Feminist discourse and power in Judith Butler

Discussions about women have a long history. Women, who are the subject of discussions such as their biological existence, gender, social role, etc., have been mentioned in different contexts within the framework of periodical-historical epistemes. The issue of women went through various stages until it evolved into a struggle movement. From the 19th century, this movement was called feminism. The subject of women, which is a historical, social and political discussion of feminism, is a movement that struggles against all kinds of inequality it is exposed to against the masculine dominant understanding. In this study, our main aim is to examine relationship of Judith Butler's approach to discourse and power and the views of Judith Butler who is one of the most important names of the recent feminism theory, which has a rich literature and content, and one of the most important representatives of post-modern feminist understanding, on feminism. In the study, the aspects of Butler's feminist approach that are separate and different from other approaches were emphasized. In addition, the views of thinkers such as Foucault, Beauvoir, Kristeva, Cixuos, Irigaray and Derrida, who had a serious impact on the shaping of Butler's analysis and analysis of feminism, were included. In the study, the place and importance of concepts such as gender/gender, performative, phallogocentric and queer theory in Butler's feminist thought were examined. In particular, the reasons for Butler's thesis that both sex and gender are fictions and emerge later were examined in detail. Finally, by emphasizing the importance of how the umbrella metaphor created by queer theory has a connection with macro problems, the reasons why Butler opposes a classical feminist approach were tried to be criticised. Keywords: Feminism, Butler, queer theory, gender/social gender, masculinity, discourse, power, phallogocentrism, performativity