Feminism is for everyone except women
An online course at the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research is titled Who is Feminism For? The instructor is Sophie Lewis.
The seemingly uncontroversial idea that feminism is synonymous with “the women’s movement”—i.e., that feminism is “for women”—has in fact never been widely accepted, least of all among feminists. From the beginning, comradely holes have been poked in feminism’s myriad attempts to define itself, not to mention the word “woman.” For centuries, feminists have debated: what does feminism encompass? Who is feminism for?
No they haven’t. Not for centuries – the word hasn’t been current for that long, let alone the movement.
In this course, we’ll enter that debate, unpacking questions of feminism’s purpose, scope, and possible limits. Along the way, we will consider conflicting conceptions of feminism: that feminism is for “Woman”; that feminism is for colonized, lesbian and working women (and children); that feminism is for “everyone”; finally, that feminism is for “no one” (i.e., feminism is for abolishing itself).
Why will we do that? Because women. Women have to offer to step back, to close down, to yield the floor. Women have to apologize and give way, because that’s what being a woman means. Women are not allowed to put themselves first.
We will read selections from First- and Second Wave feminist classics—for example, Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Women and Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique—as well as contemporaneous and current Black radical, womanist and transfeminist criticisms and counterexamples.
We will read transfeminist criticisms, in other words we will pay attention to men playing at being women who tell us to sit down and listen to them.
Our investigation will move towards accounts of feminism that, while still placing its focus on “women,” define the constituency of feminist struggle as both more specific and much broader: for instance, anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist, environmental, and family-abolitionist.
Feminism must be about everything, because women are simply not important enough to keep feminism for themselves.
We will, equally, engage with articulations of feminism as a movement against structures of oppression that adversely affect everyone: man or woman, able-bodied or disabled, migrant, indigene, citizen, or settler, straight or queer, white, black, trans or cis, etc. Finally, we will consider texts that seek to transcend feminism altogether.
Then we will sweep what’s left of feminism up and drop it in the bin, and that will be the end of that. You’re welcome.
H/t Mostly Cloudy
Who is feminism for?
1. What a stupid, and insulting, question.
2. FEMINism is for women. “It’s right there in the name!” to coin a phrase.
If the idea never quite took hold, why does it seem uncontroversial to say feminism is for women? Answer: Sophie Lewis knows very well that that is the prevailing view.
I fully understand why many feminists say that men can’t be feminists, and I understand why they are suspicious of men who claim to be. It’s because we have a tendency to take over when we get involved, and when it comes to transactivists, they are living up to those expectations. What I don’t understand is how people can make declarations such as “MY feminism will be intersectional” as if people could buy a feminism and paint it any color that works best for them.
I think that moving Women’s studies over to Gender Studies has had an obvious and negative effect on people’s understanding of feminism, more of that “forced teaming” thing that has done so much damage to LGB activism. People really don’t know what feminism is anymore, and that is more detrimental than all of Rush Limbaugh’s years of making fun of feminazis. Many people don’t know the difference between female and femininity, thinking that femininity is what defines girls and women and that the actual body of a female human being is immaterial. And of course, this not a goal of feminism (in my understanding,) which is to break down the limitations of gender. Saying that a man who is feminine, or desires the feminine role, is actually a woman affirms that femininity is the defining property of a woman.
Never mind that men who desire this only act as simulatiions of their idea of femininity, and can have no idea what it actually is to be a woman.
Not content with trying to “abolish the family”, it seems Lewis is also trying to “abolish feminism”.
Don’t forgot Lewis had the Jacob Breslow book listed on her course. I wonder had she read it?
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