Companion to Feminist Studies 9781119314943, 9781119314950, 9781119314929, 9781119314967

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COMPANION TO FEMINIST STUDIES

Companion to Feminist Studies EDITED BY

NANCY A. NAPLES

This edition first published 2021 © 2021 John Wiley & Sons Ltd All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by law. Advice on how to obtain permission to reuse material from this title is available at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions. The right of Nancy A. Naples to be identified as the author of the editorial material in this work has been asserted in accordance with law. Registered Offices John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, USA John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK Editorial Office 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK For details of our global editorial offices, customer services, and more information about Wiley products visit us at www.wiley.com. Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats and by print‐on‐demand. Some content that appears in standard print versions of this book may not be available in other formats. Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty While the publisher and authors have used their best efforts in preparing this work, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this work and specifically disclaim all warranties, including without limitation any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives, written sales materials or promotional statements for this work. The fact that an organization, website, or product is referred to in this work as a citation and/or potential source of further information does not mean that the publisher and authors endorse the information or services the organization, website, or product may provide or recommendations it may make. This work is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a specialist where appropriate. Further, readers should be aware that websites listed in this work may have changed or disappeared between when this work was written and when it is read. Neither the publisher nor authors shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages. Library of Congress Cataloging‐in‐Publication Data Name: Naples, Nancy A., editor. Title: Companion to feminist studies / edited by Nancy A. Naples. Description: Hoboken, NJ: Wiley‐Blackwell, 2021. | Includes index. Identifiers: LCCN 2020026504 (print) | LCCN 2020026505 (ebook) | ISBN   9781119314943 (cloth) | ISBN 9781119314950 (adobe pdf) | ISBN   9781119314929 (epub) Subjects: LCSH: Women’s studies. Classification: LCC HQ1180.C656 2021 (print) | LCC HQ1180 (ebook) | DDC  305.4–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020026504 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020026505 Cover Design: Wiley Cover Image: © Liyao Xie/Getty Images Set in 10/12.5pt Sabon by SPi Global, Pondicherry, India 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Contents

About the Editors vii Notes on Contributors ix Acknowledgments xvii PART I

INTRODUCTION 1 Feminist Studies as a Site of Critical Knowledge Production and Praxis Nancy A. Naples

PART II

FEMINIST EPISTEMOLOGY AND  ITS DISCONTENTS

1 3

13

2 Biological Determinism and Essentialism Sheila Greene

15

3 Marxist and Socialist Feminisms Elisabeth Armstrong

35

4 Radical and Cultural Feminisms Lauren Rosewarne

53

5 Materialist Feminisms Bronwyn Winter

73

6 Black Feminism and Womanism Rose M. Brewer

91

7 Intersectionality as Critical Inquiry Patricia Hill Collins

105

8 Queer, Trans, and Transfeminist Theories Ute Bettray

129

9 Postcolonial Feminism Umme Al‐wazedi

155

vi Contents 10 Feminisms in Comparative Perspective Anne Sisson Runyan, Rina Verma Williams, Anwar Mhajne and Crystal Whetstone

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11  Transnational Feminisms Gul Aldikacti Marshall

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PART III METHODOLOGICAL DIVERSITY

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12  Feminist Methodologies Cynthia Deitch

213

13  Feminist Empiricism Gina Marie Longo

231

14  Feminist Science Studies Samantha M. Archer and A.E. Kohler

247

15  Feminist Economics Valeria Esquivel

265

16  Feminist Ethnography Dána‐Ain Davis and Christa Craven

281

17  Feminist Historiography Ariella Rotramel

301

18  Feminism, Gender, and, Popular Culture Diane Grossman

321

PART IV FEMINIST PRAXIS

339

19  Feminist Pedagogy Danielle M. Currier

341

20  Feminist Praxis and Globalization Manisha Desai and Koyel Khan

357

21  Feminism and Somatic Praxis Gill Wright Miller

373

22  Feminist Health Movements Meredeth Turshen and Marci Berger

393

23  Feminist Praxis and Gender Violence Claire M. Renzetti and Margaret Campe

411

24  Feminist Political Ecologies in Latin American Context Astrid Ulloa

427

25  Feminism and Social Justice Movements Molli Spalter

447

Index 469

About the Editors

Editor Nancy A. Naples is Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. She served as president of the Society for the Study of Social Problems, Sociologists for Women in Society, and the Eastern Sociological Society. Her publications include over fifty book chapters and journal articles in a wide array of interdisciplinary and sociological journals. She is author of Grassroots Warriors: Community Work, Activist Mothering and the War on Poverty and Feminism and Method: Ethnography, Discourse Analysis, and Activist Research. She is editor of Community Activism and Feminist Politics: Organizing Across Race, Class, and Gender; and co‐editor of Border Politics: Social Movements, Collective Identities, and Globalization; Teaching Feminist Praxis; Women’s Activism and Globalization: Linking Local Struggles and Transnational Politics; and The Sexuality of Migration: Border Crossings and Mexican Immigrant Men by Lionel Cantú. She is series editor for Praxis: Theory in Action published by SUNY Press and Editor‐in‐Chief of the five‐volume Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Gender and Sexuality Studies. Her awards include the 2015 Jessie Bernard Award for distinguished contributions to women and gender studies from the American Sociological Association and the 2014 Lee Founders Award from the Society for the Study of Social Problems. She also received the 2010 Distinguished Feminist Lecturer Award and the 2011 Feminist Mentor Award from Sociologists for Women in Society, and the University of Connecticut’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences’ 2011 Excellence in Research for the Social Sciences and Alumni Association’s 2008 Faculty Excellence Award in Research. She is currently working on a book on sexual citizenship.

Managing Editor Cristina Khan is a lecturer in the Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Stony Brook University. She received her PhD from the Department of Sociology at the University of Connecticut in 2019 with a certificate in Feminist

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About the Editors

Studies. Her specializations include race, ethnicity, embodiment, sexualities, and qualitative research methods. Her dissertation, “Undoing Borders: A Feminist Exploration of Erotic Performance by Lesbian Women of Color,” draws on two years of ethnographic fieldwork and 40 in‐depth interviews with a collective of lesbian exotic dancers, uncovering how race and sexuality, together, shape women’s potential to enact agency over the conditions of their participation in exotic dance. Her research on “Constructing Eroticized Latinidad: Negotiating Profitability in the Stripping Industry” has been published in Gender & Society. She is also co‐author of Race and Sexuality (Polity Press, 2018). Her research experience includes serving as a consultant on diversity and equity initiatives at the New York City Department of Education, and as a research assistant on cochlear implant usage and experience amongst families, under the supervision of Dr. Laura Mauldin.

Notes on Contributors

Umme Al‐wazedi is Associate Professor of Postcolonial Literature in the Department of English and Division Chair of Language and Literature at Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois. Her research interest encompasses women writers of South Asia and the South Asian Diaspora, postcolonial and Muslim feminism, and postcolonial disability studies. She has published in South Asian Review and South Asian History and Culture and has also written several book chapters. She coedited a special issue of South Asian Review titled “Nation and Its Discontents” and a book titled Postcolonial Urban Outcasts: City Margins in South Asian Literature (Routledge, 2017) with Madhurima Chakraborty of Columbia College Chicago, Illinois. Samantha M. Archer received her BA and MA from The University of Texas at Austin and is currently a PhD student in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Connecticut. She is a biocultural anthropologist and anthropological geneticist whose work merges the study of contemporary and ancient human DNA with critical queer, feminist, indigenous, and Black science studies. Her article, “Bisexual Science,” cowritten with lab mate and colleague Dr. Rick W.A. Smith, was published in American Anthropologist (2019). Elisabeth Armstrong is a Professor in the Program for the Study of Women and Gender at Smith College. She has published two books, Gender and Neoliberalism: The All India Democratic Women’s Association and Globalization Politics (Routledge, 2013) and The Retreat from Organization: US Feminism Reconceptualized (SUNY Press, 2002). Marci Berger, PhD, is an Assistant Professor at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. Her areas of interest include public health, health policy, public policy and sexual and reproductive health policy. Ute Bettray currently teaches (trans)feminisms and (trans)gender studies at Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany where is preparing to write her Habilitation titled Literary Female Sexology, 1849–1899. She is also currently preparing an article

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titled “A Transfeminist Reading of Hannah Arendt’s The Life of the Mind (1978) via Newest German Literature.” Prior to teaching at Humboldt University, Dr. Bettray held an appointment as Visiting Assistant Professor of German at Lafayette College where she also taught courses such as Introduction to Women’s and Gender Studies and Transfeminisms in the Women’s and Gender Studies Program. Before coming to Lafayette College, Dr. Bettray had worked as a Visiting Assistant Professor of German and Gender Studies at Swarthmore College. She is in the process of publishing two book manuscripts located at the intersections of transfeminism and transnational transfeminism and German Studies. These manuscripts are entitled When Black Feminist Thought Meets Transfeminism: The Works of Angela Y. Davis and Audre Lorde, and Toward a Transnational Transfeminism via Germanic Sexology and Psychoanalysis. Among her latest publications is a book chapter titled “Making the Case for Transfeminism: The Activist Philosophies of CeCe McDonald and Angela Davis” included in an anthology on Embodied Difference (Jamie A. Thomas and Christina Jackson [eds.], Lexington Books, 2018). Rose M. Brewer, PhD, is an activist scholar and The Morse Alumni Distinguished Teaching Professor and past chairperson of the Department of African American & African Studies, University of Minnesota‐Twin Cities. Brewer publishes extensively on Black feminism, political economy, social movements, race, class, gender, and social change. Her current book project examines the impact of late capitalism on Black life in the US. Brewer has held the Sociologist for Women in Society Feminist Lectureship in Social Change, a Wiepking Distinguished Visiting Professorship at Miami University of Ohio, and was a 2013 Visiting Scholar in the Social Justice Initiative, University of Illinois‐Chicago. Margaret Campe, PhD, is the Director of the Jean Nidetch Women’s Center at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Her research focuses on college campus sexual assault and the experiences of marginalized populations, domestic violence programming, and research methods. Margaret published an article in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence, entitled, “College Campus Sexual Assault and Students with Disabilities” (2019) and is editing a forthcoming textbook, Substance Use and Family Violence, with coeditors Dr. Carrie Oser, and Dr. Kathi Harp (Cognella, anticipated 2021). She is also coauthoring a chapter examining mixed methods and quasi‐experimental designs, for The Routledge Handbook of Domestic Violence and Abuse, with Dr. Diane Follingstad and Dr. Claire M. Renzetti. Patricia Hill Collins is a social theorist whose research and scholarship have examined issues of race, gender, social class, sexuality and/or nation. Her first book, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment (Routledge), published in 1990, with a revised tenth anniversary edition published in 2000, won the Jessie Bernard Award of the American Sociological Association (ASA) for significant scholarship in gender, and the C. Wright Mills Award of the Society for the Study of Social Problems. Her second book, Race, Class, and Gender 10th ed. (2019), edited with Margaret Andersen, is widely used in undergraduate classrooms in over 200 colleges and universities. Black Sexual Politics: African Americans, Gender, and the New Racism (Routledge, 2004) received ASA’s 2007 Distinguished Publication Award. Her other books include Fighting Words: Black Women and the Search for Justice (University of Minnesota Press, 1998); From Black Power to Hip



Notes on Contributors

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Hop: Racism, Nationalism, and Feminism (Temple University Press, 2005); Another Kind of Public Education: Race, Schools, the Media and Democratic Possibilities (Beacon Press, 2009); the Handbook of Race and Ethnic Studies, edited with John Solomos (Sage, 2010); and On Intellectual Activism (Temple University Press, 2012). In 2008, she became the 100th President of the American Sociological Association, the first African‐American woman elected to this position in the organization’s 104‐year history. Professor Collins also holds an appointment as the Charles Phelps Taft Emeritus Professor of Sociology within the Department of African American Studies at the University of Cincinnati. Christa Craven is the Dean for Faculty Development and a Professor of Anthropology and Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies (Chair from 2012 to 2017) at the College of Wooster. Her research interests include reproductive health and reproductive justice, lesbian/gay/bi/trans/queer reproduction, midwifery activism, feminist ethnography and activist scholarship, and feminist pedagogy. She is the author of Reproductive Losses: Challenges to LGBTQ Family‐Making (Routledge, 2019), Pushing for Midwives: Homebirth Mothers and the Reproductive Rights Movement (Temple University Press, 2010) and a textbook with Dána‐Ain Davis, Feminist Ethnography: Thinking Through Methodologies, Challenges and Possibilities (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016). Her professional website is: http://discover.wooster. edu/ccraven. Danielle M. Currier is an Associate Professor and Chair of Sociology, Coordinator of Gender Studies, and Director of the Summer Research Program at Randolph College. Her teaching foci are gender, sexuality, family, qualitative methods, and social theory. Her research foci are hookups among college students, violence against women, and gender and sport. She is coauthor of “The Social Construction of Women’s Interests in the 2014 and 2010 Midterms” in Political Communication & Strategy: Consequences of the 2014 Midterm Elections (2017). She is author of “Strategic Ambiguity: How the Vagueness of the Term ‘Hookup’ Protects and Perpetuates Hegemonic Masculinity and Emphasized Femininity” in Gender & Society (2013) and “Creating Attitudinal Change Through Teaching: How a Course on ‘Women and Violence’ Changes Students’ Attitudes About Violence Against Women” in Journal of Interpersonal Violence (2009). Dána‐Ain Davis is Director of the Center for the Study of Women and Society and is on the faculty in the PhD program in anthropology and critical psychology at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. She is also Professor of Urban Studies at Queens College. Her work is concerned with how people live policy, inequality, and racism. Her research topics include neoliberalism, poverty, reproduction, domestic violence, and HIV/AIDS. She is the author of Reproductive Injustice: Racism, Pregnancy, and Premature Birth (NYU Press, 2019); coauthor, with Christa Craven, of Feminist Ethnography: Thinking Through Methodologies, Challenges and Possibilities (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016); coeditor, with Shaka McGlotten, of Black Genders and Sexualities (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012); contributing author to Beyond Reproduction: Women’s Health, Activism, and Public Policy by Karen Baird with Kimberly Christensen (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2009); and the author of Battered Black Women and Welfare Reform: Between a Rock and a Hard Place (SUNY Press, 2006).

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Cynthia Deitch is an Associate Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; of Sociology; and of Public Policy & Public Administration at the George Washington University. She received a PhD in Sociology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She has been teaching a graduate seminar in feminist methodologies for several decades. She has published research on gender and various public policies, on gender and race in the labor market, and on workplace sexual harassment. Manisha Desai is Head of the Sociology Department and Professor of Sociology and Asian and Asian American Studies at the University of Connecticut. Her research and teaching areas include gender and globalization, transnational feminisms, and contemporary Indian society. Among her recent publications are Subaltern Movements in India: The Gendered Geography of Struggles Against Neoliberal Development in India (Routledge, 2016) and, with Rachel Rinaldo, guest editor of the special issue of Qualitative Sociology on “Gender and Globalization.” Valeria Esquivel is Senior Employment Policies and Gender Officer at the International Labour Office, based in Geneva. Before joining the United Nations in 2014, Valeria developed a long academic career as feminist economist, publishing extensively on labor, and macroeconomic and social policies. She coedited Gender & Development’s issue devoted to the Sustainable Development Goals (Vol. 24, No. 1, 2016) and is the editor of the collective volume La Economía Feminista desde América Latina: Una hoja de ruta sobre los debates actuales en la región (ONU Mujeres, Santo Domingo, 2012). Her latest publications have focused primarily on care policies and care‐ workers. She coauthored the reports Innovations in Care: New Concepts, New Actors, New Policies (Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, 2017) and Care work and care jobs for the future of decent work (ILO, 2018). Her current research focuses on the intersections of gender, employment, and macroeconomics. Sheila Greene is a Fellow Emerita at Trinity College Dublin (TCD), Ireland, and former AIB Professor of Childhood Research. She is a cofounder of the TCD Centre for Gender and Women’s Studies and cofounder and former Director of the Children’s Research Centre. Currently she is a Pro‐Chancellor of the University of Dublin. Her primary interest is in developmental psychology and her publications include The Psychological Development of Girls and Women (Routledge, 2003/2015), Researching Children’s Experience (Greene and Hogan, Sage, 2005), Key Thinkers in Childhood Studies (Smith and Greene, Policy Press, 2015), and Children as Agents in Their Worlds (Greene and Nixon, Routledge, 2020). Diane Grossman received her BA from Vassar College and her PhD in Philosophy from New York University, where she was an Ida Parker Bowne Scholar. She is Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies and Philosophy at Simmons University and Director of the Honors Program. Dr. Grossman has served Simmons as Chair of both departments, as Director of Academic Advising, and as Associate Dean and Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. She is the author of Existentialism and the Philosophical Tradition, Looking at Gay and Lesbian Life, and numerous articles and essays on ethics, feminist theory, and cultural studies. In addition, she is part of a cross‐disciplinary research team that studies girls’ and women’s perceived



Notes on Contributors

xiii

confidence; the team has published several articles on that subject. Her areas of specialization are continental philosophy, feminist theory, and applied ethics. Koyel Khan received her doctorate from the Department of Sociology at the University of Connecticut. She is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Tennessee Wesleyan University. Her research areas are neoliberal globalization, nationalism, gender, and culture. A. E. Kohler is a medical anthropologist and critical disability studies scholar who focuses on the phenomenological dimensions of intellectual disability as they intersect with systems of health and social inequities. Gina Marie Longo is an Assistant Professor at Virginia Commonwealth University in the Sociology Department. She specializes in the sociology of gender, race and ethnicity, immigration, and digital sociology. Her research focuses on how U.S. citizens negotiate immigration official’s demands that they prove their marriages are authentic to obtain their foreign-national spouses’ green card. Gul Aldikacti Marshall is the Chairperson and a Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Louisville. Her research interests are in the areas of gender, social movements, politics, and the media. She is the author of the book, Shaping Gender Policy in Turkey: Grassroots Women Activists, and the European Union. Her work has been published in edited volumes and numerous scholarly journals, such as Gender & Society and Social Politics. Anwar Mhajne is an Assistant Professor at Stonehill College. She is a political scientist specializing in international relations and comparative politics with a focus on gender and politics. Her current research is at the intersection of gender, religion, and Middle Eastern politics. Dr. Mhajne focuses on how Islamic beliefs and institutions in the Middle East structure Muslim women’s political understandings, agencies, and opportunities at local, national, and international levels. Due to her political science and interdisciplinary training in gender politics, international relations, and comparative politics, Dr. Mhajne’s research strengths lie in the following areas: feminist international relations and security studies; democratization; governance and institutions; civil society and activism; political Islam; Middle East; gender politics; social movements; and regime change. Gill Wright Miller, Professor of Dance and Women’s Studies, Denison University, researches the connection between somatic awareness and meaning‐making through both large‐scale embodied events and individual somatic explorations. Her embodied work involves opportunities to practice new patterns to shift mere “physical experiences” to full‐bodied “somatic activism.” She is the author/editor of many articles on somatics and academia and the text Exploring Body–Mind Centering: An Anthology of Experience and Method (North Atlantic Books, 2011). More recently, she was invited to speak about practice‐based research for Cultivating Equity & Access Across Difference: Dance Education for All in 2017; invited to speak and conduct workshops on the intersection of Body–Mind CenteringTM, Somatics, and Women’s and Gender Studies for Encontro International de Prácticas Somáticas e Dança: Campus Brasília of Instituto Federal de Brasília in Brasilia, Brasil in 2018;

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and was a featured presenter for “Be(Com)ing the Change We Seek” at Somatische Akademie in Berlin, Germany in 2019. Nancy A. Naples See “About the Editors.” Claire M. Renzetti, PhD, is the Judi Conway Patton Endowed Chair for Studies of Violence Against Women, and Professor and Chair of Sociology, at the University of Kentucky. For more than 30 years, her work has focused on the violent victimization experiences of socially and economically marginalized women and girls. In addition to editing the “Gender and Justice” book series for University of California Press, she is editor of the international and interdisciplinary journal Violence Against Women, and coeditor of the “Interpersonal Violence” book series for Oxford University Press. She has written or edited 26 books as well as numerous book chapters and journal articles based on her own research, which currently includes an evaluation of a therapeutic horticulture program at a battered women’s shelter and studies that explore religiosity and religious self‐regulation as protective and risk factors for intimate partner violence perpetration. Her scholarship and activism on behalf of abused and exploited women and girls has received national recognition with various awards from professional organizations, service agencies, and community groups. Lauren Rosewarne is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Lauren is a political scientist specializing in gender, sexuality, and the media. She is the author of 11 books as well as many articles, chapters, and commentary pieces. For more information: www.laurenrosewarne.com. Ariella Rotramel is the Vandana Shiva Assistant Professor of Gender, Sexuality, and Intersectionality Studies at Connecticut College, and received a PhD in Women’s and Gender Studies from Rutgers University. Rotramel’s research encompasses social movements, labor organizing, and queer and sexuality studies. Rotramel’s book, Pushing Back: Women of Color–Led Grassroots Activism in New York City, examines women of color‐led organizing in contemporary New York City around issues of housing, the environment, and labor. Anne Sisson Runyan, PhD in International Relations, Professor of Political Science, and Affiliate Faculty and former Head of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Cincinnati, is among the progenitors of and eminent scholars in the field of feminist world politics. Her authored, coauthored, and coedited books include Global Gender Politics (Routledge), Global Gender Issues (Westview Press), Gender and Global Restructuring (Routledge; third edition in progress), and Feminist (Im)Mobilities in Fortress(ing) North America (Ashgate, 2013). She is currently writing a book on gendered nuclear colonialism and recently guest edited and contributed an article on this subject to a special issue of the International Feminist Journal of Politics, for which she served as an associate editor, on “Decolonizing Knowledges in Feminist World Politics.” Other recent publications have appeared in Critical Studies on Security, Critical Studies on Terrorism, Review of International Studies, and handbooks on gender and security and gender and international relations. She coordinates the Political Science doctoral concentration in Feminist Comparative



Notes on Contributors

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and International Politics at the University of Cincinnati and is Vice President and on the Executive Board of the Committee on the Status of Women of the International Studies Association. Molli Spalter is a PhD candidate in Literary and Cultural Studies at Wayne State University where she serves as the managing editor for Criticism: A Quarterly for Literature and the Arts. Her research interests include contemporary women’s literature, affect theory, and feminist social movements. Meredeth Turshen is a Professor Emerita in the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University. Her research interests include international health and she specializes in public health policy. She has written four books: The Political Ecology of Disease in Tanzania (1984), The Politics of Public Health (1989), and Privatizing Health Services in Africa (1999), all published by Rutgers University Press, and Women’s Health Movements: A Global Force for Change (2007; second edition 2019) published by Palgrave Macmillan. She has edited six other books: Women and Health in Africa (Africa World Press, 1991), Women’s Lives and Public Policy: The International Experience (Greenwood, 1993), What Women Do in Wartime: Gender and Conflict in Africa (Zed Books, 1998), which was translated into French (L’Harmattan, 2001), African Women’s Health (Africa World Press, 2000), The Aftermath: Women in Postconflict Transformation (Zed Books, 2002), and African Women: A Political Economy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010). She has served on the boards of the Association of Concerned Africa Scholars, the Committee for Health in Southern Africa, and the Review of African Political Economy, and is on the editorial board of the Journal of Public Health Policy. Astrid Ulloa, PhD in Anthropology, Full Professor of Geography at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia. Her main research interests include indigenous movements, indigenous autonomy, indigenous feminisms, gender, climate change, territoriality, extractivisms, and feminist political ecology. She is the author of The Ecological Native: Indigenous Peoples’ Movements and Eco‐Governmentality in Colombia (2005–2013). Her recent book chapters include: “Indigenous Knowledge Regarding Climate in Colombia: Articulations and Complementarities Among Different Knowledges” (2020), “Reconfiguring Climate Change Adaptation Policy: Indigenous Peoples’ Strategies and Policies for Managing Environmental Transformations in Colombia” (2018), “Feminisms, Genders and Indigenous Women in Latin America” (2018), “La confrontation d’un citoyen zero carbone déterritorialisé au sein d’une nature carbonée locale‐mondiale” (2018). Her recent articles include. “The Rights Of The Wayúu People And Water In The Context Of Mining In La Guajira, Colombia: Demands Of Relational Water Justice” (2020), “Gender and Feminist Geography in Colombia” (2019), “Perspectives of Environmental Justice from Indigenous Peoples of Latin America: A Relational Indigenous Environmental Justice” (2017), “Geopolitics of Carbonized Nature and the Zero Carbon Citizen” (2017). Her current research is about gender and mining, and territorial feminisms in Latin America. Crystal Whetstone, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Sam Houston State University. Her dissertation examined the role political motherhood plays in Global South women’s peace movements and women’s postconflict political

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representation. Her work has been published in the International Feminist Journal of Politics (IFJP), Third World Quarterly, and The Conversation. Rina Verma Williams (PhD Harvard; BA and BS University of California at Irvine) is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Cincinnati, where she is also Affiliate Faculty in Asian Studies and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies. Her research and teaching interests include comparative Indian and South Asian politics; religion, law and nationalism; and gender and identity politics. She is the author of Postcolonial Politics and Personal Laws: Colonial Legal Legacies and the Indian State (Oxford University Press, 2006). Her current research focuses on women’s participation in religious nationalist political parties in Indian democracy. Bronwyn Winter is Professor of Transnational Studies at the University of Sydney. Her publications include September 11, 2001: Feminist Perspectives (coedited with Susan Hawthorne, Spinifex Press, 2002); Hijab and the Republic: Uncovering the French Headscarf Debate (Syracuse University Press, 2008); and Women, Insecurity and Violence in a Post‐9/11 World (Syracuse University Press, 2017). Her most recent publications include the coedited Global Perspectives on Same‐Sex Marriage (with Maxime Forest and Réjane Sénac, Palgrave, 2018), and Reform, Revolution and Crisis in Europe (with Cat Moir, Routledge, 2019), and she is a contributing advisory editor of the Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Gender and Sexuality Studies (2016).

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to all the authors, reviewers, and editors who have made this ambitious interdisciplinary volume possible. The authors bring a wide range of expertise from different academic training and activist backgrounds to their chapters with a commitment to sharing their visions and knowledge of the diverse topics and themes that shape the Companion to Feminist Studies. Many of my colleagues in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Connecticut and other academic sites around the world have generously supported the project in the important role of anonymous reviewer, often providing a quick turnaround to facilitate the demanding production deadlines. I am grateful for their extremely insightful reviews and their understanding of the international and interdisciplinary goals of the Companion. Special thanks to Shweta M. Adur, Françoise Dussart, Michele Eggers Barison, Vrshali Patil, and Barbara Sutton for sharing their expertise on various chapters. J. Michael Ryan also graciously offered his editorial and academic knowledge whenever asked and without hesitation. I would also like to thank the Wiley Blackwell editorial and production team Navami Rajunath, Umme Al-Wazedi, Charlie Hamlyn, and Justin Vaughan – for their commitment and dedication to this project. Thanks also go to copy-editor Katherine Carr. My appreciation to M.J. Taylor who assisted at the very early and crucial stage of identification and outreach to authors and organization of manuscripts. Managing Editor Cristina Khan was an extremely valuable collaborator who has assisted in reviewing and editing all the chapters as well as co‐authoring a chapter in this volume to advance the coverage of important topics in the Companion. Cristina signed on as Managing Editor at the early stages, not expecting, I suspect, all that this would entail. She was able to see it through to completion even as she started a new position in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Stoney Brook University in New York. I could not have done this massive editorial project without her.

Part I Introduction

1 Feminist Studies as a Site of Critical Knowledge Production and Praxis Nancy A. Naples

Introduction Feminist Studies is an expression of the theoretical and interdisciplinary underpinnings of women’s and gender studies. It is a diverse and ever‐changing field that is contoured by the intersecting goals of understanding and theorizing the ways that social life is organized by complex “relations of ruling” that shape social institutions and “everyday life” (Smith 1989), and how individuals and communities organize for social justice and social change. These are manifest within social, political, cultural, and economic institutions, social media, and everyday interactions. The presence and expression of Feminist Studies varies within disciplines and interdisciplines and across regions, as demonstrated by the authors of the 24 chapters in this Companion. While feminist studies has a long history, it became institutionalized in academia beginning in the 1970s, through courses offered in different disciplines like English, History, Sociology, or Anthropology. These efforts contributed to cross‐disciplinary advocacy for the establishment of Women’s Studies programs where faculty designed interdisciplinary courses in response to the deepening intellectual project. In the US, Feminist Studies has found an institutional foothold in some universities as a stand‐ alone program or department. The Feminist Studies Program at the University of California, Santa Cruz was founded in 2013. They describe their mission as “challenging existing disciplinary boundaries and fostering a reconsideration of the relationships between knowledge, power, and expertise” (https://feministstudies.ucsc.edu/ graduate). It is now a department that trains students for academic careers as well as for public policy and human rights advocacy and research. In describing its graduate education in Feminist Studies, it notes that: The roots of Feminist Studies lie in the study of women’s experiences and a critique of their neglect in knowledge production. But the name “Feminist Studies” reflects the fact that the subject matter includes more than women: research and teaching focus on the Companion to Feminist Studies, First Edition. Edited by Nancy A. Naples. © 2021 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Published 2021 by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

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Nancy A. Naples ways that relations of gender, intersecting with race, class, ethnicity, sexuality, nationality, age, religion, ability, and other categories of difference, are embedded in social, political, and cultural formations. Feminist Studies encompasses teaching and research interests in men and masculinities and sexualities, as well as women. (Feminist Studies n.d., UCSB)

Graduate training in Feminist Studies draws on diverse critical epistemologies and interdisciplinary approaches. For example, the University of Washington’s Graduate Program in Feminist Studies centers “Intersectional, Decolonial, Indigenous, Queer and Transnational feminisms” and encourages “research informed by Black Studies, Latina/o Studies, Asian American Studies, Latin America, East Asia and South Asia Studies and the disciplines including Anthropology, Cultural Studies, History, Political Science, Psychology and Sociology” (https://gwss.washington.edu/feminist‐ studies‐doctoral‐program). The US has a strong emphasis on undergraduate training, while in other countries, the focus has been primarily on graduate education (see Tambe and Montague in Companion to Women’s and Gender Studies, 2020). Furthermore, as Tambe and Montague note, feminists in other countries have had different relationships with the state. For example, feminist perspectives have been more effectively integrated in state governance structures than in the US. For example, in Australia, feminist activists were able to incorporate their activism into the state as “femocrats” where they engaged with policy construction and implementation across different arenas, including applying a feminist framework to review of the general state budget (Eisenstein 1989; Mazur 2001; Watson 1990). While their influence has waned over the years (Outshoorn and Kantola 2007), feminist activists have found footholds in other countries where, for example, they have succeeded in passing statutes for greater representation of women in both elected and other governmental positions in France, Pacific Islands, the UK, Scandinavia, and countries in Latin America and Africa, among others (see, for example, Arendt 2018; Baker 2019; Barnes and Córdova 2016; Dahlerup and Freidenvall 2005; Hughes et al. 2017; Johnson Ross 2019; Opello 2006). Since the field of Feminist Studies draws insights from feminist scholars and activists from many different disciplinary and interdisciplinary sites and diverse local, national, and regional contexts, it is challenging, to say the least, to ensure all voices, perspectives, and contributions are represented. Our solution is to focus attention on many of these contributions by organizing the Companion to Feminist Studies around three different dimensions that are key components of the field and transcend these differences: Feminist Epistemologies and Its Discontents, Methodological Diversity, and Feminist Praxis.

The Diversity of Epistemologies, Methodologies, and Feminist Praxis Part II, entitled “Feminist Epistemologies and Its Discontents,” presents 10 different theoretical frameworks that have diverse historical and political origin stories and investments. It opens with an examination of gender essentialism, one of the most persistent approaches to the analysis of gender and sexual differences (Chapter 2).



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Author Sheila Greene begins with a discussion of Graeco‐Roman arguments about essential differences between women and men that positions men as superior by nature to women. Women’s reproductive capacity has often been the basis for her construction as closer to “nature,” while men’s presume greater intellectual capacity positions them as creators of culture and academic advancement. Greene traces the continuity of this framing over time and how it continues to be “deeply embedded in Western scholarship.” For example, contemporary biologically determinist approaches center the significance of genes, hormones, and brain differences in contributing to essentialist gender differences. Feminists have challenged these reductive approaches and point out the interaction of biological and other social, cultural, and environmental factors in shaping human diversity (see, e.g. Davis 2015; Fausto‐ Sterling 2000; Keller and Longino 1996; Udry 2001). In Chapter  3, Elisabeth Armstrong examines the development and divergence between Marxist and Socialist Feminism. Marxist feminism was articulated in the late 1960s and early 1970s by feminists who adapted Karl Marx’s analysis of capitalism to incorporate the significance of women’s unpaid labor in the home for supporting the economic exploitation of workers. Socialist feminism quickly followed as feminists engaged with analysis of patriarchy as a separate system of exploitation. Chapter 4 provides a fascinating discussion of the origins and debates in “Radical and Cultural Feminisms.” Lauren Rosewarne examines the activism of radical feminists and radical feminist theoretical analyses from the late 1960s. She notes that one major tenet of radical feminism is that “women are subordinated … [as] an oppressed class; a sex‐class … caused by patriarchy.” She explains that “radical feminism aimed to dismantle not only patriarchy but each of the social, cultural, political, and economic structures that benefited from – and supported – male authority.” As noted above, feminists informed by both radical analyses of patriarchy and Marxist critiques of capitalism were in the forefront of developing socialist feminism. Rosewarne outlines key tenets and critiques of radical feminism, then moves to discuss the difference between radical and cultural feminism. She defines cultural feminism as: a theory which describes that there are fundamental personality differences between men and women, and that women’s differences are special … Underlying this cultural feminist theory was a matriarchal vision – the idea of a society of strong women guided by essential female concerns and values. These included, most importantly, pacifism, co‐operation, non‐violent settlement of differences, and a harmonious regulation of public life. (Tandon 2008, p. 52)

While radical feminism orients toward separatism and the elimination of the sex‐class system, “cultural feminism was a countercultural movement aimed at reversing the cultural valuation of the male and the devaluation of the female” (Echols 1989, p. 6, quoted in Rosenwarne in this volume). Alice Echols argues that “radical feminists were typically social constructionists who wanted to render gender irrelevant, while cultural feminists were generally essentialists who sought to celebrate femaleness” (ibid). In Chapter 5, Bronwyn Winter describes three different approaches to materialist feminism, which builds on Marxist feminism in different ways. They are each

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associated with different geographic constellations of academic knowledge: French materialist feminism, British materialist feminism, and US materialist feminism. As she explains, “Gender, and the relationship of male domination that underpins it, are historically constructed and grounded in social relations, and are thus not fixed, but open to interrogation and change.” They all center “the material (social, economic), structural and ideological rather than (only) discursive or cultural underpinnings of these social relations.” In Chapter 6, Rose M. Brewer highlights the significant theoretical and activist insights of Black feminist and Womanist epistemologies. She notes that these interrelated formulations have a long history that, in the US context, dates back to at least the nineteenth century. Both approaches center Black women’s experiences and social justice. Womanist thought foregrounds and features Black culture and spirituality. Black feminist thought marks the significance of the positionality of the social actor in reflecting on how the social and political world shapes individual and social experiences. In Chapter 7, Patricia Hill Collins expands on the contributions of Black feminist thought and critical race theory in her discussion of intersectional theory which emphasizes the ways in which gender, class, and race intersect to shape different women’s experiences and the social structures that them. Collins is one of the key theorists whose analysis of Black feminist thought (1990) was foundational for articulating intersectional theory and analysis. In Chapter 7, she presents the theoretical perceptions and social activism that informs intersectionality including a clear explication of legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw’s founding formulation of the concept by offering “a shortcut that built on existing sensibilities in order to see interconnections” between gender and race. It also offers a framework for deepening analysis to incorporate sexuality, class, and other dimensions of difference and power inequality. Collins (2019) argues that given the importance of intersectional epistemology, it should become a central framing within contemporary “critical social theory that keeps critical analysis and social action in play” (p. 3). Chapter 8 explores the significance of the contributions to feminist epistemologies of “Queer, Trans and Transfeminist Theories.” Author Ute Bettray discusses the diverse origins and key premises of these interrelated approaches that theorize the fluidity of gender and sexuality, and challenge the binary and heteronormative approaches of other feminist frameworks. She concludes by discussing the ways in which transfeminism decouples feminine gender and female sex. She also emphasizes the significance of notions of queer space and time and deconstructive modes of queering “as a critical mode of the deconstruction of patriarchal, heteronormative, neoliberal late capitalism.” Bettray also examines transing as a process that “reveal[s] the socially constructed nature of categories and histories that can be reconceptualized in radically different ways.” The final three chapters in Part II attend to the important insights drawn from the positionality of postcolonial, comparative, and transnational feminists. In Chapter 9, Umme Al‐wazedi explains that postcolonial feminism developed in reaction to the lack of attention to the dynamics of colonialism and empire in shaping postcolonial gender relations and global dimensions of inequalities, including “the hegemonic power established by indigenous men after the Empire.” Al‐wazedi argues that postcolonial feminism attends to the significance of caste, religion, and



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other dimensions of social, political, and cultural differences that shape the lives of non‐Western women. In Chapter 10, Anne Sisson Runyan and coauthors compare approaches to feminism across different regions, which arose along with the expansion of regional governance and international non‐governmental organizations. Sisson et al. identify the resistance of activists and analyses of local conflicts, migrations, and economic shifts, as well as the diverse challenges and common themes in feminisms that are evident across regions. The authors highlight the importance of neoliberalism and the influence and resistance to Western feminism in shaping local feminisms that contribute to the “complex terrain of feminisms beyond binaries and borders.” In the final chapter in this part (Chapter  11), Gul Aldikacti Marshall defines transnational feminism “as a theory developed against white Western feminism’s notion of global sisterhood, which assumes a common patriarchal oppression faced by all women.” Transnational feminism is a powerful framework that attends to both local expressions of feminism and resistance, as discussed in the previous chapter, and incorporates understandings developed in postcolonial feminist theory. It includes critique of neoliberal globalization, colonialism and imperialism as well as Western‐centric expressions of feminism. Marshall notes that transnational feminism allows for the possibility of “dialog and coalition building,” and solidarity among women in their contextual particularities that are based on the intersection of social locations, such as gender, race, ethnicity, class, and nationality. In Part III, we focus on the diversity of methodologies developed by feminist scholars in response to the limits of approaches that rely on traditional positivist or androcentric scientific methods (see Chapter 12 by Cynthia Deitch). Despite these critiques, feminist empiricist scholars continue to draw on positivist methods in the fields of demography, geography, economics and sociology to document the ways in which gender and other systems of difference and inequality are expressed in aggregate data. In Chapter 13, Gina Marie Longo details the premises and research strategies adopted by feminist empiricists who apply positivist approaches but also acknowledge the role of values in scientific research practices in order to minimize their negative effects. However, she also notes that feminist empiricism has been criticized for “lacking a radical approach to deconstructing the power hierarchies and systems of oppressions that exist within and are upheld by science.” Longo then presents two different feminist modes of knowledge generation: standpoint epistemology and postmodern feminism. Feminist standpoint analysis begins in the lived experience of socially located actors. They are especially attentive to the perspectives of marginalized knowers who experientially understand the “relations of power” (Chapter 13) or “relations of ruling” (Smith 1989) that contour social life. In contrast, feminist empiricists focus on the diverse interests and values that are constructed as rational products of deliberative discourse, rather than an expression or reflection of lived experiences. In addition to debates about what counts as knowledge and how to conduct research, contemporary interdisciplinary scholars (Chapter  14) discuss the significance of the lack of women and women‐identified people working as scientists in academia and other research positions. They also consider more recent critical approaches which incorporate methodological strategies informed by postcolonial, critical race disability, and queer theories. Drawing on two contemporary case

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s­tudies, Samantha M. Archer and A.E. Kohler demonstrate the power of feminist science studies to challenge some of the taken‐for‐granted findings of archeological and genetic research on gender to address “controversial bioethical dilemmas regarding intellectual disability and clinical practice.” In Chapter 15, Valeria Esquivel discusses how feminist economists contest “the gender‐blindness of economic thinking and have developed new analytical frameworks and methodologies to examine ­gender relations in economic institutions and economic functioning.” In their overview of feminist approaches to ethnography in anthropology, Dána‐ Ain Davis and Christa Craven (Chapter 16) emphasize the diversity of feminist ethnographic innovations. Despite these differences, Davis and Craven find that there are overlapping “commitment[s] to paying attention to marginality and power differentials, attending to a feminist intellectual history, seeking justice, and producing scholarship in various creative forms that can contribute to movement building and/ or be in the service of the people, communities, organizations, and issues we study.” Ariella Rotramel examines “Feminist Historiography” in Chapter  17. Rotramel explains that this methodological approach can best be understood as a form of feminist praxis, namely, one that is shaped by the dialectical relationship between theory and practice. For example, knowledge generated by social activism is then used to inform the development or reformulation of social theory, which, in turn, informs future activist strategies and engagement. Feminist historians who adopt this approach have been at the forefront of revealing the relations of power embedded in the archives that are used to generate knowledge about the past. Rotramel also notes that feminist historians have expanded their approach by drawing on literary studies and digital humanities to alter how scholars approach analysis of historical texts. Feminist scholars debate both the subjects for analysis and the methods utilized within the social sciences, the arts, and the humanities. Culture and media are topics that are approached in a variety of ways in different disciplines. In Chapter 18, the final chapter in Part III, Diane Grossman explains how feminist scholars effectively shifted cultural analysis to center gender and alter how scholars approach cultural texts and study cultural artifacts in the area of popular culture. Grossman demonstrates how disciplinary as well as epistemological framing influence research questions as well as methodological approaches. The last part of the volume is constructed around the theme of “Feminist Praxis.” Many of the authors in this volume writing about both feminist epistemologies and methodologies acknowledge how activism and the goals of social justice have contributed to the innovations and reformulations of feminist approaches since the 1970s. This last part focuses on topics that explicitly engage with social change and social justice. In this regard, it is fitting to start with the chapter on “Feminist Pedagogies,” as it is a form of feminist praxis designed to train students in critical reading, writing, and community‐building skills to enhance their ability to contribute to social change efforts in their everyday lives. While those who teach courses in Feminist Studies may or may not view their teaching through the lens of feminist pedagogy, many do see their role in the classroom as an extension of their commitment to educating for social justice. In Chapter 19, “Feminist Pedagogy,” Danielle M. Currier reviews the history of this form of feminist praxis and focuses on the importance of intersectionality, reflexivity, experiential learning, and critical skill building.



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In Chapter 20, Manisha Desai and Koyel Khan examine feminist praxis in the context of globalization. In particular, they interrogate decolonial postcolonial feminism as it developed through a recognition of the ways in which colonialism, modernity, and capitalism contoured constructions of gender. It “is informed by social imaginaries of gender justice beyond the modern” liberal or socialist framing. Desai and Khan conclude that “decolonial feminist praxis in a globalizing world needs to rethink women’s empowerment and gender justice beyond the modernist emancipatory logic and locate it within anti‐racist, anti‐capitalist, and anti‐settler colonial struggles that seek alternative relations among humans, with other species, and with nature.” In Chapter 21, Gill Wright Miller focuses on “somatic praxis” and argues for the importance of “the material body” for feminist praxis. Experiences of “menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth, lactation, menopause … lay the groundwork for a body‐ centered approach to corporeality.” Miller provides a methodological framework for assessing pedagogies of the body. Miller explains that in order to integrate ­feminism  and somatic praxis requires asking “ourselves questions about our own preferences and expectations, to notice and take responsibility for the delivery of our expression, and to aim to shape multidimensionally with the other participants.” Meredeth Turshen and Marci Berger explore the praxis of “Feminist Health Movements” in Chapter  22. They start with defining key terms in understanding feminist social activism and political claims, and how feminists challenge practices of  forced sterilization and eugenics. Both authors illustrate the contemporary challenges posed by different aspects of “hashtag activism.” For example, ­ #BringBackOurGirls was developed to publicize the kidnapping of schoolgirls from the Nigerian Chibok Government Secondary School by Boko Haram terrorists and #SayHerName draws attention to the experiences of Black women who were targets of police violence. In Chapter 23 on “Feminist Praxis and Gender Violence,” Margaret Campe and Claire Renzetti provide an overview of different theories that explain interpersonal and structural violence, including liberal and radical feminisms. They also discuss the significance of intersectional analysis for revealing the complex inequalities and differential risk faced by different women. They close with an analysis of feminist political economic explanations that explicate the mutually reinforcing dynamics of interpersonal and structural dimensions of gender‐based violence. In Chapter 24, Astrid Ulloa discusses the history and contributions of feminists to the interdisciplinary field of Political Ecology. She describes different strands, one originating within an Anglo‐Saxon context and the other in Latin America. While there are common themes across these two approaches, they each have different histories, socio‐political contexts and physical environments. Ulloa describes “the diverse contributions from feminisms, gender studies and gender and development discussions, and the approaches of ecofeminism.” She then focuses specifically on Latin American Feminist Political Ecology to emphasize the significance of “diverse feminisms, feminist spatialities, feminist movements, and indigenous women’s movements.” She draws on her own experience and scholarship and concludes by considering contemporary debates and trends in the field. In Chapter 25, the final chapter, Molli Spalter considers the importance of sustainability and solidarity in “Feminism and Social Justice Movements.” She opens with an overview of the history of feminist movements and surveys the key trends in

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the scholarship on feminist social movements, including an understanding of intersectional identities and the importance of global perspectives. Spalter notes the growing influence of feminist praxis in social justice movements, broadly defined, and illustrates with a discussion of Palestinian Working Woman Society for Development and Black Lives Matter.

Conclusion It is an exciting and challenging time for the field of Feminist Studies. While Feminist Studies and feminism, more generally, have been the target of backlash and ridicule by right‐wing critics (Leach 2020; Kano 2011; Oakley and Mitchell 1997; Silva and Mendes 2015), feminism has also broadened its influence from women’s movement activism and scholarship to broader social justice movements and has entered mainstream celebrity culture and everyday discourse (Kemp 2017). Feminist Studies ­faculty are training a new generation of scholars and activists who are committed to intersectional and transnational praxis. Feminist pedagogues in all academic settings are transforming educational contexts for students around the world. This edited collection provides historical perspectives, cutting edge scholarship, and contemporary debates in the field for those engaged in this important educational and activist role. Our hope is that this volume becomes a resource for students, faculty, and activists who are dedicated to social justice and critical engagements which challenge inequalities and oppression in everyday life and help build toward a just and peaceful future. It is also important to acknowledge the gaps in what we are able to cover in this volume and encourage greater dialogue and more sustained attention to the work produced in sites farther removed from the hegemonic Western and Northern social and geographic context that, despite our efforts in the chapters to follow, is still ­underrepresented.

References Arendt, C.M. (2018). From critical mass to critical leaders: unpacking the political conditions behind gender quotas in Africa. Politics & Gender 14 (3): 295–322. Baker, K. (2019). Pacific Women in Politics: Gender Quota Campaigns in the Pacific Islands. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press. Barnes, T. and Córdova, A. (2016). Making space for women: explaining citizen support for legislative gender quotas in Latin America. The Journal of Politics 78 (3): 670–686. Collins, P.H. (1990). Black Feminist Thought. New York: Routledge. Collins, P.H. (2019). Intersectionality as Critical Inquiry. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Dahlerup, D. and Freidenvall, L. (2005). Quotas as a “fast track” to equal representation for women: why Scandinavia is no longer the model. International Feminist Journal of Politics 7 (1): 26–48. Davis, G. (2015). Contesting Intersex: The Dubious Diagnosis. New York: New York University Press. Echols, A. (1989). Daring to Be Bad: Radical Feminism in America, 1967–1975. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.



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Eisenstein, H. (1989). Femocrats, official feminism, and the uses of power: a case study of EEO implementation in New South Wales, Australia. Yale Journal of Law and Feminism 2 (1): 51–73. Fausto‐Sterling, A. (2000). Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality. New York: Basic Books. Feminist Studies. (n.d.) University of California Santa Barbara. https://www.femst.ucsb.edu/ graduate#:~:text=The%20roots%20of%20Feminist%20Studies,their%20neglect%20 in%20knowledge%20production.&text=Feminist%20Studies%20encompasses%20 teaching%20and,sexualities%2C%20as%20well%20as%20women. Hughes, M., Paxton, P., and Krook, M. (2017). Gender quotas for legislatures and corporate boards. Annual Review of Sociology 43: 331–352. Johnson Ross, F. (2019). Professional feminists: challenging local government inside out. Gender, Work and Organization 26 (4): 520–540. Kano, A. (2011). Backlash, fight back, and back‐pedaling: responses to state feminism to state feminism in contemporary Japan. International Journal of Asian Studies 8 (1): 41–62. Keller, E.F. and Longino, H.E. (1996). Feminism and Science, Oxford Readings in Feminism. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press. Kemp, N. (2017). Brands embrace “backlash feminism”. Campaign 2. Leach, B. (2020). Whose backlash, against whom? Feminism and the American pro‐life movement’s “mother‐child strategy”. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 45 (2): 319–328. Mazur, A. (2001). State Feminism, women’s Movements, and Job Training: Making Democracies Work in the Global Economy. New York: Routledge. Oakley, A. and Mitchell, J. (1997). Who’s Afraid of Feminism? Seeing Through the Backlash. New York: New Press. Opello, K. (2006). Gender Quotas, Parity Reform, and Political Parties in France. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Outshoorn, J. and Kantola, J. (eds.) (2007). Changing State Feminism. Basingstoke, England; New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Silva, K. and Mendes, K. (2015). Feminist Erasures: Challenging Backlash Culture. London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Smith, D.E. (1989). The Everyday World as Problematic: A Feminist Sociology. Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press. Tambe, A. and Montague, C. (2020). Companion to Women’s and Gender Studies, Women’s Studies. Oxford: Wiley‐Blackwell. Tandon, N. (2008). Feminism: A Paradigm Shift, Feminist Studies. New Delhi, Santa Cruz: Atlantic Publishers, University of California. 2020 https://feministstudies.ucsc.edu/ graduate. Udry, J.R. (2001). Feminist critics uncover determinism, positivism, and antiquated theory. American Sociological Review 66 (4): 611–618. Watson, S. (1990). Playing the State: Australian Feminist Interventions. London; New York: Verso.

Part II Feminist Epistemology and Its Discontents

2 Biological Determinism and Essentialism Sheila Greene

Introduction: Historical Perspectives on Woman’s Nature Dating from the classical era in the West, men have made pronouncements about the nature of woman and the differences between the sexes. The Greek philosopher Aristotle said, “As regards the sexes the male is by nature superior and the female inferior, the male ruler and the female subject.” The thirteenth‐century theologian St.  Thomas Aquinas endorsed Aristotle’s viewpoint and stated that, “As regards ­individual nature, woman is defective and misbegotten.” Biological reasons for pur­ ported sex differences were offered, such as women’s smaller brains and lack of heat (Aristotle); their half‐formed genitals (Galen), or their physical weakness and passivity (Aquinas). Confining this glance backwards to women in the West, it is clear that, for centu­ ries, woman’s nature was seen as dictated by her bodily structures and her reproduc­ tive capacity (Tuana 1993). These views, rooted in Graeco‐Roman thought, were propagated by the Christian Church, which had, and still has, a central role in life in Europe and the Americas. Despite the rise of scientific thinking in and after the Enlightenment, the Church continued to have a major role in framing how women were seen and scientists rarely challenged this traditional perspective but rather fed into it. It was taken for granted that men and women were different and that these differences resided in their biology, which generated their distinctive functions and social positions. Women were thought to be not only different from men but more in thrall to their biological natures. Fausto‐Sterling (1992[1985]) quotes a Victorian physician, who wrote that “Woman is a pair of ovaries with a human being attached, whereas man is a human being furnished with a pair of testes” (Rudolf Virchow, MD, 1821–1902, cited by Fausto‐Sterling, 1992[1985], p. 90). Early psychologists were equally convinced that women were in the grip of their biology. G. Stanley Hall said,

Companion to Feminist Studies, First Edition. Edited by Nancy A. Naples. © 2021 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Published 2021 by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

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Her sympathetic and ganglionic system is, relative to the cerebro‐spinal, more domi­ nant. Her whole soul, conscious and unconscious, is best conceived as a magnificent organ of heredity (i.e. reproduction) and to its laws all psychic activities, if unperverted, are true. (1904, p. 561)

These educated men saw themselves as scientists but appeared to accept unquestion­ ingly that the form of the daily life and behavior of the women around them was ordained by their anatomy (and God). To questions these (apparent) realities was both astonishing and presumptuous. To conclude, in any examination of the long history of explanations of differences between the sexes, biological explanations are to the forefront. Although the focus of such explanations has changed over time, the preoccupation with biology has not. The idea that biology shapes the essential nature of women (and men) has remained strong, if expressed these days in a somewhat more sophisticated or nuanced fashion (Pinker 2002; Baron‐Cohen 2004) This chapter presents a critical approach to recent and contemporary forms of biological determinism and essentialism as applied to sex and gender differences and sexuality.

Biological Determinism and Essentialism Defining Biological Determinism and Essentialism Biological determinism refers to the idea that human behavior originates in and is dictated by biological entities or processes, either innate or constitutional (Rose 1982). Most frequently, in recent years, the causal mechanism is seen to reside in the individual’s genetic make‐up, which acts on behavior through the brain or the hor­ mones (Fine 2010). Hormones have receptors in the brain so they can act on the brain, as the brain can in turn affect the production of hormones. Theories colored by biological determinism are used to explain species‐specific behaviors, group dif­ ferences or differences between individuals. As a philosophical or scientific view­ point it has been applied throughout history to many different human characteristics and behaviors and has been used, often contentiously, to explain differences between people, such as those associated with race (Smedley 2016). Biological determinism has always had strong currency in the explanation of observed differences in behavior and capacities between men and women, in defin­ ing women’s “nature” and accounting for differences between people in their sexual orientations and behaviors. In her review of biological theories about sex and gender, Sayers defined biological essentialism as the view that “biology has endowed women with an essential femininity” (1982, p. 147). Maracek offers the following definition of essentialism as it relates to sex and gender, saying: This view of gender holds that the categories “man” and “woman” are natural, self‐evi­ dent and unequivocal. It regards sex‐linked behaviours and traits as fixed and stable properties of separate and autonomous individuals. (1995, p. 162)

Essentialism is a broader concept than biological determinism. It refers to theories or viewpoints that account for differences between categories by ascribing to them



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enduring, fixed, and prototypical characteristics. In other words: their essence. Haslam and Whelan. define essentialism as “The claim that there are natural kinds whose members share a common essence” (2008, p. 1297). As a theoretical perspec­ tive, essentialist thinking is often found when the focus is on identifying differences between the sexes or specifying the nature of womankind. One of the main justifica­ tions for essentialist views of sex differences is a commitment to biological determin­ ism but essentialist theories can be based on differences that are seen to have sociocultural origins, usually taking effect in infancy or early childhood.

Defining Sex, Gender, and Sexuality In discussing theories of causation in relation to sex and gender it is important to note the use of terminology since the terms, sex and gender, are often used interchangeably, especially in daily discourse and in the popular media. For example it is common on official forms to be asked to specify one’s gender when it might be more precise to ask about one’s sex, which is probably the information that is being sought. The American Psychological Association (APA) defines sex and gender as follows, “Sex usually refers to the biological aspects of maleness or femaleness, whereas gender implies the psycho­ logical, behavioral, social and cultural aspects of being male or female, (i.e. masculinity or femininity).” (http://www.apa.org/pi/lgbt/resources/sexuality‐definitions.pdf). However, having said that, these distinctions can readily break down, and not only in popular usage. The designation of sex is made on the basis of the presence of a complex of structures and processes, including the sex chromosomes, gonads, hor­ mones, external genitalia, and secondary sexual characteristics, and all of these ele­ ments can be present in different degrees at birth causing ambiguity about the assignation of sex, or they can be altered by later accidental or deliberate interven­ tions. Thus, even at a biological level, sex is a complex cluster of characteristics, not one simple characteristic. Butler adds to this picture the view of sex as permeated with social meanings such that the distinction between sex as biological and gender as social breaks down (1990). This problem in distinguishing sex and gender has been taken on board by some contemporary theorists. For example, in a more recent paper on “Neurofeminism and feminist neurosciences” Schmitz and Höppner have decided to use the term “sex/gender” (2014). Increasingly then, there is recognition of the difficulties that arise in adopting the traditional definition of sex, which implies that sex is always dimorphic, that there are only two sexes, male and female, and that they do not change over the life course. The use of the terms sex and gender thus remains problematic. The definition of sexuality or sexual orientation is also a matter for debate. Sexual identity and sexual desires, and behaviors are complex and can also be unstable across the life course. The APA offers a definition of sexual orientation stating that it is, “A component of identity that includes a person’s sexual and emotional attrac­ tion to another person and the behavior and/or social affiliation that may result from this attraction” (http://www.apa.org/pi/lgbt/resources/sexuality‐definitions. pdf). This definition can be seen as essentialist and certainly the term “sexual orien­ tation” is often used as though an individual’s sexuality is fixed and unchanging. Social constructionists will often use the term “sexual preference” indicating a degree of choice and openness (Rosenblum and Travis 2016).

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Biologically deterministic theories about sex, gender, and sexual orientation typi­ cally see all three as intrinsically linked and mapping neatly onto each other, with common biological origins. Thus, from this perspective, being female implies being feminine and attracted to males. This assumption forms the basis of what Adrienne Rich terms “compulsory heterosexuality,” the view that heterosexuality and attrac­ tion to the opposite sex is natural to the female sex and that any deviation from this is therefore unnatural and open to a wide range of hostile responses on the part of heteronormative societies (1980). Transgender people who reject the sex to which they were assigned at birth are an example of the uncoupling of biological sex and gender identity (Chrisler and McCreary 2010). Although it is the case that for centu­ ries, sex, gender, and sexuality have been seen as different facets of the unified bio­ logical essence of men and women, increasingly these three elements are seen as separable and as potentially fluid (Diamond 2009), as discussed in a later section of this chapter.

Biological Theories about Sex and Gender For some decades the majority of natural and social scientists have come to view extreme biological determinism as an untenable position because of the incontro­ vertible evidence that human behavior is strongly influenced by social and cultural factors. Thus very few of them would identify as hardline biological determinists and what becomes a matter of dispute is the extent to which scientists emphasize the social or the biological. However recent developments in neuroscience, evolutionary psychology and the “new genetics” have bolstered biologically based explanations of male–female differences (e.g. Buss 1995; Baron‐Cohen 2004; Brizendine 2007), pro­ voking a second wave of feminist critiques of what they see as sexist and determin­ istic theories and assertions. As discussed earlier, the aspect of biology seen as central to male–female differ­ ence or women’s character has shifted over the centuries. Scientists no longer hold that important consequences arise because female bodies are moist whereas those of males are dry, as Galen asserted, or that female moodiness is because the womb has come adrift and is causing havoc, as Plato suggested. There is a number of theories that are actively discussed in recent and current literature and they focus on genes and evolution, hormones, and brains. The links between genes, evolution, hormones, and brains are strong. For example, biological differences between the sexes in brain function are seen by writers such as Herbert (2015) as due to sex‐linked hormones activated in utero and in the first months of life that shape the brain of males and females in different ways. In the following sections some recent theories will be elaborated, along with critical reactions to them.

Evolution and Genes Sociobiological explanations of sex differences were particularly popular in the 1970s and 1980s with the publication of books like “Sociobiology: The New Synthesis” by Wilson in 1975 and “The Selfish Gene” by Dawkins in 1976. Wilson defined sociobiology as “the systematic study of the biological basis of all social



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behavior” (1975, p. 4) and argues that human nature is largely dictated by a set of evolved traits. He and other sociobiologists such as Barash (1977) see sexual differ­ ence as rooted in our early evolution, at a time, they argue, when the fundamental structure and function of our brains were set down. Given the demands of the prim­ itive life, brains of males and females diverged to suit males to hunting and com­ petitive behavior and women to child‐rearing and nurturing behavior. Such behavioral dimorphism was adaptively advantageous and secured the survival and reproductive success of the species. Barash recommends acquiescing to our biologi­ cal natures, saying, “there should be a sweetness in life when it accords with the adaptive wisdom of evolution” (1977, p. 25).To sociobiologists, much of both male and female behavior is seen to be explicable in terms of reproductive strategies designed to optimize both sexes’ chances of having many healthy offspring, and perpetuating their genes. A small number of theorists claimed to be feminist and advocates of biological determinism. Sayers records the views of “feminist sociobiol­ ogists” like Rossi (1977) who consider that, It is the task of feminism to enable women to get back in touch with their biologically given essence by, among other things, persuading society to construe and value feminin­ ity and female biology equally with masculinity and male biology. (Sayers 1982, p. 147)

Evolutionary theories about human behavior are still strong although the term sociobiology has largely fallen out of use and has been replaced by a number of off­ shoots such as evolutionary anthropology and evolutionary psychology. Although it is hard to find any proof for hypotheses about sex differences having their origins in cave life, the idea that our basic human propensities are laid down in our genes is still current, typified in this century by the popularity of the work of psychologists like Pinker (2002) and philosophers like Dennett (2003). Commitment to evolutionary and genetic determinism is still strong though challenged by the rise of areas such as epigenetics which examine the ways in which the environment can alter the expres­ sion of genes, once thought to be entirely impervious to external influences.

Hormones Hormones have been a longstanding preoccupation of sex difference theorists. As with other strands of biological determinism, hormones have been resurrected in the twenty‐first century and are now a focus for contemporary brain scientists. Since the discovery of hormones and the fact that hormones act differently in males and females, hormones have been seen as an explanation for observed sex differences and indeed for the particular nature and psychology of women. Fausto‐Sterling was one of the first scientists to offer a resounding critique of theories purporting to show how women were in the grip of their hormones in her book Myths of Gender: Biological Theories about Women and Men, which was first published in 1985 and revised in 1992. She notes that, some modern psychologists and biologists suggest that women perform more poorly than do men on mathematics test because hormonal sex differences alter male and

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female brain structures; and many people believe women to be unfit for certain profes­ sions because they menstruate. (1992[1985], p. 93)

Fausto‐Sterling examines the literature on the effects of menstruation and meno­ pause on female behavior and finds evidence for significant negative effects resound­ ingly lacking. She comments on “the morass of poorly done studies on menstruation and menopause” (1992[1985], p. 121) but is heartened by the new research that rejects a traditional misogynistic medical model perspective, which positions wom­ en’s hormones as toxic and abnormal, and instead situates the experience of men­ struation and the menopause in their social contexts (e.g. Beyene 1992). Fausto‐Sterling also examines the evidence for sex differences in aggression. She points out that there is “no clear cut evidence to show that different testosterone levels in adult men and women result in differences in aggression” (1992[1985], p. 141). In fact there is very little evidence for a relationship between circulating hormones such as estrogen and testosterone and any human behavior. Given this reality, researchers often resort to arguments based on the action of fetal androgens on the brain, since the fact that fetal androgens are involved in the establishment of biological sex is incontroverti­ ble. Some neuroscientists and endrocrinologists argue that sex hormones continue to act on the brain throughout life (McEwen and Milner 2017). However, the evidence that fetal hormones shape the human brain for life in a sex‐differentiated manner or that circulating sex hormones have a direct impact on the behavior of adult males and females is weak (Fine 2017).

Brains Differences in male and female brains have been the focus of attention since the absolute difference in brain size was noted. At first the preoccupation was with the fact that female brains are smaller and therefore, it seemed safe to conclude, less competent (Tuana 1993). But the autopsies of the brains of famous men revealed that they might well have had a brain smaller than that of the average women and it also became clear that there was no correlation between intelligence and the size of the brain (Russett 1989). In general the focus moved to the way brains function rather than their size, although recently neuroscientists have shown an interest in examining and theorizing sex differences in the size of brain structures and in abso­ lute size. For example, Grabowska speculates that there are “compensatory mecha­ nisms in females that enable their smaller brains to work as effectively as male brains” (2017, p. 211). The history of the study of the brain and the nervous system is a very long one but the rise of contemporary neuroscience is seen as a feature of the early 1980s, pro­ pelled by recent advances in molecular biology and brain imaging (such as Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scanning and Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI)). Neuroscience has become one of the most feted and well‐funded scientific disciplines, given considerable power and credibility within academia and in the public imagination. President George Bush declared the 1990s the Decade of the Brain in order to “enhance public awareness of the benefits to be derived from brain research.” Leaning on both evolutionary theory and research on hormones, as well as developments in the brain sciences, numerous publications since the 1980s, from



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both social and natural scientists, have promoted the view that the brains of men and women are different. One of the first books to gain prominence was Brain Sex by Moir and Jessel, published in 1989. They assert that, Six or seven weeks after conception … the unborn baby “makes up its mind” and the brain begins to take on a male or female pattern. What happens at that critical stage in the darkness of the womb, will determine the structure and the organisation of the brain and that in turn will decide the very nature of the mind. (1989, p. 21)

Other books in this vein included Baron‐Cohen’s The Essential Difference: Men, Women and the Extreme Male Brain (2003) and The Female Brain by Brizendine (2007). Baron‐Cohen’s main focus is on the idea that evolution has shaped male and female brains to think differently, so that men are sytematizers and women empa­ thizers. Brizendine claims that “scientists have documented an astonishing array of structural, chemical, genetic, hormonal and functional brain differences between men and women” (2007, p. 27). It is this confident assertion of the scientific basis of the idea of sexed brains that has elicited criticism from feminist scientists (Fine 2010; Jordan‐Young 2010). Currently some of the most powerful criticism comes from feminist scholars linked to the group, the Neurogenderings Network (www.neurogenderings. wordpress.org). Like Fausto‐Sterling, the members of this group are biologists and neuroscientists so they are speaking from within the fold. Their aim is to counter examples of “neurosexism” (Fine 2010) by examining the scientific claims that are being made by those promoting the idea of the sexed brain. Neurosexism can be defined as the viewpoint that there are hardwired differences in the brains of men and women that account for the gender status quo, to paraphrase Fine (2010 p. xxv). The scholars in this group want to replace neurosexism with “neurofeminism.” As it sets out on the website: The NeuroGenderings Network is a transdisciplinary network of “neurofeminist” scholars who aim to critically examine neuroscientific knowledge production and to develop differentiated approaches for a more gender adequate neuroscientific research. Feminist neuroscientists generally seek to elaborate the relation between gender and the brain beyond biological determinism but still engaging with the materiality of the brain.

Notably these scientists are not against brain research into sex and gender. Instead, they are asking for a better quality of research. For example, they point out that images of the brain can only reflect current brain activity and not what causes it. When a close analysis of claims about brain sex is conducted it is striking how often they are made on the basis of animal studies, studies of humans using very small samples and so called “snap‐shot studies.” Fine et al. suggest that, Focusing only on similarities or differences is misleading. We need to develop a new framework for thinking of the relation between sex, brain and gender that better fits current knowledge and takes into account changes, overlap, variance and most of all, context. (Fine et al. 2014, p. 1)

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The work of feminist critics seems to be having some impact on the field of neu­ roscience. In 2017, Fine and Jordan‐Young, two early critics of what they saw as unjustified claims about male–female differences in the brain, commented in an arti­ cle in The Guardian that there are “welcome signs that neuroscience is showing new openness to critiques of research into sex differences.” It remains to be seen whether the work of these critics percolates through to the media and the public.

Essentialism and Feminist Theory Much of the work of liberal feminist researchers in the twentieth century focused on demonstrating the minimal difference between the sexes and the considerable over­ lap in their capacities (Maccoby and Jacklin 1974). This early work seemed to be a quest for the “real” sex differences’ and thus was still essentialist in character. However the work of Maccoby and Jacklin, and the later work in this vein, such as that reviewed by Eagly et al. in 2012, was important since it demolished many myths and stereotypes about actual differences between the sexes (in North America at least). After conducting a meta‐analysis of such studies Hyde developed what she called “The Gender Similarities Hypothesis” (2005). Research showing the extent of overlap and the small size of the differences that were to be found led to the crucial conclusion that knowing the sex of any individual could not reliably inform you about their likely dispositions and traits. It should be noted that research of this kind usually addresses issues to do with the psychological attributes and competences of males and females. It does not survey such matters as mode of dress, social roles, etc. In examining some of the differences in conduct and status between men and women it might be easy to side with Lippa who counters Hyde by proposing a “Gender Reality Hypothesis,” pointing out the many ways in which the actual lives of men and women differ (2006). Adjusting the focus of any comparison and examining dif­ ferent samples of men and women, or boys and girls, coming from different classes or cultures may well lead to different conclusions. This kind of comparative research has its uses if not overgeneralized, but it is descriptive and leaves open the question of the origins and meaning of any differences that are detectable. In the late 1970s some influential theorists argued that the way forward was through a revaluation of the so‐called feminine traits and dispositions. For example, Gilligan attacked existing theories about personality development as being male‐ centered, saying that “Implicitly adopting the male life as the norm they have tried to fashion women out of a masculine cloth” (1979, p. 6). In her explorations of girls’ and women’s moral thinking she concluded that women have “a different voice” and that they work with an ethic of care rather than an ethic of justice (1982). Around the same time Chodorow wrote about the way girl children’s early experience of being mothered shaped their capacity for forming relationships and a maternal ­orientation (1978). Both theories were widely lauded at the time but have fallen out of favor, largely because of their essentialist viewpoint. Neither theory was based on biological difference but saw male–female differences as psychically rooted in early experience and carried forward into the rest of the person’s life. More recently Chodorow has admitted that her early views have changed and she disassociates herself from theories that are “universalising and essentialising” (2012, p. 7).



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As far back as 1949, Simone de Beauvoir in The Second Sex, said that “One is not born a woman but becomes one.” This maxim was positioned in direct opposition to Freud’s assertion that “anatomy is destiny.” It became representative of the radical feminist stance, which, unlike the still hegemonic biological determinist viewpoint, held the door open to change and provided a platform for feminist activism. Spurred on by the second wave of feminism in the late 1960s many feminist researchers argued that the patriarchal sociopolitical context and rampant sex‐typing that were so disadvantageous to women were the main reasons for women’s subordinate posi­ tion and achievements. In the latter part of the twentieth century most feminist theo­ rists advanced social explanations for differences between men and women in behavior and status, seeing differences as socially constructed, not given. As Rosenblum and Travis note, From the constructionist perspective, difference is created rather than intrinsic to a phenomenon. Social processes … create differences, determine that some differences are more important than others and assign particular meanings to those differences. (2016, p. 3)

One social process that was given central importance in the last decades of the twentieth century was language, a focus that was influenced by postmodern thinking and “the turn to language.” Alerted by Foucault to the role discourse plays in power relations throughout all aspects of society, feminist theorists examined discourses on the body, on male–female relations and society’s discursive representations of the female and the feminine (Butler 1990; Nicholson 1990). Postmodernists also resisted the longstanding focus on male–female differences, seeking to disrupt traditional binaries and oppositions like male–female and nature–nurture (Gergen 2001). Despite the clear rejection of essentialist theories by most feminist theorists, essen­ tialist thinking is, as I will discuss further in the concluding section of this chapter, still very evident in both popular writing on male–female difference and in those theories that promote biological explanations, which tend in recent decades to pro­ mote the “different but equal perspective” rather than the view that women are in any way inferior. The most well‐known book that trumpets this new form of essen­ tialism is probably Gray’s Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, which was published in 1992 and has sold over a million copies, according to its Wikipedia entry. Gray focuses on what the differences are – or what he asserts they are – and does not dwell on origins, though he does say “men and women are supposed to be different” (p. 10). Essentialist theories, like those of Gray, however seemingly benign and celebratory of women’s “special” qualities are quickly translated into evidence of female deficiency and used as a reason for prejudice and exclusion. Thus Carol Gilligan’s (1982) theory that women favored a morality based on valuing relation­ ship and men based their morality on the consideration of rights could potentially be used to deny a woman a traditional high‐status post like Chief Justice. As Mednick notes, Arguments for women’s intrinsic difference (from men), whether innate or deeply socialized, support conservative policies, that in fact could do little else but maintain the status quo vis a vis gender politics. (1989, p. 1122)

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Rejecting all forms of essentialism may be seen to present feminists with a dilemma because if women do not share a common essence or identity how can they have a common political cause? One solution may be to adopt the “strategic essentialism” advocated by Spivak (1988). Spivak argues for “a strategic use of positivist essential­ ism in a scrupulously political interest” (1988, p. 15). This would result in women (temporarily) setting aside their diversity and their differences in race, class, ethnic­ ity, etc. and adopting the shared identity “woman” but for political purposes only. Stone considers the concept of strategic essentialism problematic, proposing instead that feminists continue to reject essentialism as “descriptively false” (2004, p. 1) but find unity between women in their shared history of oppression and in shared aspects of their current social positioning.

Sexuality and Biological Determinism In relation to sexuality a number of different positions on the social–biological con­ tinuum have been proffered. Explanations that favor biological determinants have been seen as both negative and positive by gay, lesbian, and trans activists. In 1991, LeVay claimed to have found evidence of a difference in the hypothalamus of homo­ sexual and heterosexual men. This finding and the claim by Hamer et al. in 1993 to have identified the “gay gene” were embraced by some activists as evidence that homosexuality was innate and therefore should not be the target of discrimination any more than the color of a person’s skin or hair. However, there have been difficul­ ties in replicating both findings and they have been subject to numerous critiques, centering on their scientific standing and their harmful implications. For example, Hegarty (1997), in a feminist interrogation of Le Vay’s work, points out that Le Vay’s dichotomous view of sexuality excludes those with “bisexual or queer” sexual iden­ tities. A view that homosexuality is fixed in structures of the brain reinforces the view that it is a constitutional deficiency that is universal in all homosexual men, and ignores the variety and mutability in the expression of human sexuality. As Hegarty notes, lesbian and gay people “differentiate their sexualities in complex and different ways across the life span” (1997, p. 356). Hegarty sees LeVay’s work as a typical example of biological essentialism, “part of a longer ongoing attempt to inscribe sexual desire within the discipline of biology” (1997, p. 355). Many different biological and social explanations of sexual orientation have been put forward, ranging from genetic differences to atypical early attachments with parents, but the general consensus is that while biological factors, operating via the genes or postnatally, may have a role and social factors may also have a role, sexual orientation is multiply determined and may have very different causal origins across the population (APA 2008). An essentialist position on sexual orientation sees it as a fixed and unchanging trait of the individual. In his historical review of sexuality studies, Plummer com­ ments that the Kinsey Institute and others in the 1970s “moved sexuality from being seen as essentially biological and reproductive to the challenge of taking seriously its socially grounded multiple meanings” (2012, p. 245). Plummer continues, “sexuali­ ties are never fixed or stable, they do not harbour one grand truth and they do not reveal our essential nature” (p. 253). He notes that by the 1990s and the publication



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of books such as Simon’s Postmodern Sexualities (1996) scholars increasingly adopted a social constructionist perspective on sexuality, As Plummer notes sexual­ ity was “destabilized, decentered, and de‐essentialized” (2012, p. 247). However studies show that although scholarly thinking on sexuality may reject an essentialist perspective, essentialist thinking may still be a part of how many lay people conceptualize their own sexual orientation. Fausto‐Sterling (2012b) gives the example of a study by Stork which showed that women who have entered lesbian relationships in middle age  –  after having been married and having had chil­ dren – tend to conclude that they must always have been a lesbian but just didn’t know it (1998). Diamond introduced the term “sexual fluidity,” which she claims is more com­ mon in women than in men (2009). One of her studies, which study tracked young women who identified as having a same‐sex orientation into middle age and older found considerable fluctuation in their sexual preferences and behavior over time, often prompted by changes in context and opportunity (Diamond 2009). Diamond argues for a de‐essentialized, social constructionist perspective on sexual orienta­ tion which is against both biological determination and the idea that a person’s sexual preference is necessarily fixed across the life course. Despite the increased discussion of sexual fluidity in academia and in the media, accompanying the higher profile for gender fluidity, empirical research indicates that the majority of people retain the same sexual orientation/preference across the life course (Savin‐ Williams et al. 2012).

A Place for Biology but not for Determinism or Essentialism? Reclaiming the Body For many years there was a widespread rejection within feminism, across all its manifestations, of any form of theory that included biological elements. To see any female characteristic as biological in its origins or mode of functioning was seen as tantamount to accepting that it was fixed and immutable. Biology and essentialism were thus seen to go hand‐in‐hand. In the late twentieth century, with the rise of social constructivist theory and the accompanying “linguistic turn,” the body and its functions were seen as texts where discourses about the body – often positioned as oppressive and unhelpful discourses – dictate what is experienced by the individual. Thus “the thought body” became a theoretical preoccupation for many feminist scholars and the material body remained problematic (Greene 2015). Although the shift to seeing social and discursive factors as the causes of difference and therefore the target for change was understandable and productive, one consequence was the exclusion of the physical from consideration and the perpetuation of culture‐nature, mind–body binaries. Also, as Grosz comments, social constructivist perspectives reduced “materiality to representation” (Grosz 2005, p. 172). In relation to sexual­ ity, Plummer comments that the predominantly social constructivist view of sexual­ ity has served to take attention away from the body and bodily acts but he notes a recent increase in interest in research into the embodiment of sexuality and forms of sexual expression (2012).

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Ussher was among a number of feminist theorists who felt uncomfortable with this preoccupation with the discursive alone and argued accordingly for the need for a material‐discursive perspective (2006). In this century a number of feminist schol­ ars have reembraced the material and the biological and there has been a return to some form of acceptance of the material reality of the body, with material‐discursive approaches and “the new materialism” becoming more popular (Barad 2003; Hird 2004). Such work resonates with the work of critics of mechanistic and reductionist perspectives within biology who are associated with the emergence of “the new biol­ ogy” (e.g. Woese 2004). Importantly, the “new materialists” and cognate theorists have found ways to resist any form of biological determinism. Currently, biological determinism is under attack from feminist scientists, from those who favor sociocultural determinants but also, even more importantly, from those who oppose the very idea that all human behavior is determined, either by biological or by social factors.

Explaining the Role of Biology There are some contemporary theorists who attempt to take account of the biologi­ cal in their approach to understanding what shapes sex and gender‐linked behavior. The basic premise behind these theories is that human life is complex and should be seen from a biopsychosocial perspective. One hypothesis is centered on the fact there are some physical and physiological differences between the sexes that are both evi­ dent at or shortly after birth and more or less universal (Eliot 2009). These relatively small but consistent differences are mostly to do with size (males are larger and heavier), activity level (males are more active), maturity (females are more mature physiologically), and vulnerability (males are more likely to die in utero and after birth and are more prone to suffering from a range of childhood disorders). Eliot argues that “each of these traits is massively amplified by the different sorts of prac­ tice, role models and reinforcement that boys and girls are exposed to from birth onward” (2009, p. 6). Although Eliot does not mention the work of researchers in the dynamic systems and relational developmental systems fields, her hypothesis sits quite comfortably with these very active areas of research (see, for example, Overton and Lerner 2012). Fausto‐Sterling (2012a,b) and Martin and Ruble (2009) see dynamic systemic devel­ opmental models as offering a more adequate theoretical framework for explaining how gender‐typed traits develop and change over time. This stable of theories works at the intersection of biology and the psychosocial sciences and recognizes the ongo­ ing interconnectedness of biological, social, and psychological processes, adopting a developmental and longitudinal approach to research. Fausto‐Sterling discusses the process of “gender fortification,” which is set in motion as soon as it is known whether the new baby (or baby in the womb) is a girl or a boy. As she says, “the social response to the genitalia of the newborn is intense” (2012b, p. 7). This chimes with Eliot’s view that originally small differences are amplified by our social response to them. Once factors external to the body enter into the picture, i.e. as soon as conception takes place, there is a fundamental inseparability between the biological and the environmental, between nature and nurture. Fausto‐Sterling talks about the ways



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that external influences become embodied (2012b). This implies that when scientists assess what they claim to be “the biological,” whether it be hormones, brain struc­ tures, or brain function, they cannot excise the effects of previous experience on those material substances or processes. Thus, when the brains of men and women or boys and girls are compared, what is found in the brain is as likely to be the result of gendered experience as it is innate biology. Experience changes biology. In countering the fatalism of deterministic and essentialist theories in relation to human behavior, it is necessary to take full account of the biological, the social, the psychological, and the environmental. It is critical to do this in a way that is scien­ tifically robust. Scientists from both the natural and the social sciences have embarked on this project, in different ways but with a common recognition that the old either/ or polarities – opposing the biological and the psychosocial – are a theoretical dead‐ end. Biology is in itself dynamic, evolving, and totally interdependent with the envi­ ronment (Rose 1997; Woese 2004). In this sense, strong biological determinism with its connotation of a fixed biology impervious to environmental influence is not ten­ able. As long ago as 1978 Lambert commented, The notion that “innate” factors, such as genes or hormones, influence human behavior is often called (usually pejoratively) “biological determinism.” To equate biological with intrinsic, inflexible, or pre‐programed is an unfortunate misuse of the term biological. Behavior is itself a biological phenomenon, an interaction between organism and envi­ ronment. (Lambert 1978, p. 104)

Feminist biologists such as Anne Fausto‐Sterling (2012a) regret the neglect of biology that has been a consequence of the rejection of biological determinism. She says, “Everybody breathe a sigh of relief: We do not have to fight biology anymore. But, take a deep breath: If we invite biology back into our theoretical lives, we have to do it right” (2012a, p. 411). She argues that any complete and adequate view of human behavior, including gender and sexual identity, must incorporate biology. A counterdeterministic or nondeterministic view of human behavior emphasizes human agency and intentionality. This viewpoint foregrounds the capacity of human persons to act on the world and respond to it in ways that are novel, creative, and essentially unpredictable (Martin et al. 2010). Thus an important consideration in any approach to understanding gender or sexuality is the self‐making capacity of the human. Theories need to take on board the emergent, novel, and autopoietic quality of human thought and action (Greene 2015). Self‐construals and self‐constructions are inevitably influenced by ambient societal discourses but each person is capable of selecting from the discourses around her and arriving at her own relationship with her sex, gender, and sexuality, if permitted. Another cognate strand of work, promoted by social scientists and philosophers rather than natural scientists, is found in the rise of “the new materialism.” Braidotti was one of the feminist forerunners of the new materialism. In 2000, she criticized feminist writers for their “denial of the materiality of the bodily self” (2000, p. 160). However she was adamantly opposed to biological determinism and argued for a perspective that was as she termed it “post‐humanist.” Humanist thinking, she argued, tends to essentialize and reify the attributes thought to define the human.

