In this definitional work of feminist and queer theory, enormously influential from the moment it was released in 1990, Butler argues that the ‘trouble’ with gender is the uncritical acceptance of gender as an established and static category, posting instead that the concept of ‘male’ and ‘female’ are themselves the product of power relations. Instead, she proposes that we approach gender as a ‘performative’ construct, leading toward a notion of politics in which identities are considered multiple, mutable, performative, and shifting.