Abstract

This article is a review essay of Judith Butler’s latest book, Who’s Afraid of Gender? The book considers the anti-gender ideology movement and rising right-wing authoritarianism with which it is associated. In review considers the following key themes that Butler disusses: recognition of a contemporary crisis; the creation of a moral panic around gender; the complicity of ‘gender critical’ feminism in enabling anti-feminist totalitarian politics; the disingenuous figuration of ‘censorship’ as a weapon deployed by the forces of ‘gender ideology’; and the relationship of the phantom to colonialism and race.