Who’s Afraid of Gender?

Gender studies pioneer Butler (Gender Trouble) argues in this trenchant polemic that in recent years the “phantasm of gender” has been “scapegoated” by “anti-gender” ideologues who seek to stoke fears based on misinformation and falsehood. In Butler’s telling, the political right uses gender to “deflect from... forces that are, in fact, destroying the world,” such as “climate destruction, war, [and] capitalist exploitation.” Analyzing how various groups—including political leaders in the U.S., the U.K., the Global South, and the Vatican—use gender to achieve their aims, Butler is particularly biting about anti-transgender feminists (“Anti-trans feminists seek to still the category of women, lock it down, erect the gates, and patrol the borders”). Urging a view of gender as co-constructed—meaning it is not purely the result of nature, nurture, or culture, but a combination of all three—Butler puts forth a philosophy of gender expression as a basic human right and astutely observes that members of the anti-gender movement “are not opposed to gender—they have a precise gender order in mind that they want to impose upon the world.” An illuminating final section discusses the historical uses of gender by colonial regimes, leading to an impassioned plea to the left not to dismiss gender as a sideshow bugbear of the far right, but as fundamental to all political struggle. Thoughtful and powerfully assured, this is an essential take on an ongoing political battle. (Mar.)