This recurring feature, curated by Pilgrim Soul, directs Harpy readers to important feminist thoughts and concepts as spoken by some of her favourite feminists on and off the web. The appraisal of the value of these snippets is, of course, entirely Pilgrim Soul’s, and does not necessarily reflect the views of other Harpies. Feel free to discuss in the comments here.
I’m going to try to revive this feature yet in this time of my Feminist Writer’s Block.
As you know, one of my bugbears lately about feminist discourse has been the seemingly endless focus on the self. I mean, look, obviously I don’t have an issue with people building up their own self-esteem, but I frequently feel like we’re stuck there, like we’re always talking about ourselves, and it’s starting to eat at me. (I think this is due in no small part to the fact that in Canada getting too big for your britches is a sort of cultural sin, to the extent we even have a culture, but I digress – I mention it only to admit a bias.) So I picked up my trusty bell hooks, and lo and behold, she articulates it nicely:
Over time the slogan “the personal is political” (which was first used to stress that woman’s everyday reality is informed and shaped by politics is necessarily political) became a means of encouraging women to think that the experience of discrimination, exploitation, or oppression automatically corresponded with an understanding of the ideological and institutional apparatus shaping one’s social status. As a consequence, many women who had not fully examined their situation never developed a sophisticated understanding of their political reality and its relationship to that of women as a collective group. They were encouraged to focus on giving voice to personal experience. Like revolutionaries working to change the lot of colonized people globally, it is necessary for feminist activists to stress that the ability to see and describe one’s own reality is a significant step in the long process of self-recover, but it is only a beginning. When women internalized the idea that describing their own woe was synonymous with developing a critical political consciousness, the progress of feminist movement was stalled. Starting from such incomplete perspectives, it is not surprising that theories and strategies were developed that were collectively inadequate and misguided. To correct this inadequacy in past analysis, we must now encourage women to develop a keen, comprehensive understanding of women’s political reality. Broader perspectives can only emerge as we examine both the personal that is political, the politics of society as a whole, and global revolutionary politics.
From Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center, 2nd Ed., pp. 26-27.
Now, I know that the standard point here is that often, what women are writing about, and what women are agitating about politically outside the sphere of their writing, are not always the same thing. And I’m not trying to claim that they are. But I think there’s a trap involved in spending a lot of time on the self that limits what you can do, politically, for other people.
I don’t know what the solution is here, because I’m loath to tell anyone to quit speaking, but on the other hand, I feel like I ought to be committed to breaking through that wall.
Thoughts?
Ooh this brings up many interesting points.
First of all, I agree that naming your own woe/oppression is only a first step–but usually the first step is the hardest step. I think that feminism is sort of a gradient–less like a hierarchy, and more like how the longer you leave the teabag in, the more the water steeps, the stronger your tea is. So I’m going to try to run with this analogy for a few minutes…
I know that for myself, naming the ways that my own personal experience relates to a wider, political reality was very difficult. I think I’ve only very recently become comfortable quickly and easily identifying intersections of my political ideology and my personal experience, and I’ve identified as a feminist for 25 years and went to the hotbed of feminist politics that is Wellesley College. So I feel like personally, (back to my analogy) I’m finally fully steeped in the tea of feminist thought–now ready to move on to feminist activism.
But if you’re not as steeped as I am, if you’ve been in the movement for less time, if your surroundings are such that you either have a lot of fighting to do to merely name the oppression you experience or are just constantly set back by economic, social, or personal barriers (like, if the water isn’t hot enough), then getting to the point that I’ve only recently reached is a heck of a lot harder. I’m still trying to get my mother to realize that her problems with my dad aren’t unique to her, but are part of a wider socio-political context; until she realizes this and can begin to see how the antifeminism of our culture works, she won’t be able to expand to other feminist activism outside herself.
I think that because the feminist movement is still considered a monolithic entity, it’s hard to have these various goals–I’m way past recognizing that shaving my legs is a drop in the bucket of the patriarchy, but when I was 18 it was far more important to me because I was kind of in the middle school of feminist development; now I’m probably in feminist college. (Sorry for the overuse and mix of metaphors.) So I think it’s hard to expect someone who is still working through that first step that hooks talks about to be ready and enthusiastic about moving well past it to a wider fight against oppression. The internet is such that someone like me–past feminist 101–is reading and taking part in this feminist web of blogs, and but I was doing that 8 years ago when I was still a fledgling feminist. There are people reading and participating here who have been fighting this fight for longer than I’ve been alive; similarly there are high schoolers who haven’t even been exposed to some of this stuff until they read it here for the first time. Obviously, we’re not all ready to take these steps outside of ourselves the way you clearly are, PilgrimSoul.
