Judith Butler: ‘We need to rethink the category of woman to centre men'

submitted by Chunkeeguy from theguardian.com

all 5 comments
sorted by:
top
newinsightfulfun

[–]Femaleisnthateful 11 insightful - 2 fun11 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

I confess I had never read Judith Butler before and man, that's grim. She acknowledges that 'gender' is a social construct, and also that she has no idea what 'gender identity' is - and apparently alters pronouns and 'gender identities' at random. She also states that the 'anti-gender identity' movement is anti-feminist and anti-reproductive rights, but obviously can't back that up with any evidence. She dismisses biological sex as an 'assignment' and nowhere does she acknowledge its relevance in defining a class of people and their lived experience and oppression in the world. She sounds like someone who just wants to watch the world burn.

[–]oatcake 9 insightful - 2 fun9 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

I never had to deal with Butler's work when I was studying philosophy, but it sure seems like she's a grifter who figured out a way to make money from it.

[–]WildApples 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I recall having to read excerpts of Butler in my women's studies classes well before gender identity took off. Even back then I found her writing tortured and unrelateable.

[–]TheBeefBenson 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The Guardian was forced to pull some of the comments she made as she inferred that if you don't support every single part of trans ideology then it's because you are a fascist.

https://eoinhiggins.substack.com/p/guardian-pulls-judith-butlers-comments

[–]Alan_Crowe 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

She starts off with soft bromides

The category of woman can and does change, and we need it to be that way.

and we nod along, because we know what she means. After menopause women turn invisible. We want to "change" the category of women to "incude" them. And when we oppose violence against women, we sometimes need to remind men that opposing violence against women includes protecting girls from their step-fathers; which stretches "women" to include "girls".

Then Butler hits us with

So we should not be surprised or opposed when the category of women expands to include cricket bats.

Whoops! I've misquoted her; but with a purpose. Sometimes we play games with language. We might say "the category of women includes cricket bats." and we are making a Dadaist joke. Probably with a didactic purpose. We want to jolt people awake. We want to make them realize that you cannot add just anything to the category of woman.

What Butler actually wrote was

So we should not be surprised or opposed when the category of women expands to include trans women.

She wants to add men to the category of women. Now I conceded earlier that one might want to make adjustments at the edge of the category woman, but the problem with the category of women is not that it excludes men; excluding men is the point! What next? Is seven to be the new even number?

Notice the pattern. She talks abstractly about the category women, without common sense examples, then hits us with an absurd expansion of the category. In psychiatry, that pattern, is called overinclusion and is an aspect of Formal Thought Disorder.

See http://frontierpsychiatrist.co.uk/formal-thought-disorder/

Overinclusion refers to a widening of the boundaries of concepts such that things are grouped together that are not often closely connected.