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Who's Afraid of Gender? Hardcover – March 19, 2024
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National Bestseller. Named a Best Book of 2024 (so far) by NPR, Harper's Bazaar, W, and Esquire, and a Most Anticipated Book of 2024 by The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time, Los Angeles Times, ELLE, Cosmopolitan, Kirkus, Literary Hub, Autostraddle, The Millions, Electric Literature, and them.
"A profoundly urgent intervention.” ―Naomi Klein
"A timely must-read for anyone actively invested in re-imagining collective futurity.” ―Claudia Rankine
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.
- Print length320 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherFarrar, Straus and Giroux
- Publication dateMarch 19, 2024
- Dimensions6.4 x 1.05 x 9.25 inches
- ISBN-100374608229
- ISBN-13978-0374608224
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From the Publisher
Praise for Who's Afraid of Gender? by Judith Butler
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"A cogent and deeply thoughtful case against the right’s attempts to limit ideas of gender to male and female, offering philosophical and historical evidence to support a fluid system in which all people might present authentically." ―Bethanne Patrick, Los Angeles Times
"Accessible and jargon-free. It is, without question, a demanding read, but not because the author is obfuscating or showing off. Rather, the difficulty derives from the rigor of the thought itself, and the work of accompanying the movement of that thought brings its own kind of pleasure." ―Dana Stevens, Slate
"Judith Butler is a much-needed balm to counter the right wing’s ever-escalating wave trans panic . . . incisive and vital." ―Keely Weiss, Harper's Bazaar
"An essential polemic on gender . . . With masterful analysis of where we’ve been and an inspiring vision for where we must go next, this book resounds like an impassioned depth charge." ―Adrienne Westenfeld, Esquire
"An invitation to consider how we think about gender―and what that might tell us about who we are." ― Tinbete Ermyas, NPR
"This is the most accessible of their books so far, an intervention meant for a wide audience . . . Because Butler is a human rights activist, as well as a theorist, the urgent point conveyed by this book is the same as it is in all their work: why are so many people seemingly happy to give away their power to increasingly authoritarian forces? And why are they so confident that this power will never be used against them?" ―Finn McKay, The Guardian
"For a sense of how a new world might feel, what it can offer people in a dark and precarious time, we might also turn to some of the long-standing work of Judith Butler . . . 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." ―Sarah Leonard, The New Republic
"A clarifying exploration of how we got here and a clarion call for different, less fearful, less cramped ways of thinking about the world. With their signature critical focus on what we think of as ‘natural’ and ‘artificial’, Butler pins down the history behind the contemporary cultural battle over gender, exploring how gender fear markets itself as protection, crusade, and panacea – and why it won’t cure anything." ―Eli Cugini, Dazed
"The urgency of Butler’s subject is evident at the level of tone and form. Largely free of specialized language or complicated syntax, it is the most accessible book they have published . . . Butler foregoes conventions of scholarly engagement and avoids detours into specialized debates for the sake of a clear, consistent appeal: to create a world in which everyone can live, breathe, move, and love without fear of discrimination and violence." ―Paisley Currah, The Yale Review
“A brilliant writer and thinker, Butler . . . offers a long-needed text clarifying confusion by design . . . Their newest offering is urgent, returning breathable air into a toxic cloud . . . The result is exhilarating and life-changing.” ―Booklist (starred review)
"[A] trenchant polemic . . . Thoughtful and powerfully assured, this is an essential take on an ongoing political battle." ―Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"A wonderfully thoughtful and impassioned book on a critically important centerpiece of contemporary authoritarianism and patriarchy. A master class in how gender has been weaponized in support of conservative values and authoritarian regimes.” ―Kirkus Reviews
“Only Judith Butler’s dazzling intellect and moral confidence could orient us inside the maze of projections, confessions, displacements, and co-optations that make up today’s wars over gender. It is the dream of a bygone, authoritarian masculinist power that unites the various fronts of this battle―and only solidarity between all who are in fascism’s crosshairs has a chance of saving us. A profoundly urgent intervention.” ―Naomi Klein, author of Doppelgänger
“Judith Butler is the most important philosopher working in the United States today, and the one whose legacy is most likely to survive the test of time. Here, in clear, precise prose, and with devastatingly analytical precision, they dismantle the global attack on ‘Gender Ideology’, revealing it for what it is―an attack on democracy’s freedoms. ”―Jason Stanley, author of How Fascism Works
“Judith Butler has been brilliantly troubling the landscape of gender construction for over three decades. At a time when anti-Trans and anti-LGBTQIA rhetoric and ideology is creeping into every facet of our lives―from school boards and libraries to legislation and political campaigns―Who’s Afraid of Gender gives its reader a roadmap away from surprising oppositions within the progressive left. Their work calls for solidarity in the face of the weaponization of anti-gender ideology wielded by the political right. Butler makes us aware that there will be no freedom without gender freedom. A timely must-read for anyone actively invested in re-imagining collective futurity.” ―Claudia Rankine, author of Just Us
