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?

yeah, but she is also a joke, so...

That was to the OP about JBs being influential, not HJ (whos interlect is not a joke)

I [...] have clearly misunderstood aspects of her work.

... as have most of us. Speaking as the person who wrote several essays dealing with her work and scored quite excellent marks for it, too. I, literally, tend to operate under the assumption that obfuscation of meaning is really the essence of her entire shtick. (And I'm certainly not an anti-intellectual; I even quite enjoy me some ambiguity in philosophy, generally speaking.)

In this sense, although I disagree, I actually find it quite refreshing that this time I think I at least know what she's saying after reading it once. Losing your momentum there, Judy!

She does thing gender is a social construction...well kind of, she says it's performative meaning it 'produces what it names'. But, in her later work-bodies that matter- she goes on to say that sex (or 'the sexed body') is also a social construct because 'there is no matter outside of discourse' ...or in other words, the way we describe and classify things produces them and gives them ontological significance.

Infuriating!

*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”. Anti-gender politics have been bolstered by the Vatican and the more conservative evangelical and apostolic churches on several continents, but also by neoliberals in France and elsewhere who need the normative family to absorb the decimation of social welfare.

This movement is at once anti-feminist, homophobic and transphobic, opposing both reproductive freedom and trans rights. It seeks to censor gender studies programs, to take gender out of public education – a topic so important for young people to discuss. And to reverse major legal and legislative successes for sexual freedom, gender equality and laws against gender discrimination and sexual violence*

???????

Well that was a heap of shite. Only to be expected from the Guardian really - I'm actually quite sad that the paper I loved reading has sunk to such low standards of writing and critical though.

Source- I have a PhD in medical sociology. I loved her as an undergrad and now think she's a hack

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

GC feminists see the performative nature of gender as indicating its inauthenticity as a concept, and therefore they want to deconstruct gender for the purposes of getting rid of it (or at least stripping it of social significance).

Queer theorists like Butler see gender perfromance as an expression of idenitity, and therefore want to deconstruct traditional gender categories not to get rid of gender as a concept but to give people greater freedom in how they perfrom it.

I had a wry smile at the paragraph on pronouns where she seems (but as we know, things are rarely as they seem in J-Land, or they may be, but also not) to suggest that pronouns are given to you by people who are speaking about you, not something that you claim for yourself.

In fact, there were a few little nuggets in there that out of less exalted mouths may have attracted shrieks of "transphooooooobia" from Bluehair Twitter.

It seems that some within feminist movements are becoming sympathetic to these far-right campaigns. This year’s furore around Wi Spa in Los Angeles saw an online outrage by transphobes followed by bloody protests organised by the Proud Boys. Can we expect this alliance to continue?

'It is very appalling and sometimes quite frightening to see how trans-exclusionary feminists have allied with rightwing attacks on gender. The anti-gender ideology movement is not opposing a specific account of gender, but seeking to eradicate “gender” as a concept or discourse, a field of study, an approach to social power. Sometimes they claim that “sex” alone has scientific standing, but other times they appeal to divine mandates for masculine domination and difference. They don’t seem to mind contradicting themselves.

The Terfs (trans exclusionary radical feminists) and the so-called gender critical writers have also rejected the important work in feminist philosophy of science showing how culture and nature interact (such as Karen Barad, Donna Haraway, EM Hammonds or Anne Fausto-Sterling) in favor of a regressive and spurious form of biological essentialism. So they will not be part of the coalition that seeks to fight the anti-gender movement. The anti-gender ideology is one of the dominant strains of fascism in our times. 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.

The anti-gender movement circulates a spectre of “gender” as a force of destruction, but they never actually read any works in gender studies. Quick and fearful conclusions take the place of considered judgments. Yes, some work on gender is difficult and not everyone can read it, so we have to do better in reaching a broader public. As important as it is, however, to make complex concepts available to a popular audience, it is equally important to encourage intellectual inquiry as part of public life. Unfortunately, we are living in anti-intellectual times, and neo-fascism is becoming more normalized.'

It's quite evident from the last interview she gave that she had not paid any attention to the key debates.

