Judith Butler called Germaine Greer a 'great feminist'

[WrongKindOfFeminist]

So even a stopped clock, etc. She then goes off on one weak-ass blurble.

Via Kara Dansky's newsletter:

'Judith Butler has given an interview to Current Affairs, in which she explains the “gender panic.” To the credit of Current Affairs, the introduction includes the fact that there are some leftists pushing back on so-called “gender identity.”

That’s unusual; we are typically referred to only as right-wing bigots. Judith Butler herself refers to us as “fascists” in her 2024 book Who’s Afraid of Gender.
The pertinent portion of the interview is this:

Q: Now, I would like to ask you briefly about the category of critics who are often called trans-exclusionary radical feminists. People like Germaine Greer, for instance, would say, “I am a leftist. I am not a fascist. I am someone whose sympathies are with liberation movements, and my argument against trans people is that they deny the true nature of womanhood. They undermine the women’s rights movement by reinforcing a stereotyped notion of what it means to be a certain gender.” And they would argue this is a good faith and feminist criticism—it’s not a Viktor Orbán or Vladimir Putin criticism. You’ve been, obviously, deeply critical and suggested that movement, that posture, ends up aligning itself with these very hardcore authoritarians. How do you respond to their criticism?

A: Well, I think there’s just no question in my mind that Germaine Greer has been a great leftist and a great feminist. You would never hear me object to that. I think what puzzles me is why leftist feminists, in part, not in whole, have taken positions that do ally with right-wing authoritarianism, the same forms of authoritarianism that have denied reproductive freedom and legal protections for women. I think that trans women have always been part of the feminist movement. Most trans women I know are also feminists, and the category of women has been an expansive one. One question for me, especially for second-wave feminists, is, didn’t we learn that definitions of what a woman is have been far too narrow and sometimes biologically reductive? For example, women reproduce. Well, not all women reproduce. Not all women can. Not all women want to. Or, women have these kinds of values. Well, not all kinds of women have those values. Or, women belong in the private sphere. No, they don’t believe that.

So there are all these restrictive definitions of what a woman is. And my sense is that the exhilarating part of feminism is that it was and remains a freedom movement. That is to say, women can be all kinds of things, and we need to allow the category of women to be expansive. Now, that doesn’t mean it can include all things. I don’t mean to be silly about this, but trans people, and more broadly non-binary people, are subject to harassment, discrimination, and the restriction of rights that makes them potential and actual political allies with feminists. And we’ve always been allies. We’ve always been in favor of equality, against discrimination, trying to figure out how to live freely and how to live and breathe in the street, in the workplace, and in the home without fear of violence. That brings us all together.

Why wouldn’t that just be the most compelling affiliation and alliance? We know too many stories about trans people who are assaulted on the street. We know too many stories about women who are assaulted on the street. The same people are doing those assaults.

We need to band together to oppose femicide and the killing of trans, non-binary, or non-gender-conforming people. And throughout Latin America, the feminist movements have those alliances. And it’s been very surprising to me, especially in the British context, to see that those alliances have severed.

There’s no good reason for it.'

I even think there's a valid place the concept of "a whole bunch of people who are actually not especially similar, but have all been othered in some way by the dominant cultural norm, and that has created common experiences and shared cultural moments" and it's fine that that concept and the people it refers to should have a noun/label, and even special pronouns to express/highlight that quality of "culturally other" in some contexts where it's important.

I disagree. I think this concept brings a very strong risk of forced teaming and of erasure. My hotel booking was cancelled by the hotel when I asked an allergy-related question. What does my experience have in common with the blind person told to leave a restaurant because they have their guide dog with them? What does Jewush schoolchild experiencing anti-Semitism have in common with a black schoolchild experiencing racism? Yes, there are similarities, but you cannot say that the similarities over-rule the differences.

Similarly, a woman's experience of misogyny is completely different to a trans-identified man's experience of transphobia based on his presentation.

Intersectionalism is a good thing when it recognises that experiences do not stand in isolation, not when it merges all vaguely similar experiences into one vaguely muddy blob.

