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's puzzling to me is that I agree with that sentence and read it as a criticism of the production of gender. Doesn’t Butler?

Such that, my next sentence would be…

"This mechanism for the production of gender is a key reason why many females object to the construction and imposition of gendered stereotypes and reject the forced attribution of femininity to being female."

Except that when Butler says gender is being produced she's also saying the notion of sexed bodies is being produced.
The "femaleness" in Butler's sentence isn't a fixed point of reality around which the gender norms can be constructed. It's another construct being, ah, constructed.

This is what I can never get my head round. How can gametes be socially constructed?

Indeed. By 'gender itself' she actually means sex. The whole of a person's sex is confected, and society responds to/interacts with the confection.

Didn't Stock say that this idea is so ludicrous that only a really clever person could possibly believe it?

We're mammals. Obviously we know what sex people are.

Also, Butler's ideas aren't really compatible with trans theory. Which is that a trans person's true biological sex is incongruent with their body, and their gender identity is the evidence of that. It's pure (if wacky) biology: no need to bring into it how gender is constructed or the role of cultural gender norms.

@Nothingeverything I have no idea. I always felt that, if you truly believe that our discourses construct our reality surely the most moral thing to do is to publish hundreds of textbooks which say that all childhood cancers can be cured with smarties.

That's excellent, @LilyBartsHatShop and I shall be stealing into use in future arguments.

Judith Butler always sounds like she is parodying herself.

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

like that? Though the claim that bodies are socially constructed is bonkers.

Granted that labelling bodies as ‘male’ and ‘female’ is a social construction but so is every bloody thing on this planet. We don’t go around proposing to all call whales crabs from now on.

There must be some stability to language to be useful. Otherwise Butler shouldn’t quarrel if she orders a cappuccino but gets an chai latte.

Just posting this here as I cant find the thread about this book, and dont want to give JB the satisfaction of another FWR thread title.

But good review of her recent book by Lesbian Caucus of US WDI

https://womensdeclarationusa.com/whos-afraid-maybe-judith-butler-is/