Some Anglo-American philosophers would dismiss her writing as 'Continental'-- as not really philosophy (although radicals or Marxists would probably reject this division into 'real' and 'fake' philosophy as so much bourgeois mystification). Nussbaum, at least in her TNR mode, seems to take the Anglo-chauvinist approach. Having said that, I mostly find her critique apt. She points out that if one attempts to extract a feminist political lesson from Butler, we are more or less told to resist gender normativity at an interpersonal and everyday level.
This is more or less describes Butler's activism. She is notorious for quibbling at conferences about being referred to as a woman or lesbian. Perhaps it is self-mockery, but I would not rule out the possibility that she actually sees this as politics. For example, at the Freud conference here at Yale last year someone referred to "the three women" on the panel and Butler grabbed the mike to report that, while the others may have identified themselves as women, she had not. People kind of giggled, and she succesfully flustered the questioner enough to evade his/her question. But I thought, what a drag! This is political speech?
Tavia