@Eden@weirder.earth @distel the works that termed woman with a stable definition would be all of white male philosophy since Plato; c.f. in particular the notion of the “Eternal Feminine” (look it up on Wikipedia)
the work which first challenged that definition would probably be “The Second Sex” by Simone du Beauvoir, which made the case that if womanness were inherent, a DFAB person acting “unwomanly” would be paradoxical. DFAB people are called unwomanly all the time, ergo womanhood is not inherent to “the female sex”, ergo the destabilizing of the concept of “woman” and what is popularly termed the sex/gender split of second-wave feminism
(Butler will go on to complicate the idea that sex is a stable category either, but it is taken as generally understood at this point that gender isn’t. “Stable” here can be read as “natural” or “biological” because anything which is socially-constructed necessarily will change with society.)
@Eden@weirder.earth @distel (i should also respond here that butler is likely also obliquely referencing critiques from nonwhite women, in particular Black women, against second-wave feminism’s portrayal of womanhood as simply white womanhood. not only is “woman” no longer understood to be stable, it isn’t even singular; c.f. “womanism” (look it up on Wikipedia)
