What People Don’t Understand About the Gender Theorist Who Remade Our World

[Jessica_Rose]

What People Don't Understand About the Gender Theorist Who Remade Our World

https://www.msn.com/en-us/entertainment/news/what-people-don-t-understand-about-the-gender-theorist-who-remade-our-world/ar-BB1kcf3o?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=271986b3228e4b438e57ced9078d8d2a&ei=100

Story by Dana Stevens (19 March 2024)

When Judith Butler was serving as my dissertation adviser at the University of California in the late 1990s, they did not yet go by "they." No one in my circle did, and at the time that circle included one of the most forward-thinking spaces in the world when it came to matters of gender: Butler's dissertation seminar, which met every two weeks so that each of their advisees could present work in progress to the group.

Whether out of interest in the project or just as an act of mercy, Judith agreed to be my adviser. As I would learn over the next few years, they were not only a committed educator but a savvy academic ally, the exact opposite of that professor who had hung me out to dry after my exams. Butler understood the adviser's role as a crucial cog in the bureaucracy, helping their advisees land fellowships, degrees, and eventually jobs. To that end, they offered me the kindness of welcoming me into their dissertation group, a room full of scarily brilliant (and a few just plain scary) people. Butler's work by then extended well beyond the subject matter that had made Gender Trouble so influential and controversial when it came out in 1990...