Judith Butler in The New Statesman

[ScreamingMeMe]

twitter.com/NewStatesman/status/1550765835144364040?t=q1JBabwoM_zR2lp91Fml0A&s=19

What does the overturning of Roe vs Wade mean for progress? And where does feminism go next?

@paperdispatch spoke with the philosopher and gender theorist, Judith Butler, about Roe vs Wade, trans rights, and the war on education.

t.co/sQXh7virgB

🔴On the reaction to Roe vs Wade: "I don’t agree with analysts who lay the blame for the repeal on feminists or trans people or the deceased Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg."

"That way of turning against ourselves is too easy and wrong-headed and it keeps us from doing what is most necessary – analysing and defeating the hard right."

"When some feminists now make claims like, “the patriarchal oppression of women is heavily rooted in our reproductive systems”, it can sound like those reproductive systems are the cause of the oppression. That is muddled thinking, wrong, and does not advance feminist aims."

🔴Is the ruling a backlash to progress?

"I think we are witnessing something more serious and dangerous than a backlash. This is a “restoration project” that has as its final aim the reconstruction of an order that some feel has been dismantled by progressive legislation." t.co/j9Pv5lTsqj

"Under this “restoration project”, not only is patriarchy to be restored, protected against its dismantling, but white supremacy, and exclusively heterosexual marriage."

"White supremacists and Maga Republicans are also waging a war against educational institutions from K-12 [primary and secondary school] through higher education, accusing leftists of inculcating ideology."

"We have to understand the attack on movements for racial justice, abortion rights, healthcare justice and legal protections for migrants, support for the gun lobby and the arms industry, as linked with the repeal of Roe." t.co/e9h2uc1qg7

🔴Where do you see hope when you think about what’s next?

"We have to fight for abortion rights, but it is one of many rights that belong to reproductive justice, and that reproductive justice is part of the complex and dynamic struggle for justice."

"Once we realise that, then we are on our way toward imagining a transformative force that would equal and overcome those who promote hatred and inequality."

"We are gathered as targets by a well-coordinated Right, so perhaps we should decide how we want to gather, and for what aim."

Read the full interview here:

t.co/sQXh7virgB

"From what you read" where are you reading such things?
Are you in the United States? Those of us who live here have a better handle on what is actually happening in terms of police killings.

Does being black mean a person should never be deported?

FWR at it again. There is no racism. Just TRAs inventing things. On their off days when they are not busy causing women to lose abortion rights.

Nothing to see here, pay no attention to the rich white men. They're not funding Christian Dominionism.

Does that Judith Butler even understand the oxford comma. What a scream! Only a self reflexive twit would even read her anyway.

Isn't that Jordan Peterson a dream? He only wants you to eat meat because it's good for you, not because agribusiness funds the Daily Wire.

I fear you may not understand my post @Boxowine . I suggest you start by watching the video posted by @TheLassWiADelicateAir and go from there

well done on going from 0 to 11 on the irrational fury scale in record time though

Still waiting for antifascist to make any comprehensible comment in relation to the video of the woman in Seattle being screamed at by violent Antifa thugs.

Does anti-fascist approve of the Antifa thugs intimidating that women?

is JB actually doing anything on the abortion question? She doesn't seem big on actual action.

As Martha Nussbaum pointed out 23 years ago.

What rich white men? Dominiowhatsism?

I'm sorry but you seem to be making a series of random and very bizarre assertions that are not really tethered to any form of reality as most people would recognise it.

WAIT!!!!!!

You are Judith Butler and I claim my ten pounds.

Someone on here is Judith Butler. Has to be. Couldn't possibly get a thread so parsnip terrier nail polish hegemonic glitter, otherwise.

"Idealogy". Would that be cops shouldn't kill unarmed people in the street? We shouldn't have the highest incarceration rate in the world? We shouldn't have decades long mandatory minimum sentences for non violent crime? Incarcerated pregnant women shouldn't be shackled while giving birth? Operating prisons should not be a for profit enterprise?
Sign me up!

I have no expectations for FWR to concern themselves with solving these problems but I am constantly seeing posters trying to connect issues that have nothing to do with trans rights to TRAs without understanding the collateral damage they are incurring for women in the US. Or they don't care. Or it's intentional.

You have no expectation for women in the UK to sort the utter atrocious mess of the US? Thank goodness for that.

Oh, wait, it's actually our fault ? Top logic. I see.

JB talks about how Roe v Wade relied on the right to privacy. She says, 'Privacy is a complicated basis for reproductive rights.'

So far so good, I agree. But she then says this:

'Consider, then, that when we say that the denial of abortion rights is discrimination on the basis of sex, we may be saying that sex plays a role in the judgement to deny those rights that is unfair and unjust. We do not need to adjudicate whether the denial of abortion rights gets the sex right – probably not. So it is not on the basis of sex as it is that discrimination occurs. Discrimination makes reference to sex in unfair and discriminatory ways, and the only “sex” that legally matters is the one figured and operative in a discrimination action.'
(my bold)

She seems to be saying that we should base the right to abortion on sex discrimination laws while at the same time denying sex as a meaningful category.