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This tendency has been seen in both biological and social essentialist thought. A number of feminist writers has explored the potential of the new materialism (see Alaimo and Hekman 2008) and they do so in a variety of different ways. However, there is broad agreement on the need to move beyond the discursive and social con­ structionist theories to embrace the material but not within the old rigid framework of biological determinism. The new materialists eschew dualisms between mind and matter, nature and nurture, and in some cases, human and nonhuman. They see the mind and body in constant fluid interaction, fundamentally inseparable from each other and from their context. One might conclude that, as with the nurture versus nature debate, old ideas about the fixed and predetermined essence of human beings can now be assigned to the dustbin of history. However, they persist.

The Enduring Appeal of Essentialist and Biological Explanations Persistence of Essentialist Thinking Essentialist thinking is a common and understandable human pattern of thought. Studies have shown that lay people frequently use essentialist modes of thought in ­relation to both objects and people (Medin and Ortony 1989). The developmental psychologist, Gelman, has researched the development of essentialist thinking in chil­ dren and adults and concludes that “Essentialism is a reasoning heuristic that is readily available to both children and adults” (2004). To Phillips it is “a psychologically inev­ itable feature of the way humans think” (2010). In order to make sense of the complex and diverse world around us we seek to group things and people into categories on the basis of some – actual or presumed – underlying common qualities or essences. If one accepts this viewpoint it is clear that essentialist thinking will always be with us and the tendency to ascribe essences to the categories man and women, male and female, will continue. Research by Bastain and Haslam showed that essentialist thinking was related to the endorsement of stereotypes, including those related to gender (2006). This implies a need to redouble efforts to encourage evidence‐based critique of essen­ tialist thinking whenever it moves beyond being a handy shorthand to fostering restric­ tive stereotyping and prejudice. Given this proclivity for humans to look for essentialist explanations, vigilance is required to identify and counter examples of unfounded or oppressive essentialist thinking, wherever it raises its Hydra‐like head.

Persistence of Biological Determinism Although biological determinism in its various forms has been subjected to sustained and cogent criticism, such theories continue to emerge and are given attention in the media as well as in academic circles, as is readily seen in the current popularity of brain‐based accounts of a wide range of behaviors and human differences Since these theories are often based on weak evidence and flawed arguments it is clearly important from the scientific perspective that they are critiqued and that more ade­ quate scientific explanations are advanced such as those studies critiquing neuro­ sexism mentioned earlier. However, since such alternative viewpoints and disconfirming studies do exist, the question then becomes, why do they not take hold



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in the imagination of the public, in the thinking of a wide range of practitioners, and among policymakers? For example, current research on the brain is widely cited in the media and by policymakers but they favor the kind of brain research that pro­ motes a simple Brains R Us view of human functioning (Tallis 2014). Undoubtedly this information about brains and the biology of sex and gender also influences the thinking and practice of parents who listen to or read popularized versions of the views of biological determinists in the media. This public uptake of the latest bio­ logical fad – however flawed – was recognized as far back as 1978 by Lowe in her paper on “Sociobiology and sex differences.” She says, “We do not have to treat sociobiology seriously as a scientific theory of human behavior. Unfortunately we do have to take it seriously as a political theory” (1978, p. 123). In 1993, the psychologist, Lerner, wrote a paper arguing against biological deter­ minism and reductionism, in which he stated, “These questions are not merely aca­ demic. Science and public policy are at this writing being influenced by biologically reductionistic ideology” (p. 124). One quarter of a century later, biologically reduc­ tionistic and deterministic theories are, if anything, more pervasive. Tallis comments on the dangers of the widespread influence of what he calls “neuromania” and “Darwinitis” for our perception of what it means to be human. He sees such theories as promoting a view of humans as mere animals, thus failing to recognize what it is that makes us different from animals. While not dismissing our biological reality he calls for more attention to the moral and self‐regulatory capacities of humans, both undermined by excessive “science‐based naturalism,” as he terms it (2014, p. xi). In a 2005 article called “fMRI in the public eye,” Raeme et al. report the results of their analysis of 13 years of media coverage of brain research using fMRI imagery. They concluded that the media present the research as though the brain images allow us to “capture visual proof of brain activity, despite the enormous complexities of data acquisition and image processing” (p. 160). They appear to be the first to coin the term neuroessentialism by which they mean how fMRI research locates subjectivity and personal identity in the brain. They say, “In this sense the brain is used as a shortcut for the more global concepts such as the person, the individual or the self” (p. 160). It is not hard to find articles in the press with titles such as “How provoca­ tive clothes affect the brain” (The Guardian 2018) or books with titles like The Brain: The Story of You (Eagleman 2016). Raeme et al. also comment on how com­ mon it is for scientists and science writers to “provide the audience with the news that is easiest to assimilate.” Studies have shown that if reports of new scientific studies are accompanied by colored images of the inner workings of the brain they are found to be more credible than when accompanied by graphs or tables, especially if readers do not see themselves as experts in the topic (McCabe and Castel 2008). According to O’Connor and Joffe (2014) the general public has, for the most part, a tendency to assimilate scientific data to fit their existing conceptions of how soci­ ety works. They say, Research shows that humans have a deep‐seated motivation to justify the social system in which they live, and their cognition is moulded by the desire to construe that system as good, just and legitimate. This orientation shapes public reception of scientific infor­ mation, which is often absorbed into efforts to preserve existing group hierarchies (2014, p. 2).

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These authors have a somewhat pessimistic and maybe patronizing view of the ability of the general public to understand scientific information. However, the ­persistence of sexual dimorphism in society and the perpetual emergence of new theories about its biological justification – for the most part happily received by the media and the populace – lend weight to their point of view. We can see the evidence of the resurgence of biological determinism, sexism, and sex‐role differentiation all around us, in the shops and on the media and in daily practices, public and private. Even in this age when gender fluidity is a topic of interest and discussion and despite the pleas of second‐wave feminists for a less gendered treatment of boys and girls, the market continues to brand their clothes and toys as pink or blue. As England notes, the gender revolution is uneven and, in some regards, stalled (2010). Men earn more and occupy more positions with power. Women are demeaned and abused across the globe. The OECD’s 2014 report on the position of girls and women in 160 states concludes that “across the globe every day women and girls experience some form of discrimination solely because they were born female” (Social Institutions and Gender Index [SIGI] 2014, p. 6). The fact that people cling to the status quo and prefer simple theories to complex ones is part of reality. It is also part of current reality that we live in society where old forms of patriarchy are being threatened and where a defensive reassertion of the inevitability and fixity of sex and gender roles serves the agenda of the white, male ruling class and its favored political ideologies. In the 1980s, Lewontin wrote a paper called “Biological determinism.” Among other things he said, If we want to understand where these biological determinist theories of human life come from and what gives them their perpetual appeal, we must look not in the annals of biological science, but in the social and political realities that surround us, and in the social and political myths that constitute the ideology of our society. (1982, p. 152)

His warning is as relevant today as when it was written.

Conclusion Biological determinism has a long history and is deeply embedded in Western schol­ arship. Both biological determinism and essentialism have taken many different forms over the centuries. While extreme biological determinism is rarely advocated by scholars today, theories that promote biology as offering the strongest explana­ tion for sex and gender differences and differences in sexuality are still popular and widely accepted in academia and in the media. Current theories centering on genes, hormones, and brains have been critiqued by feminist scholars and others, who ques­ tion the quality of the science behind the assertions that are made. Questions arise, also, about the narrow conception of humanity and human life that a theory focused primarily on genes, hormones, or brains can offer. Such theories fail to capture the reality that humans are not only biological but also social and psychological beings, enmeshed in complex and ongoing exchanges with their human and nonhuman



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c­ ontexts. It is thus unhelpful to ignore the social nature of human biology as much as it is to ignore the biological nature of all humans. Essentialism is often found hand in hand with biological determinism although the perceived roots of difference may be social as well as biological. Seeing males and females, homosexuals and heterosexuals as different “types,” with fixed and endur­ ing essences is questionable given the evidence of a degree of life‐course fluidity within individuals and the varied and overlapping nature of sex, gender, and sexual expression across individuals. Combating essentialism and biological determinism and reductionism may be a difficult and ongoing struggle. However, it is high time to leave the old and fallacious certainties of essentialism and biological determinism behind and embrace the chal­ lenge of a nonessentialist, nondualist future, one that fully embraces the dynamic complexity, potentialities, and constraints of human life. Theories such as develop­ mental dynamic systems theories are attempting to capture this complexity. In femi­ nist theory we need to take account of the material and the biological. The “new materialism” and the “new biology” converge on similar visions and together pro­ vide a more adequate base for theorizing human ontology and potential and – criti­ cally – they provide a better foundation for feminist theory and action.

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Hird, M.J. (2004). Feminist matters: new materialist considerations of sexual difference. Feminist Theory 5: 223–232. Hyde, J. (2005). The gender similarities hypothesis. American Psychologist 60: 581–592. Jordan‐Young, R. (2010). Brain Storm: The Flaws in the Science of Sex Differences. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Lambert, H.H. (1978). Biology and equality: a perspective on sex differences. Signs 4: 97–117. Lerner, R.M. (1993). The demise of the nature‐nurture controversy. Human Development 36: 119–124. LeVay, S. (1991). A difference in hypothalamic structure between homosexual and hetero­ sexual men. Science 253: 1034–1037. Lewontin, R. (1982). Biological determinism. In: The Tanner Lectures on Human Values. University of Utah https://tannerlectures.utah.edu/_documents/a‐to‐z/l/lewontin83.pdf. Lippa, R.A. (2006). The gender reality hypothesis. American Psychologist 61: 639–640. Lowe, M. (1978). Sociobiology and sex differences. Signs 4: 118–125. Maccoby, E.E. and Jacklin, C.J. (1974). The Psychology of Sex Differences. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Maracek, J. (1995). Gender, politics and Psychology’s ways of knowing. American Psychologist 50: 162–163. Martin, C.L. and Ruble, D.N. (2009). Patterns of gender development. Annual Review of Psychology 61: 353–381. Martin, J., Sugarman, J.H., and Hickinbottom, S. (2010). Persons: Understanding Psychological Selfhood and Agency. London: Springer. McCabe, D.P. and Castel, A.D. (2008). Seeing is believing: the effect of brain images on judge­ ments of scientific reasoning. Cognition 107: 343–352. McEwen, B.S. and Milner, T.A. (2017). Understanding the broad influences of sex hormones and sex differences in the brain. Journal of Neuroscience Research 95: 24–39. Medin, D. and Ortony, A. (1989). Psychological essentialism. In: Similarity and Analogical Reasoning (eds. S. Vosniadou and A. Ortony), 179–195. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mednick, M.T.S. (1989). On the politics of psychological constructs: stop the bandwagon I want to get off. American Psychologist 44: 1118–1123. Moir, A. and Jessel, D. (1989). Brain Sex: The Real Differences Between Men and Women. London: Mandarin. Nicholson, L.J. (1990). Feminism/Postmodernism. London: Routledge. O’Connor, C. and Joffe, H. (2014). Gender on the brain: a case study of scientific communica­ tion in the new media environment. PLoS One 9 (1–15): e110830. Overton, W.F. and Lerner, R.M. (2012). Relational developmental systems: paradigm for developmental science in the post genomic era. Behavioral and Brain Science 35: 375– 376. Phillips, A. (2010). What’s wrong with essentialism? Distinktion: Scandinavian Journal of Social Theory 11: 47–60. Pinker, S. (2002). The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature. London: Allen Lane. Plummer, K. (2012). Critical sexuality studies. In: The Wiley Companion to Sociology (ed. G. Rizer), 243–269. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Raeme, E., Bar‐Ilan, O., and Illes, J. (2005). fMRI in the public eye. Nature Review Neuroscience 2: 159–164. Rich, A. (1980). Compulsory heterosexuality and lesbian existence. Signs 5: 631–660. Rose, S. (ed.) (1982). Against Biological Determinism. London: Allison and Busby.

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3 Marxist and Socialist Feminisms Elisabeth Armstrong

Early Tenets The writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels created a new continent of thought about social life. Marx demonstrated how capital was able to grow by the exploitation of labor. With the rise of industrial capitalism in the beginning of the nineteenth century, workers, with no other property except their own power to work, had to resign themselves to working for capitalists. But when the exhausted workers went back home from the factories and the fields, they had to resuscitate themselves with their meager pay packets through unpaid reproductive labor at home. In The German Ideology (1845–1846), Marx and Engels described the misperception of workers’ relations of reproduction. “The production of life, both of one’s own in labor and of fresh life in procreation, now appears as a double relationship: on the one hand as a natural, on the other as a social relationship” (Marx and Engels 1964, p. 41). Reproductive labor had social forms that organized it, such as marriage and the family; but the labor itself was seen as biological. Women who performed this labor were also naturalized, as biological beings unable to effect changes in these social orders. Marxism historicized social reproduction as labor, arguing that it exists within the relations of capitalism. Behind every capitalist social relation – that of the capitalist and the worker  –  lay another buried social relation, that of the household – between husband and wife. In the newly privatized household, as a result of inherited gender roles, women did the bulk of all reproductive labor under the control of men. Women, therefore, reproduced workers  –  including themselves  –  to return the next day ready to sell their labor power to the capitalist. The use value of this reproductive labor is the workers’ daily and generational renewal. The exchange value of women’s work in the family, however, is nothing at all. The Marxist definition of a class society under capitalism describes how one class controls the means to produce goods. Wealth accumulates to this small group of

Companion to Feminist Studies, First Edition. Edited by Nancy A. Naples. © 2021 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Published 2021 by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

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owners because they hold what Marx calls the means of production – the elements that harness profit, including intellectual rights, labor, land, natural resources, raw materials, markets, and systems of distribution. All of these facets are privatized, all of them owned, since private property anchors a class society. In addition, that ownership class dictates how everyone else can use these resources. Those that own the means of production hoard for themselves the surplus value (profit) from the production of commodities, those socially useful goods that are bought and sold for the reproduction of life. In capitalism, workers receive wages, capitalists take the profit from their work, and those who reproduce daily and generational life receive no recognition for their labor, in wages or in social value. As subjects in capitalism, they are rendered invisible or a burden to the system. Marxist feminism explores how gender ideologies of femininity and masculinity structure production in capitalism. It challenges the primacy of capitalist value to determine social values, both the exchange value in wages and the surplus value of profit by making the use value of reproductive labor visible. Today, Marxist feminism grapples with two central questions: how is the political economy gendered in late capitalism? And, how does the social reproduction of people and communities renew capitalism, rather than support anticapitalist praxis? The first question addresses imperialism today, what Lenin famously called the highest stage of capitalism. As a system based on profit over people’s needs, capitalism constantly seeks new markets for its goods, what Marx calls commodities, due to the crisis of overproduction – making more things than people can buy. Imperialism refers to the aggressive solution to this crisis that creates new markets and new pools of waged workers to increase the profitability for the owning classes of capitalism. Marxist feminists argue that imperialism in the twentieth and twenty‐first century relies not simply on women to solve the crisis of overproduction (as workers, consumers or both), but also on oppressive ideologies of gender. Imperialism captures new markets through the mobilization of extant ideologies of gender oppression to force new workers into waged work, to decrease wages and working conditions, and to exploit previously untapped resources.

Historical and Theoretical Background Marx and Engels developed their insights about the social, historical character of reproduction between the 1840s and 1880s. Friedrich Engels’ The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (1884) elaborated the evolving social relations of production and reproduction. Capitalism, in Engels’ argument, hollowed out the productive realm of the family’s labor under feudalism for its own use. Women’s work of handicrafts, spinning, subsistence farming, livestock rearing, and other agricultural labor gave way as common lands became enclosed, and rural survival depended on wages alone. Under capitalism, Engels argued, “household management lost its public character. It no longer concerned society. It became a private service: the wife became head servant, excluded from all participation in social production” (Engels 1942, p. 65). Women’s subordination was neither biologically natural nor God‐given; instead, the class relations of capitalism enforced the gender hierarchies that anchored women’s oppression. Marxist feminists viewed this ­patriarchal family as integral to capitalism, and thus a site of oppression that must

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be destroyed. Familial gendered labor relations, instead, should be socialized. Only when women as workers joined proletarian struggles against capitalism could they combat women’s oppression in patriarchal values and social orders. Marxist feminists expanded these insights in the 1880s through the 1920s to ask how divisions of reproductive labor and productive work reproduced capitalism as a whole. In particular, Rosa Luxemburg argued that imperialism relied upon reproduction to more intensively exploit workers, new markets, and natural resources (Luxemburg 1951). In the early 1900s, socialist feminists demanded a better understanding of how reproduction became women’s work and demanded the end to monogamous marriage and objectification in the family (Bebel 1910). They criticized the strict separation between the private family/home and the public workplace (Krupskaya 1899). In campaigns to organize women during the 1880s, the praxis of socialist feminism developed explanations for why women’s work was paid less than men’s work. It challenged the fiercely policed domain of factory work as necessarily men’s work; and sought entry for women workers into the collective bargaining units of workers’ associations and unions (Zetkin 1976). Socialist feminists sought to synthesize feminist analyses of gender inequality, social reproduction, and economic reproduction. They developed a broader view of women’s economic, social reproductive role and gender oppression as interactive contributions toward women’s oppression. Engels and Zetkin examined the family as the site of women’s oppression, used for the further extraction of women’s (and to a lesser degree men’s) unpaid reproductive labor by capitalism. They also targeted marriage as a religious and state institution that enforced women’s subordination to men and to capital. Neither, however, substantively theorized how control over women’s bodily integrity and sexual desires was also a constitutive facet of capitalism. Alexandra Kollantai, who joined the Bolshevik Party in Russia (later the USSR) from 1899 to her death 1952, raised precisely these questions. In her 1908 introduction to The Social Basis of the Women’s Question, Kollantai agreed that “woman” is a class‐divided group within capitalism; therefore, the vote alone was not enough to ensure all women’s liberation. Women’s franchise did nothing to advance the power of workers for themselves; instead, it heightened the class power of some women over others. Instead, working‐class women must join the proletarian revolution in solidarity with working‐class men to overthrow capitalism (Kollantai 1908 [1984]). Over the course of Kollantai’s life, particularly in the USSR after the 1917 revolution, she argued that women’s liberation had multiple facets that could not be won solely as workers. Private property, she agreed, is the underlying cause of women’s oppression. However, without the active transformation of morality, sexuality, and the family constitutive of state socialism, women would never gain full emancipation. Kollantai formed the Women’s Bureau in 1919 and led it for over two years between 1920 and 1922. She developed programs of state support for children and mothers, such as paid maternity leave and childcare institutions. She changed divorce laws, civil marriage laws, and laws for illegitimate children’s rights. During the 1920s she fought to liberate oppressive mores of sexuality and the family in her position (Kollantai 1920). Sex, desire and pleasure, she argued, should also propel revolutionary horizons. These alternate emotional and ethical orders took shape primarily in her novels, such as Love of Worker Bees (1923 [1978]) and Red Love (1927). In these works, the revolution, the will of the people, and the desire to live fulfilling

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lives shared a libidinal ethos with bodily autonomy and women’s right to experience sexual pleasure as they wished. She described collectivist family forms that could create new egalitarian social relationships, amply supported by state socialism. Kollantai, too, faced resistance to her ideas, but emancipatory and revolutionary sex, love, care, and desire remain bedrock principles in Marxist feminism.

The Value of Social Reproduction The Marxist feminism that emerged from these struggles integrated an attention to feudal social forms of gender relations in order to better understand imperialist strategies for capitalist accumulation. Late capitalism spawned a twofold method: the systematic disarticulation of production from one region or location, so that factories roam the earth in relentless search of unorganized workers, coupled with the global integration of capital in time, money, and space. Workers have lost power as capital has gained. Imperialism in late capitalism mobilized rural women from subsistence agricultural economies as workers, through land eviction and policies of peasant immiseration. As a result of mass migration from small landholdings, away from livelihoods based on subsistence farming, those previously marginal regions formed the basis for new markets as they became more fully integrated into global capitalism. In the words of Patricia Fernández‐Kelly, the question about the gender relations of the political economy asked, “how women were becoming the new face of the international proletariat” (Fernández‐Kelly 2007, p. 509). The second question about social reproduction as a site for both capitalism’s renewal and its downfall focuses on the ongoing centrality of primitive accumulation – variously called tribute, debt payment, theft, resource extraction, and oppression, depending on the context – to the accumulation of surplus value (or profit) in capitalism (Federici 2012). Social reproduction looks to the lives of workers beyond the workplace: of leisure, vices, love, and ethics. These pursuits outside of the sphere of production are still threaded with ideologies of capitalism and their commodification, including emotions, pleasure, and family. Analysts of social reproduction seek to better understand these linkages between workers and their lives. Theories of gender and political economy necessarily overlap with those about social reproduction in vital ways, not least because imperialism is predicated upon the primitive accumulation of unpaid work and the earth’s resources (Simpson 2009). In the early twentieth century, socialist feminists argued for the social wage to bridge the divide between paid productive work and unpaid reproductive labor. The social wage sought to give material value to reproductive labor. Kollantai’s early work to provide greater state support for reproductive work, spread from the USSR in the early twentieth century to nations across Europe, Iran, Cuba, and other state socialist governments (Bier 2011; Moghadam 2003). Paid time off for childcare, maternity leave, subsidized food for childbearing women, and other pro‐maternalist policies emerged from Marxist feminist analyses, particularly in socialist state formations of the USSR and Eastern Europe (Ghodsee 2015). Efforts to collectivize reproductive labor, also championed by Kollantai, through state‐run childcare and collective living arrangements sought to encourage women’s political participation and lessen their workloads spread to China in the 1950s and Tanzania in the 1960s.

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In the 1930s and 1940s, another strategy to link production to reproduction developed in the United States. In the late 1930s, Mary Inman, an American communist challenged the Marxist feminist focus on women as workers. She argued that the reproductive labor of middle‐class women should be recognized as productive work (Inman 1940). While her analysis did not change the Communist Party’s position on the woman question, she continued to write about the importance of women’s reproductive labor to waged work through the 1960s (Weigand 2001). Socialist feminists from the Caribbean, Italy, Germany, France, and the UK revived Inman’s recognition of reproductive labor as productive work (Benston 1971; Mies et  al. 1988). Like Inman, they directly challenged the separation between production and reproduction in traditional Marxist feminism. “Labor power is a commodity produced in the home,” wrote Selma James. “Women are not marginal in the home, in the factory, in the hospital, in the office. We are fundamental to the reproduction of capital and fundamental to its destruction” (Dalla Costa and James 1972, p. 19). Beginning in Italy, demands for payment in the Wages for Housework movement sought the downfall of capitalism through bankrupting its reliance on women’s unpaid reproductive labor. The movement also sought to collectivize women who were atomized by the work’s invisibility hidden within the domestic sphere. Women, as the primary subjects of this unpaid labor, could realize their own power as a collective force to dismantle the capitalist system that exploited them.

The Social Wage, Mode of Production Debate, and Patriarchy Movements to expand the social wage, through paid parental leave and government‐ provided childcare among other collective support for reproductive work, are long‐ term components of socialist feminism (Fraser 2013). These movements within socialist feminism spurred innovations within Marxist feminist social reproduction theory. Marxist feminist analyses of free trade zones began with the admission that class politics are central to questions of social reproduction and the gendered oppression of women (Fernández‐Kelly 2000). Marxist feminist scholars did not simply expand the definition of “production” to include unpaid and racialized reproductive labor as its hidden center, but asked what it revealed about capitalism as a whole. Marxist feminist scholars who analyzed the experiences of women in the postcolonial Third World demanded increased attention to the landlessness of rural women, a large proportion of rural women, and the erasure of their work on subsistence family farms (Agarwal 1994). This erasure had two components: first, women’s subsistence agricultural work folded into the logic of reproductive labor at large, as work unrenumerated by land title, wages, ownership of goods produced, or social value. Second, economic measurements of the rural economy used the family as the primary economic unit and erased the lives, labor and value of rural women (Beneria et al. 2016; Sen and Grown 1987). Marxist feminism as a theoretical and activist framework became increasingly criticized by many feminists for relying solely on Marx’s analysis of capitalism, and therefore missing the ways in which women’s exploitation was a consequence of multiple forms of oppression. Instead of centering capitalism as the sole form of exploitation shaping women’s lives, socialist feminists argued that patriarchy was as

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important for women’s historical and contemporary oppression as Marxist analyses of capitalism. In the 1980s, Marxist feminists and socialist feminists in Euro‐America fiercely debated whether patriarchy was intrinsic to capitalism in what was called the mode of production debate (Kuhn and Wolpe 1982; Vogel 1983). The debate centered on whether patriarchy was an “extra‐economic” force used for labor control under capitalism, whether it was the systemic tool at hand to maximize capitalism’s efficiency, or whether it was systemic to capitalism (Barrett 1980; Brenner 2000; Gibson‐ Graham 1986). The corollary of this debate was a political one for working‐class women. Socialist feminists challenged the Marxist feminist precept that the overthrow of capitalism was a necessary first step for women’s liberation and freedom (Delphy 1984). Socialist feminism in this debate framed women workers’ class struggle as a betrayal, or at best, an unnecessary distraction. Instead they argued that women’s oppression was primarily an ideological force that produced “woman” as a category of subjection (Laclau and Mouffe 1985). Socialist feminists today have taken up the unitary or integrated theory (rather than the “dual systems theory”) for ongoing analyses that integrates patriarchy and capitalism. In fact, some feminist scholars argue that socialist feminism was an early feminist attempt to theorize the intersection of sexism, class oppression, and racism (Joseph 1981; Naples 2003).

Exchange Value, Surplus Value, and Social Reproduction Theory Gayatri Spivak proposed an alternative reading of reproduction and production to shift the question of patriarchy and capitalism to questions of value. In her article, “Scattered speculations on the question of value,” she emphasized the imbricated quality of use value to exchange value in the international division of labor. Spivak reframed the binary opposition between economics and culture that was embedded in the mode of production debates about capitalism and patriarchy. Instead, she emphasized, “the complicity between cultural and economic value‐systems.” She cited the centrality of women in the international division of labor beginning in the mid‐1960s that relied on patriarchal social relations to produce women as super‐ exploited workers (Spivak 1985, p. 83). She emphasized the “affectively necessary labor (that) brings in the attendant question of desire” (Spivak 1985, p. 80). Himani Bannerji raised another question about cultures of resistance that linked them decisively to the relations of production. In her critique of subaltern studies as culturalist, Bannerji says, “any project of decolonization which separates property and power from moral proprieties, avoids the issue of social justice” (Bannerji 2001, p. 72). These interventions stressed the necessary porousness of conceptual divisions between reproduction and production. Marxist feminists demanded a more careful analysis of how the affective, libidinal, and moral realms functioned in the service of capitalism. They sought to clarify the relationship between value, particularly exchange value and surplus value, and values, including ethics and use value, in capitalism to better attend to the desires and needs beyond that system. Spivak’s and Bannerji’s attention to morality and affective labor raised concerns that are now central within social reproduction theory. Social reproduction theory attends to cultural and economic analyses of reproduction in global capitalism. In Tithi Bhattacharya’s description, it “is primarily concerned with understanding how

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categories of oppression (such as gender, race and ableism) are coproduced in simultaneity with the production of surplus value” (Bhattacharya 2017, p. 14). Two key insights mark Marxist feminist debates about social reproduction in capitalism: first, the blurred distinctions between reproduction and production for the accumulation of capital on the one hand, and an accumulation that immiserates workers’ lives on the other (Nash and Fernández‐Kelly 1983; Ong 1987). The second key insight of social reproduction theories systemizes Marxist feminist attention to social relations of racism, sexism, casteism, and religious bigotry as central relations that fuel the capitalist accumulation of wealth (Cooper 2017; Mojab 2015).

Affective Economies, Anticapitalism, and Anticolonialism As economic relations and as embodied cultural logics, these forces affect women differentially between and within genders, on the basis of race, ableism, caste, and citizenship‐status. Affective economies include the shadow work, of deference, and the emotion work, of affection, in waged reproductive work and sex work (Boris and Parrenas 2010; Hochschild 1983). It also includes emotion and the erotic as necessary resources to reproduce resistance to capitalist regulation (Lorde 1984). Affective necessary labor, as Rosemary Hennessy writes, “permeates the circuit of nature‐bodies‐labor through which needs are met and social life is reproduced” (Hennessy 2013, p. 66). Queer theories of sexuality raise possibilities for explicitly anticapitalist politics of embodiment and social organization that refuse normative social forms of belonging and desire (Ahmed 2006; Pitts‐Taylor 2016; Povinelli 2011). Roderick Ferguson, in his definition of queer of color critique, emphasizes its recognition of the displacement of normative regimes of gender and sexuality under capitalism, even as they are systemically co‐constituted. “As capital disrupts social hierarchies in the production of surplus labor, it disrupts gender ideals and sexual norms that are indices of racial difference” (Ferguson 2004, p. 17). Marxist feminists theorize how dominant regimes of gender alongside embodiment, ability, and disability are enforced through laws and prison (Ahrens 2008; Gilmore 2007; Spade 2011). Yet these differential theories of embodiment challenge the state and industries that profit from oppressive regimes of nationality, race, class, and gender. Anti‐racist transformations of reproductive technologies and sex practices seek to dismantle reproduction as the critical site for the replenishment of capitalist profit (Briggs 2017; Roberts 1997; Willey 2016). Current Marxist feminist debates question “reproduction” as configured by relations of life‐being under capitalism; what Melissa Cooper calls Life as Surplus (Cooper 2008). The embodied, affective, and material sites of life‐being demand attention to interspecies coalitions and planetary values of existence (Hawthorne 2002). As Marxist feminists assail the environmental plunder of capitalism, as intrinsic to its ongoing primitive accumulation, they seek answers outside global commodity exchange (Tsing 2005). They theorize an alternative ecologically synergistic economy led by reproductive workers in their greatest numbers, including domestic and care laborers, peasant farmers, and indigenous hunters‐gatherers (Salleh 2011). Anticolonial women’s movements, from Sri Lanka to South Africa, developed nuanced revolutionary strategies to organize women against imperialism (Jayawardena

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1986; Mohanty 2003). In India during the 1900s, women like Kumari Kumudini Mitra advocated revolutionary terrorism against British colonial occupation (Bhattacharya and Sen 2003). These struggles solidified into anti‐imperialist fights that sought more than the end of colonialism, but the end of global economic expansion on the backs of workers across the world. In Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America, and Asia, anti‐imperialist women organized rural women alongside informal women workers in cities to join the struggle against capitalism (Chakravartty 2011). They fought for reforms such as universal human rights, against Euro‐American, white supremacist assumptions about differential humanness. They sought leadership by rural women for a renewed revolutionary movement that joined women and men around the world at the forefront of anti‐capitalism (Armstrong 2016). The anticolonial women’s movement developed a praxis that linked imperial wars overseas, particularly in Asia and Africa in the early to mid‐twentieth century, directly to the women of imperial countries. Women like Cai Chang, a founding member of the All China Women’s Federation in 1948, and Baya Allouchiche of the Algerian Women’s Union pushed for a praxis of anti‐imperialist relationality (Wang 2017). In the mid‐twentieth century, the anticolonial praxis against imperialism sought global campaigns of socialist feminists and all other women that supported armed resistance to occupation as well as direct action to stop colonial militarism. Socialist feminists from colonized and newly independent nations as well as the socialist states of the USSR and East Europe sought to use the United Nations to confront women’s commitment to peace in the face of colonial occupation and wars of aggression against liberation movements (Antrobus 2004; Jain 2005; Pietila and Vickers 1990).

Gendered Capitalism and the Global Division of Labor As colonized nations gained political independence, new forms of imperialist control emerged alongside bare aggression. Loan agreements between newly independent countries and former colonizing countries to build infrastructure and national production carried hidden demands set by the G7 nations of the Global North. These loan coda demanded “structural adjustments” of governments that prioritized debt repayment over every other priority: democracy, social programs, and wealth redistribution. National ownership of key industries and protection for emerging national economies disappeared under the weight of loan conditions and loan default demands. Socialist feminist scholars of capitalist development critiqued the ubiquity of “development” to mean capitalist development using neoclassical assumptions of individual choice and the hidden hand of the market (Barker and Feiner 2004). They also emphasized the importance of structures of land privatization from the colonial period onwards to the current gendered division of labor. Beneria and Sen wrote that “the close connection between processes of accumulation and changes in women’s work and forms of their subordination” mark the current period of capitalist expansion (Beneria and Sen 1981, p. 288). Methodologically, Marxist feminist scholarship interrogated the unit of the family when measuring the effects of capitalist development projects. As one example, the official poverty line as a measure of need erases the deeply gendered lived effects of scarcity by women, men, girls, and boys in a family (Kabeer 1994).

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Marxist feminists in Asia, Latin America, and Mexico detailed the new forms of global production that broke factory labor into its smallest, least skilled parts. This tailorization of work across the world was made possible by communication, technological, and transportation innovations (Ong 1987). These disarticulated methods of production directly pitted women workers against each other from across the globe, since factories could move their operations the instant workers organized in one location (Elson and Pearson 1981). These methods in the labor‐intensive production of commodities from technology to garment industries spread across service labor, such as phone call centers and nannies, and the intellectual labor of computer programming (Bannerji 2001). Scholars of the gendered global chain of production analyzed how gendered ideologies shaped imperialist appropriation of wealth as workers around the world more fiercely competed against each other for the lowest wages and worst working conditions with little protection from the nation‐state (Parrenas 2008). These capitalist relations of gender also, in Cynthia Enloe’s terms made women a cheap and docile global workforce through state, legal, and physical coercion (Enloe 2007). Global capitalist processes relied on women for their workforce; particularly women pushed into the stream of migrants moving from rural locations to the cities and towns built for factories. Gendered ideologies of paid work produced feminized relations of production that structure paid work for all workers (Candelario 2007; Ho 2009; Kang 2010). Feminized relations of production do not refer simply to the increase in paid women workers, but also to the increasing atomization of all workers through migration, home‐based work, and work’s precarity (Wright 2006). The distinction between paid and unpaid work becomes increasingly blurred, so that “capital increasingly calls upon the affects, activities, and conditions associated with women’s reproductive labor in all forms of work” (Berg 2014, p. 164; Morini 2007). Debt in its material and ethical forms becomes the primary motivation for work (Joseph 2014). Overt coercion and increased brutality define the current phase of capitalism, marking a return to the racialized and gendered techniques of primitive accumulation of forced and unfree labor, genocide, and theft of land, resources, and intellectual property (Dunbar‐Ortiz 2015; Sassen 2014). Endemic femicide marks the overt misogyny of this turn, what Rita Segato calls “a pedagogy of cruelty” (Segato 2014, p. 345). In the current period, both Marxist feminist and socialist feminist scholarship does not merely condemn late capitalism, but seeks to understand how the increased global relationality of women workers fostered new subjects to demand revolutionary and reformist change (Mies 2014; Wichterich 2000). Neoliberalism rendered the workplace a fragile place to build solidarity and the power of worker collectivities and unions ebbed as a result. New formations of worker solidarity movements based in neighborhoods and non‐governmental organizations that included workers’ rights alongside civic activism provided some oxygen for social changes (Beckham Mendez 2005; Ngai 2005). Direct money transfer and microcredit schemes promised to upend the repressive relations of patriarchy through progressive finance practices that targeted women as beneficiaries. However, many socialist feminists who ­champion state support for marginalized people detailed the structural limitations of  atomized and usually privatized solutions such as microcredit schemes that deepened rather than undermined working people’s reliance on finance capital ­ (Karim 2011). Similarly, non‐governmental organizing addressed neither repressive

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governmentality nor economic redistribution while further coopted grassroots ­women’s movements (Beckham Mendez 2005; INCITE! 2007). Marxist feminists detailed the new politics of imperialism that produced new markets from untapped sources, stripped resources from the earth, and reconfigured social relations to meet its needs. They provide sharp analyses of how, as Marx described this process in capitalism, all that is solid melts into air. The political dead end of many socialist and Marxist feminist critiques of neoliberalism was twofold: women were victims, though certainly not passive ones; and the conditions of feminized, precarious work prevented a consolidated opposition to emerge (Eisenstein 2004; Fraser 2013). Who, then, were the leaders Marxist feminists were waiting for?

Social Reproduction, Imperialism, and Revolutionary Subjects As neoliberalism solidified its global hegemony in the twenty‐first century, Marxist feminist debates frame revolutionary struggles from women returning to the commons, in revolutionary collective forms of land‐based survival. The Zapatistas in Chiapas, Mexico and the Landless Workers Movement in Brazil have developed Marxist feminist critiques of global capitalism (Desmarais 2007; Zapatista Women of the Caracol of the Tzotz Choj Zone 2018). They combine older reproductive forms of subsistence farming and home‐based production of basic goods, without patriarchal gender relations. In Argentina, worker‐collectives revived stagnant factories with profit‐sharing and worker‐based ownership of the means of production rather than consolidation of wealth into the hands of a few. As theories of praxis, these examples of solidarity economies address two interconnected sites of struggle. First, they combat imperialism through their refusal to give up land, labor, and lives to the capitalist demand for new markets. Second, they fight against the primitive accumulation of their lands, refusing to cede the remaining commons through maintaining cooperative landholdings and the shared means of production. In Iran, Iraq, and Syria, the Kurdish Workers Party, through its regional semi‐autonomous governance in northern parts of West Asia, has sought to redefine the family, foster equitable decision‐making, and support women’s independence (Ocalan 2013). Divides between home and work, private reproduction, and public production overlap in many of these alternatives to capitalism. Another significant debate with Marxist feminism relates to the role of the state. Those who took a position that solutions to economic and gender oppression need to take place outside of the nation‐state or formal political structures were promoted by anarchist and syndicalist feminists (see, for example, Ackelsberg 1991). Syndicalists were active in the labor movement and argued for the importance of local union organizing and strikes to effect radical social change. Feminists in the anarcho‐syndicalist tradition from Brazil, Argentina, Italy, and the US theorized the emergence of new political subjectivities and new collectivist projects residing within neoliberalism’s contradictions. These scholars theorize a subject of resistance that hollows out the compliance of the ideal subject of neoliberal capitalism: the entrepreneur. As Miranda Joseph and Carla Freeman describe, the entrepreneurial subject is configured as autonomous from its social fabric and thus flexible, with time, space, self, and survival (Freeman 2014; Joseph 2014). Lynn Marie Tonstad

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raises the possibilities of ending capitalism through queering the entrepreneurial practices of self, including “risk‐taking, vulnerability, openness to failure, unexpected forms of affiliation” (Tonstad 2018, p. 227). Cristina Morini suggests that women workers in particular provide ideal subjects for navigating the precarity of these entrepreneurial conditions of work, making them both “more resistant and more reactive” (Morini 2007). When capital meets the limit of mechanizing the working subject’s experiential knowledge, the possibilities for liberation from work begin. For Kathi Weeks, the precarity of work mutates into the post‐work state of finance capitalism (Weeks 2011). In this context, the politics of antiwork can imagine new horizons for collectivity, value, and revolt. Heather Berg explores the refusal of “social necessity debt,” that is, how workers “are evaluated based on the perceived necessity of their work to the reproduction of society” (Berg 2014, p. 163). Antiproductivism, for Berg rejects how feminized labor demands greater sacrifice from workers due to this social necessity debt of these workers’ affective reproductive labor. Instead, these theories recenter the demands of workers, particularly those in the service sector, to hold capital, rather than workers, accountable to the burden of work left undone. As a politics, antiwork centers those subjects that were at the margins of industrial capitalism: the landless, rural communities, women, the indigenous, the incarcerated. Sandro Mezzadra and Veronica Gago herald autonomous politics of the flexible revolutionary subject as the engine for new political forms that exist on the razor’s edge of neoliberal capitalism. These revolutionary subjects balance between shoring up the crises of capitalism and creating new collectivist social forms in its wreckage (Mezzadra and Gago 2017). As Gago argues extensively, an alternative of what she calls “baroque economics” arises from creative forms of collectivism across informal and formal economies, paid and unpaid work, affective and material economies (Gago 2017).

Intersectional Organizing Experiments with popular front movements in Europe and the Americas in the 1910s through the 1930s spawned a theory of Marxist‐feminist praxis that organized wide coalitions built on the recognition of differences among people, and took into account the oppressive character of these relations. Beginning in the 1930s, Louise Patterson, a Harlem‐based activist in communist circles led the mass campaign for the Scottsboro defendants (Howard 2013). Against the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)’s legal strategy of defense, Patterson built an international movement to demand justice for the seven black young men who were accused of sexually assaulting two white women on a train in Alabama. To build a mass movement for their release, Patterson had to undermine centuries of racial segregation based on abject violence, cross adversarial class lines, and bridge thousands of miles between urban and rural communities, all the while keeping the movement’s leadership in the hands of African American working people in rural areas. Patterson developed a theory of Marxist feminist praxis that held that in the context of US capitalism, black women faced multiple oppressive relations that resulted

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in their greater exploitation under capitalism: of class, race, and gender (Gore 2011; McDuffie 2011). In her essay, “Toward a brighter dawn,” she wrote, “over the whole land, Negro women meet this triple exploitation – as workers, as women, as Negroes” (Patterson 1936). Claudia Jones, a communist party member who worked on the Scottsboro campaign, further elaborated Patterson’s invocation of historically specific relationships to exploitation (Davies 2008). Jones saw these complex relations as locations for greater strength among workers, rather than solely sites of division to be overcome by class solidarity: “The bourgeoisie is fearful of the militancy of the Negro woman, and for good reason. The capitalists know, far better than many progressive seem to know, that once Negro women begin to take action, the militancy of the whole Negro people, and thus of the anti‐imperialist coalition, is enhanced” (Jones 1995, p. 108). Jones argued that Marxist feminist struggles shaped by what Patterson called the “triple exploitation” faced by black women in the US could best lead the communist movement for liberation as a whole. As an early theory of intersectional praxis, Patterson and Jones proposed a Marxist feminist politics guided by the differential sites of oppression and exploitation faced by women of color, rather than simply by women workers. In 1977, the Combahee River Collective members theorized the liberatory possibilities for this praxis: “If Black women were free, it would mean that everyone else would have to be free since our freedom would necessitate the destruction of all the systems of oppression” (Jones 1995). The praxis of intersectional organizing on the left informed movements for reproductive justice and the movement for welfare rights, led by poor women of color in the United States in the 1960s (Ransby 2003). Both movements attacked ethics of women’s place in dominant regimes of heterosexuality, marriage, and the family (Tillmon 1972). The reproductive justice movement sought bodily autonomy for women’s reproductive decisions, and material state support to fully realize those choices (Ross and Solinger 2017). In addition, it linked reproductive justice to dismantling the carceral state that strictly policed (as it constituted) the class politics of gendered, raced, and ethnicized embodiment within capitalism (Davis 1981). The welfare rights movement demanded a basic income from the US state that historically had excluded them from the postwar social wages for single mothers. These sites of praxis further pushed Marxist feminism to analyze different histories of oppression as co‐constitutive in sites of reproduction and production. In India, Australia, and South Africa, indigeneity and caste as well as race shaped Marxist feminist praxis: what the All India Democratic Women’s Association called intersectoral organizing in the 1990s (Armstrong 2013). Marxist feminists based in South Asia theorized the centrality of landless and land‐poor farmers’ unfreedom to the working class and agrarian politics of women in particular (Ghosh 2009; Karat 2005; Patnaik 2007). They argued that Marxist feminist movements should begin in rural areas, with the demands of the masses of women leading feminist politics as a whole. Whether called intersectoral or intersectional, these methods of organizing that emphasize acute sites of oppression have fostered land‐based social movements in coalition with labor movements as a means to connect agricultural workers to the industrial proletariat (Deere and Leon 2001; Tsing 2005). Intersectional organizing actively develops movement leaders among women from oppressed communities, and seeks goals prioritized by the most dispossessed people (Dunbar‐Ortiz 2015).

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Conclusion Marxist feminism currently grapples with old questions: How does capitalist production mobilize social reproduction to the gain of capital? How do revolutionary movements undermine capitalism through collectivizing and socializing the work of reproduction and production to the benefit of all? In the latter half of the twentieth century, women workers have become universal to the workplace, but feminized, unpaid reproductive labor hasn’t dissolved. It has not disappeared through the commodification of reproductive work; nor has it dispersed through its more equal distribution between men and women. Marxist feminist theories of social reproduction sought to understand how the integration of reproduction into capitalism led to “the socialization of production and its private appropriation on an international scale” (Carpenter and Mojab 2017, p. 117). Social reproduction debates develop possibilities for revolutionary forms of sociality writ large: of family, sexuality, desire, embodiment, and pleasure that demand radically altered practices of value, ethics, morality and being (Kabeer and Huq 2014; Nnaemeka 2004; Spillers 1987). Socialist feminism explores how patriarchal values determine the lived, affective relations of reproduction, production, and consumption to stabilize capitalism. They seek to imagine how an integral theory of patriarchal capitalism can produce new subjects and new sites for feminist revolutionary struggle. Rural agricultural women and men, not industrial workers as Marxism had predicted, led the anticolonial fight against both feudal social order and capitalism. For Marxist feminists today, these ongoing facets of struggle in rural locations of Mexico and Western Sahara lead them to demand new theories of revolutionary subjectivity. To better understand new revolutionary horizons, Marxist feminist theories link labor to desire, need to sensation, through an attention to affective relations in capitalism (Hennessy 2006, p. 388). Imperialism, as capitalism’s dynamic core for wresting further profit, informs Marxist feminist ecological visions for the planet. Questions about scientific epistemology and ontology sustain Marxist feminist challenges to capitalism’s reflection of the world as atomized (and competing) parts, in order to see its systemic whole (Barad 2012). Ecological imaginaries include revolutionary forms of the commons that reshape gender norms to foster collective solutions to resource depletion (Maathai 2010). Their revival of the politics of vulnerability, shared needs, and mutual reliance support an interspecies environmentalism as well as new scientific theories of being (Clare 2017; Haraway 2016). Marxist feminist debates widen coalitional possibilities for liberation through analyses of who faces the greatest impacts of capitalist brutality. An intersectional socialist feminist politics does not dismiss race, caste, religion, or sexuality as distractions to the centrality/unity of the proletariat in class politics. Instead, they rely upon a careful understanding of how these forms of domination sustain ongoing exploitation. Strategies for resistance lift the sites of greatest exploitation to better imagine strategies for liberation. Across a range of locations, Marxist and socialist feminists theorize forms of solidarity that transgress classes, gender affinities, and communities to better envision a future that dismantles the values of capitalism and knits our collectivities anew.

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Gore, D. (2011). Radicalism at the Crossroads: African American Women Activists in the Cold War. New York: New York University Press. Haraway, D. (2016). Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Durham: Duke University Press. Hawthorne, S. (2002). Wild Politics: Feminism, Globalization, and Bio/Diversity. Melbourne: Spiniflex. Hennessy, R. (2006). Returning to reproduction queerly: sex, labor, need. Rethinking Marxism 18 (3): 387–395. Hennessy, R. (2013). Fires on the Border: The Passionate Politics of Labor Organizing on the Mexican Frontera. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Ho, K. (2009). Liquidated: An Ethnography of Wall Street. Durham: Duke University Press. Hochschild, A.R. (1983). The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling. Berkeley: University of California Press. Howard, W. (2013). We Shall Be Free! Black Communist Protests in Seven Voices. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. INCITE! (2007). The Revolution Shall Not Be Funded. Boston: South End Press. Inman, M. (1940). In Woman’s Defense. Los Angeles: Committee to Organize the Advancement of Women. Jain, D. (2005). Women, Development, and the UN: A Sixty‐Year Quest for Equality and Justice. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Jayawardena, K. (1986). Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World. London: Zed Books. Jones, C. (1995). An end to the neglect of the negro woman! In: Words of Fire: An Anthology of African‐American Feminist Thought (ed. B. Guy‐Shefthall), 108–124. New York: The New Press. Joseph, G. (1981). The incompatible Ménage à Trois: marxism, feminism, and racism. In: Women and Revolution (ed. L. Sargent), 91–108. Boston, MA: South End Press. Joseph, M. (2014). Debt to Society: Accounting for Life Under Capitalism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota. Kabeer, N. (1994). Reversed Realities: Gender Hierarchies in Development Thought. London: Verso. Kabeer, N. and Huq, L. (2014). The power of relationships: love and solidarity in a landless women’s organization in rural Bangladesh. In: Feminisms, Empowerment and Development: Changing Women’s Lives (eds. J. Edwards and A. Cornwall), 250–276. London: Zed Books. Kang, M. (2010). The Managed Hand: Race, Gender, and the Body in Beauty Service Work. Berkeley: University of California Press. Karat, B. (2005). Survival and Emancipation: Notes from Indian Women’s Struggles. New Delhi: Three Essays Collection. Karim, L. (2011). Microfinance and its Discontents: Women in Debt in Bangladesh. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Kollantai, A. (1920). Communism and the Family. New York: Contemporary Publishing Association. Kollantai, A. (1927). Red Love. New York: Seven Arts Publishing Company. Kollantai, A. (1978). The Love of Worker Bees. Chicago: Academy Press. Kollantai, A. (ed.) (1984). Introduction to the book The Social Basis of the Women’s Question. 1908. In: Selected Articles and Speeches, 85–90. New York: Progress Publishers. Krupskaya, N. (1899). The Woman Worker.” trans. A. Dent. Munich: Iskra. Kuhn, A. and Wolpe, A.M. (1982). Feminism and Materialism: Women and Modes of Production. London: Routledge and Paul.

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Laclau, E. and Mouffe, C. (1985). Hegemony and Socialist Strategy. London: Verso. Lorde, A. (ed.) (1984). The uses of the erotic. In: Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches, 53–59. Trumansburg, NY: Crossing Press. Luxemburg, R. (1951). The Accumulation of Capital. New York: Monthly Review Press. Maathai, W. (2010). Replenishing the Earth. New York: Doubleday. Marx, K. and Engels, F. (1964). The German Ideology. Moscow: Progress Publishers. McDuffie, E. (2011). Sojourning for Freedom: Black Women, American Communism, and the Making of Black Left Feminism. Durham: Duke University Press. Mendez, J. (2005). From the Revolution to the Maquiladoras: Gender, Labor and Globalization in Nicaragua. Durham: Duke University Press. Mezzadra, S. and Gago, V. (2017). In the wake of the plebeian revolt: social movements, ‘progressive’ governments, and the politics of autonomy in Latin America. Anthropological Theory 17 (4): 474–496. Mies, M. (2014). Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale: Women in the International Division of Labor. London: Zed Books. Mies, M., Bennholdt‐Thomsen, V., and von Werlhof, C. (1988). Women: The Last Colony. New Delhi: Kali for Women. Moghadam, V.M. (2003). Modernizing Women: Gender and Social Change in the Middle East. Boulder, CO: Rienner Press. Mohanty, C. (2003). Feminism without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity. Durham: Duke University Press. Mojab, S. (ed.) (2015). Marxism and Feminism. London: Zed Books. Morini, C. (2007). The feminization of labor in cognitive capitalism. Feminist Review 87: 40–59. Naples, N.A. (2003). Feminism and Method. NY: Routledge. Nash, J. and Fernández‐Kelly, P. (eds.) (1983). Women, Men and the International Division of Labor. Albany: State University of New York Press. Ngai, P. (2005). Made in China: Women Factory Workers in a Global Workplace. Durham: Duke University Press. Nnaemeka, O. (2004). Nego‐feminism: theorizing, practicing, and pruning Africa’s way. Signs 29 (2): 357–385. Ocalan, A. (2013). Liberating Life: Woman’s Revolution. Cologne: International Initiative. Ong, A. (1987). Spirits of Resistance and Capitalist Discipline: Factory Women in Malaysia. Albany: State University of New York Press. Parrenas, R. (2008). The Force of Domesticity. New York: New York University Press. Patnaik, U. (2007). The Republic of Hunger and Other Essays. London: Merlin Press. Patterson, Louise. (1936). “Toward a Brighter Dawn.” Woman Today, 30. Pietila, H. and Vickers, J. (1990). Making Women Matter: The Role of the United Nations. London: Zed Books. Pitts‐Taylor, V. (2016). Mattering: Feminism, Science and Corporeal Politics. New York: New York University Press. Povinelli, E. (2011). Economies of Abandonment. Durham: Duke University Press. Ransby, B. (2003). Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Roberts, D. (1997). Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction and the Meaning of Liberty. New York: Vintage Books. Ross, L. and Solinger, R. (2017). Reproductive Justice. Oakland: University of California Press. Salleh, A. (2011). The value of a synergistic economy. In: Life Without Money: Building Fair and Sustainable Economies (eds. A. Nelson and F. Timmerman), 94–110. London: Pluto Press.

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4 Radical and Cultural Feminisms Lauren Rosewarne

Introduction: History and Definitions Emerging out of the women’s liberation movement of the late 1960s,1 radical feminism began with a group of American second‐wave feminists referring to themselves as “radical women” and then eventually adopting the radical feminist label.2 While the movement was born in the United States, it soon spread to other English‐ speaking countries like the United Kingdom and Australia and then, modestly, to the non‐English speaking world, for example to Eastern Europe (Žarkov 2002) and to countries including Turkey (Çaha 2016) and Japan (Bullock 2015). While the heyday of radical feminism is aligned with feminism’s second‐wave – from the mid‐1960s until the early 1980s – as Barbara Crow notes in Radical Feminism: A Documentary Reader, the movement “does not start at one particular time in the mid‐1960s nor does it end in 1975,” even if most of the “intense activity” transpired then (Crow 2000, p. 7 n.3). Flora Davis writes that by 1975 most radical feminist groups had actually vanished (Davis 1991), and Ti‐Grace Atkinson observed that by the mid‐ 1970s, radical feminism “really did not even resemble its origins” (in Fahs 2011, p. 585). Alice Echols echoes this, dating the challenge posed by cultural feminism to radical feminism’s dominance to 1973 (Echols 1989). Some scholars however, have suggested that the movement isn’t totally historic. In the mid‐1990s, Imelda Whelehan suggested a “modest renaissance” (Whelehan 1995, p. 86), and, as discussed later in this chapter, radical feminism has, in recent years, substantially impacted on public policy in Scandinavia, notably in the realm of prostitution3 criminalization (Levy 2015). Equally, while the number of radical feminist groups and the volume of their activity may have reduced in the last half‐century, radical feminist scholarship is still being produced (Jeffreys 2014; Mackay 2015; Banyard 2016; Bindel 2017). While the movement began in the late 1960s, radical feminists were highly influenced by scholarship preceding them. Christine Flynn Saulnier (1996) spotlights the

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influence of writings from the 1950s’ civil rights movements and from first‐wave feminist authors like Mary Wollstonecraft, Maria Stewart, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. The impact of Simone de Beauvoir’s book The Second Sex (1949) is also widely noted (McMillan 1982; Simons 1999; Henry 2004). Jo Freeman (1975) in The Politics of Women’s Liberation also identifies the influence of Maoist ideas, notably “speaking bitterness.” Within radical feminism this process became known as consciousness‐raising and was enormously influential in establishing the movement’s key tenets. In Radical Feminism Today, Denise Thompson notes, “there is a reluctance among feminist writers to engage in explicit definition. On the whole feminists tend, often quite deliberately, not to say what they mean by feminism” (Thompson 2001, p. 5). While authors may be reticent in articulating definitive definitions – or appointing themselves as a spokeswoman for such an anti‐hierarchical movement  –  equally, there actually is no single radical feminist theory, something Alison Jaggar addresses: The most important insights of radical feminism probably spring from women’s own experience of oppression, but the grass‐roots radical feminist movement is also influenced by many other traditions, from astrology to zen. Naturally, it is not easy to make all these ideas consistent with each other and radical feminism has generated a variety of theories about women’s oppression. (Jaggar 1983, p. 84)

While feminism does have factions and occasionally clashing ideologies, few movements are ever completely linear and thus, even if contested, definitions remain an essential starting point for this discussion. In 1975, Kathie Sarachild explained her use of the label: The dictionary says radical means root, coming from the Latin word for root. And that is what we meant by calling ourselves radical. We were interested in getting to the roots of problems in society. (Sarachild 1975, p. 145)

Robin Morgan used the same analogy: I believe that sexism is the root oppression, the one which until and unless we uproot it, will continue to put forth branches of racism, class hatred, ageism, competition, ecological disaster, and economic exploitation. (Morgan 1978, p. 9)

That women are subordinated  –  are an oppressed class; a sex‐class  –  and that their subordination is caused by patriarchy are two of the key tenets of the movement. While feminists like Sarachild and Morgan were using radical because of its links to root, the word also references revolution: as Valerie Bryson notes in Feminist Political Theory, the ideas being advocated for “produced a challenge to accepted values and life‐styles that often seemed both extreme and shocking” (Bryson 2003, p. 163). Radical feminism aimed to dismantle not only patriarchy but each of the social, cultural, political, and economic structures that benefited from  –  and supported – male authority.

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In the sections that follow, I examine the principles of radical feminism and explore its criticisms and shortcomings. I end with a discussion of legacy and radical feminism’s continued relevance into the twenty‐first century.

Radical Feminism: Key Tenets Early into the movement, several efforts were made to articulate a radical feminist doctrine: Valerie Solanas’s SCUM Manifesto (1967), The Redstockings Manifesto (1969), and the Radicalesbians’ The Woman‐Identified Woman (1970) are three of several manifestoes that became instrumental in shaping the movement (Rhodes 2012). In recent years, scholars have attempted to synthesize these ideas. Saulnier for example, details five key tenets: (1) the personal is political; (2) women are an oppressed class and patriarchy is at the root of their oppression; (3) patriarchy is based in psychological and biological factors and enforced through violence against women; (4) women and men are fundamentally different; (5) society must be completely altered to eliminate male supremacy – incremental change is insufficient; and (6) all hierarchies must be eliminated. (Saulnier 1996, p. 32)

Finn Mackay similarly presents four key criteria: First, the acceptance of the existence of patriarchy alongside a commitment to end it; second, the use and promotion of women‐only space as an organizing method; third, a focus on all forms of male violence against women and their role as a keystone of women’s oppression broadly; fourth and finally, an extension of the analysis of male violence against women to include the institutions of pornography and prostitution. (Mackay 2015b, p. 334)

Using these lists as my starting point, in the sections that follow I examine these key principles.

The Personal is Political In the late 1960s, the women who would become radical feminists formed small groups to “rap” about their gendered experiences. These consciousness‐raising sessions were driven by four objectives: opening‐up, sharing, analyzing, and abstracting (Cobble et al. 2014). Problems that had historically been dismissed as private realm, domestic, and separate from the public policy agenda  –  violence in marriage, for example, and workplace sexual harassment and job discrimination  –  surfaced as endemic to the female experience and two principles emerged: that the personal is political and that sisterhood is powerful. In practice, the concept of the personal as political moves issues like rape and domestic violence not merely out of women’s diaries but, ultimately into the public sphere; to being spoken about as social problems of which institutions – educative, legislative, and judicial – need to address. The personal is political catch‐cry is underpinned by the belief that

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power is everywhere and that male dominance impacts on – and taints – all aspects of women’s lives including their health and safety. Sex became a crucial component of this discussion, leading to the publication of Kate Millett’s Sexual Politics (1970): an exploration of sex – the biological categories of it, as well as its intimate practice – as being a key arena where power relations are enacted. Millett used literature by authors like Norman Mailer to make her point; scholars since have presented a range of sexual political analyses; my own work has explored the sexual politics of advertising (Rosewarne 2007), infidelity (Rosewarne 2009), and sexual perversion (Rosewarne 2011a). Sisterhood is Powerful was the title of a 1970 anthology edited by Morgan, but the phrase is also central to understanding the link between consciousness‐raising and politics: by sharing stories, not only did women realize they were linked by their subordination, but that their collective action was necessary for change.

The Patriarchy Problem The root that Sarachild and Morgan identified was patriarchy; something defined by Sylvia Walby as “a system of interrelated social structures which allow men to exploit women” (Walby 1986, p. 51). bell hooks later elaborated on these ideas: Patriarchy is a political‐social system that insists that males are inherently dominating, superior to everything and everyone deemed weak, especially females, and endowed with the right to dominate and rule over the weak and to maintain that dominance through various forms of psychological terrorism and violence. (hooks 2004, p. 18)

More than just the vague notion of male privilege, patriarchy describes the everyday practice of sexism and, as Bryson (2003) notes, the word became shorthand for male domination and female subordination. The aforementioned Redstockings – a radical feminist group founded in 1969 by Sarachild, Shulamith Firestone, and Ellen Willis – made it clear that their movement was distinct from what had gone before. Radical feminists were breaking away from Marxist understandings of class and from the socialist promise of liberation once capitalism is overthrown4; something they articulated in their manifesto: Women are an oppressed class. Our oppression is total, affecting every facet of our lives. We are considered inferior beings, whose only purpose is to enhance men’s lives… Because we have lived so intimately with our oppressors, in isolation from each other, we have been kept from seeing our personal suffering as a political condition … We identify the agents of our oppression as men. Male supremacy is the oldest, most basic form of domination (in Morgan 1970, p. 598.)

Patriarchy is identifiable throughout social structures and institutions. In the workforce, it is apparent in the gender pay gap, in men’s dominance in science, technology, engineering, and math professions, and in women’s disproportionate occupation of caring careers like nursing, aged care, and teaching. In political life, patriarchy is evident in male dominance of elected office, in legislation restricting women’s reproductive rights, in law and order, in rape myths, and in the infrequent prosecution of sex offenders. In personal relationships, patriarchy is witnessed in women’s disproportionate burden of housework and child‐raising, and in women’s

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career interruptions. In intimate relationships, patriarchy manifests in boys’ and men’s sexual expectations and the orgasm disparity. Patriarchy is also effortlessly identifiable in mass media through the premium placed on beauty, on femininity, on youth, and increasingly on sexiness (Rosewarne 2007, 2017). Globally, son preference, the authority of patriarchal churches and, in turn, the harmful cultural practices and honor crimes inflicted on the bodies of women are also examples. Violence against women became a central focus of the movement and, as addressed later in this chapter, an area where radical feminism has left a legacy on theory and practice.

Sexual Violence In Maria Bevacqua’s work on rape and feminism, she discusses sexual violence emerging from consciousness‐raising sessions: A central feature of the small women’s liberation groups was consciousness‐raising (C‐R), the strategy credited with providing the critical context in which women talked about sensitive, even painful experiences openly. In this environment, rape was discussed candidly and nonjudgmentally, and participants in the movement came to understand rape as a common women’s experience with political implications. (Bevacqua 2000, p. 30)

A cornerstone of radical feminist belief was that patriarchy was maintained through the threat of sexual violence. Such a view positions rape not as a crime of sex, but one of power. One of the first works to articulate this was Susan Brownmiller’s Against Our Will where she describes rape as “nothing more or less than a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear” (Brownmiller 1975, p. 5). More recently, Catharine MacKinnon has continued with this position: Rape is an act of dominance over women that works systematically to maintain a gender‐stratified society in which women occupy a disadvantaged status as the appropriate victims and targets of sexual aggression. (MacKinnon 2005, p. 130)

While rape is viewed as a way to keep women frightened and dominated – and, in turn, needing protection from the very men they fear – rape is also viewed as part of the social conditioning of men in a culture where masculinity is understood as active, aggressive, and as enacted in opposition to femininity and against the bodies of women.

Gender and Sex Roles As a cornerstone of patriarchy and also a manifestation of it, gender is viewed by radical feminists as socially constructed and used to create, and maintain, a sex‐class, something Jaggar discusses: Instead of appearing as an alterable feature of our social organization, gender constitutes the unquestioned framework in terms of which we perceive and interpret the

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world. Gender constitutes the spectacles whose influence on our vision goes unnoticed until they are removed. Radical feminism seeks to remove the spectacles. (Jaggar 1983, p. 85)

For radical feminists, the existence of gender means that women are subordinated based on factors including their biology and, notably, their fertility (Firestone 1970; Rich 1976; Daly 1978). While biology might be relatively fixed, in practice, the invented and performed categories of masculinity and femininity are viewed as social and have been assigned deficits and strengths, something Sheila Jeffreys critiques in Gender Hurts: [Gender] is the foundation of the political system of male domination. “Gender” in traditional patriarchal thinking, ascribes skirts, high heels and a love of unpaid domestic labour to those with female biology, and comfortable clothing, enterprise and initiative to those with male biology. (Jeffreys 2014, pp. 1–2)

Saulnier also discusses these ideas, observing that radical feminists have viewed “Women’s personalities and their sexuality … as having been constructed to meet men’s needs, rather than women’s … Rigid sex‐role prescriptions not only distort people, but they also lead to sex‐based oppression” (Saulnier 1996, p. 333). Some of the earliest radical feminist activism centered on campaigns against gender: the late 1960s Miss America Pageant protests for example, saw radical feminists publicly trashing objects associated with femininity – and which served as metonyms for subordination – including bras and fashion magazines. A variety of means to abolish gender have been advocated by radical feminists. Millett (1970) for example, pioneered the term “unisex” to advocate for a kind of androgyny or genderlessness. More recently, scholars like Jeffreys have argued that feminizing beauty practices such as makeup and high heels remain pivotal to the maintenance of women’s subordination (Jeffreys 2005).

Womanhood Saulnier’s identification of men and woman as fundamentally different introduces the idea of radical feminists posturing that the sexes are different. Here lies a significant point of contention whereby the origins of such difference – and whether or not these differences are unmovable – is heatedly debated. While some radical feminists like Firestone, Adrienne Rich, and Mary Daly posit that sex difference lies in biology, for others, biology might facilitate subordination but socialized subordination is deemed a more potent factor. It is around this issue that an offshoot of radical feminism – cultural feminism – was created, latching onto the idea that difference wasn’t just an unhappy consequence of patriarchy, but rather, was grounds to unite women and consider them as superior: Cultural Feminism is a theory which describes that there are fundamental personality differences between men and women, and that women’s differences are special … Underlying this cultural feminist theory was a matriarchal vision – the idea of a society

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of strong women guided by essential female concerns and values. These included, most importantly, pacifism, co‐operation, non‐violent settlement of differences, and a harmonious regulation of public life. (Tandon 2008, p. 52)

While radical feminism had been, since its inception, toying with separatism (Shugar 1995; Thompson 2001) – addressed more fully in the next section – cultural feminism, positioned this as central, although many critics have claimed that in practice female‐only spaces became more concerned with lifestyle rather than politics. Echols for example, considers cultural feminism as the depoliticized arm of radical feminism: While cultural feminism did evolve from radical feminism, it nonetheless deviated from it in some crucial respects. Most fundamentally, radical feminism was a political movement dedicated to eliminating the sex‐class system, whereas cultural feminism was a countercultural movement aimed at reversing the cultural valuation of the male and the devaluation of the female … Radical feminists were typically social constructionists who wanted to render gender irrelevant, while cultural feminists were generally essentialists who sought to celebrate femaleness. (Echols 1989, p. 6)

It is from cultural feminism where work like Carol Gilligan’s (1982) ethics of care research emerged, and also where feminism converged with spirituality, something Echols discusses: Whereas early women’s liberation papers had titles such as off our backs, Ain’t I a Woman, No More Fun and Games, It Ain’t Me, Babe, Tooth “n” Nail, ’70s periodicals carried names like Amazon Quarterly, The Full Moon, 13th Moon, Womanspirit, and Chrysalis. (Echols 1989, p. 284)

While separatism had been central to the cultural feminists, it was also a key component of radical feminism, albeit framed less about the primacy of physically separating from men and instead, more simply on channeling resources away from men.

Radical Feminism and Lesbianism Discussed earlier was patriarchy as evident within households through the unfair division of labor. Heterosexuality, in fact, was condemned by some feminists as an institution key in maintaining women’s subordination (Koedt 1970; Rich 1980; Dworkin 1987; MacKinnon 1989; Firestone 1993). While MacKinnon and Dworkin as well as activists like Anne Koedt have contended that under patriarchy all heterosexual sex contains some element of coercion (Koedt 1970; Dworkin 1987; MacKinnon 1989), some theorists go so far as to argue, in fact, that all intercourse is rape. In 1975, Sharon Deevey argued “every fuck is a rape even if it feels nice because every man has power and privilege over women,

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whether he uses it blatantly or subtly” (Deevey 1975, p. 24). Deevey’s position is one of several drivers of political lesbianism: radical feminist women who choose to devote their energies away from men and toward women; something articulated in 1981 by the Leeds Revolutionary Feminists: We do think all feminists can and should be political lesbians. Our definition of a political lesbian is a woman‐identified woman who does not fuck men. It does not mean compulsory sexual activity with women … Attached to all forms of sexual behaviour are meanings of dominance and submission, power and powerlessness, conquest and humiliation … [It] is specifically through sexuality that the fundamental oppression, that of men over women, is maintained. (Leeds Revolutionary Feminists 1981, p. 5)

The Leeds Revolutionary Feminists argued that “Penetration is an act of great symbolic significance by which the oppressor enters the body of the oppressed” (p. 6) and that “Every woman who lives with or fucks a man helps to maintain the oppression of her sisters and hinders our struggle” (p. 7). Separating physically, sexually, and emotionally from men became a way for radical feminists to free up resources and energies for the movement while also helping to dismantle a patriarchal institution.

Radical Feminism: Criticisms Before discussing legacy and continued relevance, it is worth pausing to examine the enduring criticisms of radical feminism, some of which form the basis for why the movement’s apex was reached over half a century ago and has not replicated since. While historically, all feminism has endured some battering in the media (Faludi 1991), radical feminism has endured a disproportionate share of negative coverage. Mackay for example, observes that “the image of the feminist as a man‐hating, hairy‐legged lesbian has achieved almost universal currency…” (Mackay 2015, p. 439). The most obvious explanation for this lies in the perception of extremism: Radical feminism often seems to serve as the vessel or totem which signifies a feminism gone too far, an extreme example of feminism and a destination at which no sane person would presumably wish to arrive. (Mackay 2015b, p. 334)

Radical feminism disrupts the status quo and demands that each institution that helps to maintain patriarchy is dismantled: such a revolution was, of course, widely viewed as unpopular, if not treasonous. Another criticism lay in the goals being viewed as simply untenable. Bryson for example, notes that “men cannot be simply ‘killed off’ in the same way as a class enemy might conceivably be; quite apart from humanitarian considerations, this would be a biological impossibility” (Bryson 2003, p. 173). While few radical feminists were actually advocating killing men,5 even the objective of dismantling patriarchy seems, for many, “naïve and simplistic” (Whisnant 2016, p. 68). Similarly, the personal is political catch‐cry has been criticized as

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n­ arrow, self‐indulgent, individualist, and excessively focused on victimhood. In Sheila Rowbotham’s Women in Movement: Feminism and Social Action, she raises two further criticisms including the folly of sisterhood and the movement as insufficiently intersectional: The idea of “women” as a unified group has been brought into question in a series of challenges to perspectives that ignored and denied the experience of groups such as lesbians, black women, working class women, aboriginal women, Jewish women, older women, disabled women, and many others. (Rowbotham 1992, pp. 79–80)

Rowbotham argues that clustering all woman under one banner – overlooks that factors other than sex may be more important than sex in identity formation. Some scholars have even spotlighted that sex might in fact thwart or inhibit bonding, contending that sisterhood is, in fact, at odds with women’s lived experiences and that womanhood is an “invented” rather than natural category (Weisser and Fleischner 1994, p. 2). Several scholars also argue that women can and do oppress each other (Fouche 1994; Bryson 2003). These ideas also link to the broader criticism of radical feminism as insufficiently intersectional, and as artificially deeming sex as the central source of oppression over other factors. Walby for example, spotlights radical ­feminism’s “false universalism which cannot understand historical change or take sufficient account of divisions between women based on ethnicity and class” (Walby 1986, p. 3). Rebecca Whishnant also addresses this: According to its critics, radical feminism does not engage sufficiently with women’s diversity (along racial and other lines), nor does it acknowledge and analyze multiple intersecting systems of oppression. (Whisnant 2016, p. 68)

While Whisnant counters this assertion – contending that some radical feminists like Andrea Dworkin were, in fact, writing about intersectionality – nonetheless the perceived whiteness of radical feminism has persisted as a critique. Since the 1980s, with the rise of postmodernism and the mainstreaming of scholarship like queer theory, the stranglehold of biological understandings of sex has waned. Bryson for example, notes that “postmodernism does not only stress the differences amongst women and the consequential dangers of generalising about their situation, it also questions the underlying assumption (common to all ‘modernist’ feminists) that it is meaningful to talk about ‘women’ and ‘men’ at all” (Bryson 2003, p. 173–174). Postmodernism’s critique of the usefulness of biology and gender has become a key component of much modern theory and contemporary critiques of radical feminism. Debates around transgenderism illustrate this particularly well.

The Transgender Challenge In 2014, Time magazine ran a cover story titled “The Transgender Tipping Point,” accompanied by a photo of transgender actress Laverne Cox (Steinmetz 2014).

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This article signified a watershed moment in not only transgender activism but visibility. That same year, transgender activist Janet Mock’s memoir Redefining Realness became a bestseller. It was also in 2014 that Jeffreys’s book Gender Hurts was published. Jeffreys’s position is that transgenderism  –  in practice and ideology – is harmful: [T]ransgenderism is but one way in which “gender” hurts people and societies. Transgenderism depends for its very existence on the idea that there is an “essence” of gender, a psychology and pattern of behaviour, which is suited to persons with particular bodies and identities. This is the opposite of the feminist view, which is that the idea of gender is the foundation of the political system of male domination. (Jeffreys 2014, p. 1)

Among transgender activists, Jeffreys’s book remains heavily criticized. Goldberg discusses this clash between radical feminism and the rise of transgenderism in the New Yorker: Ordinarily, Jeffreys told me, she would launch the publication of a new book with an event at the university, but this time campus security warned against it. She has also taken her name off her office door. She gave a talk in London this month, but it was invitation‐only. (Goldberg 2014, n.p.)

Criticism of transgenderism of course, did not start with Gender Hurts. Jeffreys credits the publication of Janice Raymond’s The Transsexual Empire (1980) as being an early inspiration. Even earlier than Raymond, Morgan positioned herself as an early TERF (Trans‐Exclusionary Radical Feminist) in 1973 in a speech given at a lesbian conference following a performance by a transgender musician: I will not call a male “she”; thirty‐two years of suffering in this androcentric society, and of surviving, have earned me the title “woman”; one walk down the street by a male transvestite, five minutes of his being hassled (which he may enjoy), and then he dares, he dares to think he understands our pain? No, in our mothers’ names and in our own, we must not call him sister (in Goldberg 2014, n.p.).

With radical feminism already seeming “passé in feminist circles” (Whisnant 2016, p. 68), compounded with the rise of identity politics6 and transgender activism and visibility, the radical feminist position is being framed in many circles as exclusionary, extreme and, notably, as anachronistic.

Radical Feminism: Legacy On one hand, the central project of radical feminism – the dismantling of patriarchy – has to date, failed. Equally, the activism of the 1960s and 1970s has dramatically reduced. While some of the radical feminists from this period became cultural

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feminists as discussed, others transitioned into liberal feminism. Willis for example, explored deradicalized feminisms: Ms. [magazine] and the new liberals embraced [radical feminist] issues but basically ignored the existence of power relationships. Though they supported feminist reforms, their main strategy for improving women’s lives was individual and collective self‐ improvement. (Willis 1984, p. 108)

In terms of contributing to theory, radical feminist legacies lie in helping to revolutionize political analysis. Saulnier, for example, notes that “radical feminists developed a more comprehensive view of sexism which includes sex, gender, and reproduction as central topics in political analysis” (Saulnier 1996, p. 44). Jane Gerhard similarly spotlights that one radical feminist legacy lay in the politicizing of the category of “woman,” based on “the patriarchal uses and misuses of female sexuality” (Gerhard 2001, p. 152). Quoted earlier was Jaggar’s comment that radical feminism “seeks to remove the spectacles” (Jaggar 1983, p. 85). This idea introduces the influence of radical feminism on academia leading to the rise of sex‐class examinations in fields that had historically gone without any kind of gender lens analysis. Feminist geography, for example, was formed to understand the male domination of space and design (McDowell and Sharp 1999). Feminist international relations, similarly, was created to investigate women’s overlooked place in the study of global politics and security (Enloe 1989). Consciousness‐raising also became instrumental in enlightening and educating women: Anita Shreve, for example, describes conscious‐raising groups – estimated as having had over 100 000 participants  –  as “one of the largest ever education and support movements of its kind for women in the history of this country” (Shreve 1989, p. 6). Bonnie Dow also discusses the impact of these groups, identifying that “the therapeutic and self‐help dimensions of consciousness‐raising translated easily into the self‐improvement ideology of women’s magazines…” (Dow 1996, p. 66). While liberal feminism has, arguably, had far stronger influence on public policy than radical feminism (Maddox 1998), nonetheless, there are also some examples of radical feminism making an impact. Through consciousness‐raising and radical feminist activism, the way we think about – and have made public policy about – sexual violence today has been substantially affected (Primorac 1998); equally so for domestic violence policy; as Stefania Abrar, Joni Lovenduski, and Helen Margretts argue, “The story of domestic violence policy shows how a network of radical feminists can influence policy in organizations as traditional, conservative and hierarchical as the police” (Abrar et  al. 2000, p. 257). Policies supporting single mothers – especially those who have left situations of abuse – are also credited to radical feminism (Duncan and Edwards 1997). The legacy of domestic violence services is another legacy; as Saulnier notes, radical feminists “were instrumental in developing services that center on women’s needs and do not focus on helping women adapt to sexist structures” (Saulnier 1996, pp. 44–45). Equally, the activism around these issues – for example, the Reclaim the Night marches – continue today in various forms, including through campus activism about rape and the advent of Slutwalks (Rosewarne 2011b), the latter which, while clashing with some of the

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radical feminist ideas, also exploit the legacy of women reclaiming public space (Johnson 2015). Equally, some of the revolutionary solutions to reproduction that Firestone (1970) advocated for that were impossible in the 1970s have, as Susan Faludi notes “proved prescient” (Faludi 2013, n.p.). In Sweden and Norway, the radical feminist impact on public policy is witnessed in what has become known as the “Nordic Model”: anti‐prostitution legislation which criminalizes the buying rather than the selling of sexual services. In terms of enduring activism, the sex industry in fact, remains in the crosshairs of radical feminism, deemed a central component of women’s continued oppression and an enduring motivation for activism.

Radical Feminism: Continued Relevance While patriarchy may no longer be a word with much traction in modern writing or in the contemporary mediascape (Holter 2005), there are several debates still waging well into the twenty‐first century that highlight that radical feminist positions still have currency. In this section I discuss prostitution and pornography, two distinctly gendered arenas which persist as rallying cries for radical feminists.