“Judith Butler’s Who’s Afraid of Gender is more than a corrective and antidote to this corrosive time and to the terrible conjoining of the far right, conservatives, and liberals over meaning and mattering made manifest in the phantasms of ‘gender.’ It is also―and urgently―a call and an invitation to ‘new coalitions and new imaginaries’ and ‘to help produce a world in which we can move and breathe and love without fear of violence.’ It is a call to reject ‘righteous sadism,’ to know the risk of making another world, and to act, anyway, collectively toward it.” ―Christina Sharpe, author of Ordinary Notes
“The global war against so-called ‘gender ideology’ is one of the most politically consequential and psychically intriguing phenomena of our present moment. Underneath it lies, Judith Butler argues in this powerful new book, a yearning for the restoration of a mythic patriarchal order in the face of mounting existential despair. As ever, Butler offers us a compelling diagnosis of the anxieties, fears and fantasies that structure our political present, pointing us towards both its darkest dimensions and its possible undoing.”―Amia Srinivasan, author of The Right to Sex
“Taking you by the hand and leading you through the phantasms, projections, inversions, and fascist passions of a world in economic and political turmoil, this book is remarkably empathetic towards those whose gruesome rights-stripping endeavors and moral panics it exhibits. Who’s Afraid of Gender? combines authority and humility, humor and horror, psychosocial inquiry and active political commitment, while also serving as an accessible primer on key debates in queer theory and gender studies around “nature/culture,” performativity, blackness, and decolonial approaches, for example. Bravo. I am grateful and heartened that Judith Butler has so comprehensively assessed the scene and thrown down this antifascist gauntlet. Few could approach the task of an agnotology of present-day anti-genderism with such patient grace.” ―Sophie Lewis, author of Abolish the Family
“Judith Butler’s big brain and big heart have consistently made other people’s lives more possible by grappling with and exposing how authoritarian ideas work. Here they show how anti-trans and anti-queer rhetoric are on rapid rise from global and domestic Nationalists, the Catholic Church and TERFS. And that these divergent groups all root their attacks in false accusations of harm, when they are the ones holding the power. By answering the question “Who is out to destroy whom?” Butler dissects the distorted claim that expanding gender systems, “hurts” people who identify with the status quo. Butler turns these manipulative arguments on their heads, revealing the trope of perpetrators claiming victimhood as central to anti-trans politics. A useful, helpful, and hopeful book.” ―Sarah Schulman, author of Let the Record Show
About the Author
Product details
- Publisher : Farrar, Straus and Giroux (March 19, 2024)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 320 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0374608229
- ISBN-13 : 978-0374608224
- Item Weight : 1.13 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.4 x 1.05 x 9.25 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #16,927 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #7 in LGBTQ+ Demographic Studies
- #15 in Literary Criticism & Theory
- #34 in General Gender Studies
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
![Judith Butler](https://cdn.statically.io/img/m.media-amazon.com/images/S/amzn-author-media-prod/6346e5t2lgphb28oudl42n72hf._SY600_.jpg)
Judith Butler is Distinguished Professor in the Graduate School at the University of California, Berkeley. They are the author of Subjects of Desire, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, Bodies that Matter, Undoing Gender, The Psychic Life of Power, Precarious Life, Parting Ways: Jewishness and the Critique of Zionism, Frames of War, Senses of the Subject, The Force of Nonviolence, What World is This? A Pandemic Phenomenology, and Who's Afraid of Gender? Co-edited volumes include: Contingency, Hegemony, Universality with Slavoj Zizek and Ernesto Laclau; Vulnerability in Resistance, with Leticia Sabsay and Zeynep Gambetti. Co-authored books include: Who Sings the Nation-State? with Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Dispossession, with Athena Athanasiou, and The Livable and the Unlivable, with Frederic Worms.
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At the heart of Butler's exploration lies a radical reimagining of gender as a fluid and multifaceted phenomenon that defies easy categorization. Rejecting simplistic binary constructions, Butler invites readers to consider gender as a spectrum of possibilities, shaped by intersecting forces of race, class, sexuality, and nationality. This nuanced approach not only challenges prevailing norms and stereotypes but also opens up new avenues for understanding the complexities of human experience.
One of the book's most compelling aspects is its relentless pursuit of intersectionality, as Butler examines how systems of oppression intersect and compound to produce unique forms of marginalization and exclusion. From the intersections of gender and race to the intersections of gender and class, Butler underscores the importance of recognizing and addressing the interconnected nature of social inequality. By centering the experiences of marginalized communities, Butler highlights the ways in which gender intersects with other axes of identity to shape individual and collective experiences of oppression.
