Willing the impossible: an interview with Judith Butler

In politics, sometimes the thing that will never happen actually starts to happen, preparing the ground for transformation. Judith Butler on the Israel/Palestine conflict and her recent book Parting Ways: Jewishness and the Critique of Zionism. 

Originally published at Transformation, a new section of openDemocracy. 

Judith Butler, Maxine Eliot Professor in Comparative Literature. 

By now, Judith Butler is used to improbable accusations. Among other things, she has been called a “useful idiot” for anti-Semites, a supporter of terrorism and – that old classic – a self-hating Jew.

These kinds of allegations are rarely levelled against post-structuralist philosophers. Yet the Maxine Eiliot professor in the Department of Comparative Literature at the University of California holds a special kind of renown within the academy. Her work on conflict, gender and the nation-state has dramatically transformed the way we think about society.

And unlike most other theorists, she also publically advocates for the delicate, deeply contentious standpoint of the anti-Zionist Jew. Because of this, Butler's every public move is scrutinised and dogged by censure. Her talk in February 2013 at Brooklyn College on the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement met a particularly vociferous backlash. The stress, Butler tells me, led her to cancel speaking for a season. Read more.

Questioning the imperative to be gendered

Despite women's progress, the norms that dictate that people should act along gender lines are stronger than ever. The rules of gender come first, humanity second. Genderqueers are transforming gender and challenging the constricting gender roles that limit everybody’s lives - I argue at openDemocracy.

A way too fabulous image of artist Del LaGrace Volcano

It's 1983. Controversial radical feminist Andrea Dworkin stands in front of a crowd of 500 men. In an act of now legendary feminist bravery, she challenges the men to a 'truce', a short, 24 hour period during which rape will stop. Dworkin tells her audience about the presence of rape in women's lives. She explains that every three minutes a woman is being raped, every 18 seconds a woman is being beaten.

“Stop your side for one day”, she says. “I dare you to try it. I demand that you try it.” Despite or perhaps because of the content of her speech, one man physically threatens her after the lecture.

Exactly 30 years later, everything and nothing has changed. Women are still waiting for the 24 hour truce. Two young men convicted of rape last week in Steubenville, Ohio, were sentenced to less than two years behind bars, whilst media coverage fixated on the damage to their reputations. The problems remain the same. But the ways in which feminists, queer and trans* activists and anti-gender campaigners oppose gender norms have multiplied indefinitely. Read more at openDemocracy. 

UK: the power of the women’s vote

Y. Cooper you are so great please be my Prime Minister

I have a top story up on openDemocracy today. It's about how the "women" half of the electorate holds the cards in the 2015 General Election. But will any of the so-called political parties be brave enough to do something about it? Click here: http://www.opendemocracy.net/5050/ray-filar/uk-power-of-women’s-vote

Why the gender pay gap matters

The real castration complex? 

I have a new post at openDemocracy. It's about the gender pay gap, but is also sexy and exciting: http://www.opendemocracy.net/ray-filar/why-gender-pay-gap-matters

Mad Women on the March

Alicia would probably be a better Prime Minister

Write up of Fawcett Society's 'Don't Turn Back Time March' - published at openDemocracy: http://www.opendemocracy.net/5050/ray-filar/mad-women-on-march

A thousand feminists, a million acts of violence

A piece about the UK Feminista 2011 conference and Violence Against Women and Girls. Published at openDemocracy: http://www.opendemocracy.net/5050/ray-filar/thousand-feminists-million-acts-of-violence