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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Judith Butler interview

414 replies

MotherofPearl · 07/09/2021 12:27

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/sep/07/judith-butler-interview-gender?CMP=ShareiOSAppOther

Apologies if this has already been posted. I found this troubling to read. Am I misreading this or is Butler saying that GC feminism is fascist?

OP posts:
lionheart · 08/09/2021 07:18

newrepublic.com/article/150687/professor-parody

NiceGerbil · 08/09/2021 01:56

I missed the Vatican bit.

The fact that very different people have the same view on something but for totally opposing reasons. Means they are somehow in cahoots. Is just such a hopelessly pathetic idea.

Fitt · 08/09/2021 01:46

I imagine it's just too ghastly to publish a massive diatribe against people when your reason for doing this has turned out to be a defence of serial sex offender and you are aiming all of your criticism at the people who quite reasonably and in fact legally object to the facilitation of this crime.

I expect Butler herself demanded the edit.

StrangeLookingParasite · 08/09/2021 01:45

I love your posts so much, Floral.

This bit of Butler, though:
neoliberals in France and elsewhere who need the normative family to absorb the decimation of social welfare

Decimation of social welfare? In France?
She's never been here, obviously and knows two-fifths of fuck all about it, too.

BraveBananaBadge · 08/09/2021 01:32

@NiceGerbil

IF it was guardian just did it without checking with JB.

Note that she is female and they have censored her own words.

They wouldn't have to check anything with her, though, they can do what they like, publish and be damned and all that. An editorial decision is just that. They're just not being transparent about why.

Any kind of copy approval situation in this or any other instance would be dubious beyond words.

ChattyLion · 08/09/2021 01:14

When I wrote Gender Trouble, there was no category for “nonbinary” – but now I don’t see how I cannot be in that category.

Well yes absolutely.. we’re all of us in that ‘non binary’ category. Each human alive is because nobody totally conforms to the rigid requirements of gender. Gender thoughts, our own or other people’s, are completely irrelevant to the unchangeable reality of biological sex, though, obviously!

LobsterNapkin · 08/09/2021 01:11

@Ereshkigalangcleg

This claim is fascinating. The influence of the Vatican is pretty much confined to Roman Catholics

She's tried to push the bullshit that feminists are in league with the Catholic Church before - it seems her go to argument, based on common use of the term "gender ideology", because it's of course really unlikely that two sets of people with diametrically opposed beliefs on most things would call an ideology based on reifying gender stereotypes and identity "gender ideology" Confused

I think there's a really clear refusal to engage embedded in this.

There is a straightforward reason that Roman Catholics and materialists have some ideas in common on this. They both believe in the physical world, that it is real, that it is in some sense rational and organised by some sort of underlying principles or nature. The same reason that materialists and Catholics both tend to accept the idea of scientific knowledge and reasoning from evidence.

Butler and those like her can only see some organisation like "the Vatican" and I suspect any other group as well as an entity pushing a viewpoint with the goal of asserting power, with no intrinsic attempt to rationality or coherence or anything else.

Therefor, if two groups seem to agree on something, they are in league for reasons related to power. It's not because both really agree about some kind of truth proposition about the real world. even if they may disagree about other things about the real world. claims to believe in true things is really just the fascist will to power.

NiceGerbil · 08/09/2021 01:10

IF it was guardian just did it without checking with JB.

Note that she is female and they have censored her own words.

NiceGerbil · 08/09/2021 01:09

Who knows what they're doing or why.

Trump redaction style though.

In the end whatever you think of her. JB is a serious academic who has been in the queer theory/ gender topic for years.

Her past work underpins a lot of what is going on.

The Guardian got an interview with a very famous and pivotal philosopher/ author etc around gender politics.

They asked questions she answered. Her own words.

They printed and then. Just cut a big chunk of it?

I can't imagine that she requested that somehow. Just a gut feel.

This is really important.

Because IF they chopped that part out. Of an already published interview with JB. When it's her words but theirs.

It's just bizarre.

I'm sure JB would be more than happy to get that picked up talked about etc etc.

So why is it gone?

I really want to know who decided it should go and who was consulted etc.

BraveBananaBadge · 08/09/2021 01:01

@Goannaforanna

The development that occurred after the interview would be what has been published about the Wispa incident in the last few days.
But this was only published today (well yesterday now)? All the WiSpa stuff was out there.