To me, that looks even more of a 'complicated basis' for reproductive rights.

Maybe one of the JB fans posting here could have a bash at explaining what she means.

I see you're accelerating through number 11 on the scale and off into the horizon @Boxowine

I'm afraid I'm struggling to follow your furious stream of consciousness as it seems to have little or no connection to the topic of the thread

it does get quite tiring on here when the eastern seaboard wakes up at the moment.

Are you sure it’s just wine in that box?

I don't think she does listen to other women. It barely seems 5 minutes since she thought we were all Catholics 😂

How are women in the U.K. standing up for our right to single sex spaces and the rights of our children not to be mutilated, causing collateral damage to American women?

Your argument surely isn't that by refusing to play the 'no debate' game that we're legitimising anti abortionists?

No one could possibly be that reductive could they?

but I am constantly seeing posters trying to connect issues that have nothing to do with trans rights to TRAs

Could you give an example, please? I'm not clear what you are referring to.

There is racism on this thread. @TheLassWiADelicateAir repeatedly post links to an out of contezt demonstration which they claim is connected to Black Lives Matter and attacks "antifa"

wonder what other websites they hang out on and where they get their vidoes from? The Proud Girls?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the argument in queer theory that we cannot ultimately affect any of the power structures that exist so we might as well make fun of them? Queering the definitions of oppressed groups is supposed to, though, somehow make it harder to aim the oppression at them.

So is the idea that once we include men in the group 'women' and some female people remove themselves from that group 'women', it's now supposed to be the case that misogyny and sexism can no longer find their targets? That picking 'they/them' will stop a female person from facing discrimination on the basis of sex and somehow protect that 'them' from being sexually assaulted?

It's confusing to me. If everyone here who is not already transitioned would decide to become nonbinary, none of us would ever face sex-based mistreatments?

This can't be right. But I can't find out how queer theory determines who has the power in the first place, and how power is reallocated and by what processes.

queer theory ultimately serves those for whom the status quo is actually quite nice thank you very much

it utterly ignores class

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the argument in queer theory that we cannot ultimately affect any of the power structures that exist so we might as well make fun of them?

Is it? So now 'queer theory' has itself assumed a position of power in western societies, beloved of certain elites, the only correct response is to make fun of it?

So is the idea that once we include men in the group 'women' and some female people remove themselves from that group 'women', it's now supposed to be the case that misogyny and sexism can no longer find their targets? That picking 'they/them' will stop a female person from facing discrimination on the basis of sex and somehow protect that 'them' from being sexually assaulted?

It's confusing to me. If everyone here who is not already transitioned would decide to become nonbinary, none of us would ever face sex-based mistreatments?

This can't be right. But I can't find out how queer theory determines who has the power in the first place, and how power is reallocated and by what processes.

That's a very interesting way to look at it. And yes, another example of this is the Future of Legal Gender project who recently published their report looking at getting rid of legal gender/sex in society. They have the same ideas, that it will mean the end of prejudice and discrimination against women, LGB and trans people, but like Butler and other queer theorists, are short on explaining how that would happen.

In Lass's video there are people wearing BLM t-shirts and they're all doing the raised fist salute. The video provides a fair amount of context in the text captions. It's published by Sky News which is a reasonably reliable source.

Are you saying antifascist that this is not actually a BLM protest?

FWIW I consider the behaviour of that crowd fascistic whoever they are.

wonder what other websites they hang out on and where they get their vidoes from? The Proud Girls?

I'm slightly amused at your idea of Lass, a well-known poster on FWR. Sorry Lass but I did snort unbecomingly at this

From the interview by JB:

"When some feminists now make claims like, “the patriarchal oppression of women is heavily rooted in our reproductive systems”, it can sound like those reproductive systems are the cause of the oppression. That is muddled thinking, wrong, and does not advance feminist aims."

The original cause of women's oppression is certainly the female body and its characteristics when compared to the male body.

Men, families, tribes, countries and so on have always wanted to control reproduction (because it creates the next generation) and to do that the female body must be controlled.

That this control has been possible is partly due to average strength differences between male and female bodies, not necessarily because women were directly forced to obey (though that happened/happpens, too), but because women's bodies became desirable resources which enemy tribes would take as loot and so women were closed away from areas where such hostilities could happen, slowly from public arenas entirely, for the sake of their own protection. This was exacerbated by long periods of additional vulnerability women had due to pregnancies and giving birth.

But to the extent power was negotiated in those public spaces women were excluded from those negotiations.

So I don't think the thinking is muddled because it is about the control of the female bodies, not about having those bodies. Though I have seen that Butler argument used by several TRAs to say that as sexism is based on the female reproductive systems there's no point in trying to fight it at all.