Prostitution In the Redstockings Manifesto introduced earlier, the notion of women’s value being reduced to “enhanc[ing] men’s lives” was identified. While women enhance men’s lives as mothers, wives, lovers, and carers, a central concern for radical feminists is women doing this commercially through prostitution: as Thompson contends, “the only reason for the existence of prostitution is to service male sexual desire” (Thompson 2001, p. 42). Radical feminists are abolitionists and “view the industry of prostitution as a cause and consequence of inequality, not as work like any other” (Mackay 2015, p. 214). The radical feminist opposition to prostitution is multilayered. First, the sex industry is viewed as another contribution to the maintenance of patriarchy. Ginette Castro argues that prostitution is symbolically oppressive, contending that “It is through the act of purchase that patriarchal man humiliates the prostitute whose services he acquires” (Castro 1990, p. 82). Thompson takes this further, saying that “Its sole reason for existence is so that men can pay money to have their penises stimulated to ejaculation by strangers who they hold in contempt” (Thompson 2001, p. 41). Symbolically, prostitution is viewed as a commercial encapsulation of how women are treated in broader society, as valued exclusively for the degree to which they enhance men’s lives. Theorists like Jeffreys contend that rather than the sex industry being merely a way to capitalize on men’s sexual desires, rather, “men’s behaviour in choosing to use women in prostitution is socially constructed out of men’s dominance and women’s subordination” (Jeffreys 1997, p. 3). While the misogyny that Castro, Thompson, and Jeffreys allude to is enacted symbolically through the bodies of prostitutes, radical feminists like Mackay quoted earlier, also argue that these acts should also be construed as physical acts of sexual violence. Atkinson, for example, describes prostitution as “institutionalized rape in

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its most public, brutal form” (Atkinson 1974, p. xlix). Evelina Giobbe articulates a similar argument: The fact that a john gives money to a woman or a child for submitting to these acts does not alter the fact that he is committing child sexual abuse, rape, and battery; it merely redefines these crimes as prostitution. (Giobbe 1991, p. 146)

Kathleen Barry takes this same position in her book The Prostitution of Sexuality: Prostitution is sex bought on men’s terms. Rape is sex taken on men’s terms. The sex men buy in prostitution is the same they take in rape – sex that is disembodied, enacted on the bodies of women who, for the men, do not exist as human beings, and the men are always in control. (Barry 1996, p. 37)

While the growth of the industry – fueled by globalization and the internet – keeps prostitution a concern, connected issues like trafficking have made radical feminist positions even more salient.

Pornography In light of the radical feminist opposition to prostitution, it is no surprise that pornography is viewed similarly: the two topics are routinely coupled in academic discussions (Sullivan 1997; Whisnant and Stark 2004; Spector 2006; Weitzer 2009); both are reliant on women’s sexual labor and both considered as products for male consumption. Equally, if one looks at the origins of the word pornography – pornē meaning prostitute; graphein to write or record – there has always been a link: a number of writers have in fact made the point that pornography is just filmed prostitution (Heldman 2010; Banyard 2016). Several theorists also couple prostitution and pornography as similar types of abuse: Christine Stark and Carol Hodgson claim that both are “forms of violence against women and girls” (Stark and Hodgson 2003, p. 28). While pornography has always been a concern for radical feminists, the activists of the 1960s and 1970s, could never have imagined the ubiquitousness of pornography resulting from the Internet nor the subsequent pornification (Rosewarne 2016, 2017), in turn making the debates had nearly half a century ago every bit as potent today; in fact, as Gail Dines contends “the porn question has, since the 1970s, been the most controversial and divisive issue in the women’s movement” and argues that “radical feminists see porn as a major producer of sexist ideologies that normalise, condone, legitimise and glorify women’s subordinate status” (Dines 2012, pp. 18–19). While radical feminist opposition to pornography lies in the opposition to the existence of commodified sex in any form, there is also a series of more medium‐­ specific concerns raised. Many radical feminists put strong emphasis on the harm of pornography: on both its production and consumption. The case of Linda Marchiano – who appeared in the pornographic film Deep Throat (1972) with the name Linda Lovelace – is often

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used by radical feminists as a case study to reflect the often‐coerced participation of women in pornography: in Marchiano’s book Ordeal (1980), she reveals that she had performed in the films under physically duress. Other radical feminists have written about the physical coercion of women into pornography and their subsequent abuse (Dines et al. 1998; Lederer 1980; MacKinnon 2001). In terms of consumption, radical feminists consider pornography as a tool that teaches viewers about sex – what it looks like and sounds like – and, more specifically, about women’s subordinated role. In Feminism Unmodified, for example, MacKinnon argues “Pornography is ideas; ideas matters. Whatever goes on in the mind of pornography’s consumer matters tremendously…” (MacKinnon 1987, p. 22). Some of these ideas center on abuse and subordination, something Diane Russell addresses where she presents a multiple causation case between pornography and rape: My theory, in a nutshell, is that pornography (1) predisposes some males to want to rape women and intensifies the predisposition in other males already so predisposed; (2) undermines some males’ internal inhibitions against acting out their desire to rape; and (3) undermines some males’ social inhibitions against acting out their desire to rape. (Russell 1997, p. 158)

MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin present similar ideas in Pornography and Civil Rights: The more pornography men see, the more abusive and violent they want it to be; the more abusive and violent it becomes, the more they enjoy it, the more abusive and violent they become and the less they see in it. In other words, pornography’s consumers become unable to see its harms because they are enjoying it sexually. (Dworkin and MacKinnon 1988, p. 47)

It is these arguments that led Morgan to argue that “pornography is the theory, rape is the practice” (Morgan 1978, p. 169) and for Dworkin to go that little bit further and argue “pornography is the theory, pornography is the practice” (in MacKinnon 1997, p. 53). The enormous growth of pornography fueled by the internet only makes the concerns held by radical feminists even more relevant today. Radical feminism was born over half a century ago. While the movement morphed, and fractured and, ultimately, downsized, hot button issues like the sex industry, sexual violence, and the transgender issue keep the activism and theory produced just as relevant today. Equally, the legacy of scholarship – the increasing presence of sexual political analyses in disciplines that had historically been ignorant of the power relations between men and women  –  as well as public policy successes in realms such as domestic violence and rape – are testimony to an important legacy.

Notes 1 Valerie Bryson contends that the first radical feminist groups were formed in the USA in 1967 (Valerie Bryson, 2003). 2 Barbara Crow notes that radical feminism first appeared in print in Shulamith Firestone’s Notes from the Second Year published in 1970 (Crow 2000, p. 7 n.3).

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3 I use prostitution in this chapter in deference to the preferred work of radical feminists; my own preferred phrase is sex work (Rosewarne 2017b). 4 Valerie Bryson identifies that radical feminists also broke away from movements like Marxism after being disgruntled that they had been relegated to “servicing the political, domestic and sexual needs of male activists” (Bryson 2003, p. 164). Other theorists also discuss the exclusion of women from other socialist and civil rights movements (Evans 1980; Sargent 1981). 5 An exception, for example, is apparent in Valerie Solanas’s SCUM Manifesto, where part of the mission includes: “SCUM will kill all men who are not in the Men’s Auxiliary of SCUM. Men in the Men’s Auxiliary are those men who are working diligently to eliminate themselves, men who, regardless of their motives, do good, men who are playing ball with SCUM” (Solanas 1967, p. 72). 6 Barbara Ryan notes that “Identity politics refers to discourses and social activism focused on racial, religious, sexual, ethnic, gender, or national identity.” Ryan notes that identity politics is one factor responsible for creating divisions among women that have led to the formation of separate groups and affiliations, in turn negatively impacting on feminist activism (Ryan 2001, p. 322).

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5 Materialist Feminisms Bronwyn Winter

Introduction Materialist feminism emerged as a concept early in the so‐called “second‐wave” period in the West. It examined gender as a materially and historically constructed relationship of domination and women as a social group constituted through that relationship. Although it came from a Marxian basis of historical materialism, materialist feminism departed from Marxism in significant ways. At the same time, materialist feminists chose the term “materialist” in preference to “Marxist” because of the failure of Marxist analysis to account for and address the sexual division of labor, and indeed the division of society as a whole into two gendered groups that Simone de Beauvoir (1949), and Christine Delphy after her, had likened to “castes.” (Delphy, other French materialist feminists, as well as Anglo‐world radical feminists, subsequently used the term “class.”) Feminists in many contexts outside the Western world also both drew inspiration from Marxism and critiqued it during roughly the same period, but in quite different contexts: notably those of decolonization and postcoloniality and/or emergence from dictatorships (this last also being the case in the West, for example, in Portugal, Spain, and Greece). However, it was in the Anglophone and Francophone West that the term “materialist feminism” was coined and the theories it denoted were developed. This chapter, then, will focus on those specific Western developments  –  not because feminist activism and theories outside the West (and indeed outside the Anglo world) are not important, but because their political and theoretical foundations are grounded in specific geohistorical contexts and as such present original theoretical elements and nomenclature not found within Western materialist feminisms. These non‐Western feminist theorizations thus merit their own detailed treatments, with attention to the vast diversity of historical, geopolitical, and cultural specificities of context that impacted on how the theories developed.

Companion to Feminist Studies, First Edition. Edited by Nancy A. Naples. © 2021 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Published 2021 by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

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The first feminist analysis that openly termed itself “materialist” was that of sociologist Christine Delphy in France. Later in the 1970s, the term was popularized across the Channel by, among others, British feminist sociologists Annette Kuhn and Ann Marie Wolpe, and social and cultural theorist Michèle Barrett (the last of whom famously took issue with Delphy’s understanding of “materialist feminism,” as discussed in this chapter). It then crossed the Atlantic to be further investigated by literary and cultural studies scholar Rosemary Hennessy and sociologist Chrys Ingraham. Hennessy and Ingraham reinvigorated the term in the 1990s as a critical response both to the “postmodern avant‐garde” (Hennessy 1993, p. xii) and to intersectional considerations (Crenshaw 1989, 1991, although Hennessy and Ingraham do not use Crenshaw’s term). They identified a new direction of materialist feminism that problematized the category “woman,” exploring “how ‘woman’ as a discursive category is historically constructed and traversed by more than one differential axis” (Hennessy 1993, p. xii). In a 1997 anthology, titled Materialist Feminism: A Reader in Class, Difference and Women’s Lives, Hennessy and Ingraham grouped a number of different, even disparate, feminist texts under the umbrella “materialist feminism,” their commonality being their attachment to historical materialism as a method of analysis, or at least their explicit opposition to capitalism (Hennessy and Ingraham 1997a). The texts had first been published in France, the UK or North America, between 1969 and 1995. In compiling the anthology, Hennessy and Ingraham gave themselves the brief of responding to the challenges posed by women of color and lesbians (in particular) in raising issues of difference among women. At the same time, they wished to address the postmodern fragmentation of feminism, in particular the privileging of discourse and individual identity politics at the expense, it seemed, of analysis of the material conditions in which women lived, in a context of global consolidation of capitalist power. This anthology, and Hennessy’s (1993) work Materialist Feminism and the Politics of Discourse, notwithstanding their attention to debates within feminism at that time, nonetheless create an impression of an organic transnational development of a “materialist feminism” that, despite its geohistorical spread and its venturing into new areas, supposedly came from a relatively homogenous analytical and political core. In this chapter, we will see that the story of “materialist feminism” is far less straightforward. It presents significant historical and geographical variations, and not all those dubbed “materialist feminists” by Hennessy and Ingraham may themselves identify as such, or not in the same way. French materialist feminists, for example, were much closer in their analysis and politics to radical feminists of the Anglo world than they were to most Anglo‐world self‐identified materialist feminists. This chapter, then, will explore the historical and sometimes parallel, sometimes distinct, and sometimes conflictual development of these three distinct understandings of materialist feminism: first, that developed by Christine Delphy and subsequently others in France in the 1970s (“French materialist feminism”); second, that developed in the UK by Kuhn and others (“British materialist feminism”); and third, the later use of the term by Hennessy and Ingraham to reconcile Marxian materialist analysis with intersectional considerations and to respond to the challenge of postmodernism (“US materialist feminism”). Although all these groups of materialist feminists positioned themselves quite explicitly in relation to Marxism, and adapted Marx’s historical materialism to



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explain male domination as grounded in material relations, they differed both from Marxist feminism and from each other in their analysis. Common to all strands, however, was the premise that gender is not natural or presocial but socially constructed through history as a material power relation. Materialist feminisms differ from postmodernism or Butlerian social‐constructionism (Butler 1990) – which also interrogate gender as open to change – in that they foreground the material (social, economic), structural, and ideological rather than (only) discursive or cultural underpinnings of these social relations. Indeed, their focus is more firmly on the social and economic relations than on individual positionalities, although US materialist feminism arguably attaches more attention to the latter, as do US social sciences, and US feminism, more generally (see also my discussion of Carol Stabile’s work below). Before proceeding, I should make clear my use of the terms “Marxian” and “Marxist.” I use the former term to refer to theories and interpretations of societies and politics that are grounded in or strongly influenced by either Marx’s historical materialism or his theory of capital and the relations of production. The latter term refers either to intellectuals who self‐identify as such, or, more explicitly, to Marx‐ inspired political movements, whether aligned with Communism (which in the 1970s and 1980s was far more mainstream in France than in the Anglo world) or with extreme‐left groups (such as Trotskyists or Maoists). As for the terms “Marxist feminist” and “socialist feminist,” these terms have often been used interchangeably, although the distinction is ostensibly that Marxist feminists have prioritized class and capitalist relations, while socialist feminists incorporated some radical feminist analyses of patriarchy, developing a “dual systems” theory whereby capitalism and patriarchy represented two systems of oppression that co‐existed and interacted. Further distinctions exist outside the Anglo world, for example in Continental Western Europe, where Marxist party politics have been more influential, and so the distinction between “Marxist feminist” (or in France, féministes lutte de classes: class‐struggle feminists) and “socialist feminist” more closely resembles the distinction between Anglo‐world “socialist feminists” and “(liberal) social democrats.” (For more on the Anglo‐world history of “Marxist” versus “socialist” feminism see Ehrenreich 1997 [1976]; Hartmann 1979.) One more important comment to make before proceeding is to dispel the occasional confusion, particularly in the US, between materialist feminism and “material feminism,” as developed by Karen Barad in the late 2000s. Barad’s material feminism revolves around concepts such as “agential realism” and “onto‐epistemology” and draws on the work of Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, and quantum physics (Barad 2007). It has no genealogical link with materialist feminism, but rather with poststructuralism, and will not be a focus of this chapter.

French Materialist Feminism In 1970, an article titled “L’ennemi principal” (the main enemy) appeared in a special issue of the French journal Partisans devoted to the theme of “Women’s liberation.” Signed Christine Delphy, the article took issue with the Marxist conceptualization of women’s oppression as the result of capitalism. Like radical feminists across the Atlantic (Millett 1978 [1970]; Firestone 1979 [1970]), and

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drawing, like them, inspiration from Beauvoir (1949), Delphy framed the social relationship between women and men as one of class struggle, and sexuality and the family as key sites of that struggle (Delphy 1998a, b). Where Delphy’s analysis was different, or perhaps went a little further, than some US radical feminist analyses, was in its use of Marxian materialism as a method to “analyze the relationships between the nature of domestic goods and services and the mode of production of those goods and services” (1998a, p. 34, my translation). That relationship of domestic and sexual production/reproduction would subsequently be termed sexage by Colette Guillaumin 2012 [1978]. Guillaumin’s term evoked two others: esclavage (slavery) and servage (serfdom) –  both of which Delphy had also referred to as a point of comparison with the appropriation of women’s domestic labor, as qualitatively different from the appropriation of the labor of waged workers. At the same time, Delphy differentiated – as did Guillaumin – the domestic mode of production from serfdom. Serfs produce labor in exchange for their keep, whereas women, even when they work for a wage outside the home and so technically “keep” themselves, nonetheless continue to supply domestic labor for free, thus taking on a double workload, one remunerated and one not. Moreover, for French materialist feminists, the appropriation of women within the family and sexuality goes beyond the simple appropriation of women’s domestic labor, as it extends to those “goods and services” produced by women, including sexual and reproductive services. As such, women’s labor within marriage and the family constitutes a specific mode of production (Delphy 1998a; Guillaumin 1992). In a later essay “Pour un féminisme matérialiste” (for a materialist feminism) first published in the journal L’Arc in 1975, Christine Delphy argued that Marxian materialism, based on analysis of class struggle, was traversed by a profound contradiction in that it excluded women as a category of sociopolitical analysis. Marx, and Marxist theorists, either completely ignored women’s existence or relegated anything to do with women to the realm of the objectively unknowable: the private, the subjective, the emotional, the sexual – and most especially the “natural” – in which “women” were objects rather than subjects of history and class struggle. Yet the revolt of women showed that the situation of women was not natural or inevitable in some biological sense, but socially constructed and thus resistible. For Delphy, feminist theory necessarily takes as its starting point that resistance by women. For “the class of the proletariat is not the result of Marxist theory of capital; on the contrary, it is Marxist theory of capital that is founded on the necessary premise of the oppression of the proletariat” (1998a, p. 281, my translation). Similarly, women’s resistance is not the result of feminist theory but its initiator. In other words, the epistemological starting point for any analysis of oppression is the situation, and struggles, of the oppressed. In this, Delphy is perhaps closer to Lukács 2000 [1923] than to Marx, and to all the standpoint epistemologies than have developed since Lukács, from Césaire (1950) to Sandoval (2000). A system of knowledge production that takes as its starting point the oppression of women thus “constitutes an epistemological revolution” (Delphy 1998a, p. 277). It challenges not only the pretentions to neutrality of masculinist knowledge, but also the often elitist production of “theory” and the technocratic and often arbitrary division of knowledge into discrete “disciplines,” each with its own jealously‐guarded spheres of theory and content. Delphy characterized this separation and intellectual



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border‐policing as an essentially anti‐materialist strategy of compartmentalization and obfuscation, in that it masks the totality and coherency of systems of oppression and, moreover, removes theorization from its grounding in the lived experience of social relations. She directed the main thrust of this criticism toward psychology and psychoanalysis, by which many French Marxist theorists were attracted and via which they sought to explain the relationship between men and women and reconcile the “subjectivity/affect/sexuality” trio with Marxist materialism. This “Freudo‐ Marxism” was popularized in France through the writings of such theorists as Jacques Lacan (1966) and Louis Althusser 1976 [1970]. According to Delphy, the attempt at reconciliation was a failure, due to the “exorbitant pretention” of psychoanalysis to be more than a theory of interpretation of subjectivity, but subjectivity itself, thus positioning psychoanalytic theorists as the only ones qualified to discuss it (Delphy 1998a, p. 279). Accepting this pretention meant accepting the entry of the enemy, “idealism” (understood in a Marxian sense – see below), into historical materialism. For Delphy, feminist theory, in that it seeks to explain and combat oppression, must also, to be coherent, be a theory of history, given that the relationship of male domination of women has been constituted socially, thus, by definition, historically (Delphy 1998a, pp. 271–4): A feminist interpretation of history is thus “materialist” in a broad sense, that is, its premises lead it to consider intellectual production as the product of social relationships, and to consider the latter as relationships of domination. (Delphy 1998a, p. 274, my translation)

French materialist feminism is thus a radical departure from Marxist analysis even as it remains grounded in historical materialism, as well as a refusal of the then fashionable recourse to psychoanalysis as a way of dealing with what Marxist scholars understood as “subjectivity” (women remained relegated to this latter domain). Within the French feminist movement, the divergence between materialist feminists (also known as revolutionary feminists, and later, due to transatlantic influence, radical feminists) and Marxist feminists (féministes lutte de classes, who by and large were not tempted by Freudo‐Marxism either) was as strong as that between radical feminists and socialist feminists in the UK and the US. French materialist feminists similarly rejected biological essentialism, just as Beauvoir, from whom they drew such inspiration, had famously done in 1949: “on ne naît pas femme, on le devient” (one is not born, but rather becomes, Woman) (Beauvoir 1949, Vol. I, p. 285). That is, “becoming woman” is a process of socialization that is at once material and ideological: there is no “feminine nature” or “essence” that is not the product of social relations. I note in passing that this celebrated sentence of Beauvoir’s is one of her most mistranslated and misinterpreted (see Winter 1999). The import of the original sentence is that “one is not born this thing called Woman, one becomes this thing through socialization,” and that meaning is made very clear in the chapter in which it appears (“Childhood”), the first of the final section of Volume I, titled “Education/Training” (Formation). Radical lesbian theorist Monique Wittig – whose work, like that of other radical lesbians such as Colette Guillaumin, is grounded in French materialist feminism  –  was later to

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extrapolate that analysis to argue that because lesbians refuse to “become woman” within the system of heterosexuality, they can be said in fact not to be “women” in that Beauvoirian sense, “not economically, nor politically, nor ideologically. For in fact what makes a woman is a particular social relation to a man” (Wittig 2001 [1980], p. 63: my translation). Delphy and other materialist feminists, and later, radical lesbians, thus took strong exception to the tendency in France known as “Psychanalyse et politique” (or Psyképo), which drew heavily on Lacanian psychoanalysis and produced a strongly biologizing framing of women within social relations. Delphy also famously criticized Annie LeClerc’s book Parole de femme (1974) for its celebrating of women’s biology and femininity (Delphy 1998c [1976]; see also Jackson 1996, 42 ff). This sort of celebration of women’s “difference” through countervalorizing of constructions of femininity that are usually deployed to keep women down was comparable to the “compensatory sur‐evaluation” of racialized groups, using similar strategies, as famously discussed by Colette Guillaumin (1972).

The Delphy–Barrett and McIntosh Debate In 1979, Michèle Barrett and Mary McIntosh published a critique of Delphy in the first issue of the British journal Feminist Review. Barrett and McIntosh take Delphy to task for arguing that the oppression of women has “a material rather than an ideological basis,” using Delphy’s refutation of Freudo‐Marxism as the basis for their claim. Yet, this reading seems to be based on a misunderstanding of Delphy’s argument and indeed the vocabulary she uses. Delphy does not refute “ideology” in either of the two essays discussed above (Delphy 1998a, b), nor indeed anywhere else in her writing; indeed, in her reply to Barrett and McIntosh published in 1982, she affirms the contrary, and emphasizes the inextricable link between the economic and the ideological (Delphy 2001). The term she uses in the writings to which Barrett and McIntosh refer is not ideology but “idealism,” and she uses it in a Marxian sense. Marx’s critique of “idealism” was not a refutation of the role of ideology per se; it was rather a refusal of the Hegelian premise that the starting point for understanding the world and the means for acting upon it were human contemplation. Marx argued rather than the material conditions of people’s lives were a necessary starting point not only for reflecting upon the world but for acting to change it. Indeed, in his Theses on Feuerbach, a series of preparatory notes for a book he authored with Engels on, precisely, ideology (The German Ideology, 1932), Marx famously critiqued philosophers for seeking to understand the essence of the human in a solely ideational way, divorced from economic and social relations, and thus to understand the world in various ways without acting upon it, where the point was to act upon the world in order to change it (Marx 1845). Similarly, Delphy’s materialism is grounded in the understanding that, as Stevi Jackson puts it, “ideas in themselves cannot be seen as the cause of any form of social division or oppression. On the contrary, inequalities are rooted in actual social practices” (Jackson 1996, p. 38), and ideology develops not in isolation from these social practices but as a means of legitimizing them. Barrett and McIntosh thus misread



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Delphy’s original argument: Delphy does not ignore ideology but locates it as the product of material relations of domination. This, however, is not Barrett and McIntosh’s only criticism. They also disagree with Delphy’s analysis of marriage and domestic labor as a mode of production that is separate and different from the mode of production in waged work analyzed by Marx, and indeed historically anterior to it. Instead, they place the accent on the primacy of class as the fundamental oppressive structure. We find in this disagreement the core of the analytical and political difference between Marxist and radical feminists on both sides of the Channel, and a foreshadowing of what would become the major poststructuralist disagreement with radical feminism and some expressions of Marxist feminism: the place and role of discourse in the relationship of male domination of women. Barrett and McIntosh also dismiss Delphy for being too “polemical/political” and not sufficiently “theoretical”; they do so, however, in an article that is itself polemical. In 1982, Delphy published a reply to Barrett and McIntosh, in which she argued that she had been disingenuously misrepresented, and criticized the authors for hierarchizing “theory” (valorized) and “politics” (devalorized). The core of her argument, however, is that Barrett and McIntosh, in criticizing Delphy for using Marx’s method (materialism) without adhering to Marx’s analysis of the relations of domination (solely located in capitalist class exploitation), have, like other Marxist scholars, confused Marx’s method on the one hand with his analysis of capitalism on the other hand, or rather, “reduc[ed] the former to the latter” (Delphy 2001, p. 128, my translation). Delphy further argues that Marxists posit this amalgamated method‐ analysis as the only possible interpretation of contemporary society. This totalizing approach that posits “Marx” as a whole package to take or to leave is a form of both deification and reification, a theoretical and political border‐policing that prohibits those who do not accept the whole “package” from using the materialist method as a tool of analysis. Indeed, for Delphy, materialism is not a possible tool of analysis, it is the tool, “precisely because it is the only theory of history for which oppression is the fundamental reality, the starting point” (Delphy 2001, p. 134, my translation). The Barrett‐McIntosh–Delphy polemic is emblematic of the deep divisions, during the early years of second‐wave feminism, and to some extent still, between radical and Marxian feminists – although that divide is more accurately characterized today as opposing radical and poststructuralist or postmodern feminists, or queer theorists. It is also illustrative of the geohistorical confusion surrounding the term “materialist feminism.”

British Materialist Feminism In 1978 – the year before Barrett and McIntosh’s article was published in the inaugural issue of Feminist Review, appeared an anthology coedited by Annette Kuhn and AnnMarie Wolpe, titled Feminism and Materialism: Wonen and Modes of Production (Kuhn and Wolpe 2013a). Kuhn and Wolpe’s introduction makes some remarkably similar points to Delphy’s, even though the framework in which they position themselves is vastly different to the French one. Kuhn and Wolpe situate their discussion at the moment of the entry of women’s studies into institutions of

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higher learning. At the time they were writing, however, most women’s studies courses were being run outside formal educational institutions, or if within them, they were strands within more traditional disciplines. According to Lisa Downing, the first university women’s studies course to be so named in the UK was an MA in Women’s Studies at the University of Kent, set up in 1980 (Downing 2013, online). Kuhn and Wolpe raised the problem that is now familiar to many feminists both within and outside the academy: that of the tension between ghettoization and cooptation. They also, in notable parallel to Delphy, raised the problem of elitism of institutions of knowledge production and the siloing of knowledge and theory into the ivory towers of disciplines, within which “appropriate modes of inquiry, limits and boundaries of ‘subjects’, methods, ways of producing and making use of knowledge, are defined” (Kuhn and Wolpe 2013b). They termed this elitist approach to theory production, and to authoritative knowledge claims, “theoreticism,” and contrasted it with the location of feminist theory production in the need to address the oppression of women. They argued for more of that feminist theory production, which arises “quite simply from the very urgent and specific need for constructing an analytical and effectual understanding of women’s situation” (Kuhn and Wolpe 2013b). The particular theoretical contribution they argue for is materialism. However, their starting point for understanding materialism, which draws on Engels’ definition, is framed a little differently from Delphy’s. For them, “the materialist problematic is based on a conceptualization of human society as defined specifically by its productivity: primarily of the means of subsistence and of value by the transformation of nature through work.” Even if they seem to begin at quite a similar starting point to Delphy – that of analyzing the position of women in terms of relations of production and reproduction as constituted through history – they quickly resituate their materialism within a socialist‐feminist dual systems framework of sexual division of labor in the private sphere and social relations between capital and waged labor in the public sphere. Although trenchantly critical of Marxism’s failure to either theorize or address the subordination of women, Kuhn and Wolpe nonetheless explicitly situate their materialist analysis as, at least to some extent, “an attempt to transform Marxism.” The question is thus begged of the difference between this British materialist feminism and socialist feminism. Indeed, Kuhn and Wolpe appear to reinforce a “dual systems” conceptualization in stating that: a materialist approach to the question of women’s situation constantly comes up against the problem of the apparently transhistorical character of women’s oppression, which immediately problematizes the relationship between such oppression and mode of production. Any attempt to deal with this fundamental issue necessitates a consideration of the relationship between patriarchy, however formulated, and history; or more particularly, mode of production. In this context two interrelated issues are raised – the family and the sexual division of labour – whose crucial importance to the theorization of the situation of women is constantly claimed but still remains to be analysed. (Kuhn and Wolpe 2013b)

Kuhn and Wolpe thus remain within a Marxian conceptualization of “mode of production” as being exclusively tied to the development of capitalism, and appear either to not be aware of radical and French materialist analyses of the family and



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sexual division of labor, or to consider such analyses unimportant. The rest of the contributions to the anthology remain within the “dual systems” framework: the family/patriarchy and the capitalist state, but without positing the family mode of production as distinctive. By the end of the 1980s, then, two fundamentally different conceptualizations of materialist feminism had emerged on different sides of the English Channel: the French, which is politically and theoretically closer to the radical feminism of the Anglo world, although it gives a greater importance to materialism as method, and the British, which would appear to be the intellectual counterpart to socialist feminism.

US Materialist Feminism In the introduction to her 1993 book Materialist Feminism and the Politics of Discourse, Rosemary Hennessy effaces the distinction between British and French materialist feminism, stating that “Annette Kuhn, Anne [sic] Marie Wolpe, Michele Barrett, Mary McIntosh, and Christine Delphy were among the initial promoters of ‘materialist feminism,’ favoring that term over ‘Marxist feminism’ on the basis of an argument that Marxism cannot adequately address women’s exploitation and oppression unless the Marxist problematic itself is transformed so as to be able to account for the sexual division of labor” (Hennessy 1993, p. xi). Her revisiting of the socialist/Marxist‐feminist version of materialism is in response to a body of feminist literature that emerged during the 1980s and that “questioned the adequacy of a generic ‘woman’ and a gender‐centred feminist inquiry” (Hennessy 1993, p. xii). This now familiar argument, however, is based on a misinterpretation. Materialist feminists, whether British or French, have never suggested that all women are the same, for their focus was not “woman” as an entity but on the social relations that constitute women as an oppressed class (or group, or caste, depending on the terminology one prefers). Similarly, criticizing feminist inquiry as “gender‐centred” is to suggest that the central object of such inquiry lacks political and thus theoretical validity. The very point of feminism is to challenge unequal social relations between men and women; it is difficult to do so without being “gender‐centred.” All of this said, the critiques to which Hennessy refers are legion, and many of them are demonstrably true: namely, that many Western feminists and much Western feminist theory (although, I would argue, particularly liberal feminism, rather than materialist feminism, however theorized) have overlooked or underestimated the importance of other social relations, notably race and geopolitical location. (Hennessy also refers to lesbians, although I note that Christine Delphy and indeed a number of other French materialist feminists are openly lesbian, and many of them, and the radical lesbians who drew inspiration from them  –  most famously [Wittig 2001] – framed the social relation of male domination as ideologically and structurally one of heterosexuality). Hennessy was responding to the postmodern turn in feminist theory and notably its emphasis on the discursive construction of social subjects, at a time that she saw as a moment of feminism’s “crisis of authority,” a term she used with reference to feminism in the academy rather than the feminist movement more broadly (Hennessy

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1993, p. 137). Drawing inspiration from a range of poststructuralist, postmodern, and indeed Freudo‐Marxist theorists, Hennessy argued for a materialist feminism that would be more responsive to multiplicities of female subject positions and to the geohistorical specificities and discursive elements of their constitution. She further argued for a greater self‐awareness among materialist feminist theorists that “their mode of reading, like any revolutionary practice, is in history and so provisional, always circulating in a field of contesting discourses that challenge and redefine its horizons” (Hennessy 1993, p. 138). The US style of materialist feminism that has been largely associated with Hennessy and Chrys Ingraham (Hennessy and Ingraham 1997a,b) thus presents some significant differences from either the British or the French. These differences emerged within the context of the postmodern turn in both feminist and Marxian scholarship more generally in the US at that time, both of which were heavily influenced by Foucauldian poststructuralist discourse analysis and Althusserian and Lacanian Freudo‐Marxism, as translocated for a US academic public. Although Hennessy and Ingraham continue to insist on the importance of the materiality of social relations, their focus shifts to encompass the positionality – indeed multiple positionalities – of the subjects constituted both through those relations and the way the latter are talked about: in short, their discursive construction, even as many, even most, of the volume’s contributors remain deeply critical of the postmodern discursive turn. Hennessy in particular is concerned with the necessity of distrusting any theories, including materialist feminism, that may have “totalizing” pretentions, and argues for a materialist feminism that is more responsive to contingency and change. Also central to the US reframing of materialist feminism is a core focus on ideology in an Althusserian sense, as “the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence” (cited in Ingraham 1994, p. 203), in which what is not said is as important to analyze as what is said. Moreover, “because it produces what is allowed to count as reality, ideology constitutes a material force and at the same time is shaped by other economic and political forces” (Ingraham 1994, p. 207). Drawing inspiration from, among others, Adrienne Rich (1980) and Monique Wittig (2001 [1986]), and indeed Christine Delphy, Chrys Ingraham took feminist sociology to task for having adopted the “heterosexual imaginary” and thus having failed to cast a critical eye over heteronormativity. She focused in particular on the social, cultural, and economic institutions of marriage and the family – and famously critiqued weddings and other rituals of heteroromance as “[help]ing to constitute the heterosexual imaginary’s discursive reality” (Ingraham 1994, p. 212; see also Ingraham 1999). This critique is fascinating to reread over two decades later, in a context in which same‐sex marriage has become the dominant political, cultural, and indeed, ideological frame through which lesbian and gay lives and rights are represented in contemporary discourse. Perhaps one needs to apply, like Ingraham, Althusser’s “symptomatic reading” of the same‐sex marriage sociocultural “text” for both what it does and does not say, within the contemporary “homonormative imaginary” (with a nod to Lisa Duggan [2002], who coined the term “homonormativity”). Perhaps somewhat ironically, given Hennessy’s and Ingraham’s emphasis on the need to pay attention to the discursive, geohistorical and ideological context in which theories are produced, their analyses are informed by the intellectual context



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in the US of the time: the love affair of Marxian scholarship with French poststructuralism and psychoanalysis (as refashioned for a US intellectual market); the emergence of queer theory; and the growing body of “postcolonial” or “Third‐World” (as it was called then) feminist writing (produced largely, however, by women employed at US universities). This last criticized Western feminism for ignoring geopolitical and raced relations of power and privilege, and for positing a unitary category or subjectivity of women, Mohanty (1984) and Spivak (1988) being among the most celebrated academic texts of the time. Mohanty argued that Western feminists negated differences among women, notably of race and geographical context. Moreover, non‐Western feminists, she suggested, did not necessarily always prioritize gender in their political struggles and Western feminists needed to acknowledge these differences. Similarly, Spivak, in asking “Can the Subaltern Speak?”, posited a hierarchical relationship between Western and “subaltern” non‐Western women, and argued that Western feminists silenced critical voices from outside the West. These critiques were important, particularly in the US context of the time where the liberal version of feminism favored by white middle‐class women appeared dominant, and where class and race divisions were so entrenched. Mohanty and Spivak, both of whom were born in India, themselves drew inspiration from a body of critical women‐of‐color writing published in the US in the early 1980s (most famously: Moraga and Anzaldúa 1981; Hull et al. 1982; Smith 1983). At the same time, the extent to which political divisions neatly aligned Western and non‐Western (or white and non‐white) feminists on opposite sides of a race and geographical divide remains debatable. Just as Western feminists do not all speak with one voice, neither do non‐ Western ones. Moreover, the critiques made by Mohanty and Spivak appear to consider US liberal feminism as synonymous with “Western” feminism  –  again, a function of the context in which they were working. Finally, it is debatable whether materialist feminists, of whatever strand or nationality, really did ignore race and class considerations – they certainly considered class – but the race critique nonetheless demanded engagement, not only within the polarized US context, but also more broadly, as non‐Western feminist writing started to become more accessible to Western audiences (including, among other things, through translation into English).

Hennessy and Ingraham’s 1997 Anthology In 1997, Hennessy and Ingraham published an influential anthology of materialist feminist writing, grouping texts first published in France, the UK, and North America since 1970 (Hennessy and Ingraham 1997a). The anthology’s subtitle is A Reader in Class, Difference and Women’s Lives, the word “difference” being precisely a reference to those debates in the US about georacial divides, as well as over sexuality and lesbian feminist analysis. The editors intended their anthology as a means of “reclaiming anticapitalist feminism” (the title of their Introduction), a time when “capitalism triumphantly secures its global reach, anticommunist ideologies hammer home socialism’s inherent failure and the Left increasingly moves into the middle class” (Hennessy and Ingraham 1997b, p. 1). For them, this late twentieth century context was one in which feminism had become fragmented and “various forms of cultural politics that take as their starting point gender, race, class, sexuality, or coalitions

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among them have increasingly displaced a systemic perspective that links the battle against women’s oppression to a fight against capitalism” (Hennessy and Ingraham 1997b, p. 1). Their anthology was thus explicitly intended as “a reminder that despite this trend feminists have continued to find in historical materialism a powerful theoretical and political resource” (Hennessy and Ingraham 1997b, p. 1). In making these statements, they align themselves more with the British than the French school of materialist feminism. The anthology is structured as a chronologically organized repository of (broadly defined) materialist feminist writing, with each of its three sections being titled “Archive.” The three sections are, in order (and in diminishing order of length): “Women Under Capitalism: Theorizing Patriarchy, Labor, Meaning” (16 texts); “Thinking Difference Globally: Race, Class, Sexuality” (10 texts); and “Ongoing Work” (7 texts, all first published in the 1990s). Each section is internally diverse, juxtaposing work whose authors would not necessarily recognize themselves within the same current of materialist thought as each other. For example, Delphy’s 1975 text “Pour un féminisme matérialiste” appears in Archive I, along with a 1980 text by her arch‐critic Michèle Barrett on “Ideology and the Cultural Production of Gender.” Closer to Delphy’s work is the foundational text “The Political Economy of Women’s Liberation” by Canadian Margaret Benston 1997 [1969], chronologically the first in the anthology, and one of the first feminist texts to use historical materialism as a method of analysis, although unlike Delphy, Benston stops short of characterizing women’s labor within the family as a discrete “mode of production.” Although the semantic slippage between “materialist feminist” and “socialist feminist” in the Anglo world is evident in many of the Archive I texts, the inclusion of Iris Marion Young’s 1980 critique of dual systems theory provides an important distinction (Young 1980 [1997]). Young’s text explicitly draws on both Marxian and radical feminist analysis to argue for a feminist historical materialism as a “total social theory,” at the core of which stand “the concrete social relations of gender and the relations in which these stand to other types of interaction and domination” (Young 1980 [1997], p. 104 and 105). In order to accommodate and acknowledge differences across time and place, Young argues for a “set of basic categories that can be applied to differing social circumstances in such a way that their specificity remains and yet comparison is possible,” and a theoretical method that will enable these comparisons (Young 1980 [1997], p. 105). She follows Delphy’s analysis in considering “phenomena of ‘consciousness’  –  e.g. intellectual production, broad social attitudes and beliefs, cultural myths, symbols, images, etc. – as rooted in real social relationships” (Young 1980 [1997], p. 105). Also in the first “Archive” are challenges to dominant white‐heterosexual framings of feminism. Hazel V. Carby, writing within the British context in 1982 (the year after the so‐called “race riots” that occurred in working class areas in the country’s industrial cities), provides a detailed critique of white feminist analyses of the family and their inability to understand the interaction of sex, race, and class in Black women’s experience. In making her arguments, Carby draws on a number of significant African‐American feminist texts. Toward the beginning of her article she cites the Combahee River Collective’s famous 1983 text in which the collective names the impacts of class, race, and “sexual politics under patriarchy” as inseparable in the experience of Black women (Combahee River Collective 1983; Carby 1997, p. 111),



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and she closes on an extract from Audré Lorde’s open letter to Mary Daly (Lorde 1983 [1979]; Carby 1997, p. 128).1 Although she does not use the concept of (historical) materialism in her article, Carby consistently references the lived experience of Black women in Britain, both historically and at present. Carby thus underlines the “theoretical effects of the anger of the oppressed,” to borrow a phrase from Guillaumin 1992 [1981]. That is, as both Guillaumin and Delphy  –  and indeed Lorde – had pointed out, the lived experience of the oppressed necessarily generates new theoretical perspectives. For Carby as for self‐identified materialist feminists, the lived experience of women – in this case Black women – must therefore be the starting point for any feminist theory worth the name. Guillaumin, in her own essay, discussed at some length the writing of Martinican anticolonial essayist, poet, playwright, and politician Aimé Césaire, notably his “Discours sur le colonialisme” (discourse on colonialism, 1950), as an example of these “theoretical effects of the anger of the oppressed.” Charlotte Bunch, in her 1975 text “Not for Lesbians Only,” originally delivered as a speech at a socialist feminist conference, takes the women’s movement and particularly socialist feminism to task for not engaging with lesbian‐feminist politics in other than superficial and tokenistic ways. She criticizes heterosexual feminists for not understanding that heterosexuality operates as ideology and institution, core to the sexual division of labor under patriarchy. Conversely, she analyzes how her experience as a lesbian taught her about class in a way the Left never had, by disrupting her “middle‐class assumptions” and background that had “crippled” her as a woman, as she became “an outlaw, a woman alone” (Bunch 1997, p. 57). Moreover – again, in sharp distinction to the assimilationism of present‐day middle‐class campaigns such as that for same‐sex marriage – Bunch wrote that “the last thing we should be aiming to do” is to make “being queer okay” in patriarchy. “Nothing in capitalist patriarchal America works to our benefit and I do not want to see us working in any way to integrate ourselves into that order” (Bunch 1997, p. 58). The second Archive explores the period from the mid‐1980s to mid‐1990s, with a focus on the interactions of race, class, and sexuality in women’s (and some men’s) lives on a transnational scale. Again, this Archive is heterogeneous: Hennessy and Ingraham appeared to wish to be as inclusive as possible. The only real common denominator in this section – namely, a critique of transnational capitalism – is more evident, and more evidently feminist, and more evidently materialist feminist, in some texts than in others. Otherwise, the section covers a political spectrum from the radical feminism of Maria Mies (“Colonization and Housewifization”, Ch. 3 of her celebrated 1986 book Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale), to the explicitly socialist feminism of Chinese‐American activist Nellie Wong (Wong 1997). There is even an early “Transgender Liberation” text, originally published as a pamphlet in 1992 (Feinberg 1997), which documents histories of transgender oppression, including some links with capitalism and colonialism (unlike many subsequent transgender writings), but does not engage specifically with a feminist analysis of any sort, let alone a materialist feminist one. In the same section, African‐American lesbian Barbara Smith, in her essay “Where’s the Revolution?”, first published in 1993, trenchantly criticizes queer politics (with which transgender politics had already become imbricated). She writes that “unlike the early lesbian and gay movement, which had both ideological and practical links to the left, black activism, and

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f­eminism, today’s ‘queer’ politicos seem to operate in a historical and ideological vacuum” (Smith 1997, p. 249), and identifies “gay white men’s racial, gender, and class privileges” as driving the movement’s increased positioning “within the mainstream political arena” (Smith 1997, p. 250). The third Archive brings together texts from the 1990s that engage with poststructuralist and postmodern cultural critiques as well as new feminist preoccupations such as reproductive engineering and ecology. The anthology closes, no doubt fittingly for the time at which it was published, on Carol A. Stabile’s critique of postmodernism, originally published in 1994 as “Feminism without Guarantees: The Misalliances and Missed Alliances of Postmodernist Social Theory” in the journal Rethinking Marxism, and reworked for the 1997 anthology under the title “Feminism and the Ends of Postmodernism” (Stabile 1994, 1997). Stabile defines “postmodern social theory” as “those critical theories that rely upon an uncritical and idealist focus on the discursive constitution of the ‘real,’ a postivisitic approach to the notion of ‘difference’ (one that does not consider the divisiveness of such differences), and a marked lack of critical attention to the context of capitalism and academics’ locations within capitalist processes of production and reproduction” (Stabile 1997, p. 396). Stabile provides an illuminating analysis both of the institutional framing of ideas within academe (and the class divisions among academics as universities increasingly rely on a precariat2 of sessional labor), and of the unfortunate translocation of postmodernism from France to the US. During that translocation, the “historical and material conditions” that produced the European debates around Marxism, postmodernism, and feminism were obscured. The result was “a kind of phantom‐limb syndrome,” in which “a backlash against economic analyses was appropriated by a society whose history of class struggle has been consistently repressed” (Stabile 1997, p. 397). She goes on to critique Laclau and Mouffe’s then (and still) influential idea of “radical democracy” (1990) – which dismisses Marxian class analysis as “essentialist” and shifts the terrain of political struggle into the intellectual and the discursive – as reformist and elitist. Stabile sees the feminist expression of this postmodern “idealist turn” (recalling, although not citing, Delphy’s earlier critique of “idealism”) as having “dissolved the political category of women (and however problematic this category was, it was at least a political one) into a ‘discursive’ construct” (Stabile 1997, p. 399). Judith Butler’s work (notably a 1992 article critiquing critiques of postmodernism) exemplifies for Stabile this discursive, “anti‐essentialist” turn in feminist theory, in which “a belief that discourse precedes, structures and limits subject formation” is promoted (Butler 1992; Stabile 1997, p. 400). Most damningly, Stabile argues that the ideology of postmodernism converges with dominant ideologies in the US of the last decade of the twentieth century, across four sites: “(1) anti‐empiricist tendencies within the humanities; (2) the logic of consumerism and consumer capitalism; (3) postmodernism and the legacy of anti‐communism; and (4) anti‐organizational bias and individualization” (Stabile 1997, p. 405). She sees this convergence as leading to depoliticization among academics and providing alibis for their disengagement. Stabile’s analysis, far from being isolated, was part of a growing chorus of Marxian and (particularly radical) feminist critiques of postmodernism in the 1990s: Jamieson (1991), Callinicos (1991), and Eagleton (1996) being examples of the former and



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Frye (1990), Brodribb (1992), and indeed Delphy (1995) being examples of the latter. Delphy’s critique focused on the peculiar transatlantic construction of a mythical “French feminism” that was deemed to be synonymous with postmodernism and the very psychonanalysis of which Delphy herself had been so critical in the 1970s (see also Moses 1996; Winter 1997). Hennessy and Ingraham’s choice of Stabile’s article to close an anthology that is characterized as much by its heterogeneity as by any consensual political understanding of “materialist feminism” seems to reflect a political and theoretical stance taken by the editors – and even more so when considered as a closing bookend of the “Archive” to complement Benston’s “political economy of women’s liberation” on which it opened. The context of publication of the anthology was indeed the “postmodern logic of late capitalism,” to paraphrase the title of Jamieson’s well‐known critique, and it seemed at that time that feminism in the academy was becoming further and further removed from the actual lived experience of women, in both its analysis and its increasingly hermetic forms of expression. Hennessy and Ingraham’s anthology, then, can be seen as an attempt both to engage with the postmodern air du temps (fashion) and with black, Third World, and lesbian critiques of early second‐wave Western feminism, and to push back against the discursive deconstruction (to use postmodern scholarship’s own vocabulary) of any analysis of the material realities of social relations. Core to that push‐back was a need to recenter the discussion around the socieconomic situation of women, however located in terms of class, race, sexuality, and geopolitics, under a capitalist order that was very far from being in its “late” stages. On the contrary, it had managed not only to renew and strengthen itself in a world that it had “globalized,” but indeed to find new intellectual, cultural, and ideological justifications that were attractive to a certain liberal middle‐class intelligentsia. Two decades on, the debates Hennessy and Ingraham reopened remain acutely current, whether we are talking about differences among women and ensuing challenges for collective struggle, or the sorts of “idealism” (in a Marxian sense), intellectual elitism, assimilationism and individualistic identity‐difference politics that Delphy, Bunch, Smith, Stabile, and others so criticized. Whether or not the concept of “materialist feminism” continues to have resonance today, and whatever understandings we give it (“French,” “British,” or “US” versions), the political, analytical, and indeed material problems that materialist feminists raised and debated between the 1970s and the 1990s continue to impact on women’s lives and thus, necessarily, on feminism.

Notes 1 During her lifetime, Lorde claimed that she had had no reply from Daly. In fact, Daly did reply, a little over four months later, with apologies for the delay, which she in part explained by the need to reflect at length on Lorde’s letter. In that reply, she offered to meet and discuss the important issues Lorde raised during an upcoming visit to New York. Daly’s reply was found in Lorde’s papers after the latter’s death. Daly’s letter, and an account of the (non‐)exchange, can be found online at https://feminismandreligion. com/2011/10/05/mary ‐ dalys‐letter‐to‐audre‐lorde. Accessed January 28, 2018. 2 I borrow the term “precariat,” somewhat anachronistically in relation to the time period in which Stabile was writing, from Guy Standing (2011).

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Marx, Karl. (1845). Theses on Feuerbach. Marxists Internet Archive. https://www.marxists. org/archive/marx/works/1845/theses/index.htm, accessed January 20, 2018. Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. (1932). The German Ideology. Marxists Internet Archive, https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german‐ideology, accessed January 20, 2018. Mies, M. (1986). Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale. London: Zed Books. Millett, K. (1978 [1970]). Sexual Politics. New York: Ballantine Books. Mohanty, C.T. (1984). Under Western eyes: feminist scholarship and colonial discourses. boundary 2 12/13 (3/1): 333–358. Moraga, C. and Anzaldúa, G. (eds.) (1981). This Bridge Called my Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color. Watertown, MA: Persephone Press. Moses, C. (1996). Made in America: ‘French feminism’ in United States academic discourse. Australian Feminist Studies 11 (23): 17–31. Rich, A. (1980). Compulsory heterosexuality and lesbian existence. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 5 (4): 631–660. https://doi.org/10.1086/493756. Sandoval, C. (2000). Methodology of the Oppressed. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Smith, B. (ed.) (1983). Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology. New York: Kitchen Table Women of Color Press. Smith, B. (1997). Where’s the revolution? In: Materialist Feminism: A Reader in Class, Difference and Women’s Lives (eds. R. Hennessy and C. Ingraham), 248–252. New York: Routledge. Spivak, G.C. (1988). Can the subaltern speak? In: Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture (eds. C. Nelson and L. Grossberg), 271–314. Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Stabile, C.A. (1994). Feminism without guarantees: the misalliances and missed alliances of postmodernist social theory. Rethinking Marxism: A Journal of Economics, Culture & Society 7 (1): 48–61. Stabile, C.A. (1997). Feminism and the ends of postmodernism. In: Materialist Feminism: A Reader in Class, Difference and Women’s Lives (eds. R. Hennessy and C. Ingraham), 395–408. New York: Routledge. Standing, G. (2011). The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class. London: Bloomsbury. Winter, B. (1997). (Mis)representations: what French feminism Isn’t. Women’s Studies International Forum 20 (2): 211–224. Winter, B. (1999). L’essentialisation de l’Altérité et l’invisibilisation de l’oppression: l’histoire bizarre mais vraie de la déformation d’un concept. Nouvelles Questions Féministes 20 (4): 75–102. Wittig, M. (2001 [1980]). On ne naît pas femme. In: La pensée straight, 51–64. Paris: Balland. Wong, N. (1997). Socialist feminism: our bridge to freedom. In: Materialist Feminism: A Reader in Class, Difference and Women’s Lives (eds. R. Hennessy and C. Ingraham), 206–213. New York: Routledge. Young, I.M. (1980 [1997]). Socialist feminism and the limits of dual systems theory. In: Materialist Feminism: A Reader in Class, Difference and Women’s Lives (eds. R. Hennessy and C. Ingraham), 95–106. New York: Routledge.

6 Black Feminism and Womanism Rose M. Brewer

Introduction Black feminist thinkers and Womanists have played a major role in recentering our understanding of how the position of Black women articulate complex systems of oppression and resistance to it. Indeed, racialized, capitalist patriarchy is foundational to the most radical expressions of Black feminism, while a deeply rooted cultural lens informs Womanist approaches to Black women’s oppositional consciousness. And yes, the story is complicated. Contemporarily, from the 1970s, the radical Black lesbian Combahee River Collective Statement (1977) linked Black women’s liberation to anti‐imperialism, dismantling patriarchy, white supremacy and capitalism. If we go back in time, early articulations of gender and race recognized the interrelationality of Black women’s multiple oppressions. The work and activism of Ida. B. Wells‐Barnett (1895) and Anna Julia Cooper (1892) are examples in point. They were race women, who I contend, articulated an early Womanist/feminist lens. Critically, it would take Alice Walker (1983) to clearly delineate the idea of Womanism that “Black feminism is to womanism as lavender is to purple.” Twenty‐first century Black feminisms and Womanisms are examined as a new generation of thinkers and actors have emerged. These include the early expressions of “Third Wave Feminism” articulated by Rebecca Walker (1992), those affiliated with The Crunk Feminist Collective (Cooper et al. 2017) who represent the “hip hop generation feminists of color, queer and straight in and outside the academy,” and Black Lives Matter activists who have centered gender fluid ideas. Radical Black gender queer feminisms are critical to understanding Black feminism in this period (Carruthers 2018). Womanists and Black feminists articulate the ideas of the lived experiences of Black women, culture, self‐definition, and self‐determination. Black feminism propagates an intersectional analysis which, as noted, catalyzes a series of organizing ideas which emphasize the multiplicity of oppressions. bell hooks (1984) defines this

Companion to Feminist Studies, First Edition. Edited by Nancy A. Naples. © 2021 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Published 2021 by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

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stance as opposition to white supremacist capitalist patriarchy. Indeed, radical Black feminists articulate an anti‐capitalist praxis requiring dismantling the system before Black women’s oppression can be ended (Carruthers 2018). At the core of this chapter are four key Black feminist and Womanist ideas. While there are distinctive dimensions to Black feminism and Womanism, they are not entirely separable in intent. Throughout the chapter the ideas are thought about as interconnected but emphasize somewhat different frames. The chapter is articulated thus: (i) The historical context of Black feminist thought located in the idea that gender is complexly intersectional. This includes how simultaneity underpins the intersectionality of gender, sexuality, race, nation and class, meaning all of these systems are in play at the same time; (ii) The historical context of Womanism located in the lived experiences of Black women, Black culture, and self‐determination. This involves how culture and spirituality center Womanist thinking and are foundational to its conceptualization; (iii) Resistance, positionality, reflection, and theorization are at the core of Black feminism historically and today; and (iv) This theory‐practice fuels the Black feminist and the Womanist commitment to social justice.

Black Feminism(s) Black feminist thinkers and activists have done something quite extraordinary. They have shifted epistemological and ontological stance regarding knowledge production. Rather than dichotomous oppositional thinking, Black feminists articulate interlocking systems (Collins 1990). This articulation shifts the disciplinary frames of scholars and activists in the academy and, most tellingly, those engaged in fundamental social change on the ground. Nonetheless, there is a range of Black feminisms including radical (Brewer 1993; Carruthers 2018; McDuffie 2011), queer (Bailey 2013; Cohen 1999; Garza 2016; Smith 2013–2014), trans (Fogg Davis 2017), and liberal (Collins 1990; Nash 2019). Radical Black feminists articulate an anti‐capitalist, anti‐racist, anti‐heteropatriarchy and anti‐imperialist praxis while liberal feminists are likely to focus on reforms within the existing order. Thus not all Black feminists have taken a stand to dismantle capitalism, but all versions of Black feminism have recognized discrimination by race and gender and the role that both play in the lives of Black women. Having said that, critical to understanding a radical approach to Black feminism is the Combahee River Collective. I begin with an analysis of this collective. The Combahee River Collective were a group of radical Black lesbian feminists who stood at the center of radical Black feminist praxis in the 1970s. They organized as the Combahee, and in the 40 or so years since the publication of the “Combahee River Collective Statement” (1977), their analysis serves as an important anchor in an assessment of contemporary Black feminism. The Combahee River Collective was clear “that the collective’s black lesbian feminism is located in solidarity with progressive black men while being fully cognizant of the negatives of male socialization in this society.” The Collective asserted “that we realize that the liberation of all oppressed peoples necessitate the destruction of the political‐economic systems of capitalism and imperialism as well as patriarchy.”



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In short, the story of Black feminism in this analysis is deeply anchored in the radical contributions of left Black feminists found in organizations such as Black women of the Communist Party in the 1930s (McDuffie 2011), The Women’s Liberation Committee of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in the 1960s, The Third World Women’s Alliance of the 1970s, the Combahee Collective of the 1970s, as well as other expressions of Black feminism into the twenty‐first century embedded in these traditions. For example, the theorization of Fran Beal (1969), a member of the Women’s Liberation Committee of SNCC, coined the term double jeopardy which focused on the double vise of Black ­women’s inequality, race and gender. This “double jeopardy” (Beal 1969) is foundational to understanding what contemporary Black feminists have termed the multiplicity of Black women’s realities. I choose this point of entry, along with the radical analysis of the Combahee because Black women have continually situated their political and social struggles rooted in social change. To disrupt the normative order and reimagine a world of respect, justice, and equality runs through the range of Black feminisms. This discussion moves briefly back in time to the nineteenth century and forward to the twenty‐first century to capture various articulations of Black feminist thinking over this arc of change. Into the twenty‐first century queer, gender‐nonconforming, and Black trans feminists are central to today’s Black feminist articulations. These expressions of Black feminism draw upon the ideas found in earlier Black feminist articulations, and today this work is reflected in the radical Black queer feminism of members of Black Lives Matter and BYP100 (Black Youth Project 100; Ransby 2019). The idea, as Ransby articulates, is to make all Black lives matter. The essay juxtaposes a discussion of Black feminism with Womanism. These are interrelated but distinct expressions of the struggle for gender justice in Black women’s lives.

Womanism Womanism can be located in a cultural frame which was most clearly articulated by activist and writer Alice Walker in the 1980s. Her point was that Black women can be considered “womanish.” Womanish, the root of Womanism, captures the cultural expression of Black women’s lives. Black girls are described as Womanish if they act grown, as adult women, and Walker sees this as the cultural seedling of Womanism (Walker 1983). Of course Walker is not the only articulator of Womanism and more will be said about the other progenitors of the idea. Womanism finds its way into a contemporary Black gender lens through the politics and writings of the Crunk Feminist Collective, cofounded by Moya Bailey and Brittany Cooper as well as in the Womanist Theology found in the writings of Black women theologians such as Cannon (1988), Grant (1989), and Williams (2013). Womanism is embraced in Black popular culture in the language, music, and writings appealing to millennial Black women such as those found in the Crunk Collective. Crunk feminism is embedded in a Womanist consciousness that emphasizes the self‐ care and empowerment of Black women. Brittany Cooper, cofounder of the Crunk Feminist Collective, makes it quite clear that the manner in which Black women have

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Rose M. Brewer Black Feminism and Womanism from the current period to earlier periods: fifteenth to twenty-first century resistance BLACK FEMINISM

WOMANISM

New Black Feminisms 2000s; Black Lives Matter; Queer, Trans, Gender-Nonconforming; 40th Anniversary of Combahee River Collective 2017

2000s Crunk Feminism Maparyan’s Womanism

Intersectional feminism 1980s–1990s Collins, Crenshaw, Davis

1990s Third World Feminism (Rebecca Walker) 1980s Womanism (Alice Walker) Womanist Theologians (Cannon, Grant, Williams)

1960s and 1970s Women's Liberation Committee of SNCC (Fran Beal); Third World Women's Alliance, Combahee River Collective Statement

1930s–1950s Black Left Communist Women

19th-century Black Women's Rights (Ida B. Wells; Anna Julia Cooper)

15th-century on – First Enslaved African women resist

Figure 6.1  Black Feminism and Womanism from the current period to earlier periods: fifteenth to twenty‐first century resistance.

always insisted on “their right to dignity, their right to be heard, and their desire to be considered on matters of national import has much to teach us about what makes American democracy work” (Cooper 2018). The Crunk Collective also theorizes the potent idea of misogynoir as a particular form of misogyny leveled at Black women (Crunk Feminist Collective 2017). Both Black Feminism and Womanism can be located in historical context. Figure 6.1 gives a brief timeline of this history.

The Historical Context of Black Feminism “Difficult” may be the best way to describe Black women’s relationship to white American feminism. Numerous discussions of Black feminism in the US place it in the context of white supremacy, race, sexuality, and gender (Carby 1982; Collins 1990; Dill 1979; Garza 2016; Hooks 1984; Oyewumi 1997). White women have not been innocent in articulating the demand for women’s rights. Too often, white women’s feminist organizing has meant articulating rights for women gendered racially white while being deeply complicit with structural racism, asserting stereotyped



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racial beliefs about Black women (Frankenburg 1999). As the Black British feminist Hazel Carby (1982) argued more than three decades ago, “White women listen.” Carby sharply took to task white racial feminism in the British context. The articulations of how racism played out in the feminist movement can also be found in the writings of bell hooks (1984), Angela Davis (1981), and a number of other Black feminist thinkers (Dill 1979; Reddock 2007). This is understandable given the separate and unequal, but intertwined realities of Black and white women’s lives in the U S. Although the historical and anthropological record is mixed regarding African gender dynamics, it is clear that colonialism played a role in introducing patriarchy into African matrilineal cultures (Oyewumi 1997). In the US context white women have expressed racist attitudes and practices making feminist movement building difficult across race and class lines (Dill 1983). In the early period of feminist struggle in the US, often referred to as the first wave of feminism, Ula Taylor (1998) points out that this period coincided with the struggle against slavery. She contends that “black women abolitionists had developed a collective feminist consciousness. ‘Free’ and enslaved African American women created numerous strategies and tactics to dismantle slavery as a legal institution and resist racially gendered sexual abuse.” Black women struggled for the vote in the context of Jim Crow racism. They faced disenfranchisement in the wake of the passage of the 19th amendment when women got the right to vote in 1920. Here, the deep impact of racism and gender inequality are clearly entangled. Although early twentieth century Black suffragettes saw feminism as essential to relieving social ills, they repeatedly called attention to issues of race (Terborg‐Penn et al. 1990). This was the era of lynching and Ida Wells‐Barnett (1895) understood and argued concretely that white men used the rape of black women to argue for white women’s purity and vulnerability to Black male assault. Wells argued powerfully that this mystification was used by white men to justify the lynching of Black men. Moreover, given white middle‐class women’s preoccupation with gender and their seeming inability to come to terms with race, “problematic” is a way to explain Black women’s historic relationship to white American feminism. Even in this early phase, according to Terborg‐Penn et  al. (1990), “prominent black feminists combined the fight against sexism with the fight against racism by continuously calling the public’s attention to these issues (p. 68).” Thus the grounding of gender with race by Black women was intertwined in the earliest conceptualization, undergirding thought and action in the fight against enslavement and the struggle for women’s rights. Despite the vise of racism, it is arguable that Black women forged a feminist consciousness in the US. The life and work of Anna J. Cooper is a case in point. Guy‐Sheftall (1992) points out that Cooper’s work, A Voice from the South By a Black Women of the South (1892), “has the distinction of being the first scholarly publication in the area of Black women’s studies (p. 33),” though the concept had not emerged during this period. King (1988) notes that Cooper “often spoke and wrote of the double enslavement of Black women (p. 294),” a “double enslavement” of race and gender. As noted, Black women were involved earlier in anti‐slavery societies which gave rise to the first wave of the feminist movement in the US. Later they would put a great deal of energy into the Black Women’s Club Movement within African American communities (Davis 1981). bell hooks speaks of the hatreds, jealousies, vested interests, and privileges,

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which undergirded the near impossibility of alliances between Black and white women given the dynamic in slavery and later between white women and Black women (hooks 1981). In 1920, when the women’s suffrage was finally enacted, white women abdicated on supporting anti‐lynching positions to gain the South’s political allegiance. The traditional norms of racism superseded sisterhood. White women got the vote (as supposedly did Black women) and turned away when Black women as well as Black men (Giddings 1984) were denied enfranchisement. By the end of the suffrage period many of the Black social feminists were disillusioned (Terborg‐Penn et  al. 1990). Terborg‐Penn concludes with her observation of the “festering” nature of racism, even among feminists. By the mid‐twentieth century a full‐scale struggle was on for social justice in the form of the Civil Rights Movement. Here, race was first. Nonetheless, Black women continued the double struggle against race and gender oppression. Burnham (2001) makes it quite clear that the historical origins of Black feminist theorizing, with an emphasis on the simultaneity of oppressions of race, class, and gender and the interlocking structures of systems of subordination, can be concretely traced to the activism of the Black women of SNCC in the 1960s, although it is quite true, as noted, that nineteenth‐century Black women such as Anna Julia Cooper were aware of the inequalities of both race and gender. While Cooper was articulating a social feminism, Black communist women were placing communism, Black left internationalism, and a gender/race dynamic into radical politics in the 1930s and 1940s (McDuffie 2011). By the 1950s the leading Black woman communist of the period, Claudia Jones was deported from the US (Davies 2007). Jones had asserted the importance of race and gender in Marxist thought. These radical left ideas would emerge again in the struggle waged by the Combahee River Collective for a feminism aligned with dismantling patriarchy, imperialism, capitalism and white supremacy. Indeed, it is significant that Combahee had explicitly developed activist strategies and conceptual modes which emphasized the simultaneity of oppressions in the lives of Black women. In the context of Black women’s murder in Boston in 1973, Barbara Smith and a group of other women were insistent that the murder of Black women was not only a racial issue. The fact that poor Black women were killed with little concern by authorities cruelly exhibited how class, sexism, and racism are intertwined – intersectional thinking. The Collective utilized the idea of the simultaneity of oppression, that is, all of these systems are at play at the same time. The idea is that there is no singular discussion of gender without race and class. This is the epistemological underpinning of Black feminist thought. By the 1960s, the period of what is referred to as the second wave of feminism, the insights and struggles of the Black Women’s Liberation Committee of SNCC (later becoming the Third World Women’s Alliance) emerged. This occurred because of the political strategy of bringing together radical women of color for revolutionary change. This formation lifted up the fight against imperialism. This move connected US hegemony and racism to the global Third World. Accordingly, the Third World Women’s Alliance was a collective not just of Black women but other women of color. They committed to common struggle in the wake of the radical resistance of the 1960s. As noted, Fran Beal was a critical thinker and architect of these ­formations. Linda Burnham points out that both/and intersectional analysis of the



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current period emerged in “the context of a highly waged struggle to establish the legitimacy of the Black female voice speaking on her own behalf” (Burnham 2001, p. 4). These ideas extend into the current period. A short‐lived, liberal feminist organization, The National Black Feminist Organization (NBFO) organized from 1973 to 1976. This organization, too, asserted the double burden of race and gender (Taylor 1998) with policy reforms in mind. Combahee activist Barbara Smith left the group, going on to cofound the Combahee Collective, committing to a more radical Black feminist politics. It was a Black feminism that understood that race is at the center of a gender, sexuality, and class dialectic in a capitalist US and under global imperialism. This feminism challenged a framework rooted in economic exploitation, white privilege and power. It resisted a white feminism too often imposing a conceptual logic on Black women that distorted or misrepresented Black women’s experience. Yet the difficulties of articulating multiplicity within Black communities, cross‐cut by age, region, ethnicity, class, and sexuality were not easily resolved. For example, the tradition of Black women’s economic exploitation, rooted in the expropriation of Black women’s productive and reproductive labor (Jones 1985) and the precarious economic position of African American men, is a long‐standing social logic in which Black womanhood is defined. This economic reality, cross‐cut by race, class, and gender, fractures the idea of a gendered analysis of women’s exploitation, unmediated by race, culture, and class. Noteworthy here is the foundational work of Angela Davis during this period. In the early 1980s her writings on race, class, and gender – Women, Race, and Class – was published in 1981. In it she articulated the multiple level oppression confronting African American women. Her analyses of reproductive rights, rape, and the suffrage movement grounded theoretically Black Feminist logic. She powerfully set the stage for the next period of Black feminist thought and practice. Following Davis is the critical theorization of Deborah King. Black feminist ­sociologist King (1988) drew our attention to the multiplicative effects of race, class, and gender. These are not simply in additive relationship to one another (that is adding race + class + gender). These systems shape one another. King’s work critiques additive thinking, parallelist tendencies, and oppositional dualistic thinking found in Western European intellectual thought. Gender is articulated and theorized in the c­ontext of race and racism. This is a point largely absent from race‐alone analyses of racism (White 2001). While Black feminism is developing organizationally, analytically, and politically, Womanism is being crafted in a somewhat distinctive meter.

Womanism in Historical Context Alice Walker contends that at the heart of Womanism is its holism, the whole sense of being a woman. Walker makes the case that a Womanist is aware of her own value. Indeed for Walker, Blackness is implicit in the term. There is no need to preface it with Black as in Black feminism. Nonetheless Walker made complementary connections between Black feminism and Womanism. When Alice Walker coined the term womanism in 1983 it was clear that she had in mind an articulation of Black women’s liberation. So Womanism is embedded in Black political struggle as Walker so elegantly articulated. Indeed, Womanism is a term that Walker uses to connect

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Black women to feminism. Walker further elaborates the meaning of Womanism by saying that a Womanist is “Committed to survival and wholeness of an entire people, male and female. Both you and sisters love themselves.” So Womanism is not a surrogate for Black feminism, but the two, Womanism and black feminism are in relationship to one another. Nonetheless, Womanism may not be as relational to feminism as Alice Walker implies. As Maparyan (2012), a scholar of Womanist thought asserts, there is a metaphysical architecture of Womanism, “as a form of spiritualized politics.” Its distinct logic has often gotten swallowed into Black feminism. Maparyan argues that Womanism reemerged in 2000s on its own terms. She asserts that its first period of usage was between 1999 when Alice Walker first termed Womanist to the mid‐2000s. However, there is a period which predates Walker. Maparyan grounds this in the central role of spirituality in Womanism. She calls it self‐authored, divinely inspired knowledge. Womanism has a distinct internal logic of black political organizing, but challenges the unquestioned dominance of black men in those formations. Maparyan traces the idea beyond Alice Walker’s articulation. She cites the work of Womanist Clenora Hudson‐Weems, and there are a number of strands by multiple authors. Especially visible are the Womanist theologians such as Katie Cannon. Even still, key are Walker and Hudson‐Weems in the emergence of contemporary Womanist thinking. Maparyan asserts womanism or “the Womanist idea as an organizing principle is more of a ‘spirit’ or a ‘way’ or a ‘walk’ or even a ‘vibrational level’ and, that it is a theory or ideology” (Maparyan 2012). While Womanism was pioneered by women of African descent, Maparyan does not limit it to Africana feminism. Hudson‐Weems (1998) also makes this Black‐women‐centered frame quite clear. Her argument is that complementarity and Africana Womanism are rooted in cultural notions of womanhood. Some versions of Womanism locate it deeply in African principles rather than white European women’s so‐called culturally saturated feminism (Hudson‐Weems 1993). This Afrocentric feminism perspective places itself squarely in a framework articulating the centrality of African culture, especially the principles of complementarity, self‐determination, self‐definition, and race first. Collins (1996) and more recently Tsuruta (2012) interrogate the Womanist idea. Relatedly, the publication Remaking Black Power (2017) articulates the critical, often invisible, impact Black women made on the Black Power Movement. As Farmer notes, by the early 1960s, women’s groups such as the Cultural Association for Women of African Heritage and the Universal Association of Ethiopian Women inaugurated a new period of Black nationalist organizing through their protests in support of black nationalist and self ‐determination on both sides of the Atlantic. This reading of Black women and nationalism and revolutionary nationalism is one of several new works on the role of Black women in the struggles of the late 1960s. Black women are placed squarely within the Black nationalists’ struggles of the period, and the Womanist frame is instantiated in Black nationalist ideas. Womanism is grounded explicitly in the Black cultural experience across the African world. Nigerian theorist, scholar, and activist Molara Ogundipe‐Leslie (1994, 216) rightly points out that women’s value systems need to be respected before condemning contrastive cultural practices. Ogundipe‐Leslie goes on to argue that “what is feminist in the context of Africa of Africa as I have defined it …we define specificities. We cannot generalize” (p. 216).



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Black Feminist Theoretical Moves Barbara Smith asserted that the foundational idea of Black feminist thought is simultaneity (Smith 1983). Race, for example, is called into being simultaneously around the making of whiteness, maleness, and femaleness. In the nineteenth‐century European imperial order, this ideology saturated the African continent and nearly all of what became known as the Third World (McClintock 1995). Representation is key here. This fundamental ideological rationalization for exploitation, places Black women at the bottom of this hierarchy, the most inferior in this racist/sexist ideology. Yet the systemic reality is that race and gender are articulated in deep relationality in the context of the expropriation of labor, enslavement, land theft, rape, and the making of empire. Indeed, for at least four decades, the idea that gender is complexly intersectional has been key to Black feminism. Kimberlé Crenshaw, who is credited with coining the term intersectionality, makes this case. In the now much cited article in the Stanford Law Review (1989), Crenshaw criticized feminist thinkers who essentialized gender, rendering invisible its connectedness to race, class, and sexuality. Race, for example, operates as a powerful signifier under white supremacism. But this is not without being deeply shaped by class and gender. This is the conceptual anchor of Black feminism. Black feminism is also rooted in a relational framework. This idea of relationality can be thought about in the context of the gendered, racialized, and class ­histories of peoples of color. The issue is how deeply dependent and relational these histories are (Glenn 2002). Indeed, the decisions and actions regarding the history of Asians, for example, are connected and informed by the decisions and actions regarding Africans, Native Americans, Europeans, and Latinos/Chicanos. Black feminism is, indeed, rooted in a relational framework. This fundamental ideological rationalization for exploitation takes on a number of dimensions. Regarding the continent of Africa, the scholarship of Oyewumi (1997) and Amadiume (1987) interrogate these issues about the imposition of patriarchy under colonialization on the African ­continent. In short, Black feminists and Womanists subvert traditional notions of what counts as knowledge.

Queering Black Feminism A queer of color critique, developed in the innovative work of scholars such as Ferguson (2003) drew deeply upon Black feminist thinking while simultaneously challenging the omissions regarding the heteronormative. Analytically, curricularly, and pedagogically, this means that a queer women of color critique brings this intervention to the center of the new Black feminisms found in the political work of Black Lives Matter (Garza 2014), Black Youth Project 100 (BYP100), and the Crunk Feminist Collective (Ransby 2019). BYP100 is a collection of Black Millennials, aged 18–35, who are deeply involved in building movement for twenty‐first century Black liberation. They take seriously the complexity of Black gender identities and building an inclusive Black freedom movement (BYP100 2018).

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Harris (1996) proposes that queer black feminism can rupture the silences contained in the words and practices of those theories. It does so by centering the sexual a politics of racialized and classed sexuality as a feminist practice. It is an intersectional trope. Invisibility and silence around Black female sexuality is broken. Beyond oppression, to agency and pleasure, is expressed as noted by Harris: Queer black feminism can best be understood to take up sexuality in ways that make it simultaneously about race, class, and gender – in ways that politicize pleasure – not just personalize it as a politics of being. The constituency for queer black feminism may alter daily, may be organized differently around class or race, and may carry agendas from welfare activism to academic cultural analysis. It should exhibit the methods for a changing agenda by changing the concept of the feminist body and its pleasure and its history. (Feminist Review 54, Autumn 1996, p. 28).

Third Wave of Feminism? Rebecca Walker in the 1990s asserted that a new generation, a third wave of feminist movement building was in the making (Walker 2002). For Walker, the term third wave referenced a new generation of feminists who were born after the movement of the 1960s and 1970s, coming of age in the 1970s and 1980s. Walker articulated a multiplicity approach to feminism, and a feminist movement to include all women, not solely Black but certainly highly shaped by Black feminist thought. Historically and today the movement of women – that is, women who are in motion and struggle – is often not the same thing as the women’s movement and is, in fact, broader and more diverse notes Maythee Rojas (2009). The impact of women of color on feminism means that there is the recognition that the movement needs to be grounded and inclusive of the movement of women – girls and women who are poor, working class, and from communities of color, from queer to gender nonconforming. Once again, the articulation can be found in the Crunk Collective. Crunk feminism locates a “Hip Hop Generation Feminism: A Manifesto”: We are hip hop generation feminists. We unapologetically refer to ourselves feminist because we believe that gender, and its construction through a White, patriarchal, capitalist power structure fundamentally shapes our lives and life possibilities as women of color across a range of identities. We are members of the hip hop generation because we come of age in one of the decades, the 1990s, that can be considered post‐soul and post‐civil rights ….While of declaration of feminism pays homage to our feminist foremothers and big sisters, hip hop generation feminism is also a remake …This is next generation feminism, standing up, standing tall… (https://www.crunkfeministcollective. com/2010/12/31/crunk‐list‐2010)

The Crunk Collective takes on a particular kind of patriarchal antagonism toward Black women, referred to as misogynoir. The Collective focuses on anti‐black women sentiments in popular culture, especially Hip Hop. They lift up the inattention to



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police violence leveled against Black women. Whatever the philosophical bent, Black women’s feminist organizations have defined themselves broadly. A central piece of the activist work has changed the narrative around reproductive rights to encompass a reproductive justice perspective. Sistersong: Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, founded in 1997, does just that. Access to reproductive health, abortion, and the ability to have children are key components of the struggle. Black women have infant and maternal mortality rates exponentially higher that white women in the US. When Black Lives Matter feminist activists assert, “I love Black people,” they mean all Black people as complexly rendered by class, gender, race, and sexuality. By centering the Black dispossessed the point is brought home that all Black lives matter. This, in fact, is the definition of Black feminism delineated by bell hooks (1984). Furthermore, to say that the women at the center of Back Lives Matter have been tremendously influenced by the intersectional analyses of gender, sexuality, race and class is an understatement. Unlike earlier movement struggles in Black America, centering queer, gender nonconforming, and nonbinary shift the resistive energies from the heteronormative to a complexity intersectional lens. Drawing on the critical moves of Black feminism and Womanism, a new generation of fighters place Black women at the center of analyses of race and racism.

Conclusions: Coming Full Circle Economic exclusion under late racial capitalism is the critical political economic reality of twenty‐first century Black feminism. Under the structural conditions of late capitalism, the reality of police murder, attacks on Black communities, and misogyny are resisted. Indeed, the radical sensibilities of Black feminist radicals today and the practice of freedom (Keeanga‐Yamahtta Taylor 2017) have always been rooted in the liberation of all Black people. Black feminism’s borning resistance occurred in the heat of struggle. The Combahee River Collective Statement is a clear example of this sensibility. The Collective asserts in the statement: The most general statement of our politics at the present time would be that we are actively committed to struggling against racial, sexual, heterosexual, and class oppression, and see as our particular task the development of integrated analysis and practice based upon the fact that the major systems of oppression are interlocking. The synthesis of these oppressions creates the conditions of our lives. As Black women we see Black feminism as the logical political movement to combat the manifold and simultaneous oppressions that all women of color face. (Combahee River Collective Statement 1977, p. 1).

In closing, theorizing which yokes race, class, and gender relationally and interrelationally goes to the heart of Black feminists struggles today. A core assumption is  that systems of inequality are in play at the same time  –  not decontextualized but  placed in historical contexts of state heteropatriarchy and white supremacy.

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This  is the conceptual underpinning of radical Black feminism conceptualizations which influences the movement for Black lives. When Black Lives Matter feminist activists articulate their love for Black people, they connect to the long narrative found in Womanism, self‐definition, self‐ determination, and community. Indeed, the activists of Black Lives Matter have placed the issue of Black feminism and Womanist thought front and center in the contemporary struggle for Black liberation. Barbara Smith, of course, has spoken boldly on the short institutional memory of those who forge their activism in the context of forgotten radical Black lesbian struggles. As a cofounder of the Combahee River Collective, the stance is quite clear: Our particular task [is] the development of an integrated analysis and practice based upon the fact that the major systems of oppression creates the conditions of our lives. As Black women we see Black feminism as the logical political movement to combat the manifold simultaneous oppressions that all women of color face. (Barbara Smith, Home Girls 1983, p. 272).

Even as the movement for Black lives raises these issues, the dynamics of Black life are complicated. The capitalist world system is rife with devastating consequences for Black life in the US and globally. The Movement for Black Lives activists is acutely aware of the lack of an intersectional frame when confronting the many dispossessions of Black lives in the US and globally. The impossibility of the powers that be to articulate across the complexities of genders, ethnicities, ages, disabilities, historically, systemically, and strategically means the loss of thousands. Queer Black women are reimagining and re‐creating the nature of struggle today, deploying a complex Black feminist lens. They have been deeply drawn to historical and contemporary articulations of intersectional Black feminist thinking and the self‐care, self‐ definition underpinnings of Womanism. The twenty‐first century expression of Black feminism and Womanism deploys the deep refusal to be defined from without, even in the context of highly determinative structural inequalities. The long durée of Black inequality and the deep legacy of Black resistance go the heart of today’s Black feminism and Womanism as a new generation of Black feminist thinkers and fighters come to the fore. Black feminism and Womanism are foundationally embedded in today’s “freedom dreams.”

