Chapter 1, Subjects of Sex/Gender/Desire, Section IV, Theorizing the Binary, The Unitary, and Beyond Summary and Analysis

Beauvoir and Irigaray disagree about how gender asymmetry is generated. Beauvoir believes it lies in a failure of reciprocity in an asymmetrical dialogue, whereas Irigaray argues that the dialogue itself is a manifestation of masculinism. Butler leans more towards Irigaray, holding that feminists ought to critique in a more totalizing way, including criticism of themselves.

It turns out that present-day feminist debates about the essentialism of sex and gender raises the question of how universal feminine identity is in a variety of ways, but some attempts to form political coalitions of women without assuming what a 'woman' is have been made. One cannot insist that the unity of a coalition requires a totalizing...