Really Deep Thoughts

Tonight I attended a panel discussion in which I could not get the space to phrase some simple questions. This is not to say that I feel the space was not allowed me, nor anyone else, but that there were, at all the wrong moments (for my little question(s)), many other people wishing to share commentary. And so it was that I was not able to ask my questions of the esteemed panel comprised of Phyllis Jackson, Judith Halberstam, Yong Soon Min, Amelia Jones, and Jennifer Doyle. While my questions remain, I now have- at least- the ability to better articulate the ruminatory peregrinations that my mind made during the volleyed commentary between panelists and audience members alike.

My primary question is: How can we (who label ourselves feminists, or more particularly, radical feminists) show everyone else that feminism is The Answer? I know, I know: the last two words of that last sentence will turn off many critical, educated postmodern theorists simply by implying a unified anything. I posit that we can sidestep that problem by allowing the radical, liberatory definition of feminism that I have learned from studying bell hooks which is, simply, that feminism is for Everybody (for the whole, unified entirety of humanity- Everybody!!) The definition of feminism in this case implies that it is a universal solution to a universal problem: oppression (which we may also call patriarchy). Liberation from oppression: feminism crumbling the walls of patriarchy. How do we show all of society that the feminist rejection of hierarchy and oppression, whether it be on the basis of race, sex, class, nationality, sexuality, physical ability, etc., is to everyone’s benefit? How do we show that even those amongst us who appear the most privileged have the benefit of a healthier society and a greater ability to express their true selves in a feminist context?

Professor Doyle referred to writing by Audre Lorde in which she exhorts those that are meeting, perhaps policy-making, to look around at each other and note who is missing. In any organization, who is missing that will clearly not be representing themselves? Who must we represent in our conversations? Professor Jackson made a great point: younger feminists were missing from the panel. I would add that older feminists (older than 60) were also missing from the panel. The question I really wanted to raise was . . . where were the men? This is, of course, tied to my conclusion that (obviously) mainstream society is not aware that feminism is for everybody, but more importantly: why didn’t anyone bring up the lack of 1) male-created feminist art in the WACK! exhibit and 2) the possible damage that may be done to feminism when it is represented in such a public way as simplistically “for, by, and about women” and 3) the panel’s lack of male members.

This concerns me because I work with young people, aged 12-18 years old. I teach them in the classroom, but I also work with them in an activist context, as the faculty advisor to the campus gay-straight alliance. Our GSA has explored the liberatory benefits to all people when we educate the campus on Transgender Day of Remembrance, National Coming Out Day, etc. The GSA members know that anti-racist work is directly tied to anti-homophobic work and anti-sexist work. We’re still working on class issues, but they are seeing the connections. I have used the word feminism once with the GSA students. When I did, the hint of snickers and sideways glances from some of the students indicated to me that for these children, feminism is the real “f” word. Feminism, to them, conjures what the anti-feminist backlash has intended for it to conjure: angry, white, queer women yelling about outdated concerns. I’m quite sure that this is as far as the young people who have not been radicalized into really learning about feminism go. They have not learned that feminism is an academic lens that deconstructs oppression of all sorts. They have not learned that, in the process of making women and men equal, all sexes benefit and that this equality-producing-universal-benefit is true in terms of all other (apparent) binaries (race, class, etc.) With my young students, I avoid using the word “feminism” just as I avoid using the word “anarchism.” The media messages regarding these terms are too strongly negative for me to approach them directly. Therefore, I have been challenged to articulate around the terms . . . which, in fact, is a very effective way to teach lasting knowledge.

These young people can make the intellectual leap from anti-homophobic work to anti-racist work. My impression is that they are not able to make the intellectual leap from feminism as the outdated and angry to feminism as the utterly relevant and inclusive. Professor Halberstam raised the question of the pieces in the exhibit that represent the female body in a selfless way- as object. She described them as disarming, as unexpectedly political. [I was not taking notes: this is me paraphrasing what she said (corrections welcome!)] She pointed out that these pieces used a patriarchal expectation of women as the medium for feminist expression. This was intriguing as Professor Halberstam described the pieces, but also intriguing to me because this is not how feminism is represented in mainstream media, which is where my students have learned anything they may know about feminism. What my students have learned is the image of reactionary feminism. Feminism that has had ENOUGH! of patriarchal, sexist bullshit and is ready to say something about it. What Professor Halberstam described were pieces that could be described as a kind of evocative feminism . . . by hooking a crochet needle (if you will) through one part sympathy and one part fury and one part identification and one part sadness, a feminist might be made. This is not the feminism we see in mainstream media.

In fact, this is not the kind of activism we ever see in the media, because it’s not the form that activism most often takes. For every anti-war or anti-Bush demonstration I go to, I have the choice of myriad contingents to join. All but one of them intend to hold many signs and to be vocal. The one group that I have never (yet) chosen to join is the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. While I am affiliated with the group, I have not walked with the group in silence at a large demonstration nor sat in quiet meditation off to one side. When making this decision, the question I always ask myself is: how long can I be angry? Is this the time to reject reaction and to NOT just do something, but to sit there? Until now, I’ve decided that my daily life is the peaceful activism of intentional community and cultivated compassion and that the demonstrations are the time to speak up and protest loudly against the white supremacist capitalist [imperialist] patriarchy that is literally in the way of every beautiful possibility on the planet. To be sure, there are ways to subvert that power structure (what I do when I find a place of compassion inside myself or when my community consenses on a decision after much discussion.) However, these subversions are lost in the onslaught of media images of gyrating hipsters listening to their iPods in a false reality of materialistic bliss. What I am protesting is that denial of a voice for our subversive collectives in an age when product consumption is identity and representation is reserved for the highest bidder. At the same time, I am living one alternative and sometimes documenting such.

This may be where the schizophrenic requirement to be at the center and also in the margins, as a few people mentioned during the panel / audience discussion, arises: a movement requires visibility and representation, but is at the same time so much more than what most people will ever see and could ever try to represent. Perhaps this is where our imperative, those who would call ourselves feminists, arises. We must represent ourselves. I consider myself a radical feminist, and my questions may serve to represent not only me, but perhaps other radical feminists: Where were the men tonight on the panel, and how can we get a widespread embrace of feminism as a present solution rather than as a historic event?