Who’s Afraid of Gender?

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A highly accessible and essential look at how anxiety around gender is fueling reactionary politics worldwide, from legendary thinker Judith Butler.

Judith Butler, the pioneering theorist whose iconic book Gender Trouble redefined how we think about gender and sexuality, confronts one of the most pressing issues of our time. So-called “gender ideology”—and its supposed dangers—has provoked reactionary backlash across the world. Global networks spread the idea that “gender” is a dangerous, if not diabolical, ideology threatening to destroy families, local cultures, civilizations—and even “man” himself. Inflamed by the rhetoric of religious leaders, politicians, and public figures, this movement has taken aim at the rights of queer and trans people and sought to restrict the freedoms of women, pushing anti-gender legislation and at times perpetuating violence.

But what, exactly, is so scary about gender? In their monumental first trade book, Butler examines, with characteristic rigour and verve, how “gender” became a convenient catch-all boogeyman—a phantasm—for myriad overlapping, and often contradicting, anxieties. From former colonial states in Africa and Asia classifying “gender” as a Western imposition to the Vatican’s warnings that “gender” erodes traditional values, Butler powerfully demonstrates how the fears surrounding “gender” are not only misguided and uninformed, but also sow the seeds for authoritarian control and the erosion of public discourse.

An urgent intervention, a bold call for a freer and more allied world, Who’s Afraid of Gender? is a landmark work of social and political analysis both timely and timeless—a book only Judith Butler could write.“Dense and convincing, Butler’s latest is itself an act of resistance and a necessary tool for those seeking a deeper understanding of gender identity’s nuances amidst political turmoil.” —ElleJUDITH BUTLER is Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. Their books have been translated into more than twenty-seven languages and they have published work in The Guardian, The New Statesman, The Nation, TIME, London Review of Books, and in a range of media throughout Europe, Latin America, Central and South Asia, and South Africa. They have also been interviewed in The New York Times, The New Yorker, and other venues in recent years. Although Butler is known for the performative theory of gender developed in the late 1980s, their work has more recently turned to ethics, public assembly, violence and non-violence, a defense of academic freedom, the importance of gender studies, LGBTQIA+ freedoms, and human rights. Butler’s voice has been sought after by social movements in Latin America (Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, and Mexico), Turkey, the Czech Republic, Hong Kong, Japan, and the Balkans as they seek to support gender studies and combat public censorship and criminalization of LGBTQIA+ expression. They are currently teaching at The New School university in New York.CA

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