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Who's Afraid of Gender?
by
20/99
Critics' Rating Index
66/99
Readers' Rating Index
99/99
Scholars' Citation Index
92/99
Volume of Reviews
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About This Book
From a global icon, a bold, essential account of how a fear of gender is fueling reactionary politics around the world. Judith Butler, the groundbreaking thinker whose iconic book Gender Trouble redefined how we think about gender and sexuality, confronts the attacks on "gender" that have become central to right-wing movements today. Global networks have formed "anti-gender ideology movements" that are dedicated to circulating a fantasy that gender is a dangerous, perhaps diabolical, threat to families, local cultures, civilization―and even "man" himself. Inflamed by the rhetoric of public figures, this movement has sought to nullify reproductive justice, undermine protections against sexual and gender violence, and strip trans and queer people of their rights to pursue a life without fear of violence. The aim of Who's Afraid of Gender? is not to offer a new theory of gender but to examine how "gender" has become a phantasm for emerging authoritarian regimes, fascist formations, and transexclusionary feminists. In their vital, courageous new book, Butler illuminates the concrete ways that this phantasm of "gender" collects and displaces anxieties and fears of destruction. Operating in tandem with deceptive accounts of "critical race theory" and xenophobic panics about migration, the anti-gender movement demonizes struggles for equality, fuels aggressive nationalism, and leaves millions of people vulnerable to subjugation. An essential intervention into one of the most fraught issues of our moment, Who's Afraid of Gender? is a bold call to refuse the alliance with authoritarian movements and to make a broad coalition with all those whose struggle for equality is linked with fighting injustice. Imagining new possibilities for both freedom and solidarity, Butler offers us a hopeful work of social and political analysis that is both timely and timeless―a book whose verve and rigor only they could deliver.
Reviews
"But it is refreshing to see such a tribal issue interrogated with thoughtful research, as opposed to vicious fearmongering."
"And why are they so confident that this power will never be used against them?"
"Perhaps there's a vacuum left by this book precisely because Butler, in a bid to bring people together, generally steers clear of some of the most inflammatory nodes of the debate ..."
"[A] trenchant polemic ..."
"I burst into laughter reading."
"If only Butler had said less about the piddling quibbles of their small opponents and more about the soaring possibilities of gender itself."
"Butler's work has offered over and over again the basic kindness of recognizing that our painful failures to conform are what we have in common."
"This is a wonderfully thoughtful and impassioned book on a critically important centerpiece of contemporary authoritarianism and patriarchy."
"An analysis of contemporary political and cultural battles over the very topics that Butler's early work brought into wider public discussion ..."
"This is nothing new, although being reminded of it is good."
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