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

[kesstrel]

twitter.com/janeclarejones/status/1087725670988427265

My opinion of Judith Butler sinks still further....

Bloody hell, what a mish mash of absolute rubbish. It’s just so disengenuous and poorly thought out, apart from just being WRONG.

She's a fucking knob head. JCJ is a bloody shero for wading through that soup

It's just so befuddling isn't it - to reach her position Butler has to pretend that opposition to 'genderism' comes mainly from the Pope and that sex has absolutely nothing to do with women's oppression.

I've never listened to anything a pope has said. Evangelism just makes me laugh. I'm really happy I managed to get a timely reasonable cost termination many years ago and I'm a member of the Labour Party.

Humans are two sexes, male and female, it's as simple as that.

Butler et al are bought and paid for aren't they? Dishonesty for cash. I suppose it is a human failing either sex can succumb to but it is as laughable as evangelism and the Vatican bank.

Thanks JCJ for doing this. Judith Butler makes my brain hurt.

Even the article's heading is a command...

As Jane says, Butler knows full well that most of the opposition is coming from feminist women, not from the Pope, but admitting that would undermine the narrative and force her to confront the fact that she's actively engaged in the suppression of other women's voices, so hey ho, Pope it is.

Dear God. I always rather assumed that (given her prominence and esteem) Butler would be insightful and able to form a strong argument. I imagined that there must be good reasons, with some important truth amongst the mistakes, why her arguments were so widely accepted.

I was so wrong. It's the same drivel as we always hear and she doesn't even argue it very well.

How did this nonsense, with no actual evidence to back it up, rise to challenge basic facts of our material reality, with which everyone is familiar?

On the plus side, how many people who aren't already confirmed genderists will be won over by that kind of waffly incoherent nonsense? It mostly seems to work on people who desperately want to think of themselves as clever but who fear that they're not and therefore assume that if it doesn't make sense it's their fault.

(It's not your fault, the reason it doesn't make sense to you is because it's nonsense.)

I too assumed Butler must have some level of intellectual nuance. At uni others must have pretended to understand this nonsense in order to be cool/get onto PhD programs. (I thought I must be either too thick or too innately modernist to comprehend the reasoning).

On a related note, DP found a copy of Butler's "Gender Trouble" in a public rubbish bin last week! Made me chuckle.

Ha. Utterly hilarious that the Pope would be the leader of the GC movement. He's having trouble shepherding the people that actually believe the religion, he'll have a job leading the atheist radical feminists too.

Butler's main trick is to produce such tortured prose so thick with jargon that people can't understand what she is even trying to say. They then mistakenly assume that it must be something so profound that they are just too stupid to understand it. She deliberately writes to obscure and confuse.

I see she has made some effort to write in plain English for this piece (it is honestly quite clear by her standards) and it will therefore be obvious to a lot more people that it is complete bollocks.

What pretentious nonsensical word salad.

Emperor's New Clothes.

That piece gave me the rage. She couldn’t even get the theology right, let alone the Catholics believe this so you shouldn’t non-sequitur. Catholics believe the earth is round, so you shouldn’t either?

And as someone said, since when has the feminist position derived from the Pope.

Oh and PS DH Catholic priest (waves for the screenshot) peak transes everyone by talking about he, as a dad to 4 daughters was so upset by the BBC documentary with the woman who had de transitioned, who said “I wish someone had told me its ok for girls to like football and climb trees and still be girls.”

I am so sick of political tribalism of the "well those bastards over there approve of it so I have to hate it on principle" variety. I'm pretty sure that the Pope would also share my belief that gravity exists and therefore jumping off tall buildings without a parachute is inadvisable despite our complete lack of agreement on theological issues.

She deliberately writes to obscure and confuse.

I think this is true of a lot of people who want to appear clever. Genuinely clever people make their points clearly. I really struggle with how this can be accepted in universities.

In my field (Science) it's just unimaginable- if someone doesn't understand you, they keep asking until you are both completely clear what is being described. Claiming something to be true which is not supported by evidence (as opposed to merely suggesting a possible idea) is career death.

jesus, Judith Butler and Jordan Peterson are well and truly cut from the same cloth

none of that made any fucking sense

it basically seemed to boil down to 'the pope wants to ban gay marriage, so you should agree with gender theory. never mind what gender theory actually is'

Judith Butler and Jordan Peterson are well and truly cut from the same cloth

Not often I'd get the chance to say this, but I think that's grossly unfair to Peterson:

• He can argue, she can't.

well yes, he certainly can argue

he sure errs towards a certain pedagogical circuity in his expositions though

i would say he has that in common with butler

notazerosumgame.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-freedom-to-be-or-become-gender.html?spref=tw

Another piece on JB retweeted by Kathleen Stock.

Dear God. I always rather assumed that (given her prominence and esteem) Butler would be insightful and able to form a strong argument

Why would you think that? Butler hasn't been on the radical feminist side for years- in fact she says here that she never agreed with Janice Raymond and Sheila Jeffries.

When I first started posting on here Butler was often mentioned with approval because of that "perfomativity" "performing femininity" clap-trap (which frankly came across as little more than sneering at feminine women)

radfem.transadvocate.com/gender-performance-an-interview-with-judith-butler/

JB:I see no problem with women having a penis, and men having a vagina.

JB:I see no problem with women having a penis, and men having a vagina.

It's a nonsense, isn't it? 'I see no problem'. What in? An episode of a sci fi show where they explore impossible things?

I see no problem with having wings. But it's not a physical reality so it doesn't really matter what my opinion is on the matter and won't change whatever silly arse cobblers I write to sound ever so clever.

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

Yes, it would actually be lovely if everyone could freely choose genders and behave, or perform, in any way they like, IF we were all completely equal to begin with, and no one was a threat to anyone else, and no one had to do all the shitty unpaid work that noone wants to do. BUT THAT IS NOT THE WORLD WE HAVE.

A social scientist who does not understand that power dynamics influence who do what, should consider doing some research, or retire.

Judith Butler and Jordan Peterson are well and truly cut from the same cloth

The one thing they have in common is that they are both so very, very overrated.

Judith's argument that gender theory affords people freedom - which is only true as long as you tow the line reminds me of the argument around the free choice of wearing the headscarf - until you try to take it off again.