ABSTRACT
In the decade since the publication of Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990), few, if any, feminist theorists have been as influential or as controversial as Judith Butler. Response to Butler's work has been intense. Celebrated by some, maligned by others, Butler's writing on the social construction of gender identity has incited great debate and discussion in a number of intersecting fields of research. But 'discussion' is a neutral term and while many receptions of Butler's work have been cool-headed and even-handed, Butler's writing, as engaged in fanzines and biting reviews, has also generated unusual adulation from some quarters and unusual disgust from others. So ten years after the tempest around Butler's work first began, we might sit back from the maelstrom for a moment-as if sitting back from a satisfying cup of tea-to contemplate why Butler's work, above many other daring pieces of feminist writing, has incited the intensity of response that it has.