References Amadiume, I. (1987). Male Daughters, Female Husbands: Gender and Sex in an African Society. London: Zed Books. Bailey, Moya (2013). “Contesting misogynoir: Black women’s digital resistance in American culture” accessed at https://web.northeastern.edu/nulab/contesting‐misognynoir‐black‐ womens‐digital‐resistance‐in‐american‐culture‐with‐moya‐bailey Beal, Frances. (1969). Black Women’s Manifesto: Double Jeopardy; To Be Black and Female accessed at http://www.hartford‐hwp.com/archives/45a/196.html Black Youth Project [BYP100]. (2018). accessed at https://byp100.org



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Brewer, R.M. (1993). Theorizing race, class and gender: the new scholarship of black feminist intellectuals and black women’s labor. In: Theorizing Black Feminism: The Visionary Pragmatism of Black Women (eds. S.M. James and A.P.A. Busia), 13–30. London: Routledge. Burnham, L. (2001). The wellspring of black feminist theory. Southern Law Review 28 (3): 265–270. Cannon, K. (1988). Black Womanist Ethics. Great Britain: Oxford University Press. Carby, H.V. (1982). White woman listen! Black feminism and the boundaries of sisterhood. In: The Empire Strikes Back: Race and Racism in 70s Britain (ed. The Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies), 212–235. London: Hutchinson. Carruthers, C. (2018). Unapologetic: A Black, Queer and Feminist Mandate for Radical Movements. Boston: Beacon Press. Cohen, C. (1999). Boundaries of Blackness. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Collins, P.H. (1990). Black Feminist Thought. Boston: Unwin Hyman. Collins, P.H. (1996). What’s in a name. Womanism, black feminism, and beyond. The Black Scholar 26 (1): 9–17. Combahee River Collective. (1977). “Combahee River Collective Statement.” http:// historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/combrivercoll.html, accessed February 18, 2012, at Cooper, A.J. (1892). A Voice from the South. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Cooper, B. (2018). Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Finds Her Superpower. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Cooper, B., Morris, S., and Boylorn, R. (2017). The Crunk Feminist Collection. New York: The Feminist Press http://www.crunkfeministcollective.com/about. Crenshaw, K. (1989). Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: a black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory and antiracist politics. University of Chicago Legal Forum 1989: 138–167. Davies, C.B. (2007). Left of Marx: Political Life of a Black Communist. Durham: Duke University Press. Davis, A. (1981). Women, Race, and Class. New York: Random House. Dill, B. (1979). The dialectics of black womanhood. Signs 4: 543–555. Dill, B. (1983). Race, class and gender: prospects for an all‐inclusive sisterhood. Feminist Studies 9: 131–150. Farmer, A. (2017). Remaking Black Power: How Black Women Transformed an Era. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Ferguson, R. (2003). Aberrations in Black: Toward a Queer of Color Critique. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Fogg Davis, H. (2017). Beyond Trans: Does Gender Matter? New York: New York University Press. Frankenburg, R. (1999). White Women, Race Matters: The Social Construction of Whiteness. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Garza, Alicia. (2014). “A herstory of the #BlackLivesMatter Movement by Alicia Garza” accessed at https://thefeministwire.com/2014/10/blacklivesmatter‐2 Garza, Alicia, (2016). "The theft of Black queer women’s work" accessed at https:// blacklivesmatter.com/about/herstory Giddings, P. (1984). When and Where I Enter. New York: William Morrow. Glenn, E. (2002). Unequal Freedom. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Grant, J. (1989). White Women’s Christ and Black Women’s Jesus: Feminist Christology and Womanist Response. Atlanta: Academy of Religion.

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Guy‐Sheftall, B. (1992). Black women’s studies: the interface of women’s studies and black studies. Phylon (1960‐) 49 (1/2): 33–41. Harris, L. (1996). Queer black feminism: the pleasure principle. Feminist Review 54: 28. hooks, B. (1981). Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism. Boston: South End Press. hooks, B. (1984). Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center. Boston: South End Press. Hudson‐Weems, C. (1993). Africana Womanism: Reclaiming Ourselves. Bedford Publications. Hudson‐Weems, C. (1998). Africana Womanism. In: Sisterhood, Feminism, and Power: From Africa to the Diaspora (ed. O. Nnaemeka), 170–182. Trenton NJ: Africa World Press. Jones, J. (1985). Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow. New York: Vintage Books. King, D. (1988). Multiple jeopardy, multiple consciousness: the context of a black feminist ideology. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 14 (1): 42–72. Maparyan, L. (2012). The Womanist Idea. New York: Routledge. McClintock, A. (1995). Imperial Leather. New York: Routledge. McDuffie, E. (2011). Sojourning for Freedom: Black Women, American Communism, and the Making of Black Left Feminism. Durham: Duke University Press. Nash, J. (2019). Black Feminism Reimagined After Intersectionality. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina. Ogindupe‐Leslie, M. (1994). Re‐Creating Ourselves: African Women and Critical Transformation. United Kingdom: Africa World Press. Oyewumi, O. (1997). The Invention of Women: Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourses. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Ransby, B. (2019). Making All Black Lives Matter: Reimagining Freedom in the 21st Century. Oakland: University of California Press. Reddock, R. (2007). Diversity, difference and Caribbean feminism: the challenge of anti‐­ racism. Caribbean Review of Gender Studies I: 1–24. Rojas, M. (2009). Women of Color and Feminism. Berkeley: Seal Press. Smith, B. (1983). Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. Smith, S. (2013–2014). Black feminism and intersectionality. International Socialist Review 91 (Winter 2013–14): 6. Taylor, U. (1998). The historical evolution of black feminist theory and praxis. Journal of Black Studies 29 (2): 234–253. Taylor, K.‐Y. (2017). How We Get Free. Chicago: Haymarket Books. Terborg‐Penn, R., Harley, S., and Rushing, A.B. (1990). Women in Africa and the African Diaspora. Boston: Beacon Press. Tsuruta, D.R. (2012). The womanish roots of Womanism: a culturally‐derived and African‐ centered ideal (concept). The Western Journal of Black Studies 36 (1): 3–10. Walker, A. (1983). In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: Womanist Prose. San Diego, CA: Harcourt. Walker, Rebecca. (1992). “Becoming the Third Wave,” Ms. 39: 39–41. Wells‐Barnett, I. (1895). The Red Record: With‐ Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases. Echo Press. White, E.F. (2001). Dark Continent of Our Bodies: Black Feminism and the Politics of Respectability. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Williams, D. (2013). Sisters in the Wilderness. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books.

7 Intersectionality as Critical Inquiry Patricia Hill Collins

So much has happened since the 1990s that the case for intersectionality no longer needs to be made. A surprising array of academics, activists, policymakers, digital workers, and independent intellectuals recognize intersectionality as an important form of critical inquiry and praxis (Collins and Bilge 2016). Both within and outside the academy, administrators, teachers, social workers, counselors, and public health professionals have increasingly used intersectional analyses to shed light on important social problems concerning education, health, employment, and poverty (Berger and Guidroz 2009; Dill and Zambrana 2009). Grassroots community activists, social media activists, and social movement participants continue to draw upon intersectionality’s ideas to shape their political projects. In the United States, for example, intersectional ideas reappear within the social justice movements of African Americans; women; undocumented immigrants; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer (LGBTQ) groups; poor people; and religious minorities (see, e.g. Terriquez 2015). Ironically, white nationalists also draw upon a variation of intersectional analysis in defending their claims that white, working‐class American men constitute a neglected minority. Intersectionality’s reach is not confined to the United States. In a global context, grassroots and human rights advocates find that intersectionality’s focus on the interconnectedness of categories of race, class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, nationality, age, and ability sheds new light on how local social inequities articulate with global social phenomena (Collins and Bilge 2016, pp. 88–113).

This chapter is excerpted from Intersectionality as Critical Social Theory by Patricia Hill Collins (2019). My gratitude for her willingness to contribute this important chapter to the Companion to Feminist Studies. Nancy A.Naples, ed.

Companion to Feminist Studies, First Edition. Edited by Nancy A. Naples. © 2021 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Published 2021 by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

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Since the 1990s, intersectionality has increasingly influenced scholarship, research, and curricular choices in colleges and universities. A copious body of scholarship within the humanities and the social sciences now self‐identifies as intersectional, with anthologies emphasizing different aspects of intersectionality itself as well as various configurations of intersectionality’s core categories of analysis (Andersen and Collins  2016; Berger and Guidroz  2009; Dill  2002; Grzanka  2014; Lutz et al. 2011). Scholarship informed by intersectionality can now be found within both interdisciplinary fields and more traditional academic disciplines (Collins  2017a; Lutz et al. 2011; May 2015). However imperfectly conceptualized and applied diversity requirements may be within colleges and corporations, they constitute one outcome of intersectionality’s impact. Scholars of intersectionality have generated several monographs that explore these and other aspects of intersectionality as a field of inquiry and praxis (Carastathis 2016; Collins and Bilge 2016; Hancock 2016; May 2015; Wiegman 2012). The speed and spread of intersectionality, and the heterogeneous forms it now takes, point to new definitional dilemmas concerning intersectionality’s current status and future prospects (Collins  2015). Intersectionality cannot rest on its past accomplishments and current status. Instead, the time seems right to analyze what intersectionality is, what it is not, and what it might become. Current debates within intersectionality provide much‐needed critical commentary about its definitional dilemmas. Just as intersectionality is broad and complex, critical commentary about intersectionality within scholarly venues, the popular press, and digital spaces is similarly diverse. Here areas of discussion encompass varying perspectives on intersectionality’s origins, the partiality of intersectionality’s growing list of categories, whether intersectionality is a theory or a methodology, intersectionality’s ties to social justice work, and even whether we are in or should move into a post‐intersectionality phase. Given intersectionality’s broad scope, consensus among its practitioners is likely to remain elusive. Instead, identifying important avenues of investigation within intersectionality that can accommodate heterogeneous points of view may prove to be more productive. Thinking through intersectionality’s theoretical contours constitutes an important next step in its development. Because intersectionality straddles traditions of social action and academic scholarship, it is uniquely positioned to develop critical theoretical analyses of the social world. Intersectionality can develop a critical social theory that reflects the wide array of ideas and actors that currently fall under its expansive umbrella. Yet it cannot do so without thinking systematically about the contours of critical social theory as well as its own theoretical knowledge and theorizing practices. As a work in progress, intersectionality is a critical social theory in the making, one that may already be doing substantial theoretical work without being recognized as such. In this chapter, I investigate how intersectionality’s practitioners conceptualize and use intersectionality’s ideas. I am less concerned with the content of intersectional knowledge than with ways of thinking that people use in creating such knowledge. Using this approach, I identify important thinking tools that provide a cognitive foundation for intersectionality as a critical social theory in the making. Cho et al. (2013) provide a useful starting point for identifying these tools. They characterize intersectionality as an analytical sensibility whose meaning emerges through use.

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They contend that “what makes an analysis intersectional is not its use of the term ‘intersectionality’; nor its being situated in a familiar genealogy, nor its drawing on lists of standard citations. Rather, what makes an analysis intersectional . . . is its adoption of an intersectional way of thinking about the problem of sameness and difference and its relation to power” (p. 795). This definition suggests several important questions that inform the arguments in Intersectionality as Critical Social Theory (Collins 2019). What exactly is an “intersectional way of thinking”? Does this mean that intersectional scholars use special cognitive tools? Or that they use conventional forms of critical analysis in new ways or toward different ends? Is the issue of sameness and difference essential to intersectionality? Significantly, how do power relations inform intersectionality’s theoretical content and the processes used to develop that knowledge?1 In this chapter, I lay a foundation for examining these questions by discussing the use of metaphoric, heuristic, and paradigmatic thinking within intersectionality as a field of inquiry. I first examine how the metaphoric use of intersectionality facilitates a new view of social relations as interconnected entities. The metaphor of intersectionality is simultaneously a new way of conceptualizing power relations and a thinking tool that draws upon the power of metaphors in the process of theorizing. Next, I examine intersectionality’s heuristic thinking – namely, how using intersectionality as rule of thumb or shortcut for thinking provides an important tool for problem solving. Intersectionality aims to explain the social world, and heuristic thinking provides an accessible route for people who utilize intersectionality to address specific social problems. I move on to examine how intersectionality’s core constructs and guiding premises contribute to paradigm shifts concerning power and social inequality. These discussions explore the thinking tools or processes that people use to produce intersectionality itself. Metaphoric, heuristic, and paradigmatic thinking map the ways that people enter into, respond to, and shape intersectionality as a form of critical inquiry. Collectively, they describe a conceptual foundation or cognitive architecture for developing intersectionality as a critical social theory.

Intersectionality as a Metaphor Kimberlé Crenshaw had no way of knowing that she was naming intersectionality as a form of critical inquiry and praxis when, in the early 1990s, she published her two groundbreaking articles on intersectionality (Crenshaw  1989,  1991). Crenshaw’s scholarly articles constitute an important turning point in the shifting relationships between activist and academic communities (see e.g. Collins and Bilge  2016, pp. 65–77). Social movements in the mid‐twentieth century pushed for institutional transformation in housing, education, employment, and health care. Transforming educational institutions and the knowledge they embodied was central to these initiatives. Indigenous peoples, African Americans, women, LGBTQ people, Latinos/as, and similarly subordinated groups challenged both the substance of knowledge about their experiences and the power arrangements within primary schools, high schools, colleges, and universities that catalyzed such knowledge. Many such groups produced oppositional or resistant knowledge that was grounded in their own experiences and that challenged prevailing interpretations of them (see Collins 2019,

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chap. 3). Higher education was an important site for social transformation. Calls for transforming curricular practices within the academy stimulated an array of programs that embarked on a similar mission of institutional transformation (Collins and Bilge 2016, pp. 77–81; Dill and Zambrana 2009). Within contemporary neoliberal sensibilities, the commitment to the idea of social transformation within mid‐twentieth‐century social movements can be hard to understand. Yet a broader understanding of the meaning of resistance to subordinated people suggests that Black people, indigenous peoples, women, Latinx, LGBTQ people, differently abled people, religious and ethnic minorities, and stateless people continue to see transforming social institutions as necessary. Claims for social transformation can seem to be idealistic and naive, yet with hindsight, aspirations for social transformation in prior eras inform contemporary realities. Specifically, many of the visible changes within colleges and universities over the past several decades reflect prior efforts at institutional transformation (Dill  2009; Mihesuah and Wilson 2004; Parker et al. 2010). In a 2009 interview, Crenshaw reflected on the experiences that led her to use the term intersectionality within the broader social conditions of the times. For Crenshaw, her activism in college and law school revealed the inadequacies of both anti‐racism and feminist perspectives, limitations that left both political projects unable to fully address the social problems that each aimed to remedy. There seemed to be no language that could resolve conflicts between anti‐racist social movements that were, in Crenshaw’s words, “deeply sexist and patriarchal”; and feminist activism, where “race reared its head in a somewhat parallel way” (Guidroz and Berger 2009, p. 63). For Crenshaw, informed social action within both movements required new angles of vision. This particular social problem propelled Crenshaw’s search for provisional language that she could use to analyze and redress the limitations of monocategorical thinking regarding both race and gender. Crenshaw describes what she had in mind when she introduced the term intersectionality: That was the activist engagement that brought me to this work. And my own use of the term “intersectionality” was just a metaphor [italics added], I’m amazed at how it gets over‐ and underused; sometimes I can’t even recognize it in the literature anymore. I was simply looking at the way all these systems of oppression overlap. But more importantly, how in the process of that structural convergence rhetorical politics and identity politics – based on the idea that systems of subordination do not overlap‐would abandon issues and causes and people who actually were affected by overlapping systems of subordination. I’ve always been interested in both the structural convergence and the political marginality. That’s how I came into it. (Guidroz and Berger 2009, p. 65)

For Crenshaw, intersectionality named the structural convergence among intersecting systems of power that created blind spots in anti‐racist and feminist activism. Crenshaw counseled that anti‐racist and feminist movements would be compromised as long as they saw their struggles as separate and not intertwined. Significantly, racism and sexism not only fostered social inequalities, they marginalized individuals and groups that did not fit comfortably within race‐only, gender‐only monocategorical frameworks. Women of color remained politically marginalized within both

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movements, an outcome that both reflected the harm done by racism and sexism, and limited the political effectiveness of both movements. Crenshaw’s understanding of the term intersectionality is important for subsequent use of the term. Her work suggests that, from its inception, the idea of intersectionality worked in multiple registers of recognizing the significance of social structural arrangements of power, how individual and group experiences reflect those structural intersections, and how political marginality might engender new subjectivities and agency (Collins and Bilge 2016, pp. 71–77). By now it is widely accepted that intersectionality is the term that has stuck. Of all the words that Crenshaw could have selected, and of all the idioms that might have resonated with intersectionality’s adherents, why did this specific term resonate with so many people when Crenshaw first used it? Crenshaw’s comment that her use of the term intersectionality was “just a metaphor” provides an important clue. Many people think of metaphors as literary devices that are confined to fiction and essays. Yet metaphors are also important in shaping how people understand and participate in social relations. As a foundation of thinking and action, metaphors help people understand and experience one kind of thing in terms of another. A metaphor can spark an instant sense of understanding, fostering an immediate sense of the formerly unknown in terms of the known.2 In essence, the capacity to think and act is metaphorical in nature (Trout 2010, p. 3). As metaphor, intersectionality named an ongoing communicative process of trying to understand race in terms of gender, or gender in terms of class. Rather than following the chain of metaphors (race is like and unlike gender), the metaphor of intersectionality provided a shortcut that built on existing sensibilities in order to see interconnections. Cultural theorist Stuart Hall provides another clue as to why intersectionality as a particular metaphor traveled so quickly. In an article published in the 1990s, Hall argues that metaphors are often linked to social transformation, ways that people can move from the familiar to imagining the unfamiliar. Hall posits that metaphors of social transformation must do at least two things: “They allow us to imagine what it would be like when prevailing cultural values are challenged and transformed, the old social hierarchies are overthrown, old standards and norms disappear. . . and new meanings and values, social and cultural configurations begin to appear. However, such metaphors must also have analytic value. They must somehow provide ways of thinking about the relation between the social and symbolic domains in this process of transformation” (Hall 1996, p. 287). As a metaphor of social transformation, intersectionality invokes both elements. It arrived in the midst of ongoing struggles to resist social inequalities brought about by racism, sexism, colonialism, capitalism, and similar systems of power. The metaphor of intersectionality could move among and through these forms of domination, providing a snapshot view of their sameness and difference as a way to see their interconnections. Intersectionality as metaphor did not proscribe what social transformation would look like, or even the best way of getting there. Instead, using intersectionality as a metaphor provided analytic value in linking social structures and the ideas that reproduce them – in Hall’s terms, the ties between the social and symbolic domains of social change. For people who, like Crenshaw, were interested in social transformation, the metaphor of intersectionality expressed the aspirations of the time.

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Crenshaw’s metaphor was recognizable to many people because it invoked the tangible, spatial relations of everyday life. Everyone is located in physical space, and everyone has had to follow a path or move through an intersection of some sort. People could pick up the metaphor, imagining different kinds of pathways and crossroads, and use intersectionality as a metaphor to understand very different things. The idea of an intersection where two or more pathways meet is a familiar idea in physical, geographic space. The roads or pathways need not be straight or paved to invoke this sense of a spatial intersection. All cultures have intersections or places where people cross paths, whether superhighways or barely marked paths in a forest. Moreover, the places where people cross paths are often meeting places, spaces where different kinds of people engage one another. Being in an intersection or moving through one is a familiar experience. This spatial metaphor also invokes the idea of seeing several possible pathways from the vantage point within the intersection, and being faced with the decision of which path to take. In this sense, the spatial metaphor itself is open‐ended and subject to many interpretations. Intersectionality as a metaphor worked so well because it was simultaneously familiar yet highly elastic. This spatial metaphor that could be seen in the material world implicitly advanced a more abstract theoretical claim about social structure  –  namely, that the places where systems of power converged potentially provide better explanations for social phenomena than those that ignored such intersections. Racism and sexism may be conceptualized as distinctive structural phenomena, yet examining them from where they intersect provides new angles of vision of each system of power as well as how they cross and diverge from one another. Politically, the idea of intersectionality also worked. The term intersectionality encapsulated the convergence of multiple social justice projects and long‐standing critical practices within academia. Crenshaw’s use of the term intersectionality as a metaphor for structuring her argument tapped into this power of metaphor to provide a snapshot view of complex social relations during a time of considerable social change. Significantly, Crenshaw’s metaphor was not confined to explaining racism, sexism, and similar systems of power. The metaphor of intersectionality emerged in the context of solving social problems brought on by multiple and seemingly separate systems of power. In her careful reading of Crenshaw’s signature articles on intersectionality, philosopher Anna Carastathis (2014) examines how Crenshaw used intersectionality as a “provisional” concept to frame her argument about resistance to oppression. For those involved in activist projects, intersectionality enabled those who used the term to understand, for example, a familiar racism in terms of an unfamiliar sexism, or a familiar violence against women of color as individuals in terms of a less familiar analysis of state‐sanctioned violence of colonialism. Using intersectionality as a metaphor offered an invitation to an array of social actors who were thinking about similar things within different social locations and from varying vantage points. When Crenshaw dismissed intersectionality as just a metaphor, she could not foresee the impact of this particular metaphor in informing critical inquiry and social change. Instead, Crenshaw’s use of intersectionality seemingly provided the right metaphor at the right time. As intersectionality has grown, the importance of its metaphoric thinking has become clearer. Crenshaw’s use of intersectionality as a metaphor was not incidental to intersectionality’s subsequent development, but rather proved to be a fundamental pillar within intersectionality’s cognitive architecture and critical thinking.

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Why Metaphors Matter If naming the ideas that intersectionality invokes were as simple as choosing from a predetermined array of terms that had already undergone academic scrutiny, it would make sense to debate intersectionality’s merits in this universe of alternative terms. Intersectionality may not be the best metaphor for explaining social phenomena, but it is the one that has persisted. Some scholars recognize the significance of intersectionality as metaphor, yet offer alternatives to it that seemingly do a better job of explaining social reality. For example, Ivy Ken’s (2008) use of sugar as a metaphor aims for a more historically grounded, fluid understanding of intersectionality. Mapping how sugar as idea and product weaves throughout historical and contemporary relationships of capitalism, racism, and sexism, Ken’s metaphor of sugar is an innovative, alternative entry point into the constellation of ideas referenced by intersectionality. Sugar may be a better fit for the ideas that intersectionality invokes, but pragmatically, would it have worked as well? The puzzle to be explained here concerns why the term intersectionality continues to resonate with so many people as a preferred way of conceptualizing an amorphous set of ideas. Can sugar as metaphor do the same metaphoric work as intersectionality? Conceptual metaphor theory helps explain why intersectionality as a metaphor persists. Intersectionality as metaphor provides a cognitive device for thinking about social inequality within power relations. It asks people to think beyond familiar race‐only or gender‐only perspectives in order to take a new look at social problems. Intersectionality as metaphor also provides a framework for drawing upon what people already know about racism to learn about sexism and vice versa. As metaphor, intersectionality suggests that racism and sexism are connected, the first step in establishing conceptual correspondences between these two constructs. Using intersectionality as a metaphor breaks down monocategorical analyses to focus on the conceptual correspondences or relationships among racism and sexism. And this process need not end with just race and gender. Intersectionality may not have started out as a core conceptual metaphor for understanding social inequality, but over time, it has increasingly functioned as one. Just as creating social meanings in everyday life relies upon metaphors, theoretical knowledge also relies in some fashion on metaphorical thinking in constructing knowledge. In her classic work Whose Science? Whose Knowledge?, feminist philosopher Sandra Harding examines how metaphors have played an important role in modeling nature and in specifying the appropriate domain of a theory (1991, pp. 84–85). Harding points out that metaphors are important dimensions of doing social theory, the case, for example, of imagining society in metaphorical terms – society as a machine, an organism, or a computer  –  and by implication, changing the core metaphor of a field changes its theoretical orientation to the social world. Originally offered in the context of critical science studies, this critical perspective advanced within feminist philosophy preceded more recent attention to metaphors as an important dimension of social theorizing (Abbott 2004; Swedberg 2014). For example, in his volume The Art of Social Theory, Richard Swedberg remarks on these connections between metaphors in everyday life and within the sophisticated process of theorizing: “Metaphors abound in everyday language, in the arts as well as in the sciences. Their power can be immense, as evidenced by the metaphor of the brain as

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a computer. This metaphor is generally seen as having helped cognitive science come into being” (2014, p. 89). In this sense, Crenshaw’s reflection that intersectionality is  just a metaphor underestimates the power of conceptual metaphors for critical analysis. Intersectionality’s metaphor of the connectedness of different systems of power has proven to be an important one for theorizing power relations and political identities. For example, Norocel’s (2013) study of the radical right populist movement in Sweden provides an important example of an explicit use both of conceptual metaphor theory and of intersectionality as a metaphor. Norocel examines how the radical right used the idea of Folkhem (the home of [Swedish] people) as a conceptual metaphor to ground their political project. As a metaphor, Folkhem helped structure radical right masculinities, specifically heteronormative masculinities, at the intersection of gender, class, and race. Norocel identifies the significance of conceptual metaphor theory for this project: “The choice of a certain conceptual metaphor in a specific social ­context . . . has a crucial impact on how we structure reality, determining what is explained and . . . what is left outside this frame­work of intelligibility, thereby highlighting the various power relations at work in that particular discourse . . .. In other words, the analysis of metaphors needs to be undertaken whilst bearing in mind the very discourse in which they are embedded” (p. 9). In Norocel’s study, the idea of gender, class, race, and sexuality provided a framing metaphor that could be extended to explain a political phenomenon in a specific national context. Feminist theorist Chela Sandoval also recognizes the significance of metaphors for theorizing power relations. In a section titled “Power in Metaphors” in her signature book Methodology of the Oppressed (2000), Sandoval describes how different metaphors highlight important distinctions between hierarchical and postmodern understandings of power. Imagining power relations as a hierarchical pyramid differs dramatically from imagining power relations through a flat, spatial metaphor of centers and margins. Sandoval notes that the shift away from a hierarchical, “sovereign model” of power enables power to be figured as a force that circulates horizontally: As in the previous, sovereign, pyramidal model of power, the location of every citizen‐ subject can be distinctly mapped on this postmodern, flattened, horizontal power grid according to attributes as race, class, gender, age, or sexual orientation, but this reterritorialized circulation of power redifferentiates groups, and sorts identities differently. Because they are horizontally located, it appears as if such politicized identities‐as‐positions can equally access their own racial‐, sexual‐, national‐, or gender‐unique forms of social power. Such constituencies are then perceived as speaking “democratically” to and against each other in a lateral, horizontal‐not pyramidal‐exchange, although from spatially differing geographic, class, age, sex, race, or gender locations. (pp. 72–73)

This metaphoric shift has important implications for intersectionality (Collins  2018). Intersectionality as a core conceptual metaphor has traveled well, stimulating much innovative work within intersectionality. Yet the use of metaphoric thinking for intersectional analysis raises several questions. Do some aspects of intersectionality as metaphor work better in addressing certain social problems and less well with others? What experiences would people need to bring to the metaphoric use of intersectionality for it to have meaning?

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Critics raise a valid point about the limits of intersectionality as a metaphor when used to invoke the image of a literal crossroads. In her signature book Borderlands/ La Frontera: The New Mestiza (1987), Chicana feminist writer Gloria Anzaldúa expands upon the metaphor of intersectionality as a literal crossroads managed by traffic cops to that of the borderlands as a meeting place. The borderlands is simultaneously a place, reflecting the social relations of the physical border that influenced Anzaldua’s experiences growing up in south Texas. In this sense, borderlands are structural places that reflect hierarchical power relations and lie outside acceptable categories of belonging (Yuval‐Davis 2011). Borderland spaces show the working of hierarchical power relations, or the sedimented effects of, in Sandoval’s words, a “sovereign, pyramidal model of power.” But Anzaldúa’s borderland is simultaneously a way of describing the experiences of navigating marginal, liminal, and outsider within spaces that are created by multiple kinds of borders. This is the potential for “democratic” exchanges within borderland or intersectional spaces. Anzaldúa’s work illustrates the possibilities and limitations of spatial metaphors of power. As AnaLouise Keating points out, Anzaldúa is generally defined as a “Chicana lesbian‐feminist” author, but Anzaldúa described herself more broadly as being on various thresholds, simultaneously inside and outside multiple ­collectivities. Anzaldúa both maintains multiple allegiances and locates herself in multiple worlds: “Your allegiance is to La Raza, the Chicano movement;” say the members of my race. “Your allegiance is to the Third World;” say my Black and Asian friends. “Your allegiance is to your gender, to women;” say the feminists. Then there’s my allegiance to the Gay movement, to the socialist revolution, to the New Age, to magic and the occult. And there’s my affinity of literature, to the world of the artist. What am I? A third world lesbian feminist with Marxist and mystic leanings. They would chop me up into little fragments and tag each piece with a label. (Keating 2009, p. 2)

Anzaldúa uses her experiences with multiple groups as the foundation of her analysis, yet she is less interested in finding freedom by extracting herself from multiple groups in order to find herself, but rather in understanding how her sameness and difference across multiple groups fosters new experiences of self. As Keating describes this positioning, “Although each group makes membership contingent on its own often exclusionary set of rules and demands, Anzaldúa refuses all such terms without rejecting the people or groups themselves” (2009, p. 2). For Anzaldúa, the borderlands suggests a place not simply to house experiences but also a way of working, both politically and intellectually. Intersectionality may be the metaphor that has taken hold as the descriptor to describe the field itself, yet the spatial metaphor of the borderland also deepens understandings of intersecting power relations. Anzaldúa’s work links experiences, spatial metaphors, power, and political engagement, signaling an important approach to critical theorizing. In discussing the significance of Gloria Anzaldúa’s work within intersectionality, Patrick R. Grzanka describes Anzaldúa’s “borderland” metaphor as signifying a geographic, affective, cultural, and political landscape that cannot be explained by binary logic (black/white, gay/straight, Mexican/American, etc.) or

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even the notion of liminality, that is, the space between. For Anzaldúa, the borderlands are a very real space of actual social relations that cannot be captured within existing social theory. Grzanka describes the connections between the metaphor of intersectionality and that of the borderlands: “Anzaldúa’s work exemplifies the concept of intersectionality perhaps better than the traffic intersection metaphor so central to the field and to Crenshaw’s initial articulation of the concept, because Anzaldúa denies any logic that presumes there were ever discreet dimensions of difference that collided at some particular point: in the borderlands, mixing, hybridity, unfinished synthesis, and unpredictable amalgamation were always already happening, and are forever ongoing” (2014, pp. 106–107). In this sense, the concept of the borderlands illustrates the power of metaphor that, in this case, not only complements but also deepens intersectionality’s metaphoric posture. As metaphors, neither intersectionality nor the idea of the borderlands provide coherence, consistency, or closure. Both travel, sometimes working in tandem for some projects and apart in others. They illustrate that when a concept is structured by a metaphor, it is only partially structured and can be extended in some ways but not in others (Trout 2010, p. 13). Metaphors provide a holistic mental picture of interrelated phenomena as well as new insights into and angles of vision on social relations. Heuristics offer tools for investigating the ideas that emerge through intersectionality’s metaphoric thinking. Heuristics provide thinking tools that are typically used to solve problems.

Intersectionality’s Heuristic Thinking Using intersectionality as a heuristic has facilitated the rethinking of existing knowledge – namely, social problems such as violence, social institutions such as work and family, and important social constructs such as identity. Kimberlé Crenshaw’s classic article “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color” (1991) illustrates the heuristic use of intersectionality for rethinking existing knowledge concerning violence as a social problem. Crenshaw’s immediate concern lay in analyzing violence against women of color, with the goal of strengthening grassroots and legal responses to it. Lacking the term intersectionality, Crenshaw draws upon the existing heuristic of race/class/gender as interconnected phenomena as a starting point for problem‐ solving concerning violence. In this regard, her approach illustrates the use of intersectionality (the race/class/gender heuristic) as a way to generate usable knowledge for social science as an instrument for “social problem solving” (Lindblom and Cohen 1979, p. 4). Yet, in the context of using the race/class/gender heuristic, she recognizes its limitations for her particular project and adapts it for her specific context. Crenshaw kept the idea of intersectionality, yet incorporated categories that were a better fit for the women of color under consideration. Specifically, Crenshaw underemphasizes class as an explanatory category that explains violence against women of color. Instead, she includes the category of “immigrant status”; itself a construct invoking discourses of nation (citizenship status) and ethnicity (culture as proxy for color, race, and often religion). Via this adaptation, Crenshaw argues that the provisional

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combination of race, gender, and immigrant status better fit the experiences of the group in question as well as the social problems with violence that they encountered. Yet neither the existing race/class/gender framework nor the new framework that emphasizes race, gender, and immigrant status was by itself sufficient. Crenshaw then offers the term intersectionality as a way to respond to the challenge of solving social problems that could not be incorporated within the race/class/gender rubric. This shift from race/class/gender to intersectionality illustrates the utility of heuristics – ironically, in this case, in naming intersectionality itself. Analyses of violence, as well as the intersectional categories that have been used to study it, have expanded tremendously since Crenshaw’s signature article. Because violence against women has been such a powerful catalyst for intersectionality itself, intersectional analyses of this topic are not only widespread but have also informed political activism and public policy (Collins and Bilge 2016, pp. 48–55). Analyses of violence that draw upon intersectionality reappear across a wide array of topics, such as the nation­state violence of militarism and war (Peterson 2007), the treatment of sexual violence and ethnicity in international criminal law (Buss 2009), and hate speech itself as part of relations of violence (Matsuda et al. 1993). Solutions to violence against women remain unlikely if violence against women is imagined through monocategorical lenses such as the gender lenses of male perpetrators and female victims, or racial lenses that elevate police violence against African American men over domestic violence against African American women. Viewing violence through an intersectional lens potentially creates new forms of transversal politics to confront it (Collins 2017b). One strength of heuristic thinking concerns its ease of use for criticizing existing knowledge and posing new questions. For example, when it comes to the study of work, asking simple questions such as, “Does this apply to women?” or “Is slave labor included in the definition of work?” or “Why are white male workers the focus of studies of work?” identifies areas of overemphasis and underemphasis in understandings of work. The experiences of a particular group of working‐class, white, male industrial workers or middle‐class, white, male corporate managers and executives have garnered the lion’s share of scholarly attention. What are the effects of treating findings on this particular group as universal in work‐related scholarship? The effectiveness of heuristic thinking lies in its simplicity – its use shifts established perspectives on scholarship and practice. The heuristic of asking how an intersectional framework would shift what is considered to be fixed, and fix what has been in flux, signals a sea change in how to do scholarship. The now commonsense idea that individual identity is shaped by multiple factors whose saliency changes from one social context to the next owes much to intersectionality’s ease of use as a heuristic. On a basic level, an individual need no longer ask, “Am I Black or am I a woman or am I a lesbian first?” The answer of being simultaneously Black and a woman and a lesbian expands this space of subjectivity to encompass multiple aspects of individual identity. Rather than a fixed, essentialist identity that a person carries from one situation to the next, individual identities are now seen as differentially performed from one social context to the next (Butler 1990). The process of crafting a unique sense of self that rests on multiple possibilities generated new questions about how those identities were interconnected and coforming, rather than how they were or should be ranked.3

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Intersectionality is not a theory of identity, but many scholars and intellectual activists understand it through this lens primarily because the heuristic use of intersectionality as applied to the topic of identity is commonplace. Given the inordinate attention devoted to identity and its seeming association with intersectionality, returning to Stuart Hall’s work, written about the same time as Butler’s, may be helpful. Unlike Butler, Hall contends that the performative nature of identity and the frameworks of social structures both matter: “Identity is not a set of fixed attributes, the unchanging essence of the inner self, but a constantly shifting process of positioning. We tend to think of identity as taking us back to our roots, the part of us which remains essentially the same across time. In fact identity is always a never‐completed process of becoming – a process of shifting identifications, rather than a singular, complete, finished state of being” (Hall 2017, p. 16). Other scholarship examines identity in relation to social inequality and political action, such as the possibilities of identity categories as potential coalitions (Carastathis 2013), or case studies on how attending to intersecting identities creates solidarity and cohesion for cross‐ movement mobilization within participatory democracies (Palacios 2016). Using intersectionality as a heuristic not only has facilitated the rethinking of existing knowledge‐violence and similar social problems, work and similar social institutions, as well as identity and similar social constructs – it has also brought new systems of power into view. Intersectional analysis now incorporates sexuality, ethnicity, age, ability, and nation as similar categories of analysis (Kim‐Puri  2005). Specifically, increased attention to the themes of nation, nationalism, nation‐state, and national identity has aimed to align the power relations of nation with structural analyses of racism, capitalism, and patriarchy (Yuval‐Davis 1997). Literature on the nation‐state and its citizenship policies has benefited from intersectional frameworks, the case of Goldberg’s (2002) analysis of the racial state, or Evelyn Glenn’s (2002) study of work, American citizenship, and nation‐state power. Intersectional frameworks have also deepened understandings of nationalist ideologies, as evidenced in Joane Nagel’s (1998) analysis of masculinity and nationalism, or George Mosse’s (1985) classic work on nationalism and sexuality. The political behavior of subordinated groups as they aim to empower themselves has also garnered intersectional analysis, for example, Ana Ramos­Zayas’s (Ramos‐Zayas 2003) ethnographic study of Puerto Rican identity within a Chicago neighborhood that illustrates the benefits of incorporating nationalism in studies of local politics. Intersectional analyses of nation‐state power have expanded to consider transnational processes, for example, placing analyses of transnational tourism within intersectional processes of erotic autonomy, decolonization, and nationalism (Alexander 1997, 2005). At some point, one bumps up against the limitations of heuristic thinking. In this sense, the ways in which race/class/gender studies have unfolded since the 1980s can serve as a cautionary tale for the vast amount of data that is currently being produced by the heuristic use of intersectionality. Race/class/gender studies laid substantial groundwork for intersectionality’s metaphoric and heuristic use. Scholars and activists working in race/class/ gender studies, and similar interdisciplinary endeavors routinely used the phrase “race, class, and gender” for a wide array of projects (Andersen and Collins  2016; Collins and Bilge  2016). The heuristic use of “race, class, and gender” as a provisional, place‐holder term across the myriad projects that  sprang up within and across academic disciplines catalyzed considerable

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s­ cholarship. Viewing race, class, and gender as interconnected phenomena seemingly shared a loose set of assumptions: (i) race, class, and gender referenced not singular but intersecting systems of power; (ii) specific social inequalities reflect these power relations from one setting to the next; (iii) individual and collective (group) identities of race, gender, class, and sexuality are socially constructed within multiple systems of power; and (iv) social problems and their remedies are similarly intersecting ­phenomena. Each of these assumptions served as jumping off points for a range of  projects. Intersectionality drew from and expanded the heuristic use of these assumptions that underlay race/class/gender studies. Race/class/gender studies and intersectionality both rely on heuristic thinking, yet while it may seem that they are interchangeable, they do have distinctive approaches to social problem solving. Using the framework of race/class/gender analysis reminds researchers to attend to race, class, and gender as particular categories of analysis. Either singularly or in combination, the categories of race, class, and gender identify distinctive structural foundations for social inequalities, for example, the racism of white supremacy, the class exploitation associated with capitalism, and the sexism inherent in patriarchy. Race, class, and gender not only reference specific systems of power; each category has its own storied traditions of scholarship and activism done by interpretive communities that developed around each category. Ironically, the particular history of the field itself was seen as getting in the way of its universal possibilities. The field was seen as being too particular because it confined analysis to race, class, and gender. Some users erroneously assumed that these particular concepts, when taken literally, must be present in every analysis, and that the absence of any one category compromised the integrity of race/class/gender studies. Because it was deemed to be too closely associated with the particular, subordinated social groups that were central to its creation and growth, the field of race/class/gender was also seen as having another kind of particularity problem. “Race” meant Black people, “gender” meant women, and “class” meant poor people. Yet race/class/gender never argued that its concepts were confined to subordinated people – it was perfectly capable of studying privilege within the categories of race, class, and gender. Similarly, race, class, and gender were never meant to be used as a fixed list of entities that applied in all times in all places. Rather, race/class/gender was a heuristic that pointed toward other combinations that not only were possible but were better suited for a range of particular issues and contexts. The heuristic use of intersectionality provides different strengths and limitations. Because intersectionality does not specify the configuration of categories, or even the number of relevant categories for a particular analysis, it seemingly offers more flexibility than race/class/gender studies. By providing a new term that was elastic enough to incorporate the particularities of race/class/gender studies yet expand them to include additional particular concepts, intersectionality ostensibly solved the particularity problem of race/class/gender. Yet intersectionality’s quest for universality – and this is important for its status as a social theory in the making‐meant that it need not attend to its own particular history. Using intersectionality as a heuristic by referring to a generic intersectionality without attending to particulars of the categories themselves, or to the social issues that catalyzed both race/class/gender studies and intersectionality, created new problems. The rapid uptake of ­intersectionality by adding even more categories suggests a parallelism among these categories, one that implies

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that each system of power is fundamentally the same. If the categories of race, class, and gender, among others, are equivalent and potential substitutes for one another, then the systems of power that underlie intersectionality are similarly equivalent. Understanding one means understanding the others. This assumption of equivalence and interchangeability may facilitate intersectionality’s ease of heuristic use, but it simultaneously limits intersectionality’s theoretical potential. For example, the category of class has been often mentioned within intersectionality yet less often treated as an analytical category that is equivalent to race and gender. The categories of nation, sexuality, ethnicity, age, religion, and ability resemble one another but cannot be collapsed into one another under the heading of a generic intersectionality. Each is an analytical category that cannot be simply added together and combined with the others. The relationships among these categories lie in their particulars  –  they must be empirically studied and theorized, not simply assumed for heuristic convenience. This brief comparison of race/class/gender and intersectionality suggests that if a heuristic device is applied uncritically, more as a formula than as a tool of invention for critically engaged social problem solving, it may no longer be able to spark innovation.4 Intersectionality as a heuristic offers provisional rules of thumb for rethinking a range of social problems as well as strategies for criticizing how scholarship studies them. In this sense, intersectionality’s metaphoric and heuristic thinking provides important conceptual tools for problem‐solving. These strategies remain important, yet their use should not be conflated with theorizing. The effects of intersectionality are far‐reaching  –  it has catalyzed significant changes within academic disciplines concerning some of their cherished frameworks, such as the aforementioned case of sociology and work. Intersectionality has also influenced the contours of women’s, gender, and sexuality studies; media studies; and similar interdisciplinary fields of inquiry. Intersectionality’s knowledge and practices stemming from how its practitioners use it might have catalyzed a wealth of new knowledge across many fields of study. To me, intersectionality has reached an important milestone in its own journey, a place where it has catalyzed paradigm shifts across many fields of study, but one where it also must spend time examining its own paradigmatic thought.

Intersectionality and Paradigm Shifts Paradigms provide frameworks that describe, interpret, analyze, and in some cases, explain both the knowledge that is being produced as well as the processes that are used to produce it. Paradigmatic thinking involves having a model or provisional explanation in mind, a typical pattern of something, a distinct set of concepts or thought patterns. Such thinking is often difficult to recognize as such, because paradigms are often implicit, assumed, and taken for granted. For example, for some time, assumptions about biology and the natural world exerted enormous influence on research on gender and sexual identities, on public policies that understood citizenship through binaries of fit and unfit bodies, as well as on broader evolutionary explanations of the natural and social worlds. The reliance on biological explanations seemed more like the truth itself, rather than just one paradigm among many.

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When the paradigmatic thinking in a field changes, the ideas and social relations within that field can also change quite dramatically. Thomas Kuhn’s (1970) description of how paradigm shifts occur in the natural sciences provides a useful rubric for understanding intersectionality’s effects on existing fields of study. Ironically, Kuhn analyzed the way that paradigms changed within the natural sciences as an implicit critique of the social sciences; he wanted to demonstrate how paradigms in the natural sciences provided certainties for scientific disciplines – certainties that the social sciences seemingly lacked. Yet this dimension of his work has been overshadowed by how rapidly the concept of a paradigm shift traveled into the social sciences, as well as into everyday language.5 A paradigm shift is a change not just in ideas, but also in how a field of study reorganizes its practices to facilitate its problem‐solving objectives. When fields encounter anomalies, or puzzles that can no longer be solved within the conventions of their dominant paradigm, they shift, often rather dramatically. The old paradigm can disappear rapidly, with a new one emerging to take its place. A paradigm shift occurs along three dimensions: the new paradigm (i) convincingly resolves previously recognized problems; (ii) has enough unresolved problems to provide puzzles for further inquiry; and (iii) attracts enough specialists to form the core of new, agreed‐upon provisional explanations for the topic at hand. When applied to intersectionality, the concept of a paradigm shift suggests that intersectionality convincingly grapples with recognized social problems concerning social inequality and the social problems it engenders; that its heuristics provide new avenues of investigation for studying social inequality; and that it has attracted a vibrant constellation of scholars and practitioners who recognize intersectionality as a form of critical inquiry and praxis. This newly formulated, heterogeneous community of inquiry both resonates with the metaphor of intersectionality as a collective identity and relies on heuristic thinking for social problem solving. This concept of a paradigm shift is especially useful for thinking through the changes that intersectionality has engendered within disciplinary and interdisciplinary fields. Kuhn’s argument is targeted toward the changes within the natural sciences, where paradigms consist of shared assumptions within an existing field of study, subfields within a particular discipline, or both. Yet when uncoupled from the assumption that paradigm shifts occur primarily within existing fields of inquiry, Kuhn’s basic argument concerning paradigm shifts also applies to broader interpretive frameworks. Paradigm shifts are significant because they describe what happens when traditional frameworks no longer sufficiently explain social realities and thus become ineffective. In this sense, the concept of a paradigm shift is especially important for intersectionality as a critical social theory in the making, because a paradigm shift identifies a significant turning point when established social theories lose their critical edge and when other social theories displace them. Across academic disciplines, traditional paradigms approached racial inequality and gender inequality, for example, as distinct, separate, and disconnected phenomena. Because race, class, gender, sexuality, age, ethnicity, nation, and, ability were conceptualized as separate phenomena, their interactions remained invisible because no one thought to look for them. Using intersectionality as a metaphor fundamentally challenged this taken­for‐granted assumption, and using intersectionality as a heuristic developed new knowledge as evidence for intersectional claims. In this

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Table 7.1  Intersectionality’s paradigmatic ideas. CORE CONSTRUCTS

GUIDING PREMISES

Relationality Power Social inequality Social context Complexity Social justice

i.  Race, class, gender, and similar systems of power are interdependent and mutually construct one another. ii.  Intersecting power relations produce complex, interdependent social inequalities of race, class, gender, sexuality, nationality, ethnicity, ability, and age. iii.  The social location of individuals and groups within intersecting power relations shapes their experiences within and perspectives on the social world. iv.  Solving social problems within a given local, regional, national, or global context requires intersectional analyses.

sense, intersectionality was not just an adjustment to business as usual. It pointed toward a fundamental paradigm shift in thinking about intersecting systems of power and their connections to intersecting social inequalities. In the following section, I sketch out selected core constructs and guiding premises of intersectionality that are drawn from my readings of intersectional inquiry as well as my understandings of intersectional practice. When combined, these core constructs and guiding premises provide a provisional template for analyzing intersectionality’s ideas and practices. My goal is to address some ideas of intersectionality’s paradigmatic use  –  namely, the core constructs and guiding premises within intersectionality’s critical inquiry. Table 7.1 provides a provisional schema of the paradigmatic ideas that form the content of intersectionality’s critical inquiry. These ideas come from its metaphoric, heuristic, and paradigmatic uses. This schema distinguishes between the core constructs that reappear across intersectionality and guiding premises that inform intersectional analysis. Intersectionality’s core constructs routinely appear within intersectional inquiry, either as topics of investigation or as methodological premises that guide research itself. They are (i) relationality; (ii) power; (iii) social inequality; (iv) social context; (v) complexity; and (vi) social justice (Collins and Bilge 2016, pp. 25–30, 194–204). For example, when it comes to social science research, intersectionality requires attending to complexity, whether in the questions asked, the methods used in a study, or the interpretation of findings.

Core Constructs and Guiding Premises Intersectionality’s core constructs constitute one important dimension of intersectionality’s paradigmatic thinking. The themes of relationality, power, social inequality, social context, complexity, and social justice reappear across intersectionality as a form of critical inquiry and practice (Collins and Bilge 2016, pp. 25–30, 194–204). When it comes to scholarship, these themes are not all present in a given work, the treatment of them varies considerably across research traditions, and the relationship among them is far from coherent. My goal here is to identify intersectionality’s

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core constructs that, either singularly or in combination, reappear within intersectional scholarship. Significantly, none of these themes is unique to intersectionality in the academy. They also appear across diverse projects with little apparent connection to intersectionality. Intersectionality often shares terminology and sensibility with similar projects but is not derivative of them. Identifying these core constructs constitutes a promising first step in sketching out intersectionality’s paradigmatic use in scholarship. Significantly, how these constructs are used within intersectionality offers a window into intersectionality’s critical inquiry. Relationality constitutes the first core theme that shapes heterogeneous intersectional projects (Phoenix and Pattynama 2006, p. 187). This emphasis on relationality shifts focus away from the essential qualities that seemingly lie in the center of categories and toward the relational processes that connect them. The idea of relationality is essential to intersectionality itself. The very term intersectionality invokes the idea of interconnections, mutual engagement, and relationships. Race, gender, class, and other systems of power are constituted and maintained through relational processes, gaining meaning through the nature of these relationships. The analytic importance of relationality in intersectional scholarship demonstrates how various social positions (occupied by actors, systems, and political/economic structural arrangements) necessarily acquire meaning and power (or a lack thereof) in relation to other social positions. The significance of power constitutes a second core theme of intersectionality’s critical inquiry. Intersecting power relations produce social divisions of race, gender, class, sexuality, ability, age, country of origin, and citizenship status that are unlikely to be adequately understood in isolation from one another. Non‐intersectional scholarship assumes that race, class, and gender are unconnected variables or features of social organization that can be studied as singular phenomena – for example, gender or race as discreet aspects of individual identity, or patriarchy or racism as monocategorical systems of power. Intersectionality posits that systems of power co‐produce one another in ways that reproduce both unequal material outcomes and the distinctive social experiences that characterize people’s experiences within social hierarchies. Racism, sexism, class exploitation, and similar oppressions may mutually construct one another by drawing upon similar and distinctive practices and forms of organization that collectively shape social reality. Third, intersectionality has catalyzed a rethinking of social inequality. Within the academy, prevailing frameworks explained social inequalities as separate entities, for example, class inequality, racial inequality, gender inequality, and social inequalities of sexuality, nation, ability, and ethnicity. The causes of social inequality often lay in fundamental forces that lay outside the particulars of race, class, gender. Yet treating social inequality as a result of other, seemingly more fundamental social processes suggested that social inequality was inevitable because it was hardwired into the social world, into individual nature, or into both. Intersectionality rejects these notions that normalize inequality by depicting it as natural and inevitable. A fourth core theme within intersectionality’s critical inquiry stresses the significance of social context. This theme is especially important for understanding how interpretive communities, both academic and activist, organize knowledge production. This premise applies to the internal dynamics of a given interpretive

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community, for example, how sociologists or women’s studies scholars go about their work; to the relationships among interpretive communities, such as how sociology and Africana Studies within academia develop different interpretations of race and racism; as well as to how communities of inquiry are hierarchically arranged and valued, for example, how Western colleges and universities rank the sciences over the humanities. Social context also matters in understanding how the distinctive social locations of individuals and groups within intersecting power relations shape intellectual production. Managing complexity constitutes a fifth core theme of intersectionality’s critical inquiry. Intersectional knowledge projects achieve greater levels of complexity because they are iterative and interactional, always examining the connections among seemingly distinctive categories of analysis. Complexity is dynamic  – ­intersectionality’s categories of race, class, gender, and sexuality, among others, are a useful starting point for inquiry. Bringing multiple lenses to intersectional inquiry facilitates complex, comprehensive ­analyses. Managing complexity also speaks to intersectionality’s methodological contours. Complex questions may require equally complex strategies for investigation. Social justice constitutes another core construct that underlies intersectionality’s critical inquiry. The construct of social justice raises questions about the ethics of intersectional scholarship and practice. Within contemporary academic venues, the significance of social justice as a core theme within intersectionality is increasingly challenged by norms that place social justice, freedom, equality, and similar ethical issues as secondary concerns within acceptable scholarship. Viewing theory and practice in binary terms not only fosters a division between truth and power within intersectionality; it also challenges intersectionality’s long‐standing commitment to social justice. Historically, social justice was so central to intersectionality that there was little need to examine it or invoke it. Currently, many intersectional projects do not deal with social justice in a substantive fashion, yet the arguments that each discourse makes and praxis that it pursues have important ethical implications for equity and fairness. How might these core constructs within intersectionality’s critical inquiry shape it? Some concepts are so fundamental to intersectionality itself that removing them would compromise the very meaning of intersectionality. Relationality constitutes one core construct. It is reflected in the name of the field itself, shapes the methodological premises of intersectional projects, and describes the content of intersectional knowledge. The very question of the connections among intersectionality’s core constructs is fundamentally one of relationality. In contrast, other core themes are more contingent. For example, intersecting systems of power as well as social inequalities of race, class, gender, and similar categories of analysis occupy prominent positions within intersectionality. Yet, does the absence of a particular category of analysis within intersectional inquiry somehow lessen its value? Similarly, some intersectional scholarship is inattentive to power relations or ethical standards of social justice. Does this absence make these projects less authentically intersectional? Some core constructs are differentially contingent. They can be used to structure a study itself, the case of attending to social context, or they can be used to evaluate outcomes; for example, is a particular study stronger because intersectionality has fostered greater complexity?

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This brings me to another important dimension of intersectionality’s critical inquiry – namely, my provisional list of guiding premises that distinguish intersectional scholarship (see Table 7.1). Such premises should be recognizable to intersectionality’s practitioners in the ways that those of any field of inquiry are to its researchers, teachers, and students. These guiding premises synthesize the assumptions that intersectionality’s practitioners take into their projects in order to guide their work: (i) Race, class, gender, and similar systems of power are interdependent and mutually construct one another; (ii) Intersecting power relations produce complex, interdependent social inequalities of race, class, gender, sexuality, nationality, ethnicity, ability, and age; (iii) The social location of individuals and groups within intersecting power relations shapes their experiences within and perspectives on the social world; (iv) Solving social problems within a given local, regional, national, or global context requires intersectional analyses (see also Collins 2015; Collins and Bilge 2016). These core constructs and guiding principles provide a vocabulary for describing intersectionality’s paradigm shift. This shift raises important questions about how intersectionality’s cognitive architecture might inform intersectional theorizing. This framework also offers a way of seeing the limits of paradigmatic thinking and the possibilities of the beginnings of theorizing. How might intersectionality’s core constructs inform the guiding premises within the field of intersectionality itself? Conversely, how might these guiding premises shed light on the meaning of intersectionality’s core constructs? Figure 7.1 organizes the dimensions of intersectionality’s cognitive ­architecture – namely, the thematic content of intersectionality as social theory and the processes of how intersectionality might theorize the social world. These core constructs and

DIMENSIONS OF CRITICAL THINKING CORE CONSTRUCTS METAPHOR

HEURISTIC

Relationality

GUIDING PREMISES

Power

Race, class, and gender as systems of power are interdependent

Social inequality Social context Complexity

Intersecting power relations produce complex social inequalities

Intersecting power relations shape individual and group experiences

PARADIGM Social justice

Figure 7.1  Intersectionality’s cognitive architecture.

Solving social problems requires intersectional analyses.

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guiding premises provide tools for mapping the specific content of intersectional knowledge. In the case of intersectionality, because its core constructs are shared by many other projects, specifying what is meant by these constructs and how they will be used within intersectional inquiry constitutes an important, ongoing challenge. Similarly, the guiding premises constitute a starting point for identifying the shared assumptions that organize intersectionality’s knowledge base. Metaphoric, heuristic, and paradigmatic thinking constitute the critical thinking tools that surround the process of doing social theory. Figure 7.1 identifies the dimensions of critical thinking that potentially inform theory within intersectionality’s current use. Paradigmatic thinking is closely aligned with theorizing because it does specify core concepts and guiding premises. Yet scholarly literature is unclear about whether social theories are housed within paradigms, the case where a scientific discipline has one overarching paradigm that houses several theories that work within its parameters; or whether paradigms are housed within social theories, the case where philosophy or literary criticism provides an overarching social theory of poststructuralism that houses lesser explanatory frameworks or paradigms. The difference might be semantic, one of parsing words to fit different disciplinary and interdisciplinary realities. Because intersectionality itself encompasses a constellation of different projects that draw from both the social sciences and the humanities, intersectionality as critical inquiry might house multiple paradigms to guide its discovery and analysis. Paradigm shifts matter because they mark the moment when traditional frameworks become ineffective, and when existing social theories no longer sufficiently explain social realities. The idea of a paradigm shift is especially important for developing a social theory generally and a critical social theory, in particular, because paradigm shifts identify especially rich possibilities for critical theorizing. Stuart Hall describes these connections between paradigm shifts and doing social theory: “If paradigms are closed . . . new phenomena will be quite difficult to interpret, because they depend on new historical conditions and incorporate novel discursive elements. But if we understand theorizing as an open horizon, moving within the magnetic field of some basic concepts, but constantly being applied afresh to what is genuinely original and novel in new forms of cultural practices, and recognizing the capacity of subjects to reposition themselves differently, then you needn’t be so defeated” (Grossberg 1996, p. 138). In other words, intersectionality moves toward an “open horizon” suggested by its use of metaphor, heuristics, and paradigms, recognizing how its core constructs and its guiding premises constitute a paradigm shift. In this sense, intersectionality’s paradigmatic use via this current constellation of core themes and guiding premises, as described here, constitutes more a starting point for developing a critical social theory, and not the endpoint of intersectionality as critical inquiry.

Notes 1 Michel Foucault’s use of genealogy provides an important methodological framework  [Intersectionality as Critical Social Theory (Collins  2019)] (Foucault  1980; Koopman 2011). Genealogy is a historical methodology that traces the emergence and descent of the ­technologies and practices used to produce discourses  –  in this case, discourses of

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i­ntersectionality. Genealogy is also a form of political critique that diagnoses how such discourses, practices, and technologies are embedded in unequal power relationships – in this case, how shifting patterns of unequal power relations frame the emergence of intersectionality. A genealogical account of intersectionality would not assume nor seek to posit any so‐ called scientific hypotheses about intersectionality. Rather, a genealogical account would examine the social structures of power and knowledge that made it possible for thinkers to produce claims about intersectionality in the first instance. Genealogy constitutes an alternative to the linear narratives of history and causal analyses of social science. Conceptual metaphor theory provides a comprehensive analysis of how metaphors contribute to understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another (Lakoff and Johnson 2003, p. 4). Lakoff and Johnson offer a far more comprehensive analysis of conceptual metaphors than I can attempt here: “When we say that a concept is structured by a metaphor, we mean that it is partially structured and that it can be extended in some ways but not in others” (p. 13). Cognitive processes of conceptual metaphors include structural metaphors, orientational metaphors, and ontological metaphors. The basic experiences of human use of space give rise to orientational metaphors. Most of our fundamental concepts are organized in terms of one or more spatialization metaphors, with the idea that these spatial metaphors are rooted in physical and cultural experience and explain social phenomena. People’s experiences with physical objects, especially their own bodies, provide the basis for a wide variety of related metaphors that in turn shape ways of viewing events, activities, emotions, and ideas as entities and substances (Trout 2010, p. 25). The example of personification whereby physical object (or concept) is further specified as being a person, “Intersectionality tells us, or intersectionality did .  .  .” possibly explains why personal narrative is so prominent within intersectionality, both in the personal narratives of individuals and in the metaphor of telling intersectionality’s story. “We conceptualize our visual field as a container and conceptualize what we see as being inside it. Even the term ‘visual field’ suggests this” (Trout 2010, p. 30). Judith Butler’s work (1990,  1993) has greatly influenced this burgeoning approach to identity, especially through the workings of queer theory. Butler’s important idea of performative subjectivities is often linked with intersectionality’s framework of interconnected and coforming phenomena. Yet, Butler has distanced herself from intersectionality. See, for example, Butler’s dismissive comments about intersectionality in her classic work, Gender Trouble (1993, p. 182). Ironically, many people draw upon both Butler’s arguments concerning performativity and intersectionality’s insights concerning coformation to the point where intersectionality is often understood as a social theory of identity. In Chapter 3 of Intersectionality as Critical Social Theory (2019), I develop this theme of the relationship between particularity and universality by examining intersectionality’s ties to resistant knowledge traditions with social action components. Critical race studies aims to resist racism, feminist studies resists heteropatriarchy, and decolonial studies resists neocolonialism. In this sense, each project reflects the particular social problems confronting Black people, women, and colonized people. Yet each project also sees beyond the particulars of any one group. I use Kuhn’s work here not as a theory to be tested, but rather as a heuristic or rubric for approaching intersectionality. Kuhn’s framework for changes within science have been criticized from many directions. But because his basic framework has been extrapolated from the specific context of science, this approach to paradigms is itself useful as a heuristic (Kuhn 1970). In Chaos of Disciplines, Andrew Abbott (2001) offers a more complex and comprehensive analysis of how knowledge changes in the social sciences. His analysis of constructionism is especially significant for intersectionality.

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Abbott, A. (2001). Chaos of Disciplines. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Abbott, A. (2004). Methods of Discovery: Heuristics for the Social Sciences. New York: W. W. Norton. Alexander, M.J. (1997). Erotic autonomy as a politics of decolonization: an anatomy of feminist and state practice in the Bahamas tourist industry. In: Feminist Genealogies, Colonial Legacies, Democratic Futures (eds. M. Jacqui Alexander and C.T. Mohanty), 63–100. New York: Routledge. Alexander, M.J. (ed.) (2005). Imperial desire/sexual utopias: white gay capital and transnational tourism. In: Pedagogies of Crossing. Meditations on Feminism, Sexual Politics, Memory, and the Sacred, 66–88. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Andersen, M.L. and Collins, P.H. (2016). Race, Class, and Gender: An Anthology, 9e. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. Anzaldúa, G. (1987). Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestizo. San Francisco: Spinsters/ Aunt Lute Press. Berger, M. and Guidroz, K. (eds.) (2009). The Intersectional Approach: Transforming the Academy through Race, Class, & Gender. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Buss, D. (2009). Sexual violence, ethnicity, and intersectionality in international criminal law. In: Intersectionality and Beyond: Law, Power and the Politics of Location (ed. D. Cooper), 105–123. New York: Routledge. Butler, J. (1990). Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge. Butler, J. (1993). Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex”. New York: Routledge. Carastathis, A. (2013). Identity categories as potential coalitions. Signs 38 (4): 941–965. Carastathis, A. (2014). The concept of intersectionality in feminist theory. Philosophy Compass 9 (5): 304–314. Carastathis, A. (2016). Intersectionality: Origins, Contestations, Horizons. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Cho, S., Crenshaw, K., and McCall, L. (2013). Toward a field of intersectionality studies: theory, applications, and praxis. Signs 38 (4): 785–810. Collins, P.H. (2015). Intersectionality’s definitional dilemmas. Annual Review of Sociology 41 (August): 1–20. Collins, P.H. (2017a). The difference that power makes; intersectionality and participatory democracy. Investigaciones Feministas 8: 19–39. Collins, P.H. (2017b). On violence, intersectionality and transversal politics. Ethnic and Racial Studies 40 (9): 1–14. Collins, P.H. (2018). Controlling images. In: 50 Concepts for a Critical Phenomenology (eds. G. Weiss, A. Murphy and G. Salamon). Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Collins, P.H. (2019). Intersectionality as Critical Social Theory. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Collins, P.H. and Bilge, S. (2016). Intersectionality. Key Concepts. Cambridge, UK: Polity. Crenshaw, K.W. (1989). Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex; a black feminist critique of anti‐discrimination doctrine, feminist theory and anti‐racist politics. The University of Chicago Legal Forum 336: 8. Crenshaw, K.W. (1991). Mapping the margins: intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. Stanford Law Review 43 (6): 1241–1299.

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Deburg, V. and William, L. (1997). Modern Black Nationalism: From Marcus Garvey to Louis Farrakhan. New York: New York University Press. Dill, B.T. (2002). Work at the intersections of race, gender, ethnicity, and other dimensions of difference in higher education. Connections: Newsletter of the Consortium on Race, Gender, and Ethnicity Fall: 5–7. Dill, B.T. (2009). Intersections, identities, and inequalities in higher education. In: Emerging Intersections: Race, Class, and Gender in Theory, Policy, and Practice (eds. B.T. Dill and R. Zambrana), 229–252. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Dill, B.T. and Zambrana, R. (eds.) (2009). Emerging Intersections: Race, Class, and Gender in Theory, Policy, and Practice. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Foucault, M. (1980). Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972–1977. (trans. C. Gordon). New York: Pantheon. Glenn, E.N. (2002). Unequal Freedom: How Race and Gender Shaped American Citizenship and Labor. Cambridge. MA: Harvard University Press. Goldberg, D.T. (2002). The Racial State. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Grossberg, L. (1996). On postmodernism and articulation: an interview with Stuart Hall. In: Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies (eds. D. Morley and K.‐H. Chen), 131–150. New York: Routledge. Grzanka, P.R. (ed.) (2014). Intersectionality: A Foundations and Frontiers Reader. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Guidroz, K. and Berger, M.T. (2009). A conversation with founding scholars of intersectionality: Kimberlé Crenshaw, Nira Yuval‐Davis, and Michelle Fine. In: The Intersectional Approach: Transforming the Academy Through Race, Class and Genderr (eds. K. Guidroz and M. Berge), 61–78. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Hall, S. (1996). For Allon white: metaphors of transformation. In: Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies (eds. D. Morley and K.‐H. Chen), 287–305. New York: Routledge. Hall, S. (2017). Familiar Stranger: A Life Between Two Islands. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Hancock, A.‐M. (2016). Intersectionality: An Intellectual History. New York: Oxford University Press. Harding, S. (1991). Whose Science? Whose Knowledge? Thinking from Women’s Lives. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Keating, A.L. (2009). Introduction: reading Gloria Anzaldúa, reading ourselves: complex intimacies, intricate connections. In: The Gloria Anzaldúa Reader (ed. A.L. Keating), 1–15. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Ken, I. (2008). Beyond the intersection: a new culinary metaphor for race class‐gender studies. Sociological Theory 26 (2): 152–172. Kim‐Puri, H.J. (2005). Conceptualizing gender‐sexuality‐state‐nation: an introduction. Gender and Society 19 (2): 137–159. Koopman, C. (2011). Genealogical pragmatism: how history matters for Foucault and Dewey. Journal of the Philosophy of History 5 (3): 533–556. Kuhn, T.S. (1970). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lakoff, G. and Johnson, M. (2003 [1980]). Metaphors we Live by. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lindblom, C.E. and Cohen, D.K. (1979). Usable Knowledge: Social Science and Social Problem Solving. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Lutz, H., Vivar, M.T.H., and Supik, L. (2011). Framing intersectionality: debates on a multi‐ faceted concept in gender studies. In: The Feminist Imagination – Europe and Beyond (eds. K. Davis and M. Evans). Surrey, England: Ashgate.

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Matsuda, M.J., Charles Lawrence, I.I.I., Delgado, R., and Crenshaw, K. (1993). Words that Wound: Critical Race Theory, Assaultive Speech, and the First Amendment. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. May, V.M. (2015). Pursuing Intersectionality, Unsettling Dominant Imaginaries. New York: Routledge. Mihesuah, D.A. and Wilson, A.C. (2004). Indigenizing the Academy: Transforming Scholarship and Empowering Communities. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Mosse, G.L. (1985). Nationalism and Sexuality: Middle‐Class Morality and Sexual Norms in Modern Europe. New York: H. Fertig;Nagel, J. (1998). Masculinity and nationalism; gender and sexuality in the making of nations. Ethnic and Racial Studies 21 (2): 242–269. Norocel, O.C. (2013). Give us Back Sweden!’ A feminist reading of the (Re) interpretations of the Polkhem conceptual metaphor in Swedish radical right populist discourse. Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research 21 (1): 4–20. Palacios, J.M. (2016). “Equality and diversity in democracy: how can we democratize inclusively?” equality. Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal 35 (5–6): 350–363. Peterson, V.S. (2007). Thinking through intersectionality and war. Race, Gender and Class 14 (3–4): 10–27. Phoenix, A. and Pattynama, P. (2006). Intersectionality. European Journal of Women’s Studies 13 (3): 187–192. Ramos‐Zayas, A.Y. (2003). National Performances: The Politics of Race, Class, and Space in Puerto Rican Chicago. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Sandoval, C. (2000). Methodology of the Oppressed. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Swedberg, R. (2014). The Art of Social Theory. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Takaki, R.T. (1993). A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America. Boston: Little, Brown. Terriquez, V. (2015). Intersectional mobilization, social movement spillover, and queer youth leadership in the immigrant rights movement. Social Problems 62 (3): 343–362. Trout, L. (2010). The Politics of Survival: Peirce, Affectivity, and Social Criticism. New York: Fordham University Press. Wiegman, R. (2012). Object Lessons. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Yuval‐Davis, N. (1997). Gender and Nation. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Yuval‐Davis, N. (2011). The Politics of Belonging: Intersectional Contestations. London: Sage.

8 Queer, Trans, and Transfeminist Theories Ute Bettray

Introduction What are the historical roots of queer, transgender, and transfeminist theory? What developments have led to changes within each theory and within all three theories overall? What points remain contentious within the field? What are the influences of queer feminists of color on transfeminist theory? In this chapter, we will explore the answers to these questions in both historical and contextual fashion through a consideration of historical developments, key texts, and the sometimes fraught conversations that have characterized the growth of these theories. After defining key terms pertinent to queer, transgender, and transfeminist theory, we will take a look at the historical context where I place feminist theory in conversation with queer theory. Then, in the third part of the chapter, titled “Queer Theory,” I will trace the major historical and theoretical currents through which queer theory has formed. The section “Critical Queering” introduces key concepts and discussions that have emerged within the field of queer theory and this is followed by a section which discusses transgender theory and delineates the historical developments, key texts, and other influences that have constituted this overall theory. The section “Transgender Theory and Gender Fluidity” will allow me to inquire into what key topoi, concepts, and discourses – oftentimes as points of contention – have occurred and made up transgender theory overall. The section “Transfeminism” focuses on how queer and transgender theory, next to Black feminist and Black lesbian feminist thought, have introduced transfeminism in North America since 2006. I provide an overview of the keys works and thinkers that have formed this feminism. The subsequent section, “Transfeminism and Borderlands,” traces the key ideas, theoretical concepts and strands that have shaped transfeminism and have started to elevate it toward a global level: transnational transfeminism. As a conclusion, I provide a preliminary and by no means

Companion to Feminist Studies, First Edition. Edited by Nancy A. Naples. © 2021 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Published 2021 by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

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exhaustive outlook of future research questions, pertaining mainly future work on transfeminism. In this way, the chapter will give a brief introduction in the – at times competing – ideas that have constituted queer, transgender, as well as transfeminist theories, and delineate the historical and theoretical currents through which they formed. One aim then is to provide a concise overview of the key concepts and discussions of each of these theories. An additional goal is to trace the major historical and theoretical developments leading to the formation of queer, transgender, and transfeminist theory but also the essential developments within each of these discourses.

Key Concepts and Terms Before we begin, it will be useful to define two key terms situated at the core of queer, transgender, and transfeminist theory: “queer,” and “transgender.” The term queer in its current usage has been reappropriated from a homophobic slur to an umbrella identity category, making possible the visibility of various groups with marginalized sexual identities while highlighting the discourse arising out of the gay and lesbian movement of the 1960s and 1970s. One of the constitutional voices of queer theory, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, defines queer as “a continuing moment, movement, motive  –  recurrent, eddying, troublant. The word queer itself means ‘across’  –  it comes from the Indo‐European root twerkw, which also yields the German quer (transverse), Latin torquere (to twist), English athwart” (1993). We will use the term “queer” in this umbrella sense in the chapter. The other term, transgender, originated in its current meaning in 1992 when Leslie Feinberg distributed a small but powerful pamphlet entitled Transgender Liberation: A Movement Whose Time Has Come. “Transgender, in this sense, was a ‘pangender’ umbrella term for an imagined community encompassing transsexuals, drag queens, butches, hermaphrodites, cross‐dressers, masculine women, effeminate men, sissies, tomboys, and anybody else willing to be interpolated by the term who felt compelled to answer the call to mobilization” (Stryker and Whittle 2006, p. 4). Thus, transgender functioned as an identity category for everyone who deviated in significant ways from the heteronormative gender binary. It is in this sense that we will use the term throughout the chapter.

Historical Context: Placing Feminist Theory in Conversation with Queer Theory Many queer theorists argue that feminist theory’s focus on gender as an object of inquiry and analysis posits the beginning of the conversation between queer and feminist theory. Queer theorists portray feminists’ view on gender as being determined by a model of binary sexuality with the biologically female sex placing social pressure to become feminine, and the male sex demanding masculinity. In this framework, sex is a secondary point of interest, if of interest at all, for feminist theory. Queer theory has made it its objective to focus on sex and sexuality and destabilize the binary that feminists view as governing sexuality, showing that they are in fact in flux and exist in a myriad of possible manifestations.



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Feminist theorist Diane Richardson, on the one hand, does seem to agree with queer theory’s rendition of feminist theory when she points out that feminist theorists have traditionally foregrounded gender in their analysis and have conceived of sex/sexuality as always already tied, but subordinated to, gender. She does agree, then, that analysis of sex/sexuality conducted independently of gender has developed as queer theory’s main aim, which clashed with the principle of feminist analysis (Richardson 2012). We should note that feminist theorists, however, do not always agree with queer theorists’ view. Many argue that queer theory’s conceptualization of feminist theory distorts the complexity of analytic research that feminists have pursued since the 1970s. Leading feminist thinkers like Judith Butler make clear that the generalization of feminist thinkers who focus only on gender in their analyses really only describes a few strands of feminist theory such as French materialist feminism or the work of feminist theorist Katherine McKinnon. McKinnon has studied the role of gender in sexual objectification in sex work and porn films. Her studies make a heteronormative gender binary of masculinity and femininity their main point of analytic inquiry, and have thus also foregrounded heterosexuality. Butler argues that the majority of feminist theorists have, in fact, asked how sex and sexuality get produced by societal power systems and in turn produce not only gender, but gender as it intersects with race, and class, among other social categories. Feminist theorists like Butler point out that notions of sex and sexuality developed by Michel Foucault in the History of Sexuality: An Introduction, Volume I (1978/1990) shaped the understanding of both sex and gender for many feminists. Foucault led to the thinking of sex and gender as produced through diffusive and disintegrated, non‐linear, non‐hierarchical power systems. For him, these systems are constantly in flux and thus changing and shifting, reforming and growing stronger through resistance, as they incorporate this resistance. According to Foucault, these power systems produce sex, by randomly grouping a set of bodily organs and hormone levels among other elements. These elements are then used to constitute an increasingly naturalized version of bodily sex and sexuality as an identity marker rather than just sex acts one engages in. Foucault holds that the more sexuality was examined, analyzed, and revisited in oral accounts and scrutinies, the less it was enacted and the more it was turned into discourse and thus disciplined, contested, and administered. The latter disciplining measures, however, operated by inciting a proliferation of sexual identities and practices, among them the discourses of sexuality. This proliferation, in turn, added to sexuality and produced it as a discourse that was analyzable, measurable, and thereby controllable. This allows the power to permeate our bodies and to shape our desires and their limits. This power thus can also help form our intelligibility to ourselves, and others. Since the end of the nineteenth century, this power has also operated as a life‐affirming and life‐administering force concerned with the longevity and health of bodies, thereby grasping additional hold of them, disciplining and controlling as well as reconceptualizing them. Control, then, did not take the form of a rebellious homosexuality going against an ineffectively repressive heteronormative order. It is true that Butler’s work itself has led to queer theory’s perception of feminist thought as only concerned with gender. The social construction of gender but also of sex was advanced in Judith Butler’s seminal book entitled Gender Trouble: Feminism

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and the Subversion of Identity (1990). Here, Butler radically deconstructs, even eradicates naturalized notions of male sex leading to the gender of masculinity and the female sex to femininity. The study argues that this binary then builds an expectation of sexual desire for the opposite sex/gender as the only “normal” sexual orientation. Butler shows how heteronormative society has constructed and reiterated this construction of gender by demanding and reiterating series of normative gestures, character traits, dress, behaviors, etc. that produce masculinity and femininity as an ideal that can never be attained. Butler terms this gender ideal an imitation without an original. For Butler, gender can get recreated in non‐binary ways by reversing these ideals in language and actions. She deconstructs the normative sex and sexuality binary by showing how sexual desire can extend and alter the bodily outline of the heteronormatively sexed body. For example, if the butch lesbian makes love to her female lover by using a dildo, she endows this dildo with libidinal energy. Thus, the dildo becomes part of her body and extends its outer boundary. While queer theory claimed this book as one of its main inceptions, as it radically deconstructs the naturalized heteronormative sex/gender binary of male sex leading to gendered masculinity and female sex leading to the gender of femininity while associated with compulsory heterosexuality as the only legitimate sexual orientation, Butler counters this claim. She opposes such demands of proper and delimited objects of study, arguing that such a claim marks an artificial domain of study that seemingly, but falsely divides these domains from each other, by pretending that sex is queer theory’s domain of inquiry and gender is feminist theory’s field of inquiry. For Butler, this reduces notions of gender and sex in terms of feminist inquiries and thwarts the reality of their scope. Therefore, Butler refuses to fit her own work into these invented categories and highlights the importance on letting fields/theories intersect in research questions like hers on how one becomes sexed and gendered – questions that neither reduce sex to sexuality and vice versa, nor do they reduce gender to sex (1997, pp. 1–30). Thus, we agree with Butler that contrary to queer theory’s claim that feminist analysis takes gender as its sole aim of analysis, and sex and sexuality therefore became the object of queer theory’s interrogation and study, feminist theory has analyzed sex and sexuality as well as their generative power to bring about identity categories such as race and/or gender before queer theory arrived on the scene. Prior to queer theory’s arrival, the major strands of feminist theory simultaneously conceived of sex and sexuality as something produced by power systems that are in constant flux, thereby producing multiple sexualities. These feminist theorists’ notions of sex and sexuality were not static and tied to a strictly binary frame (Butler 1997, pp. 1–30). Where the conversation between feminist and queer theory really began, however, was in the commonalities and differences, in the mutual inspiration and in the points of contention between the two discourses. While the analysis of sex and gender, though in varying degrees of solely focusing on these two categories, constitutes a commonality, the emphasis on flux that these categories are seen to be in by queer theory, as well as queer theory’s radical deconstruction of any stability inherent in any category such as sex, sexuality, but also gender and race made feminists grapple with a novel approach differing form their own myriad approaches (Weed 1997, pp. vii–xiii).



