Real Feminists and Fake Feminists

Abstract

In this chapter, I will explore the themes of intellectual honesty, sincerity, and authenticity as they have been invoked by critics, both feminist and nonfeminist, of the poststructuralist turn in some regions of academic feminism and, in particular, the work of Judith Butler. At the same time as she is regularly invited to give keynote addresses as well as to write in the mainstream press, for at least the last 15 years, Butler has been the recipient of often quite forceful and derisive criticism. She has been censured for her affinities with particular strands of continental philosophy (especially, among feminist critics, her intellectual kinship with male poststructuralists); for her penchant for abstract theory that allegedly distances her work from practical issues and political activism; for her purported depoliticization of feminism (and other sorts of activism) through a continuing destabilization of political categories, notably the sex/gender distinction and male/female binary; and for what is taken to be her obscure, elitist prose. Indeed, on many of these counts (particularly, but not only, among feminists), Butler may be seen as paradigmatic of these trends in the humanities. As Clare Hemmings has recently argued, Butler has come to be understood as shorthand for Anglophone, “French”-informed, high-theory feminism in the academic imaginary.¹