As a netizen, I mainly live on YouTube and indulge in current affairs, video archives, handcraft channels, and, of course, some music. YouTube knows my political leaning, and Novara Media, a UK-based alternative media outlet, appeared on my account sometime last year.
This is how I came to know and especially follow journalists Ash Sarkar and Aaron Bastani’s interviews, which I enjoy. One day, YouTube notified me that Ash, a contributing editor at Novara Media, would meet American philosopher, author, and academic Judith Butler.
I planned not to miss it because, in April 2020, I was one among the other two discussants of her then paper, which I believe to be part of Butler’s new book, Who’s Afraid of Gender. It would be unfair not to testify that I expected a refreshing and overwhelming joy after their discussion.
Their context would mainly be the USA and the UK, places physically far away from my daily existence but intricately weaving my intellectual tapestry. As a woman somewhere in Africa, I wanted to learn and see what implications Butler’s outlook would have on my understanding of gender.
Who is a woman?
At the meeting, Sarkar asks Butler about twelve main questions. The questions are primarily about, of course, womanhood, gender and transphobia. What are these concepts, and how do we approach them? The first question is, who is a woman?
Butler never defines a woman throughout the conversation. She keeps leaping between the possibilities of understanding a woman. She suggests that we deploy a multilingual framework so that we see how women have been understood in different languages, histories, and globally.
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There may be feminists who have left the question open because they are both dissatisfied with the operating definitions and the excluding potential of attempting to answer what makes a woman.
Butler defined feminism as the pursuit of understanding the nuances of womanhood to address women’s historical disadvantages. It may have come from a good place, but if a top-ranked gender and sexuality scholar refuses to define a woman, is it not a regression from the time American women’s rights activist Sojourner Truth had to remind white women she was a woman, too?
At this point, I am questioning the credibility of UC Berkeley’s decision to employ someone who cannot even state the concept of their supposed expertise. Butler is said to be a philosopher. I thought philosophers painstakingly explained complex concepts, not avoiding them altogether.
On transphobia
Then Sarkar asks why transphobia is prevalent, especially against transwomen? Butler, who doesn’t know who a woman is, responds that it is because we fear and do not understand who trans people are. She explains they are people not happy in the bodies they were assigned to live in and, therefore, undergoing treatment would afford them the life they want.
Other than the Euro-American billionaires, monarchies and top-tier politicians, who among us can live the life they want? We are all repressed so that we reproduce society to sustain capitalism. Don’t working mothers also wish to take time off from their work and their children? Don’t wage labourers want regular working hours and retirement benefits?
Before you come for me with ‘what-about-ism,’ I am mentioning a mother and a labourer because I understand these conditions. I am not conversant enough about transpeople’s histories to refer to their struggles. I just wanted to drive a point home about repression.
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One assumption I have is that Butler is a Trojan Horse for liberalism, which convinces individuals that they can extract resources from society for individual needs or desires and still demand society not question their actions.
My other assumption is that the pursuit of happiness is something an American would say. While liberation is something the rest of us seek, Americans have it in their constitution: the pursuit of happiness, and advertising doesn’t help their case. Maybe we should treat Butler with sympathy; this must have been drilled into their ears all their lives.
Addressing prison conditions
Speaking of America, when Sarkar asks Butler about prison conditions for transwomen, I sat down and sighed. Butler says prison conditions are generally not safe for women, and they are worse for transwomen. Therefore, prisons should be made safer.
Who is pointing a gun at Butler so that she cannot categorically denounce the prison system? Why would a feminist call for amelioration and not the abolition of a pathological institution of the modern colonial state, while it is an open secret that American prisons are labour camps where a lot of abducted men of colour reside?
Until then, I was still hopeful that I may hear something I can relate to. What followed felt like some imaginary chitchat Condoleezza Rice and Margaret Thatcher would enjoy at a soiree. Sarkar raises the issue of the rise of nationalist purists amidst falling birth rates, which means that sometimes the population would not be able to support the economy.
I would give Sarkar the benefit of the doubt because there is something called feedback in the study of history. You hear something over and over, and even if the story contradicts your interests or beliefs, you reproduce it because it is taken for granted to be the truth.
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Butler’s response is even more shocking. They support migration because, compared to the detention conditions, it is better for the migrants to be allowed into Euro-America so that their labour can contribute to building the economy. Why does this sound like a conversation between an industrialist and a financial trader?
Our common enemy
As if that was not enough, when Sarkar enquired about what to do about gender ideology, fascism, and climate catastrophe, Butler named our common enemy: the right wing. To move forward, Butler suggests we adopt a counter-imaginary unity in which we learn from each other’s experiences.
As a woman somewhere in Africa, this is where I drew the line and intellectually exorcised Judy Butler. The right-wing is working people, scared people, traumatised people, and this is their response: hate, fear-mongering and even violence.
Like many of us, the so-called right-wing are everyday people who do not entirely control how societies are reproduced. They do not afford the same courtesy to the right as they do to transphobic tendencies among the left. Our common enemies, I thought, were capitalism, imperialism and colonialism.
Our enemy is Bill Gates’s wife, Melinda, posing as a tired woman while Bill and Melinda Gates continue with their colonising agenda across the globe. Melinda left Bill’s bedside but not his money and vision. Bill and Melinda Gates are our enemies. At this point, I almost felt Butler led me on. But what was I expecting from someone who mentions neoliberalism in passing close to the end?
Unlike Butler’s meandering writing, this is only an hour-long meeting. I endured it like a reality check. I needed to confirm my biases and continue exorcising the domineering, belittling, and insulting power of capitalism, colonialism, and imperialism that Judith Butler carries.
Other than being thoroughly disappointed, now I know Judith Butler is afraid of gender and other things, too. I shouldn’t have taken her seriously. Still, Judith Butler can at least answer this one question from me: You fear gender, yes, but what do you think about them intellectually?
Diana Kamara identifies herself as a daughter of Adria Kokulengya. She can be reached at dianakkamara@gmail.com. The opinions expressed here are the writer’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of The Chanzo. If you are interested in publishing in this space, please contact our editors at editor@thechanzo.com.
