Butler's analysis of gender and the evolving discourse around the term was thought-provoking and interesting, but there were parts that I struggled to get through. Their writing is very academic and it took me a long time to ensure I understood their points. I am glad I read this book but I definitely need to re-read it to process everything fully.

Judith Butler delivers a fascinating discussion of the ways in which "gender ideology" as a term (or rather ~discourse~) has become at once empty of meaning and loaded due to the anti-gender ideology movement. As is to be expected from Butler's work, this leans more into the academic and can be a bit of a dense read, but there is humour and humanity to be found beneath the critical theory. I mostly used this as my commuting book, so I was shocked at how easily immersed I was while dipping in and out (and almost missing my stops on too many times ...).

Overall, reading Who's Afraid of Gender? by Judith Butler closed the gaps in my knowledge of gender issues. Specifically, Butler provided the history to the development of the anti-gender movement, showing how the seeds had been planted by various organizations decades ago. It depicted how deeply entangled the far Right, the Vatican and conservative Evangelicalism are and how these groups are using anti-gender issues to distract from more pressing social issues.

The writing is extremely academic and at times, I found myself to be disengaged from the writing. However, I did appreciate the information and arguments presented.

Butler’s writing is unique, it goes deep, and it makes sense. It gives arguments to use when facing those real-life situations where you are just too baffled to be able to come up with what to say.
This time the author goes deep into exploring gender. I am one of those who never understood why “gender” is used as a fearmongering word, and this book has given me an insight on how to actually deal with those who throw this word around expecting it to work as a scare tactic.

While I have enjoyed Butler's writing historically and I really enjoyed their analysis, I found their arguments here to not be as well developed as the rest of their catalogue. I totally agree with the book in concept, and I did enjoy, but I just think the writing itself let me down a bit.