That said, I am ready to move outside of myself. But I don’t really know how. I don’t have a path to follow–there’s no general of the feminist army, all, “here’s how to fight the patriarchy kid, grab a hammer and follow me!” There’s just an endless sea of antifeminism, woman-hating rape culture that feels overwhelming when I think about how to stick myself into it to fuck it up a bit. I know some things I can do–I’m moving in a few months, and plan to volunteer at some feminist-friendly organization (probably planned parenthood or some other reproductive freedom org). I’ll be teaching soon, and will be doing feminism in the classroom. But I don’t know what else to do–I don’t know if I even can do anything else. I’m a poor grad student, working two jobs plus school and about to move to another state: I’m already using all my energy to fight the good fight, and I have few other resources to do activism.
PSoul, what do you think we can do to take more steps? I think it’s more than “quit speaking”–that doesn’t get anyone anywhere, even if you were the type of person to tell other women to shut up about themselves. I don’t think we have to stop speaking, navelgazing, even, to move beyond ourselves. I think we just need to do as well. I just don’t really know what to do.
Do you feel that now that you’re about to transition into writing full time (right?) you have a greater sense of responsibility for Doing than you have in the past? Personally, I’ve found that whenever there’s an internal, personal paradigm shift towards a deeper, more fully awakened consciousness of feminist issues, I’ve entered mini-crises where I feel like I have to GO FUCKING DO SOMETHING OH MY GOD RIGHT NOW EVERYTHING IS FUCKED UP AND I GOTTA FIX IT! And that can be paralyzing, at first.
I like this post. I’ve been thinking about some of these issues myself lately, so I appreciate the chance to hear from other smarty pants ladies in this community about it.
(PS. Sorry this is so long.)
On the one hand I feel sort of like you, Cimorene, I keep looking around and going, “I know that now there should be something else, but… what?” I mean, I do do some concrete work, and while I’m not exactly sure what’s gonna happen once I up and move North and out of range of my current law license, that is likely to continue, the concrete work.
Mostly what I think about in this context, a lot of the time, is, in fact, shutting up, and also actively opening spaces up for other kinds of women, spending more time on their concerns than on my “own.” Right now this is pretty easy, because I can barely form coherent sentences due to the sort of psychological limbo I’m currently in! So it’s harder for me to set my navel-gazing to pixels. Much easier for me to just quote other people. Or post their YouTube videos!
Nonetheless, it’s sort of tough, because while I don’t want to open up the deadly abyss of “Feminister Than Thou”-type discussions, I find myself getting irritated with people who are still taking the first step you describe, Cimorene. I mean, sure, yes, people need to have their consciousness raised, but – and I see this in all sorts of venues – I’m not sure why but it seems like so many people get to a certain point with their analysis and just… stop. I mean, part of it is the human tendency to enjoy the navel-gaze, which is something I definitely do myself, at times, so I get it.
But I think that it’s this self-obsession which really feeds a lot of the divisions within feminist/social justice-y circles, because the fact is, if you’re just sitting there getting down into your own roots, and someone yanks you up by the collar and says, “hey, but look at what’s happening to me,” it’s hard not to give into your first impulse, which is “these are my problems and I’m entitled to express my pain!”
One example of this I’ve been thinking a lot about lately is this whole body image issue and the intersection it has with thin privilege, where it sort of feels to me – and this is a bit general but bear with me – like many thin women’s investment in the body-positivity movement only extends to themselves. I mean, sure, they might not like throw tomatoes at fat people or anything, or even tease them, and they’ll leave a supportive internet comment or two. But ask them to abandon, say, the fashion industry as it currently exists at the high end, because as it currently exists it demonizes fat bodies, and these women are running for the exits.
Part of this also goes back to an issue I have with the whole small personal acts of rebellion or “teaspoons” doctrine I see which is quite popular. I mean, I understand that no one has the energy to do everything all of the time, but if you tell people at the outset that their very small acts are enough, then the vast majority of them are going to stay there.
And like it or not… individual consciousness-raising? Is a tiny, tiny act. A really, really small one. Telling one’s truth? Also miniscule.
All that to say I can’t really answer your questions.
