Chapter 3, Subversive Bodily Acts, Section IV, Bodily Inscriptions, Performative Subversions Summary and Analysis

A lot of feminist theory relies on concrete categories to establish a point of reference. Theory emerges from them, as do politics. We cannot, however, generalize about the body and its sexed significance, but neither can we wholly separate sex and gender. We must resist identifying the body as a thing prior to culture assigning it significance. Butler then goes on to draw insights on these points from various contemporaries of hers. The point is the stable bodily contours require constructing falsehood. The boundary of the body is socially constructed.

Foucault has a useful discussion of 'surface body' politics where we conceive of our bodies from their outsides without attending to our physical interiors and psychical features. The outside needn't define us. Identification...