Yes, there are similarities, but you cannot say that the similarities over-rule the differences

I didn't say the similarities overlap the differences. I said I see it has value in some contexts. I described an addition to the various individual groupings not a substitution for them.

One of my objection to JB and so-called "trans-inclusive" (actually trans-identifying-men inclusive) feminism is they have come to see Feminism as a catch all pot for everyone who suffers some sort of social injustice so Women ouselves no longer exist in our own right our own movement l.

But it's not the existence of a catch all pot I have an issue with, it is the hollowing out of Feminism to serve that purpose.

Existing alongside Feminism is fine.

She's (Judith Butler) a weird thicko. That's my well-thought-out, erudite contribution. And she and Ruth Hunt - well let's just say I'd give them a piece of my mind if I ever met them - traitors to their sex and their sexuality both.

Fair enough. As long as the caveat of alongside feminism, not instead of feminism is respected, I think I agree. I do worry that ‘alongside’ can lead to forced teaming and erasure.

The end result is that we have to be everyone's martyr-ish mum

Feminism is not intersectional nor inclusive, it is exclusive to the female sex only. Feminism was destroyed when they decide to open it up to every cause under the sun and reduce the female to a footnote in her own cause.

You may well have a women, who's a lesbian, disabled and black and she may face discrimination in all of these categories but the is no one size fixes all solution to her problems.

She might face racism but it's not exclusive to her being a female, men face racism as well.

She may face discrimination because of her disability, but that's not exclusive to her being a women because men face the same discrimination.

She may face bigotry because she's a lesbian but that's not exclusive to her being a women because men are homosexuals as well.
The problems she faces because she is female is exclusive to that reason, and no other, if Feminism had concentrated on doing something about that, and that alone, which is what it was suppose to do, she would have been empowered, and she could have then gone on to do something else about any other discrimination's that she faced.
By trying to find an easy fix all in one go, the so called feminist's have devalued feminism and rendered her powerless to do anything about the any of her problems.
The fucking arseholes, they had one job and they fucked up royally.

Feminism is often intersectional with other categories such as class, race, disability, etc.

It cant be 'intersectional' with the one thing that female excludes without destroying itself and collapsing into 'peoplism'.

Yes. But who are these arseholes? The feminist movement has always been really disparate. Arguing over what feminism is and which bit of it you actually want to adhere to is so dreary and tedious, everybody thinks they're right and the others are wrong.

I discovered feminism and became a feminist in my teens. I am now 71. The original catalyst was reading Germaine Greer's The Female Eunuch. I understood then that there were factions within feminist organisations. Some people felt that they should withhold their reproductive ability and not become mothers. Some felt that lesbianism was the way. Some hated all men. Some were extremely left-wing i.e. communists, and/or anarchists.

Knowing that as a feminist I was unwise to get married and have children, I did it anyway because that's what I wanted to do. I tried to bring up my children with the values I believed in, but there have been many occasions when I haven't been a role model and I haven't stuck to my feminist guns for various reasons. There are other factors as well of course not just feminism, but I am interested in this idea that somebody or a group of somebodies is responsible for the wrong turn that present day feminism has taken. It does not seem so simple from my point of view.

It does not seem so simple from my point of view.

It seems simple to me, the arseholes are the ones who have used feminism as a platform for their own ends, who have thrown women’s sex-based rights under the bus to further their own careers. The one's who have lost sight of the fact that feminism is about women and the discrimination's they face because they're female.

The one's who have turned feminism into a 'profession', like Julia Gillard, who removed women's sex based rights from the law in Australia but who is now on the lucrative global lecture circuit boasting about what a good feminist she is. Or Nicola Sturgeon who thinks being a woman is a costume that a man can drag on at will, which magically transforms him into a women and who faces the same discrimination's that females experience.

I think that is because your point of view is over simplistic.

Who said Feminism has to be one thing? Who said having a family is unfeminist?

The only thing Feminism does need to do IMO is be the movement that seeks to build a society where being born female is not a disadvantage to ones life outcomes.

Within that there can be many different approaches and opinions. There can be diametrically opposing beliefs about what needs to be done to achieve it, snd how to do it.