Moreover, Who's Afraid of Gender? offers a powerful critique of the anti-gender movement, revealing how reactionary forces seek to weaponize fear and misinformation to undermine progress and sow division. Butler's analysis of the ways in which anti-gender rhetoric intersects with broader narratives of nationalism, fascism, and xenophobia is both timely and illuminating, shedding light on the urgent need to resist authoritarianism and defend the principles of equality and justice. Who’s Afraid of Gender? dissects the insidious tactics employed by anti-gender movements, exposing their dangerous rhetoric and the real-world consequences of their actions.
Throughout the book, Butler demonstrates a remarkable ability to navigate complex theoretical terrain while remaining grounded in the realities of everyday life. Their prose is at once erudite and accessible, inviting readers on a journey of intellectual discovery that is as enlightening as it is empowering. By weaving together theory and praxis, Butler challenges readers to confront their own assumptions and complicity in systems of oppression, inspiring them to join the fight for a more just and equitable world.
Ultimately, Who's Afraid of Gender? is a testament to Judith Butler's enduring legacy as a pioneering thinker and a fierce advocate for social change. By shining a light on the intersections of power and privilege, Butler invites readers to imagine new possibilities for freedom and solidarity, making this book an indispensable resource for anyone committed to the pursuit of gender justice and liberation. The book's fearless exploration of intersectionality, its poignant critique of the cisheteropatriarchy, and its unwavering advocacy for collective liberation make it an indispensable addition to the canon of feminist literature.
📖 Recommended For: Champions of Gender Liberation, Supporters of LGBTQ+ Rights, Critics of Patriarchy, Fans of bell hooks' "Feminism is for Everybody” and Naomi Klein’s “Doppelganger.”
🔑 Key Themes: Gender Liberation, LGBTQ+ Rights, Intersectionality, Anti-Cisheteronormativity, Global Intersectional Feminism, Collective Resistance, Identity Affirmation.
This was a great read. It was interesting to see the history of gender-related statements from the Vatican, the literal-minded approaches to gender from the supreme court, to British reactions of the trans movement and the colonial hangovers of gender dimorphism. Judith Butler offers a very sober and enlivening approach to a topic that many, as Judith points out, are using as a symbolic target for unloading the growing anxieties around war, financial insecurity and irreversible climate change. At times it felt like Judith's writing was dragging on too long (a common critique of her writing, actually), and that the points could have been summarized quicker. Other passages built up her points, allowing them to really soak up all their rightful fascination without compromising their urgency.
I'm glad I read this. Not sure if the crowds that need to hear this counterpoint will ever give it a go (she even writes about that topic too, how some see the very act of reading anything in favor of LGBTQ+ rights, for example, as "trafficking with the devil,"). I'm glad this book exists. I just wish it could be more accessible to the folks that really would benefit from a different opinion over the conservative posts and conspiracy theories they're being fed. I'm glad Judith encourages the readers to get motivated and mobilized; to form and promote a counter vision against the "gender phantasm" that's currently gaining frightening degrees of power and support in the world. If any do read WHO'S AFRAID OF GENDER?, I hope they'll carry Judith's messages once the book is put down.
It seems like there are two camps of readers who will come to this text: Butler's preexisting acolytes (*raises hand faster than Tracy Flick*) and Butler's detractors. I can't speak to what the latter gets out of this, and I also...don't care.
Butler's work was part of my scholarship throughout all of my undergraduate and graduate coursework, it's foundational in the college courses I've been teaching for decades, and it has helped me better understand the world at large. For obvious reasons, I came in with high expectations, and I'm feeling fulfilled.
Butler answers their titular question, and they also provide a lot of context for where we are now and how we got here. I got a lot of out of this, but the most important benefit is the counteracting of so much gaslighting. I'm fortunate to be mostly in environments where that's not happening, but I still live in this society, where a lot of the issues Butler digs into here are the subject of constant f***ery, and there's only so much of that one can take before they start asking what the heck is even going on anymore.
So, Butler is showing up here not only with a well devised exploration of the central subject but also with some important, grounding reminders from the premier expert. It turns out there are still some folks afraid of gender (*sighs forever*), but Butler is still here to help the rest of us keep fighting for the obvious: basic human rights. I'm not sure there's a higher endorsement available.
This is - as anticipated - more foundational content from one of the greatest theorists of our time.
Thank you, Judith Butler! I hope this book helps many.
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Pero dada la lamentable relevancia que la autora ha adquirido, conviene leerlo.
No tiene ni una sola buena reseña en su ámbito cultural estadounidense tampoco.
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