I can only assume that interview was conducted before the revelation that the Wii spa person was a sex offender - the link is to the July article, not the recent one. And no one at the Guardian bothered to check, of course. Once you know that, Butler begins to look even more foolish than she did already.

I think that this extreme smearing of opponents - calling people fascists is plain silly - is an indication that she knows her side is losing. She's not going to engage with our arguments so she calls us names. She - and the Guardian - are running scared.

This year’s furore around Wi Spa in Los Angeles saw an online outrage by transphobes followed by bloody protests organised by the Proud Boys. Can we expect this alliance to continue?

I'm always disappointed by the faux naif affection that the fact that a group of people turn up at an event means that they're allies or there's a formal agreement in place.

I don't know if the US has a comparable experience to the fact that many demonstrations in the UK have a cadre of SWP members turn up. These are always photographed in such a way as to imply it was an SWP-organised demo which is an interesting framing for sometimes as few as 6 people who have no association at all with the organisers.

It's similar to the same demonisation of football fans back in the days when there were small numbers of people who used to orchestrate fights. It doesn't change the reality that the overwhelming majority of the attendees were genuine football fans and the fights were a sideshow that attracted a disproportionate amount of publicity.

From September 2020.

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

Thank you @NotDavidTennant, your post has really helped to clarify this issue for me. I can see now why she is no ally to GC feminists in the way I had unthinkingly assumed.

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

Quite funny. In other words unemployed "queers" don't want to go home to mum and dad but they can't extort a free ride from the state for being queer because of neoliberals.

Get a job.

In fact, there were a few little nuggets in there that out of less exalted mouths may have attracted shrieks of "transphooooooobia" from Bluehair Twitter.

Which is why it's surely quite important that she doesn't let her prose get any less impenetrable.

If the gender loons started actually reading her, they might decide she needs to be cancelled.

Cba to read it all- bull
Why the need to expand the category of women? Why not expand the category of men???
Somebody tell her Terf is a slur. Outrageous

Talks about forming a coaltion of 'the poor, the precarious, the dispossessed, LGBTQI+ peoples, workers and all those subject to racism and colonial subjugation....'

Well good luck with that to you and all your friends in white Western academia.

And regards the actual kinetic physical fight against actual fascism, it could never have been won without the assistance of the arguably equally odious Stalin.

The usual obfuscatory word salad, with some outrageous accusations of fascism thrown in for good measure. Why anyone takes this person seriously is mystery to me - Emperor's new clothes, I guess...

@YetAnotherSpartacus

*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”. Anti-gender politics have been bolstered by the Vatican and the more conservative evangelical and apostolic churches on several continents, but also by neoliberals in France and elsewhere who need the normative family to absorb the decimation of social welfare.

This movement is at once anti-feminist, homophobic and transphobic, opposing both reproductive freedom and trans rights. It seeks to censor gender studies programs, to take gender out of public education – a topic so important for young people to discuss. And to reverse major legal and legislative successes for sexual freedom, gender equality and laws against gender discrimination and sexual violence*

???????

Tbf, I did understand all that, it was uncharactistally cohearent.

But, it is still bullshit.

None of it is backed up with anything, and most can be very easily disproved.

"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."

ODFO Judy, there's a dear.

Queer theorists like Butler see gender performance as an expression of identity, and therefore want to deconstruct traditional gender categories not to get rid of gender as a concept but to give people greater freedom in how they perform it.

I'm not an academic and even I can see how that can lead to sex offenders being free to 'perform' their identity in really dangerous ways. That doesn't even have to have anything to do with the trans debate, if a moderator is reading that.

'There is no matter outside of discourse' ...or in other words, the way we describe and classify things produces them and gives them ontological significance'

If everything is constructed, paedophila arguably isn't a problem. Isn't that wonderful, this huge societal problem solved in an instance. There is no tangible harm done, it's just something that's been constructed as harm. If you were raped as a child or teenager, no bother, learn to classify it in a different way. Don't impinge on the freedom of those whose sexual equality and freedom counts no them being able to attack children. You are a fascist supporting oppressors in the church if you say otherwise. Right?

I think that is Tatchills argument.