It is only when it comes to still calling something "Feminism" but then calling for it to be a sort of general purpose "freeing everyone" movement within which thd needs and challenges of Female people are no longer centred and highlighted, in fact may even be explicitly rejected as a coherent and meaningful group who need rights and a voice in the first place, that a line must be drawn. Because Female people matter.

The supposed willingness of feminism to include all other non female groups as essentially the same as they also experience cultural prejudice (or else right wing) conveniently enables a tightening of the definition of male to not only exclude biological women but biological men who identify as women and non binary people. Hence the category of non-men expands. This is evidenced by the fact that trans men remain in the category of non-men.

I didn't want to go on and on for ages in my post about my-life-as-a-feminist, but I am bridling somewhat about being described as having an oversimplistic point of view.

I do sometimes have a bit of a black-and-white way of looking at things, and can't always articulate what's going on in my thinking.

I often read your responses in various posts with a lot of admiration. They can help to clarify something I have been wondering about or puzzling over. However, your analysis of my perceived inadequate understanding of the feminist movement over the years was a bit harsh. I wasn't trying to justify any of those points of view particularly the one about having children being unfeminist, but they have been expressed perhaps during the 70s, by the more radical elements. I understand your point about feminism not being something that can possibly be for everybody because it is about women and girls, but saying "female people matter" in a feminist board where we are talking about feminism is a given, isn't it? Of course female people matter. In trying to understand the statement made by the previous poster about "arseholes", I was seeking information. The reply from
@TheywontletmehavethenameIwant helped me to understand the answer to that particular question.

I'm not stupid, I am autistic and have elements of concrete thinking that can get in the way of nuanced understanding. I am sorry if I expressed myself poorly in my previous post.

Nuanced is overrated, it is often used to distract and obfuscate, I do black and white myself because in the end it's simple, because for all the waffle that talking heads come out with, all the navel gazing angst humans invent for themselves, humans are simple.

Feminism - Belief in or advocacy of women's social, political, and economic rights, especially with regard to equality of the sexes.

Nowadays if you ask a search engine or an online dictionary for the definition of feminism you'll often find the definition leaves out the word women, because this ideology is erasing the word women. It's nuanced you see.

Going back to the original quote, is Butler's fundamental problem not knowing how to use quotation marks?

If she just put quotation marks around "woman" where it's necessary it would be clearer to her (and readers) what her error is.

The slip here is in this sentence:

'That is to say, women can be all kinds of things, and we need to allow the category of women to be expansive.'

Up to that point she has been using "women" correctly to mean women, but in this sentence she forgot to put the extra quotes in when she shifts to talking about the word. She's saying

'That is to say, women can be all kinds of things, and we need to allow the category of "women" to be expansive.'

This is the nonsequitor - all those "expansive" and "freedom" things you were saying about women apply to women. They've got nothing to do with the word "women". Expanding "women" does not expand women.

This seems to be the error she almost continuously makes, and it's just dumb and boring. Constructing chains of "logic" with invalid links inserted where she shifts from using a word to referring to it.

A good editor could and should have destroyed her works by putting in the missing quotes.

“what puzzles me is why leftist feminists, in part, not in whole, have taken positions that do ally with right-wing authoritarianism”

What a pity it only passively puzzles her, rather than listening to us and then her engaging her mind in trying to understand.

I take your point, not that I'm in any way qualified to say otherwise, but the " marks do make a difference to the sentence as I read it. But were the quotation marks left off because she's a rubbish academic or did she deliberately leave them off, because she does think that women , the person, needs to expand to include men?

That is to say, women can be all kinds of things, and we need to allow the category of women to be expansive. Now, that doesn’t mean it can include all things. I don’t mean to be silly about this, but trans people, and more broadly non-binary people, are subject to harassment, discrimination, and the restriction of rights that makes them potential and actual political allies with feminists

I just want to know the point where she thinks expansion of the category would become silly.

Is the boundary all people who are subject to discrimination and harassment? Nigel Farage claims to be in that group, so does he qualify and if not why not?

women , the person, needs to expand to include men?

