Gender troubles: Is “gender ideology” really a danger to feminism?
“In November 2017 a group of protesters in São Paulo burnt an effigy of acclaimed gender theorist Judith Butler outside an academic conference she was attending, while waving crucifixes and national flags and shouting “burn the witch!” One sign read, “Judith Butler’s dream is to destroy your children’s sexual identity.” Butler has been just one of many visible targets of “transnational anti-gender campaigns” framing women’s, reproductive and LGBTIQ+ rights as threats to societal norms and national identity.
[…] This debate highlights the evolution of a peculiar divide in feminist circles: a schism between gender theorists, such as Butler, and self-identified “gender-critical” feminists who reaffirm an immutable biological basis for the category of female. This debate has created an impasse: how do we determine who is an authority on feminist issues, and who is included and excluded in gender-focused policy matters?”
Hannah McCann & Lucy Nicholas, Inside Story, 18 February 2019