A few weeks ago they put a strange correction about Eddie Izzard's pronouns after a feature, saying something about becoming aware of 'reports' of Eddie's preference after initial publication. This was presumably the massive 'coming out' interview Eddie had given to the...Guardian... a couple of weeks before that nobody could gave missed. They tied themselves up in knots while confirming EI will accept he or she - so ultimately what does it matter anyway?

I digress, but where is the courage of the Guardian's convictions these days? It's pretty unfathomable.

OldCrone · 08/09/2021 00:52

The part which has been removed had a link to this article.
www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/28/anti-trans-video-los-angeles-protest-wi-spa

I suppose the removal of that whole section of the interview is the Guardian's way of saying that they know they got that wrong (even though it's only the question that contains a reference to the Wi Spa, not the answer).

They could have just removed the link to the earlier article, but maybe they're also telling us that they know the women protesting were not 'transphobes' who support the far right.

NiceGerbil · 08/09/2021 00:40

My big question is who decided to edit.

And how is it ok to ditch parts of an interview.

Goannaforanna · 08/09/2021 00:35

The development that occurred after the interview would be what has been published about the Wispa incident in the last few days.

MotherofPearl · 07/09/2021 23:52

I've been out this evening; looks like I have some catching up to do.

So the Guardian piece from today has been amended? To remove the stuff about likening GC feminism to fascism? Am going to have a proper read through now.

OP posts:
NiceGerbil · 07/09/2021 23:43

She says global and that is interesting.

Usually saying what about Saudi etc gets panic and run.

I know I sound like I'm defending her. I'm not. I'm not that interested in what she says. I stick to the point that her ideas would have been interesting discussion point in a thought experiment etc way.

No doubt she's capitalising on it all.

But was it get that went and convinced UK govt to do wards on gender not sex all those years ago and males in women's prisons etc. I'm guessing not.

Her arguments and ideas were picked up and used by others to do all this.

She says globally. That's pretty out of step with anything I've read from those who talk about the topic that I've seen.

And IF the guardian cut her words out of their own cowardice. Then that is unethical, cowardly and disrespectful.

Whether you think she is deserving of respect or not.

They got the interview with this major figure.
They printed it.
And then they just... Cut a chunk out?

Appalling behaviour from a mainstream news source.

The usual behaviour would be to leave what she said. And let readers come to their own conclusions.

Unless she asked it to be chopped but I just have a feeling that's not what happened. Could be wrong obv.

Ereshkigalangcleg · 07/09/2021 23:38

This claim is fascinating. The influence of the Vatican is pretty much confined to Roman Catholics

She's tried to push the bullshit that feminists are in league with the Catholic Church before - it seems her go to argument, based on common use of the term "gender ideology", because it's of course really unlikely that two sets of people with diametrically opposed beliefs on most things would call an ideology based on reifying gender stereotypes and identity "gender ideology" Confused

KimikosNightmare · 07/09/2021 23:34

so all she's doing is shadow-boxing an imaginary fascist

And "fascist" has lost any meaning.

What a pile of codswallop.

FloralBunting · 07/09/2021 23:27

I am in need of distraction, so I will spend a little time translating this paragraph to try and make sense of her argument.

The anti-gender ideology movement, a global movement, insists that sex is biological and real, or that sex is divinely ordained, and that gender is a destructive fiction, taking down both “man” and “civilization” and “God”.

She is making a number of claims here, the first being that there is one identifiable, global 'Anti-gender ideology movement'. She immediately contradicts herself by claiming that this movement believes that sex is biological and real or that sex is divinely ordained. These are two separate beliefs, neither of which follows from the other.

She suggests that this one movement believes that 'gender is a destructive fiction' which is 'taking down' (I presume this is 'attacking') 'man' (by which I am guessing she means humanity - not a terrifically feminist styling there, but she is setting up a straw man, so I suppose she is caricaturing her opponents here) 'Civilization' and 'God'.

Butler is very keen to tie anyone questioning gender ideology to religion, which I personally find extremely amusing, as most of the genderist zealots I know personally are members of the progressive parts of the Christian church.

Anti-gender politics have been bolstered by the Vatican and the more conservative evangelical and apostolic churches on several continents,

This claim is fascinating. The influence of the Vatican is pretty much confined to Roman Catholics, and from my admittedly somewhat remote perspective of catholicism these days, there's rather more liberalism that you might expect. Most of the conservative catholics are just cockahoop about the Texan heartbeat bill anyway, so bolstering the campaigns of feminist women seems pretty low priority, really.