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Feminist theory thus can be conceived of as one of the major forerunners of queer theory. Specific feminist forerunners of queer theory can be found in postmodern feminism and lesbian feminism written by working‐class lesbians and lesbians of color in the 1980s, in particular by poets and political activists such as Gloria Anzaldúa, Judy Grahn, Pat Parker, and Audre Lorde. Women of color and working‐ class women, in particular working‐class lesbian and lesbians of color like Anzaldúa and Lorde, had been excluded within second‐wave feminism. In response they forged new, multiple identities out of stagnant, readily available, heteronormatively binary feminine/female and masculine/male gender and sex identities by simply asserting new identities: theirs. Generally, lesbian feminism can be conceived of as “a multi‐ issue movement at whose core lies the belief in lesbianism as itself a material, political expression of radical feminist politics” (Garber 2012, p. 78). Especially influential was lesbian feminist theorist, activist, and poet Audre Lorde, a working‐class, first‐generation American‐born lesbian of color. Her work can be conceived of as a precursor to postmodern feminism (which it predates slightly) and queer theory. Lorde roots herself firmly in the multiple identity positionalities that she repeatedly invokes, including: mother, lesbian, feminist woman, warrior, poet, and theorist. She situates herself in multiple locations and fluidly oscillates between them. Though this might seem reminiscent of queer theory’s fluidity in how it destabilizes identity categories or positionalities, Lorde does the opposite: she invokes and reinvokes these categories without ever destabilizing them. To the contrary, Lorde constantly reiterates and stabilizes categories of identity and multiple positionalities through her constant invocations and her lack of desire to challenge them fundamentally. It is this challenging of identity categories themselves that is the project of queer theory. Queer theorists then look to Lorde’s movement between these positionalities, her rooting herself in multiple identities at the same time and her oscillation between them to shape their work (Garber 2012). Queer theory, indeed, owes a great deal to feminism: feminist sociology provided queer theory with “feminist critiques of the authority of science, and its claims to ‘objectivity’ and ‘truth,’ the questioning of foundationalist and universalizing views of knowledge, constructionist work on sexuality, and the destabilising of unitary concepts such as ‘woman’ and, albeit to a lesser extent, ‘man’” (Richardson 2012, p. 28). Moreover, French materialist feminism provided queer theory with a conceptual frame (Richardson 2012; Seidman 1997). Feminist theorists have also pointed out the genealogical link between, in particular, French materialist feminists’ critique of compulsory sexuality and queer theory’s critique of it (Hennessey 1994; Jackson 1996a, b; Richardson 2000). Thus, French materialist feminist Monique Wittig’s critique of compulsory heterosexuality influenced Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990) – a work that has been conceived of by many queer theorists as a founding text of queer theory/studies; feminist theorists, by contrast, have read it as postmodernist feminist theory (Richardson 2012). Another major materialist feminist thinker, Adrienne Rich, especially her work on “compulsory heterosexuality” has been influential on queer theory (Richardson 2012, p. 30). According to Richardson, Rich’s work in “highlighting the socially and economically constructed nature of heterosexuality, represented an early attempt to denaturalise heterosexual relations, an aim that queer theory has more recently claimed” (2012, p. 30).

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Despite the attempts of many queer theorists to pose queer theory as a body of work that is not in part derivative of feminism or developing in accordance with it, queer as well as feminist theorists have revealed the ways in which feminism has functioned as one of queer theory’s genealogical predecessors (Jeffreys 2014). Queer theory, then, serves as feminism’s successor, taking form through the useful analyses feminism has produced, marking feminism, though, as an outdated model, relentlessly calling out its weaknesses against which queer theory seems to constitute itself. In the introduction to Fear of a Queer Planet, Michael Warner identifies the kind of heritage feminism left to queer theory when he claims that “feminism has made gender a primary category of the social in a way that makes queer social theory newly imaginable” (1993, p. viii). This heritage manifests in the ways in which feminism developed gender as a prevalent category of social analysis, endowing queer theory with the tools and methods with which it would, in turn, develop sexuality as a dominant analytical category (Warner 1993, p. xiv). Feminism has, according to Warner, endowed queer theory with its main project: “to force a thorough revision within social‐theoretical traditions of the kind being won by feminism” (1993, p. x). One of those traditions was the notion of stable sexual identities such as “the lesbian” and “the straight woman,” or the stable link of the female sex to the feminine gender, whereby this link equaled oppression by the patriarchal system – while taking or not taking race and class into this equation.

Queer Theory Queer theory had a twofold origin. As several scholars have noted, first, queer theory arose as a response to social and political events and crises in the late 1980s and early 1990s such as the HIV/AIDS crisis (Phelan 1994; Richardson 2012; Walters 2005). On the other hand, queer theory has also emerged as a byproduct of the political alliances formed between gay men and lesbians in light of this crisis (Phelan 1994; Richardson 2012; Walters 2005). Queer theory, however, also developed in the academy, particularly in the arts and the humanities, growing out of and alongside feminist critiques of lesbian feminism, and the “sex wars” of the 1980s among feminists, the ascent of post‐structural theory and postmodernism. In particular, the rise of postmodernism offered “a supportive and fertile environment in which queer theories could flourish” (Richardson 2012, p. 24). Postmodernism based its analysis on the notion of a fractured, multifaceted reality that lacks cohesiveness, unity, and homogeneity, thus preceding the premise of constant flux upon which queer theory is based. Queer theory found one of its major starting points in post‐structuralism’s notion that sexuality is a socially produced discourse instead of a natural(ized) phenomenon/occurrence. This post‐structuralist approach is manifested most famously in Michel Foucault’s seminal The History of Sexuality: An Introduction, Volume I as it gained currency in English translation within the US academy in 1978. In this text, Foucault (1978/1990) dismantles sex and sexuality as somewhat random social constructions, shaped by a power that in turn operates from the bottom up from multiple nodes in a non‐hierarchized system. For as much as this power is in flux, it produced the equally shifting and fluctuating discourse of (homo)sexuality and sex



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(Foucault 1978/1990). These discourses of power, sex, and sexuality mark one of the major starting points of queer theory itself. Queer theory, however, as much as it: may now be recognised by many as an academic discipline, it nevertheless continues to struggle against the straitjacketing effects of institutionalisation, to resist closure and remain in the business of ambiguous (un)becoming. Queer theory does not want to “straighten up and fly right” to have the kinks ironed out of it: it is a discipline that refuses to be disciplined, a discipline with a difference, with a twist if you like. (Sullivan 2003, p. v)

One of queer theory’s key components is that it is constantly in flux but, perhaps more importantly, queer theory also accounts for sexuality’s and sexual identity’s potential to be in flux as well. It opposes the assumed stagnation, hence unchanging stability, of identities, identity categories, and sexualities. It then asks on what disavowals and exclusions this stability and stagnation rely, and what purpose identity categories serve in the first place. Sedgwick’s Epistemology of the Closet (1990) – which, next to the English translation of Michel Foucault’s History of Sexuality, Volume I (1978/1990) can be conceived of as one of the founding texts of queer theory – argues that the act of crossing genders “in role playing and identification” poses, for her, an end to the analytic power of feminism and demands a new theory that separates sexuality, in particular homosexuality, from gender: queer theory (Sedgwick 1990, pp. 37–38). Sedgwick terms this act of gender crossing as “trans‐gender” (1990, pp. 37–38). Transgender theorists have perceived Sedgwick’s ushering in of this new theory as an exploitation of the term transgender since only by evoking the figure of transgender as the signifier of these crossings can the needed “overlap or cross‐gendered identification between gay men and lesbians – an identification made critically necessary by the AIDS crisis” be achieved to bring about queer theory (1990, pp. 37–38).1

Critical Queering Emerging from queerness as a sexual and gender identity, the practice of “critical queering” arguably constitutes queer theory’s main methodology. This practice can be understood as a critical mode of the deconstruction of patriarchal, heteronormative, neoliberal late capitalism. This mode includes static dichotomies of heterosexuality and homosexuality, male and female sex, and masculine and feminine gender. Queering, as this deconstructive practice, has critiqued and reconceptualized concepts such as race, temporality, space, and disability, to name a few. The practice of queering has evolved a great deal over the last two decades. For this reason, this chapter will offer a partial, and by no means exhaustive overview, of key concepts that have undergone the practice of queering. Instead of seeking to eradicate the category of gender altogether, as materialist feminists have done,2 queer theory’s aim is to destabilize, subvert, and critique gender and, by doing so, to open up the gender binary of woman and man into multiple genders that can in themselves be in constant flux. Inherent in this endeavor is an opening up of the category of gender by severing the link between (i) female sex,

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feminine gender/woman, and heterosexual attraction and (ii) the opposite link consisting of male sex, masculine gender, and heterosexual desire for female sexed women (Martin 1998). While this severing of the link between sex, gender, and sexuality/sexual orientation seems to be similar to the severing act performed by embodied transgender such as trans womanhood, especially when the body has fully transitioned physically to the female sex, this act of severance in the latter case is marked by a stable gendered embodiment. In other words, in many cases trans womanhood, when fully developed in its embodiment, remains stable, thus is a lasting act of cutting ties between male gender, male sex, and heterosexual orientation. This last, heterosexual, orientation is where the objects of desire were supposed to be cis women, a link that society has imposed on trans women’s body at birth. Queer theory’s act of severing these links is instead marked by “fluidity, instability, and fragmentation of identities and a plurality of gendered subject positions” (Richardson 2012, p. 22). Queer theory sees sexuality as its designated field of theoretical investigation, and second‐wave feminism’s focus, in contrast, as being on the analysis of gender as it is tied to sex, while foregrounding the study of gender (Richardson 2012). Sex and sexuality are conceived of as discourses produced in and by historically specific power formations in the Foucauldian sense. These are power configurations that shift and are constantly in flux, work from the bottom up (Foucault 1978/1990, pp. 37–38), permeate everyone and everything, and get strengthened by resistance as they incorporate this resistance and those who resist. These power formations produce not only sex, itself a random array of body parts and functions grouped together, but also desire and what is even conceivable and made intelligible of being desirable (Foucault 1978/1990). Other key concepts within queer theory are queer time and queer place. A formative aspect of queer time derives from the HIV/AIDS crisis that shook the gay community in the US in the 1980s. Here, queer temporality arose as compressed time, erotically oddly alluring in the face of death, in the face of a vanishing future with a heightened emphasis on the here and now. Out of the latter, all possible temporality needed to be made accessible and useable (Halberstam 2005). Queer time is devoid of futurity and longevity, of heteronormative life schedules; it is intensely focused on the present, eroticized by one’s own mortality and sexual desire felt in the present instance. Queer time in the light of the HIV/AIDS crisis then is, in a modernist and postmodernist sense, marked by transience, contingency, and fleetingness. Inherent in this temporality is, simultaneously, “the potentiality” of a life not structured by heteronormative life schedules but instead by compression of time and impending annihilation (Halberstam 2005, p. 2). The concept of queer space, on the other hand, has been understood as space being inscribed by “place‐making practices within post‐modernism in which queer people engage.” Halberstam notes that queer space “also describes the new understandings of space enabled by the production of queer counterpublics” (2005, p. 6). As this space is shaped by the logics and organization of “new forms of cultural production that emerge both in sync with and running counter to the ‘logic’ of late capitalism, it throws into ‘crisis’ the stability of form and meaning” and provides “an opportunity to rethink the practice of cultural production, its hierarchies and power dynamics, its tendency to resist and capitulate” (Halberstam 2005, p. 6). Halberstam,



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quoting Delany (1999), notes that queer space thus functions as a countercultural opposition to heteronormative culture and temporality in the sex cinemas that existed on New York’s Time Square until the first half of the 1990s. These functioned as meeting places for sexual encounters between gay men of all races and classes (Halberstam 2005, pp. 12–15). These spaces then were shaped by queer engagements and temporalities, as the sexual encounters between these diverse men were modes of fleeting, contingent alliances, opposing sex as a mode of reproduction, leading to temporalities of heteronormative family schedules/time consisting, among other things, of the organizational motto “early to bed, early to rise.” Instead, these queer spaces are shaped by the focus on the sexual pleasure to be gained from the here, the now, the moment. In addition to queer time and space, Halberstam identifies the concept of the queer art of failure, which he defines as a set of acts, manifesting among other things in passivity and acquiescence, which oppose the capitalist order by slowing its production process down. Halberstam bases this reading on Scott Sandage’s insight that overall failure always already rests on hidden weaknesses in order to produce winners who in turn generate wealth (2005). This allows Halberstam to define the queer art of failure as an anti‐capitalist and queer struggle, as an “anticolonial struggle, the refusal of legibility, and an art of unbecoming” (2011, p. 88). According to Halberstam, “the queer art of failure turns on the impossible, the improbable, the unlikely, and the unremarkable” as “it quietly loses, and in losing it imagines other goals for life, for love, for art, and for being” (2011, p. 88). Queer failure then becomes, guided by losing and loss, an alternative, decolonizing, anti‐capitalist roadmap for all aspects of private and public life. The queer art of failure, functioning as a weapon then, can be employed “to recategorize what looks like inaction, passivity, and lack of resistance in terms of the practice of stalling the business of the dominant” (Halberstam 2011, p. 88). It is an active mode of destructive and deconstructive passivity, a mode of intentional opting out and thereby opting into different modes of life, opposing the logics and rulings of capitalism.3 Similar to Halberstam, when evoking a queer utopia, Muñoz engages queer time, and more specifically a queer approach to the past, present, and future that counters heteronormative life schedules. Muñoz conceives of a queer utopia as not yet here, as not in the here and now, and thus as residing in the realm of futurity. This utopia can be glimpsed by reimagining and reconsidering the past in order to be able to gain queer insights with which to critique the present. This reconsideration can then also illuminate queer practices in the present and the past while prefiguring the hopeful utopia on the horizon of futurity (Muñoz 2009, p. 16). Borrowing the concept from German philosopher Erich Bloch, Muñoz employs the concept of hope as lurking in acts and aesthetics of pieces of art from the past and in the present as queer rays of illuminating light, foreshadowing the potentiality of a queer future that is and can be utopian. Hope, then propels queer utopia and counters the hopelessness of the here and now and of heteronormative oppressive structures (Muñoz 2009, pp. 169–173). According to Muñoz, “utopia’s rejection of pragmatism is often related to failure. And, indeed, most profoundly, utopianism represents the failure to be normal” (2009, p. 172).

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We would be remiss if we did not include a discussion of the important insights of queer of color critique – conceived of as a reconceptualization of a historical materialist analysis. Queer of color critique presumes that capitalism and liberalism, as well as its revolutionary counterforces such as Marxism, produce and reproduce and rely on ­heteropatriarchy, that is, on an ideology relying on heteronormativity and naturalized gendered labor divisions. For these theorists, however, civilization also relies on its other, its underbelly without which it could not exist: poverty, sexual deviance, and chaos. Queer of color critique’s project, then, is to identify these silences and transparencies, reveal them, and rewrite them. The method employed by queer of color critique for such subversions is “disidentification” in the way that Jose Esteban Muñoz has conceptualized it. He writes, “disidentification is the hermeneutical performance of decoding mass, high, or any other cultural field from the perspective of a minority subject who is disempowered in such a representational hierarchy” (1999, p. 25). These acts of decoding come from within the positionality of the minority subject, thus precisely not from an outside perspective looking in and are a product of that subject, for example “the queer of color subject’s historicity” (Ferguson 2013, p. 122). To disidentify with the silences of historical materialism means to disidentify with its unspoken (though seemingly transparent) heteropatriarchy that has been constructed upon the exclusions of intersectionalities produced by race, gender, sex and sexuality, or “sexual practices” (Ferguson 2013, p. 122). Disidentification here means reusing and thinking anew about encoded meanings and employing the code of the masses. In this way, social formations produced by capitalism such as heteropartriarchies are produced through the production of an other: the prostitute, and in particular the Black drag queen prostitute. The drag queen prostitute offers the queer of color critique, after this critique has revealed her as a silenced positionality within materialist historical analysis, the revelation of her truly revolutionary potential in formulating a critique of capitalism, and in particular of late consumer capitalism. For her gendering, racialization, and sexualization produce each other in as much as they are simultaneously produced by capitalism and defy capitalism. These key concepts within queer theory, then, all have the aim to deconstruct static dichotomies of self and other, homosexual and heterosexual, male/female and female/feminine sex/gender – among others – by bringing them into flux, and thus by reconceptualizing them.

Transgender Theory Transgender theory, as part of the broader field of transgender studies, entered the scene as a response to the HIV/AIDS crisis. According to transgender historian Susan Stryker, “one influential interpretation of queer studies’ appearance in the United States in the late 1980s and early 1990s is that the AIDS crisis necessitated a profound rethinking of the relationship between sexuality, identity, and the public sphere” (2006, p. 7). Forced to counter the homophobic labeling of the HIV/AIDS crisis as a gay disease, queer theory took to a “post‐identitarian sexual politics” and theorization that affirmed multiply gendered and sexed bodies (Stryker and Whittle 2006, p. 7). Here queer theory forged alliances with other affected groups such as “African refugees in Europe, Haitians in the United States, hemophiliacs, and injection users” as well as with transgender people (Stryker and Whittle 2006, p. 7). As



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the queer movement countered “‘heteronormative’ social oppression” while radically altering the gay rights movement, it allowed transgender people “to make compelling claims, that they, too, had political grievances against an oppressive heteronormative regime” (Stryker and Whittle 2006, p. 7). These developments shaped transgender theory and studies politically as well as intellectually. The genealogical link between queer theory and transgender studies, however, has not been without friction and their interrelated coexistence has been problematic (Stryker and Whittle 2006). Transgender theorist Jay Prosser, for example, accuses founding queer theorists works of having exploited the transgender body from the start for the purposes of developing queer theory. He accuses Judith Butler, for example, of conceiving of gender as always already fluid, as performative, hence as being socially constructable and playful. He sees Butler’s characterization as a game that defies the reality of stable genders corresponding to stable sexes that many transsexuals wish to embody and that are oftentimes akin to heteronormative masculinity or femininity (1998, pp. 21–61). The transgendered body puts Butler’s argument to a test. These embodiments often require sex reassignment surgery and hormone treatments, and therefore represent stable and lasting body modifications that are neither in flux nor contingent. In this way, Butler’s queer postmodernist theory could not really make sense of, for example, the embodiment of transgender women. One of the seminal texts of transgender theory, Sandy Stone’s (1992) “A Posttranssexual Manifesto,” confronts the lack of feminist understanding to make sense of transsexual and transgendered embodiment. Stone countered transexclusionary notions of radical lesbian feminists of the second wave, such as Janice Raymond (1979), who argues that transsexuals suffer from a false consciousness. Instead of overthrowing the oppressive gender system /gender binary altogether, according to Raymond, transsexuals had these notions internalized and mutilated their bodies due to the internalization of one of the two genders of the binary, either man or woman. Presenting to the world as woman, when being a man, for example, was a farce, as Raymond conceives of them as “really being men.” Hence, Raymond argues for an exclusion of trans women out of the category of woman. By theorizing the concrete realities, implications, meaning, and significances of changing sex, Sandy Stone sought to counter these transphobic strands of the second wave of feminism. Stone’s aim was thus to generate a new body of creative and intellectual work (Stryker and Whittle 2006). The inclusion of trans women into the category of woman, then, has been, as is currently the case with transfeminist theory, much of the work of the early transgender theory. Stryker sees this exclusion of trans women from the category of woman as a line of continuity of exclusion, as women of color and working‐class women had also been excluded within second‐wave feminism. Transgender theory/studies were brought about not only by feminism and queer theory/studies, but also, according to Stryker, in response to broad historical‐political changes. The world that had been organized as a dichotomy of East–West was eradicated with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the opening of the Berlin Wall, and the disintegration of the German Democratic Republic. New countries – and new materialities in the form of borders – formed, eradicating and exploding this East– West dichotomy for good. Chaos erupted, with a flow of migrations and restructuring of countries and ideologies marking the years between 1989 and 2001. This created an entry point for queer theory to at least destabilize and challenge, if not to

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seek to eradicate, the heteronormative gender binary. As “sex/gender systems, like other cultural constructs deformed and reformed in tandem with new material circumstances,” transgender theory and transgender studies more broadly “called into question that entire epistemological framework, and conceived of gender as yet another global system within which a great many diverse and specific human beings were produced, enmeshed, and modified along multiple axes of signification” (Stryker and Whittle 2006, p. 8). Transgender theory and studies deconstructed this framework by severing stable links between sex, gender, and sexuality that denaturalized the female sex as always already being tied to feminine gender, and as being tied to heterosexual or lesbian sexual orientation, and the male sex as being tied to masculinity and heterosexual or homosexual identity. In place of the existing framework, transgender theory introduced women with commonly perceived male sex organs desiring men or women or both or other non‐binary genders, among other gendered and sexed embodiments. This perception of the collapse of binaries in a new, diverse, and non‐binary world order was heightened by the sense of the fin de siècle of the twentieth century in which trans bodies became a signifier of the collapse of divisions in terms of gender and organization of the world order that had dominated the second half of the twentieth century and also became a signifier of the postmodern state of being (Stryker and Whittle 2006, p. 8). Transgender theory/studies has brought about a completely different approach to the study of gender, sex, sexuality, desire, etc., as they severed the seemingly stable link between sex and gender and sexual orientation. Transgender theory has given rise to the intelligibility of trans embodiments and lives and has brought about a myriad of new embodiments. It has analyzed its interrelations with feminist theory and queer theory as well as lesbian and gay theories and more generally studies of these various fields. Transgender studies and theory, as with any kind of interdisciplinary work, provides insights into how difference in terms of embodiment is produced as marginal, as not normal, as sick, as marginalized, and as minoritized by the naturalized norms that society produces and imposes, thereby simultaneously creating a normalized majority (Stryker and Whittle 2006).

Transgender Theory and Gender Fluidity Within transgender theory, according to Stryker, “transgender phenomena invite queer studies, and gay and lesbian communities, to take another look at the many ways bodies, identities, and desires can be interwoven” (Stryker and Whittle 2006, p. 8). Transgender theory takes up queer theory’s fluidity with which it mismatches the links between male sex and masculine gender, as well as female sex and femininity upon which the heteronormative gender order operates without assuming the constant flux queer theory presupposes. Transgender theory also makes feminist theory reconsider the intersections of bodies, identities, and desires, since transgender theory severs the normalized link between the female sex and feminine gender whereby both sex and gender are equated with being oppressed by patriarchal rule. One of the igniting discussions in transgender theory is the controversy and critique that Butler’s Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990) has sparked. Many scholars, including, most prominently, transsexual scholar Jay



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Prosser in Second Skins (1998), have accused Butler of having erased sex as a stable corporeal entity by arguing that gender – itself performative and variably producible through series of reiterations of acts  –  in turn produces sex. In this reading, sex becomes a variable to be inscribed in many different ways. In Prosser’s critique of Butler a fluid and variable gender produces an at least equally variable sex, thereby allowing for a reading such as Sedgwick’s in which gender collapses into queer and both fall into a subversive space. Prosser takes issue with Sedgwick’s claim that Gender Trouble has a “productive impact” on the recent development of queer theory. In an essay in the first issue of GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, Sedgwick (1993b) bases this claim on the invocation of Gender Trouble by scholar after scholar at the 1991 conference on gay and lesbian studies at Rutgers University. According to Prosser, this claim accepts the premise of Butler’s argument that gender is performative, that the transsexual physically changing sex and gender is merely a contingent performance, or rather the effect produced by performative acts. The stability and permanence of this change that accompanies many transsexual’s sex/gender changes is not taken into account; instead, this permanency gets reduced to a mere effect. The reduction undertaken by Butler informed and shaped the budding discourse of queer theory on the cusp of the 1990s. Sedgwick’s reading, then, gets metaphorically expressed in the “trouble” of Gender Trouble, making the monograph in Sedgwick’s and other queer theorists’ readings one of the foundational, key works marking the ascent of queer theory in its beginning: 1990, the publication date of Gender Trouble. For Prosser, the equation of gender, queer, and subversive that was deduced from Gender Trouble formed a new dichotomy that endowed queer theory with deconstructive power and saw it as superior to feminist accounts. This dichotomy, however, derived from the heteronormative dichotomy of male/man, female/woman that conceived of sex as a (however naturalized) biological given that inevitably brought about two stable genders and left the latter heteronormative category intact. For Prosser, the transsexual body, transitioning from one gender and sex to the other gender and sex, poses an end to the explanatory power of how gender and sex truly come into being. The transsexual body in transition demands that its sex be changed, that is, be malleable, in most cases only once. Sex, then, becomes something of a stable corporeal entity to permanently arrive at – and so does gender. Moreover, the intention and meaning fueling this transition, this change in sex and gender, are in most cases of transsexuality/transsexual embodiment neither variably fluid nor subversive. This is the case if a body that had been assigned the female sex and feminine gender at birth transitions to heteronormative maleness and masculinity. This transsexual body, according to Prosser, also invites and elicits a second reading of Gender Trouble among queer theorists: Butler’s arguing in Gender Trouble that gender is performative causes the significance/meaning of gender to become flattened to mere theatricality. This flattening effect, in turn, denies the often deep‐ seated urge to undergo a permanent physical/biological and social change from one sex to the other. What Prosser does not account for in his argument are other bodies in transition: bodies transitioning between femaleness/femininity and maleness/masculinity multiple times, bodies transitioning without undergoing hormone therapy (as Prosser has

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done) and sex reassignment surgery, bodies inhabiting in this process new, unintelligible genders that surpass any dichotomy. It is in this shortcoming of his argument that yields, according to Gayle Salamon, a misreading on Prosser’s end of Butler’s Gender Trouble: for instead of erasing sex as a corporeal manifestation that is in its form stable and permanent, Butler widens the heteronormative conception of sex by revealing that sex can assume more than two binary sets of corporeal sex organs by, for example, endowing a dildo in the act of desiring and lovemaking with libidinal energy and thus making it part of one’s body. Butler, then, does not negate Prosser’s conception of sex. Her project, however, is to explain how an array of non‐normative genders can produce new variable sexes outside and inside a temporality determined by corporeal permanence (Salamon 2010). Another of the key debates in transgender theory is whether or not to open up the category of the human of the human rights framework to include transgender individuals into it so the label human can make their embodiments, hence their genders and their lives and realities, intelligible to their wider communities. Judith Butler, herself arguably writing queer and transgender theory, makes this argument in Undoing Gender (2004) – an argument that marks a shift in her work, as she contended in Gender Trouble that gender is performative and socially constructed, hence inherently fluid, deconstructable, and thus reconstructable. Scholars have remarked about this shift that a stable category such as the human of human rights, itself a category imbued with European imperialism and racism, has relied on exclusions of minorities such as the transgender individual. This shift is perceived as inherently restrictive and dangerous to gender multiplicity and fluidity because it naturalizes in its man‐made stableness new genders, sexes, and sexualities. This is a consequence Butler set out to reveal and deconstruct in Gender Trouble (Halberstam 2012). Opponents to the argument that Butler proposed in Undoing Gender are Jack Halberstam and Jean Bobby Noble, who argue that leaving transgendered embodiment as unintelligible to the wider community and inhabiting an outsider position in this embodiment allows for an outsider position from which to threaten, challenge, and have the potential to subvert, deconstruct, and revolutionize the heteronormative gender and sex dichotomy of man/male and woman/female by revealing this binary as man‐made and contingent (Halberstam 2006). Julia Serano’s novel approaches to sex and gender manifest the last concepts I want to focus on in this overview. She deconstructs (thereby severing) the naturalized bond between female sex and feminine gender and the association of both with oppression in a heteropatriarchal system upon which much of the first and second waves of feminism relied. Serano defies the notion that gender and sex are socially constructed as much as the notion that there exist only two sexes, male and female, that correspond only to two genders, feminine and masculine. Following Foucault’s conception of sex, Serano conceives of his concept as a random grouping of several bodily organs and functions with sex as an umbrella category. Hormone levels, genitals, and secondary sex organs such as breasts fall under this category as much as endocrinology. Not only are there a number of differently formed sex organs exceeding the dichotomy of vagina and penis, but Serano also shows that hormone levels and endocrinological makeup occur on a spectrum and vary from individual to individual. Moreover, Serano reveals that the meaning attached to one’s sex is socially constructed, as it is a random grouping



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whose functions vary from person to person (Serano 2016). These new approaches to sex and gender have also led Serano to develop a new perspective on femininity written from the perspective of a trans woman that emphasizes the power inherent in femininity. This power, in turn, is the reason why this gender gets devalued and regulated by men/masculinity. Serano’s revaluing of femininity informs the reworked category at the heart of transfeminism.

Transfeminism Transfeminism is arguably the newest and most productive strand of feminism in today’s North American academy. Emerging from the intersections of queer theory/ studies, transgender theory/studies, and the need to reconceptualize feminisms that are perceived to have reached a deadlock (Noble 2012), transfeminism can be conceived of as the love child of the uneasy union (and, at times, coexistence) of queer theory and transgender studies. Transfeminism is a child raised to stop what Noble calls the “hauntings of feminism” by its excluded members: trans people and, especially, trans women. The potential for this new feminism has been building over the last decade and has been advanced by stronger definitions of what transfeminism is, delineating the influences and “foremothers” of second‐wave feminism. Transfeminism started to form as a discourse written by transgender and feminist scholars in the US and Canada (Enke 2012; Halberstam 2006, 2012; Noble 2012; Salamon 2010; Serano 2013, 2016; among others) around 2006 and continues developing to this day. According to the above listed scholars, transfeminism is akin to intersectional feminism in the way it accounts for marginalized and oppressed positionalities of interlocking oppressive structures such as racism, classism, homophobia, transphobia, gender discrimination, etc. Yet, transfeminism complicates this discourse by expanding the category of gender, distancing it from the radical lesbian feminists’ demand to annihilate gender as shaped by the heteronormative gender order/binary/dichotomy. To make things more complex, transfeminism moves away from the fluidity of gender that queer theory has highlighted time and again. At the core of transfeminism’s understanding of gender lies a radical opening up of the category of gender (Enke 2012), a true transing of the category (Noble 2012), and a positive reinscription of specific gender categories such as the gender category of woman. The gender conception at the core of transfeminism, next to its intersectional nature, makes this feminism inclusive of all genders, including ones arising from the demand to annihilate the normative binary heterosexual gender of femininity and masculinity. Transfeminists have also pointed out that Black feminist thought and the concept of intersectionality have shaped transfeminist and transnational transfeminist analysis and practice (Stryker and Boettcher 2016). Audre Lorde’s approach to intersectionality, for example, proves to be a fruitful genealogical influence on the budding feminist discourse of transfeminism.4 Lorde conceives of intersectionality as true differences between women arising from different intersecting oppressions due to race, class, sexual orientation, and age (Lorde 1982, 1984/2007). She sees the clashes between women resulting from those differences, especially from the differences arising from race, as the opportunity to listen to those differences, to learn

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about different tools and weapons with which to survive and combat white supremacy and patriarchy while understanding that the latter two oppressors will manifest differently across time and space, across race, class, and different generations. For Lorde, these differences allow feminists to use them creatively, and, for her, this creative use is the only way to propel a truly inclusive feminism forward through which feminists can gain the power to truly change, and recreate the world in such a way that they can live and thrive in it. Lorde’s concept of intersectionality also depends on and entails interdependence among women, which Lorde sees as a liberating strategy that truly frees women. Interdependence creates a collective power that unites women without mistaking this unity as homogeneity. What transfeminism takes from Lorde’s concept of intersectionality is its emphasis on community built upon the recognition and use of true differences and the power that mutual dependence on each other brings about. Lorde’s concept of intersectionality, then, is congruent with the goals that trans and transnational transfeminism pursue. Lorde’s use of the erotic has additionally begun to shape transfeminist thought. Lorde conceives of the erotic as a deep inner space, a reservoir that every woman (actually, every oppressed minority) carries within themselves. Inherent in this reservoir are our most inner desires and passions, our drives that have been repressed by heteronormative patriarchy and white supremacy. If woman, or, more generally, the repressed minority, accesses this space within themselves, a source of immense power is tapped, as the accessed erotic now can function as an inner guide to live one’s life according to one’s desires, drives, and passions. This provides a guide on how to resist patriarchal repressions and expected life/gender trajectories. When accessed, the erotic will also fill a person’s body and life with a holistic joy that can fill them when making love to a beloved other, or when building a bookshelf, or writing a scholarly or literary piece. If this holistic joy does not fill us, we know that something in our life is less than it should be, since our accessed reservoir enables us to demand this sense of joy permanently. The accessed erotics, then, and the potential for this permanent holistic joy manifest power to create a world in which women and oppressed minorities want to live. Transfeminist scholars have begun to claim this power inherent in the uses of the erotic for transfeminism, as they can pave the way to new kinds of womanhood and manhood, such as men who still enjoy having their period (Chavez 2016), and women with “ladysticks.” These genders, then, are equally valid as heteronormative femininity and masculinity, as they derive from the exercised erotics and are a result of and simultaneously a cause of holistic joy. Scholars have begun to point to the need to lift this feminism to the global level. Take, for instance, Vic Muñoz’s (2012) insistence on bringing to light colonial histories of space. Muñoz conceives of language and gender as space next to actual geographical spaces. He argues that the uncovering of these colonial histories reveals hidden, oftentimes national boundaries that are in need of being transed – that is, deconstructed. Muñoz’s emphasis on deconstructing these boundaries implies the necessity for a global feminism that is capable of performing this task of transing. According to Jean Bobby Noble (2012), trans, as a prefix, signifies identities and gendered embodiments and the act of transing implies “critical crossings and mobilities of previously categorically fixed territories” (Noble 2012, p. 46). This positive reinscription is born out of the desire for the gender that is felt as deeply embodied



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by trans woman scholar and activist Julia Serano. Overall, the terms trans and transing reveal the socially constructed nature of categories and histories that can be reconceptualized in radically different ways. They show the artificiality of seemingly natural boundaries and boundedness, thereby bringing to light the power to create new social overlays in which trans subjectivities write new histories and speak new truths. Hence, the “trans” within transfeminism figures as a mode of inquiry that lends itself to deconstructing bounded social categories such as gender, thereby radically widening them.5 The existing discourse on transfeminism can be roughly marked by two anthologies bookending a decade of transfeminist scholarship that has arisen out of the North American academy. The first anthology, published in 2006 and entitled Trans/ Forming Feminisms: Transfeminist Voices Speak Out (Scott‐Dixon 2006), attempts to bring together transgender studies and feminisms by focusing on structural systems of gender and sex and their implications for identities, specifically trans identities. The main focus of Trans/Forming Feminisms: Transfeminist Voices Speak Out is to develop the theory and language to account for gender diversity, including the use of correct pronouns. The collection also addresses the wish of some trans individuals to embody the “opposite” gender – male or female – that does not match up with their sex assigned at birth. Hence, the volume accounts for specific (trans)gendered embodiments. It presents one of the first direct challenges6 to the transphobic works of radical lesbian feminists of the second wave such as Janice Raymond’s (1979) The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She‐Male, which argues that trans women have colonized and suppressed cis women, infiltrating the feminist movement and infusing it with their male dominance. Displaying (at least from today’s perspective) a rather rudimentary focus on language, as well as performing for one of the first times an early move away from medicalized and sexological understandings of trans in the North American academy,7 this volume focuses on the diversity of trans embodiments and identities. Trans embodiments and identities do not always involve surgical gender reassignments and/or hormone treatments but incorporate diverse gender identifications that supersede the gender binary of male and female, masculinity and femininity. Trans/ Forming Feminisms: Transfeminist Voices Speak Out arrives at the first delineation of what transfeminism arguably defines: transfeminist analysis that focuses on the implications of gendered embodiments and the radical opening up of the category of gender so it includes gender fluid, transgendered, and heteronormatively gendered individuals (Noble 2012, p. 50). The second anthology marking the end of the first decade of transfeminist scholarship emanating from the North American academy is Anne Enke’s (2012) Transfeminist Perspectives in and beyond Transgender and Gender Studies. Transfeminist Perspectives conceptualizes transfeminism similarly to Trans/Forming Feminisms: Transfeminist Voices Speak Out. Here we find the key concepts of transfeminisms, which I will discuss at the beginning of the section “Transfeminism and Borderlands.” For the purposes of a coherent reading experience, I will discuss the genealogy of concepts within the theoretical currents portrayed in this entry in reverse order of this current section, starting out with transfeminist theory, continuing with transgender theory, and ending with queer theory. As a discourse, transfeminism is only 12 years old. During this time frame, however, the following key

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arguments and concepts have emerged: transfeminism argues for putting the body back into feminism, for a radical opening up of the categories of gender and woman (Noble 2007, p. 50) so feminism can fight for the equality of all genders, of cis‐gendered women8 as well as trans women. At the core of Enke’s (2012) volume Transfeminist Perspectives in and beyond Transgender and Gender Studies lies this radical widening of the category of gender (Enke 2012; Noble 2012) and of woman in particular (Noble 2012; Serano 2013, 2016). It is in this volume that Jean Bobby Noble contemplates the intersections of the “trans” of transgender, and the “trans” of transnational, though he does not theorize possible outcomes. Moreover, Noble’s conceptualization of transfeminism consists of implicit transnational elements, thus offering a new theory, though he does not explicitly examine these elements. In noting that transfeminism necessitates dissolving the identity suffix “‐national” by transing it, Noble implicitly suggests a transnational implication. For if one transes the category of nation within transfeminism, one technically opens a transnational frame within which this new feminism ought to be situated. Another such key contribution to the collection is Dean Spade’s implicit transnational transfeminist theorization of trans as embedded in global neoliberal structures. This imbrication, according to Spade, makes it necessary for transfeminist activism to move away from making use of a rights framework and to instead focus on local communities’ specific needs and opportunities in order to bring about transfeminist change.

Transfeminism and Borderlands Notably, the notion of borderland, developed by Latina, lesbian feminist thinker and poet Gloria Anzaldúa, has influenced transfeminism and some of its major thinkers such as Muñoz. As mentioned in the section “Historical Context,” Anzaldúa was one of the lesbian feminist thinkers of color and working‐class women who had also been excluded within second‐wave feminism. Anzaldúa defines borderland as “a vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary” and as being “in a constant state of transition” (1987/1999, p. 25). It is a geographic land space split by a man‐made border, a frontera that divides it, as much as it is a space inherent in the people who inhabit or once inhabited that space. This outer and internalized borderland is thus the creation/result of boundaries that traverse and enclose it. Anzaldúa conceives of frontera/border as a “dividing line, a narrow strip along a steep edge” that is “set up to define the places that are safe and unsafe, to distinguish us from them” (1987/1999, p. 25). Inhabitants of the borderland are perceived to be the opposite to normal, they are othered, prohibited, pushed to the margins, for, according to Anzaldúa, “los atravesados live here: the squint‐eyed, the perverse, the queer, the troublesome, the mongrel, the mulato, the half‐breed, the half‐dead; in short, those who cross over, pass over, or go through the confines of the ‘normal’” (1987/1999, p. 25). Multiple languages, cultures, mindsets/consciousnesses shape this latter space as they cross over and fuse as much as the internalized outer frontera divides them. Anzaldua terms this culture as a “shock culture, a border culture, a third country” (1987/1999, p. 33).



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The influence that Anzaldúa’s conceptualization of borderland and its attenuating fronteras/borders has had on transfeminism and transfeminist thinkers like Vic Muñoz is the importance of the history of the land. In this conceptualization, the respective land with its inherent past that transfeminists write, think, theorize, live and work on has inspired transfeminist theory and thus has created tools aimed at eradicating the negative effects of borders/fronteras. Vic Muñoz’s contribution to Transfeminist Perspectives in and beyond Transgender and Gender Studies, entitled “Gender/Sovereignty,” revolves solely around the conceptualization of what could be termed a transnational transfeminism, although, like Spade and Noble’s work, it also leaves the transnational element unnamed. Muñoz’s conception of transfeminism figures as a decolonizing project that is deeply linked to the neglected histories of geographical space, to space created in language, as well as to race, class, and sexuality. The key component of this feminism is Muñoz’s use of transing as a pedagogical tool: “Transing pedagogy,” for Muñoz, “is grounded in a struggle for decolonization and transformation that starts by remembering where” he is situated (2012, p. 24). This act of remembering involves “critical reflection” (Muñoz 2012, p. 23) and, in turn, involves accessing one’s memory to discover truths different from the ones being taught in colonial contexts. This creates tension, unsettlement, and borders/fronteras,9 where competing knowledges and everlasting conflicts arise10 because radically differing realities intersect while contradicting each other interminably (Muñoz 2012, p.  29). However, these points of contention simultaneously create messy, multifaceted, yet “whole” knowledges that are inclusive of all inconsistencies. In this context, gender becomes a borderland, “a way of being, that change[s] the paradigm of gender needing a cure and move[s] forward in new ways to consider what it means to recover from colonization” and simultaneously figures “as processes of psychological self‐determination within historical and cultural contexts” (Muñoz 2012, p. 32). Muñoz sees gender as “a site of colonization” (2012, p. 28). Gender conceived of as borderland constitutes mechanisms that produce new knowledges about it. Hence, gender creates its own competing, inconsistent, and subsequently freeing discourses. Transfeminism, in this definition, functions as a site where these mechanisms of decolonizing and uncovering of gendered knowledges can take place. These mechanisms, in turn, create discourses that run counter to colonizing Eurocentric narratives of gender and sexuality marked by racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, heterosexism, and so forth. Transfeminism indeed functions as this borderland in which access to whole knowledges becomes possible, yet conflicting knowledges on each border remain, forcing one to educate oneself and others continuously. Alongside these two anthologies that mark, in part, the beginning and the end of the first decade of the development of the discourse of transfeminism in the North American academy, the work of bisexual trans woman writer, spoken‐word performer, activist, biologist, and transfeminist theorist Julia Serano has also deeply shaped this conversation. Serano conceives of transfeminism as “transgender perspectives on feminism, or feminist perspectives on transgender issues” (2013, p. 44). For Serano, transfeminism thus results from a reciprocal process in which trans viewpoints inform and alter feminism, and, in turn, feminist analytical tools and methodologies reformulate trans perspectives.

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Serano’s mode of theorizing takes up global phenomena such as sexism, making clear that these phenomena show different manifestations in various local and temporal realms and arguing for the need to focus on a transnational scale on these local manifestations and workings “that … often converge with one another and other forms of oppression” (2013, p. 44). Her conception of transfeminism then negates the notion of one monolithic sexism in which all women are the oppressed, and all men figure as the oppressors. Rather, she sees transfeminism’s potential to oppose and combat multiple heterogeneous sexisms based on multiple genders and sexual orientations. Also important to note is Serano’s vision of a reconceptualized femininity. According to Serano, a novel, revaluing,11 trans woman perspective on femininity in locally differing manifestations needs to be introduced to audiences across the globe. Her transfeminism recognizes, focuses on, and encourages the usage of femininity as a powerful tool to combat traditional sexism as well as masculinism, by exposing the power that femininity holds. Femininity’s power is rooted in men’s fear of being associated with it (Serano 2016, pp. 315–317). Transfeminism’s focus on femininity, then, is a powerful tool to “change the world” (Serano 2016, p. 316).12

Conclusion and Future Research Questions In sum, we have seen what commonalities, differences, points of contention and misrepresentations governed the conversations between feminist and queer theory, once queer theory made it onto the historical stage decades after feminist theory in its contemporaneous form had begun to take off in the mid‐1960s with Betty Friedan’s book The Feminine Mystique (1963). Subsequently, we have traced how queer theory came about, and was influenced by, but also superseded feminist theory, and helped to give rise along with feminist theory to transgender theory and subsequently to transfeminist theory. Moreover, we have delineated an overview of the major concepts within all three theories, such as queer temporality in queer theory, competing understandings of sexed and gendered embodiment in transgender theory, and the influence and application of Black feminist thought concepts such as Lorde’s uses of the erotic and intersectionality to transfeminism. While this overview of historical context, key concepts, and discourses in transgender theory, transfeminist theory, and queer theory is by no means exhaustive, especially when it comes to the vast body of work that constitutes queer theory, in this section, I provide a preliminary outlook of future research questions in this ever‐ expanding field of inquiry. Though the following questions do not cover the myriad yet‐unexplored issues, they begin to trace the inquiries that will occupy transfeminist work in the future: ●●

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How does the act of queering not only gender, sex, and sexuality but also academic disciplines intersect with and diverge from the act of transing gender, sex, sexuality, as well as academic disciplines? What would trans (feminist) utopias, temporalities, and failures look like? How would they differ from and be similar to queer temporalities, utopias, and failures?



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What happens when the “trans” of transfeminism and the “trans” of transnational feminism intersect (Noble 2012, p. 57). In the context of this question, the prefix trans figures both as “spaces of movement across, through and beyond national affiliations and identifications” and as “the work of deconstruction” (Noble 2012, p. 56). What theories and concepts will make up a theoretical and epistemological premise for global transfeminism?

Notes 1 Transgender theorists have also accused Sedgwick of making the same move of crossing “gender lines, including the desires of men for women and of women for men” (Sedgwick 1990, p. 9) and therefore exploiting transgender in Tendencies (1993a) by reading this move as “a transgendered traversal that in its queering (skewing and unraveling) of apparently normative heterosexuality is simultaneously a movement across sexualities” (Prosser 1998, p. 23). Transgender in Prosser’s understanding is the opposite: it is a stable, gendered, and sexed embodiment that resists the static dichotomous order of heteronormative masculinity and femininity by desiring and realizing a gendered and sexed embodiment that might be the opposite gender of the one that one was assigned at birth. Thus, transgender in Prosser’s theorization functions as one specific stable move from one sex to the other and from one gender to the other, leaving one’s sexual orientation intact; it simultaneously involves stable gendered and sexed embodiment as well as stable sexual orientation inherent in this now “fixed” body. 2 Delphy (1984), Jackson (1999), Wittig (1981), and Wittig (1992). 3 Not unlike Halberstam, Muñoz conceives of queer failure as an intentional rejection and refusal to engage in normative values whereby these values manifest in heteronormative prescribed life and time schedules surrounding the reproduction within the family and thus the “early to bed, early to rise” productive schedule of raising kids, accumulation of goods, wealth, and inheritance as well as marriage. These values form a structure in which queer subjects and their sexual object choices oftentimes fail to conform as they abide to different time schedules arising out of different patterns of desire and consumption which are not structured by the logics of reproduction that are always already capitalist (Muñoz 2009, pp. 171–173). 4 Ute Bettray, Towards a Transnational Trans Feminism. Book manuscript. 5 Within their conceptions of transfeminism, trans women scholars like Julia Serano argue for a reconceptualization of femininity as something positive, something innately wished for, and something diverse. They propose a positive revaluation of femininity being informed by the enthusiastic yearning for it by trans women. This reconception goes against the discarding of this femininity by patriarchy but also by radical lesbian feminists of the second wave who believe that the gender binary of masculinity and femininity should be abolished and replaced by new genders with no genealogical connection to the former two (Serano 2016, pp. 315–317). These scholars stress that this reconceptualized femininity needs to be taken out of the hands of these second‐wave lesbian feminists and patriarchs (Serano 2016, pp. 315–317). Moreover, transgender and feminist scholars writing transfeminism mobilize against the exclusion of trans women by radical lesbian feminists such as in Janice G. Raymond’s The Transsexual Empire (1979) and Sheila Jeffreys’ Gender Hurts: A Feminist Analysis of the Politics of Transgenderism (2014). This exclusion has taken place for the last 50 years.

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  6 Next to Jack Halberstam’s Female Masculinity (1998), Joanne Meyerowitz’s How Sex Changed: The History of Transsexuality in the United States (2002), and Stryker and Whittle’s The Transgender Studies Reader (2006).   7 Though some people, such as trans women writing autobiographies, had moved away from medicalized/sexologized understandings of trans before (e.g. Jan Morris’ Conundrum (1974)).   8 According to Enke, “the neologism ‘cisgender’ has long been associated with a kind of stasis, based on the Latin root ‘cis‐,’ which prefixes things that stay put or do not change property” (Enke 2012, p. 60). Cis‐gendered then signifies biological maleness and femaleness as well as masculinity and femininity.  9 Frontera is a term coined by Gloria E. Anzaldúa in her semi‐autobiographical book Borderlands/Frontera: The New Mestiza (1987). Anzaldúa conceives of frontera as a border that is not visible and occurs between different identity groups such as men and women, Latinos and non‐Latinos, gay and straight people, etc. 10 The impetus for this transgender theory marks an exclusion of post‐op trans woman, Nancy Jean Burkholder, from the traditional lesbian feminist Michigan Women’s Music festival in 1992 based on the claim that she was not really a woman but a man, reiterating the transphobic claim of radical lesbian feminists such as Raymond claiming that trans women were really men trying to undermine the feminist/women’s movement. 11 Transfeminism, according to Serano, counters the second‐wave feminist movement’s attitude toward femininity. This attitude rendered it, according to Serano, as antagonistic to feminism, as something outside of it. Serano sees in this approach to feminism a devaluation of it that is a result of traditional sexism making its way into the feminist movement. She explains this attitude with the fact that a lot of women in the movement did not identify with feminine gender expressions because they were themselves extraordinarily gendered or linked femininity as a deranged outcome with traditional sexism with which they disassociated themselves. Serano compares this to the lesbian feminists’ approach to heterosexual feminists who they saw as lesser for “fucking with the oppressor” (Serano 2016, p. 338). 12 Similar to Serano’s conception of transfeminism, Gayle Salamon’s “Transfeminism and the Future of Gender” develops her definition of transfeminism by marrying trans to feminism in a way that posits trans as a mode of inquiry. Salamon severs the prefix trans from lived transgendered embodiments; she takes from these embodiments the undoing of seemingly natural and stable links between sex, gender, and sexuality. The premise of her theoretical mechanism lies in the fact that the feminine gender embodied by trans women is not dependent upon female sex organs. Trans conceived of a mode of inquiry in this way always already undoes links between these three categories. Thus, this mode destabilizes the stable though problematic link of the gender category “woman” to the female sex assigned at birth. Salamon argues that women’s studies depends on this link, by putting issues of “women” at its core. From this need for such a link between feminine gender and female sex has arisen the exclusion of trans as mode of inquiry, and especially the exclusion of actual trans women from the feminist movement, as they have often been perceived to be a male threat in a feminine gender disguise. Salamon implies that this disintegration and failure of women’s studies leads to transfeminism as the successor of women’s studies and feminism. Transfeminism, according to Salamon, forges a home for trans issues in the academy by deconstructing and subsequently destroying the ossified category of woman, dismantling its referential system of multiple gendered and racialized expressions to the female sex that women’s studies as a discipline has relied upon (Salamon 2010, p. 100). That way, transfeminism makes room for diverse linkages between genders and sexes that form multiple – embodied – categories that in turn ­constitute transfeminism’s foundation.



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Moreover, transfeminism also embodies/represents the potentiality for Salamon for a “‘natural’ alliance” (2010, p. 97) between women’s and transgender studies. She sees this potential rooted in women’s studies’ likely offer of “a rich array of tools, already in place in an institutional setting, to examine gender, its production, perpetuation, and transgression, and the ways embodiment, identity, and social structures are shaped by those ­productions” (2010, p. 97). Thus, Salamon also subscribes to a transfeminism that has at its heart the demand for and goal of a radically widening the category of gender that can encompass and accommodate diverse non‐binary genders as well as all kinds of femininities that may appear on the outside to seamlessly fit heteronormative femininities and might or might not align with the respective female sex.

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Halberstam, J. (2011). The Queer Art of Failure. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Halberstam, J. (2012). Boys will be…Bois? Or, transgender feminism and forgetful fish? In: Intersections Between Feminist and Queer Theory (eds. D. Richardson, J. McLaughlin and M.E. Casey), 97–115. Houndmills, Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Hennessey, R. (1994). Queer theory, left politics. Rethinking Marxism 7 (3): 85–111. Jackson, S. (1996a). Heterosexuality and feminist theory. In: Theorising Heterosexuality: Telling It Straight (ed. D. Richardson), 21–39. Buckingham: Open University Press. Jackson, S. (1996b). Heterosexuality, power, and pleasure. In: Feminism and Sexuality (eds. S. Jackson and S. Scott), 175–182. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Jackson, S. (1999). Heterosexuality in Question. London and Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Jeffreys, S. (2014). Gender Hurts: A Feminist Analysis of the Politics of Transgender. New York: Routledge Taylor and Francis. Lorde, A. (1984/2007). Zami. A New Spelling of My Name. A Biomythography. Berkeley/ Toronto: Crossing Press. Martin, B. (1998). Sexualities without genders and other queer utopias. In: Coming Out of Feminism (eds. M. Merck, N. Segal and E. Wright), 11–35. Oxford, UK and Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers. Meyerowitz, J.J. (2002). How Sex Has Changed: The History of Transsexuality in the United States. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Morris, J. (1974). Conundrum: An Extraordinary Narrative of Transsexualism. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Muñoz, J.E. (1999). Disidentifications: Queer of Color and the Performance of Politics. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Muñoz, J.E. (2009). Cruising Utopia. The Then and There of Queer Futurity (Sexual Studies). New York: New York University Press. Muñoz, V. (2012). Gender/Sovereignty. In: Transfeminist Perspectives in and Beyond Transgender and Gender Studies (ed. A. Enke), 23–33. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Noble, J.‐B. (2007). Refusing to mMake sSense: mMapping the incoherences of tTrans. In: Twenty‐First Century Lesbian Studies (eds. N. Giffney and K.O. Donnell). New York: Routledge A Taylor and Francis Group. Noble, J.B. (2012). Trans. Panic. Some thoughts toward a theory of feminist fundamentalism. In: Transfeminist Perspectives in and beyond Transgender and Gender Studies (ed. A. Enke), 49–59. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Phelan, S. (1994). Getting Specific: Postmodern Lesbian Politics. Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press. Prosser, J. (1998). Second Skins. The Body Narratives of Transsexuality. New York, and Chichester: Columbia University Press. Raymond, J.G. (1979). The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She‐Male. Boston: Beacon Press. Richardson, D. (2000). Rethinking Sexuality. London: Sage. Richardson, D. (2012). Bordering theory. In: Intersections Between Feminist and Queer Theory (eds. D. Richardson, J. MacLaughlin and M.E. Casey), 19–37. Houndsmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire; New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Salamon, G. (2010). Assuming a Body: Transgender and the Rhetorics of Materiality. New York and Chichester: Columbia University Press. Sandage, S. (2005). Born Losers: A History of Failure in America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.



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9 Postcolonial Feminism Umme Al‐wazedi

If we don’t tell our stories, hailstones will continue to fall on our heads Thrown by fathers for the children to see – for we are not good women Thrown by Imams, by a judge’s decree – for we are not good wives Thrown by other women in our husbands’ lives As they come in the morning cradling his children Calling us witch, barren, bitch And we find something to tie the chest with; Challenging words to hurl back in battle, And partners to hold us anyway, Through the things we struggle against. Abena P.A. Busia, (2010)

Introduction The critical perspective of postcolonial feminism addresses inequalities related to hegemonic power‐relations by examining the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized, as well as critiquing postcolonial gender roles. Postcolonial feminism not only focuses on patriarchy as a source of oppression, but also examines how social inequalities are located in and constructed by a political, historical, cultural, and economic context (Mohanty et al. 1991, Quayson 2000). Postcolonial feminism emerged as a reaction to the early proponents of postcolonial theory, men who were occupied with nation‐building after empire and colonialism had destroyed indigenous people’s history. Reina Lewis and Sara Mills, in their influential book Feminist Postcolonial Theory: A Reader (2003), argue that it was the feminist intervention in mainstream postcolonial theory that

Companion to Feminist Studies, First Edition. Edited by Nancy A. Naples. © 2021 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Published 2021 by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

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led to an examination of the process whereby femininity and female stereotyping is entangled with the process of constructing a nationalist anti‐colonial symbolism, the female signifying the pre‐colonial, the traditional, and the untouched domestic space. (2003, p. 3)

Thus, postcolonial feminist theory not only criticizes colonial powers, but also criticizes the hegemonic power established by indigenous men after the Empire. For example, Chinua Achebe asserted the need to locate one’s own history by describing precolonial Igbo society in Things Fall Apart (1958), and Salman Rushdie portrayed the partition of British India into two countries, Pakistan and India, in his Midnight’s Children (1981). Conversely, Indian woman writer Bapsi Sidhwa represented partition in Cracking India through the portrayal of the tragedy of the Aya – the brutal sexual assaults that were carried on in the name of creating two independent countries. With Cracking India (1988), we see the emergence of postcolonial feminist texts. Similarly, Senegalese novelist‐educator Mariam Bâ portrays the tremendous negative effect polygamy has on the women of Senegal in So Long a Letter (1979). She helps readers understand why many women decide to stay in polygamous relationships, as gender and economic inequity influences their ­decision. Bâ was answering to the stereotyping of Senegalese women. Postcolonial feminist theory also studies women’s lives by examining the intersectionality of gender, class, race, caste and religion, and sexuality. In their editorial to the 1995 special issue of Signs entitled “Postcolonial, Emergent, and Indigenous Feminisms,” Joanna O’Connell et al. argue: the “post” in the term should not be understood as meaning the end or death of colonization. On the contrary, this time of struggle for people all over the world, a moment that the academic world is attempting to define, is a process in the decolonizing space of the millennium rather than a conclusive event. (p. 789)

This chapter argues, in the words of Quayson, that postcolonial feminist theory dismantles “the discursive representation”  –  the “metaphors, tropes, and concepts” used to “project an image of some person or persons” (2000, p. 104). It is engaged in postcolonial critique, the discussion of hegemonic Western feminism’s wish to speak for, about and against oppression on behalf of “third world women,” the analysis of the impact of capitalism and globalization, and cross‐border displacements. In addition, this chapter, to borrow the words of O’Connell and her coauthors, attempts “to include the perspectives of multiple feminisms that help to represent dynamic and constructive ways of thinking, being, and acting for women caught in the tensions of this postcolonial era” (O’Connell et al. 1995, p. 789). This chapter lays out the arguments revolving around the British colonial discourse in representing non‐Western women, particularly the issue of satihood in India. The chapter further sets out the concept of the Third World Women (in India and Africa) through a few key postcolonial feminist thinkers and their theories. It also discusses in brief the development of postcolonial sexualities, examines Islamic and Muslim feminism, and analyzes some new directions in postcolonial feminist theory such as the relationship between postcolonial feminism and intersectional feminist theory, postcolonial



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feminism and disability studies, and the rise of activism for social ­justice. While doing so, the chapter gives examples of films and literature that can be used to teach postcolonial feminist theory. The chapter also provides the future direction of this theory with the growing concerns of racism and homophobia toward diasporic peoples.

Rewriting the Colonial Discourse of Satihood At the center of postcolonial studies is the reclaiming of precolonial history and analysis of colonial discourses created by the Western empire. In India, discourses of decolonization center on satihood, or widow immolation. The term sati refers to the Hindu woman who immolates herself on the pyre of her dead husband. The most notable and critiqued work on the presentation of the sati is the British historian Edward Thomson’s book Suttee published in 1928. Lata Mani, in her phenomenal 1990 study, discusses the debates surrounding satihood and colonial masculinity. She focuses on satihood and the responses it elicited from colonial powers, as well as from indigenous elites. She argues, By colonial discourse I mean a mode of understanding Indian society that emerged alongside of colonial rule and over time was shared to a greater or lesser extent by officials, missionaries and indigenous elites. (1990, p. 90)

Mani finds that women were either considered a victim or a heroine, but never a subject in their own action. Colonial officers and missionaries created a mystical fiction around the story of the sati by portraying sati as a dutiful act of religious preference. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak in her essay, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” (1985) writes “The abolition of this rite by the British has been generally understood as a case of ‘White men saving brown women from brown men’” (p. 93). Even the indigenous abolitionists didn’t mention cruelty as the reason for opposing this practice as they wanted to echo “the nostalgia for lost origins: ‘The women actually wanted to die’” (Spivak, 1985, p. 93). Mani argues that the colonial and the indigenous discourses considered women to be merely the carriers of tradition. Thus, the British imperial project helped to reconstruct what pure and native Indian culture looked like. The indigenous elites held the view that women who committed sati were heroines who were holding up the Hindu religion at point in historical moment when foreigners were ruling their land. Mani argues, Officials persisted in describing as victims, even women who resisted attempts to force them unto the pyre. The annual reports of sati include many instances of women being coerced. Representations of such incidents, however, do not stress the resistance of widows but the barbarity of Hindu males in their coercion. The widow thus nowhere appears as a subject. If she conceded, she was considered victimized by religion. (Mani 1990, p. 97)

These women were either “superslave or superhuman” and were seen solely as victims.

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Like Mani, Rajeshwari Sunder Rajan also talks about the debate surrounding the actual reasons for satihood in her essay “The Subject of Sati: Pain and Death in the Contemporary Discourse on Sati,” (1993). She argues that “Religious sanction, political complicity and economic benefits have combined to encourage a cult of sati in a climate of overall oppression of women” (1993, p. 17). Both Mani and Sundar Rajan concede that tradition plays a role in the patriarchal oppression of women and conclude that traditions are manipulated by different power groups. It is crucial to remember what Spivak writes about the position of the women: “Between patriarchy and imperialism, subject‐constitution and object‐formation, the figure of the woman disappears, not into a pristine nothingness, but into a violent shuttling which is the displaced figuration of the ‘third‐world woman’ caught between tradition and modernization” (1985, p. 102). Ania Loomba and Ritty A. Lukose, while explaining the design of their edited volume South Asian Feminisms (2012), have also referred to “the historical recovery of the precolonial and colonial past” (p. 3). In addition, their focus is on “the postcolonial formation of the nation‐state” (p. 3) and the creation of other marginalities, and thus contributes to the examination of women as not subjects of their discourse. They focus on what it means to be Indian and how that category excludes other people. They mark this exclusion as the discontent of the nation‐state. While referring to Flavia Agnes’s essay in their collection, Loomba and Lukose point out, to assert its difference from the West, and “in order to establish [its] ‘Indianness,’” the feminist movement “relied heavily on Hindu iconography and Sanskrit idioms denoting the female power, thus inadvertently strengthening the communal ideology [for which] Indian, Hindu and Sanskrit are synonymous.” (2012, p. 9)

Agnes points out that such communalism can result in the “the continued projection of Muslims, Christians, Dalits, and others as simply marginalized objects,” but “as subjects, they can tell stories that may surprise feminists” (2012, p. 9).

The Critique of Third World Women The purpose of this section is to lay out the genealogy of theories revolving around the concept of the Third World Women explained by prominent postcolonial feminists. The section highlights the argument about the Western feminists’ (often cited as imperialist feminists) creation of the dominant discourse wherein non‐Western women are objectified and presented as “the Other” and “the marginalized,” as well as the response to such presentation. Spivak in her book A Critique of Postcolonial Reason (1999) argues that imperial feminists have often taken up the “subject‐­ constituting project” while discussing nineteenth‐century British writer Charlotte Brontë’s novel Jane Eyre and the rewriting of that same novel by the Caribbean writer Jean Rhys, entitled Wild Sargasso Sea (1999, p. 125). Spivak argues that Western feminists have often taken it upon themselves to meditate on issues of the (third) world woman, and the notion of marginality has helped create the canons of Western culture while enhancing the East vs. West binaries and cultural hierarchies. Similarly, Sara Suleri in her book The Rhetoric of English India (1992) critiques the position of Western feminism and its use of “marginality.”



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However, the most significant debate about the East vs. West binaries and cultural hierarchies in postcolonial feminist theory surrounds the figure of the “Third World woman” and the positionality of First World (Western) women. Chandra Talpade Mohanty begins her influential essay “Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses” (1991) by critiquing Western liberal feminist scholarship for its universalizing tendencies and producing “the ‘third world woman’ as a singular monolithic subject” (1991, p. 51). She dismantles the five specific ways in which Western feminist discourse presents Third World women as a “homogenous, powerless group often located as implicit victims of particular socioeconomic systems” (1991, p. 57). She challenges the objectification of Third World women in the writings of white women’s texts, in which the women are portrayed as “victims” of different violence (male, colonial process, Arab familial system, economic development process, and the Islamic code) (1991, p. 57). She contends that these representations are “based on a generalized notion of their subordination,” which leads to cultural reductionism (1991, pp. 57, 66). She argues that such analysis ignores social class and ethnic identities. Mohanty offers an example of how to pay attention to class and ethnicity: she cites the 1982 study of Maria Mies, who analyzes the lace‐makers of Narsapur, India. Mies analyzes the levels of exploitation in the lace industry and the effect it has on its production. These women who make the laces are also seen just as “non‐working house wives” (p. 65). Mies points out that there are multiple layers of facts that influence the women in the lace factory and that one cannot generalize this group of women based on one factor only. For example, there are differences between the lives of these women. Both the lace exporters and the community maintained strict purdah rules, which made it difficult for them to go out and work. Therefore, we can see that these women have been talking about the problem of purdah. Thus, Mohanty concludes that Mies’ study goes beyond generalization as she pays attention to the “intricacies and the effects of particular power networks,” and “how this particular group of women is situated at the center of a hegemonic, exploitative world market” (1991, p. 65). Thus, woman’s agency can’t be explained through a monolithic discourse as we see that capital centrism and power essentialism work together to diminish women’s agency.

Postcolonial Sexualities This section talks about postcolonial sexualities as constructed by the binaries set by colonialism  –  East/West and homosexual/heterosexual. The movements of India’s sexual minorities have had a long history of their own as the laws have been influenced by the legacies of colonialism. It was Lord Macaulay, the President of the Indian Law Commission, in 1860, who authored Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, as part of Britain’s efforts to impose Victorian values on British India. The study of these binaries confirms that the study of postcolonial sexualities is linked to the more difficult task of specifying how sexuality intersects and interacts with other systems of oppression. There are groundbreaking works by writers such as Ruth Venita, Tejaswini Niranjana, and many others. These writers have debated about the  ways in which the colonial and/or nationalist state has used gender and sexuality to its advantage. This section lays out two specific

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arguments about the debate ­surrounding postcolonial sexualities in postcolonial feminism  –  Indian Penal Code 377 and the problem of applying Western queer theory to Indian sexuality. There have always been references to same‐sex love in Hinduism; there are centuries‐old Hindu temples that depict erotic encounters between members of the same sex. There are other myths that talk about transgender people. Section 377 has had enormous negative effect on many people’s life in India as Geetanjali Misra argues, “although few cases against consenting adults have gone to trial, the existence of Section 377, and the threat of possible arrest, have allowed the authorities to discriminate against homosexuals and organisations working with them” (2009, p. 21). The fight for the repeal of Section 377 began in 1994 with ABVA, a Delhi‐based non‐governmental organization, which filed the repeal and claimed it violated the constitutional rights to privacy. However, ABVA was not successful. In 2001 the Naz Foundation India Trust, based in Delhi, joined the Lawyers Collective, a legal aid organization working for the rights of people affected by HIV and AIDS, and petitioned so that the Delhi High Court doesn’t repeal Section  377 “as a whole, but to read it down to exclude private consensual sex between adults” (Misra 2009, p. 23). Ruth Vanita in her essay “Lesbian Studies and Activism in India” (2007) talks about public debates and writings about lesbianism, and the history of activism around lesbian issues in twentieth‐century India. Inderpal Grewal and Caren Kaplan argue that “the sexual politics that is at once national, regional, local, even ‘cross‐cultural’, and hybrid” is a complex terrain, particularly when it comes to the discussion of postcolonial sexualities and sexualities in South Asian Diaspora (2001, p. 663). Gayatri Gopinath in her Impossible Desires: Queer Diasporas and South Asian Public Cultures defines diaspora as a term that “describes the dispersal and movement of populations from one particular national of geographic location to the other disparate sites” (2005, p. 6). She argues for a theoretical model to articulate non‐Western queer experience, which often is influenced by the framework of Western queer theory. So, a queer South Asian diaspora critiques modernity and the “various narratives of modernity and progress” (Gopinath 2005, p. 12). Gopinath writes, A queer South Asian diasporic geography of desire and pleasure stages this critique by rewriting colonial construction of “Third World” sexualities as anterior, premodern, and in need of Western political development – constructions that are recirculated by contemporary gay and lesbian transnational politics. (2005, p. 12)

In response to some of the conditions that Gopinath identified, Ashwini Sukthankar suggests that queer and feminist activists should work together to promote advocacy and movement building (2012, p. 324). LGBTQIA+ groups have prioritized “organizing outside of identity politics – arguing that campaigns against Section 377 must go beyond ‘gay dignity’ or ‘gay rights’ by shaping common causes with other potential plaintiffs” (2012, p. 324). India’s transgender community is equally at the forefront of this kind of activism as well. The LGBTQIA+ and the transgender community are working to fight for their own rights as well as against human rights violations.



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African Feminism and Africana Womanism Like Indian postcolonial feminist thinkers, African feminists and writers believe that colonialism reinforced the inequalities and limitations that existed in many traditional African societies and that continue to exist now. Postcolonial African feminism examines national liberation and socialist reconstruction by asserting that African women’s lives are diverse and dependent on where they live. Carol Boyce Davis and Anne Adams Graves describe African feminism in Ngambika: Studies of Women in African Literature (1986); they call for more research on powerful historical figures who ruled during the precolonial period and who fought against British, Belgium, and French colonization. Davis and Adams delineate African feminism into seven subsections: (i) that women’s struggle is due to European exploitation, (ii) that certain “inequities and limitations” exist in traditional societies, (iii) that there were powerful women leaders and warriors in precolonial times, (iv) that it respects traditional motherhood but questions traditional favoring of sons, (v) women’s self‐reliance, (vi) it has to look “objectively” at women’s situation as these societies have gone through wars of national liberation and socialist reconstruction, (vii) African women are telling their own stories (1986, pp. 8–10). These critics believe that Western feminists use certain heterogeneous conditions to portray Third World women as oppressed and backwards, and the project of African feminists is not to reaffirm these qualities. Mariama Bâ, conscious of her role as a writer and as an African woman writing within and against established tradition, writes, The woman writer in Africa has a special task. She has to present the position of women in all its aspects … As a woman we must overthrow the status quo which harms us and we must no longer submit to it …We no longer accept the nostalgic praise to the African Mother who, in his anxiety, man confuses with Mother Africa. Within African literature, room must be made for women…, room we will fight for with all our might. (Stratton 1994, p. 55)

This statement is directed toward Negritude, “a philosophical concept noted for its thematic concept of Mother Africa and an idealized African womanhood in its literary quest for an African political identity” (Ajayi 1997). Leopold Sedar Senghor portrayed this idealized African woman in his mid‐twentieth century poem “Black Women.” Another African novelist, Miriam Tlai, argues that the problem of seeing African women as Mother Africa is that men want to “put you on a pedestal, because then they want you to stay there forever without asking your opinion – and [they are] unhappy if you want to come down as an equal human being” (Ajayi 1997). While discussing African feminism as part of postcolonial feminism, one needs to focus on Africana Womanism as well. Clenora Hudson‐Weems in her book Africana Womanism: Reclaiming Ourselves (1994), while pointing out that Africana Womanism is not similar to Black feminism or African feminism, or Alice Walker’s womanism (which celebrates womanhood and is all‐inclusive). Hudson‐Weems writes. Africana Womanism is an ideology created and designed for all women of African descent. It is grounded in African culture, and therefore, it necessarily focuses on the unique experiences, struggles, needs, and desires of Africana women. (1994, p. 24)

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Hudson‐Weems cites Mariama Bâ’s So Long a Letter as one of the five Africana Womanist novels. One of the striking characteristics of Africana Womanist novelists is that their female characters search for wholeness; sometimes, they work side‐by‐ side with the male counterparts, and other times they strive to take care of themselves and aim not to be scapegoats of their male companions. If it becomes necessary for the female characters to give up their male companions to preserve their own self‐esteem, they do that as well (Hudson‐Weems 1994, p. 78). While analyzing the presentation of polygamy in Bâ’s So Long a Letter in her book The Politics of (M)othering; Womanhood, Identity, and Resistance in African Literature (1997), Obioma Nnaemeka points to the media’s role, particularly American media, in presenting the difference between the Western and African ways of living in a polygamous set‐up. While critiquing Ross Laver and Paula Kaihla’s (1995) presentation of the practice of polygamy in the households of Alex Joseph, an American polygamist and founder of the Confederate Nations of Israel, living in Big Water, Utah, Nnaemeka writes that the reporters “did not speak for the Josephs.” These women were noted as “well adjusted” women who are capable of making personal decisions and choices, talked with them, and walked away convinced that the “living arrangements works.” On the contrary, on the narration of African traditional cultures and the ways in which they are “oppressive” for women, African women are not accorded the same respect and subjectivity as Alex Joseph’s wives; African women are spoken for, about, and against. (1997, 166–167)

This culture of speaking for and about African women’s issues can also be seen in areas such as the representations of AIDS‐infected women, fistula, and female genital cutting.

Muslim and Islamic Feminism as Part of Postcolonial Feminism This section critiques the discourse categories found in most postcolonial anthologies. The Muslim world has always been portrayed through the colonial harem, the veil, and the figure of the oppressed Muslim woman. Muslim feminists have been talking about feminism for several generations, particularly those from the Middle East and sub‐Saharan Africa. Mallek Alloula’s The Colonial Harem (1981) critiques the French colonial exploitation of Algerian women and Asia Djebar’s Fantasia (1985) provides a fantastic example of a feminist text that expresses the experiences of marginalized women. The more recent postcolonial feminist analysis from the Middle East and sub‐Saharan Africa often revolves around the argument of the veil and the Quranic scriptures, which have given birth to two types of feminisms – Islamic and Muslim. Many feminist scholars of Islam feel that Islamic feminism is just the opposite of Islamic patriarchy – one substituting for the other – and these scholars reject the possibility of any coexistence between Islam and feminism. Faegheh Moghissi argues, “Hostility towards feminism and feminist demands is inherent in divine laws, and women’s liberation in Islamic societies must therefore start with de‐Islamization of every aspect of life” (1999, p. 134). Others see Islamic feminism as “a feminism true



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to its society’s traditions” and “a resistance to cultural conversion” (Moghissi 1999, p. 134). Some critics believe that feminism within an Islamic framework can only work within the women’s movement. Yet it becomes problematic when it is proclaimed that Islamic feminism is the only banner under which women can fight for justice. Such faith‐based feminists, as Nayereh Tohidi argues, “will not be much different from religious fundamentalists if they do not respect the freedom of choice and diversity and if they try to impose their version of feminism on secular, lay, and atheist feminists” (2007, p. 114); Afiya Shehrbanu Zia calls it “a political nunnery” (2009, p. 15). Critics such as Tohidi believe alternately in a Muslim feminism that is a negotiation with modernity and “an attempt to ‘nativize’ or legitimize feminist demands in order to avoid being cast as a Western import” (2007, p. 107). She contends that Muslim feminism is “a relatively new, still fluid, undefined, more contested, and more politically charged trend” (2007, p. 106). She defines Muslim feminism as one of the ways or discourses created or adopted by certain strata of women (middle‐ class, urbanized, and educated) in predominantly Muslim societies or Muslim diaspora communities in response to three interrelated sets of domestic, national, and global pressures of new realities. (2007, p. 106)

Understood in this manner, Muslim feminism offers a mechanism through which to resist and to challenge the sexist nature of ongoing identity politics, particularly Islamism. The veil’s ancient and modern history, and its contemporary resurgence, is an important subject for those posing new questions about women, Islam, and the representation of women in literature, film, television, and fine arts. In Europe and the US, the veil is often presented through errors of conceptualizations. The media seem to be obsessed with the role of the veil, either condemning the veil or valorizing it. For example, at a recent New York fashion show, collections by Muslim designer Anniesa Hasibuan received criticism from both conservative and liberal Muslims. Discussions about the veil tend to run along essentialist and ahistorical lines, associating Islam with the ideology of shame and honor. For example, Lila Abu‐Lughad draws our attention to Germany’s International Human Rights ad campaign, which says, “Oppressed women are easily overlooked. Please support us in the fight for their rights,” beneath a photo of a veiled woman sitting near some trash bags (2013, p. 9). The figure of the veiled woman functions as a placeholder for victimhood. The veiled Muslim women are often constructed as objects of desire, sensual harem girls, and backward victims of their backward cultures. Muslim feminists such as Leila Ahmed and Saba Mahmood have worked to dispel the tropes of the exoticization and fetishization of the veil. Europe’s biggest refugee crisis since World War II and the fear of Islam and of Muslims as terrorists have heightened the controversy of the veil. In France, women and Islam – the veil in particular – have been highly politicized. In Denmark, the veil is associated with Muslim women as marginalized and subjugated victims. In South Asia, particularly in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, the veiled Muslim woman represents a controversial and questionable position in the construction of the nation‐state.

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Postcolonial Feminism and the Politics of Intersectionality Haida Safia Mirza believes women of color across the globe should be engaged in the “anti‐racist, anti‐sexist, postcolonial struggle for an equitable and socially just world” yet she addresses a troubling question: Can we, as women of colour, claim that black and postcolonial feminisms – a conscious, meaningful act of political self‐identification – still bind us in our different locations and seemingly fragmented struggles in the global twenty‐first century? (2009, p. 2)

This question is central to concerns of representing global women. Similarly, Bandana Purkayastha and Susan Standford Friedman have argued that “Intersectionality is a key concept in locational feminist theory that emphasizes the differences among women resulting from the interactions of multiple systems of oppression” (2012, p. 101). In sketching out articulations of feminist intersectionality on a global scale, Chandra Talpade Mohanty’s work must be acknowledged, as she explored “how aspects of identity and social relations are shaped by the simultaneous operation of multiple systems of power” (Dill and Kohlman 2012, p. 89). On one hand, while tracing feminist intersectionality and religion, Friedman writes: Influenced by such feminist theorists as Audre Lorde, Barbara Smith, the Combahee River Collectives, and June Jordan, U.S. feminist theory by the 1980s had developed concepts of multiple oppression, locationality, and positionality to account for the differences among women produced by the intersection of different structures of oppression. (2015, p. 103)

On the other hand, Purkayastha, while giving credit to critics such as Patricia Hill Collins and Kimberlé Crenshaw, in her “Intersectionality in a Transnational World,” argues “our conceptualization of intersectionality – including the expanded version race/class/gender/age/ability/sexuality/ethnicity/nation” changes in transnational space (2012, p. 114). She gives an example that focused on a Ugandan Black immigrant and a Ugandan Indian immigrant in the United States. The Ugandan Black immigrant woman is likely to face racism in the US because she presents as Black, whereas the Indian immigrant woman may face racism that is different, like the racism and xenophobia faced by Muslims. However, if they both went back to Uganda, the Ugandan Black woman is likely to be privileged in a Black majority country, whereas the Indian woman would be privileged if they moved to India. Purakaystha also argues that religion is being used to create racial profiles within nations and across nations; in her example, the religion is Islam. She points out that surveillances keep check on the travels of Muslims from one country to another. In this way, nation‐states take part in the “process of marketing religion” in the service of racism. These religion‐based forms of racialization must be taken into consideration when theorizing or exploring Muslim women’s agency, particularly in the diaspora. Religion is often a site of complex negotiations unexplained by a binarist model of oppression/resistance. In particular, the spiritual, psychological, and bodily dimensions of religious belief, practice, and communal belonging are significantly different from – though certainly entangled with – other constituents of identity such as race,



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class, sexuality, or national origin. Investigation of these axes of power in an intersectional analysis is important in the postcolonial and diasporic context (Freidman 2015, p. 105).

Postcolonial Feminism and Disability Studies Recent research has extended postcolonial feminism to where it intersects with postcolonial disability studies. As more autobiographies and works of fiction are emerging from postcolonial spaces, it is important to position disability studies and postcolonial feminist studies together in conversation. Engagement with disability in postcolonial studies had been limited to the understanding and presentation of the female body and its relationship to nationhood; the disabled female body (adult or child) has been compared to the broken status of the nation. However, there has been an increase of fiction in South Asia and its diaspora in which writers are constructing new modes of narrative to speak of female physical illness, how women are able to resist social constructs of disability, and how women begin to narrate their own bodies for themselves. Authors often focus on the female characters’ sexuality, thus also focusing on the “veil of silence” surrounding women’s illness or disability. Disability plays a pivotal role in shaping a woman’s identity. Many South Asian and diasporic writers in the twentieth century analyze the ways disability plays a role in the construction of a complex feminine subjectivity. The analytical scope of postcolonial disability studies using intersectionality among class, gender, patriarchy, sexuality, and disability is broad. Postcolonial feminist disability theory includes an examination of lived experiences, specifically how a disabled woman experiences her disability, how members of her society perceive her, and how these realities impact her sense of identity. Claire Barker’s focus on postcolonial feminist disability studies is concerned with allegory and the formation of the nation‐state. Barker sees Lenny’s polio in Bapsi Sidhwa’s Cracking India as an allegory of the country – an India that is crippled. G. Thomas Couser notes the importance of life narratives when it comes to understanding disability studies. He talks about disability autobiography because these narratives should be seen not as “a spontaneous ‘self‐expression’ but as a response – indeed a retort to the traditional misrepresentation of disability” (2013, p. 457). Thus, the postcolonial disability studies broaden the canon, by drawing in nonfiction narratives  –  where authors aren’t intentionally using disability for allegorical or metaphorical purposes.