I think the take-the-first-step-and-stop business is more than just the joy of navelgazing, I think it’s also the self-satisfaction and vague anti-intellectual sentiment that defines so much of American culture. (I am, clearly, talking just about America here; my experience with non-American feminism is basically, like, reading theory–I don’t have a lot of first hand experience.) Saying, “Racism is bad, and I have white privilege,” and then feeling smug about not just members of the KKK but also un-enlightened individuals who don’t know about privilege, coupled with what I get all the time, which is “what are you, a grad student or something?” said, of course, with the snidest of tones. Getting told that I’ll change my tune about all these things when I get out into the “real world,” as if school is a fictional world. Thinking is hard, and so is mining your own issues to get a critical look at what you’re doing.
The one thing that this sort of “Uh…now what?” problem leads to, I think, is the rabid tearing down of each other. You wrote a few weeks ago about the Tina Fey business, and I’ve been thinking about it a lot with the recent Amanda Palmer stuff–when you feel frustrated because you want to push more, to continue to do more feminism, but have no idea where to go with it, I feel like there’s this energy that sits and sits and waits for something to pounce on. I know I do it–welcome to why I read Jezebel, at this point. Yelling at a rape apologist feels like doing something, and I want to do something. But all I know to do is use words, so I use them in this vaguely–not violent, exactly, as much as precise smackdownage that sometimes feels too close to violence for my own comfort. And yet it’s addictive to have that release, to feel like I have at least some vaguely constructive outlet for my frustration and annoyance at my own stasis.
I don’t want to defend Amanda Palmer’s recent spate of ill-advised behavior, I found the recent outcry over her ableism and cavalier attitude towards the Klan really interesting. It got me thinking about walking this line between condemnation and calling ourselves on our shit. Certainly Palmer’s behavior needed to be called out; it just strikes me as problematic for people to say that they’re going to stop listening to her CDs, stop buying her shit, start hating her, when I feel fairly certain that the Venn diagram of “people who now hate Amanda Palmer” and “people who buy music from, say, Jay-Z” has at least some overlap. If we stopped listening to anyone who did anything offensive, who, besides Ani DiFranco, could we listen to? This isn’t to say that the outrage over Palmer isn’t justified as much as that outrage seemed more intense because Palmer (and Fey) identified, or was identified, as a feminist. The willingness with which we tear down our own worries me. And of course it’s more than just this energy of wanting to do something–the pain of “one of our own” offending is more than that of someone we expect to offend us. But I mean, I was more annoyed at Fey’s use of the word “whore” than I am at anything I watch on House each week, even though the shit on House is arguably more offensive. But wanting to have some sort of unsullied movement seems to have something, at least, to do with how at a certain point, we’re looking to do something else.
I am not sure how I got on this topic; I’ve spent the day cleaning and gardening so I thin that I may have had a more clear point at the beginning of this comment field than at the end. And so, fin.
Pilgrim Soul, you’ve echoed some thoughts I’ve been having lately about feminism.
I think Cimorene was on to something with,
“I think the take-the-first-step-and-stop business is more than just the joy of navelgazing, I think it’s also the self-satisfaction and vague anti-intellectual sentiment that defines so much of American culture.”
From where I’m standing, there’s a lot of truth in that. I’m actually standing in China right now (I’m from Chicago) where I’ve been living for nearly two years now. I don’t know. . . something about physical distance from American culture has given me the chance to think more critically about it then I might have been able to actually living in it.
So my contact with American culture has been via the Internet and a lot of what I’ve read on feminist blogs and elsewhere is this penchant to leave personal anecdotes as proof of a particular point. That “this is what I think, NUFF SAID” mentality. Not that sharing your story and talking about your personal experiences isn’t worthwhile, but there’s a tendency to turn an issue that’s not about you into something that is about you. (I’m thinking specifically about the backlash on Jezebel a few weeks back to Renee Martin’s article about why she’s a womanist).
Also, I wonder if part of this problem, this stalling after that first step that Cimorene mentioned, occurs because there’s a “just be more aware” thread running throughout a lot of the discourse amongst young feminists. Like, understand why you want to wear make-up and high heels and short skirts. Because as long as you realize that those items are created by the patriarchy to make you look young and sexy for the boys, then it’s OK if you do it. AS LONG AS YOU’RE AWARE.
Now, I don’t mean to say exactly no one should where make-up, but so what if we know how tied up with the patriarchy [insert whatever] is. Does awareness really have of an impact if we’re all still participating in that patriarchal behavior?
I think it’s important to continue talking and educating, but there should be something more with it, a “this is what you can DO now.” Maybe by doing, by participating, whether it’s working at a women’s shelter or going to a march, that could at least start to get people to see beyond their own navel.
I think I get what you are talking about – that if we’re all talking about our experiences, finding some critical way through them, hopefully engaging with and especially listening to feminists outside of our usual crowd along the way, and engaging in feminist activity – why isn’t the world changing?