Judith Butler revisits gender in new book examining anger, outcry and dangerous rhetoric

, in 1990 – in which they put forth the theory of gender performativity with which they’re still associated – the academic’s hopes were modest. Perhaps it would lead to a better job, or even tenure. Butler certainly didn’t envision becoming the most recognizable name in the then-nascent field of gender studies. Or that gender would become the hot-button, culture-war-inciting issue it is today.yet.

Many fear that whatever gender is going to destroy their families or nations or communities of belonging. And that’s a very powerful fear, especially if politicians are telling you that we need to get it out of schools, to close down educational curricula that talk about what boys and girls can become, or to introduce the idea of gay and lesbian sexuality as part of human sexuality rather than as something pathological.

Authoritarianism stokes this kind of fear, so that people run to the state for protection against this horrible threat to their family, their sex, their way of life, their nation. And the state is then able to augment its power, to look like the great protector. But in fact it’s abandoning all kinds of people and stoking unnecessary fear in a lot of others.

I don’t know how to make that appealing and sexy. I’m an aging academic. But I do think we should be rallying artists to produce a vision of the world we want to live in that is more compelling than the fantasy that we’re being destroyed by progressive social movements. In more recent years, people who teach gender at universities in Brazil and in Latin America have been attacked. Sometimes I’ve been named as a person who represents it, even though it’s a vast field of study, and I don’t represent its current form. There are other fabulous scholars leading the way now. I’m something of an ancient character in this story.

Beyond these recent dark trends, surely you’ve seen some positive generational shifts in people’s attitudes to gender?

Source: Law Daily Report (lawdailyreport.net)

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