Erk. Putting that aside, and assuming not literally, I guess you can come up with some sort of meaning that women should include men in their spaces rather than feel like they shouldn't. But that's contrary to the previous stuff about choice - is she saying they should have to include men in their spaces? What happened to "not all women want to"?

were the quotation marks left off because she's a rubbish academic

Well, in this case I guess it could be a transcription from verbal interview. Regardless, her chain of thought does require the people and the word to be seamlessly shifted between, so anyone transcribing is going to be following her lead.

I think we look for meaning in JB's words where there isn't anything beyond a political stance that lumps all 'marginalized' groups together in an attempt to form a coalition that will overthrow/subvert cis het white male etc etc capitalism. The ends justify the means, which is why the means are allowed to be so intellectually shonky.

Thank you for the link, I really enjoyed reading the full interview.
It doesn't feel right to me to 'trash talk' JB when I've only read - and not very carefully - Gender Trouble, which is from a long time ago.
It was good to read what she's thinking/saying now.

I have to say that it was also nice that she was speaking English, not po-mo speask😁but that's more a comment on me than on JB.

The interview reinforced the impression which always hovers around any mention of JB on this board: that she is out of touch with reality.
Here's an example:
there are loads of examples of academics being silenced, marginalised, bullied, excluded etc etc because they are gender/gender ideology critical - not right wing, not racist, not hatefuelled transphobes, just critical ,in the respected academic sense of that word.

What does JB say about this:
. I think we have to think about book banning. We have to think about censorship, the new constraints being imposed on universities, the defunding or renaming of gender studies, sexuality studies, feminist studies, ethnic studies, Africana and African American Studies—all of this censorship and increased authoritarian incursion into educational systems, K through 12 and higher ed. This is of a piece with the anti-gender ideology movement. This is a movement that seeks to control knowledge, to suppress knowledge, to stop us from questioning, to attack Socrates, who taught us the absolute importance of open inquiry.

I think only a😮can do that justice!

'This is a movement that seeks to control knowledge' -
which movement is controlling knowledge, Prof Butler? which movement is censoring free speech on campus, closing down open enquiry as in #no debate, which movement renamed Women's Studies as Gender Studies?

I acknowledge that she is writing from a US perspective, but she has written about GC feminism in the UK, so she knows about the egregious cases of suppression of GC thought in UK academia.

She knows the same facts, but she seems incapable of handling them unless she turns them upside down and inside out [intentional Diana Ross ref] so they fit into her worldview.

She's not stupid - I'm not going to diss Prof Butler, she is clearly a more knowledgeable and erudite woman than I am, and that's at least partially why she has got where she has got to, and where I got to in the academic world, fair nuff 😁

She has access to the facts, she has the academic training to objectively evaluate the facts - but she comes up with this crazy claim that 'gender ideology' is championing Socratic questioning and critical thinking in Academia.

It's not ignorance, it's not stupidity, so I'm left with Sartrean mauvaise foi as an explanation.

For me JB's ideas are provocative, academic thoughts which are interesting philosophically and worthy of study. But they are not a design for life and they have been used as such by people looking for support for their lifestyle choices and their allies (in much the same way as quantum physics is used by some in the New Age movement). They don't care if it works in practice as long as it works in theory (i think there is a Harvard quote to that effect!)

Seems like "nuanced" and "obfuscate" are in the same category.

Your definition of feminism works for me, thank you!

didn’t we learn that definitions of what a woman is have been far too narrow and sometimes biologically reductive? [...] women can be all kinds of things, and we need to allow the category of women to be expansive.

As @JellySaurus said, instead of expanding the category of 'woman', we need to expand the category of 'what women can do'.

Women were constrained by stereotypes, i.e. gender.
But instead of solving this by demolishing gender, which is hard, she has tried to abolish the meaning of 'woman', which might have seemed like the easier option at the time.

As we have found out, it makes a dog's dinner of the law if you replace sex with gender, so the law is sticking with sex.
So back to square one, we need to demolish gender.
JB is just behind the times.

Wow.

I wish I could be that clear!

Thank you.

I often think of this when listening to trans activists. Surely if women and men are just social categories then what’s the point of them? They actually sound regressive the way they talk about the categories. It’s like when they argue about sport they sound like they’re making an argument to do away with men and women’s categories.