Judith Butler: Meanwhile, I believe it is important to specify that he had not invented the "gender studies" (Gender Studies): the category of "genre" was in fact already in use since the sixties, in the United States, both within sociological research and in the anthropological one. In France, however, in particular under the influence of Lévi-Strauss, it was preferred to talk about "sexual differences". The so -called "gender theory" therefore only takes hold between the eighties and nineties, grafting itself at the intersection of the US anthropology and French structuralism.
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Le Nouvel Observateur:Theory often interpreted as a way to say that sexual differences do not exist ...
Judith Butler:We tend to believe that the definition of biological sex is self -evident; In reality, we know that it has always been at the center of numerous disputes within the scientific debate. Many ask me if I admit the existence of biological sex or not. Implicitly, it's as if they were saying to me: "We should be crazy to say that it doesn't exist!" And in fact it is true, biological sex exists, all right. It is neither a fiction, nor a lie, nor an illusion. What I answer, more simply, is that its definition requires a language and a framework of understanding - exactly like all the things that can be contested, in principle, and that in fact they are. We never entertain an immediate, transparent relationship, undeniable with biological sex. Instead, we always appeal to certain discursive orders, and it is precisely this aspect that interests me.
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Le Nouvel Observateur:The genres, however, are rules that you criticize.
Judith Butler:La teoria del genere non descrive infatti “la realtà” in cui viviamo, bensì le norme eterosessuali che pendono sulle nostre teste. Norme che ci vengono trasmesse quotidianamente dai media, dai film, così come dai nostri genitori, e noi le perpetuiamo nelle nostre fantasie e nelle nostre scelte di vita. Sono norme che prescrivono ciò che dobbiamo fare per essere un uomo o una donna. E noi dobbiamo incessantemente negoziare con esse. Alcuni tra noi sono appassionatamente attaccati a queste norme, e le incarnano con ardore; altri, invece, le rifiutano. Alcuni le detestano, ma si adeguano. Altri ancora traggono giovamento dall’ambiguità… Mi interessa dunque sondare gli scarti tra queste norme e i diversi modi di rispondervi.
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Le Nouvel Observateur:Lei ritiene che non esista una “natura maschile” e una “natura femminile”: che non sia possibile, in sostanza, dire “io, in quanto uomo”, o “io, in quanto donna”.
Judith Butler:A female nature can exist, but how can we know it? And how to define it? At the very moment when we begin to talk about it, we find ourselves having to argue on several occasions, to defend our point of view in the matter: this means that the genre is constantly subject to/subject to public discussion, it is not a natural evidence. Otherwise we would all see it. Then, of course: I can certainly take a word "as a woman". For example, I can say that "as a woman" I fight against the discrimination that weigh on women. And this has an indisputable political effect. But is this definition able to define what they are? Could I ever be subjected under the universal "woman" category? When I use this category for me, am I by chance speaking on behalf of all women?
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Le Nouvel Observateur:His works enroll in a certain vein of US thought that has as its object the victims of domination: women and homosexuals for gender studies, racial minorities for postcolonial studies, vulnerable subjects for ethical cure. The ruler is common to all: the "white heterosexual white male". Do your reflections turn to him?
Judith Butler:Like everyone, in reality, even the "white heterosexual white male" is repeatedly the subject of interpellations of various types to which it must be conformed. Living his heterosexuality, his "whiteness", his economic privileges, all this means modeling his own subjectivity based on the dominant canons, but also means fighting strenuously against other aspects of his personality: his homosexual part, the female one, the "black" one ... like all of us, even the heterosexual white male must negotiate, to exist. He also runs risks. Sometimes, in looking at the mirror he will perhaps see a woman ... and all his certainties will be shattered.
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Le Nouvel Observateur:Does such theory have a political purpose?
Judith Butler:My thought is aimed at those people whose genre or sexuality are at the center of conflicts of various types and I would like to help make the world a place to live a little more easily. Consider the case of bisexuality: the sexual guidelines regime makes the possibility of being able to love both a man and a woman arduous - it will be said that you have to choose between the two alternatives. Or we still consider the situation of the intersex, the sexually ambiguous or indeterminate people: some ask that this ambiguity is welcomed as such, without these people being forced to become women or men. How to help them? Germany has just introduced the "third kind" among the categories with which to administer the bodies. And it seems to me an attempt to make the world more liveable.
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Le Nouvel Observateur:Can you get rid of the genre? In fact, many people hope for the coming of a world in which biological sex is treated as a secondary variable, such as hair color or foot size ...
Judith Butler:As far as I'm concerned, I never thought about the need for a world without genres, a post-genere world, just as I have never thought of a post-racial world. In France, some representatives of the left have proposed to eliminate the word "race" from the Constitution. It is absurd! All this means contributing to the construction of a world without history, without culture, without psyche ... I don't think it is a successful operation that of pretending that colonization has never taken place and that racial cultural representations do not exist. In the same way, about the genre, we cannot ignore the sedimentation of sexual norms. We all need rules for the world to work: if anything we should understand which rules agree more.
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Le Nouvel Observateur:In western countries, the right and even extreme rights often use the theme of homosexuality to move an accusation of homophobia to Islam. In 2010, during the Gay Pride in Berlin, he refused an honoring by denouncing the dangerous xenophobic drift of the homosexual movement. Is this danger still current?
Judith Butler:In fact, there is a nationalist, right -wing way to defend the cause of homosexuals. But on the other hand, fortunately we also find gay and lesbians who fight both against homophobia and against extreme nationalism: these are people who have a project of social justice in their minds and who do not settle for claiming rights only for themselves, but also for all other minorities and above all for migrants. What annoyed me, in Berlin, was that the only group towards which the German associations moved the accusation of homophobia was that of Muslim immigrants. As if it were easy to be a gay teenager in German schools! As if the Church had ever supported the cause of homosexuals! Therefore, reducing homophobia to Europe to the Islamic threat is a way like any other to say: "We Europeans are that we are civilians, not like Muslims". It means building a scapegoat. Clearly the question is much more complex than that. Who has happened to go to Cairo or Ramallah will certainly have found very lively gay community.
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Le Nouvel Observateur: In the past, she criticized the French laws that prohibit the use of the veil or the burqa at school. But isn't it possible to striking gender discrimination examples?
Judith Butler:I frankly never fully understood the French fixation on the theme of the veil. The veil is certain a sign of submission, but it is also a sign of belonging to a given family, a religion, to a country of origin, to a community. Providing to a girl or a woman to bring the veil means to force her to cut her attachments to eradicate. It is good that it is the subject of political judgment whether the attachment to one's origins is a good thing or not, but it is certainly not the state that the task of translating this judgment into a coercive rule. Remove the veil, for a Muslim, should be a choice - just like the wedding for a couple of homosexual people. Nobody forces her to get married, but it is good that there is this possibility. It is a rule, but it is not mandatory.
