/lit/ - Literature

>>12703144

Gender is a social construct.

>>11230414
Unironically, read this anon. It answers your question.

You say that these traits are prior to any culturally relative traditions imposed on them, but Butler very convincingly argues that we cannot speak of something as being "prior to culture."

Plus, any argument from a state of nature is very weak ground. The state of nature is before human history and complex social behaviors can not be inferred from archaeological evidence. We cannot speak with any scientific certainty about gender roles among the earliest humans.

I thought this book would be written more universally like a classic philosophy text but flipping through it it looks like it has loads of references to minor academic nobodies. Is it necessary to read these guys to understand the whole work?