Who’s Afraid of Judith Butler?
The gender theorist’s first mainstream publication is unconvincing.
Gay icon Judy Garland. Folk queen Judy Collins. Now, we have the lesbian saint Judith Butler (as of 2020, they/them saint Judith Butler.)
Once resigned to recognition on college campuses for their unreadable 1990 tome Gender Trouble, which posited that gender is a performance, the queer theorist and Berkeley professor took off as a mainstream hero in the past decade. Tumblr kids reposted quotes from their lengthy, poorly written academic work. New York magazine declared Butler a “pop celebrity.” In March, Farrar, Straus and Giroux published Butler’s first commercial book, Who’s Afraid of Gender? Its prolonged roll-out aims to credit Butler for “birthing” the nonbinary and trans identities of the twenty-first century. It’s as much a publicity stunt as a book. But a closer reading of Butler’s new book Who’s Afraid of Gender? and the endless press campaigns reveals Butler isn’t as daring as they — or their PR team — suggest.