The Big Comfy Couch just got a little less comfy.

Judith Butler challenges her readers in Undoing Gender with the reality that we have a fear and discomfort with the unknown, as if it is a threat to our self and the world for the simple fact that it is uncategorizable and unfamiliar. Non-normative characteristics scare us because we don't know what to do about, with, or for them. Thus she posits that we are called to challenge the existing epistemological and ontological structures and ethical views and adhere instead to one of unknowing. We must learn to get comfortable with discomfort, because to grow as human beings we need to be uncomfortable. Growing pains, anyone?