Judith Butler has spoken

[lionheart]

Damn.

www.newstatesman.com/international/2020/09/judith-butler-culture-wars-jk-rowling-and-living-anti-intellectual-times

'If we look closely at the example that you characterise as “mainstream” we can see that a domain of fantasy is at work, one which reflects more about the feminist who has such a fear than any actually existing situation in trans life. The feminist who holds such a view presumes that the penis does define the person, and that anyone with a penis would identify as a woman for the purposes of entering such changing rooms and posing a threat to the women inside. It assumes that the penis is the threat, or that any person who has a penis who identifies as a woman is engaging in a base, deceitful, and harmful form of disguise. This is a rich fantasy, and one that comes from powerful fears, but it does not describe a social reality. Trans women are often discriminated against in men’s bathrooms, and their modes of self-identification are ways of describing a lived reality, one that cannot be captured or regulated by the fantasies brought to bear upon them. The fact that such fantasies pass as public argument is itself cause for worry.'

Misogynistic word salad.

There shouldn’t be anything foundational as it happens for Butler’s view of gender as performativity. I’d love to see a Jane Are Jones response but think she’s shut her Twitter again. She unpacks stuff like this really well.

Jane Clare Jones has done a response - it’s brilliant

janeclarejones.com/2019/01/24/judith-butler-how-to-disappear-patriarchy-in-three-easy-steps/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

FloralBunting

The impenetrable style is part of the schtick. You need to be made to feel that her brand of philosophy is very deep and can only be grasped by vair, vair intellectual academics. It's Emperor's New Clothes time, and nobody wants to be the one to point out the bullshit in case everyone thinks they're stupid.

I'm not stupid, and she's not only talking bollocks, she's talking disingenuous, manipulative, self serving bollocks too.

When these type of people waffle on, or spout such and such, I always do a mental exercise.

I envision a group of working class girls and lads on bicycles minding their own being approached by someone (surveyor/journalist etc) who ask in a vox-poppy type of way "So and so said this. What do you think about that? Do you believe it should be the way of the world?"

Judith Butler's spoutings would not pass the "That's dangerous" "Thats stupid" "No way" "Absolutely stupid" test.

presumes that the penis does define the person,

No we really don't. If people were basically the same in terms of appearance and strength except for their genitals then she might have a point.

But they're not the same at all, men are bigger and stronger and identifying as a woman doesn't magically change that.

She uses an awful lot of words to say “there, there, don’t worry your little heads about those penis people’. Obfuscating rubbish.

I think it is actually a fringe movement that is seeking to speak in the name of the mainstream, and that our responsibility is to refuse to let that happen

Of course the opposite is true. Butler is an acolyte of the 'fringe issue' and the mainstream is crystal clear about the meaning of simple words understood for millennia. Like 'woman.' The 'radicals' are those who want to redefine this word and take a battering ram to linguistic and social boundaries. The mendacity is contemptible.

I think it is actually a fringe movement that is seeking to speak in the name of the mainstream, and that our responsibility is to refuse to let that happen.

I think, Judy, you will find that this staremyactually refers to an entirely different movement. One that seeks to speak in the name of the mainstream by distortion of reality and of law through institutional capture, subverts safeguarding and legitimises systematic misogyny. Indeed, our responsibility is to refuse to let that happen.

( I am clearly not talking about trans people here, but about the ideology. An ideology that many trans people have been quite vocally opposed to.)

I am not aware that terf is used as a slur.

This section stood out for me. She must surely know that 'terf' is used almost exclusively as an insult. As for all the musing about 'what else can we call them', only someone extremely out of touch won't have heard the term 'gender critical'.

@NotTerfNorCis

I am not aware that terf is used as a slur.

This section stood out for me. She must surely know that 'terf' is used almost exclusively as an insult. As for all the musing about 'what else can we call them', only someone extremely out of touch won't have heard the term 'gender critical'.

To make that statement is indicative of either profound ignorance or profound mendacity.

My favourite bit was where she skimmed over the huge abuse Jk Rowling has faced to basically say trans people are the most oppressed people in the world ever, etc etc etc etc.

Actually no, it was the bit where she described us as ANTI SCIENCE.... lol I'm howling. Is she the supreme leader of professors of bantz?

As my daughter would say, she's chattin' shit.

Fancy admitting you don't know 'Terf' is used as a slur

Do philosophers think that thought experiments are more real than reality?

Succinct.

Succinct thelikelylass

The only way you could be this out of touch is to be purposefully out of touch.

If you are going to speak up on a subject these days, there's no excuse for ignorance.

There's no excuse for not knowing society's attitudes to and treatment of women.

For not knowing what online porn is and does these days.

For not even glancing at reddit or twitter and seeing the hatred for women which pours out so easily.

These things aren't hiding under the surface anymore. They're sitting right there.

Its the ultimate act of rich, wealthy "well I'm alright" narcissism to ignore it all.

I could only read that for 15 seconds then it disappeared

It was enough

Such bollocks.

A baby is socialised into one gender or another based on external genitalia at birth.

