Democracy requires a good challenge, and it does not always arrive in soft tones. We live in time; we err, sometimes seriously; and if we are lucky, we change precisely because of interactions that let us see things differently. In the early hours of 3 November, Trump called for an end to counting ballots in key states where he feared losing. Butler is arguing against herself. When we went to the polls, we were not voting for Joe Biden/Kamala Harris (centrists who disavowed the most progressive health and financial plans of both Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren) as much as we were voting for the possibility of voting at all, voting for the present and future institution of electoral democracy. Alona Ferber: In Gender Trouble, you wrote that "contemporary feminist debates over the meanings of gender lead time and again to a certain sense of trouble, as if the indeterminacy of gender might eventually culminate in the failure of feminism”. September 24, 2020. The only reason feminism exists is to advocate on behalf of women (not on behalf of gender, i.e. By Masha Gesse n. February 9, 2020. Judith Butler presents a lecture and live Q&A chaired by Amia Srinivasan that draws on her new book, which shows how an ethic of nonviolence must be connected to a broader political struggle for social equality.. “The social meanings of what it is to be a man or a woman are not yet settled,” she says. It assumes that the penis is the threat, or that any person who has a penis who identifies as a woman is engaging in a base, deceitful, and harmful form of disguise. The fact that such fantasies pass as public argument is itself cause for worry. On the one hand, I am an educator and writer and believe in slow and thoughtful debate. But given that he does not have the electoral numbers, why would he stop it? His appeal to nearly half of the country has depended upon cultivating a practice that licenses an exhilarated form of sadism freed from any shackles of moral shame or ethical obligation. Hitler’s missive was called “Destructive Measures on Reich Territory” but it was remembered as the “Nero Decree”, invoking the Roman emperor who killed family and friends, punishing those perceived as disloyal, in his ruthless desire to hold onto power and punish those perceived as disloyal. But when the president declares himself the winner and there is general laughter and even his friends call him a cab, then he is finally alone with his hallucinations of himself as a powerful destroyer. Judith Butler, The Force of Nonviolence. Her idea of social construction is so totalizing that even biological sex itself is constructed. If no one escapes that interdependency, then we are equal in a different sense. If you are right to identify the one with the other, then a feminist position opposing transphobia is a marginal position. Those of us outside of carceral institutions lived with a sense of enduring electoral laws as part of a constitutional framework that gave coordinates to our sense of politics. Butler describes gender not as an essential quality of a person, but as "performed," as habits of acting in certain ways in accordance with customs. Enis Demirer’in çevirisi ilk olarak Parıltılar adlı blogunda yayımlandı. Trans women are often discriminated against in men’s bathrooms, and their modes of self-identification are ways of describing a lived reality, one that cannot be captured or regulated by the fantasies brought to bear upon them. butler'in lacan olan ve olmayan taraflarini düsünmeye basladigimizda butler'in hakikate ulasmak icin pek caba fsargfetmedigini sadece "bir diamanda galas performansi" ile sorusturdugunu görürüz. In 2014, TIME declared a “Transgender Tipping Point”. What is less clear is whether he can do what he threatens to do, or whether the “threat” is left hanging in the air as an impotent command. Many of those who had not suffered disenfranchisement before were not even aware of how their lives rested on a basic trust in the legal framework. He can litigate as much as he wants, but if the lawyers scatter, and the courts, weary, no longer listen, he will find himself ruling only the island called Trump as a mere show of reality. When one has not been heard for decades, the cry for justice is bound to be loud. My sense is that we have to renew the feminist commitment to gender equality and gender freedom in order to affirm the complexity of gendered lives as they are currently being lived. Thirty years ago, the philosopher Judith Butler*, now 64, published a book that revolutionised popular attitudes on gender. Names: Butler, Judith, 1956- author. Author Naomi Cunningham Posted on September 26, 2020 October 3, 2020 Tags feminist philosophy Thirty years ago, the philosopher Judith Butler*, now 64, published a book that revolutionised popular attitudes on gender. If the lawsuit that stops the count is accompanied by a lawsuit that alleges fraud (without any known basis for doing so), then he can produce a distrust in the system, one that, if deep enough, will ultimately throw the decision to the courts, the courts he has packed, the ones that he imagines will put him in power. | Includes index. Thu 5 Nov 2020 12.24 EST. Judith Butler is perhaps most famous for two books that she wrote in the 1990s, in which she outlines and challenges notions of gender, sex, feminism and queer theory. Judith Pamela Butler (born February 24, 1956) is an American philosopher and gender theorist whose work has influenced political philosophy, ethics, and the fields of third-wave feminist, queer, and literary theory. 2020. The tyrant spiraling down calls for an end to testing, to counting, to science and even to electoral law, to all those inconvenient methods of verifying what is and is not true in order to spin his truth one more time. AF: You have spoken about the backlash against “gender ideology”, and wrote an essay for the New Statesman about it in 2019. Is this fair, or is there any merit in their arguments? 2011. Many people who were assigned “female” at birth never felt at home with that assignment, and those people (including me) tell all of us something important about the constraints of traditional gender norms for many who fall outside its terms. AF: You weren't a signatory to the open letter on “cancel culture” in Harper's this summer, but did its arguments resonate with you? Judith Butler. If someone then said I should not be read or listened to as a result of those errors, well, I would object internally, since I don't think any mistake a person made can, or should, summarise that person. 