Judith Butler interview

[MotherofPearl]

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?

Mehgan Murphy gave the definative verdict on JB interviews;

'American academic re-emerges to remind the world she is a fraud.'

I just got so confused. I thought JB was one of the people who firmly believed gender is a construct. But here she seems to be saying it's sacrosanct? Mystifying.

Oh good grief. I can't even be bothered to read this.

Too painful to read. Just a load of jumbled words.

Or there is always Douglas Murry's 'Someone who speaks so obscurely is hiding something'
and we all prity much know what that something is

JB firmly believed and argued that gender is a construction. When it slowly emerged that the John/Jane Doe psychological experiment was not only unethical, but falsified and actually abusive JB did a u-turn.

However Butlers work is so obfuscatory that her previous work could be interpreted as arguing that gender is innate, hence JB has always opposed the concept that gender is a construct...

Her work is an excellent example of "classism" in that if you disagree you are not clever enough or educated enough to understand her arguments.

@dolorsit

JB firmly believed and argued that gender is a construction. When it slowly emerged that the John/Jane Doe psychological experiment was not only unethical, but falsified and actually abusive JB did a u-turn.

However Butlers work is so obfuscatory that her previous work could be interpreted as arguing that gender is innate, hence JB has always opposed the concept that gender is a construct...

Her work is an excellent example of "classism" in that if you disagree you are not clever enough or educated enough to understand her arguments.

Oh believe me I am clever enough 😆 but I can’t be arsed to wade through it all. It’s insufferable.

Am I misreading this or is Butler saying that GC feminism is fascist?

I think she's probably actually saying that, yes, though she conflates right-wing and feminist opponents (also, somehow: capitalism as a whole and French neoliberals specifically, because: sure!) when she says it.

But then, I mean, it's Judith Butler. A.k.a. "person who made a whole career out of never being able to actually say anything with any amount of clarity".

Point in case: JB saying what I think could mean "I'm an enbie" (but clearly not saying that ...):

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

@MotherofPearl

I just got so confused. I thought JB was one of the people who firmly believed gender is a construct. But here she seems to be saying it's sacrosanct? Mystifying.

Wuh?!

I thought she was GC.

Bleurgh.

I got as far as 'we are assigned a sex at birth' and gave up.

Sex is observed at birth. It's a biological reality. We don't 'assign sex' to animals. We observe it. I've never known a farmer 'assign' the male sex to a ewe, shove her him into a ram harness and put her him in the field to procreate.

I thought she was GC.

Exactly! Me too! I thought she was one of the key people who argued that gender was a construction and a performance.

Now she seems to be saying that GC feminists are transphobes and fascists. Infuriating.

@MotherofPearl

I thought she was GC.

Exactly! Me too! I thought she was one of the key people who argued that gender was a construction and a performance.

Now she seems to be saying that GC feminists are transphobes and fascists. Infuriating.

I thought she was the mother of queer theory, therefore definitely not on the side of sex being real.

Fran, I agree - I was done with Butler a long time ago before she gained her current "reverence"

I'm not opposed to philosophers being somewhat interpretive as I understand the intent is to encourage readers/students to think through the issue and come to their own understanding, not to be spoon fed "the truth".

I am opposed to work that is deliberately confusing and conflated so that the author can demonstrate their intellectual superiority.

I've just managed to wade through about 2 thirds of that (very sycophantic) interview before I gave up. What a load of unintelligible wank!

MoP, she's a postmodernist and poststructuralist, so - from her perspective - those are not contradictory statements.

The (implicit) assumption you're missing is that "constructed" can (and sometimes does) boil down to "more real" or "preferable" in this world view.

And, no, I'm not a JB fan. Hate her with a raging passion, in fact (nothing to do with gender stuff, everything to do with the insufferable writing style - bane of my undergrad).

Ah! Maybe she is all things to everyone!

Many words, little meaning etc.

She really seems to be upping the ante:

"The anti-gender ideology is one of the dominant strains of fascism in our times."

Yup, gender-critical feminism is fascism. That is followed by:

"So the Terfs will not be part of the contemporary struggle against fascism, one that requires a coalition guided by struggles against racism, nationalism, xenophobia and carceral violence, one that is mindful of the high rates of femicide throughout the world, which include high rates of attacks on trans and genderqueer people."

That sentence is nuts. "So" seems to imply that it logically follows on from the previous sentence, but as the previous sentence is an outright lie, with no supporting evidence, then it can't lead to any reasonable conclusion. The idea that gender-critical feminists - who in the UK are mostly socialists - support fascism and racism is both offensive and ridiculous. The phrase "carceral violence" is just thrown in there - what does it mean? Putting people in prison? Physical assaults on prisoners?

The suggestion that "femicide", which explicitly refers to the killing of women, should include "genderqueer" people is ludicrous and a distortion of language.

She's a nasty piece of work. And not nearly as clever as she thinks she is.

ahahahaha, JB's not like the other girls.....

yawn

Did she swallow the 'little book of intersectionality' like Manny did with the 'little book of calms' in that episode of Black Books.

No idea why anyone would have assumed she's be gender critical, mind. She's one of the core foundational pillars of queer theory.

*she'd ... sorry, phone, work, typos

She should stop chewing on a thesaurus.

@dyslek

Did she swallow the 'little book of intersectionality' like Manny did with the 'little book of calms' in that episode of Black Books.

Oh that is brilliant, must watch Black Books again.

Ah, I'd missed the implications of her queer theory work. I obviously have a narrow view of her ideas, and have clearly misunderstood aspects of her work.

Though there's no misunderstanding her denunciation of GC feminism in this interview, and I suppose this will further reinforce the views of those who already think GC feminists = fascists. That's the worrying thing, especially as she's quite high profile (for an academic!).

Never mind Butler - nicely timed that Helen Joyce has a review of Trans in no less an august publication than the New York Times !

Despite no US publishers being willing to weather the storm that they'd face if they published Joyce's book, there's sufficient demand that the UK version is being sent there.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4342817-New-York-Times-Reviews-Helen-Joyces-Trans