Study guide on Judith Butler on Perlego

I never heard of Perlego books, and had an instant mental image of an interpretation of JB's work through Lego😂
In my defence, there were Lego interpretations of the recent elections, weren't there?? But I know, I know, there are not enough Lego bricks on all the floors in all the world to interpret JB's oeuvre..

I've always loved that photo on the cover of her book. I was the one on the left.😏

There's a paradigm shift part way through. First two sentences use gender as a synonym for sex. Then they change to gender meaning the collection of cultural norms making up femininity or masculinity.

True that GC feminists don't believe you can change sex. False that they have an objection to a man performing femininity (that would be conservatives). That is, after all, why we are gender critical.

It probably is transphobic to think sex is immutable, by their lights.

It's not particularly earth shattering - ascribing stereotypically 'feminine' characteristics to people with female bodies tends to reinforce those very stereotypes. But it's phrased in a way that's intended to make it sound clever.

trying to translate Butler into comprehensible English really is a fools errand.

For what it's worth, documents such as study guides, summaries and those 'for dummies'/'for beginners' books are not necessarily written by the sharpest tools in the box. Postgraduate students making a bit of money in their spare time in some cases. The overall scrutiny can be a bit lax too - provided some text has been produced, those in supervisory positions don't look at it too carefully for intellectual quality. I can't comment on this particular document as I don't know how it was written, but I've seen the process in action with other teaching materials. What might once upon a time have merely been an infelicity in a class handout is now apt to be broadcast on the internet for all the world to see, so it's much more conspicuous nowadays.

I suspect the glossary reads:

Gender critical: see 'TERF'.

TERF: See 'Witch (evil)'.

Witch (evil): see 'Gender critical'.

If this is supposed to be a study guide I would be questioning why it has been written using such obviously partisan language.

Does it actually define "gender critical"?

thinking that female people are necessarily feminine takes place in a culture where... people think female people are necessarily feminine. Is that what she's saying here?

Yep. As circular as most of their definitions.

“The very attribution of femininity to female bodies as if it were a natural or necessary property takes place within a normative framework in which the assignment of femininity to femaleness is one mechanism for the production of gender itself.”

What does that mean?

The attribution of femininity to female bodies as if it were natural or necessary property - right, so she's saying "some people think that female people are necessarily feminine". True of some conservatives, not true of gender critical feminists in the old sense of the term or most GC feminists as the term is now used.

Then the next bit - takes place within a normative framework in which the assignment of femininity to femaleness is one mechanism for the production of gender itself.”
So thinking that female people are necessarily feminine takes place in a culture where... people think female people are necessarily feminine. Is that what she's saying here?