Postcolonial Feminism and Grassroots Activism In South Asian Feminisms, Loomba and Lukose notes: “new forms of feminist activism have also sprung up, such as those centering on sex work and sexual equality, against militarism, and against oppressive forms of globalized labor” (Loomba and Lukose 2012, p. 2). With the rise of the Gulabi Gang and Muslim grassroots workers such as Sharifa Khanam in India, there is a need for postcolonial feminism to relate and connect to this kind of feminist and grassroots activism. Atreyee Sen argues that

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the Gulabi Gang’s “gamut of actions (and not just violent vigilantism) underline the long‐term, collective vision of the rural women to position and reposition themselves between various discourses of justice, and subsequently remain alive in public memory” (Sen 2012, n.p.). The Gulabi Gang is a women’s movement formed in 2006 by Sampat Pal Devi in the Banda District of Uttar Pradesh in Northern India. This region is one of the poorest districts in the country and is marked by a deeply patriarchal culture, rigid caste divisions, female illiteracy, domestic violence, child labour, child marriages and dowry demands. The women’s group is popularly known as Gulabi, or “Pink,” Gang because the members wear bright pink saris and wield bamboo sticks. Sampat says, “We are not a gang in the usual sense of the term, we are a gang for justice.” The Gulabi Gang was initially intended to punish oppressive husbands, fathers, and brothers, as well as to combat domestic violence and desertion. The members of the gang would first try to have respectful dialogues with the male offenders. The serious violators were punished through public shame. Often, the members also threatened the men with their lathis. Sampat recalls in the documentary that she once beat a policeman with her lathi. An example of solving a problem through public shaming was when she was handling the case of a woman who was being repeatedly sexually assaulted by her father‐in‐law while her husband was working in the town. Sampat approached the father‐in‐law by bringing with her a group of women talking very loudly, so that the nearby neighbors could hear. Ultimately, they gathered around the household. She was able to solve this problem by reuniting the woman with her husband, and she threatened the father‐in‐law by saying that the next time she was there, he would be eating rice in the jail. Sen comments that the need to focus on the study of the Gulabi Gang is important because “they are a testament to the power of informal women’s collectives to implement change without elite intervention and leadership” (2012). Just as the Gulabi Gang is working to eliminate women’s oppression in rural areas, Muslim women’s organizations in India are using the local grassroots activism to set nationwide agendas. Groups such as Awaaz‐i‐Niswan, All India Muslim Women’s Rights Network, and Women’s Research and Action Group are working to help Muslim women to know what their rights are not only in the Quran, but also in the nation‐state (Schneider 2009, p. 63). Yet, the activism work also has taken a different route, as there seems to be angst about what postcolonial feminism looks like. In her article “Pink Chaddis and SlutWalk Culture: The Postcolonial Politics of Feminine Lite,” Ratna Kapur contends that feminist movements are heading toward street activism led by young women. The focus of their activism is sexual violence and victimization of young women, be it in the street or other social venues like the bar. Kapur concludes that movements like Pink Chaddi walk or SlutWalk “are situated as a technique of critique, not only of a dominant attitude towards women’s sexuality, but also of some segments of the feminist movement’s complicity in reinforcing a sexually‐sensitized understanding of female subjectivity” (2012, p. 12). Also, fiction is making the same calls for action as these movements. Kanika Batra’s (2018) article “Transporting Metropolitanism: Road‐mapping Feminist Solutions to Sexual Violence in Delhi,” through her reading of two contemporary short stories written by Manjula Padmanabhan and Irwin Allan Sealy, respectively, argues that more feminist inputs are necessary to make the city free from sexual violence.



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Film and Literary Examples The section provides examples of films, novels, and autobiographies in which the directors and authors explore postcolonial feminism. Deepa Mehta, in her film Water (2005), which is set in 1954 India, shows how the colonial and indigenous discourses and rules of widowhood helped the Brahmin men to exploit widows. Both Lata Mani’s (discussed earlier in the section “Rewriting the Colonial Discourse of Satihood) and Mehta’s analyses take a searing look at the education of Indian reformers, such as Raja Rammohan Roy and Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar. Shohini Chaudhuri argues that Mehta reveals “the social and economic basis of the religious and spiritual order” and creates a “decisive break with the ‘timeless’ and unchanging India … [and in] contrast to the exoticizing tendencies of, say, National Geographic, the deprivations of the widows are firmly embedded within a cultural context” (2009, pp. 13–14). This aspect of Mehta’s ideology can be heard through, first, Chuyia, a child widow, who asks, “Where is the ashram for men widows?” And later, it is heard through the Gandhian Narayan, who confirms “the material source of this double standard” (Chaudhuri 2009, p. 14): “Disguised as religion, it’s just about money. One less mouth to feed. Four saris saved, one bed, and a corner is saved in the family room” (Mehta 2005). Chaudhuri argues that engaging with Water is important for postcolonial feminists because it “articulates a late‐twentieth century Marxist‐­ feminist perspective, rather than that of a nineteenth‐century reformer, by locating Narayan’s analysis within material and social relations” (2009, p. 18). Another Marxist‐feminist who critiques the object position of women is Mahasweta Devi. She has studied the oppression of Dalit women and has written about their plight in stories like “Dhouli.” In addition, Laura Bruek’s study of Dalit women’s literature as “feminist rape texts” takes Davi’s discussion of the socioeconomic exploitation of the Dalit women further. Bruek talks about the new wave of Dalit feminist discourse, which is “working to alter the terms of the social script of the gendered violence of caste” (2012, p. 233). She concludes that Dalit women write differently, as they are not only breaking the stereotypical portrayal of Dalit women but also rewriting Dalit women’s position from a feminist perspective and not a masculine one. She references the works of the Rajasthani Dalit writer Kussum Meghwal and her short stories, in which “women exercise both verbal and physical acts of resistance; most important, the psychological liberation that results from their resistance belongs to them” (2012, p. 234). Mariama Bâ, a Senegalese postcolonial feminist writer, also places importance on the acts of resistance. She focuses on the issue of polygamy in her epistolary novel So Long a Letter, which is based on her own experience. Laura Charlotte Kempen (2001) points out that her critiques tend to be divided into two groups: one sees her as a traditionalist, yet someone who talks about social problems, while the other considers her as a “Feminist of the French School.” This second group feels that she achieves consciousness of herself through her writing (2001, p. 27). Bâ’s two main female characters, Rama and Assatau, show these characteristics. While Rama stays within the polygamous relationship to support the family, Assatau leaves her husband to preserve her self‐esteem. In addition, Housa Feminism and the popularity of Kano Market literature (pulp fiction) add diverse voices to postcolonial feminism in Africa. Balaraba Ramat

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Yakubu is known as an Islamic feminist. Her focus is likewise on polygamy, but she also addresses unwanted pregnancy and abortion. In her novel Budurwa Zuciya (Young at Heart) (1987), she describes the life of Ummi, a school girl who has many relationships and gets pregnant. Since her father will not accept an unmarried daughter who is pregnant, she decides to abort her child. Novian Whitsitt argues that “[Ummi’s] activities provide Yakubu the opportunity to seize a feminist moment, that being a medical discussion on the issues of abortion” (2002, p. 125). When Ummi finds out that she is pregnant, she goes to get an injection which fails to work because her pregnancy is too far along, so she is forced to return to the doctor to get a standard abortion. Applying an intersectional framework within postcolonial feminism can help scholars explore, analyze, explain, and understand Muslim women’s agencies in fiction. Such an approach can be applied to two British diasporic fictions: Kamila Shamsie’s Home Fire: A Novel (2017) and Tabish Khair’s Jihadi Jane (2016). These two novels ask: What kind of negotiations does a Muslim woman have to make? What role does the politics of veil play in creating or taking away the freedom of Muslim women? How is the veil used by mainstream political parties as a ploy to discredit a Muslim women’s role in the society? Religion has often been deployed to oppress groups of people such as women, racial or ethnic minorities, or members of other religions. Conversely, religion has often played a vital role in resistance to oppression, but issues of religion are not always about power. In Shamsie’s Home Fire and Khair’s Jihadi Jane, religion plays a complex and contradictory role. In both these novels, characters undertake complex negotiations while they are developing their identities, and the novels challenge institutions of orthodox Islam, albeit in different ways. Shamsie plays with the idea that belief in religion – in this case belief in Islam – entangles other constituents of identity such as race, sexuality, and national origin. Khair challenges theological ideas as he explores why young women want to join ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria); however, he presents a similar kind of entanglement as Shamsie. Khair creates characters whose parents come from different national belongings and struggle with identity, yet his characters “engage differently with theological, cultural, and institutional dimensions of their religion” (Friedman 2015, p. 119). Just as identity issues can be investigated through an intersectional framework so can they be done through disability studies. The disabilities of the women portrayed in many postcolonial feminist texts such as Anita Desai’s Fasting, Feasting (1999), Salman Rushdie’s Shame (1983), Jhumpa Lahiri’s “The Treatment of Bibi Haldar” in Interpreter of Maladies (1999), and so on are tropes for something greater. The characters who are disabled critique the social construction of normalcy by refusing to be silenced and by claiming and naming different experiences, particularly sexual experiences. These texts problematize the simplistic and reductive labels attached to women with certain illnesses and disabilities. Similarly, disability autobiographies are an important subject for postcolonial feminism, as they create a new kind of discourse wherein the disabled person is the subject of the narrative. Nowhere is this truer than the Nepali writer Jhamak Ghimire’s A Flower in the Midst of Thorns (2012). This autobiography traces the thoughts of Ghimire, who was born without arms. She talks about the societal and family outlooks toward a girl who was born



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without arms. This autobiography acts as a social justice piece, as well, when Ghimire says, No, I never got love and respect. The villagers too would address me Thulee at the presence of my parents; otherwise, they would call me Saanpey [snake]. This is the result of the mind‐set: you can address a handicapped person as you like. (2012, p. 22)

In conclusion, the binaries that exist in postcolonial sexuality studies confirm that the study of postcolonial sexualities is linked to the more difficult task of specifying how sexuality intersects and interacts with other systems of oppression. For example, both Ismat Chughtai and Deepa Mehta talk about how lesbian relationships are formed and effected by how men see women in domestic relationships. The earliest work on lesbian identity in India was done by the Urdu writer Ismat Chughtai. Her 1942 short story “Lihaaf” (“The Quilt”) tells a story of same‐sex desire. Deepa Mehta’s pathbreaking film Fire (1996) narrates the lesbian relationship between two women. The writer and activist Arundhati Roy, in her most recent novel The Ministry of Utmost Happiness (2017), discusses the life of Anjum, who participates in the life of a hijra and becomes a part of the transgender community.

Further Direction The future direction of postcolonial feminism involves creating more awareness about the anti‐racist and anti‐capitalist movements, as well as the emergence of border theory, and connections between the anti‐globalized movement and feminism. Mohanty, in her influential chapter “Race, Multicultural, and Pedagogies of Dissent” in her book Feminism without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity (Mohanty et al. 2003), argues, We understand race, class, gender, nation, sexuality, and colonialism not just in terms of static, embodied categories but in terms of histories and experiences that tie us together – that are fundamentally interwoven into our lives. So, “race” or “Asianness” or “brownness” is not embodied in me, but a history of colonialism, racism, sexism, as well as of privilege (class and status) is involved in my relation to white people as well as people of color in the United States. (Mohanty et al. 2003, p. 191)

Similarly, Rajeswari Sunder Rajan and You‐me Park (2000) explicitly engage with “postcolonialism” and “feminism,” and they locate their work in relation to US Third World Feminism. Ambreen Hai, in her article “Border Work, Border Trouble: Postcolonial Feminism and the Ayah in Bapsi Sidhwa’s Cracking India” (2000), argues, “Recent feminist and postcolonial work in particular has turned to the crossing and inhabiting of borders by third world women writers in an effort to reconsider their strategies of survival as they negotiate – often subversively – the contradictions of cultural heterogeneity, modernity, nationalism, or diasporic identity” (pp. 381–382). And Amy Kaplan, in her The Anarchy of Empire in the Making of U.S. Culture (2002), tries to correct the deficiency in postcolonial studies by

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referring to “its inattention to race, as well as race studies’ inattention to the question of Empire” (Grewal 2006, p. 390). South Asian and African women writers who live in the diaspora are writing about these complicated notions of race and ethnicity, faith and interracial marriages, and sexism and homophobia. Fiction writers such Bharati Mukherjee, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, for instance, have written about multiculturalism and race relations. Sunil Bhatia in his American Karma: Race, Culture, Identity and the Diaspora (2007) explores how the highly skilled professionals became a part of the racial dynamics of American society and began to be called “people of color.” Ultimately what becomes important to many of these scholars and particularly for Mohanty is solidarity and sisterhood. Mohanty argues, “Feminist solidarity becomes possible when First World feminists can use the experiences and perspectives of the poorest women in the world to envision, and collaborate with them in producing, a just society (Mohanty et al. 2003, pp. 235–244).

Conclusion The goal of this chapter is to show the central argument of postcolonial feminist theory by tracing some of the most prominent postcolonial feminist thinkers and by explaining some of their concerns regarding the representation of women in the Western imagination, in which these women always appear as objects. The chapter argues that colonial and dominant Euro‐American discourses have long avoided the intersectionality of gender, class, race, caste and religion, and sexuality when portraying non‐Western women. It echoes Busia’s words: “If we don’t tell our stories, hailstones will continue to fall on our heads” through the analysis of the films and fictional works that rewrite these dominant discourses. However, there are many areas of postcolonial feminism that this chapter has not been able to include, such as the issues of Aboriginal women in Australia, AIDS and HIV discourse in India and Africa, and female genital cutting. The chapter provides a suggested reading list for these issues in addition to some other significant essays that deal with postcolonial feminist theory and methodology.

References Abu‐Lughad, L. (2013). Do Muslim Women Need Saving? Harvard University Press. Ajayi, O. (1997). Negritude, feminism, and the quest for identity: re‐reading Mariama Bâ’s So Long a Letter. Women’s Studies Quarterly 25 (3/4): 35–52. Batra, K. (2018). Transporting metropolitanism: road‐mapping feminist solutions to sexual violence in Delhi. Journal of Postcolonial Writing 54 (3): 387–397. Brueck, L. (2012). At the intersection of gender and caste: rescripting rape in Dalit feminist narratives. In: South Asian Feminisms (eds. A. Loomba and R.A. Lukose), 224–243. Durham: Duke University Press. Busia, A.P.A. (2010). A song in seven stanzas for our granddaughters. In: African Women Writing Resistance: An Anthology of Contemporary Voices (eds. J.B. de Hernandez, P. Dongala, O. Jolaosho and A. Serafin), xx. Madison, Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press.



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Chaudhuri, S. (2009). Snake charmers and child brides: Deepa Mehta’s Water, “exotic” representation, and the cross‐cultural spectatorship of South Asian migrant cinema. South Asian Popular Culture 7 (1): 7–20. Couser, G.T. (2013). Disability, life narrative, and representation. In: The Disability Studies Reader (ed. L.J. Davis), 456–459. New York: Routledge. Davis, C.B. and Graves, A.A. (1986). Ngambika: Studies of Women in African Literature. New Jersey: Africa World Press. Dill, B.T. and Kohlman, M.H. (2012). Intersectionality: a transformative paradigm in feminist theory and social justice. In: Handbook of Feminist Research: Theory and Praxis (ed. S.N. Hesse‐Biber), 154–174. London: Sage Publications. Friedman, S.S. (2015). Religion, intersectionality, and queer/feminist narrative theory. The Bildungsromane of Ahdaf Soueif, Leila Aboulela, and Randa Jarrar. In: Narrative Theory Unbound. Queer and Feminist Interventions (eds. R. Warhol and S.S. Lanser), 101–122. Columbus: Ohio State UP. Ghimire, J. (2012). A Flower in the Midst of Thorns. Nepali Diaspora‐USA: Hasta Gautam “Mridul.”. Gopinath, G. (2005). Impossible Desires: Queer Diasporas and South Asian Public Cultures. Durham: Duke University Press. Grewal, I. (2006). Gender, Culture, and Empire: Postcolonial U.S. Feminist Scholarship. Feminist Studies 32 (2): 380–394. https://doi.org/10.2307/20459092. Grewal, I. and Kaplan, C. (2001). Global identities: theorizing transnational studies of sexuality. GLQ: Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 7 (4): 663–679. Grewal, I. and Kaplan, C. (2006). Gender, culture, and empire: postcolonial U.S. feminist scholarship. Feminist Studies 32 (2): 380–394. Hai, A. (2000). Border work, border trouble: postcolonial feminism and the Ayah in Bapsi Sidhwa’s Cracking India. Modern Fiction Studies 46 (2): 379–426. Hudson‐Weems, C. (1994). Africana Womanism: Reclaiming Ourselves. Bedford: Bedford Publishers. Kapur, R. (2012). Pink Chaddis and SlutWalk couture: the postcolonial politics of feminism lite. Feminist Legal Studies 20: 1–20. Kempen, L.C. (2001). Mariama Bâ, Rigoberta Menchu, and Postcolonial Feminism. New York: Peter Lang. Khair, T. (2016). Jihadi Jane. United Kingdom: Interlink Pub Group. Laver, R. and Paula, K. (1995). I Share My Husband With Seven Other Wives. Marie Claire (November): 44–50. Lewis, R. and Mills, S. (2003). Feminist Postcolonial Theory: A Reader. New York: Routledge. Loomba, A. and Lukose, R.A. (2012). South Asian Feminisms. Durham: Duke University Press. Mani, L. (1990). Contentious traditions: the debate in sati in colonial India. In: Recasting Women: Essays in Indian Colonial History (eds. K. Sangari and S. Vaid), 88–126. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press. Mehta, Deepa. (2005). Water. Directed by Deepa Mehta. US: Fox SearchLight Pictures. Misra, Geetanjali. (2009). Decriminalising homosexuality in India. Reproductive Health Matters 17 (34): 20–28. Mirza, H.S. (2009). Plotting a history: black and postcolonial feminism in “new times”. Race Ethnicity and Education 12 (1): 1–10. Moghissi, H. (1999). Feminism and Islamic Fundamentalism: The Limits of Postmodern Analysis. London: Zed Press. Mohanty, C.T., Russo, A., and Torres, L. (1991). Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

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Mohanty, C.T., Russo, A., and Torres, L. (2003). Feminism without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity. Durham: Duke University Press. Nnaemeka, O. (1997). The Politics of (M)othering: Womanhood, Identity, and Resistance in African Literature. London: Routledge. O’Connell, J., Reyes, A., Berger, I. et al. (1995). Postcolonial, emergent, and indigenous feminisms. Signs 20 (4): 787–796. Purkaystha, B. (2012). Intersectionality in a transnational world. Gender and Society 26 (1): 55–66. Quayson, A. (2000). Postcolonialism: Theory, Practice or Process. London: Polity. Rajan, S. and Rajeswari (1993). The subject of sati: pain and death in the contemporary ­discourse on sati. In: Real and Imagined Women: Gender, Culture and Postcolonialism. New York: Routledge. Roy, A. (2017). The Ministry of Utmost Happiness. New York: Alfred A. Knof. Schneider, N.C. (2009). Islamic feminism and Muslim women’s rights activism in India: from transnational discourse to local movement—or vice versa? Journal of International Women’s Studies 11 (1): 56–71. Sen, Atreyee. (2012). “Women’s Vigilantism in India: A Case Study of the Pink Sari Gang.” Online Encyclopedia of Mass Violence: n.p. www.sciencespo.fr. Shamsie, K. (2017). Home Fire. New York: Penguin Random House. Spivak, G. (1985). Can the subaltern speak? In: Colonial Discourse and Postcolonial Theory (eds. P. Williams and L. Chrisman) 1994. New Work: Columbia University Press. Spivak, G. (1999). A Critique of Postcolonial Reason: Toward a History of a Vanishing Present. Cambridge: Harvard UP. Stratton, F. (1994). Contemporary African Literature and the Politics of Gender. New York: Routledge. Sukthankar, A. (2012). Queering approaches to sex, gender, and labor in India: examining paths to sex worker unionism. In: South Asian Feminisms (eds. A. Loomba and R.A. Lukose), 224–243. Durham: Duke University Press. Suleri, S. (1992). The Rhetoric of English India. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Sunder Rajan, R. and Park, Y.‐M. (2000). Postcolonial feminism/ Postcolonialism and feminism. In: A Companion to Postcolonial Studies (eds. H. Schwarz and S. Ray), 53–71. Oxford UK: Blackwell Publishing. Tohidi, N. (2007). Muslim feminism and Islamic feminism: the case of Iran. In: Feminist Theologies. Legacy and Prospect (ed. R.M.R. Ruether), 93–116. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. Whitsitt, N. (2002). Islamic‐Hausa feminism and Kano market literature: Qur’anic reinterpretation in the novels of Balaraba Yakubu. Research in African Literatures 33 (2): 119–136. Zia, A.S. (2009). The reinvention of feminism in Pakistan. Feminist Review 91: 29–46.

Suggested Further Reading Ali, S. (2007). Feminism and postcolonial: knowledge/politics. Ethnic and Racial Studies 30 (2): 191–212. Afzal‐Khan, F. and Seshadri‐Crooks, K. (2002). The Pre‐occupation of Postcolonial Studies. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Ahmad, H.Z. (1998). Postnational Feminism in Third World Women’s Literature. Boston: University of Massachusetts Press.



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Ahmed, L. (2011). A Quiet Revolution. The Veil’s Resurgence from the Middle East to America. New Haven: Yale University Press. Ahmed, S. (1996). Beyond humanism and postmodernism: theorizing a feminist practice. Hypatia 11 (2): 71–93. Amuta, C. (1989). The Theory of African Literature. London: Zed Books. Ashcroft, W.D. (1989). Intersecting marginalities: post‐colonialism and feminism. Kunapipi 11 (2): 23–35. Batra, K. (2018). Transporting metropolitanism: road‐mapping feminist solutions to sexual violence in Delhi. Journal of Postcolonial Writing 54 (3): 387–397. Bulbeck, C. (1998). Re‐orienting Western Feminism: Women’s Diversity in a Postcolonial World. New York: Cambridge University Press. Chambers, C. and Watkins, S. (2012). Postcolonial feminism? The Journal of Commonwealth Literature 47 (3): 297–301. Devi, M. (2002). Outcast. Four Stories (trans. S.D. Gupta), Dhouli. Calcutta: Seagull Books. Ghimire, J. (2012). A Flower in the Midst of Thorns. Nepali Diaspora‐USA: Hasta Gautam “Mridul.”. Mohanty, C.T. (2004). Toward and anti‐imperialistic politics: reflections of a Desi feminist. South Asian Popular Culture 2 (1): 69–73. Mahmood, S. (2005). Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject. New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Mahmood, S. (2006). US empire and the project of women’s studies: stories of citizenship, complicity and dissent. Gender, Place & Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography 13 (1): 7–20. Mir‐Hosseini, Z. (2006). Muslim women’s quest for equality: between Islamic law and feminism. Critical Inquiry 32: 629–645. Suri, M. (2013). The City of Devi. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. Udumukwu, O. (1994). Post‐colonial feminism: Zaynab Alkali’s The Still Born. Literary Griot: International Journal of Black Expressive Cultural Studies 6 (1): 47–60. Vanita, R. (2007). Lesbian studies and activism in India. Journal of Lesbian Studies 11 (3/4): 245–253. Vanita, R. and Kidwai, S. (2000). Same‐Sex Love in India: Readings from Literature and History. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

10 Feminisms in Comparative Perspective Anne Sisson Runyan, Rina Verma Williams, Anwar Mhajne and Crystal Whetstone

Introduction Transnational feminist theorizing (Mohanty 2003; Swarr and Nagar 2010) calls for a relational approach to comparative work to enable not just the identification of differences in feminist/women’s struggles in different geopolitical sites but also globalizing forces that interconnect them. This approach decenters the nation‐state as the container of politics. We compare feminisms across major older and newer regionalisms in the world. There is growing literature on regional feminisms as regional organizing, networks, and manifestos proliferate in response to the rise of regional governance (ranging from the European Union and the Organization of American States to the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation and the  African Union), data, NGOizations (or the professionalization of feminist ­organizations) by non-governmental organizations, conflicts, and migrations (Basu 2017, pp. 12–14). Recent scholarship on feminisms in the Asia‐Pacific, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and the Americas recognizes differences between states and feminisms within these regions even as it problematizes these regional categories and what constitutes feminism within them. But such work also argues that there is a need for more scholarship that goes beyond individual states and that can identify regional as well as global dynamics and patterns at work that are interlinking ­feminisms or women’s movements within and across regions. While women face differing challenges within each region – depending upon, for example, the level and locations of armed conflict, the presence and places of authoritarian governments and ethno/religionationalist movements, and the extent and concentrations of poverty – some common feminist changes and challenges emerge from such regional treatments. Scholars from different Global South regions note that even though strong critiques of neoliberal globalization, Western feminism (and even the term feminism), and NGOization continue, new generations of feminists

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experiencing the age of institutionalized feminism – such as state, intergovernmental organization IGO and NGO feminisms  –  are working on the ground more pragmatically and in more hybrid fashion across such binaries as anti‐statist/statist, autonomous/NGOized, revolutionary/reformist, and secular/religious. While using and pressing expansions of international instruments (like the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women or CEDAW), they are also continuing to engage in grassroots and transnational resistance, both offline and online. With Global North feminisms facing deepening austerities and assaults, coalitional politics are increasingly required as their regions become leaner and meaner, particularly for im/migrants, people of color, the poor, and non‐normative sexualities and genders. Although class/caste, race, ethnic, national, religious, and sexuality divides continue to haunt local, regional, and transnational feminisms grappling with expansions of neoliberalism, austerities, authoritarianisms, forced migrations, multiple forms of violence against women, and other new/old hegemonies locally, regionally, and globally, contemporary scholarship suggests an ever more complex terrain of feminisms beyond binaries and borders. The following sections discuss selected findings on intraregional similarities and differences in feminist/women’s movement challenges with respect to politics, economics, and violence. These are also among the main indices used to calculate country rankings in terms of gender equality (between women and men, not among them) by the Global Gender Gap Index. Although all ranking systems are problematic as they not only rely on incomplete and often state‐generated superficial data, but also are products of neoliberal accounting measures, they provide some sense of regional comparisons. As of 2017, within the Asia‐Pacific, Pacific and East Asian nations rank slightly higher than South Asian ones. The Middle East and North African (MENA) region ranks at the bottom of the index while sub‐Saharan Africa is ranked just below the East Asian and Pacific region. Europe is divided, with Nordic and other Western European countries at the top, while Southern European, Central and Eastern European (CEE), and Central Asian countries in aggregate rank just below the North American region. In the Americas, North America slightly outranks the Latin American and the Caribbean region. However, the variation can be as wide within as between regions given some nations from all regions, with the exception of almost all MENA countries, score quite high on the index, while within higher scoring regions there are outliers that rank low or comparatively low. In every region, we provide examples of local and transnational (regional/global) organizing that challenges inequalities and injustices within and across these contexts through politics for representation, recognition, and redistribution. We conclude with a brief discussion of challenges and prospects identified through this examination of comparative regional feminisms.

Asia‐Pacific Feminisms Asia’s diversity makes it the most contested region we explore. Understood to encompass Southeast Asia, Northeast Asia, South and Central Asia, the Pacific Islands, and the Antipodes, it covers several regime types from democracies to dictatorships, including communist, socialist and authoritarian regimes (D’Costa and Lee‐Koo



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2009). China, both a global and a regional power in East Asia, has undergone perhaps the most change as it moved from revolutionary socialism to state capitalism. Elsewhere in Asia, the legacies of colonialism and imperialism have played a defining role in the women’s movements. The word feminism has been tainted through its association with Western imperialism. In response, many Asian women (with notable exceptions such as non‐Aboriginal women in the Western enclaves of Australia and New Zealand or in Westernized urban contexts in Japan and South Korea) have emphasized locally rooted women’s movement praxis. While Indian women have sought an “indigenous feminism” (Loomba and Lukose 2012), some regional activists have chosen to avoid the word feminism altogether (Roces 2010). For good and bad, transnationalism has played a prominent role throughout the region’s feminisms, especially through CEDAW, gender‐based violence activism, UN protocols on human trafficking and labor migration, and the UN Security Council’s Women, Peace and Security agenda (WPS). Mina Roces (2010, p. 6) suggests that much of the region’s feminisms developed as a rethinking of Western feminist thought, making Asian women’s movements “transnationally produced.” Nevertheless, most scholars stress how the national level has influenced women’s organizing in Asia far more than the international (Jayawardena 1986; Basu 2017). Feminist transnationalism across Pacific countries is growing as evidenced by the anti‐gender violence work of the Pacific Women’s Network Against Violence Against Women. Its annual conferences bring together activists, government officials, practitioners and development experts from 13 separate countries and territories throughout the Pacific to identify and address such root causes of violence against women as patriarchy and rising fundamentalism in the Pacific (The Guam Daily Post 2016). Although Australian and New Zealand feminists have formed alliances since late‐nineteenth‐century suffrage campaigns, within Australia, the Women’s Alliance  –  established in 2010 to challenge successive cuts to federal funding of feminist NGOs and the downgrading of the Office of the Status of Women – included Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander Women, and Immigrant and Refugee Women organizations (Sawyer and Andrew 2015), thus practicing feminist transnationalism within a state. We turn now to areas of the region that together constitute two‐fifths of the world’s population.

South Asia South Asia is generally understood to encompass India  –  which dominates the region  –  Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Afghanistan, and the Maldives (Alston 2014). Shared histories, geographic commonalities, and similar cultural practices make the subcontinent identifiable as a region, although it must be stressed how varied the countries in the region are (Roy 2012). South Asian feminisms are as diverse as the region itself, and like elsewhere in Asia, feminism has been tied to colonialism. South Asian women’s movements have had unique connections to nationalist, labor, sex workers’ rights and anti‐violence movements, embodying both a politics of redistribution and a politics of recognition (Loomba and Lukose 2012; Roy 2012). The three major religions of South Asia – Hinduism, Islam, and Buddhism – are connected to South Asian women’s societal positionality and access

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to power and resources, including control over their bodies and sexuality (Alston 2014). In the context of the Global War on Terror, many South Asian states have used the threat of terrorism to limit citizens’ organizing, including women’s movements (Rai 2012). Militarization and state repression are linked to religious‐based conflicts, particularly in the disputed state of Kashmir, where ongoing armed conflict between the Indian and Pakistani states and regional groups has subjected women and children to violence, including sexual violence (Chatterji 2012). As in other regions, South Asian feminists have had to contend with neoliberalism. Neoliberalism has coopted feminist discourse and even parts of women’s movements’ agendas, leading some movement actors to question a liberal, rights‐based approach (de Alwis 2012; Roy 2012). Debates have raged over NGOization, including the role of international funding and the development of an NGO shadow state linked to transnational women’s movement work (de Alwis 2012). Due to the history of colonialism, global governance and international development experts, including advocates of microfinance that targets women, are often met with suspicion in South Asia (Karim 2011; Roy 2012). Relatedly, a divide has emerged between feminist activists who oppose and those who seek institutional connections with the state. The former argue that working with the state through NGOs has exchanged grassroots protests for petitions to the state and question how feminist such work is (de Alwis 2012). The latter respond that NGO women’s movement work has led to positive developments in coalitional politics, particularly around queer, lesbian, trans, and sex workers’ rights. For example, Nivedita Menon’s (2008) work shows the evolution of Indian feminist activists who went from avoiding issues of sexuality due to its “Western” connotation, to working in the sex workers’ movement. Others point out that NGOs allow a range of international and local actors to engage in movement work, from middle‐class volunteers to socioeconomically disadvantaged women who can participate only through compensation (Nazeen and Sultan 2012). Yet while transnationalism has benefited South Asian women’s movements, local actors need to control their agendas, which remains impossible due to power imbalances between local and international actors (Deo and McDuie‐Ra 2011). Like other Asian women’s movements, South Asian feminism can neglect women falling outside the national majority. Caste, like religion, plays a major role in much of South Asia, and the region’s women’s movements must do a better job contending with it (Alston 2014). Yet despite challenges, contemporary South Asian women’s activism remains vibrant, as in its embrace of non‐local and middle‐class sources and new forms of activism, including cyber activism (Roy 2012) and in youth‐led, arts‐based social media campaign work around against sexual harassment (Alston 2014).

East Asia China has hegemonic power over other nations in East Asia, including Mongolia, North and South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan. Feminists have had a presence in China from the twentieth century forward. When the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)



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came to power in 1949, CCP feminists established the All‐China Women’s Federation (ACWF) as an umbrella organization to promote women’s interests. While the ACWF ceased operating in the tumultuous years of the Cultural Revolution, it was reestablished in 1978, in a very different political landscape as the country opened to world trade and privatization. Free‐marketism led to a rollback in government policies of equal pay, access to equal employment and education, and state‐provided childcare and healthcare, which especially hurt working‐class women. Following the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989, the government hosted the 1995 United Nation’s Fourth World Conference on Women to demonstrate to the international community its commitment to the liberal world order, even as it remained an authoritarian regime. Since the 1990s, the ACWF and civil society NGOs inspired during the Beijing conference but remaining heavily reliant on the state have helped pass national domestic violence legislation and developed programs to increase rural women’s political participation by tapping into social networks of state officials, although they have failed to address the problems of worker abuses in China’s globalized economy (Zheng 2017). Even as China has increased government control of civil society, a new cohort of feminists has turned to NGOs and cyber activism to carry out their work, including the coalition Young Feminist Activism (YFA). New groups’ visibility, gained through public performances of resistances that are then shared online, stands in stark contrast to previous generations of feminists who worked behind the scenes. However, the police detention of some YFA activists known as the Chinese Feminist Five, who were released after transnational feminist solidarity campaigns, reveals concerted suppression of such feminist activism. Nevertheless, the government’s continued lip service on gender equality may provide feminists with some maneuverability (Zheng 2017). Similar crackdown patterns against newer, more radical feminist activists, such as Pussy Riot, as well as LGBTQ activists can be found in post‐Soviet Russia (Sundstrom 2017), which does not fit easily into Asia or Europe, but, like China, exerts power globally.

Middle East and North African (MENA) Feminisms In 2011, the MENA region experienced the Arab Spring that began in Tunisia and spread to other countries such as Libya, Egypt, Yemen, and Syria. Some of these protests, both non‐violent and violent, were more successful than others. In Tunisia, they led to a democratically elected government; in Egypt, the first democratically elected government after the revolution was toppled by a military coup in July 2013; and Syria has experienced an ongoing civil war. Regime types in the region vary from democratic (Israel) to authoritarian (Egypt, Syria), including monarchies (the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia) and Islamic regimes (Iran, Algeria). Israel is an outlier in this Muslim majority region, more Western than Middle Eastern and ranking the highest in the region on the Global Gender Gap Index, but its continuous occupation of Palestine and influence on other conflicts in the region have also made its advancements in gender (and increasingly lesbian, bisexual, gay, trans (LGBT)) equality without addressing other injustices suspect.

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Despite the low ranking of most MENA countries on the Global Gender Gap Index, Islamist and non‐Islamist women’s organizations and feminist NGOs proliferated in the region in the 1990s to fill the voids left by cuts in state programs and by urbanization and increases in women’s education and international aid (Nusair et al. 2013). These organizations work on such issues as violence against women, early marriages, reform of citizenship laws, and lifting reservations on CEDAW and other international agreements (Moghadam 2017). Such organizations operate within a restricted space for activism and utilize local and international discourses to navigate these restrictions. There are multiple explanations for why women’s political participation in the Middle East is comparatively lower than other places in the world. The low participation is often attributed to the hold of Islam in the region (Lu et al. 2016, p. 19). This assumption is problematic because the position of Islamist and Islamic groups on women’s rights depends on their interpretations of the Qur’an about social, political, and familial relations. These interpretations are influenced by culture and other sociopolitical factors, state agendas, modernization, nationalism, and international relations. Interpretations of the Qur’an and their relationship to cultures and the political agendas of ruling regimes can be seen in debates over Personal Status Laws in MENA countries. These are extensions of Shariah Law that regulate family relationships, addressing such issues as divorce and child custody (Lu et al. 2016). The balancing act between Islamist discourse and international pressure for modernization influences states’ positions on women’s issues in the MENA region. Rulers must navigate the rise of Islamist discourse while attempting to portray a secular image to the West. For instance, in Morocco, Hassan II, who was known for repressing the opposition while trying to appease the international community, announced reforms of the Personal Status Code shortly after the publication of a 1995 United Nations Human Development Report that ranked Morocco 117th out of 147 surveyed countries. This report and the struggling economy forced the king to appeal to the international community. Additionally, secular feminist rights associations in Morocco have successfully pressured the government to sign on to CEDAW (Gray 2014). MENA women’s movements have been influenced by the knowledge and experiences that they gained from their participation in national liberation movements and international conferences on women’s rights. Women in countries in many MENA countries have participated in liberation struggles and revolutions despite the constraints put on all political activities at different periods. However, women’s demands have been pushed aside in the name of national unity during times of unrest and the strengthening of religious discourse. Thus, women activists had to promote their demands within the religious frame for fear of being accused of betraying the nation (Afshar 2016). This is apparent in the fact that non‐Islamic feminists and women activists rely on moderate interpretations of the Qur’an, pointing to its principle of equality of all human beings perverted by patriarchal culture and jurisprudence since the ninth century to justify their demands (Afshar 2016; Jamal 2009; Lu et al. 2016). Thus, the tension between international pressure to modernize and domestic pressure to preserve the religious and cultural identity of the region shapes women’s political participation in the MENA region as women activists navigate Islamist discourse and international agreements to promote their demands. UN conferences in the 1990s have mobilized a host of women’s rights NGOs, such as Collectif 95



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Maghreb‐Egalite, linking women across the region and beyond, although women’s generally low socioeconomic status and Islamic–secular divides between women in the region create significant challenges (Moghadam 2017). Nevertheless, the strategies of feminist groups over the past 20 years in the region have become very diverse. They include raising awareness, engaging in grassroots mobilization, conducting research to improve their advocacy work (Nusair et al. 2013), gaining women’s electoral quotas and constitutional reforms, and removing CEDAW reservations (Moghadam 2017). These efforts are increasingly expressed in the writings of activists circulated through various conventional and electronic platforms.

Sub‐Saharan African Feminisms The regimes in sub‐Saharan Africa range from democratic to authoritarian. After World War II, Africa suffered from intensive periods of civil conflict, not only wars but also the violence of South African apartheid. The end of apartheid and a decline in some other conflicts over the past two decades has been accompanied by an increase in women’s legislative representation (Hughes and Tripp 2015). Between 1990 and 2010, the number of women legislators in African parliaments tripled (Badri and Tripp 2017). This increase is associated with the growth of new women’s movements in Africa in the late 1980s (Gouws et al. 2010). Their tactics were influenced by experiences of women in national liberation and peace movements in which they played important roles. Although such movements were cautious about using the term “feminist,” they made demands for including women in development and for women’s representation and rights. Multiple factors influenced the increase in women’s participation in the formal political arena. One is the ending of armed conflict, which has been followed by some level of democratization. For instance, in 2010, women held about 27% of the parliamentary seats in African postconflict countries, compared to 14% in other countries (Hughes and Tripp 2015). Another factor is gender quotas, the adoption of which flow from postconflict “opportunity structures  –  peace talks, constitution making exercises, new electoral commissions, and truth and reconciliation processes – through which women can assert their demands” (Hughes and Tripp 2015, p. 1531). Eight out of the 26 countries that achieved a 30% gender threshold in national legislatures in recent years as a result of some form of gender quota system were African countries (Nzomo 2015), including Rwanda (56.3%), South Africa, Senegal, Mozambique, Angola, Burundi, Tanzania, and Uganda. Most of these had experienced devastating conflicts. Quotas have been implemented in both democratic and undemocratic contexts. Undemocratic leaders may push for quotas to legitimize their authoritarian rule, as in Rwanda, Uganda, and South Africa (Hassim 2010; Tripp 2000). But regardless of regime type, critics have argued that quotas are not enough to assure women’s equal participation, influence, or exercise of power for gender equality. In Rwanda, for example, power is centralized around the presidency, undercutting women’s legislative influence. Moreover, most women in reserved quota seats are members of the governing party, which they are reluctant to challenge by advancing gender equality platforms (Nzomo 2015). The Kenyan case shows women have utilized informal political spaces as alternative avenues for political participation. Due to the restrictions imposed on women by

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the gendered institutional and sociocultural context as well as constricted formal political space, women’s political engagement in the first five decades of postcolonialism in Kenya operated primarily outside the state (Nzomo 2015). During the 1980s, the activities and influence of international and regional women’s organizations increased. The 1990s saw the adoption of new constitutions and the proliferation of international treaties. Most sub‐Saharan African countries have signed CEDAW; the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights; the African Charter; and the 2003 African Union Women’s Protocol (Tripp et al. 2008). Women’s groups also started utilizing international pressure to boost their demands for representation through gender quotas (Hughes and Tripp 2015). African women have used international forums such as the UN Beijing Conference on Women to make putting an end to conflict a central issue and contributed tremendously to the passing of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 in October 2000. The resolution covered the inclusion of women in all stages of the peace process and gave them roles in peacekeeping missions globally. Moreover, they promoted peace at the local level by protesting war, negotiating with militias, encouraging disarmament, and ensuring that peaceful elections were held (Badri and Tripp 2017). Gender mainstreaming in Africa evolved due to multiple pressures from women’s movements and international organizations such as the UN. Women’s movements in sub‐Saharan Africa play a major role promoting women and human rights as well as stability in the region. The movement is evolving from a focus on women in development to a focus on redefining feminism and employing feminist activism from an African perspective. No longer reluctant to identify as feminist, a new generation of activists aims not only to mitigate the inequality produced by the existing sociopolitical structures, but to challenge and reimagine them. They are also active on online platforms such as blogs and social media websites (Badri and Tripp 2017).

European Feminisms The European Union (EU) is the most politically and economically integrated world region with the largest and most developed regional apparatus for gender equality. However, as Jacquot (2015, 137) notes, “this a not a good time for equality” in the EU. She sees a significant retreat from shared gender equality values, measures, and enforcement on the part of EU institutions, beginning in the 1990s and accelerating in the new millennium. Although gender equality legislation at the European level stretches back to 1957 in the form of Article 119 of the then European Community’s (EC) Treaty of Rome which called for equal pay for equal work, it was in the 1970s, bolstered by the kickoff of the UN Decade for Women (1975–1985), that the second EC directive was issued on the equal treatment of women in the workplace. The 1970s through the 1980s also saw the development of the “velvet triangle” of activist but relatively elite “femocrats and female politicians,” women’s movement representatives, and feminist academics (Jacquot 2015, p. 47) who forged a number of gender equality structures within EC governance, making gender equality an “exceptional” or primary equality policy domain and achieving recognition of it as a fundamental right (Jacquot 2015, p. 53).



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Gender equality was reduced to economic equality throughout this period as such policy had to work “within” the common market basis of the EC (Jacquot 2015, p. 55). Despite the rise of some conservative governments in the 1980s that slowed down both hard and soft gender equality measures at the European level (Bego 2015), “directives addressing tax and social security measures, child care facilities, education, training opportunities, and affirmative action” for women were passed (Roth 2017b, p. 203). However, in the 1990s and the early 2000s, gender equality was made an instrument “for the market” (Jacquot 2015, p. 135). In 1990, the European Women’s Lobby (EWL) was formed. Moreover, the 1992 Treaty of Maastricht, which founded the EU, and the 1997 Treaty of Amsterdam affirmed and even strengthened gender equality in the workplace provisions (Bego 2015). Ironically though, it was the feminist velvet triangle push for gender mainstreaming that began to unravel the “exceptional” nature of gender equality and special structures dedicated to it. The continuance of gender inequality did lead to demands and accommodations to make gender equality a social as well as an economic issue, particularly with the 1990s entry of Nordic countries with the most advanced gender equality legislation into the EU, as well as the institution of gender mainstreaming as a tool to make gender equality the responsibility of all EU institutions (Jacquot 2015). However, even as EU intervention into such social areas as violence against women and the balancing of home and work life was enabled, previous gender equality networks and offices were either disbanded or reorganized, further “professionalized,” and subsumed under an anti‐discrimination umbrella that made gender inequality largely on par with other inequalities while neoliberally construing gender equality as the basis for freeing women’s labor power to contribute to European economic growth (Jacquot 2015, pp. 122–123, 133). By the late 2000s, in the wake of the enlargement of the EU through the accession of Central and Eastern European nations between 2004 and 2007 as well as the 2008 financial crisis, EU gender equality goals, while widened, have been further diluted. EU gender equality directives were bundled in 2006 with specific compliance timetables for all member states; the 2009 Lisbon Treaty reaffirmed these directives; and the 2010 Charter of Fundamental Rights extended prohibitions against discrimination based on sex and sexual orientation, further pushed affirmative action for gender equality, and established legal rights for work and family balance and paid parental leave (Avdeyeva 2015, p. 11). However, feminist research on EU enlargement during this period finds very uneven compliance. While adopting EU gender equality directives and court decisions were among the conditions for accession to the EU, a number of CEE countries did little to implement them once they became EU members. The combination of primarily left‐wing governments, feminist NGOs that forged links with ruling parties, and women ministers made for early adoption and more robust compliance, but where these have been absent, laws remain on the books but unenforced in the additional absence of EU levers to force compliance post‐accession (Avdeyeva 2015, pp. 203–205). But as S. Roth argues (Roth 2017b, p. 211), it is best not to see non‐compliance as a CEE or Southern European problem, but rather as a matter of the relative influence of the Catholic Church (as in Ireland, Poland, and Spain) and an authoritarian past and/or present (as in Hungary, Germany, and Greece). Moreover, the institution of austerity to greater and lesser degrees throughout Europe post‐2008 financial crisis has had a

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more general leavening effect downward as gender equality is increasingly seen by the EU as well as some member states as too expensive to support. The Europe 2020 strategy and budget projections greatly reduce the visibility and funding for gender equality and other forms of anti‐discrimination, while funding has also been decreased and made more competitive for the estimated 90 women’s organizations working at the European level (Jacquot 2015, p. 135). In this sense, EU gender equality is having to be pursued “despite the market” (Jacquot 2015, p. 168). Still, European‐level networks and member state organizations are alive and proliferating. The EWL remains the most central player, but other networks also mostly founded in the 1990s continue to be very active, including Women in Development Europe, the Network of East–West Women, Women Against Violence Europe, Young Women from Minorities, the KARAT Coalition of CEE women, and the Black European Women’s Council (Roth 2017b). The FEMM Committee of the European Parliament also remains the most actively feminist EU body (Jacquot 2015). At the member state level, Muslim, immigrant, and LGBTQ grassroots feminist organizing has also grown in the twenty‐first century in the face of the rise of the anti‐immigration right in Western and Eastern Europe in the wake of the Syrian refugee crisis and some high‐profile terrorist attacks as well as anti‐ queer and “anti-genderism” regimes in Eastern Europe. Austerity, particularly severe in the UK, Ireland, and Southern Europe, has also sparked many anti‐austerity coalition movements that include feminists (Roth 2017b). The right wing Brexit victory in the UK could eventually take it outside of EU gender equality directives and norms even as the latter have been somewhat weakened. But, even as trans‐ state and in some cases state feminism have weakened in Europe under austerity and the rise of the far‐right, there are signs of more “political intersectionality,” or coalitional politics that recognize intersecting gender, race, class, and sexual identities and seek to build movements that resist sexism, heterosexism, racism, and classism (Roth 2017b, p. 208).

Feminisms in the Americas North American Feminisms The North American region, consisting of Canada, the US, and Mexico, is largely a product of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), a corporate‐ led, neoliberal integration project marked by highly unequal power relations given its North–South geopolitical axis and US hegemony within it (Runyan et al. 2013) As feminists across the region have observed, this “integration from above” was designed for the freer movement of capital, goods, and services, but not peoples, across borders and by 2005, under the North American Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP), became a securitizing project, fortressing borders around and within the region at the expense of im/migrants, the poor, the Indigenous, and women and sexual minorities within these and other marginalized groups (Bayes et al. 2006; Runyan et al. 2013). As of this writing, NAFTA is being renegotiated at the insistence of the US Trump administration, which is seeking even greater economic hegemony and fortressing in the region, including threatening to wall off Mexico



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entirely, and dismissing Canadian proposals to strengthen labor and environmental provisions and add gender and indigenous rights to the agreement. The NAFTA years have wrought considerable harms to the poor and working class in particularly gendered and racialized ways. For example, parts of Mexico’s agricultural sector have been decimated, feminizing the labor on what is left of small farms as primarily rural men migrated north to find work, while Canada’s vaunted social safety nets, especially relied on by the most vulnerable women, were shredded (Runyan et al. 2013). In the US, already lower social welfare provisions than Canada were eroded further by, for example, welfare reform in 1996 which cut the number of largely female recipients in half, while income inequality grew to obscene levels. Poverty, female‐headed households, and reductions in social reproduction support have grown in all three nations while systemic violence against women continues (Bayes et al. 2006). Meanwhile, increasingly secured borders within the region, predating the extreme anti‐immigration, border security, and deportation agenda of the Trump administration, have exposed female (im)migrants to greater sexual violence at borders while further insecuring both undocumented and temporary visa workers and their families (Runyan et al. 2013). Given these related trends, feminist resistance has grown and diversified in the region. In addition to continuing, and sometimes cross‐border, struggles against the exploitation of women workers in maquiladoras (Mexican export‐processing zones, which expanded during the NAFTA years), and the infamous unsolved murders of poor women in Juarez (Staudt 2011), Mexican feminist movements, after becoming more “popular” in the sense of being organized around the struggles and perspectives of poor and working class women by the 1980s, embraced the struggles of Indigenous women in the Zapatista uprising against NAFTA in 1994. In doing so, they have advanced critiques of continuing gendered and racialized colonial power relations in Mexico (and beyond) and pursued gender equality and rights within the framework of decolonizing relationships among people and with the land (Damian 2015). Canadian feminist movements have undergone a somewhat similar trajectory by first putting anti‐racism at the center of feminist struggles during the 1980s as visible minority women demanded and gained leadership in what was the National Action Committee (NAC) on the Status of Women (Nadeau 2009). They then particularly centered the struggles of Indigenous women with the 2012 founding, by Indigenous women and allies, of the Idle No More movement to protect Indigenous lands (Caven 2013) from accelerating destruction in NAFTA times and in the lead up to and wake of the 2014 Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada Report, which exposed the past and continuing sexual, cultural, and economic violence visited on Indigenous peoples and their lands in Canada. A focal point of some of this organizing, led by Indigenous women, is seeking justice for the hundreds of missing and murdered Indigenous women across the country. In the US, as NAFTA has worn on, mainstream feminist movements like the National Organization for Women (NOW) have taken up an “economic justice platform” that is intersectional in nature (Roth 2017a, pp. 253–254). Queer feminists have organized for not only civil and marriage rights (which had been won earlier in Canada as a result of queer activism), but also economic rights for LGBTQ people, while queer feminists of color began and continue to lead Black Lives Matter (Roth 2017a). This latter movement is devoted to ending police violence, but also many

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other forms of violence, against Black and other people of color (a movement which is also now present in many parts of the world). Given that both Mexico and Canada have either mandatory or voluntary gender quotas for public office and have ratified CEDAW while the US has refused both quotas and CEDAW, US women are alone in the region with respect to having no recourse to these instruments. Same‐sex marriage is still disallowed in most of Mexico as is access to full reproductive services, while some LGBTQ and reproductive rights won in the US are under severe attack. Still, the coalitional politics that has emerged in and sometimes across all three states speak to persistent and broadening resistance.

Latin American and Caribbean Feminisms Feminist activity in Latin America and the Caribbean has increased in recent decades, particularly in the rise of intersectional, postcolonial, and decolonial feminisms, with notable vitality in indigenous, Afro‐descendant, working‐class, and queer and lesbian feminisms (Alvarez 2014). This growth is linked to processes of globalization and transnationalism, including at the regional level through Encuentros, women’s conferences that regularly bring together activists across Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as ongoing exchange among activists in Latin America and the Caribbean with women living in the US, both Latina and Caribbean transplants and otherwise (Alvarez 2014; Lebon 2010). Michelle Rowley (2011, p. 10) explains how Anglophone Caribbean feminism embodies the local and transnational simultaneously, since the local and the global “are deeply and always‐already implicated in each other.” The same applies to Latin America. However, these transnational crossings bring limitations, such as the professionalization of women’s movement work associated with the rise of NGOs, which has led to competition among regional actors for outside funds that come with donor‐imposed agendas. With Latin America and the Caribbean no longer a global donor priority, local women’s organizations must compete with African and Eastern European women’s groups for external funding, as well as competing among themselves (Lebon 2010; Rousseau and Hudon 2017). Current work by women’s movements in Latin America and the Caribbean has its roots in the 1980s, known as the “lost decade of development” when neoliberalization was implemented through structural adjustment programs that privatized social services and forced countries to open to world markets. This restructuring made Latin America and the Caribbean susceptible to global economic shocks and promoted ideas of personal responsibility, leading to less focus on a politics of redistribution with instead greater calls for a politics of recognition, such as recognizing the  specific issues of indigenous and Afro‐descendant women (Lebon 2010). Neoliberalism’s link to religious fundamentalism in Latin America and the Caribbean has led to a drop in abortion access and spurred groups such as the Latin American Network of Católicas por el Derecho a Decidir, which calls for Catholic women’s right to sexual and reproductive choice (Navarro and Mejía 2010; Alvarez 2014). The neoliberal turn gave way to the Pink Tide: Left of Center governments that arose during the 2000s and 2010s intent on rectifying the ills of neoliberalism. Women’s movements in the region have not historically had support from Leftist regimes, and this has remained the case under the Pink Tide, although LGBT groups have had some success. In Argentina, LGBT groups secured recognition of their issues, while



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Venezuela passed some non‐discrimination legislation. While Bolivia’s Pink Tide has not left much space for LGBT maneuvering, there have been updates to the constitution to enable gender identity changes to official documents (Friedman 2017). Indigenous and Afro‐descendant feminisms in Latin America and Caribbean are the result of women’s changing sense of citizenship, such as seeking the acceptability of plurinationality, so citizens can be members of both the nation‐state and an indigenous community. Women of color have historically felt disconnected from European‐ descendant women’s movements, yet also experienced sexism within indigenous, Black, and other social movement organizing. Women of color seek to challenge inequalities among women and challenge sexism within indigenous and Afro‐ descendant movement spaces (Lebon 2010; Rousseau and Hudon 2017). In Brazil, Afro‐descendant women in the Black women’s movement have focused on issues that disproportionately affect Black women, such as sterilization, high rates of maternal morality, and HIV‐AIDS, while in much of the Anglophone Caribbean, feminist activity has been rooted in gender mainstreaming and a maternal focus on Afro‐descendant women. Unfortunately, this has neglected queer and LGBT citizens through an emphasis on heteronormative motherhood (Caldwell 2010; Rowley 2011). This negligence, even hostility, by much of the women’s movement to sexual minorities has been felt by lesbian, trans, and queer feminists throughout Latin America. Additionally, sexism has permeated LGBT and other mixed gay and lesbian movements (Blackwell 2014; Bueno‐Hansen 2014). Latin American and Caribbean women’s participation in transnational anti‐globalization movements has been strong. Brazil has become a site for the transnational anti‐globalization movement through World Social Forums, which began in 2001 in Porto Alegre, to seek a post‐neoliberal world. Anti‐globalization, or critical global justice movement, work has renewed working‐class feminisms by making class a starting point, leading to a rise in popular feminisms throughout the region, including rural women’s movements, trade union feminism, women’s movements for domestic workers and indigenous and Afro‐descendant feminisms (Lebon 2010). Latin American and Caribbean feminists have identified the necessity of alliance building among movement and institutional actors at the domestic, regional, and international levels (Lao‐Montes and Buggs 2014). Regional actors recognize similar “scattered hegemonies” (Thayer 2014, p. 404) in oppressive forms of state power, processes of “modernity” pushed on local populations by development experts, the domination of global capital, and the rise in religious and other fundamentalisms, which increase transnational solidarity through shared experiences (Thayer 2014, p. 404). Afro‐descendant Latin American and Caribbean women have played a critical role in coalitional politics as symbolic bridges by “translating” feminist activism across borders, particularly between the region and North America, through their connections with women of color throughout the Americas while remaining part of Global South feminisms (Lao‐Montes and Buggs 2014, pp. 392–394).

Conclusion It appears that more vibrant movements are in Global South regions, but state and/ or NGO feminisms are also ubiquitous features everywhere. While national and

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international feminist movements have contributed to these latter trends, so too have global governance practices (including gender equality ranking systems) and other neoliberal processes. Institutionalizations of feminism (ranging from liberal to social democratic varieties), however, carry the risk of depoliticization under assumptions that gender equality has been achieved or is no longer a priority. As inequalities among women (cis and trans) have increased, particularly in terms of class, race, and ethnicity, but also by sexuality and gender identity, less‐ or non‐institutionalized intersectional feminisms, often as part of larger social justice movements, have emerged in response to cases in every region in which anti‐equality ideologies and regimes have remained or are on the rise. The 2008 global financial crisis also contributed to hard times for addressing gender and other forms of inequality, just as armed conflict has brought about unprecedented social reproduction and migration crises and the undermining of the capacity of political systems and civil societies to address inequalities. But this state of affairs has also created new political opportunities and multiple strategies for feminist‐informed and more intersectional social justice actors and movements struggling for recognition, representation, and redistribution and pushing back against direct and structural violences. In each region, feminists are drawing upon local, national, and international instruments and strategies, pragmatically engaging in alliances but also mindful of cooptations and shifting political climates and opportunities that require shifts in focus, organization, and strategy to bring about greater equality and social justice.

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Loomba, A. and Lukose, R.A. (2012). South Asian Feminisms. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Lu, S. and Francesca, D.P. (2016). Women and politics in the Middle East: study on the broader socio‐political and religious issues. American Journal of Social Science Research 2 (1): 17–21. Menon, N. (2008). Sexualities. London: Zed Books. Moghadam, V.M. (2017). Feminist movements in the Mahgreb. In: Women’s Movements in the Global Era: The Power of Local Feminisms (ed. A. Basu), 333–360. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Mohanty, C.T. (2003). Feminism without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity. Durham: Duke University Press. Nadeau, M.‐J. (2009). Troubling Herstory: unsettling white multiculturalism in Canadian feminism. Canadian Woman Studies 27 (2–3): 6–13. Navarro, M. and Mejía, M.C. (2010). The Latin American network of Católicas por el Derecho a Decidir. In: Women’s Activism in Latin America and the Caribbean: Engendering Social Justice, Democratizing Citizenship (eds. E. Maier and N. Lebon), 307–318. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Nazeen, S. and Sultan, M. (2012). Contemporary feminist politics in Bangladesh: taking the bull by the horns. In: New South Asian Feminisms: Paradoxes and Possibilities (ed. S. Roy), 87–107. London: Zed Books. Nusair, I., Isotalo, R., Mojab, S. et al. (2013). Women and War in the Middle East: Transnational Perspectives. London: Zed Books. Nzomo, M. (2015). “Women and political governance in Africa: a feminist perspective.” Pathways to African Feminism and Development. Journal of African Women’s Studies Centre 1 (1): 26–47. Rai, S.M. (2012). Foreword. In: In New South Asian Feminisms: Paradoxes and Possibilities (ed. S. Roy), vii–x. London: Zed Books. Roces, M. (2010). Asian feminisms: Women’s movements from the Asia perspective. In: Women’s Movements in Asia: Feminisms and Transnational Activism (eds. M. Roces and L. Edwards), 1–20. London: Routledge. Roth, B. (2017a). Women’s and feminist movements in the United States: the contradictory effects of class‐based success. In: Women’s Movements in the Global Era: The Power of Local Feminisms, vol. 2 (ed. A. Basu), 241–261. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Roth, S. (2017b). Varieties of European women’s movements. In: Women’s Movements in the Global Era: The Power of Local Feminisms, vol. 2 (ed. A. Basu), 183–212. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Rousseau, S. and Morales Hudon, A. (2017). Indigenous Women’s Movements in Latin America: Gender and Ethnicity in Peru. Mexico, and Bolivia. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Rowley, M.V. (2011). Feminist Advocacy and Gender Equity in the Anglophone Caribbean: Envisioning a Politics of Coalition. New York: Taylor & Francis. Roy, S. (ed.) (2012). New South Asian Feminisms: Paradoxes and Possibilities. London: Zed Books. Runyan, A.S., Lind, A., McDermott, P., and Marchand, M.H. (eds.) (2013). Feminist (Im) Mobilities in Fortress(Ing) North America: Rights, Citizenships, and Identities in Transnational Perspective. Surrey, UK: Ashgate. Sawyer, M. and Andrew, M. (2015). Hiding in plain sight: Australian women’s advocacy organisations. In: The Women’s Movement in Protest, Institutions and the Internet: Australia in Transnational Perspective (eds. S. Maddison and M. Sawyer), 70–86. New York: Routledge.



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11 Transnational Feminisms Gul Aldikacti Marshall

This chapter aims to clarify the meaning of transnational feminism and explicate the new developments within it. The term transnational feminism stands for women’s organized political activism beyond the borders of nations. It also refers to a ­theoretical paradigm. As theory, transnational feminism was developed mostly by feminist scholars in the United States (Desai 2005) and it has been interdisciplinary (Patil 2011). Although they are distinct, the two are connected primarily because the theoretical paradigm has benefited greatly from women’s activism and issues transnational feminist activists have raised. Furthermore, there is a fast growing body of literature that consistently differentiates transnational feminism from the notion of “global sisterhood” (Binnie and Klesse 2012; Chowdhury 2009; Herr 2014; Maillé 2012; Mendoza 2002; Román‐Odio and Sierra 2011). In the following, I will explain how transnational feminism is both political activism and theory. I will also discuss the difference between transnational feminism and global sisterhood as the distinction marks a significant turning point in feminism. While doing these, I will highlight the issues brought up by transnational feminists, point out convergence and divergence in positions, and address representation and claims of possible dialog and coalition‐building.

Transnational Feminist Activism Transnational feminism refers to organizing, campaigning, and lobbying efforts of feminists on women’s issues beyond their national boundaries. Harcourt explains that “the focus of transnational feminisms is to change inequalities in gender power relations through intergenerational knowledge sharing and awareness of intersectionality and empowerment” (2013, p. 623). Transnational feminist activism has a long history. There are examples, which date back to the late nineteenth century, around issues such as equal pay for equal work, vocational training, and right to Companion to Feminist Studies, First Edition. Edited by Nancy A. Naples. © 2021 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Published 2021 by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

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vote (Belaskie 2012; Rupp 1997; Tripp 2006). However, the intensity and scope of transnational feminism accelerated after the mid‐1970s. A significant factor was the restructuring of the global economy that allowed the expansion of capitalism which also led to the expansion of global inequality. Various regional and transnational feminist networks have emerged to challenge neoliberal policies and programs that came with the new global economy (Desai 2002; Naples 2002a). Transnational organizing was also a response to growing fundamentalist movements (Desai 2002). The United Nations (UN) played a significant role in providing an opportunity for organizing and lobbying; yet, at the same time, UN meetings have perpetuated the line between the North and the South and created new tensions and inequalities among women (Mendoza 2002). Since the launch of the International Women’s Year by the UN in 1975, the growth of transnational feminist political activism has been facilitated to a certain extent by the UN’s world conferences, which included conferences on women in 1975, 1980, 1985, and 1995, and a series of follow‐up conferences to the 1995 conference in every five years. There were also other UN conferences that facilitated transnational feminist activism and networking, such as the Human Rights Conference in Vienna in 1993; Habitat II Conference in Istanbul in 1996, and World Conference against Racism in Durban in 2001. Desai (2005) points out that the term transnational feminism was not widely used among activists until after the Fourth UN World Conference on Women that took place in Beijing, in 1995. Even then, she states, some women’s groups and NGOs were not comfortable with using the term because they thought it evoked the term “transnational corporation.” The “global sisterhood” framework that celebrates the unity of women and presumes that all women are subjected to the same universal patriarchal oppression was prominent in early UN meetings in the 1970s and the 1980s because initially it was primarily the white feminists from the North and a few elite feminists from the Global South that dominated transnational feminist activism (Chowdhury 2009). In a telling account, Tripp (2006) mentions Gloria Steinem coming to the first UN World Conference on Women in Mexico in 1975 with a feminist manifesto for which she did not ask for any input from women from the South. However, then, and especially after 1985, as more women from diverse national, regional, ethnic, and racial backgrounds became involved with UN conferences, the unity of women perspective was put under serious scrutiny and the dominance of the North to set the agenda for UN meetings was challenged. The UN meetings became the loci of tension, negotiations, and coalition‐building among feminists. These meetings played a significant role in transnational feminist activism and dialog over the years. The UN conferences on women included official representatives of governments, who gave governments’ accounts of the status of women in their specific nations. While the governmental delegates met officially, many grassroots women’s groups, increasing in numbers since the 1980s, held separate meetings outside of those official meetings and brought their so‐called “shadow reports” on women’s status to the attention of the UN Committee on the Status of Women (CSW). Often, these reports challenged the official reports, giving feminists’ account of the status of women and allowing feminist activists to direct their questions to the official government representatives so that these representatives would feel the pressure to answer them in front of the CSW. Sometimes this tactic would work and government representatives would make promises. Yet, feminist grassroots organizations knew a

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more important task was to hold the governments accountable after these meetings were over (Marshall 2013). After the 1995 UN World Conference on Women in Beijing, more and more governments began to include members of grassroots women’s organizations among their official delegations (Desai 2005). Quataert’s 2014 study asserts that feminist organizations’ increasing involvement in the UN by providing empirical evidence and extensive networking led to a “knowledge revolution from below” within the UN. The rise and global spread of neoliberal economic policies, the adoption of a developmentalist approach by nation‐states, and the growing influence of fundamentalist movements significantly affected the organizing and activism among transnational feminists (Moghadam 2005). A number of grassroots transnational feminist networks emerged to tackle these issues and some used UN meetings as platforms for advocacy and lobbying (Quataert 2014). For example, Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN), which organizes along the South–South line, criticized neoliberalism and brought an alternative view to the common economic development policies advocated by the wealthy North. Focusing on women’s poverty along the intersection of race, class, and gender, DAWN pushed for the inclusion of women in economic development policies (Tripp 2006). Women Against Fundamentalism and Women Living Under Muslim Laws both work against fundamentalisms within their local bases and at the transnational level. At the same time they criticize the narrow Western view of fundamentalism as simply Islamist fundamentalism (Grewal and Kaplan 1994). One of the significant developments that came out of the UN meetings was the adoption of the “women’s rights as human rights” in the 1993 UN Human Rights Conference in Vienna under the leadership of feminist activists from the United States. The framework was successfully used to articulate violence against women as a human rights’ violation. It became the catalyst for solidarity among diverse group of feminists at the 1995 UN World Conference on Women in Beijing. Consequently, it allowed feminist organizations to bring to the public numerous problems that women face and gave them leverage when asking for a positive change in their local contexts. Nevertheless, it also drew criticisms from a number of transnational feminists. One of the issues is who uses the framework. It is hard to argue that the framework was embraced by all feminist organizations. For example, in Turkey, those organizations that have had transnational connections and have been active at the transnational scale are more comfortable with using the framework than the organizations and groups that have had little to no transnational connections (Marshall 2013). This raises questions about linkages between transnational, national, and local levels. To what extent and when are transnational frameworks useful at the national and local levels? Who gets to use them? Furthermore, Desai (2005) argues that the rights framework is problematic in itself. It does not challenge neoliberalism; thus, gains made so far have been primarily political rights rather than economic and social rights. She stresses that governments and fundamentalist social movements take advantage of the same human rights frame to protect or introduce cultural practices harmful to women or to deny rights to women claiming cultural restrictions. Chowdhury (2009) points out that in the aftermath of 9/11, the human rights framework has reinforced the “savior” and “victim” dichotomy, especially in the case of US foreign relations.

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The rights framework promotes the UN as the chief site of activism (Desai 2005). The UN, although creating opportunities for transnational feminist activism, has been criticized by transnational feminists for echoing the economic development approach of wealthy countries and at the same time ignoring women’s various contributions to economies (Desai 2005; Moghadam 2005). Moreover, the effectiveness of these UN meetings has come under scrutiny (Deo 2012; Desai 2005). Citing that there were 2600 women’s NGO representatives among government delegates at the 1995 conference in Beijing, Desai summarizes the frustration felt by many transnational feminists: “The emphasis on the discursive without enough attention to the structural and material resources and power is one of the primary reasons for women’s continuing inequalities around the world despite 30 years of UN commitments to women’s equality” (2005, p. 319). UN meetings have also produced new tensions among feminists. Those who have better access to funding and information, who are deemed as “experts,” have more influence in advocacy, lobbying, and networking. This encourages professionalization, which, on the one hand, provides more legitimacy for feminist organizations in mainstream institutions, but on the other hand, creates hierarchies within and between feminist organizations. Furthermore, women’s organizations with transnational linkages are more likely to get funding from the wealthy countries of the North (Alvarez 1998; Deo 2012; Markowitz and Tice 2002; Naples 2002b; Sperling et  al. 2001; Thayer 2010). The funding that flows from the North to the Global South often comes with strings attached in regards to how it is used and for what purpose. As a result, feminist organizations that receive funding from wealthy donors end up focusing on a limited number of issues such as violence against women and women’s entrepreneurship. This dynamic encourages a narrow focus on developing projects to receive further funding (Deo 2012). Some feminists call this type of feminist fundraising “project feminism” (Marshall 2013). Among the feminist organizations which receive funding for their projects, some insist that with feminist awareness that aims to advance women and improve gender equality, the projects can be useful to enhance feminist goals. While transnational feminist activism has grown and intensified over the years, it has also fostered the development of a theoretical paradigm. In the following section, I will explain transnational feminist theory.

Transnational Feminism as Theory Transnational feminist theory is rooted in the postcolonial feminist critique of the distribution of power between the North and the South, primarily the North, also referred as the First World, dominating and exploiting the South, also referred as the Third World or the Global South (Mendoza 2002). The terms West and East conjure the same type of power distinction. The West signifies the wealthy countries of Western Europe and the US. Embedded in this distinction is methodological nationalism whereby modernity is equated with progress and perceived as the parcel of nation‐states located in the North and West (Grewal and Kaplan 1994). In their widely influential work, Grewal and Kaplan explain the purpose and reason for the advent of transnational feminism as a theory: “We are interested in

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problematizing the theory; more specifically, feminist theory. In many locations in the United States and Europe, theory often tends to be a homogenizing move by many First World women and men” (1994, p. 2). As the statement points out, transnational feminism emerged as a critique of what was seen as the existing dominant white Western feminist view that women around the world face similar problems that stem from patriarchy, which regulates societies and their cultures. This white Western feminist view culminated in the notion of “sisterhood is global,” which emphasized that women, based on their shared biology, must launch a resistance movement against the universal “patriarchal mentality” (Morgan 1984, p. 1). Transnational feminism identifies global sisterhood as a relativist, ahistorical, homogenizing view that ignores differences among women and complexity of their experiences in their localities all around the world, including the North (Basu 1995; Chowdhury 2009). Global sisterhood assumes a common oppression and a shared identity as well as a transhistorical patriarchy. Yet, as Patil points out, “the potential and actual interrelationships” between “historically and geographically specific patriarchies” and “transterritorial and transnational processes” are overlooked (2013, p. 848). It favors sexual rights and violence against women for analysis over social and economic rights (Desai 2005). It sees the possibility of women’s liberation in development, modernization, and women’s individuality (Basu 1995; Grewal and Kaplan 1994; Mohanty 2003). It speaks for women of all races, nationalities, ethnicities, and classes (Chowdhury 2009), carrying the undertones of racism and imperialism (Herr 2014).

Third World Feminists and Transnational Feminism ”Third World” feminists have played a key role in contributing to transnational feminist criticisms against global sisterhood. According to Mohanty, Third World feminists, Have consistently focused on the idea of the simultaneity of oppressions as fundamental to the experience of social and political marginality and the grounding of feminist politics in the histories of racism and imperialism; the crucial role of a hegemonic state in circumscribing their/our daily lives and survival struggles; the significance of memory and writing in the creation of oppositional agency; and the differences, conflicts, and contradictions internal to Third World women’s organizations and communities (2003, p. 52).

Underlining the influence of the material and discursive colonization of societies by Western powers on white Western feminism, Third World feminists have problematized white Western feminist approach to women in non‐Western societies. A dynamic anti‐racist feminist literature from the Global South questions some of the taken‐­ for‐granted assumptions of the white Western feminism. For example, Oyěwùmí (2002) argues that gender cannot be understood without appreciating the systems of hierarchy within certain contexts. Through her work on the Yoruba, Oyěwùmí (1997) demonstrates that gender is a dichotomous Western concept. Among the Yoruba, age is more of an organizing principle on relations than gender is. As they age and have more seniority, men and women alternate having power within the

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family. Moreover, multiple examples from Africa reveal the changing meaning of gender. For example, among the Igbo of Southeastern Nigeria there is more than one gender corresponding to a single biological sex. Within the Nnobi society in the same region, there is acceptance of woman‐to‐woman marriage. The flexibility of the gender system allows for the existence of “female husbands” and “male daughters.” Power and authority is achieved by “female husbands” through the accumulation of wealth which is provided by multiple wives by way of hard work and bearing of children (Amadiume 1987). Like the term gender, the meaning of the term feminism has been called into question.

Contesting Euro‐Centric Definitions of Feminism The term feminism is contested among African scholars and activists, creating a point of tension between them and Western feminists (Ampofo et al. 2008). Anti‐­ racist feminist scholars have been critical of white Western feminism for ignoring how feminism is understood and practiced in multiple ways in connection with ­ethnic, racial, class, and land struggles in various contexts (Grewal and Kaplan). According to Oyěwùmí (2002), white Western feminism reflects the nuclear family dynamics that are more common in Western societies than in African societies. Nzegwu adds that white Western feminism, injects patriarchy and category of gender because its underlying standpoint presupposes the existence of unequal relations of power between males and females. Consequently, it analyzes all relations between males and females as entailing male dominance and female subjugation. Once the feminism methodology is applied, the society is assumed to privilege male viewpoints and concerns, and any instance of sex difference will automatically appear as instances of female subjugation (2006, p. 10).

Similarly, Beoku Betts and Njambi assert that dichotomies of public versus private, individual versus collective, which are taken for granted by white Western feminists to explain the experiences of mostly white Western women are not adequate to accurately understand and explain the lives of many women living in different parts of Africa. For instance, Biographical and oral histories of African women during nationalist struggles for independence show that women were not necessarily assigned to the private or even gender sphere as colonial gender ideologies perceived them to be. Women were able to exercise leadership in multiple contexts outside of the dominant Western influences (2005, p. 123).

Challenging the Binary Between Western “Liberated” Women and Women in the Global South The white Western feminist approach views women of the Global South merely as helpless, i.e. powerless, victims of their own oppressive patriarchal cultures. The very same approach makes Western women look liberated. Historical colonization has

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generated a long‐lasting approach to non‐Western societies, to women and to men, which to date has created and perpetuated binaries between the West and the East, the North and the South. According to this approach, the West/North is better, more developed, liberated, and modernized, while its mirror image East/South is a backward, underdeveloped, and oppressive other. This binary mindset results in the conception of the West/North as superior to the East/South. Women’s status in the East/ South, apprehended as always needing to be improved, is considered as the sign of backwardness. As Mohanty emphasizes, this categorization of Third World women discursively “colonizes and appropriates the pluralities of the simultaneous location of different groups of women in social class and ethnic frameworks; in doing so it ultimately robs them of their historical and political agency” (2003, p. 39). The meaning of many practices varies among women not only based on class, race, and ethnicities, but also ideological lines (Marshall 2005). Mendoza points out that global feminist solidarity becomes here an orchestrated process of gender planning conceived, directed (and even funded) by First World women in which Third World women learn to develop the capabilities they are missing to lead less oppressive and exploited lives. Thus, development becomes the grand equalizer between women in a world divided into developed, developing and less developed nations (2002, p. 7).

While the term Third World feminism is attributed to feminists in geographically non‐Western contexts, it also has a wider reach. It is embraced by many feminists whose roots are in non‐Western societies, but also live in Western societies, as well as by women of color in Western Societies whose racial, ethnic, and/or socioeconomic particularities have been ignored by white feminists (Narayan 1997).

Intersectionality, Third World Feminism, and its Critics US anti‐racist and Third World feminists have criticized white feminists for not being able to truly see the privileged position they have had at the expense of women of color in the US. (hooks 1984). For the most part, US white feminism, which found its extension in global sisterhood, has historically ignored race, ethnicity, and class in its approach to women’s status in the United States. Third World feminists have argued that the intersection of multiple identities based on gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, class, sexuality, ability, and religion is where the focus of the feminist theory and activism ought to be (Collins 2002; Stoetzler and Yuval‐Davis 2002). According to Black feminist sociologist Collins (2002), the intersectionality of identities creates a “matrix of domination” whereby one can easily be an oppressor and the oppressed at the same time. Intersectionality addresses differences among women and acknowledges multiple and shifting identities (Davis 2008). Transnational feminist theory incorporates into its body this knowledge of intersectionality and asymmetry of power among women (for examples see Conway 2012; Falcón 2016, 2012; Harcourt 2013). Yet, at the same time, there is a level of skepticism toward intersectionality. Falcón and Nash (2015) assert that although both intersectionality and transnational feminism are anti‐subordination projects, intersectionality does not pay enough attention to colonialism and imperialism. Similarly, Menon (2015) criticizes

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intersectionality for neglecting postcolonial contexts and, further, she questions the direction of the dissemination of theories, which, according to Menon leads to academic imperialism. She argues that concepts that are developed and used by scholars from non‐Western contexts are rarely given credit; yet, theories developed in the West are assumed to have universality and applied to non‐Western contexts. Purkayastha (2012) questions the parameters of intersectionality when it comes to understanding the experiences and marginalization of people who increasingly experience transnational spaces whether physical or cyber within their countries and in between countries. She argues that, “While intersectionality remains an important framework, we need to encapsulate marginalization structures that are salient in other locales [outside of the United States and Western Europe] and the ways in which these hierarchies play out in transnational spaces” (Purkayastha 2012, p. 61).

Transnational Feminism’s Critique of Neoliberalism Transnational feminism challenges hierarchies that result from the forces of global capitalism. Neoliberalism, which requires economies to privatize, restructure work, diminish welfare policies, and loosen regulations on local and international corporations, has been problematized by transnational feminism. Mohanty drives attention to neoliberalism’s commodification and anti‐radicalization of theories like intersectionality. She warns that “neoliberal governmentalities discursively construct a public domain denuded of power and histories of oppression, where market rationalities redefine democracy and collective responsibility is collapsed into individual characteristics.” Within this system it becomes possible for a radical theory like intersectionality to be transformed into a commodity to be consumed and “no longer seen as a product of activist scholarship or connected to emancipatory knowledge, it can circulate as a sign of prestige in an elitist, neoliberal landscape” (2013, p. 971). According to Dhawan and Varela, who are critical of intersectionality for overlooking “the structural effects of international labor division and the overexploitation of third world gendered labor” (2016, p. 32), “it is imperative to apply a postcolonial historical perspective that takes macro‐economic structures into account in order to understand and analyze how current dynamics of global interdependence have emerged and the challenges they bring with them” (2016, p. 33). Transnational feminist theory recognizes the multiplicity of women’s experiences and the significance of the history and context in creating those experiences. In doing so it draws attention to forces of capitalism, religious fundamentalism, and nationalism in influencing women’s experiences. Transnational feminism is most concerned with capitalism’s effects on people globally. It examines the increasing integration of the world economy through deregulation in trade and finance, which is part of a neoliberal economic agenda pushed by economically, politically, and militarily powerful countries of the North and their multinational corporations (MNCs), aided by international financial institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization (Herr 2014, p. 12).

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The spread of capitalism and neoliberal policies around the world creates new ways of adapting and/or resisting to global capitalism (Grewal and Kaplan 1994). Desai (2002) points out that many people in the South have experienced the effects of global capitalism through the Structural Adjustment Programs, which have led to the increase in women’s labor force participation in low paying service jobs and in the informal labor market, cuts in state services such as education and health, and appropriation of land for global production. Neoliberal policies of the capitalist economy have also had an impact on women in the North, especially poor women, who have experienced a decline in health care and other services while toxic waste in their neighborhoods has increased. In this context, engaging in transnational activism emerges as an important venue for women from marginalized backgrounds (Sampaio 2004). Mohanty in her critical essay “‘Under Western Eyes’ Revisited” emphasizes that feminist focus on the lives of poor women and girls in any part of the world is necessary to reveal the gendered effects of globalization and capitalism (2003). She calls for a comprehensive analysis of institutional processes that fuel global neoliberalism, which is depoliticizing and “transforming systemic projects of resistance into commodified, private acts of rebellion” (Mohanty 2013, p. 968).

