Who's Afraid of Gender?

Written by Judith Butler

Narrated by Judith Butler

This program is read by the author.

Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2024 by Time, Elle, Kirkus, Literary Hub, 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 audiobook, 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—an audiobook whose verve and rigor only they could deliver.

A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Audio
• Release date: Mar 19, 2024
• ISBN: 9781250332462

Judith Butler

Judith Butler ocupa la cátedra Maxine Elliot de Retórica, Literatura comparada y Estudios de la Mujer en la Universidad de California (Berkeley), además de una de las figuras relevantes de la filosofía postestructuralista. Es, sin duda, una de las filósofas más influyentes e inspiradoras de teorías y conceptos en el campo de los estudios de género. Su libro El género en disputa (Paidós, 2023) está considerado la obra fundadora de la teoría queer y es ya un clásico dentro de la teoría feminista. Butler sobrepasa el género y afirma que el sexo y la sexualidad lejos de ser algo natural son, como el género, algo construido. Llega a esta conclusión basándose en las teorías de Freud y sobre todo de Lacan Ha publicado también, entre otros títulos, Mecanismos psíquicos del poder (1997), Excitable Speech (1997) y El grito de Antígona (2000).

Reviews for Who's Afraid of Gender?

[henry · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Accessible work of critical theory by Judith Butler. In the Trump fascist era, this book provides interesting insight into how gender became the haunting force that right wing politicians use as a scape goat. But if we want to liberate ourselves truly, we should see beyond gender and the categories they do that keep us all imprisoned by each other.

[António Birne Staats · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Butler engages with gender in a way that makes us question not only ourselves but also our culture, our system, and our history. The intersectionality of gender is profound and worth exploring. However, it is not intuitive, and this book will offer to others, such as myself, the platform from which an infrastructure of questioning will rise.