Judith Butler

I don't necessarily enjoy being at the gym. It's something I have to do, more than something I look forward to doing. But it does enable me to do fun things.

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau

hard work is a misleading term. physical effort & long hours do not constitute hard work. hard work is when someone pays you to do something you'd rather not be doing. anytime you'd rather be doing something other than the thing you're doing...you're doing hard work.

George Carlin

I'd rather be useful than rich. It's more essential to feel you're doing something that's worth doing, rather than making a lot of money.

Juliet Stevenson

We act as if that being of a man or that being of a woman is actually an internal reality or something that is simply true about us, a fact about us, but actually it's a phenomenon that is being produced all the time and reproduced all the time, so to say gender is performative is to say that nobody really is a gender from the start.

Judith Butler

We act as if that being of a man or that being of a woman is actually an internal reality or something that is simply true about us, a fact about us, but actually its a phenomenon that is being produced all the time and reproduced all the time, so to say gender is performative is to say that nobody really is a gender from the start.

Judith Butler

The doing of something productive regardless of the outcome is an act of faith. The doing of a small something when a large something is too much for us is perhaps especially an act of faith. Faith means going forward by whatever means we can.

Julia Cameron

I rather be divisive than boring. The last thing I want to be is a bowl of sugar free vanilla pudding, it's not something you necessarily hate but it's not something you ask for. I'd rather be something people passionately care about one way or another than be kind of in the middle.

Andy Biersack

But I'd rather help than watch. I'd rather have a heart than a mind. I'd rather expose too much than too little. I'd rather say hello to strangers than be afraid of them. I would rather know all this about myself than have more money than I need. I'd rather have something to love than a way to impress you.

Po Bronson

The idea that sex is something a woman gives a man, and she loses something when she does that, which again for me is nonsense. I want us to raise girls differently where boys and girls start to see sexuality as something that they own, rather than something that a boy takes from a girl.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Becoming is the action that births our womanhood, rather than passive act of being born (an act none of us has a choice in). This short, powerful statement assured me that I have the freedom, in spite of and because of my birth, body, race, gender expectations, and economic resources, to define myself for myself and for others.

Janet Mock

I might take what I do very seriously, but at least I'm doing something, rather than sitting on my arse and being no-one.

Joshua James Alphonse Franceschi

Symmetry does mean something different for physicists than for members of the public. It means that an object or a theory does not change when you make some transformation - either rotating or moving it or doing something to the equations.