Religious Fundamentalism and Nationalism Transnational feminism is critical of fundamentalism in all religions. Transnational feminists criticize global feminism’s discriminating focus on Islam, a focus that ignores the oppressive fundamentalist strains in other religions. Pointing to the commonalities among fundamentalisms, Yuval Davis asserts that fundamentalist movements around the world rely on a set of beliefs, which are based on sacred texts and ideals, accepting and asserting their understanding as the only form of truth. She adds that fundamentalist movements can “align themselves with different political trends in different countries and manifest themselves in many forms. They can appear as a form of orthodoxy, maintaining ‘traditional values,’ or as a relativist radical phenomena, dismissing impure and corrupt forms of their religion” (1999, p. 34). Transnational feminism calls for an understanding of the obstacles women face from various religious fundamentalisms within diverse localities (Chowdhury 2009; Grewal and Kaplan 1994). Further insight comes from studies which show that practice and interpretations within Islam change in various geographies and times (Babayan and Najmabadi 2008). Living in or moving from one to another context shape how women experience their religion in terms of utilizing, resisting, and changing (Narayan and Purkayastha 2008). Transnational feminist theory as a critique of nationalism is championed by many transnational feminists mainly because women’s voices and interests are suppressed and become secondary in nationalist narratives, and because women are treated as the symbols of a new nation‐state often with a new political regime. Frequently, because modernity is equated with nation‐states, women, through various power struggles over the meaning of their bodies, also become the indicator of the degree to which nation‐states are modernized (Layoun 1994; Natarajan 1994). However, “all those spaces in which women see nationalism as either outside or antithetical to their lives” are ignored (Grewal and Kaplan 1994, p. 22). Furthermore, nationalism, which, as Chatterjee (1986) points out, is a European construct of domination, and

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patriotism can be used by the West to reinforce its global hegemonic power (Chowdhury 2009). At the same time, transnational feminists point to the complex ways in which women are connected to nationalism. Herr (2014) for example (see also Kim et  al. 2005), argues that nationalism and nationalist movements against colonialism in the Third World have been the sites for the development of feminist consciousness among women who have been part of nationalist and anti‐imperialist movements. She also emphasizes that the effects of economic globalization on women cannot be thoroughly understood and dealt with without the analysis of the role of the nation‐states in economic globalization. Like Herr (2014) and Mohanty (2013), Dhamoon (2015) asserts that nationalism should be distinguished from liberation struggles against colonial powers. Dhamoon (2015) stresses that anti‐racist transnational feminism needs to contextualize nationalism and nation‐state as the meaning might be connected to local land and culture. According to Marshall (2013), the nation‐state is a force to be reckoned with for feminists. Especially in countries with strong authoritarian states, where power is centralized, social movements including women’s movements are highly influenced by the actions of their states when engaging in transnational activism. Using Turkey as an example, she reveals that in the 1990s and early 2000s, Turkish feminists obstinately pressured the state even when they got little or no response to their demands from the state, while at the same time they engaged in transnational activism to pressure the state from outside. The strategy of sustained pressure explains how the significant gender policy changes that took place in the 2000s can be attributed to the abiding efforts of Turkish feminist groups.

Solidarity and Coalition‐Building Transnational feminist theory requires a cross‐cultural, comparative approach to reveal multiplicity and diversity of experiences and perspectives (Gupta 2006). Instead of conceptualizing and analyzing women as a unity, it demands paying attention to distinctiveness of women’s subjectivities within specific historical local contexts (Mohanty 2003). It promotes clear awareness of women’s “relationship to multiple patriarchies as well as to international economic hegemonies” (Grewal and Kaplan 1994, p. 17). It recognizes that within the global structure, one’s privileged position is linked to another’s exploitation and disadvantage (Gupta 2006). Transnational feminism, however, does not argue that differences in women’s histories, experiences, and interests mean there cannot be solidarity or coalition among women. A growing trend among feminist scholars who use and expand transnational feminist theory is to envision this solidarity as an anti‐capitalist, anti‐imperialist, and anti‐racist project that promotes collective justice. Solidarity or coalition, rather than unity, needs critical reflection on neocolonial power relations that are reproduced in unequal access to resources (Collins et  al. 2010; Mohanty 2003). Moreover, the wide scope of the project pushes transnational feminism to expand coalition‐building to include non‐feminist movements as well as mixed‐gender movements that resist globalization and the expansion of capitalism. Some examples will be addressed in the section “New Directions in Transnational Feminism.” Dufour, Masson, and Caouette emphasize that transnational solidarity necessitates “mutual recognition and the constitution of stronger ties among activists” (2010,

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p.  4). How is this mutual recognition possible? To answer this, I will refer to the ­concept of “transversal politics.” According to Yuval‐Davis, solidarity is possible through the application of “transversal politics.” Yuval‐Davis introduces transversal politics as an alternative to the universalist white Western feminist approach. She explains that transversal politics is based on first, “a recognition that from each positioning the world is seen differently, and thus any knowledge based on one positioning is ‘unfinished’”; second, an acceptance of and respect for difference, which must be “encompassed” by the notion of equality; and third, an understanding that one’s identity, social positioning, and values must be discerned from each other. That is, People who identify themselves as belonging to the same collectivity or social category can actually be positioned very differently in relation to a whole range of social locations (e.g., class, gender, ability, sexuality, stage in the life cycle). At the same time, people with similar positionings and/or identities can have very different social and political values (Yuval‐Davis 2006, p. 281).

Transversal politics requires rooting and shifting. It is possible to have a standpoint and be situated, while, at the same, transcend them by empathizing with another’s standpoint. As such, transversal politics can be a powerful tool for feminists to use for a “decentered, non‐West‐centric, nonracialized dialogue and cooperation” (Yuval‐Davis 2006, p. 289). Respect for difference and clear awareness of relational social positionings and identities that define transversal politics can allow feminists to move beyond the problematic notion of unity. This approach is in line with the definition of solidarity Mohanty provides: I define solidarity in terms of mutuality, accountability, and the recognition of common interests as the basis for relationships among diverse communities. Rather than assuming an enforced commonality of oppression, the practice of solidarity foregrounds communities of people who have chosen to work and fight together. Diversity and difference are central values here – to be acknowledged and respected, not erased in the building of alliances (2003, p. 7).

Emphasizing anti‐racism, anti‐imperialism, anti‐capitalism, and anti‐fundamentalism, transnational feminism calls for solidarity based on recognition of and respect for differences rather than unity. Tne next section, “New Directions in Transnational Feminism,” includes developments where this notion of solidarity has been put into action in diverse regional and transnational meetings among transnational feminists and between feminist and other social movements.

New Directions in Transnational Feminism As important as the UN is, it has not been the only venue where transnational activism takes place. Tripp points to the significance of the transnational activism at the regional level. Giving Africa as an example, she emphasizes that strong Africa‐wide and subregional networks of African feminists have played a salient role in “forging

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an international consensus on the rights‐based approach to women’s rights” (2005, p. 46). Another example is from Latin America: in her account of the regional efforts of Afro‐Brazilian feminists, who focused on an anti‐racist feminist agenda, Franklin mentions the establishment of the Afro‐Latin American, Afro‐Caribbean and Diaspora Women’s Network. Realizing the commonalities in Black women’s experiences across nations within the region, the Network fostered “the development of a black feminist identity through social activism, offering women an autonomous forum to cultivate and strengthen their struggles against sexism and racism in their individual countries and across the region” (2011, p. 152). Franklin (2011) asserts that Afro‐Brazilian feminists have effectively combined an intersectional perspective, which centered on race, gender, and class, with international human rights discourse in their approach to women’s rights. Feminist networks are increasingly meeting and building new alliances in alternative platforms. When doing this, they take advantage of the internet’s capabilities for discussions and organization (D’Enbeau 2011; Marshall 2013). Now and again, ­platforms that emerge on cyberspace connect women regionally and globally. South Sudan Women’s Empowerment Network is one example. While the network was first organized on cyberspace by Southern Sudanese women who lived in diaspora, it expanded its reach from the United States and Canada to South Sudan, creating cyber connections and activism. Eventually, the network brought women from various ethnic communities, class, educational, and religious backgrounds at a meeting in Juba to establish a coalition for the empowerment of women (Erickson and Faria 2017). Transnational feminist networks are making connections and fostering dialog for solidarity and coalition‐building not only among feminists of different ethnicities, classes, nationalities, but also between feminist and non‐feminist and mixed‐gender movements. Many solidarities emerge within anti‐globalization struggles. They are seen as valuable by transnational feminists in revealing and coping with the global expansion of neoliberalism and the capitalist marketplace. Presently, coalition‐building and solidarity are conceived with a broader meaning. A variety of issues based on class, race, gender, and sexuality become the focal point of mixed movement dialog for coalitions. For example, in her study, Conway (2012) uncovers how two large transnational feminist networks, namely Articulacio’n Feminista Marcosur and World March of Women, engaged in building solidarity with other social movements. Articulacio’n, which is a Latin American feminist initiative with nine feminist networks in eight countries, established a series of dialogs with other movements around issues of rights on the basis of race, gender, and labor starting at the World Social Forum meeting in Mumbai in 2004. At this writing, the World March of Women includes 6000 women’s groups in 163 countries. It prioritizes the issues of “land, water, food, and work.” Conway emphasizes that this priority diverges from the narrow approach of violence against women and women’s sexual and reproductive rights that is dominant at the UN meetings. She states that, The March resists a hierarchy of primary vs. secondary, or specific vs. general issues in constituting feminist agendas even as they insist that “feminist” concerns about sexual and reproductive rights or violence against women cannot be separated from or made secondary to the “anti‐globalization” agenda (Conway 2012, p. 386).

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In another example, Falcón (2012) gives an account of a successful dialog and coalition‐building between feminists from the US, Canada, and Mexico and various local anti‐racist groups in Durban, South Africa at the 2001 UN World Conference against Racism. Using intersectionality as a frame for coalition‐building, feminists were able to engage in a dialog with local youth as well as women’s and indigenous African groups to connect racism and sexism. Falcón argues that intersectionality used in transnational activism acknowledges rather than suppresses or overlooks differences (2006). Falcón’s study demonstrates the versatility of the intersectionality frame for building coalitions between transnational feminist movements and other social movements. Hewitt (2011) asserts that social movement frames can be valuable tools in coalition‐building. In her study of transnational feminist meetings at the 2004 World Social Forum in Mumbai, India, the 2007 Feminist Dialogues in Nairobi, Kenya, and the 2007 World Social Forum in Nairobi, Kenya, she identifies three frames  –  rights frames (e.g. women’s rights and women’s rights as human rights), oppositional frames (e.g. anti‐globalization and anti‐fundamentalism), and process‐ oriented frames (e.g. movement‐building) – that focus on intramovement dynamics. At the same time, it is important to notice that the efficacy of all these frames is contextual. Quataert (2014) points to DAWN’s call for “strategic alliances” with social movements such as leftist movements, workers movements, peace movements, and human rights groups. The above examples demonstrate a significant move from a monolithic to a pluralistic feminist perspective and political action. The growing focus on multiplicity of subjectivities, struggles, and oppression along the intersectionality of gender, race, class, sexuality, nationality, and ability is opening up new venues for action, dialog, coalition‐building, and solidarity. It is, at the same time, broadening the feminist perspective to deal with larger social, economic, and political issues and challenges that affect people’s lives at a global scale. However, Sholock (2012) warns us that “Regardless of some advances in white Western participation in anti‐racist and transnational feminisms during the past decade or so,” ethnocentrism and universalism are not completely eradicated (2012, p. 702). Now and again, they surface in well‐intentioned, but ill‐conceived speeches and practices enveloped in notions such as democracy and freedom (Chowdhury 2009). Patil (2013) contends that feminist scholars and activists from the North continue to put forth Eurocentric and nationalistic views of men and women whereby women from the Global South are judged as making less progress in status compared to women from the North. Furthermore, despite their strong activism, women who live in rural areas in the Global South are still treated as mostly invisible (Attakora‐Gyan 2015). Nevertheless, Hewitt (2011) argues, those who assemble at transnational meetings manage to create dialog and cooperation.

Conclusion The literature review and discussion provided in this chapter reveal that transnational feminism signals a patent transformation in feminist theorizing and activism. Transnational feminism has differentiated itself from the notion of global sisterhood and produced a strong criticism of the worldwide progression of neoliberalism,

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religious fundamentalism, and methodological nationalism. Transnational feminists have called attention to how these global trends have impinged on the lived experiences of women. Hence, transnational feminism is characterized as an anti‐racist, anti‐imperialist, and anti‐capitalist project that recognizes the multiplicity of women’s historical and contextual subjectivities. Rights‐based frames and intersectionality have been utilized by transnational feminists as notable tools to advance women’s status and account for the complexity of the ways in which social locations such as gender, race, class, ethnicity, sexuality, and ability are connected. Yet, at the same time, they have been criticized for their shortcomings. For the most part, these tools have been found limited in their ability to address the economic rights and injustices that many women from marginalized backgrounds face, which result from neocolonial relations among nations and the global dissemination of capitalism and neoliberal policies. Transnational feminism, both as activism and theory, emphasizes the necessity of dialog for solidarity to address the above mentioned structural issues. The meetings that take place nowadays on physical or cyber platforms at regional or transnational levels open up multiple spaces for transnational feminists to engage in and advocate for collective struggles that include alliances not only among feminists with different backgrounds, but also between feminists and members of other social movements. The growing current toward establishing more intermovement dialog and coalitions carries for the future the potential to respond to global economic, political, and cultural trends that continue to influence people’s life chances. These new directions in activism support Grewal and Kaplan’s assertion that feminists must strive “to avoid new orthodoxies that are exclusionary and reifying. The issue of who counts as a feminist is much less important than creating coalitions based on practices that different women use in various locations to encounter the scattered hegemonies that affect their lives” (1994, p. 18).

References Alvarez, S.E. (1998). Latin American feminisms “go global”: trends of the 1990s and challenges of the new millennium. In: Cultures of Politics, Politics of Cultures: Re‐Visioning Latin American Social Movements (eds. S.E. Alvarez, E. Dagnino and A. Escobar), 293– 324. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Amadiume, I. (1987). Male Daughters, Female Husbands: Gender and Sex in an African Society. London: Zed Books. Ampofo, A.A., Beoku‐Betts, J., and Osirim, M.J. (2008). Researching African women and gender studies: new social science perspectives. African and Asian Studies 7 (4): 327–341. Attakora‐Gyan, D. (2015). Finite disappointments or infinite hope: working through tensions within transnational feminist movements. Canadian Woman Studies 31 (1/2): 86–93. Babayan, K. and Najmabadi, A. (2008). Islamicate Sexualities: Translations across Temporal Geographies of Desire, vol. 39. Harvard CMES. Basu, A. (1995). The Challenge of Local Feminisms. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Belaskie, C. (2012). Tying white ribbons around the world: Manchester’s temperance women and late‐nineteenth century transnational feminism. Women: A Cultural Review 23 (1): 46–61.

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Beoku Betts, J. and Njambi, W.N. (2005). African feminist scholars in women’s studies: ­negotiating spaces of dislocation and transformation in the study of women. Meridians: feminism, race, transnationalism 6 (1): 113–132. Binnie, J. and Klesse, C. (2012). Solidarities and tensions: feminism and transnational LGBTQ politics in Poland. European Journal of Women’s Studies 19 (4): 444–459. Chatterjee, P. (1986). Nationalist though and the Colonial World. London: Zed Books. Chowdhury, E.H. (2009). Locating global feminisms elsewhere braiding US women of color and transnational feminisms. Cultural Dynamics 21 (1): 51–78. Collins, P.H. (2002). Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. New York, NY: Routledge. Collins, D., Falcón, S., Lodhia, S., and Talcott, M. (2010). New directions in feminism and human rights: an introduction. International Feminist Journal of Politics 12 (3–4): 298–318. Conway, J. (2012). Transnational feminisms building anti‐globalization solidarities. Globalizations 9 (3): 379–393. Davis, K. (2008). Intersectionality as buzzword: a sociology of science perspective on what makes a feminist theory successful. Feminist Theory 9 (1): 67–85. D’Enbeau, S. (2011). Transnational feminist advocacy online: identity (re) creation through diversity, transparency, and co‐construction. Women’s Studies in Communication 34 (1): 64–83. Deo, N. (2012). Indian women activists and transnational feminism over the twentieth century. Journal of Women’s History 24 (4): 149–174. Desai, M. (2002). Transnational solidarity: women’s agency, structural adjustments, and globalization. In: Women’s Activism and Globalization: Linking Local Struggles and Transnational Politics (eds. N. Naples and M. Desai), 34–41. New York, NY: Routledge. Desai, M. (2005). Transnationalism: the face of feminist politics post‐Beijing. International Social Science Journal 57 (184): 319–330. Dhamoon, R. (2015). A feminist approach to decolonizing anti‐racism: rethinking transnationalism, intersectionality, and settler colonialism. Feral Feminisms 4: 20–37. Dhawan, N. and Varela, M.d.M.C. (2016). “What difference does difference make?”: d ­ iversity, intersectionality, and transnational feminist politics. Wagadu 16: 11–39. Dufour, P., Masson, D., and Caouette, D. (2010). Introduction. In: Solidarities Beyond Borders: Transnationalizing Women’s Movements (eds. P. Dufour, D. Masson and D. Caouette), 1–31. Vancouver: University British Columbia Press. Erickson, J. and Faria, C. (2017). “We want empowerment for our women”: transnational feminism, neoliberal citizenship, and the gendering of women’s political subjectivity in  Postconflict South Sudan. Sings: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 36 (3): 627–652. Falcón, S.M. (2016). Power Interrupted: Antiracist and Feminist Activism inside the United Nations. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press. Falcón, S.M. (2012). Transnational feminism and contextualized Intersectionality at the 2001 world conference against racism. Journal of Women’s History 24 (4): 99–120. Falcón, S.M. and Nash, J.C. (2015). Shifting analytics and linking theories: a conversation about the “meaning making” of Intersectionality and transnational feminism. Women’s Studies International Forum 50: 1–10. Franklin, J. (2011). Race, gender, and human rights: a glimpse into the transnational feminist Organization of Afro‐Brazilian Women. In: Transnational Borderlands in Women’s Global Networks: The Making of Cultural Resistance (eds. C. Román‐Odio and M. Sierra), 141–164. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.

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Grewal, I. and Kaplan, C. (eds.) (1994). Introduction: transnational feminist practices and questions of postmodernity. In: Scattered Hegemonies: Postmodernity and Transnational Feminist Practices, 1–33. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Gupta, J.A. (2006). Towards transnational feminisms some reflections and concerns in relation to the globalization of reproductive technologies. European Journal of Women’s Studies 13 (1): 23–38. Harcourt, W. (2013). Transnational feminist engagement with 2010+ activisms. Development and Change 44 (3): 621–637. Herr, R.S. (2014). Reclaiming third world feminism: or why transnational feminism needs third world feminism. Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism 12 (1): 1–30. Hewitt, L. (2011). Framing across differences, building solidarities: lessons from women’s rights activism in transnational spaces. Interface: A Journal for and About Social Movements 3 (2): 65–99. hooks, B. (1984). From Margin to Center. Boston, MA: South End Press. Kim, H.S., Puri, J., and Kim‐Puri, H.J. (2005). Conceptualizing gender‐sexuality‐state‐nation: an introduction. Gender and Society 19 (2): 137–159. Layoun, M. (1994). The female body and “transnational” reproduction; rape by any other name. In: Scattered Hegemonies: Postmodernity and Transnational Feminist Practices (eds. I. Grewal and C. Kalan), 63–75. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Maillé, C. (2012). Transnational feminisms in Francophonie space. Women: A Cultural Review 23 (1): 62–78. Markowitz, L. and Tice, K.W. (2002). Paradoxes of professionalization parallel dilemmas in women’s organizations in the Americas. Gender & Society 16 (6): 941–958. Marshall, G.A. (2005). Ideology, progress, and dialogue:a comparison of feminist and Islamist women’s approaches to the issues of head covering and work in Turkey. Gender & Society 19 (1): 104–120. Marshall, G.A. (2013). Shaping Gender Policy in Turkey: Grassroots Women Activists, the European Union, and the Turkish State (ed. State University of New York Press). Albany, NY. Mendoza, B. (2002). Transnational feminisms in question. Feminist Theory 3 (3): 295–314. Menon, N. (2015). A critical view on intersectionality from India: is feminism about “women”? Economic & Political Weekly 50 (17). Moghadam, V.M. (2005). Globalizing Women: Transnational Feminist Networks. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Mohanty, C.T. (2003). Feminism without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Mohanty, C.T. (2013). Transnational feminist crossings: on neoliberalism and radical critique. Signs 38 (4): 967–991. Morgan, R. (1984). Sisterhood Is Global: The International Women’s Movement Anthology. New York, NY: Feminist Press at CUNY. Naples, N. (2002a). Changing the terms: community activism, globalization, and the dilemmas of transnational feminist praxis. In: Women’s Activism and Globalization: Linking Local Struggles and Transnational Politics (eds. N. Naples and M. Desai), 3–14. New York, NY: Routledge. Naples, N. (2002b). The challenges and possibilities of transnational feminist praxis. In: Women’s Activism and Globalization: Linking Local Struggles and Transnational Politics (eds. N. Naples and M. Desai), 267–281. New York, NY: Routledge. Narayan, U. (1997). Dislocating Cultures: Identities, Traditions, and Third World Feminism. New York, NY: Routletge.

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Narayan, A. and Purkayastha, B. (2008). Living our Religions: Hindu and Muslim South Asian American Women Narrate their Experiences. Sterling, VA: Kumarian Press. Natarajan, N. (1994). Women, nation and narration in midnights “children”. In: Scattered Hegemonies: Postmodernity and Transnational Feminist Practices (eds. I. Grewal and C. Kalan), 76–89. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Nzegwu, N.U. (2006). Family Matters: Feminists Concepts in African Philosophy of Culture. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Oyěwùmí, Oyèrónkẹ́́ (2002). Conceptualizing gender: the Eurocentric foundations of feminist concepts and the challenge of African epistemologies. JENdA: Journal of Culture and African Woman Studies 2 (1) http://jendajournal.com. Oyěwùmí, Oyèrónkẹ́ (1997). The Invention of Women: Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourses. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Patil, V. (2011). Transnational feminism in sociology: articulations, agendas, debates. Sociology Compass 5 (7): 540–550. Patil, V. (2013). From patriarchy to intersectionality: a transnational feminist assessment of how far we’ve really come. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 38 (4): 847–867. Purkayastha, B. (2012). Intersectionality in a transnational world. Gender & Society 26 (1): 55–66. Quataert, J.H. (2014). A knowledge revolution: transnational feminist contributions to international development agendas and policies, 1965–1995. Global Social Policy 14 (2): 209–227. Román‐Odio, C. and Sierra, M. (eds.) (2011). Transnational Borderlands in Women’s Global Networks: The Making of Cultural Resistance. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Rupp, L.J. (1997). Worlds of Women: The Making of an International Women’s Movement. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Sampaio, A. (2004). Transnational feminisms in a new global matrix. International Feminist Journal of Politics 6 (2): 181–206. Sholock, A. (2012). Methodology of the privileged: white anti‐racist feminism, systematic ignorance, and epistemic uncertainty. Hypatia 27 (4): 701–714. Sperling, V., Ferree, M.M., and Risman, B. (2001). Constructing global feminism: transnational advocacy networks and Russian women’s activism. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 26 (4): 1155–1186. Stoetzler, M. and Yuval‐Davis, N. (2002). Standpoint theory, situated knowledge and the situated imagination. Feminist Theory 3 (3): 315–333. Thayer, M. (2010). Making Transnational Feminism: Rural Women, NGO Activists, and Northern Donors in Brazil. New York, NY: Routledge. Tripp, A.M. (2005). Regional networking as transnational feminism: African experiences. Feminist Africa 4: 46–63. Tripp, A.M. (2006). The evolution of transnational feminisms: consensus, conflict, and new dynamics. In: Global Feminism: Transnational Women’s Activism, Organizing, and Human Rights (eds. M.M. Ferree and A.M. Tripp), 51–75. New York, NY: New York University Press. Yuval‐Davis, N. (1999). The personal is political: Jewish fundamentalism and women’s empowerment. In: Religious Fundamentalisms and the Human Rights of Women (ed. C.W. Howland), 33–42. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press. Yuval‐Davis, N. (2006). Human/women’s rights and feminist transversal politics. In: Global Feminism: Transnational Women’s Activism, Organizing, and Human Rights (eds. M.M. Ferree and A.M. Tripp), 275–295. New York, NY: New York University Press.

Part III Methodological Diversity

12 Feminist Methodologies Cynthia Deitch

Origins and Development In the early 1980s, three books focused significantly on methodologies in feminist research, stirring controversy and charting new ground.1 These were: Doing Feminist Research (1981) edited by Helen Roberts; Theories of Women’s Studies (1983) edited by Gloria Bowles and Renate Duelli Klein; and Breaking Out (1983) by Liz Stanley and Sue Wise. A robust body of academic discussion and debate on feminist methodology has continued to grow over subsequent decades. Brief highlights of several of the early contributions to this literature are useful for assessing how this discussion has evolved. The anthology Doing Feminist Research (1981) included “Interviewing Women: A Contradiction in Terms,” a now‐classic essay by British sociologist Ann Oakley (1981) that drew upon her experience studying motherhood. Oakley provided an early systematic critique of how and why the standard research methods textbook prescriptions for good interviewing techniques in social science were counter to feminist values and to feminist aims for gaining knowledge about women’s lived experience. Oakley argued that a more dialogical approach could empower interviewees and result in better insights about their lives than taking the stance of the detached observer. In a similar vein to Oakley, Stanley and Wise (1983) argued that the assumption by many feminist scholars that qualitative methods such as interviewing were inherently feminist actually obscured the positivist bias of much qualitative as well as quantitative research. In their critique of positivist science, Stanley and Wise located the researcher and the researched on the same critical plane, and argued that all knowledge is situated. While they were also quite critical of quantitative methods, they rejected the quantitative‐as‐masculinist versus qualitative‐as‐feminist dichotomy they observed in much feminist social science at the time. Stanley and Wise

Companion to Feminist Studies, First Edition. Edited by Nancy A. Naples. © 2021 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Published 2021 by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

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further critiqued the existing feminist methodology of the 1970s for its essentialist view of woman as a unified category, noting how much feminist research of the time emphasized common experiences among women with insufficient attention to differences of race, class, and sexuality. They also rejected the common mantra that feminist research should be “by, for and about” women, arguing that “women” is a socially constructed category and that feminists needed to study men and men’s behavior as well as women to understand women’s subordination. In Theories of Women’s Studies (1983), Bowles and Klein brought together discussions of methodology (as well as theory) that had been circulating among feminist scholars in the 1970s. In their collection, Klein called for “non‐sexist” research that was for as well as by women, emphasizing the importance of social change in achieving the goal of improving women’s lives. A chapter by Jayartne (1983) entitled “The Value of Quantitative Methodology for Feminist Research” advocated for avoiding a blanket rejection of quantitative approaches. A subsequently influential paper by Maria Mies (1983) presented what she called postulates of a feminist methodology that included a rejection of the positivist ethic of politically neutral, value free science and the call for a new, politically engaged relationship between feminist research and the feminist movement. Mies located her postulates as emerging from, and a necessity for, the development of the interdisciplinary academic field of women’s studies if women’s studies was to foster research that was actually feminist and not merely research on women. As Mies recounts in later work (1991), her postulates generated considerable controversy. Collectively, the early 1980s work described above set the stage for many of the themes and concerns that continue to be important in feminist methodology. A decade later, the early 1990s witnessed a renewed round of books revisiting, revising, and expanding upon similar themes in, for example, Fonow and Cook’s Beyond Methodology (1991), Reinharz’s Feminist Methods for Social Research (1992), and Breaking Out Again (1993) by Stanley and Wise, followed later by DeVault (1999), Naples (2003), Sprague (2005), and Jaggar (2007) to name just a very few of numerous examples.

Methodologies and Methods Interest in books on feminist methodology has been sustained, in part, by the institutional development of interdisciplinary women’s studies (now frequently renamed women’s, gender, and sexuality studies) courses, programs and departments. Women’s studies as a field, emerged within the academy in the early 1970s with a critique of the narrowness of definitions of acceptable scholarship in traditional disciplines, which reinforced the exclusion of research on women. Feminist methodology has long been associated with a critique or at least a questioning of disciplinary research practices (Bowles and Klein 1983). Although important work on feminist methodology has been contributed by scholars institutionally and intellectually located within traditional academic disciplines, one strand of feminist methodology debate centered on the growth of an interdisciplinary field of women’s studies. Some scholars who identified with women’s studies argued for the need for specifically feminist methods to heed feminist poet and theorist Audre Lorde’s (1979) warning that “the master’s tools will never



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dismantle the master’s house.” In the controversial essay, “The impossibility of Women’s Studies,” Wendy Brown (1997) observed that the claim to a distinct method (as well as theory) was tied to a desire for the status of an academic discipline even while challenging disciplinarity. Partly in answer to Brown, in the “methods” chapter of the anthology Rethinking Women’s and Gender Studies anthology, Side (2012) suggests that stories of how founding mothers of the women’s studies field supposedly created new feminist methods is now part of the genealogy of the field, but is not helpful. Side argues that the continuing professed need for our own feminist methods, as well as for “methods” classes in graduate programs in women’s and gender studies, reflects intellectual anxiety about the field’s perceived legitimacy within the academy. Side finds that these discussions are characterized by a very inflated view of the supposed homogeneity, consensus, coherence, and clarity of methods in traditional disciplines. For Side, not being able to name one standard, agreed‐upon methodology (or method) is not unique to women’s and gender studies, and is a strength not a weakness. Harding’s (1987) essay, “Is there a feminist method,” was in part a response to earlier claims of a feminist method. Harding argued that there is feminist epistemology (theory of knowledge) and methodology, “theory and analysis of how research should or does proceed” (Harding p. 3), but that unique or specific feminist methods per se – the specific techniques of evidence collection used in the creation of knowledge  –  do not exist and are not what was distinctive and powerful in emerging feminist critiques of and approaches to research. Although Harding’s distinction between methodology and method is frequently cited, the two terms are still often conflated and the concern for “feminist methods” is still debated.

A Range of Methods As Harding (1987) observed, feminist researchers employ a wide range of methods  –  meaning techniques of data collection and analysis. Although there is now considerable consensus that uniquely feminist methods (as opposed to methodology) do not exist, there are feminist approaches to and applications of a range of methods within and across disciplines. There is an extensive literature on feminist ethnography, the challenges it poses, and its contribution to anthropology and other social science (e.g. Pillow and Mayo 2012; Buch and Staller 2014; Davis and Craven 2016). Discussions of in‐depth interviewing as a feminist method go back to Oakley (1981) and continue in more recent work such as DeVault and Gross (2012) and Hesse‐ Biber (2014), among others. There is also literature, but more limited, on feminist approaches to other specific methods such as focus groups (Munday 2014), community‐based participatory action research (Lykes and Crosby 2014), program evaluation (Brisolara et  al. 2014; Mertens and Stewart 2014), and survey research (Harnois 2013; Minor and Jayartne 2014) to name a few examples.

Continuing Themes Early themes that continue to be important include the importance of feminist epistemology with its critique of positivism, the emphasis on reflexivity especially about the social location of researchers and their relationship to the people and topics

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studied, and a commitment to the goal of research for social change and social justice. Naples (2007) provides an excellent overview of key themes and debates in feminist methodology into the early 2000s. Cogent assessments are also found in summaries provided Fonow and Cook (2005) and Harding and Norberg (2005). The remainder of this chapter focuses primarily on more developments. Feminist epistemology continues to inform discussions of feminist methodology (e.g. Jaggar 2007, 2015; Naples 2003, 2007; Sprague 2005, 2016). In addition to a critique of positivism, some scholars emphasize feminist standpoint and postmodern theories of knowledge (Naples 2003, 2007) while other add critical realism (Sprague 2005, 2016). Harding (2015) has continued to develop the concept of strong objectivity (as related to standpoint) along with a global perspective on western biases in what counts as scientific knowledge and method contributing to and drawing upon other postcolonial perspectives. Although there are important distinctions among them (see Jaggar 2015; Naples 2007; Sprague 2016), feminist epistemologies collectively are critical for the development of feminist methodology that understands knowledge as socially situated and not politically neutral, and that values reflexivity and commitment to social justice.

Reflexivity, Power, and Privilege The theme of reflexivity, as used here, very broadly includes positionality or the social location of the researcher in relation to the people and topic studied, the relative privilege of the researcher, power relations in the research process, outsider versus insider status of the researcher, emotions in the research process, and writing the researcher’s own experiences into the texts created. Researcher reflexivity tends to run counter to the tenets of positivism because it acknowledges that knowledge production is socially situated, that the social location of the researcher matters, rather than either claiming that knowers are interchangeable and value‐neutral or aspiring to that status. When traditional conceptions of the ideal of value neutrality and interchangeable knowers are rejected, or at least questioned, then the need to discuss the social location of the research, the researcher, and the researched is a logical step. In recent decades, location is increasingly understood as intersectional – encompassing diverse combinations of race, class, gender, and sexuality. Postcolonial feminists have called attention to the importance of reflective thinking about the geopolitical location of the researcher in relation to the research, as discussed in more detail below. Feminist disability scholars bring in additional concerns. Ryan‐Flood and Gill (2010, p. 2) note that “the myth of the objective neutral observer who leaves the field without influencing the data, untouched by the research process, has been soundly critiqued by feminist social scientists.” Feminists ethnographers have readily reflected on the embodied nature of field research, the emotions of the researcher and the people studied, and dilemmas for navigating the messiness (Davis and Craven 2016; Ryan‐Flood and Gill 2010). For example, anthropologist Naisargi Dave (2012) studied queer women’s activism in India, immersing herself in the lives and work of lesbian activists in several different organizations. In discussing her field experience, Dave states: “An ethnographer with different passions, priorities, and education who sat through the same meetings as I did at the same period of history would surely have tracked different debates and offered other conclusions”



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(quoted in Davis and Craven p. 86). Dave (2012) also discusses how the women she studied became the friends who make her life “easier, fuller, and better” and acknowledges how “to write critically in such a context is challenging.” Dave’s approach demonstrates a number of qualities found in discussions of feminist ethnography in that she rejects the positivist stance of a neutral objective observer and interchangeable knower, as well as the goal of a study that could be replicated. She contributed time and labor to the organizations she studied  –  though attempted not to get involved in ways that would sway their direction. She also valued and acknowledged the personal relationships she developed with those she studied.

The Challenge of Studying Powerful or Unsympathetic Groups Studying groups that are more powerful than the researcher or whom the researcher does not wish to empower presents challenges to the researcher and to some of the frequently articulated goals of feminist research. This topic is given much less attention in the feminist methodology literature than research on marginalized groups. This is not unique to feminist research. As Sprague (2016, p. 14) explains, more social science research in general focuses on the problems of the less advantaged and little on the characteristics of the privileged. Feminist methodology discussions of power relations between feminist researchers and the researched tend to assume that the community studied is less powerful, less privileged, and composed of people the researcher wishes to empower and sympathizes with. Some classic examples of significant feminist research such as Diana Scully’s study (2013 [1990] of male rapists in prison and Kathleen Blee’s (2002) study of women in white supremacist hate groups both demonstrate the value of research that helps us understand the worldview and thought process of groups that are not supportive of or supported by feminists. In both studies the researchers struggled to balance gaining enough trust to elicit meaningful interviews but not validating the interviewees. Feminist researchers may also “study up” in the sense of studying powerful elites to better understand the ways power and privilege operate. Harding and Norberg (2005, p. 2011) in their introduction to a special issue of the journal Signs on feminist methodologies in the social sciences, suggest that studying up, as in studying those in power and their institutions, practices, and policies, rather than focusing on those the powerful govern, is a critical part of efforts to produce research more accountable to the disadvantaged. Similarly, Sprague (2016, pp. 202–204) suggests that studying up may involve studying institutional structures through which power is exercised or studying individuals in positions of power or privilege; either of which may yield insights into how power and inequality are maintained. Becker and Aiello (2013) explore the contradictions and challenges of using feminist methodologies in studying up. They develop a “continuum of complicity” that researchers can use to enhance reflexivity and problematize power. They identify tension between calls for studying up and the lack of fit with many principles of feminist research such as giving voice, giving back, and making interviews a collaborative process or dialogue. By recoding and reexamining their respective field notes from two very different ethnographic studies of crime control, they use an autoethnographic lens to analyze how they negotiated relations in the field when, for example, they encountered racist statements by people they were studying or whom they

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depended upon for access to the field. They defined their work as studying up because some of the people they studied were in positions of considerable power over women in jail in one case, and people of color in a predominantly white community in the other, and because they personally were not in the clearly more advantaged positions that they would have been in relation to the women prisoners, for example. Others (e.g. Blee 2002) have also discussed how they have responded to dealing with racist and sexist comments by interviewees and informants.

An Example of Innovation As observed by Cook and Fonow (1985) feminist methodology was and continues to be focused both on critiques of existing research practices that ignore gender or perpetuate gender and other inequalities, and on creating innovative approaches to research. Innovations are found in the questions posed as well as in the ways existing methods are used to collect data. In an example from a recent decade, Mignon Moore (2011) in Invisible Families, a study of Black lesbian families with children, developed strategies for accessing communities that are not readily visible or have porous boundaries. In addition to building networks to distribute surveys, recruit interviewees, and observe social life, she co‐hosted weekly parties at a club to create a space to interact with the community she was studying and, as she describes it, as a way to give back to the community while making herself a familiar face that people were comfortable with. After most of the surveys and interviews were completed, she used these parties to have more informal ongoing interactions with participants about their lives and her research; participants knew she was writing a book on Black lesbian families. Based on her experience, Moore recommends that researchers studying communities that lack geographic boundaries or have porous boundaries create events to bring potential research subjects together. The example above illustrates several themes in the feminist methodology, and especially feminist ethnography literature. Moore intentionally and reflectively bridges the outsider/insider divide by, over time, taking on an insider position that she created for herself. She engaged with participants about her research as well as about their lives. She interacted with participants during the writing as well as the data collection stages. She found a way of giving back to the community she studied.

Newer Directions Over the past decade or so, discussion and debate on themes of epistemology, of reflexivity, power relations, and social location, and of the emancipatory aim of feminist research have taken on new challenges, expanding in several directions. Selected examples reviewed below include feminist approaches applied through autoethnography, transnational, archival, quantitative, gender non‐binary, and intersectional research.

Autoethnography The concept and practice of autoethnography has emerged from an emphasis on reflexivity. “Autoethnography is a qualitative research method that combines cultural



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analysis and interpretation with narrative details of one’s own lived experience.” (Chang 2008, p. 46 in Barton). Autoethnography is not necessarily feminist intervention, but a body of work that identifies itself as feminist throughout its development. Proponents such as Ettorre (2016) claim that autoethnography, unlike autobiography or memoir, focuses on the social context more than the individual, but explicitly uses knowledge from personal experience to guide the analysis. In writing autoethnographically about her 40 years of experience as a feminist researcher studying drug use, Etiorre uses more standard ethnographic data such as transcriptions of interviews with drug users in combination with reports of her own emotions and responses to the interviews and the transcripts as an attempt to better tell and interpret the stories of the women drug users. As a strong advocate of “autoethnography as feminist method” (the title of her book), Ettorre argues that autoethnography uses feminist methodology because it creates a transitional space between insider and outsider, objectivity and subjectivity; it is active demonstration of the personal is political slogan of second‐wave feminism; it brings together critical and creative writing through narratives; and, it reveals vulnerabilities of the researcher. Barton (2011) reflects more critically on the ethical and methodological challenges of writing about “co‐mingled” data in her research on (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans (LGBT) experiences in Bible belt communities. Barton findings include autoethnographic details of her experiences as a lesbian researcher living in the Bible belt, which she posits helps her interpret other ethnographic stories but also reveals how that co‐mingling complicates power relations and ethics of fieldwork.

Transnational Anti‐colonial Methodology Naples (2003, 2007) gave considerable attention to postcolonial feminism as an important influence in feminist methodology. Earlier work by Mohanty (2003) and Alexander and Mohanty (2012), among others, contributed to a postcolonial critique of the ways much Western feminist scholarship tended to represent “Third World” women in a homogenized, decontextualized way, and as lacking agency. More recent work on transnational feminist research extends discussions of how to apply insights from postcolonial theorizing to feminist research in postcolonial global contexts. For example, scholars who identify their approach as decolonial (Falcón 2016; Lugones 2011; Mendoza 2016; Smith 2009) extend discussions of situated knowledge, positionality, and power dynamics in research to challenges faced by researchers from or affiliated with US or other Western institutions doing research with and in geopolitically marginalized communities.2 Drawing on work by Bickham Mendez (2008), Bose and Kim (2009), Fernandes (2013), Lugones (2011), and Tuhiwai Smith (2009), among others, Sylvanna Falcón (2016) proposed three guiding principles for transnational feminist methodology. These involve negotiating imperial privilege, ontologies, and multilingualism. Falcón argues that although an important body of scholarship exists on reflexivity and positionality in research, the specific role of US citizenship or affiliation with US academic institutions needs further development. Falcón calls for researchers to be especially aware of the “imperial” power and privileges they wield in the field due to their US affiliation, which may impact the community studied and the research itself. Falcón suggests that researchers who carry imperial privilege need to negotiate it

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through resource‐sharing and reciprocity. This might take the form of translating documents, helping to secure funding, providing a stipend or gift for interviews, renegotiating informed consent at multiple stages, or helping clean up after a meeting, as examples. Falcón’s “ontologies” principle is about not always privileging secularism over other ways of knowing, and not dismissing the spiritual where religion or a spiritual dimension are important in a given cultural context. Falcón’s multilingualism principle is aimed at destabilizing the dominance of English, especially in contexts where it is was historically imposed through colonial domination. Falcón writes that monolingualism negatively affects how knowledge is communicated and circulated. She calls for working with translators and having work translated for multiple audiences. Falcón also calls for building community as part of the research design rather than using the model of the individual researcher working alone, and for embracing a vision of social justice as part of the research. On the issue of language, Falcón draws on Bose and Kim (2009) who noted how language barriers hinder the circulation of feminist knowledge produced in non‐ English speaking countries. The economic resources in a country and its political climate may also limit scholars’ ability to publish in their own language. Scholars may not be able to publish, may not have access to academic publishing venues, or their journals may not reach people in the West. Alternatively, they may publish in English in journals not available to others in their home country. Jennifer Bickham Mendez (2008) makes similar observations about language and publishing in her discussion of “globalizing scholar activism” through a feminist lens. Like Falcón, she concludes that feminist writing on epistemologies and methodologies provides highly relevant critiques and tools not just for feminists, but for all researchers concerned with social justice in transnational research. The call for reflexivity in acknowledging positionality echoes long‐standing themes in feminist methodology. The idea that feminist researchers should consider giving back to communities studied, and design research for social change, is also part of a larger tradition. The specific attention to geopolitical imperial privilege and multilingualism extends that tradition and tailors it to challenges of transnational research practices.

Feminist Methodologies in the Archive Feminist historians and other scholars who use archival materials have contributed critical reflections on feminist research practice in the archive that take discussion of feminist methodology into the domain of documents, texts, artifacts, and the lives of people who are no longer living. Feminist archival researchers studying people whose lives are not well documented have reflected on the specific challenges faced and the approaches taken. Their writing addresses questions of knowledge creation, positionality, reflexivity, and research oriented to understanding diverse forms of feminist activism, making it very pertinent to the feminist methodology conversation. Chaudhurri, Katz, and Perry (2010) write that the essays they collected for Contested Archives: Finding Women in the Sources demonstrate “a methodological self‐consciousness regarding historians as history makers and raise questions about the relationship between ourselves and our subjects.” For example, Ula Taylor (2010), in work on Jacques Garvey (wife of African American activist leader Marcus Garvey), discussed what she coined as “the crisis of archival recognition” that historians of



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African American women confront when they find African American women’s experiences are not represented in available documents. Where published and archival materials do not exist, as Kathleen Sheldon (2010) discusses, for historical research on women in much of Africa, researchers have developed a variety of innovative methods to retrieve historical information including historical linguistics, folktales, songs, textiles, pottery, and tattoos. As in other fields, these are not uniquely feminist methods, but historians of marginalized groups of women often need to innovate and develop such methods. Whereas the historians discussed above locate their research in relation to disciplinary practices of historians, Kate Eichorn takes a consciously interdisciplinary (or perhaps non‐disciplinary) approach in The Archival Turn in Feminism (Eichhorn 2013). Eichorn describes her methods as informed by “participant observations carried out in archives and special collections where I was simultaneously engaged in archival research” (p. 17) and by interviews with archivists, librarians, researchers, and donors whom she met in the process of her archival work. She locates her methodology in relation to a tradition of feminist research going back to Radway (1984) that “brings ethnographic approaches to bear on the study of texts and textual communities” as well as to historians’, sociologists’, and cultural studies scholars’ efforts to “denaturalize the presumptive boundaries of official archive space” (18). Eichorn defines her approach as “methodological disloyalty” drawing on Halberstam’s (1998, p. 10) idea that queer researchers tend to show a disloyalty to conventional disciplinary methods. As discussed earlier, feminist methodology is informed by epistemological concerns with how knowledge is produced and circulated, what counts as knowledge, who counts as a knowledge‐maker, and who has access to what knowledge. Eichorn sees archives as sites to explore these concerns. She studied several archives that 1990s feminist activists self‐consciously created to document self‐published feminist and queer zines of the 1990s, associated with the feminist organization Riot Grrrl and several other groups. For Eichorn, “the creation of archives has become integral to how knowledges are produced and legitimized. “Rather than a destination for knowledges already produced or a place to recover histories and ideas placed under erasure, the making of archives is frequently where knowledge production begins” (p. 3). In her analysis of the texts in the archives she studied, Eichorn bridges the metaphorical use of the term archive as a broader repository of knowledge and culture with the traditional physical archive. Another example of combining archive with ethnography, is seen in anthropologist Naisargi Dave’s (2010, 2012) discovery and analysis of an archive of hundreds of letters from women seeking advice to Sakhi, the first lesbian networking organization in India. Dave used the letters to construct a narrative of how women from a range of classes and locations across India first came to identify as lesbian. Dave blends the textual analysis of the letters with other historical and ethnographic research on lesbian feminist movement organizations in India.

Quantitative and Feminist: Old Debate, New Developments The discussions above of how feminist methodology informs newer developments in autoethnography, transnational, and archival research all focus on qualitative methods. Although there is wide agreement that there is no single or preferred method of

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collecting data, and some nod to mixed or multiple methods, a level of tension and debate persists on the choice of qualitative versus quantitative approaches. The next set of topics involve current challenges for quantitative as well as qualitative research. Early feminist methodology texts are often cited as celebrating qualitative approaches and critiquing quantitative; however, authors such as Oakley (1981) and Mies (1983) did attempt to clarify that the association of quantitative techniques with positivism did not mean feminist methodology was incompatible with quantitative methods. Oakley (1998) later critiqued the “paradigm debate” wherein qualitative and quantitative were viewed as in opposition, with quantitative equated with masculinist. Scott (2012) points out that quantitative researchers are not all the naïve positivists although some qualitative critics still tend to construct them that way. Sprague (2016, p. 95) makes a related point that much of the feminist criticism of quantitative methods is actually a critique of how positivists do quantitative research, thus eliding epistemology, methodology, and a class of methods, a misconception related to the dominance of positivism in informing most quantitative research. Cohen et  al. (2009), Undurraga (2010), and Cohen (2015) assess the feminist research literature and find a continued disjunction between feminist methodology and quantitative methods despite nominal agreement that quantitative research and feminism are not incompatible. Books on feminist research written for students give very limited attention to quantitative approaches and much more detail on qualitative techniques. (Undurraga 2010). Cohen et  al. (2009) found that the balance of quantitative versus qualitative feminist research varies by discipline and by geography, with psychology and economics having higher percentages of quantitative work than sociology or anthropology. Sprague (2016) finds that while feminist methodological discussions through a feminist lens are rare in quantitative work, feminists who do quantitative research are not rare (p. 114). Hughes and Cohen (2012) observe more broadly that for empirical studies published in scholarly journals, qualitative studies as well as quantitative, explicit discussion of feminist methodology is rare even in feminist or gender‐focused journals. Sprague demonstrates through multiple examples that feminist scholars use a variety of quantitative techniques to create knowledge and dispel misconceptions about gender and other inequalities, and in doing so contribute to broader feminist goals of gender and social justice. Sprague further shows how a critical lens informs approaches to the questions that are asked, the research designs employed, and the measurements used in a range of quantitative research by feminist scholars. One argument sometimes made for why quantitative research is useful, important, and an advantage for feminist social change goals is that it is more likely to be read, listened to, and heeded by policymakers than qualitative research because it is viewed as more scientific and credible (e.g. Hughes and Cohen 2012; Minor and Jayartne 2014). This can be a problematic argument for some feminist scholars because it seems to reinforce the hegemony of positivist epistemology and undercut feminist critiques. A more compelling argument, in my view, is Minor and Jayartne’s (2014, p. 305) claim that research is more likely to have a policy impact if it can show that thousands or even millions of women are similarly negatively impacted by consequences associated with domestic violence, pay inequity, lack of paid parental leave, etc. Scott (2012) finds quantitative methods especially useful for studying



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complexities of gender as a social construction, and especially for studying what McCall (2005) called intercategorical patterns of intersectional inequalities (see the  section “Intersectionality and Methodology” below)  –  an approach that often requires large data sets to systematically examine comparisons among multiple ­intersections of gender, race, and class. Williams (2012) makes a case for why the quantitative field of demography has, on one hand, been very resistant to insights of feminist methodology, but on the other hand, has much to gain from and contribute to feminist research. Williams notes that demography as a field is concerned with issues of empowerment and women’s lives globally, as are feminists. However, in demography, gender is frequently conflated with sex, and usually used only as a static, binary independent (explanatory) variable, invariant over time, without acknowledging that it is socially constructed. Demography, in Williams’ critique, has not engaged with critical and reflexive practices, or concepts of intersectionality or social construction; it remains very invested in modernist assumptions and positivist epistemology. These practices notwithstanding, Williams suggests that demographers’ concern for improving measurement could make them open to feminist insights on how to think about gender. She suggests demographers should consider treating gender as a dependent variable. Williams further notes that the tradition of feminist reflexivity on the politics of location could productively counter a historical tendency in demography toward Western bias both in how research questions are framed and the lenses brought to data analysis. Williams calls for increased engagement by feminist researchers with demography because, she argues, demographic methods are tools feminists can use in fighting for social justice.

Beyond the Gender Binary Some of the issues raised by Williams for demography are echoed and expanded elsewhere in recent research challenging the binary and cisgender assumptions of most social science research. Understanding that “woman” is not a homogenous category, feminist researchers have asked which women any given research is designed to include and which women are excluded. Once “woman” is understood as a socially constructed and not simply biologically based category, feminist methodology leads us to question the conflation of sex with gender that persists in much non‐feminist research, as well as the sex‐versus‐gender dichotomy that remains in some feminist research. There is a challenge to include people who identify or present as gender non‐binary. This is a challenge to both qualitative and quantitative research. Quantitative data based on very large samples likely includes numbers of non‐binary respondents but usually has research designs that fail to account and code for anything other than binary. Qualitative studies that are specifically focused on diverse gender identities may be better designed to be inclusive, but unless non‐ binary gender is a focus of the research, qualitative researchers frequently ignore variation in gender identity. Gender scholars tend to see sex and gender as separate but related concepts, social constructions, and/or identity categories, and to understand both sex and gender as not simply binary or unchanging. In contrast, social surveys that collect attitudinal as well as demographic data typically used in quantitative research tend to conflate

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sex and gender, and to treat them both as binary and stable over the life course. This was noted previously in relation to data in demography (Williams 2012) but is also true for survey research by non‐demographers as well. Many qualitative researchers also fail to question uses of sex and gender as binary and stable categories. Work by Westbrook and Saperstein (2015), and others (Magliozzi et al. 2016; Schilt and Bratter 2015; Sumerau et al. 2016) engages with the need, possibilities and complexity of routinely including sex and gender variation in survey research. Westbrook and Saperstein (2015) show that offering respondents more choices than the conventional male or female options only scratches the surface of the problem with most surveys. A systematic examination of how major social surveys used in social science research operationalize gender leads them to call for a “more thorough rethinking of measurement practices” (p. 538). Magliozzi et al. (2016) suggest that it is not enough to heed the call to add categories such as transgender to response choices. Their research with national pilot studies shows that conventional measures obscure significant variation that exists within the conventional categories of female and male. They demonstrate that scaled masculine and feminine self‐ reported responses can be used as independent variables that may contribute to inequality, or as dependent variables where gender identification is the outcome studied. Schilt and Bratter (2015) found that when given the option to check “transgender” instead of male or female, individuals who felt others viewed them as unambiguously male or female were less likely to choose the transgender response compared to those who experienced discrepancy between self‐perceived and other‐ perceived gender. Extrapolating from the above research, a challenge of feminist methodology not previously well developed is how to avoid conflating biologically defined sex with socially defined gender while acknowledging both as at least in part socially constructed. Practices might include asking separate questions about current sex and gender, sex at birth, how people rate themselves and are perceived by others on masculinity and femininity scales. Traditionally, many in‐person surveys have instructed the interviewer to make an attribution about the respondent’s gender, usually using strictly binary choices. Although we lack comparable systematic study of how qualitative researchers conducting interviews, ethnographies, and focus groups attribute gender to the people they study, it is likely that even feminist and gender scholars make binary and essentialist attributions without questioning their own assumptions or asking the person interviewed in many cases. Discussions of feminist methodology several decades ago pointed out that it was not enough to “add women and stir” (Harding 1991) without rethinking how studies were conceptualized and implemented. Feminist scholars discussed above show that it is not enough to simply add previously ignored and invisible gender categories, although the challenge to find and develop good data that include responses beyond the gender binary is a useful step.

Intersectionality and Methodology As discussed earlier, theoretical, and conceptual challenges to essentialism pushed feminist scholars to question conceptions of “woman” as a homogenous or unified category, and to decenter the experience of white, middle‐class, heterosexual Western



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women (Harding 1991). In recent decades, feminist and critical race scholars have debated and developed various conceptions of intersectionality (Collins and Bilge 2016) in diverse attempts to capture the way gender combines with race, class, sexuality and sometimes other vectors to shape identities and social structures. While intersectionality is not a methodology per se and does not imply any specific set of methods above others, scholars studying intersectionality have raised significant qualitative and quantitative methodological questions. The intersectionality literature (Collins and Bilge 2016) is far too large and diverse to do more than scratch the surface in the discussion below. In distinguishing among what she termed anti‐categorical, intracategorical, and intercategorical conceptions of intersectionality, McCall (2005) drew out the methodological implications of each for research design and analysis. McCall observed that studies focused on a single‐ intersection (intracategorical) multiply‐­marginalized grouping are more common than studies that systematically compare across (­intercategorical) intersections in part because truly intercategorical analysis tends to require very large samples and cumbersome data analyses. Choo and Ferree (2010) critically examined four highly regarded book‐length qualitative studies that carefully examine social class with some significant attention to race and gender, but with methodological approaches and research designs that do not facilitate an intersectional analysis. Choo and Ferree suggest how a complex intersectional analysis might enrich each work. McCall as well as Choo and Ferree highlights the challenge of research designs that examine intercategorical comparisons among multiple intersectional categories. Mignon Moore’s (2011) study of Black lesbian families with children (mentioned in the section “An Example of Innovation”) provides a possible model of a qualitative study that is intracategorical in many respects but also fairly systematically includes cross‐class comparisons, thus adding a level of the intercategorical complexity called for by McCall and by Choo and Ferree. Other feminist researchers have focused on the data collection process in response to the methodological challenge of intersectionality. Lisa Bowleg (2008) critically reflects on the shortcomings of and lessons from several of her own previous studies to address intersectionality in a nuanced and non‐additive way. She analyzes her interview questions in both qualitative and quantitative studies. Bowleg and Bauer (2016) contributed to discussions initiated by Else‐Quest and Hyde (2016), among others, on how best to advance research on intersectionality within psychology, with particular attention to dilemmas for quantitative research. They raise concerns about not focusing only at the individual identity level but needing to address group level differences in power and other forms of inequality. They caution that the same criteria that are usually prioritized as best demonstrating evidence strength  –  random sampling, longitudinal data, randomization – “are often the same methods that do not work well (or at all) for research with oppressed and marginalized communities, and render these groups and their experiences empirically invisible” (p. 340). Bowleg and Bauer (p. 340) conclude with a reminder that intersectionality research is not politically neutral but rather requires a commitment to social justice as much as mastery of methods or techniques. Their conclusion is an example of how long‐ standing themes of feminist methodology are carried forward in new debates and directions.

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Conclusion This chapter began with a brief review of several significant contributions from the early 1980s (Bowles and Klein 1983; Roberts 1981; Stanley and Wise 1983) that helped synthesize prior discussions of feminist methodology and helped shape subsequent discussion. A number of early themes and issues have remained important. Among others, these include a critique of positivism along with an acknowledgment that quantitative as well as qualitative empirical research could be feminist. The idea that all knowledge is situated and therefore it is important to attend to the social location of the researcher remains important. Reflexivity about power relations between the researcher and the people or groups studied and a commitment to research for social change are other continuing themes. After exploring examples from the past 15 years of how scholars have elaborated and developed the above themes, the chapter turned to newer directions, exploring recent discussion and debate on how to use feminist methodological understandings to enrich research in several areas, but also how new research may challenge previous understandings. Specific topics explored included feminist autoethnography and feminist archival research. Examples of ongoing challenges included moving beyond a gender binary, decolonizing research, making quantitative research more feminist, and grappling with methodological implications of and for intersectional research. To paraphrase and quote Denis (2008, p. 688) in her review of methodology and intersectionality research a decade ago, the challenge has been issued, the theorizing is evolving, but we are (still) struggling to develop the methodological tools for “necessary complex analysis of empirical data.” The continuing struggle is not limited to research on intersectionality but also applies to multiple efforts to develop feminist methodologies that best guide research that is not simply about women or gender, but reflects and advances emancipatory feminist goals.

Notes 1 Some of the controversies in response to the publication of these books are discussed in Mies (1991) and Stanley and Wise (1993). As Stanley and Wise (1993) explain, it was not coincidental that all three books were published by Routledge. 2 As explained by Mendoza (2016) postcolonial and decolonial theory are two schools of anti‐colonial thought, both of which analyze past and present imperialist and colonial practices. The debates about and differences between the two approaches (see Mendoza 2016) are well beyond the scope of this chapter.

References Alexander, M.J. and Mohanty, C.T. (eds.) (2012). Feminist Genealogies, Colonial Legacies, Democratic Futures. New York: Routledge. Barton, B. (2011). My auto/ethnographic dilemma: who owns the story? Qualitative Sociology 34 (3): 431–445. Becker, S. and Aiello, B. (2013). The continuum of complicity:“studying up”/studying power as a feminist, anti‐racist, or social justice venture. Women’s Studies International Forum 38: 63–74.



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Bickham Mendez, J. (2008). Globalizing scholar activism: opportunities and dilemmas through a feminist lens. In: Engaging Contradictions: Theory, Politics, and Methods of Activist Scholarship (ed. C.R. Hale), 136–163. Berkeley: University of California Press. Blee, K.M. (2002). Inside Organized Racism: Women in the Hate Movement. Berkeley: University of California Press. Bose, C.E. and Kim, M. (2009). Introduction to transnational and local issues. In: Global Gender Research: Transnational Perspectives (eds. C.E. Bose and M. Kim), 1–10. New York: Routledge. Bowleg, L. (2008). When black + lesbian + woman not = black lesbian woman: the methodological challenges of qualitative and quantitative intersectionality research. Sex Roles 59: 312–325. Bowleg, L. and Bauer, G. (2016). Invited reflection: quantifying intersectionality. Psychology of Women Quarterly 40: 337–341. Bowles, G. and Klein, R.D. (eds.) (1983). Theories of Women’s Studies. New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Brisolara, S. (2014). Feminist Evaluation and Research: Theory and Practice (eds. D. Seigart and S. SenGupta). New York: Guilford Press. Brown, W. (1997). The impossibility of women’s studies. Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 9: 79–101. Buch, E.D. and Staller, K.M. (2014). What is feminist ethnography? In: Feminist Research Practice: A Primer (ed. S.N. Hesse‐Biber), 107–144. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Chang, H. (2008). Autoethnography as Method. New York Routledge. Chaudhuri, N., Katz, S.J., and Perry, M.E. (eds.) (2010). Contested Archives: Finding Women in the Sources. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press. Choo, H.Y. and Ferree, M.M. (2010). Practicing intersectionality in sociological research: a critical analysis of inclusions, interactions, and institutions in the study of inequalities. Sociological Theory 28: 129–149. Cohen, R.L. (2015). Towards a quantitative feminist sociology: the possibilities of a methodological oxymoron. In: An End to the Crisis of Empirical Sociology?: Trends and Challenges in Social Research (eds. L. McKie and L. Ryan), 117–135. London: Routledge. Cohen, Rachel L., Christina Hughes, and Richard Lampard. (2009). Does feminism count? An analysis of feminist methodological practice. Unpublished paper given at Feminist Research Methods Conference, University of Stockholm (4–6 Feb 2009). Collins, P.H. and Bilge, S. (2016). Intersectionality. Cambridge UK: Polity Press. Cook, J.A. and Fonow, M.M. (1985). Knowledge and women’s interests: issues of epistemology and methodology in feminist sociological research. Sociological Inquiry 56: 2–29. Dave, N.N. (2010). To render real the imagined: an ethnographic history of lesbian community in India. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 35: 595–619. Dave, N.N. (2012). Queer Activism in India: A Story in the Anthropology of Ethics. Durham: Duke University Press. Davis, D.‐A. and Craven, C. (2016). Feminist Ethnography: Thinking Through Methodologies, Challenges, and Possibilities. New York: Rowman & Littlefield. Denis, A. (2008). Intersectional analysis: a contribution of feminism to sociology. International Sociology 23: 677–694. DeVault, M.L. (1999). Liberating Method: Feminism and Social Research. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. DeVault, M.L. and Gross, G. (2012). Feminist qualitative interviewing: experience, talk, and knowledge. In: Handbook of Feminist Research: Theory and Praxis, 2e (ed. S.N. Hesse‐ Biber), 206–236. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

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Eichhorn, K. (2013). The Archival Turn in Feminism: Outrage in Order. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Else‐Quest, N.M. and Hyde, J.S. (2016). Intersectionality in quantitative psychological research: II. Methods and techniques. Psychology of Women Quarterly 40: 319–336. Ettorre, E. (2016). Autobiography as Feminist Method: Sensitizing the Feminist “I”. New York: Routledge. Falcón, S.M. (2016). Transnational feminism as a paradigm for decolonizing the practice of research: identifying feminist principles and methodology criteria for US‐based scholars. Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 37: 174–194. Fernandes, L. (2013). Transnational Feminism in the United States: Knowledge, Ethics, Power. New York: New York University Press. Fonow, M.M. and Cook, J.A. (eds.) (1991). Beyond Methodology: Feminist Scholarship as Lived Research. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Fonow, M.M. and Cook, J.A. (2005). Feminist methodology: new applications in the academy and public policy. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 30 (4): 2211–2236. Halberstam, J. (1998). Female Masculinity. Durham. Duke University Press. Harding, S. (1987). Is there a feminist method? In: Feminism and Methodology (ed. S. Harding), 1–14. Bloomington/Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. Harding, S. (1991). Whose Science? Whose Knowledge? Ithica. NY: Cornell University Press. Harding, S. (2015). Objectivity and Diversity: Another Logic of Scientific Research. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Harding, S. and Norberg, K. (2005). New feminist approaches to social science methodologies: an introduction. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 30 (4): 2009–2015. Harnois, C. (2013). Feminist Measures in Survey Research. Thousand Oaks CA: SAGE. Hesse‐Biber, S. (2014). Feminist approaches to in‐depth interviewing. In: Feminist Research Practice: A Primer (ed. S.N. Hesse‐Biber), 183–232. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Hughes, C. and Cohen, R.L. (2012). Feminists really do count: the complexity of feminist methodologies. In: Feminism Counts: Quantitative Methods and Researching Gender (eds. C. Hughes and R. Cohen), 1–9. New York: Routledge. Jaggar, A.M. (2015 (2007)). Just Methods: An Interdisciplinary Feminist Reader. New York: Routledge. Jayartne, T. (1983). The value of quantitative methodology for feminist research. In: Theories of Women’s Studies (eds. G. Bowles and R.D. Klein), 140–162. New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Klein, R.D. (1983). How to do what we want to do: thoughts about feminist methodology. In: Theories of Women’s Studies (eds. G. Bowles and R.D. Klein), 88–105. New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Lorde, A. (1979). The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. In: Sister Outsider. Essays and Speeches, 110–113. New York: Crossing Press. Lugones, M. (2011). Methodological notes toward a decolonial feminism. In: Decolonizing Epistemologies: Latina/o Theology and Philosophy (eds. A.M. Isasi‐Diaz and E. Mendieta), 68–86. Bronx: Fordham University Press. Lykes, M.B. and Crosby, A. (2014). Feminist practice of action and community research. In: Feminist Research Practice: A Primer (ed. S.N. Hesse‐Biber), 145–181. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Magliozzi, D., Saperstein, A., and Westbrook, L. (2016). Scaling up: representing gender diversity in survey research. Socius 2: 00–00. McCall, L. (2005). The complexity of intersectionality. Signs 30: 1771–1800. https://doi. org/10.1086/426800.



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13 Feminist Empiricism Gina Marie Longo

Introduction This chapter focuses on the contributions of and feminist debates surrounding feminist empiricism. Sandra Harding (1986) named feminist empiricism as one of the three main feminist epistemologies along with feminist standpoint and feminist postmodernism in her groundbreaking treatment of feminism and science. Feminist empiricism’s impacts on feminist research and feminist thought has a long and vibrant history, and it has challenged the way we have been taught to conduct science. What is an epistemology? An epistemology is a theory of knowledge. From infancy, human beings try to make sense of their world. We create theories. We collect information. We test, analyze, and draw conclusions. Thus, we create bodies of knowledge and build upon them. In our everyday lives, we may not consider how we choose one explanation as more plausible than another or see the assumptions we make as we interpret what we see. But it is these very considerations that the philosophy of science explores, because science and knowledge are socially, politically, and ideologically powerful. Often, the way we understand knowledge production, particularly scientific knowledge, arises out of our grade school days. Many people seldom question the process of this production, and in fact, we internalize what we are taught so deeply that we naturalize it as the only way to do science. Feminist empiricism, like other feminist epistemologies, challenges these commonsense notions of knowledge production. Epistemology guides us in our pursuits of knowledge, and provides the foundations for how we explain a phenomenon and justify such explanations (Sprague 2005). There are three components to all epistemologies: the knower, the known, and the process of knowing. Anthony Genova (1983) states that the history of epistemological debate focuses on the nature of these three components, since each is imbued with different assumptions about what constitutes it. Feminist epistemologists

Companion to Feminist Studies, First Edition. Edited by Nancy A. Naples. © 2021 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Published 2021 by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

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also  debate these core components. The purpose of feminist philosophies of ­science is to analyze and correct the weaknesses and blindspots in the approaches to scientific research and knowledge production, which have been historically dominated by white, affluent men. The participation of women, people of color, and the LGBTQ+ community in the knowledge production process has been either completely absent or extremely marginalized through the history of science; thus what has constituted “true” or “real” science has been formulated based on the worldviews, concerns, and biases of a very small population. Feminist empiricists have sought to challenge that. The purpose of this chapter is to provide the reader with an overview of feminist empiricism as it relates to other feminist and non‐feminist epistemologies, so one can make more informed choices when approaching research. First, we will begin with a historical overview of how and why feminists entered these epistemological debates before we turn to identifying feminist empiricism’s core components and development vis‐à‐vis leading feminist empiricists. Next, we will compare the similarities and differences of feminist empiricism to feminist standpoint and feminist postmodernism. We will conclude with a brief discussion about the future of the field, so the reader may draw conclusions about what epistemological approaches might influence their own work. At the end of this piece, I will include a few additional resources for further reading.

The Journey Toward Feminist Empiricism: A Historical Overview The earliest epistemology was faith‐based, and grounded its authority in religious traditions (Lovibond 1989). In early Western society, the Roman Catholic Church was the leading institutional power that determined what constituted divine knowledge and who received such knowledge. Those who deviated from the Church’s ascribed definitions of knowledge were condemned as heretics, which often resulted in excommunication or death. Faith‐based epistemology was pervasive, influencing the period’s medical, scientific, and educational communities. The Church served a gatekeeping function to prevent the expansion of knowers and carefully guarded the process of knowing. To the public, who were largely uneducated and illiterate, what was considered “known” was both limited and indisputable. The development of positivism served as a response to this dominant, faith‐based epistemology. The fundamental core of positivism is objectivity. The goal of positivism is to remove the researcher’s biases and subjective interpretations to create a value‐free science based on pure observed fact. Sprague (2005, p. 32) succinctly describes positivism as “an epistemology of the fact … Positivists hold that if and only if, we systematically and dispassionately observe the data of the empirical world, we can detect the lawful patterns of which they are evidence.” By its very definition, we can see the positivists’ response to the faith‐based epistemology of old. In fact, positivism was understood, at the time, as a radical response to the epistemological tradition of divine‐revelation for two reasons. First, it posited that the ­knower’s subjectivity, such as personal feelings, personality, and values, introduced errors in observation. Positivists believe that good science can and should be value‐ free. Therefore, it challenged the epistemological authority of the Roman Catholic



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Church, since this was anything but value‐free. Second, it challenged who could become a knower and what could be known, since positivism relies on empirical evidence and the straightforward, replicable data collection and analysis as the dependable source of knowledge production. If we consider the marginalization and oppression that came due to the Holy Roman Empire’s understanding of knowledge, then we can see the development of positivism as laudable as well as liberating. Positivism brought about a paradigmatic shift in our approaches to understanding and producing knowledge. In the United States, the scientific method is the only epistemological approach seriously taught in the public education system. Elementary school textbooks often do not go into the details of epistemological debates (Sprague 2005), and implicitly present positivism as the only avenue to knowledge through a linear series of steps (i.e. make an observation; form a question and a hypothesis; collect data; analyze data; and draw a conclusion). Children learn about the impersonal, objective, and rational nature of scientists, who dispassionately observe the data of our empirical world and demonstrate the “facts,” with little opportunity to critically think about how human emotions and subjectivity influence this process. They learn that conclusions can be refuted, but only if it is done using this same epistemological approach to knowledge. Positioning positivism as the only “true” authority to produce knowledge is problematic; thus it too, like the faith‐based epistemology before it, has become hegemonic. Social constructionists have argued that knowing is not objective. Knowers, like all human beings, are subjective, and they are not able to divorce their emotions, values, and perspective from the research process. By virtue of our humanity, research is not an apolitical process, and examples can be seen throughout the history of modern science. Intersections of gender, race, class, and sexual orientation were largely simplistically reduced or omitted entirely while data collection, analysis, and findings were often skewed in ways that underpinned sexist, racist, and heterosexist hierarchies within Western societies. Just some examples of areas of knowledge production that were thought to be value‐free are: the now defunct academic disciplines such as Orientalism which centered on the prejudice outsider‐interpretations of the Eastern world; discredited research projects in the areas of female hysteria, which was a medical diagnosis reserved exclusively for women who were experience symptoms of “anxiety”; and eugenics or the science of perfecting the genetic quality of human populations on the basis of eliminating “inferior” and promoting “superior” races. Feminist scholars, with the advent of Western feminist movements, entered the epistemological debates to offer correctives and expand our vision of what constitutes knowledge. Like other epistemological debates, feminists focus on the knower, the known, and the process of knowing, but the feminist perspectives are more holistic, emphasizing the connections among the three components (Smith 1990). Thus, feminist epistemologies are debates about “the knowing subject, the object of study, and the relationship between them” (Sprague 2005, p. 31). Like other epistemologies, feminist epistemology is not monolithic, because feminist scholars address epistemic different concerns and approaches to doing research. Helen Elizabeth Longino (2001), a feminist social philosopher and a central figure in the feminist epistemological movement, argues that feminist epistemologist social values have a role influencing the “epistemic virtues” of scientific theories, and that a community’s scientific approaches and goals weight these virtues. The aims and

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value of different scientific communities shape the choices that constitute a group’s epistemological considerations. In other words, one may choose to sacrifice what has been often considered a seemingly non‐negotiable aspect of one set of “epistemic virtues,” such as positivism’s empirical accuracy, to satisfy an alternate, epistemic virtue (Longino 2001, p. 185). This constitutes the basis of epistemological plurality that contrasts one feminist epistemology from another. These variations have manifested in three dominant feminist epistemologies: feminist empiricism, feminist standpoint, and feminist postmodernism. However, there are also variations of positions found within an epistemology, such as those found within feminist empiricism. Empiricism can be traced back to the teachings of Aristotle, but the forefront of the modern debates of empiricism were among John Locke, George Berkley, and David Hume. All empiricists assert that the role of sensory experience is the basis of knowledge. In other words, one only acquires knowledge through the senses (taste, touch, sight, sound, smell), and the role innate ideas and instincts in the knowledge process is negligible (Hundleby 2011). Empiricism broke into two closely related subschools of thought: logical empiricism and naturalist empiricism. While a detailed explanation of these two subschools of thought is outside the scope of this chapter, the difference between naturalism and logistic empiricism centers on a debate about the existence and role of a priori knowledge, which is that knowledge can be obtained independently of experience. They also differ on whether knowledge can be internally justified without external validity, and the legitimacy of testing and verifying parts of theories versus entire theories (Potochnik 2012). It is out of these traditions that feminist empiricism emerges. In the next section, we shall explore the tenets that define feminist empiricism. Further, we will be examining how feminist empiricists and other feminist epistemologists interpret these tenets differently, which has fostered different branches of feminist empiricism and ­critiques of feminist empiricism from non‐empiricists.

Feminist Empiricism: An Overview Feminist empiricism’s focus is to critique and remedy the technical analytic aspects of positivism using a feminist perspective (Potochnik 2012). The earliest aims of feminist empiricism were rather modest when compared to its later developments. Early feminist empiricists attempted to demonstrate how sexism shaped science, then suggested that the remedy for these biases was to rigorously hold to scientific norms of positivistic objectivity (Potochnik 2012). Throughout its intellectual development, different yet interrelated, branches of feminist empiricism emerged which broadened the early, more conservative goals. Although feminist empiricists do not always agree on the particularities, there are two broad and overarching themes that characterize the different branches of feminist empiricism: (i) the interaction among scientific values, knowledge, and evidence within moral and political values, and (ii) the challenging of knowing and agency (Intemann 2010b). Under each of these themes, there are several postulates that feminist empiricists hold to, although they differ on how best to realize them. Tanesini (1999) considers these the foundations of feminist empiricist thought. First, feminist empiricists argue that groups pursue science, thus science is not an individual’s quest for knowledge. Second, the context of discovery matters as much as the context of justification of theories. Third, values



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play an important role in justifying both the kinds of evidence selected and the approaches to the confirmation of theory. Finally, experience is the primary way to test theories, but it is not the only means of evaluation. Much like the non‐feminist version of empiricism, feminist empiricists also draw on Quine’s Two Dogmas of Empiricism (1990). This means that observation cannot be separated entirely from theory, since one needs concepts to understand what they are observing, and secondly, more than one theory can apply to the same set of evidence. Two branches of feminist empiricism emerged as the epistemology developed. The first is contextual empiricism, developed by Helen Longino (1990). The second is naturalized empiricism, which was spearheaded by Lynn Nelson (1990). The main difference between these two orientations is how each branch understands the roles that values have in science (Hundleby 2011). Contextual empiricism considers values to be part of our preconceived norms and assumptions that we use to make sense of our experiences. Longino (1990) argues that it is impossible to eliminate these values. She suggests that if the scientific community provides universal access to researchers from different backgrounds and interests to evaluate and critique research across disciplinary divides, then we can minimize the influence of these preconceived notions. Intenmann (2010) notes that contextual empiricists, like Longino, believe that all values, including feminist ones, should remain out of methodology. For naturalized empiricists, values are part of methodology, thus they should be empirically monitored and controlled rather than eliminated or minimized (Nelson 1990). According to Nelson (1990), the existence of values within scientific research is not necessarily negative. For the naturalized empiricist, values that are properly monitored can and should remain in science (Nelson 1990; Intenmann 2012). However, naturalized empiricism should not be confused with naturalism epistemology. Naturalism is a set of epistemologies that rely strictly on scientism, which means the application of methods, data, and theories related to the natural sciences (i.e. the scientific method). It is important to note that feminist empiricism, overall, adheres to naturalism. Now that we know the basic differences within the two orientations, we can discuss how these differences apply to the two broader themes that concern feminist empiricists.

Values, Knowledge, and Evidence: An Interplay As we recall, feminist empiricists find that the way to confirm a hypothesis, theory, or model is through observed evidence and data (Harding 1986). Observation through the sensory experience relies on the external and tangible senses, rather than depending on our personal judgments or assumptions about the way that we expect our world to operate. The latter is believed to skew our analysis and interpretations of what we are observing. Positivism aspires to a “value‐free” science. Positivists dichotomize good science with pure scientific objectivity and bad science with subjectivity. Feminist empiricists, however, attempt to reconcile the pervasiveness of social values and cultural influences on science with the ability to remain scientifically objective (Campbell 1998; Clough 2004; Longino 1990, 1996, 2001; Nelson 1990). They reject the idea that science is “value‐free,” despite their reliance on the sensory experience as a form of theory justification. While this seems like a paradox, feminist empiricism reconciles

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this with explanations about how the social values and aims of different scientific communities can be construed as a positive in scientific research. Social values are ubiquitous within every human community, including scientific communities. The actions of a community are shaped in part by the value system it holds to, and like a community, scientific practices are steeped in their community’s values (Borgerson 2010). In fact, such social values have influenced and foster the disciplinary divides. They influence what will be studied and how it will be studied. Values shape the empirical threshold for confirming hypotheses and theories along with what potentially undermines them. These variations in scientific practices also illustrate the variety of research goals across scientific communities. Feminist empiricism maintains that there is no one set of aims that constitutes all of science (Borgerson 2010). Research goals can be oriented to generalizable results, uncovering natural laws, finding a cure for a disease, or predicting outcomes. In other words, each research goal requires certain sets of data, methods, and theories, so the research context matters. Further, researchers’ social and political values influence which background assumptions are employed in the production of knowledge (Sprague 2005). The social goals of scientific research in turn shape our intellectual principles (Longino 1996). Thus, feminist empiricism rejects the dichotomy of “value‐free” science and value‐laden science, and how that dichotomy defines “good” and “bad” science. The interplay of values, knowledge, and evidence with moral and political values works to motivate and inform research goals, methodological approaches, and intellectual commitments. Feminist empiricists argue that researchers should go beyond their disciplinary approaches to analyzing evidences and justifying theories, including one’s everyday social and political beliefs and experiences (Nelson 1990). This epistemological stance about the connection of values to scientific practices is a process of uncovering and minimizing their negative impact. Longino (1990) argues that ideally science should be value‐free, but acknowledges that this is an impossibility. The belief that the process of theory justification is value‐free is usually perpetuated by individual scientists, because they are unaware of their unconscious biases and assumptions. To remedy this problem, feminist empiricists emphasize that the highest standards of objectivity can only be achieved through the scientific communities, not the individual (Potochnik 2012). Interdisciplinary feedback across scientific communities can shed light on individual idiosyncrasies that can interfere in the framing and design of research. However, feminist empiricism goes beyond the individual’s research. The community must be open to other disciplinary insights. The disciplinary boundaries across scientific communities often leads to short‐sightedness that those with different research interests and approaches can inform. Thus, feminist empiricism believes in a more social approach to research to help widen the range of alternative hypotheses that might otherwise have not been considered or are simply overlooked. This brings us to the next theme that characterizes feminist empiricism: challenging what is knowing and agency.

