Content area
Full text
A provocative study into a controversial subject is let down by a dense, academic style, says Deborah D. Rogers
The Biopolitics of Gender
By Jemima Repo
Oxford University Press, 232pp, £19.99
ISBN 9780190691516
Paperpack published 27 July 2017
Gender is having a moment. And for good reason. Although once the exclusive purview of scholars who distinguished between (constructed) gender and (biological) sex, gender has become a topic of popular discussion. Think of the television series
I am Cait
or
Transparent
.
The issue of gender has become volatile partially due to the "bathroom wars" over whether transgender people have the right to use the bathroom of the gender they identify with rather than that of the sex assigned on their birth certificates. In this context, it is revolutionary that Jemima Repo opposes using the term "gender". Adopting and expanding Michel Foucault's biopolitical genealogy...