2006. If Trump were sure to win if the electoral count stops now, we could understand why he wants to stop it. But the idea of law as something that secures our rights and guides our action has been transformed into a field of litigation. We fight those misrepresentations because they are false and because they reflect more about the misogyny of those who make demeaning caricatures than they do about the complex social diversity of women. So one clear problem is the framing that acts as if the debate is between feminists and trans people. Judith Butler defends an aggressive nonviolence in her newest book Ryan Di Corpo February 10, 2020 Judith Butler, professor at the University of California, Berkeley, at … Judith Butler Wants Us to Reshape Our Rage . This practice has not fully accomplished its perverse liberation. The only reason the pandemic is bad in the US, he argues, is that there is testing which furnishes numerical results. Get the New Statesman’s Morning Call email. 2010. She asks if we need to have “a settled idea of women, or of any gender, in order to advance feminist goals,” to which I would say, obviously. He goes to court to compel the conclusion he wants. As his supporters starts to flee, Nero took his own life. AF: The consensus among progressives seems to be that feminists who are on JK Rowling’s side of the argument are on the wrong side of history. I learn from being confronted and challenged, and I accept that I have made some significant errors in my public life. Judith Butler’s new book shows how an ethic of nonviolence must be connected to a broader political struggle for social equality. Most influential people in 2020 in the contemporary artworld. AF: I want to challenge you on the term “terf”, or trans-exclusionary radical feminist, which some people see as a slur. It is one thing to posture as the kind of guy who would do untold damage to democracy to hang on to power; it is quite another to make that show into reality, initiating the lawsuits that would dismantle the electoral norms and laws that guarantee voting rights, striking at the very framework of US democracy. Further, it argues that nonviolence is often misunderstood as a passive practice that emanates… In March 1945, when both the allied forces and the Red Army had vanquished every Nazi defensive stronghold, Hitler resolved to destroy the nation itself, ordering a destruction of transportation and communication systems, industrial sites, and public utilities. As so many times before in the Trump presidency, we are left to wonder whether he is bluffing, scheming, acting (putting on a show) or acting (doing real damage). In the light of the bitter arguments playing out within feminism now, does the same still apply? — Katherine Cross (@Quinnae_Moon) September 23, 2020. yes, judith butler is very articulate, but what she's actually saying isn't that different from what trans people say all the time. Is gender socially constructed, and if so, how? When laws and social policies represent women, they make tacit decisions about who counts as a woman, and very often make presuppositions about what a woman is. It is a sad day when some feminists promote the anti-gender ideology position of the most reactionary forces in our society. Let us also remember, though, the threats against trans people in places like Brazil, the harassment of trans people in the streets and on the job in places like Poland and Romania – or indeed right here in the US. So I find it worrisome that suddenly the trans-exclusionary radical feminist position is understood as commonly accepted or even mainstream. I know “downfall” is usually reserved for kings and tyrants, but we are operating in that theatre, except here the king is at once the clown, and the man in power is also a child given over to tantrum with no discernible adults in the room. One reason to militate against this framing is because trans activism is linked to queer activism and to feminist legacies that remain very alive today. The courts, along with the vice-president, would then form a plutocratic power that would enact the destruction of electoral politics as we know it. The only question for many of us was just how destructive he would become in the course of his downfall. His allegedly last words: “what an artist dies in me!”. Even Fox does not accept his claim, and even Pence says every vote is to be counted. AF: How much is toxicity on this issue a function of culture wars playing out online? We fight those misrepresentations because they are false and because they reflect more about the misogyny of those who make demeaning caricatures than they do about the complex social diversity of women. So if we are going to object to harassment and threats, as we surely should, we should also make sure we have a large picture of where that is happening, who is most profoundly affected, and whether it is tolerated by those who should be opposing it. Judith Butler Wants Us to Reshape Our Rage. But feminism would surely survive as a coalitional practice and vision of solidarity. | Summary: “Situating non-violence at the cross-roads of the ethical and political, The Force of Non-Violence JB: As I remember the argument in Gender Trouble (written more than 30 years ago), the point was rather different. Considered as a legal strategy, however, by a team of lawyers, even lawyers working for the government, it constitutes a serious danger to democracy. The one who represents the legal regime assumes that he is the law, the one who makes and breaks the law as he pleases, and as a result he becomes a powerful criminal in the name of the law. Kaliforniya Üniversitesi, Berkeley'de Retorik ve Karşılaştırmalı Edebiyat bölümlerinde profesör olmanın yanı sıra European Graduate School'da Hannah Arendt Felsefe Profesörü'dür. Feminists know that women with ambition are called “monstrous” or that women who are not heterosexual are pathologised. By Masha Gessen | February 9, 2020 |The New Yorker. And yet others do not wish to be challenged on their racism. And by “women” I mean all those who identify in that way. Thirty years ago, the philosopher Judith Butler*, now 64, published a book that revolutionised popular attitudes on gender. 