A baby with a penis will be treated differently to a baby with a vulva. For their entire lives.

What sort of genitals you have at birth determines what flavour of conditioning you're subjected to for your entire bloody life.

Yes, there's a lot more to a person than just genitals - but the genitals affect the way society moulds your mind to fit the dominant wossname.

It's not even just being born with a penis - fuck that phallocentric interpretation. We are women because we were born with vaginas and socialised accordingly.

Even the 'harmless' old school dysphoric males caused problems when in women's spaces, not because they have penises but because we have vaginas, as a result of which we've been subtly trained since birth to defer to and prioritise males.

And, speaking as someone who's problem with penises isn't so much a fantasy as a traumatizing imposition I've been dealing with since I was barely out of nappies - Judith Butler can fuck right off. She's not a feminist, she has no woman-centred analysis, and she hasn't got a fucking clue.

twitter.com/janeclarejones/status/1308672808935919616?s=21

JCJ has tweeted her rebuttal.

We had a seminar on "how to write a master's dissertation". One of the points made was that using unnecessarily complex language makes markers look for the weaknesses in your arguments that the language is trying to hide. A good piece of writing should be written clearly and simply and be appropriate for a wide audience. Niche jargon and terminology should be avoided where possible as it limits accessibility - if you need to use it in a dissertation to show you have read / understand the subject then explain it clearly the first time you use it - to show that you understand as well as to explain to readers.

Butler gives the impression she is deliberately padding out her thoughts with complex language in order to try an suggest her arguments are complex.

"This is a rich fantasy, and one that comes from powerful fears, but it does not describe a social reality. Trans women are often discriminated against in men’s bathrooms, and their modes of self-identification are ways of describing a lived reality, one that cannot be captured or regulated by the fantasies brought to bear upon them. The fact that such fantasies pass as public argument is itself cause for worry.'"

No. Even with her penchant for making a simple concept overly complicated and impossible to understand as she tosses it through her word salad to justify her existence she still manages to miss the point. Men do extraordinary things in the pursuit of thrills the evidence is all around and easy to find. Self –ID makes it easier for a man who wishes to do this regardless of whether they are trans or not and frankly putting lippy and a dress on to install a voyeuristic camera is not farfetched. Additionally AGP is a common fetish which can focus on women and their bodily functions, to have someone like that in our spaces is uncomfortable and highly invasive. We cannot tell the difference between these men and the ones who ‘just want to pee’ so we keep them all out. Simple? Not for Judith who thinks this is a “rich fantasy” of ours not remotely like the hard factual reality of saying ‘I’m a woman’ meaning having uttered those magic words you are now just like all other women and are rendered helpless and unable to threaten women, just like Karen White and Jessica Yaniv did.

Yes, that’s right years of data and evidence about men’s proclivities and the lengths they go to = “rich fantasy”. Magic words of “I’m a woman” = science changing facts which make a person automatically harmless. That is not to say trans people are harmful but just that we have reason to mistrust all men because of our experiences and the facts pertaining to men’s violence and sexual violence. Of course Judith is much more intelligent than us so she must be right. Right?

I have worked with academics for many years in various capacities and some of them are utterly wonderful and fascinating and lovely (like there are in other professions) but Judith Butler to me is like the worst of them; breathtakingly supercilious, hell bent on making something simple incomprehensible to justify her salary, her next piece of writing and her intellect. She is verbose to the point of boring and still missing the bloody point (and probably aware of it) but continuing in her convoluted fashion regardless and tossing other women under the bus while she does it. I bet meetings with her are a bloody chore and a half.

Sorry if all this has already been said, I'll read the rest of the thread now for some sanity (I hope).

When I compare Judith Butler to someone like Professor Mary Davis - a Marxist feminist, Communist, and author of "Women and Class" it's just embarrassing. Butler is just that: an embarrassment. Disconnected from the actual issues facing women, and our material reality. Davis' ideas are firmly rooted in women-centred theory.

@FloralBunting

Amazing how someone so impenetrable can get people to actually read her efforts.

The impenetrable style is part of the schtick. You need to be made to feel that her brand of philosophy is very deep and can only be grasped by vair, vair intellectual academics. It's Emperor's New Clothes time, and nobody wants to be the one to point out the bullshit in case everyone thinks they're stupid.

I'm not stupid, and she's not only talking bollocks, she's talking disingenuous, manipulative, self serving bollocks too.

Yep

and
&Yon one's high on her own farts.
Embarrassing.

Double yep.

So good to see everyone here can see through her nonsense and so many amusing responses. Well done women of MN

I know Judith Butler in a professional capacity. Her department is a complete mess of Title IX allegations and a culture of 'indebted' graduate students who deserve better. Glass houses.

Not surprised in the slightest by this. It is what I imagined would be the case.

There are times when academic feminists and MNers educated in academic feminism make me feel woefully thick and ill-equipped for the conversation.

Reading that piece was not one of those times. Logical fallacies (or phallusies?) disguised by the never-use-one-word-where-you-could-use-three method. And she's a revered academic?