Judith Butler defends Genderism in New Statesman, and Jane Clare Jones critiques it

I don't think the desire to abolish gender (sex roles) is embedded in aeons of patriarchal religions. Quite the opposite.

On the other hand, I freely admit that the fact that you can't choose your sex has been recognised by humans since before we were humans. If dogs could talk they'd be able to tell you that.

Gender Critical Feminism is embedded in aeons of patriarchal religions?

Not 2016. Earlier. Though of course it's embedded in aeons of patriarchal religions

the Pontifical Council on the Family wrote a letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church signaling the potential of “gender” to destroy feminine values important to the Church

Oh dear. Somebody signalled something.

That is exactly the same as actively intervening to deny access to birth control.

Do the Catholic Church really care if somebody is trans?

They might not believe that somebody can change sex, but is that mentioned in the bible in a way that implies that all trans people are going to hell?

Are catholics organising vigils outside gender reassignment clinics?

That does appear to be the crux of her argument.

She uses Google search histories over the last few years to back up Butler's genealogy of the idea of gender criticality as rooted in Catholic directive

Sorry, just to be clear, Skyz are you saying that Gender Critical Feminism was made up by Catholics in 2016?

This is a laughable, desperate attempt to construct an argument

Quite. The poster who posted it is unable to refute any of the other excellent points made on the thread about Butlerian views of feminism, I also note.

This is a laughable, desperate attempt to construct an argument, especially in a country such as Britain where only a tiny minority take Catholic dogma seriously in any way.

What's with the Catholic bashing? Do orthodox Islam or Judaism or Hinduism support the idea that men can literally become women because they say so? Thought not.

When I say early noughts - 2004 is the earliest date range, the term is at its peak in January 2004, it then declines.

It does show a huge misunderstanding of how Google search works.

The screenshot included also omits search results.

However, I used Google Trends to analyse searches for the term 'Gender Ideology', looking only at the UK (the author mentions the GRA), and contrary to what the article suggests, it peaked in the early noughts. And I'm guessing the people doing the searching aren't religiously motivated because none of the other terms related terms searched for were in any way religious.

Nah, it's really not.

PS This conversation is particularly funny if you understand how Google search works. And also if you understand what "genealogy" means.

AngryAttackKittens

Have you read the link? She uses Google search histories over the last few years to back up Butler's genealogy of the idea of gender criticality as rooted in Catholic directive. It's actually really interesting and a useful piece of research.

I've often disagreed with Chu but agreed that they're a good writer. Less so when writing about gender, which is interesting - too much personal investment clouds the judgement maybe.

Given the background of the current Pope I'd imagine he probably has a compassionate attitude towards refugees. So do I. This can be the case even as we vehemently disagree on pretty much everything to do with religion or the role of women in society.

Chu is also an out transwoman and a very good writer. An interesting and thoughtful person to read, though not everyone on this board would agree with Chu.

From that Medium piece: "The idea that TERFs are the main driving force behind transphobia is just wild to me." Um yeah, got that right. It's not transphobia, it's being pro-woman.

Religion promotes the idea that sex and gender are the same thing, men must be masculine and women must be feminine.

Feminism promotes the idea that gender is bullshit and should be destroyed as far as possible, nothing should be considered masculine or feminine.

Just because I might agree with the Pope that you can't choose your sex (actually almost everyone on the planet agrees with this regardless of other political opinions because it's an obvious fact) doesn't mean we would agree about much else. We are coming at this from completely different angles.

Chu's take on humanities departments very much matches what I've heard from friends who've worked in them, as does the description of graduate student hell.

Skyzalimit, you remind me a bit of another poster that used to come on here, spannablue.

By "interesting" did you mean "throw a bunch of links at the wall and hope it convinces feminists that they're being duped by the Pope"?

this is an interesting take on Butler's ideas about the roots of gender criticality:

medium.com/@Chican3ry/gender-ideology-up-yours-470575a5311a

had never heard of Avital Ronell. just read this very interesting article

www.chronicle.com/article/I-Worked-With-Avital-Ronell-I/244415

it seems that in american academia, paying lip service to the correct things is just as important as here in the UK

Isn't it the case, though, that Butler is essentially making the same argument here that she made in the early 1990s? In which case, isn't it all horribly dated? For example, she relies on outdated ways of diagnosing and treating disorders of sexual development (intersex conditions).

Seems to me she has nothing new to say and is enjoying her comfortable status as a revered academic. At some point it will stop being cool to cite her.

We know that she supports other established academics who abuse their position of power, see her support (later taken back) for Avital Ronell, accused of taking advantage of (to put it mildly) her graduate student. Because Ronell was a genius, supposedly, and geniuses are allowed to behave badly.

Making the point more plainly: Butler has supported powerful people who treat others like they own them.

And that thing about the Pope: Butler has so many people venerating her image as if she was a saint, could she be jealous? Does the pope have better iconography?

It increasingly pisses me off, when experienced social scientists completely ignore power structures, as Butlerdoes here.

Judith Butler isn't a social scientist, she's a philosopher. Her aim isn't to investigate power structures, her argument is very much of the angels and pinheads variety.

i dunno

they both seem to be to be people who like to use language to obfuscate meaning

i like people who say what they mean in the simplest language possible

it means that they want to be understood