2009. ... Judith Butler is Maxine Elliot professor in the department of comparative literature and the program of critical theory at the University of California, Berkeley. 2003. I confess to being perplexed by the fact that you point out the abuse levelled against JK Rowling, but you do not cite the abuse against trans people and their allies that happens online and in person. 2016. Feminists know that women with ambition are called. Judith Butler The Force of Nonviolence, online event, Whitechapel Gallery. Rather, we get to make a political claim to live freely and without fear of discrimination and violence against the genders that we are. AF: One example of mainstream public discourse on this issue in the UK is the argument about allowing people to self-identify in terms of their gender. As a posture, the threat to stop or nullify the vote is a kind of spectacle, composed for his base’s consumption. And does she see a way to break the impasse? It would be a disaster for feminism to return either to a strictly biological understanding of gender or to reduce social conduct to a body part or to impose fearful fantasies, their own anxieties, on trans women... Their abiding and very real sense of gender ought to be recognised socially and publicly as a relatively simple matter of according another human dignity. Today, it is a foundational text on any gender studies reading list, and its arguments have long crossed over from the academy to popular culture. Academic - Preeminent American gender theorist. “femininity,” Judith — I caught that, not to worry). 271 | Judith Butler: Then and Now August 13, 2020 by Catherine Carr in politics This week two conversations with the feminist theorist and writer Judith Butler: one recorded the week Trump won the presidency in 2016 and one recorded a few days ago, as … There is no legal norm that cannot be litigated under Trump. Judith Butler tore J.K. Rowling’s transphobia to pieces in an epic clapback "I think we are living in anti-intellectual times...." By Alex Bollinger Friday, September 25, 2020 To circumvent that outcome, he wants to stop the count, even if citizens are deprived of their right to have their vote count. . We have seen this in the domain of reproductive rights. But disagreements over biological essentialism remain, as evidenced by the tensions over trans rights within the feminist movement. Not only has more than half of the country responded with revulsion or rejection, but the shameless spectacle has all along depended on a lurid picture of the left: moralistic, punitive and judgmental, repressive and ready to deprive the general populace of every ordinary pleasure and freedom. Description: Brooklyn : Verso Books, 2020. Judith Butler: I want to first question whether trans-exclusionary feminists are really the same as mainstream feminists. But what has always been distinctive of the Trump regime is that the executive power of the government has consistently attacked the laws of the country at the same that he claims to represent law and order. Alona Ferber is Special Projects Editor at the New Statesman. We tend to say that one person should be treated the same as another, and we measure whether or not equality has been achieved by comparing individual cases. Comparative literature and critical theory professor Judith Butler's has taken a leap onstage at New York Live Arts, playing a comparative literature professor like herself in an experimental performance called "Fragments, Lists & Lacunae." “Judith Butler is quite simply one of the most probing, challenging, and influential thinkers of our time.” – J. M. Bernstein Judith Butler’s new book shows how an ethic of nonviolence must be connected to a broader political struggle for social equality. Does the idea of “radical equality”, which you discuss in the book, have any relevance for the feminist movement? By gender freedom, I do not mean we all get to choose our gender. It is not. Some of them have opposed legal rights for Palestine. Butler’s career is all about this kind of solipsistic disconnection. When the basic laws supporting electoral politics are litigated, if every legal protection is proclaimed as fraudulent, as an instrument profiting those who oppose him, then no law is left to constrain the power of litigation to destroy democratic norms. We know that Trump will try to do anything to stay in power, to avoid that ultimate catastrophe in life – becoming “a loser”. If trans-exclusionary radical feminists understood themselves as sharing a world with trans people, in a common struggle for equality, freedom from violence, and for social recognition, there would be no more trans-exclusionary radical feminists. 2007. JB: It is painful to see that Trump’s position that gender should be defined by biological sex, and that the evangelical and right-wing Catholic effort to purge “gender” from education and public policy accords with the trans-exclusionary radical feminists' return to biological essentialism. That was before I read this interview; I won’t trouble with her again. Issue 89, 3rd July 2020 Judith Butler | American social and political philosopher, and co-director of the International Consortium for Critical Theory Programs, whose first book 'Subjects of Desire' investigated Hegelian reflections in twentieth-century France. And though Trump is not Hitler, and electoral politics is not precisely military war (not yet civil war, at any rate), there is a general logic of destruction that kicks in when the downfall of the tyrant seems nearly certain. JB: I am not aware that terf is used as a slur. It asked how we define “the category of women” and, as a consequence, who it is that feminism purports to fight for. The excited fantasy of his supporters was that, with Trump, shame could be overcome, and there would be a “freedom” from the left and its punitive restrictions on speech and conduct, a permission finally to destroy environmental regulations, international accords, spew racist bile and openly affirm persistent forms of misogyny. Bring it on, Sleepy Joe! First, one does not have to be a woman to be a feminist, and we should not confuse the categories.