Conservative evangelical? Maybe some. But please, look up Kimberley Shappley and Brandon Boulware, two conservative Christians in the US who now have influenced US policy towards gender confused children like their own, who were GNC male children that they both attempted to force into male stereotypes before relenting and accepting that their children were in fact girls after all.

I've no idea what she means by apostolic. I suspect she is referring to pentecostal style churches, which often use 'apostolic' in the individual church name, but apostolic simply means 'a messenger sent', and in fact, is often used of the Catholic church she's already referenced. So she's basically just using a few religious technical terms she doesn't understand to make herself sound like she knows what she's talking about.

but also by neoliberals in France and elsewhere who need the normative family to absorb the decimation of social welfare.

Sharp pivot here from the religious into French and other Europeans worried about sustaining the welfare state and therefore opposing gender ideology because they need a 'normative family' structure. I am guessing her idea here is that a normative family functions as a primary care set up for children and the elderly.

I think that's an interesting shift of focus, because she's clearly setting up straw men opponents here, so the question she should really be answering then is - why is the normative family a problem?

I might even agree that relying on a normative family structure to cover the decimation of social welfare is a bad thing, but from a feminist perspective, the issue is because the bulk of that cover and care of the young and old will fall on WOMEN, the female sex that she is spending all her time and effort trying to pretend don't exist.

None of her pretentious wordplay helps those women. They will still be shouldering the burden of a gendered system, because everyone will still know the group which is expected to do all this, even if we don't call them women any more.

TL;DR Butler thinks that there is one global anti-gender ideology movement that is conservative religious in character and believes sex actually exists, and is ordained by god, and is being pushed so that governments can cut welfare and rely on traditional family set ups instead.

There's so much question begging and strawmanning it's almost impossible to get to the heart of it, but she is basically suggesting we are traditional fascists in the Italian Fascist Party/Nazi party milieu of 'kinder, kuche, kirche', but she's based that on paranoid fantasy rather than actually engaging with any of the feminist critiques.

This is what I meant - her arguments are shite, even when you boil away all the egotistical dross, because she hasn't tested them against the actual opposing view, so all she's doing is shadow-boxing an imaginary fascist.

BraveBananaBadge · 07/09/2021 23:22

V good post about the Guardian retraction NiceGerbil, what an absolute mess they've made of this.

If you look at the Facebook comments people are apoplectic that you can't even call t*s fascists anymore without The Man censoring you. On the other side, we see the implications of, like you said, making such a major change to a piece of journalism without explaining why and even looking as if it's in response to some kind of feedback or backlash. This is the latest in a long line of very silly (nay, spineless) editorial decisions from the Graun and I totally despair.

IvyTwines2 · 07/09/2021 23:22

Legal issues as it's a live case?

NiceGerbil · 07/09/2021 23:20

Either way it's cowardly and pathetic. And not even effective because it's been read by plenty of people and archived.

I just have a massive feeling that it was the guardians decision. And did they run it past her.

Bottom line is that trump's attitude has won a lot of fans. Its delete delete delete. They know nothing is ever really gone on the net which makes it even more brazen.

NiceGerbil · 07/09/2021 23:18

In the end the main question is. Who was involved in decision to cut?

That is really important imo.

NiceGerbil · 07/09/2021 23:15

Well the ideas get picked up and pushed by those they are useful to.

I honestly don't understand the reason that part was redacted. They've got the interview they've published her words.

Does she know they cut it?

Because in the end it's not THEIR words that have been cut. But the person who said them.

Why? And people say all sorts of stuff. Publishing people's answers to questions. The taleban are on the telly a lot at the mo answering questions.

So why have they cut her answers?

EmbarrassingAdmissions · 07/09/2021 23:14

On back of the Guardian article, TERFs is trending: twitter.com/search?q=TERFs&src=trend_click&f=live&vertical=trends

Jane Clare Jones discussing the retrospective cuts to the piece:

twitter.com/janeclarejones/status/1435357430217646086

IvyTwines2 · 07/09/2021 23:09

@IvyTwines2

Interesting development. This morning with this piece it looked like the Guardian were doubling down, despite the Wi Spa news. Has the penny finally dropped with them, "Hans, are we the baddies?"
That, or lawyers have seen it and had a word.