Study guide on Judith Butler on Perlego

[biddyboo]

This is listed on the eBook platform, Perlego as one of their most popular open access study guides:

Judith Butler's Theory of Gender Performativity | Definition, Examples & Analysis (perlego.com)

I don't know enough about Judith Butler to critique the entire guide, but this paragraph jumped out at me:

"Transphobic thinkers, including trans-exclusionary radical “feminists” (TERFs) or so-called “gender critical feminists,” have misinterpreted Butler’s theories of performativity in order to claim that the experience of gender for trans individuals is not “real” or that they could choose to perform their gender in alignment with their assigned sex. Butler has continuously and publicly argued against these ideas and the transphobic belief that only those born in certain bodies can be certain genders. As she writes in Undoing Gender, regarding trans women, “The very attribution of femininity to female bodies as if it were a natural or necessary property takes place within a normative framework in which the assignment of femininity to femaleness is one mechanism for the production of gender itself.”

This seems to totally misrepresent what "so called" (as she calls it) gender critical feminism is about, as well as making a smear about transphobia. I would like to email Perlego about this. Does anyone have any suggestions of what to say?

“The very attribution of femininity to female bodies as if it were a natural or necessary property takes place within a normative framework in which the assignment of femininity to femaleness is one mechanism for the production of gender itself.”

What does that mean?

The attribution of femininity to female bodies as if it were natural or necessary property - right, so she's saying "some people think that female people are necessarily feminine". True of some conservatives, not true of gender critical feminists in the old sense of the term or most GC feminists as the term is now used.

Then the next bit - takes place within a normative framework in which the assignment of femininity to femaleness is one mechanism for the production of gender itself.”
So thinking that female people are necessarily feminine takes place in a culture where... people think female people are necessarily feminine. Is that what she's saying here?

thinking that female people are necessarily feminine takes place in a culture where... people think female people are necessarily feminine. Is that what she's saying here?

Yep. As circular as most of their definitions.

If this is supposed to be a study guide I would be questioning why it has been written using such obviously partisan language.

Does it actually define "gender critical"?

I suspect the glossary reads:

Gender critical: see 'TERF'.

TERF: See 'Witch (evil)'.

Witch (evil): see 'Gender critical'.

For what it's worth, documents such as study guides, summaries and those 'for dummies'/'for beginners' books are not necessarily written by the sharpest tools in the box. Postgraduate students making a bit of money in their spare time in some cases. The overall scrutiny can be a bit lax too - provided some text has been produced, those in supervisory positions don't look at it too carefully for intellectual quality. I can't comment on this particular document as I don't know how it was written, but I've seen the process in action with other teaching materials. What might once upon a time have merely been an infelicity in a class handout is now apt to be broadcast on the internet for all the world to see, so it's much more conspicuous nowadays.

trying to translate Butler into comprehensible English really is a fools errand.

It's not particularly earth shattering - ascribing stereotypically 'feminine' characteristics to people with female bodies tends to reinforce those very stereotypes. But it's phrased in a way that's intended to make it sound clever.

There's a paradigm shift part way through. First two sentences use gender as a synonym for sex. Then they change to gender meaning the collection of cultural norms making up femininity or masculinity.

True that GC feminists don't believe you can change sex. False that they have an objection to a man performing femininity (that would be conservatives). That is, after all, why we are gender critical.

It probably is transphobic to think sex is immutable, by their lights.

I never heard of Perlego books, and had an instant mental image of an interpretation of JB's work through Lego😂
In my defence, there were Lego interpretations of the recent elections, weren't there?? But I know, I know, there are not enough Lego bricks on all the floors in all the world to interpret JB's oeuvre..

I've always loved that photo on the cover of her book. I was the one on the left.😏

Yes, this is the author of the guide's bio

"Paige Elizabeth Allen has a Master’s degree in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from the University of Oxford and a Bachelor’s degree in English from Princeton University. Her research interests include monstrosity, the Gothic tradition, illness in literature and culture, and musical theatre. Her dissertation examined sentient haunted houses through the lenses of posthumanism and queer theory".

I guess I find it concerning that students will read this, and take at face value her assertion that gender critical feminists, by their very nature, are transphobic. It is very biased. This shouldn't shock me, given the way this topic is generally discussed in universities.

Yes, thanks for confirming - pretty much as I suspected. A level of understanding that'll get you through a queer theory essay on a gender studies course, but not much else.

I've always been very frustrated by the model of academic feminism that goes 'Marxist feminists believe X', 'liberal feminists believe Y', 'Terfs belive Z' and so on. When I read that sort of thing I know I'm going to see mischaracterisation, or at best, oversimplification.

I thought Oxford University was supposed to attract thinkers.

One aspect of a job I held many years ago was to take very complex scientific , legal and technical reports and "translate" them into plain English that everyone could understand.

I wouldn't have know where to start with Butler's word salads.....

The obfuscation is deliberate.

If no one can work out what the fuck she's trying to say, they won't be able to say with any confidence that what she's saying is total fucking nonsense.

“The very attribution of femininity to female bodies as if it were a natural or necessary property takes place within a normative framework in which the assignment of femininity to femaleness is one mechanism for the production of gender itself.”

Yes, this is exactly what trans identifying men do. They call this gender reassignment and they take artificial hormones and cross dress to obtain the femininity they want to produce their "gender".

Doesn't actually work though as they still are male, men, masculine, blokes.

They like to give that impression, but Oxford was was one of the last in the UK to drop unconditional/2 E offers for people.who were good at sport.

That's been my job for over 2 decades, and people tell me I'm good at it. But to clarify meaning you have to start with something that - however poorly expressed - does actually mean something.

I give up. This is all completely barking mad.

There have been many, many threads on FWR about Judith Butler, and nearly always comes down to how did someone who has not relationship to the real worlds has become such a darling of the academic world.

And so year after year, new university students are introduced to JB as though she is the go to writer about feminism.

Not sure that Perlego would be interested in a critique, but maybe you could write and say that surely their reading list should provide a balance of views. Just as employers have been told to balance to different sets of beliefs surely of all places, an education establishment, should be providing a reading list the encompasses a range of views. ie it is their role to indoctrinate students to one set of beliefs, but to help student learn about different sets of beliefs.

Are there any gender critical books on the list?

These are some of the more recent threads about JB, but can see there are more, some from 10 years ago!

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4946170-judith-butler-explains-gender

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5014102-gender-critical-feminism-is-a-misnomer-there-is-nothing-critical-about-what-they-do

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5024782-financial-times-interview-with-judith-butler

Does anybody remember David Gauntlett's Lego social theorists? There was Judith Butler, of course, but also Angela McRobbie, Michel Foucault and Anthony Giddens. He's rearranged his website and I can't find them any more but it made me smile about 10-15 years ago.

Her dissertation examined sentient haunted houses

I feel like I missed a trick with my boring PhD thesis. I should have been studying sentient haunted houses!

I believe that education is a societal and personal good, as is the gaining of knowledge in a wide range of topics. And I believe society needs people studying the Arts as well as people studying STEM subjects, but I’m as shocked as anything that people can get funding to study ‘sentient haunted houses’.

Well once you believe haunted houses can be sentient, believing you can change sex is a doddle.

I'm quite partial to a haunted house myself, though sadly I've yet to see a ghost. I've worked in the higher education sector for quite a while, but never seen a thesis on them either.

Could be quite fun - the more I think about it the more it seems like studying the figure of the ghost in folklore and storytelling about places and buildings would be rather interesting.