Challenging Knowing and Agency The second theme that categorizes feminist empiricism from other epistemologies is challenging the roles of knowing and agency in the knowledge production process. The interplay of values, morals, aims, political, and social values can be thought of



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as a diagnosis of the problems that plague positivism. Feminist empiricists lay bare the issues with “value‐free” science, and uncover how the acknowledgement of interconnected values within science can be used to enhance the scientific process. The role of the knower and agency can be likened to a prescription for how to balance this interplay. Both Longino (2001) and Nelson (1990) identify the knower as the scientific communities in science rather than the individual. These entire communities acquire and accumulate knowledge, especially since scientific communities are in continuous conversation about the works of individuals within the community. These communities also facilitate the set of assumptions and research goals that define their borders (Longino 2001). Thus, feminist empiricists implicate the role of communities as one of critical investigators (Potochnik 2012). However, contextual feminist empiricists such Longino and naturalist feminist empiricists like Nelson differ on the extent to which this can successfully moderate unchecked values. Longino (2001) argues that “local epistemologies,” or distinct subcommunities exist within a scientific community. Each subcommunity is governed and driven by its own goals, background assumptions, and epistemic commitments, which function as an external critic to other subcommunity’s theories and methods. However, many theories and methods continue to persist despite these external critiques. Longino (2001) believes that this is because the unique epistemic commitments within the various subcommunities limit vision. This places restrictions on what empiricism can do for knowledge production. Nelson (1990), on the other hand, lauds these subcommunities’ epistemic particularities as the solution to the limits of empiricism. The persistence of these diverse values and interests that manifest in the plurality of theories and methods serve as a form of checks and balances, which if eliminated or homogenized could reduce the amount of critical scrutiny that subcommunities can offer (Nelson 1990). Other feminist empiricists have views on the knower community that deviates from Longino and Nelson’s understandings. Grasswick’s “individuals‐in‐communities” thesis is more conservative, because it maintains a more individualist definition of communities (Hundleby 2011). Grasswick (2004) argues that individuals within communities remain the agents of knowledges. Individuals are the ones who must negotiate and interpret when and how epistemic standards should be contested. However, these individuals do not negotiate in isolation; rather they are socially dependent on the psychological and socialization process of their home subcommunities. In this way, individuals carry the sociohistoric knowledge and actions of contemporaries and those in the community before them (Grasswick 2004). This means that we cannot assume that the knower has the same, fixed sets of capacities for reasons with other individuals within subcommunities, rather there is variations within different individuals despite their socialization into particular subcommunities. Grasswick (2004) critiques Longino and Nelson for the lack of complexity within the idea of bounded subcommunities, since individuals are often involved in many communities, some of which are ill‐defined or overlap. On the other end of feminist empiricist spectrum is the argument that argues against individuals completely. Miriam Solomon’s social empiricism (2001) argues that scientific rationality occurs in relationships among competing theories generated and debated at the community‐level. Thus, it is these competing theoretical conversations, not the individuals or even the dialoging subcommunities that are the agents of knowing. Feminist

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empiricist Lorraine Code (2006) does not use the word “community” at all; rather she suggests that we interact in a structured discursive space or “imaginaries” where responsible knowers come together to question and debate evidence. In Hundleby (2011)’s analysis of the definition of knowers across feminist empiricism, Solomon’s account of communities is much more flexible because it accounts for the social nature of knowledge. Feminist empiricism challenges the concept of the knower and agency by suggesting it is through the diversity of interests and perspectives within a community that scientists can mitigate bias. There is variation across different scholars about how this is done and to the extent that the communities can do this successfully. However, all feminist empiricists acknowledge that science is not “value‐free,” but they still attribute observation of a phenomenon that can generate prediction and replicability (i.e. empirical success) as the basis of theory justification. Feminist empiricism, in one way or another, places the accountability at the community level. This acknowledgment of values in science and the community as the solution for mitigating bias is an acknowledgement of subjectivity. This last point underpins all feminist epistemologies. However, feminist empiricism is not without its critiques. In the next section, we will explore some of the overarching criticism that scholars lodge at feminist empiricism.

Critiques of Feminist Empiricism Sandra Harding (1986, 1991, pp. 111–120) criticized feminist empiricism as an epistemology that understood “bad science” to mean identified instances of male bias, which could be eliminated simply by adhering to existing empiricist methods and scientific norms more diligently. She is not alone in her assessment. Feminist empiricism is often criticized when compared to other feminist epistemologies (Rolin 2016). There are two kinds of criticisms that are often lodged at feminist empiricism. The first critique concerns feminist empiricism’s conservative approach to challenging patriarchal science, and the second is its tendency toward naturalism. The first critique is that feminist empiricism, particularly the earliest articulations of the epistemology, is too conservative in its aims. In the section “Challenging Knowing and Agency,” we examined how early versions of feminist empiricism began as a rejection of “value‐free” science by exposing the gender bias and values within knowledge production. Epistemically, this exposure of gender bias and subjectivity was considered feminist, but it was not necessarily transformative. Unlike feminist standpoint theory, which will be elaborated on in the section “Feminist Standpoint and Feminist Empiricism,” feminist empiricism is often accused of lacking a radical approach to deconstructing the power hierarchies and systems of oppressions that exist within and are upheld by science. The basis of this accusation is because feminist empiricism relies on the same bias empirical tools as a corrective (Harding 1991). As we recall for both feminist and non‐feminist empiricism, the empiricists’ cornerstone of the justification of theory is sensory‐experienced observations that explain or predict a phenomenon. While this may be valuable in some scientific communities, empirical understanding cannot be sufficient in political analysis (Rolin 2016). Thus, feminist empiricism can be accused of not being able to



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break some of the fundamental barriers to liberation. Many areas of social science which have the greatest potential for challenging the ways that we understand and value knowledge, cannot be justified strictly by the tangible, sensory experience. This makes feminist empiricism appear too conservative in its aims. The second, related criticism is that feminist empiricism places too much emphasis on naturalism. Naturalism, as you recall, is an approach to epistemology that emphasizes the application of methods, results, and theories from the natural sciences. Since feminist empiricism defers to scientism, feminism empiricism is said to rely too much on the patriarchal content within it (Borgerson 2010). Feminist empiricism calls for scientific communities to bring together different interests, methods, and theories to expose the assumption with research, but this requires that scientists work within the framework of evaluation of the scientific method. This means that while research as a product of scientific evaluation is subject to critique, the scientific evaluation itself is not. Hundleby (2011) argues that relying on science in the ways that feminist empiricists do, limits and even excludes the possibility of establishing new standards of human reasoning. She points out that this is not only because ­science can draw on patriarchal and regressive politics to suppress epistemic disputes, but reimagining such standards is philosophy’s job, not science’s (Hundleby 2011, p. 38). Maureen Linker (2003) also made this argument when she observed that empirical evidence seems to have very little impact on the correction of normative assumptions within the many kinds of human knowledge. The two major critiques together ultimately see feminist empiricism as an epistemology that is fundamentally limited in its ability to enact any large‐scale paradigmatic shift within science. In the next section, we will compare feminist empiricism to other feminist epistemologies. We will begin with comparing the similarities and the difference to feminist standpoint theory. Then, we will treat feminist postmodernism. These comparisons are meant to give the reader a brief overview of each epistemological tradition without necessarily arguing for one approach over the other. We will then conclude with some final thoughts about feminist epistemology and feminist empiricism.

Comparing Feminist Empiricism to Other Feminist Epistemologies Feminist Standpoint and Feminist Empiricism Feminist standpoint epistemology was introduced in the 1970s and 1980s when second‐wave feminism was at its peak (Harding 1986; Hartsock 1983; Rose 1983; Smith 1974). Feminist standpoint can be considered a form of epistemic activism because it is, by theoretical design, meant to address systems of oppression and inequality as its primary focus. Since its introduction, its epistemological goals have become more developed and nuanced (Rolin 2006). The hallmarks of feminist standpoint are found in its two main theses, the situated‐knowledge thesis and the thesis of epistemic advantage. The situated‐knowledge thesis states that social location systematically influences our experiences, providing opportunities for and constraints on what we know. Thus, our knowledge is achieved from a particular standpoint (Wylie 2003). The thesis of epistemic advantage posits that some standpoints, particularly those of marginalized or oppressed groups, are epistemically advantaged in

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certain contexts (Wylie 2003, p. 28). As we unpack these two theses, we shall compare their similarities and differences to feminist empiricism. The situated‐knowledge thesis has its roots in exposing historical systems of oppression, such as racism, sexism, heterosexism, and classism. The hierarchical nature of these overlapping systems has created differentiated experiences and opportunities across various groups of individuals. These have fostered different social locations in what Hill‐Collins (1991) calls the matrix of domination. Individuals within the matrix have different experiences, which gives them different perspectives, insights, beliefs, and knowledge from others who do not occupy that social location. Standpoint theorists take knowledge to be embodied within those experiences rather than strictly acquired through a universal, disembodied, rational mind (2016). How does the first thesis compare to feminist empiricism? Both feminist empiricism and standpoint reject the notion of a value‐free science. For standpoint theorists, systems of oppression have shaped our assumptions that provide the basis for scientific inquiry and have privileged certain forms of theoretical justification over others. In this way, both epistemologies are in accord. Further, both epistemologies also are flexible on where knowledge comes from. Feminist empiricists, particularly naturalized feminist empiricists, do not see knowledge as something externally acquired through strictly sensory‐experience. Innate knowledge and personal experiences also are mechanisms for acquiring knowledge along with the external, empirically tested experience. Thus, both epistemologies rely on scientism to varying degrees. Feminist empiricism and standpoint both agree on the importance of diversity within communities as the source of scientific accountability for objectivity and bias‐reduction. However, feminist empiricism emphasizes this diversity in the scientific sub‐communities’ values and interests, whereas standpoint emphasizes the diversity of social locations (Fehr 2011; Harding 2004; Intemann 2010a; Rolin 2009, 2016; Wylie 2003, 2011). Rolin (2016) argues that these very slight differences in the perspective of what constitutes communities are epistemically significant. Feminist empiricists understanding of subcommunities rests on the specialty of the scientific communities which lends to the fruitful and rigorous epistemological analysis and critique of knowledge production. Specialty communities are united by shared concepts, beliefs, and epistemic values particular to their area of inquiry (Wray 2007). However, feminist standpoint theorists see the subcommunities within specialty communities as the main units of epistemological analysis. Such subcommunities as feminist standpoint defines them, are political because they are based on shared non‐epistemic values and interests (Crasnow 2014). Standpoint’s second thesis is the thesis of epistemic advantage. The purpose of this thesis is to address how the standpoint is essential for establishing and maintaining objectivity. Harding (2004) argues that standpoints are achieved through a critical, conscious reflection about the ways in which power structures operate and how the differentiation of social locations influence knowledge production. This means that certain groups from marginalized or oppressed social locations can have higher degrees of epistemic benefits than other groups because of their deeper understanding of the social dynamics that affect scientific objectivity. This critical insight of marginalized and oppressed standpoints can provide valuable input into the construction of research questions, methodological approaches, and background assumptions, and insights into how data interpretation is conducted (Rolin 2016).



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When considering this second thesis, we can observe that feminist empiricists and standpoint feminists differ on the conditions for promoting and achieving objectivity. These concerns are based in the direct and indirect role that moral or political values play. Feminist standpoint’s subcommunities start from the point of lived experiences. Such lived experiences cultivate moral and political values within individuals. Feminist empiricists prefer the diverse interests and values rather than social locations because diverse values and interests are fostered and bounded by scientific specialties as confined by the scientific communities (Intemann 2010b). Thus, feminist empiricists find community values and interests are easier to identify when trying to pinpoint what is influencing objectivity rather than a standpoint. Feminist empiricists also assert that the consensus that emerges around these community values are more likely to be rational (Rolin 2016). In other words, implicit moral and political values across standpoints can unintentionally interfere with objectivity. Moreover, the reliance on the diversity of interests potentially safeguards feminist empiricism against the critique that certain subcommunities are weighted as more significant over others. For example, scholars have argued that standpoint’s second thesis claims that women always have an automatic epistemic privilege over men by being oppressed by sexism (Haack 1998; Hekmann 1997; Pinnick et  al. 2003). Feminist empiricism is not as vulnerable to this sort of critique. Despite these differences, the epistemic lines between feminist empiricism and feminist standpoint have, at times, become fuzzy (Harding 1986). Intenmann (2010) has argued that feminist empiricism has much to gain from adopting some of the resources of feminist standpoint, and has offered a merged epistemological viewpoint called “feminist standpoint empiricism.” Rolin (2016) has traced the historical development of feminist standpoint empiricism, and illustrates the way that these two epistemological views dovetail and complement one another. She points out that the later forms of feminist empiricism no longer fit with Harding’s original characterization (see Anderson 2004; Campbell 1998; Clough 2004; Longino 1990; Nelson 1990), and that feminist standpoint proponents, including Harding (1993) and Rolins herself (Rolin 2006) have distanced themselves from the claims that distinguish themselves from feminist empiricist (see Wylie 2003, 2011; Wylie and Nelson 2007). Feminist standpoint empiricists embrace both the diversity of social locations as well as the diversity among scientific interests and values. When brought together, these two sets of diversities can expose a spectrum of assumptions. The scientific subcommunities (specialties) bring in an epistemic benefit because consensus of objectivity is grounded in rational, detached set of values vis‐à‐vis theoretical frameworks, methodological orientation, and understandings of empirical success. However, the social locations of the marginalized or underprivileged can expose the relations of power that influence the academic and scientific world. This provides an additional safeguard for challenging the dominant paradigms for the ways in which knowledge is justified within science. This remedies the critique that feminist empiricism is a quietist epistemology (Rolin 2016).

Feminist Empiricism and Feminist Postmodernism Feminist postmodernism has not developed into a single corpus, despite being named as the third feminist epistemology by Sandra Harding (1986). Thus, it has been argued that postmodernism is not a theory (Benhabib 1994). The history of non‐feminist

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postmodernism is rooted in a philosophical approach to knowledge that, like feminist empiricism, critiques the tenets of the Enlightenment. Postmodernism challenges the Enlightenment by way of challenging its precepts that reason is foundational, universal, and transcendent (i.e. ahistorical/alocational), and that knowledge from reason is “true.” Postmodernism takes the connection between reason, autonomy, and freedom to task because it calls into question the assumption that authority based on reason can overcome conflicts between truth, knowledge, and power. Postmodernism holds that there is no existence of a stable self, and that science is not the paradigm for true knowledge. Often Western academics refer to the works of Foucault, Lacan, Derrida, and Lyotard as the main scholars of non‐feminist postmodernism. These scholars believe that the grand narratives of the Enlightenment and theories deriving from it such as liberalism and Marxism do not have credibility. As we know, feminist theory sees a similar outlook, and does not appropriate the Enlightenment philosophy (Flax 1987). This is because feminists claim that ideals such as “objectivity” and “reason” have reflected the values of masculinity at a certain point in history. However, feminist scholars have tried to grapple with whether feminism has any relationship or home in postmodern epistemologies. Some feminist scholars argued for the relationship between feminism and postmodernism because of a reciprocal benefit (Flax 1987; Fraser and Nicholson 1990; Haraway 1985). Postmodernism can gain from feminism’s examination of domination and gender, and feminism can benefit from postmodernism’s rejection of universalism. Drawing on the strengths of each, feminist postmodernism can be an epistemological orientation that is theoretically driven and non‐universalizing (Fraser and Nicholson 1990). Haraway (1985) contributed to the contours of feminist postmodernism thought with her Cyborg Manifesto. She embraces the ambiguity of language and the use of “myth,” which are cornerstones of postmodernism, to construct the feminist argument that women must make a political place for themselves in technology despite technology’s history of being gendered as masculine. Haraway’s work demonstrated a reconciliation of a feminist dilemma. Feminism has always been resistant to bringing the two postmodernist premises to a relativist extreme, because feminism is an emancipatory project for a defined group of people. However, Haraway’s manifesto contributed to a more blended balance. Thus, Fraser and Nicholson (1990) argued that feminist postmodernism need not eliminate big theory to avoid essentialism, rather theory should be explicitly nested in a historical context which situates its categories within historical frameworks. This would make it more difficult to invite the dangers of false generalization. Feminist postmodernism can be defined as an epistemological school of thought that emphasizes “the contingent and discursive nature of all identities,” particularly in the social construction of gendered subjectivities (Prasad 2005, p. 165; Randall 2010, p. 116). All categories are open and contingent, and feminist postmodernism argues for skepticism when introducing labels. The terms “gender” and “women,” which are the primary analytical categories of feminist theory, as socially constructed is challenged under feminist postmodernism. This is intended to disrupt social practices and systems of meaning that give way to sexism, exclusion, and domination (Butler 1990). From an epistemological perspective, feminist postmodernism has served more prominently as an epistemological critique within feminist theories and epistemologies, rather than as a stand‐alone epistemological corpus.



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Feminist empiricism and feminist postmodernism have similarities and differences. They both agree that science is not “value‐free.” Objectivity, as it has been defined by the Enlightenment and positivism, is problematic for both epistemologies. Feminist empiricism and feminist postmodernism challenge positivism, but for different reasons. For feminist empiricism, objectivity cannot be achieved through individual knowers vis‐à‐vis strictly external, rational, sensory perception because the individual is imbued with assumptions and biases. The unacknowledgment of the presence of these values, assumptions, and biases make objectivity impossible. Thus, the diverse subcommunities of interests across the scientific community are epistemically responsible for establishing objectivity. However, feminist empiricists do rely on the sensory‐ experience as the primary avenue to empirical success and theoretical justification. In this way, feminist empiricism is much closer to positivism, since it does not entirely reject positivism. Instead, it analyzes many of positivism’s premises for knowledge production, and seeks to remedy its issues. Feminist postmodern epistemology is entirely discursive. It is inherently opposed to the ideal of objective truth, particularly within the social sciences. As a discursive epistemology, it seeks to maintain knowledge and understanding through social analysis, not the sensory experience. If there is no objectivity, then there is no remedy for it. While feminist empiricism suggests that ridding variables and measures of gender bias will create objective measurements, feminist postmodernism says nothing can be impartial. This brings us to the understandings of knowers and agency. Like feminist empiricism, feminist postmodernism rejects the autonomous self, but from a much more radical position than feminist empiricism. Feminist empiricism looks to subcommunities as the responsible knowers who can tease out subjectivity in scientific evaluation. Feminist postmodernism believes that discursive structures of domination and oppression shape all individuals. Even within the confines of a scientific community, they cannot escape oppression and domination’s influences. It could be argued that knowers could become conscious and critical of such influences. However, feminist postmodernism rejects relativism because it rejects the fixity and unity of individuals (Haraway 1991). In other words, the knower is not held responsible for the representations, assumptions, and biases of socially constructed concepts because the knower is too deeply entrenched within ever‐shifting discursive constructs. Feminist empiricism strives for objectivity of scientific evaluation through the critical eyes of the diverse scientific subcommunities, whereas postmodernism seeks to create critical and responsible practices through one’s acknowledgment of responsibility vis‐à‐ vis introspection of choice that enters into the construction of one’s representation (Haraway 1991; Harding 1993), and through trying to see things from many other perspectives using sensitive and engaging sympathy for others (Lugones 1987).

Conclusion Feminist empiricism is an epistemology that facilitates feminists’ entry into the historically male‐dominated realms of scientific inquiry, and challenges the dominant paradigms that constitute knowledge production within it. Feminist empiricism argues for clear justification for making values, beliefs, and practices, and for evaluating their roles within science (Tuana 1992). The naturalist branch of feminist

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empiricism is believed to be particularly promising for radical feminist change within science because it embraces the strengths of both feminist standpoint and feminist postmodernism (Intemann 2010b). Moreover, naturalists find that the flexibility of this branch of feminist empiricism allows for shifting among empiricism and other feminist epistemologies. This can limit the knowers’ potential for epistemological stagnation. However, Longino (1994, 2004) argues that one does not need to embrace naturalism to utilize the epistemic traveling between feminist epistemologies, because scientific communities are often engaging in critical debates about different epistemological and methodological perspectives. Thus, feminist empiricism is a rigorous epistemological approach with much flexibility. As women and other groups that have been historically marginalized from scientific inquiry enter science in increasing numbers, the potential for further nuanced developments in feminist empiricism are bound to come. Feminist standpoint empiricism, for example, is just one of the more recent and exciting developments in feminist epistemology. Through these developments, feminists change science from inside out, by encouraging a more exact, just, and interdisciplinary knowledge production process.

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Genova, A.C. (1983). The metaphysical turn in contemporary philosophy. Southwest Philosophical Studies 9: 1–22. Grasswick, H. (2004). Individuals‐in‐communities: the search for a feminist model of epistemic subjects. Hypatia 19 (3): 85–120. Haack, S. (1998). Manifesto of a Passionate Moderate. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Haraway, D. (1985). Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature, 2e. New York: Routledge. Harding, S. (1986). The Science Question in Feminism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Harding, S. (1991). Whose Science? Whose Knowledge? Thinking from Women’s Lives. New York: Routledge. Harding, S. (1993). Rethinking standpoint epistemology: what is strong objectivity? In: Feminist Epistemologies: Thinking Gender (eds. L. Alcoff and E. Potter), 49–82. New York: Routledge. Harding, S. (2004). A socially relevant philosophy of science? Resources from standpoint theory’s controversiality. Hypatia 19 (1): 25–47. Hartsock, N. (1983). The feminist standpoint: developing the ground for a specifically feminist historical materialism. In: In the Feminist Standpoint Theory Reader: Intellectual and Political Controversies (ed. S. Harding), 35–54. New York: Routledge. Hekmann, S. (1997). Truth and method: feminist standpoint theory revisited. Signs 22 (2): 341–365. Hundleby, C. (2011). Feminist empiricism. In: The Handbook of Feminist Research: Theory and Praxis (ed. S.N. Hesse‐Biber), 28–45. California: Sage Publications. Intemann, K. (2010a). Feminist standpoint empiricism: rethinking the terrain in feminist philosophy of science. In: New Waves in Philosophy of Science (eds. P.D. Magnus and J. Busch), 198–225. United Kingdom: Palgrave MacMillan. Intemann, K. (2010b). 25 years of feminist empiricism and standpoint theory: where are we now? Hypatia 25 (4): 778–796. Linker, M. (2003). A case for responsibly rationalized feminist epistemology. In: Feminist Interpretations of Quine (eds. L.H. Nelson and J. Nelson), 153–171. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press. Longino, H. (1990). Science as Social Knowledge. Values and Objectivity in Scientific Inquiry. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Longino, H. (1996). Cognitive and non‐cognitive values in science: rethinking the dichotomy. In: Feminism, Science, and the Philosophy of Science (eds. L.H. Nelson and J. Nelson), 39–58. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Longino, H.E. (1994). Gender, sexuality research, and the flight from complexity. Metaphilosophy 25 (4): 285–292. Longino, H.E. (2001). What do we measure when we measure aggression? Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 32 (4): 685–704. Longino, Helen. (2004). Lovibond, S. (1989). Feminism and post‐modernism. New Left Review 178: 1–28. Lugones, M. (1987). Playfulness, “world”‐traveling, and loving perception. Hypatia 2: 3–19. Nelson, L. (1990). Who Knows: From Quine to a Feminist Empiricism. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Pinnick, C.L., Koertge, N., and Almeder, R.F. (2003). Scrutinizing Feminist Epistemology: An Examination of Gender in Science. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Potochnik, A. (2012). Feminist implications of model‐based science. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 43: 383–389.

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Prasad, P. (2005). Crafting Qualitative Research: Working in the Post‐Positivist Traditions. New York: Taylor & Francis. Quine, W.V.O. (1990). Three indeterminacies. In: Perspectives on Quine (eds. R. Barrett, R. Gibson and W.V.O. Quine), 1–16. London: Blackwell. Randall, V. (2010). Feminism. In: Theory and Methods in Political Science (eds. D. Marsh and G. Stoker), 68–82. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Rolin, K. (2006). The bias paradox in feminist standpoint epistemology. Episteme 1 (2): 125– 136. Rolin, K. (2009). Standpoint theory as a methodology for the study of power relations. Hypatia 24 (4): 218–226. Rolin, K. (2016). Values, standpoints, and scientific/intellectual movements. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 56: 11–19. Rose, H. (1983). Hand, brain, heart: a feminist epistemology for the natural sciences. Signs 9 (1): 73–90. Smith, D. (1974). Women’s perspective as a radical critique of sociology. Sociological Inquiry 44 (1): 7–13. Smith, D. (1990). The Conceptual Practices of Power: A Feminist Sociology of Knowledge. Boston: Northeaster University Press. Solomon, M. (2001). Social Empiricism. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Sprague, J. (2005). Feminist Methodologies for Critical Researchers: Bridging Differences. Walnut Creek, CA: Alta Mira Press. Tanesini, A. (1999). An Introduction to Feminist Epistemologies. New York: Wiley‐Blackwell. Tuana, N. (1992). Woman and the History of Philosophy. Minnesota: Paragon House. Wray, K.B. (2007). Who has scientific knowledge? Social Epistemology 21 (3): 337–347. Wylie, A. (2003). Why standpoint matters. In: Science and Other Cultures: Issues in Philosophies of Science and Technology (eds. R. Figueroa and S. Harding), 26–48. New York: Routledge. Wylie, A. (2011). What knowers know well: women, work, and the academy. In: Feminist Epistemology and Philosophy of Science: Power in Knowledge (ed. H. Grasswick), 157– 182. Dordrecht: Springer. Wylie, A. and Nelson, L.H. (2007). Coming to terms with the values of science: insights from feminist science studies scholarship. In: Value‐Free Science? Ideals and Illusions (eds. H. Kincaid, J. Dupre and A. Wylie), 58–86. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Additional Resources The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy can be found at http://plato.stanford.edu Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy Signs: A Journal of Women in Culture and Society Social Epistemology: A Journal of Knowledge, Culture, and Policy

14 Feminist Science Studies Samantha M. Archer and A.E. Kohler

Introduction This chapter describes the genesis, history, and contemporary iterations of scholarship undertaken under the umbrella of feminist science studies. In its infancy, the field of feminist science studies and associated academic inquiry asked a series of key questions: What role does science play in determining how we define and enact gender? What is it about the culture of science that produces so few scientists who identify as women? And furthermore, why are there so few women scientists of color? These early questions focused on what we are categorizing as scholarship on gender in science (Keller 1995). This category refers to scholarship that articulates a critique of the technical aspects of gender inclusion in the scientific community – the question of why women weren’t more involved in scientific endeavors and why gender was considered by many lab scientists to be a throwaway variable in scientific studies. Key contributors to this field of study include Sandra Harding, Helen Longino, and Evelyn Fox‐Keller. Taken together, these early studies suggested that the discipline of science was not merely a reflection of the natural world, but rather an “interpretive grid” (Cipolla et  al. 2017) in which politics, identity, history, and societal values and norms interpellate (Althusser 2014) a seemingly neutral scientific endeavor. In short, scientific knowledge is situated knowledge (Haraway 1988). The foundational work described above provided a rich field for scholars to take up a second category of scholarship, one that focuses on feminist science: what use does science have for feminism(s) and feminists? This body of work focuses on merging decades of feminist scholarship on race and class (Weasel 2016), postcolonialisms (Hamilton et  al. 2017), indigeneity (TallBear 2013), queerness (Willey 2016), disability (Kafer 2013), and other axes of identity with scientific knowledge production. In what ways do the clinic and the laboratory play crucial roles in producing knowledge about the bodies and identities that feminism concerns itself

Companion to Feminist Studies, First Edition. Edited by Nancy A. Naples. © 2021 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Published 2021 by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

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with? And how might feminist scholars disrupt and transform these knowledge‐ making processes? In this chapter, we first describe the contributions of scholars working on questions of gender in science and situate this early scholarship within the sociocultural and scientific milieu of a post‐World War II United States and the cultural revolution of the 1960s and 1970s. We then turn to feminist science and examine how key theoretical contributions to this inter‐ and multidisciplinary body of knowledge provide a blueprint for imagining and creating feminist science. To demonstrate the promise of feminist science studies, we turn to two case studies: one that investigates how feminist science studies transforms archeological and genetic explorations of gender and gender identity in the past (Archer), and another that incorporates a feminist sciences studies lens into controversial bioethical dilemmas regarding intellectual disability and clinical practice (Kohler). Throughout we make a purposeful decision to focus on scholarship that moves beyond critique and toward alternatives for practicing a situated, feminist science. One core challenge of reviewing decades of scholarship at the intersection of science, gender, and feminism is that it is nearly impossible to include every important individual contribution to the field. The natural sciences, and to a certain extent the social sciences, have uncritically produced knowledge about bodies and their worlds for centuries, especially since the rise of public universities and government‐funded scientific research in the United States at the turn of the twentieth century. Feminists and feminist science studies thinkers have kept pace by producing new and counter‐ knowledge for over 50 years now. For this reason, we have decided to organize what follows thematically as opposed to by individual author. Finally, a brief note on our own positionality. The material and theoretical trajectories we have chosen to highlight in this literature review are necessarily situated within our own disciplinary and research commitments. Samantha Archer is an anthropological geneticist who merges modern and ancient human genetic methodologies with feminist and queer science and technology studies (STS) to envision what one version of a feminist subjectivity in the laboratory might look like. A.E. Kohler is a medical and cultural anthropologist whose work focuses on disability, health inequity, and the moral and political subjectivity of people with intellectual disabilities. Therefore, our familiarity with bodies of literature that we identify as belonging to feminist science studies is shaped by our own intellectual histories. It is our hope that in offering this situated review of the history and trajectory of feminist science studies, we might be able to highlight how this rich and exciting body of knowledge can crack open the question of scientific knowledge production under the increasingly neoliberal model of university research. It is in the feminist commitment to reflexivity that we both see promise in reimagining not only what it means to be a feminist in science, but what it might mean for a science to be feminist.

Gender in Science: Foundations Post‐World War II United States saw a dramatic uptick in public and corporate interest in the natural sciences (Van Dongen 2015). Public fascination with the sheer power of the atomic bomb combined with the seeming immediacy and danger of the



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Cold War lent scientists a great deal of cultural capital. As the 1950s progressed, key scientific discoveries, such as the identification of the double helix structure of DNA and the first US human organ transplant in Evergreen Park, Illinois, underscored the seemingly limitless possibilities of “modern” science. The 1950s were an era characterized by a faith in and passion for science as one key answer to many of the world’s ills (Van Dongen 2015). However, the 1960s and 1970s brought about major changes in the fabric of US society, and with these decades came new views on the ethics, methods, and objectivity of scientific inquiry. As second‐wave feminist, anti‐colonial, disability rights, and racial justice movements organized nationally and globally, feminist scholars within and beyond the US turned their gaze toward the process of scientific knowledge production in what was at the time a largely patriarchal and male‐centered endeavor that had seemingly cornered the market on objectivity and progress narratives (Richardson 2010). A 1978 issue of Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society entitled “Women, Science, and Society” marked one of the first published academic works on feminist science studies as such. Early feminist critiques of science tended to cluster around two main points: (i)  The so‐called hard sciences were controlled largely by male scientists and ­academics,1 which led to (ii) a bias in scientific method, a dearth of medical research focused on women’s health, and patriarchal and misogynistic values underlying the entire process. As Nancy Naples (2007) points out, feminist philosopher Nancy Hartsock (1983) and feminist philosopher of science Sandra Harding (1986, 2004) were among the pioneers of feminist standpoint theory in suggesting that marginalized social roles – such as those of women in the sciences, as well as women more generally – were spaces of epistemic privilege. Indeed, the experiences and intellectual contributions of those occupying such spaces were valuable for deconstructing outwardly neutral processes of scientific inquiry. Harding and Donna Haraway (1990) were both proponents of incorporating situated knowledge into scientific practice as well as the study of science. Another early and key cluster of thought around science focused on interrogating the concept of objectivity and the narrative of progress that attached itself to the scientific endeavor. In his classic text The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), Thomas Kuhn notes that a linear narrative of scientific progress masks how paradigm shifts in science are underpinned by social and cultural ideals of scientific progress. Chemist and philosopher Isabelle Stengers (1997, 2000) articulates how two seemingly oppositional views – that science is either entirely objective or entirely socially constructed  –  are put to better use if scholars seek to understand the tension and relationship between the two viewpoints. Furthermore, she suggests that “science” as practice ought to be understood as a belief system held by scientists and interrogated as such, much like religion or secularism operate as belief systems. Her newer work focuses on the ways in which scientific practice constructs, rather than discovers, capital‐T “Truths” about the natural world (2010). Bruno Latour, a French sociologist and anthropologist whose work is foundational to the discipline of STS, has referred to Stenger’s work as making an important distinction between ontology and epistemology – meaning that for Stengers, “good science” is less about sound method than it is about sound (and critical) worldview. Latour was one of the first anthropologists to undertake ethnography of the scientific laboratory. In his works, ­particularly Laboratory Life: The Social Construction of Scientific Facts (1979) and

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We Have Never Been Modern (1993), he deconstructs the seeming objectivity of the scientific method, demonstrates the cultural dimensions of science and knowledge production in the laboratory, and interrogates the object/subject and nature/society binaries that upheld positivist biases in the natural sciences. Feminist anthropologist Rayna Rapp also undertook lab ethnography to interrogate the production of knowledge about chromosomes, so‐called genetic defects, and intellectual disability (2000), while feminist anthropologist Emily Martin’s classic (1991) essay “The Egg and the Sperm: How Science Has Constructed a Romance” demonstrates how cultural ideals around masculinity and femininity shape scientific discourse about reproduction. In 1986, Harding published The Science Question in Feminism, which introduced a new line of inquiry to those engaged in feminist science studies. In the prolog to the book, she states that the scholarship of the 1970s and early 1980s had wrestled with the “woman question” in science, which centered on the oppression of women within science. Given the now‐established body of scholarship that identified women’s oppression within the sciences, a new question was worth asking: what is there to be done about science within feminism? In an important and far‐reaching conceptual move, Harding dismisses the temptation to abandon the project of “science” and its investigation of the natural (or nature‐cultural) world – however conceived – as a whole. She instead suggests that a more productive project would be to interrogate and dismantle the androcentrism of the current science we have. In other words, for Harding, it is not just women’s oppression within the sciences that is problematic. Rather, moving beyond that particular critique, she identifies how cultural and anti‐woman assumptions were intrinsic to the development of modern science: “I am seeking an end to androcentrism, not to systematic inquiry. But an end to androcentrism will require far‐reaching transformations in the cultural meanings and practices of that inquiry” (Harding 1986). Thus, Harding suggested, it was no longer enough to insist that women be included as actors within an established scientific modality. Instead, feminist science scholarship ought to investigate how structures of power shape the established “facts” of, methods used for, and questions asked within the scientific endeavor as a whole. As the following section, “Toward Feminist Science” details, this suggestion stimulated a new body of scholarship centered around Harding’s question regarding the seeming objectivity of scientific research and experimentation.

Toward Feminist Science In this section, we focus on key scholars and lines of thinking that draw on postcolonial, queer, and critical race theory to think about the possibilities for a feminist science. First, however, to better situate their work, we want to describe in more detail some of the contributions of the foundational figures Sandra Harding and Donna Haraway that took up this new line of inquiry.

Strong Objectivity The notion of objectivity lies at the center of scientific method, seemingly lending an air of capital‐T Truth to the claims of the natural sciences. Sandra Harding argues that there is not just one definition of “objectivity” (Harding 2015) and suggests



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instead that feminist standpoint theory ought to develop and think with the notion of strong objectivity. At its core, a strong objectivity framework requires knowledge‐ building that considers the lives and experiences of women or other marginalized groups (Harding 1991, 2015). Harding argues that true objectivity can be attained by starting from the everyday lives of marginalized peoples, and that these perspectives can be accessed whether someone belongs to that identity group or not (Harding 2015). In order to produce a strong objectivity, rather than a weak one, scientists and scholars must be able to understand the history and context in which the knowledge is produced. Strong objectivity recognizes that race, gender, sexuality, class, and disability are co‐produced or co‐constituted through both natural and social processes (Harding 2015).

Situated Knowledges Donna Haraway’s related concept that is in conversation with and builds upon Harding’s strong objectivity is situated knowledges, which she introduces in her seminal (1988) article “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective.” Haraway argues that knowledge producers, including scientists, will always see the world partially through their own experience (Haraway 1988). Thus, true objectivity acknowledges this partial perspective and admits that no person, or no discipline, will ever be able to know everything. Additionally, for Haraway, the privileging of certain disciplines that allows them to control the production of different kinds of knowledge about nature, human bodies, race, and gender is inherently about power, and not about their superior ability to identify “the Truth” (Haraway 1988).

Feminist Materialisms Feminist thinkers have long sought ways to investigate the material aspects of nature, the environment, and the world on feminist terms (Hekman and Alaimo 2008). Instead of material feminisms, which refers to feminist theory developed to improve upon Marxism with respect to the relationships between capitalism, patriarchy, and the gendered division of labor, feminist materialisms draws on the object‐ oriented ontology of new materialisms. Object‐oriented ontology, and its feminist offshoot, object‐oriented feminism, “theorizes that the world consists exclusively of objects and treats humans as objects like any other, rather than privileged subjects” (Behar 1:2016). It is worth noting that this particular theorization of humans as objects is challenged by Black studies’ theories about people‐as‐objects (Moten 2003), and this critique is elaborated on later in the chapter (in the section “Black Feminist Science Studies”). Feminist theory and its sister disciplines, such as queer and performance theory, have demonstrated sustained interest in investigating the body and its subjectivities. The turn toward feminist materialisms is characterized by a renewed focus on the body as an object that is situated both as a product of biology and one of cultural meaning that leads to the co‐production of race, sexuality, and gender. This line of inquiry also challenges previous feminist representations of the nature of subjectivity (Schnabel 2014). Feminist materialisms identify and challenge the

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intellectual dualisms such as nature/culture, mind/body, and subject/object that characterized early feminist thought. These binaries are often reflected in a (false) differentiation between the human and the nonhuman. Instead, drawing from robust theories of philosophical, anthropological, sociological, and science studies thought (Latour 1986, 1993; Mol 2003), feminist materialisms considers what it might mean to consider all human and nonhuman objects as agents with the capacity to act on other human and nonhuman objects. This shift marks a move against the subject/ object binary and the subsequent dualisms produced through this dichotomy. Elizabeth Grosz (1994) is among those early thinkers who questioned the human/ nonhuman and subject/object binary: “If what differentiates humans from each other, from other species, and other materialities is … bodies in their morphologies, then those knowledges – the humanities and social sciences – that take subjects as their object of investigation must also be reconsidered” (p. 3). This emphasis on reconsidering subjectivity within feminist thought is regarded as a hallmark of feminist materialisms. One central tenet of feminist materialism is that is purposefully operates against the linguistic and poststructuralist turns that have so deeply influenced feminist, queer, critical race, and postcolonial theory. Some have suggested that the linguistic turn took the body and matter out of the picture (Barad 2003; Wilson 2015), while others have suggested that that is a loose and inaccurate characterization of the first 40‐something years of feminist theory (Ahmed 2008). Susan Hekman suggests that a succinct summation of Judith Butler’s poststructuralist work interrogating the naturalization of gender (Butler 1990) is that we are “not outside of language, and yet not determined by it either,” and that this very suggestion is the “best starting point for a new materialism” (Van der Tuin 2011, p. 272). Indeed, feminist materialist thought inspired by the work of Karen Barad and Donna Haraway suggests a reconfiguration of the underpinnings of what we understand to be the difference between epistemology and ontology  –  that is, the difference between what it means to know and what it means to be. Karen Barad’s conceptual offering of agential realism builds off what she calls an “ethico‐onto‐ epistemology,” which at its core suggests that splitting ontology and epistemology into separate modes of inquiry is fundamentally incorrect based off the laws of quantum mechanics and the wave‐particle duality. These laws state that particles can, depending on the method of measurement, only be measured as a wave or as a particle but never both simultaneously. Therefore, the fundamental building blocks of matter are phenomena, rather than a particulate thing. This notion has radical implications for how we understand the Cartesian dualism between nature and culture, as well as ontology and epistemology (Barad 2007). If we understand our (in)organic beginnings as particles situated in the context in which they are measured, this inherent quality can be extended to the way we measure and see our world(s). Therefore, feminist materialisms calls on feminist theorists to reconsider how they understand and talk about the subjects that feminist theorists are most concerned with: race, gender, sexuality, and all of their associated intersections with phenomena produced and influenced by biology and by culture. Examples of work that has taken up this challenge include that which examines the co‐ constitution of indigeneity (TallBear 2013) and sexuality (Willey 2016), which we discuss in the next section.



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Postcolonialisms, Queer Theory, and Indigeneity in Feminist Science Studies Feminist scholars working with postcolonial and queer theories focus on the intersections of identity and the subjugation of women in science beyond the initial scope of standpoint theorists such as Evelyn Fox‐Keller and Sandra Harding, whose important foundational work is described in this chapter’s Introduction. Kim TallBear, Angie Willey, Banu Subramaniam, Deboleena Roy, and many others are key contributors to the merging of postcolonial and queer theory with feminist science studies. Further, many of these scholars utilize ethnographic methodologies alongside critical theory to analyze how certain forms of scientific knowledge come into being and how that knowledge (falsely) manifests itself as unequivocal truth. Much of this scholarship focuses on how concepts like race and sexuality are co‐produced through science and society, and argues that the scientific studies of race and sexuality are poorly conceptualized without a deep understanding of how these concepts are constructed through social processes in labs, classrooms, and other areas of scientific knowledge production (TallBear 2013; Willey 2016). Work at the intersection of feminist science studies and postcolonial theory starts from the assumption that “advances” in science and technology have always been inextricably linked to Western expansion, progress, and imperialism, and postcolonial STS investigate the linkages between colonialism and scientific progress (Harding 2011). Postcolonial STS also investigate the simultaneous rise of Western imperialism and Western science, non‐Western knowledge systems, the relationship between science and modernity, and what decolonial and anti‐colonial scientific praxis could look like. Queer science studies and its related field, queer ecologies, are more recent developments that connect queer theory to scientific studies on human sexuality and the production of sexuality through the study of animal behavior. For example, queer science studies focuses on how the logics of heteronormativity are naturalized through superimposition onto nature through scientific theories such as sociobiology and animal behavior (Mortimer‐Sandilands and Erickson 2010; Willey 2016). Feminist biologist Anne Fausto‐Sterling has written extensively on human intersex variation, documenting a wide‐ranging variety of different combinations of sex chromosomes, physiological developments, and hormones found in the human body (Fausto‐Sterling 2012). While this line of inquiry is still in its early stages, some primatologists are also beginning to examine intersex variation found in nonhuman primates (Perminov et al. 2018).

Black Feminist Science Studies Black studies scholars have challenged the project of new and feminist materialist scholarship and science studies described above on the grounds that the return in focus on the human and the body has neglected the historical reality that the figure of “the human” is often constructed in opposition to or against Blackness and Black people’s humanity (Hartman 1997). One fundamental focus of Black feminist science studies centers on whether the concept of the human can be expanded to include those, especially Black people, whose humanity has been systematically denied by the state and aided in many cases by science. Examples of the mistreatment of Black

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individuals and communities in the name of scientific progress include the story of Henrietta Lacks, whose cancer cells (sampled from her without her consent or knowledge) became one of the most commonly used cell lines (HeLa) in the history of medical research (Skloot 2010). Another example is the Tuskegee syphilis experiment, in which nearly 400 Black men who unknowingly had syphilis were studied by researchers who did not provide them with a cure in the form of penicillin, in order to study the course of untreated syphilis in the human body. The Tuskegee syphilis experiment was funded by the US federal government and carried out by the US Department of Public Health (Brandt 1978). Black studies and Black feminist thought demonstrate how these and other unethical scientific experiments depend on the simultaneous existence of whitened concepts of the human (Sharpe 2016; Weheliye 2014). Sylvia Wynter, drawing on the work of Frantz Fanon (2008), has argued that the concept of the human is produced specifically in service of a white, Global North vision of humanity while masquerading as a universal one. Michelle Murphy (2018) argues that science studies writ large should utilize the theories of Wynter, Fanon, and others (McKittrick 2015) in order to understand how the very premise of Western science is deeply seated in a particular articulation of the human as anti‐Black. Recent Black feminist science studies scholarship has also weighed in on the subject/object binary described above. As Fred Moten writes in his monograph In the Break, “the history of blackness is testament to the fact that objects can and do resist” (Moten 2003, p.1). According to Moten, blackness as an object might be possessed by whiteness, but whiteness is possessed, and subsequently “deformed” by blackness, and he demonstrates this through Black performance such as poetry and jazz. To make these claims, he writes and thinks in tandem with Black feminist theorist Saidiya Hartman, who makes a similar argument in her book Scenes of Subjection. She argues that blackness as an object makes the subject, which in this case is the white bourgeoisie, and thus, the subjectivity of whiteness, man, and the human are defined by blackness as the object that these logics are dependent upon. One overall claim of Black feminist science studies and related scholarship on Blackness is that the human would not exist without blackness, and that the logics of modernity would unravel without the human. A Black studies perspective on the human and the (im)possibility of its rehabilitation as a category has radical implications for science and feminist science studies as intellectual projects, as much of the logics of the human/nonhuman are built upon scientific classifications of a species or a particular kind of human (Wynter 2014). There has been a proliferation of feminist materialist thought that espouses a turn toward the new human, rather than doing away with the human altogether (Coole and Frost 2010; Frost 2016). A reworking of new and feminist materialist literature in response to the challenges and provocations of Black feminist theory might open up different and alternative possibilities for exploring the concept of the human and the view of science as a project of modernity.

Toward Practice: Two Case Studies In the last part of this chapter, we turn toward a burgeoning area of feminist science studies that explicitly takes up the question written about and theorized by so many of the scholars who built and grew the discipline into what it is today: what does a



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feminist science look like in practice? When the concerns of and theoretical tools developed by feminist science studies scholars are adopted by practicing laboratory scientists and medical practitioners, what does that knowledge production look like? Here, we present two case studies we see as examples of scientific praxis that foregrounds the methods and concerns of feminist knowledge production.

Feminist Archaeologies and Genomics Archaeology is a unique science in that it embraces, or at least acknowledges, postmodern critiques of scientific knowledge production in a way that most other disciplines that utilize tools and methodologies most commonly associated with the “hard sciences” do not. This discipline therefore lends itself not only to feminist, queer, and postcolonial critique, but also facilitates imagining different means of producing knowledge with the various tools and methodologies that can and have been used to understand the human past. The archaeology of gender is a body of archaeological theory and praxis that initially set out to challenge the androcentrism of early archaeological studies. Early archaeologists, who were mostly men, largely focused on the activities of men in the past. Women were viewed mostly as passive caretakers whose domestic activities such as rearing children and managing the household were largely unimportant. Early feminist archaeologists challenged these assumptions by advocating for an archaeology that specifically paid attention to traces of women in the archaeological record: where were they and what were they doing? (see Balme and Beck 1995; du Cros and Smith 1993; Pomeroy 1991). Other work in this vein includes use of relational ontology to investigate how gendered patterning of architecture and use of space reflect indigenous cosmologies of the past (Hrynick and Betts 2017) as well as calls for an explicitly feminist archaeology that moves beyond the question of “women in the past” and toward changing “the way archaeology is practiced, the way it is presented, and the nature of archaeological interpretation” (Conkey and Gero 1997, p. 412). The archaeology of gender and feminist archaeology provide researchers with a set of tools for revisiting what have often been considered basic and uncontested bioarchaeological practices, especially the identification of men and women in the archaeological record. Part of a bioarchaeologist’s training typically includes being able to identify and differentiate between female and male pelvises quickly and without much difficulty. However, such identifications become controversial when human skeletal remains identified as female are buried in mortuary contexts or with grave goods typically associated with males. In these increasingly common cases, we see new stories about women in the past2 rising through the ranks as an outlier for her gender in roles previously thought of as male‐centric or male‐dominated. For example, every so often, popular science articles make the rounds on the internet about how, in the past, “women were warriors, too!” The discovery and recognition of women in diverse roles in the past is usually heralded as a “win” for feminist archaeology. But the essential question here is, of course, what constituted womanhood in the past, and how do we identify it? In circumstances where there is doubt about the identification of males and females from pelvis morphology, new technoscientific advancements in ancient DNA

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research have been adopted to identify the skeleton’s “true,” or genetic, sex – which is then often mapped directly onto claims about gender and gendered behavior. Additionally, the amelogenin gene, which is often used as a proxy for genetic sex in ancient DNA, has serious drawbacks in terms of scientific “reliability”: it does not have the capacity to identify intersex variation, it has a demonstrated error rate, and amplification of the gene has to be repeated multiple times to control for allelic dropout (Geller 2017; Tozzo et al. 2013). However, the direct correlation between genetic sex, biological sex, phenotype, and gender is troubled by the feminist, queer, and indigenous theories described above, which have demonstrated the presence of diverse gender systems in the past that do not resemble those that have become entrenched in the West in the twenty‐first century. A feminist science studies take on utilizing new technoscientific advancements in ancient DNA to access gender in the past would yield a variety of new and exciting questions in archaeology. For example, one critical area of scholarship could take up the project of analyzing the underlying assumptions behind what it means to know gender in the past. Geneticists working with ancient DNA commonly publish stand‐alone genetic data independently of a thorough archaeological context, which is often considered the sole purview of the archaeologist. The archeological context, however, could provide important information about gender roles and gender dynamics. If incorporating this knowledge became standard practice for geneticists working with ancient DNA, they could avoid reinscribing a Western gender binary onto past human societies and instead explore and incorporate the long history of human gender diversity across different historical and sociocultural contexts.

Feminist Disability Bioethics In this case study, we use the debate over growth attenuation to demonstrate how the field of bioethics might benefit from a feminist science studies lens specifically attuned to critical disability studies. Growth attenuation is a medical intervention designed to deliberately stunt the growth of profoundly disabled children. The procedure was created by Dr. Daniel Gunther, a pediatric endocrinologist, and Dr. Douglas Diekama. The cluster of medical interventions that make up the “treatment” vary by sex. In young girls, it can involve estrogen therapy to prematurely close bone plates as well as breast bud removal and a full hysterectomy. To date, the procedure has not been carried out on a large scale, but the handful of cases in the United States and United Kingdom have attracted concerted attention and provoked considerable controversy. Proponents argue that artificially preventing children with profound intellectual and mobility disabilities from growing to their full adult size greatly benefits children and caregivers alike in part because it (purportedly) makes long‐term in‐home care possible (Gunther and Diekama 2006). Disability rights advocates, however, have voiced a range of concerns. Opponents and proponents of growth attenuation alike frame their arguments in terms of experience, care, whether or not someone has the capacity to be in the world in ways that we recognize, and visions of potentiality (or lost potentiality). In short, debates circle around different versions of what it means to be a fully experiencing human.



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In particular, we are interested in the case of a young girl referred to as Ashley X in all medical reports and press releases about the procedure. Ashley, at the request of her parents, had the “privilege” of being the first child in the US to undergo surgical growth attenuation. Her case is generally the one invoked in debates that take place within medical and bioethical journals, in online communities, and among some feminist theorists and philosophers (Hall 2011; Kittay 2011). In responding to the equation that disability rights activists have made between growth attenuation, forced sterilization, and human rights violations, her father has said this: Ashley does not have the concept of dignity, but she does have a very real experience with pain and discomfort. […] We however care a great deal about our daughter’s human dignity and feel that the treatment makes Ashley more dignified by providing her with a better quality of life. (The Guardian, 2012)

Her future is imagined by her father as one of pain unless the family uses biomedical intervention to change her body – her body, and thus her future, are only free from pain if both are radically altered by biomedical science. Scientific intervention becomes synonymous with care. Feminist philosopher Eva Feder Kittay opposes growth attenuation on the grounds that we ought to broaden our understanding of how people can experience and interact with their worlds. Kittay writes that care is not a medicalized concept that points toward meeting needs. Instead, care is relational and helps to cement and normalize our fundamental interdependence as human beings. Further, being in relation rarely unfolds between so‐called equals but always between people who operate differently in the world. Herein lies her fairly radical argument about what constitutes ethical care. For if care relations are not founded upon so‐called “equality” of mind or body, then altering the bodies of people like Ashley X in order to make them operate more closely to our idea of normality does not meet the demands of ethical caring. Care requires “empathy, emotional responsiveness, and perceptual attentiveness” (2011, p. 53) – the ability to meet the needs of others and to see them as meeting our own needs in important ways despite their level of perceived physical or cognitive ability. The debate about growth attenuation thus far has largely focused on those who are subjected to the procedure, and touches on their ability to feel pain and to relate to and care for others as well as their perceived value in society and level of function. A feminist science studies lens changes the terms of the debate and turns our attention toward the laboratory practices, clinical trials, and medical training that have drawn growth attenuation into being. What sociocultural values about disability, reproduction, and value have made this debate possible? Are there parallels to be drawn between the science of eugenics and modern‐day attempts to stunt growth and remove the reproductive organs of those with cognitive differences? Bioethicists may well benefit from the broadly historical and situated lens of feminist science studies, one that could be trained on the specific scientific practices that ultimately make something like growth attenuation possible – and thinkable.

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Future Directions and Conclusions Feminist science studies and its disciplinary co‐conspirators  –  queer, indigenous, Black, postcolonial, and disability studies – continue to grow and flourish as disciplines that account for the ways in which the social concepts of race, sexuality, dis/ ability, indigeneity, and other markers of identity are produced and worked upon through the scientific encounter. It has been gratifying to see the influence of feminist science studies thought on disciplines such as archaeology, biological anthropology, genomics, ecology, and cultural and medical anthropology. This influence has been most crucially evident in archaeology. The discipline of archaeology draws on the natural sciences, including human and plant biology, geology, and geochemistry, in order to produce knowledge about the past. As a whole, the field has enthusiastically embraced postmodern critiques of scientific knowledge production. Beginning with the broader reflexive turn of the 1980s in anthropology, archaeologists have leveled a post‐processual critique of processual archaeology. In the four decades since, practioners in the field have debated the importance of perspective and standpoint when interpreting data. Many make the argument that the ways in which archaeologists interpret the past have repercussions for humans in the present (Shanks 2008). Key contributors to this area of inquiry include feminist (Spencer‐Wood 2011), queer (Blackmore 2011), indigenous (Atalay 2006; Conkey 2005), and Black feminist archaeologies (Battle‐Baptiste 2011; Franklin 2001), where archaeological theory and methods of data analysis are developed in tandem with critical theory. Feminist science studies thought is also becoming increasingly influential in biological anthropology. At the 2017 American Association of Physical Anthropologists (AAPA) meeting, over a dozen indigenous, Black, Latinx, queer, and women biological anthropologists gathered to discuss how their perspectives as non‐male, non‐straight, and non‐white scientists have informed and shaped their research interests and scholarship. This panel, “Beyond Visibility: How Academic Diversity is Transforming Scientific Knowledge,” resulted in the publication of a collection of essays entitled “How Academic Diversity is Transforming Scientific Knowledge in Biological Anthropology” in the journal American Anthropologist (Bolnick et al. 2019). These essays aim to spark similar debates and conversations within the mainstream of biological anthropology, archaeology, and have a broader impact within biology and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) fields more generally. In addition, in 2018, the American Anthropological Association’s Biological Anthropology Section and Association of Black Anthropologists co‐sponsored a roundtable, Black Feminist Science, at the annual American Anthropological Association meeting, in which early career archaeologists and biological anthropologists presented scholarship that was informed by and incorporated Black feminist thought. Recent work in feminist and speculative anthropology has also drawn on feminist science studies, most notably the work of Donna Haraway, to theorize the Anthropocene and imagine human flourishing amidst the ruins of capitalism. Ana Tsing (2016) and Alexis Shotwell (2016) examine interspecies relatedness in order to think about the possibilities for renewed life and relatedness amidst ecological collapse and environmental degradation. Eduardo Kohn, writing within the ontological turn, details the dynamic relationships between nature/culture and ­



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human/nonhuman in the Amazon and argues that new kinds of entities are created through ecological crisis (2013). Additionally, there has been a surge in working groups and training institutes that bring together the diverse interests of scientists, ethicists, critical theory scholars, STS scholars, and community members. A prominent example includes the Summer internship for INdigenous peoples in Genomics (SING), program, which offers a week‐long summer workshop that trains indigenous peoples in genomic technologies, laboratory skills, statistics, bioethics, and data analysis, and discusses the histories and modern uses of genomic technologies within indigenous communities in the United States, Canada, and Aotearoa. The SING Consortium has published scholarship on the ethics of paleogenomic research with and by indigenous peoples. SING operates as a key example of how feminist science studies can empower scholars whose communities have historically been the object of the scientific gaze to ask questions differently based on their personal and communities’ interests. The SING USA, SING Canada, and SING Aotearoa workshops have all been shaped by feminist science studies thought, and the SING Canada workshop is an initiative of the Indigenous Science, Technology, and Society Research and Training Program, or Indigenous STS lab, at the University of Alberta. Kim TallBear, whose work is described above in the section “Postcolonialisms, Queer Theory, and Indigeneity in Feminist Science Studies,” is the Principal Investigator of that lab. Another example of such working groups is the Queer Ecologies Prospecting Team, which is a joint effort between animal behaviorists, biologists, and feminist and queer science studies scholars at the University of California, Berkeley. This team engages both social and natural scientists in collaboration and debate to produce robust animal behavior science that understands the co‐ production of race, sex, and gender through nonhuman model species (Wesner 2019). These examples of how the social and ethical considerations of feminist science studies can transform scientific knowledge production are by no means exhaustive of the critical work being done across the globe. Taken as a whole, however, they are examples of how a different science, thoroughly informed by the theoretical lineages and offerings described in this chapter, might come into being. In this chapter we have described the genesis of the field of feminist science studies, making a distinction between scholarship that focuses on the question of gender in science and scholarship that imagines what a feminist science could look like through application of critical theory. These two categories continue to operate in a dialectic mode, informing the creation of new scientific endeavors such as SING and the Indigenous STS Lab. We have also drawn on our own scholarship to demonstrate how the tools and methods of feminist science studies could operate across different disciplines and inform critical inquiry in feminist genetics and feminist bioethics and medical anthropology. In all, we suggest that feminist science studies is a mode of inquiry as well as a model for application across multiple and intersecting sociocultural and scientific worlds.

Notes 1 Although this is largely the case historically as well, women were instrumental in developing two scientific fields for which they are generally not credited: midwifery and nursing (Wyer et al. 2001).

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2 For a thorough treatment of gender, artifact classes, and funerary remains see Willison, Megan K,. “Gender in 17th Century New England” (2016). (https://opencommons.uconn. edu/gs_theses/968).

References Ahmed, S. (2008). Open forum on imaginary prohibitions: some preliminary remarks on the founding gestures of the ‘new materialism. European Journal of Women’s Studies 15 (1): 23–39. Althusser, L. (2014). On the Reproduction of Capitalism: Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses. Verso. Atalay, S. (2006). Indigenous archaeology as a decolonizing practice. American Indian Quarterly 30 (3/4): 280–310. Balme, J. and Beck, W. (eds.) (1995). Gendered Archaeology: The Second Australian Women in Archeology Conference. Canberra: Australian National University. Barad, K. (2003). Posthumanist performativity: toward an understanding of how matter comes to matter. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 28 (3): 802–831. Barad, K. (2007). Meeting the Universe Halfway. Duke University Press. Battle‐Baptiste, W. (2011). Black Feminist Archaeology. Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press. Behar, K. (2016). Object‐Oriented Feminism. University of Minnesota Press. Blackmore, C. (2011). How to queer the past without sex: queer theory, feminisms, and archaeology of identity. Archaeologies: Journal of the World Archaeological Congress. 7 (1): 75–96. Bolnick, D., Smith, R.W.A., and Fuentes, A. (2019). How academic diversity is transforming scientific knowledge in biological anthropology. American Anthropologist 121 (2): 464. Brandt, A.M. (1978). Racism and research: The case of the Tuskegee Syphilis study. The Hastings Center Report 8 (6): 21–29. Butler, J. (1990). Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. Routledge. Cipolla, C., Gupta, K., Rubin, D.A., and Willey, A. (2017). Queer Feminist Science Studies: A Reader (Feminist Technosciences). University of Washington Press. Conkey, M. (2005). Dwelling at the margins, action at the intersection? Feminist and Indigenous archaeologies. Archaeologies: Journal of the World Archaeological Congress 1 (1): 9–59. Conkey, M.W. and Gero, J.M. (1997). Programme to practice: gender and feminism in archaeology. Annual Review of Anthropology 26: 411–437. Coole, D.H. and Frost, S. (2010). New Materialisms: Ontology, Agency, and Politics. Duke University Press. du Cros, H. and Smith, L. (eds.) (1993). Women in Archaeology: A Feminist Critique. Canberra: Australian National University. Fanon, F. trans. Richard Philcox (2008). Black Skin, White Masks. New York: Grove Press. Fausto‐Sterling, A. (2012). Sex/Gender: Biology in a Social World. Routledge. Franklin, M. (2001). A black feminist‐inspired archaeology? Journal of Social Archaeology 1 (1): 108–125. Frost, S. (2016). Biocultural Creatures: Toward a New Theory of the Human. Duke University Press. Geller, P.L. (2017). The Bioarchaeology of Social‐Sexual Lives: Queering Common Sense about Sex, Gender, and Sexuality. Springer Press. Grosz, E. (1994). Volatile Bodies: Toward a Corporeal Feminism. Indiana University Press.



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Gunther, D.F. and Diekama, D. (2006). Attenuating growth in children with profound developmental disability: a new approach to an old dilemma. Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine 160 (10): 1013–1017. Hall, K.Q. (ed.) (2011). Feminist Disability Studies. Indiana University Press. Hamilton, J.A., Subramaniam, B., and Wiley, A. (2017). What Indians and Indians can teach us about colonization: feminist science and technology studies, epistemological imperialism, and the politics of difference. Feminist Studies 43 (3): 612–623. Hammonds, E. and Subramaniam, B. (2003). A conversation on feminist science studies. Gender and Science: New Issues 28 (3): 923–944. Haraway, D. (1988). Situated knowledges: the science question in feminism and the privileges of partial perspective. Feminist Studies 14 (3): 575–599. Haraway, D. (1989). Primate Visions: Gender, Race, and Nature in the World of Modern Science. New York: Routledge. Harding, S. (1986). The Science Question in Feminism. Cornell University Press. Harding, S. (ed.) (1991). “’Strong objectivity’” and socially situated knowledge. In: Whose Science? Whose Knowledge? Thinking from Women’s Lives, 138–163. Cornell University Press. Harding, S. (ed.) (2004). The Feminist Standpoint Theory Reader: Intellectual and Political Controversies. New York: Routledge. Harding, S. (ed.) (2011). The Postcolonial Science and Technology Studies Reader. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Harding, S. (2015). Objectivity & Diversity: Another Logic of Scientific Research. University of Chicago Press. Hartman, S. (1997). Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery, and Self‐Making in Nineteenth‐ Century America (Race and American Culture). Oxford University Press. Hartsock, N. (1983). Money, Sex, and Power: Toward a Feminist Historical Materialism. Northeastern University Press. Hekman, S. and Alaimo, S. (2008). Material Feminisms. Indiana University Press. Hrynick, M.G. and Betts, M.W. (2017). A relational approach to hunter‐gatherer architecture and gendered use of space at port Joli harbour, Nova Scotia. Journal of the North Atlantic 10: 1–17. Kafer, A. (2013). Feminist, Queer, Crip. Indiana University Press. Keller, E.F. (1995). Reflections on Gender and Science. Yale University Press. Kittay, E.F. (2011). Forever small: the strange case of Ashley X. Hypatia 26 (3): 610–631. Kohn, E. (2013). How Forests Think: Toward an Anthropology Beyond the Human. University of California Press. Kuhn, T. (1962). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. University of Chicago Press. Latour, B. (1986). Visualization and Cognition: Thinking With Eyes and Hands. Knowledge and Society: Studies in the Sociology of Culture Past and Present 6: 1–40. Latour, B. (1993). We Have Never Been Modern. Harvard University Press. Martin, E. (1991). The egg and the sperm: how science has constructed a romance based on stereotypical male‐female roles. Signs 16 (3): 485–501. McKittrick, K. (2015). Sylvia Wynter: On Being Human as Praxis. Duke University Press. Mol, A. (2003). The Body Multiple. Duke University Press. Mortimer‐Sandilands, C. and Erickson, B. (2010). Queer Ecologies: Sex, Nature, Politics, Desire. Indiana University Press. Moten, F. (2003). In the Break: The Aesthetics of Black Radical Tradition. University of Minnesota Press. Murphy, M. (2018). Against population, towards Alterlife. In: Making Kin, Not Population (eds. A. Clarke and D. Haraway), 101–124. Prickly Paradigm Press.

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Naples, N. (2007). Strong objectivity. In: The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology (ed. G. Ritzer), 4853–4854. Wiley Blackwell Press. Perminov, E., Mangosing, S., Confer, A. et al. (2018). A case report of ovotesticular disorder of sex development (OT‐DSD) in a baboon (Papio spp.) and a brief review of the non‐ human primate literature. Journal of Medical Primatology 47: 192–197. Pomeroy, S.B. (1991). Women’s History and Ancient History. University of North Carolina Press. Rapp, R. (2000). Testing Women, Testing the Fetus: The Social Impact of Amniocentesis in America. Routledge Press. Richardson, S. (2010). Feminist philosophy of science: history, contributions, and challenges. Synthese 177 (3): 337–362. Schnabel, L. (2014). The question of subjectivity in three emerging feminist science studies frameworks: feminist postcolonial science studies, new feminist materialisms, and queer ecologies. Women’s Studies International Forum 44: 10–16. Shanks, M. (2008). Post‐processual archaeology and after. In: Handbook of Archaeological Theories (eds. R.A. Bentley, H.D.G. Maschner and C. Chippindale), 133–144. Altamira Press. Sharpe, C. (2016). In the Wake: On Blackness and Being. Duke University Press. Shotwell, A. (2016). Against Purity: Living Ethically in Compromised Times. University of Minnesota Press. Skloot, R. (2010). The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. New York: Crown Publishing Group. Spencer‐Wood, S.M. (2011). Introduction: feminist theories and archaeology. Archaeologies: Journal of the World Archaeological Congress. 7 (1): 1–33. Stengers, I. (1997). Power and Invention: Situating Science (Theory Out of Bounds). University of Minnesota Press. Stengers, I. (2000). Invention of Modern Science (Theory Out of Bounds). University of Minnesota Press. TallBear, K. (2013). Native American DNA: Tribal Belonging and the False Promises of Genetic Science. University of Minnesota Press. Tozzo, P., Giuliodori, A., Corato, S. et al. (2013). Deletion of amelogenin Y‐locus in forensics: literature revision and description of a novel method for sex confirmation. Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine 20: 387–391. Tsing, A. (2016). The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins. Princeton University Press. Van der Tuin, I. (2011). New feminist materialisms. Women’s Studies International Forum 34 (4): 271–277. Van Dongen, J. (ed.) (2015). Cold War Science and the Transatlantic Circulation of Knowledge (History of Science and Medicine Library). Brill Press. Weasel, L.H. (2016). The promise and peril of epigenetics for feminist science studies. In: Mattering: Feminism, Science, and Materialism (ed. V. Pitts‐Taylor), 104–121. OxfordUniversity Press. Weheliye, A.G. (2014). Habeas Viscus: Racializing Assemblages, Biopolitics, and Black Feminist Theories of the Human. Duke University Press. Wesner, A. (2019). Messing up mating: queer feminist engagements with animal behavior science. Women’s Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal 48 (3): 309–345. Willey, A. (2016). Undoing Monogamy: The Politics of Science and the Possibilities of Biology. Duke University Press. Wilson, E.A. (2015). Gut Feminism. Duke University Press.



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Wyer, M. et al. (2001). Women, Science, and Technology: A Reader in Feminist Science Studies. New York: Routledge. Wynter, S. (2014). Towards the sociogenic principle: Fanon, the puzzle of conscious experience, “identity” and what it’s like to be “black.”. In: National Identity and Sociopolitical Change: Latin America Between Marginalization and Integration (eds. M. Duran‐Cogan and A. Gomez‐Moriana). University of Minnesota Press.

15 Feminist Economics Valeria Esquivel

Feminist economics is a critical and well‐established economics subdiscipline. Over the last 25 years, feminist economists have critiqued the gender‐blindness of economic thinking and have developed new analytical frameworks and methodologies to examine gender relations in economic institutions and economic functioning (Floro and Willoughby 2016). The emphasis on gender issues – the concerns about “the persistent and ubiquitous inequalities between men and women that arise from differing social roles and unequal power relations” (Barker and Kuiper 2003, p. 2) – is the distinguishing feature of feminist economics. Feminist economics is at the crossroads of feminism and economics. From feminism, feminist economics inherits its radical political project, namely, denouncing gender inequalities in the distribution of work, incomes, and well‐being – i.e. in the materiality of women’s and men’s lives. From economics, feminist economics inherits the prestige and the object of study, as well as its methodologies and its pretense of objectivity. Economics is not a monolithic science. Mainstream or orthodox economics is defined as the neoclassical paradigm in conceptual terms and the neoliberal paradigm in economic policy. Mainstream economics ultimately asserts the preeminence of market functioning as efficient resource allocator, supported by profit maximizing behavior – or the goodness of human greed (Folbre 2009). Mainstream economics dominates knowledge production, publications, and the access to jobs and promotions at economics departments. In turn, critical approaches under the broad umbrella of heterodox economics comprise a wide range of theoretical traditions, among them Latin American structuralism, post‐Keynesianism, and Marxist economics. In spite of their differences, they all present alternatives to mainstream economics that lead to different policy prescriptions, particularly at the macroeconomic level. Definitions of feminist economics – as laid out, for example, in the essays compiled by Ferber and Nelson (1993) – were initially formulated against mainstream Companion to Feminist Studies, First Edition. Edited by Nancy A. Naples. © 2021 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Published 2021 by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

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economics. Criticisms were epistemological, questioning the existence of an objective observer devoid of identity (England 1993; Nelson 1995); methodological, against the primacy of mathematics and deductive reasoning above economics’ reality content (Lawson 2003); and even called into question economics’ subject matter, the very definition of the economy as only that which is exchanged in the market (Folbre 1995). These definitions were followed by epistemological and philosophical reflections that attempted to demarcate feminist economics as an economics subdiscipline (Ferber and Nelson 2003; Barker 2016) – a challenging endeavor as feminist economics is neither a school of thought nor a field of study. Initial research themes – like the care economy (or reproductive work, as it was initially known),1 labor market discrimination, and a gendered reading of the history of economic thought (Peterson and Lewis 1999) – expanded rapidly to all fields of economic inquiry, including public finance, international trade, and development economics, enlarging the contours of the subdiscipline (Elson 2004).

Orthodox and Heterodox Feminist Economics As feminist economics expanded, contributions came from different disciplinarian quarters – including from orthodox economists. Orthodox feminist economists correct and extend the orthodox economics paradigm, replacing certain restrictive assumptions with more realistic ones (Agarwal 2004). They focus on households, for example, criticizing the models that explicitly justify the sexual division of labor by means of assuming a “benevolent patriarch” – the assumption that the head of household is altruistic and maximizes the utility of the family as a whole (Braunstein and Folbre 2001).2 Orthodox feminist economists propose new models of the household in which spouses cooperate and/or exchange because there are gains to be made from so doing, although such gains need to be distributed somehow (and the how is what these models explain). Particularly suited to microeconomic analyses,3 these contributions have applications in agricultural economics (land ownership), in labor economics (occupational segregation and gender‐based discrimination in labor markets and in education), and in taxation (design of tax incentives).4 They have recently become influential in World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) discourse, and as such have lent support to the removal of legal gender discrimination (World Bank 2015), to envisioning policies to the close of gender gaps in pay (Lagarde 2015), and to the improvements of taxation systems (Stotsky 1997, 2016),5 for example. A central tenet of orthodox feminist economics is that gender inequalities in ­markets are inefficient: they entail a loss of scarce resources. Economies would be better‐off if they could tap into women’s economic potential, currently lost because women are absent in labor and financial markets, and in decision‐making positions. This is the so‐called “smart economics” argument: eliminating gender inequalities is good for women and good for the economy (Chant and Sweetman 2012). It is also a politically convenient argument: if eliminating gender inequalities was bad for the economy, economic considerations would take precedence over gender equality. In contrast, the contributions of heterodox feminist economists center macroeconomics6 and development economics. Their starting points – as with those of much



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of heterodox contributions  –  are not necessarily theoretical but empirical. Initial contributions mapped the gendered consequences of structural adjustment policies in Latin America and Africa in the 1980s against claims of their neutrality (Elson 1991; Çagatay et al. 1995; Beneria et al. 2016). These were followed by theoretical explorations of the various ways in which gender dimensions can be incorporated in heterodox macroeconomic thinking (Grown et al. 2000). Given the understandings of individuals as socially embedded, social structures as characterized by power, inequalities and conflict, and an overriding concern on distributional issues that lie at the core of heterodox thinking, feminist economics contributions shed light on the gendered distributional outcomes of macroeconomic policies (van Staveren 2010). In so doing, they criticized both neoliberal policies and gender‐blind heterodox macroeconomic policies, as the latter may reduce class inequality but leave intact gender inequality (Seguino and Grown 2006; van Staveren and Danby 2010). Political agendas vary within heterodox feminist economics. Feminist economists who have proposed “the sustainability of human life” approach (Carrasco 2001) tend to believe that “any attempt at [gender] equality chimeric without a complete overhaul of the capitalist system” (Pérez Orozco 2014, p. 49). Alternatively, “integrative” views engage in macroeconomic and development policies under the belief that structural change and the pursuit of gender equality is possible within capitalism, and that the State has a decisive role in promoting it (Sen and Durano 2014; Bárcena and Prado 2016; Beneria et al. 2016). In spite of these differences, however, these political views are radically different from those behind mainstream economics’ policy prescriptions, including letting markets function with the least possible interference, minimizing the role of the state, and achieving macroeconomic equilibria (which typically translates into fiscal consolidation measures). Contrary to orthodox thinking, heterodox feminist economics points that gender equality is an objective in itself  –  a form of social justice  –  and not a means for improving economic performance. Moreover, economic performance and gender equality might be in tension, and win–win scenarios might not hold (Esquivel 2017).

Methodological Starting Points One prominent characteristic of feminist economists  –  and their institutions, the International Association for Feminist Economics (IAFFE) and its academic journal, Feminist Economics7  –  is their willingness to find common ground beyond the marked theoretical differences described above. Although views on what constitutes common ground themselves vary, one early proposal has been Marilyn Power’s “five core methodological starting points” common to most feminist economics contributions (Power 2004, p. 4). These points comprise: First, caring labor and domestic labor are vital parts of any economic system and should be incorporated into the analysis from the beginning, not shoehorned in as an afterthought. … Second, human well‐being should be a central measure of economic success. … Third, human agency is important. Processes as well as outcomes should be examined in evaluating an economic event. This emphasis on agency means that questions of power, and unequal access to power, are part of the analysis from the beginning …. Fourth,

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e­ thical judgments are a valid, inescapable, and in fact desirable part of an economic analysis …. Fifth, many researchers identifying themselves as feminist economists incorporate considerations of class, race‐ethnicity, and other factors into their research, recognizing the limits of theorizing “women” as a homogeneous category.

The first of these starting points, the inclusion of unpaid care and domestic work as part of economic analysis, has made headways in both economic theory and in measurement (see the section “Feminist Economics and Development”). There is ample recognition among both orthodox and heterodox scholars that unpaid care and domestic work is women’s work everywhere, that this work enhances the well‐ being of care recipients  –  even if sometimes at the expense of care providers’ (Antonopoulos et al. 2012; Rai et al. 2014) – and that the provision of care has consequences on whether women participate and benefit from engaging in paid work (Addati et  al. 2018). Microeconomic models of the household and labor market gender analyses (including modeling women’s labor force participation, gender segregation, and gender wage gaps) now include unpaid care and domestic work (or proxies for it) as central explanatory dimensions. Feminist macroeconomic models have moved from incorporating the household sector as a site of production (and not only consumption) to modeling unpaid care and domestic work as an input into the market production process via their impact on people as paid workers through the process of reproduction (Picchio 2003; Braunstein et al. 2011; Braunstein 2015). There is growing consensus that “GDP [gross domestic product] is an inadequate metric to gauge well‐being over time particularly in its economic, environmental, and social dimensions” (Stiglitz et  al. 2009, p. 8)  –  the proposed second starting point. Among other reasons, this is because GDP excludes the services produced by the unpaid care and domestic work.8 Yet, GDP growth is still the all‐encompassing measure of economic success – unbounded by environmental, gender, or job‐creation considerations or timidly tamed by them, as in Agenda 2030 (Esquivel 2016a). There is no shortage of feminist economics literature on agency and questions of voice, power, and representation (Gammage et  al. 2016; Goetz and Jenkins 2016), Power’s third starting point. Yet, feminist economics has not succeeded in mainstreaming them. The separation of economics from other social sciences, and the fragmentation of knowledge production denies interactions between economics, politics, and culture in ways that obscure the position of those who exercise power over those who are (kept) powerless (Kabeer 1994). Despite feminist economics contestation, and behind its pretense of objectivity and logical rigor, economics still works for the powerful (Häring and Douglas 2012). Making economics work for poor women, particularly those in the South, implies a political positioning that is associated with explicit, progressive values and a critique to neoliberal economics – i.e. Power’s fourth starting point. Power’s last two starting points, on value judgments and on intersectionality are only related to heterodox feminist economics contributions, which understand gender relations as social, power relations that are shaped by other structures of inequality. As Sen and Durano (2014) put it: For women as women, the politics of personal relations, of the body, of sex and reproduction matter greatly. The household and family relations are a critical site of gender power expressed in multiple dimensions. At the same time, women are workers, j­uggling



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double and triple burdens under increasingly harsh conditions; are members of communities struggling for land and livelihoods; are agents in societies undergoing cultural transformations; are actors in economies shaped by globalization and militarism; and are parts of production systems unmindful of ecological limits.

On the contrary, women as a universal, homogenous category is typical of orthodox gender approaches, in which gender and women are interchangeable concepts –and gender equality can be achieved without realizing other dimensions of social justice (Sen and Mukherjee 2014). There is no bridging the gap between these positions within feminist economics, as they stem from fundamentally different understandings about what women’s subordinate position is, and how a more gender‐equitable society could be achieved.

Feminist Economics and Development Orthodox and heterodox feminist economics approaches avant la lettre were already distinguishable in the origins of the debates on gender and development in the 1970s. The more liberal Women in Development (WID) and the more critical Women and Development (WAD) influenced development theory by highlighting the fact that economic development had different impacts by gender. The WID agenda identified gender norms and stereotypes that confined women to their roles of mothers and wives at the root of gender inequality, promoting the removal of institutional and legal barriers that deter women from participating in education and employment – the very same policies promoted by orthodox feminist economics today. The WAD agenda was critical of both WID approaches and orthodox development theory that assumed development was an indefinite, linear, and non‐conflictual process. Contributions in the early 1980s were concerned with the impacts of capitalist development on women’s lives, but avoided generalizations as impacts were context‐ specific and women were far from a homogeneous group. WAD initial preoccupations, like the intersectionality of class and gender, the nature of capital accumulation, the gender division of labor, and the role of markets and states are all present in current heterodox feminist economics. As Beneria et  al. (2016, p. 3) note, “the field [of gender and development] has come a long way from its origins. Now there are gender‐differentiated datasets, gender‐­inclusive measures of well‐being, and gender concerns and empowerment goals are integrated in the [United Nations’] development policy agenda.” This evolution is reflected in international institutions, donor agencies, and governments, which have institutionalized gender‐sensitive analysis and have used feminist economics knowledge in the process (Floro and Willoughby 2016). Most significant milestones in the evolution of the gender and development agenda, like the Fourth World Conference on Women and the landmark adoption of the Beijing Platform for Action (1995); the criticisms to the narrow focus of the Millennium Development Goals, adopted in 2000 (Fukuda‐Parr 2014; Kabeer 2015); and the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015 all bear the influence of feminist economics (Bidegain Ponte and Rodríguez 2016; Esquivel and Sweetman 2016; Razavi 2016).

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Along the years, reports by several UN agencies have included feminist economics‐­ inspired concepts, in particular: the UNDP’s Human Development Reports 1995 and 2015, which define and measure unpaid care and domestic work, with the former calling for “engendering the development paradigm” and laying down a policy agenda that reads (shockingly) actual (UNDP 1995, p. 101). The UN Women’s Progress of the World of Women Reports 2000 and 2015 (UNIFEM 2000; UN Women 2015), which present elements of heterodox feminist macroeconomics. And UNRISD’s Flagship Reports 2010 and 2016 (UNRISD 2010; Esquivel 2016b), which call for the implementation of care policies. These reports acknowledge gender equality is not a technocratic goal but “a wholesale political commitment” (UNDP 1995, p. 99). In parallel, the World Bank and the IMF have also espoused feminist economics arguments in their development work, but in the orthodox tradition (Elborgh‐ Woytek et  al. 2013).9 In this tradition, women’s entrance in the labor force is ­efficiency‐enhancing, and therefore good for growth – another version of the smart‐ economics argument. As a result, development policies should increase women’s (potential) productivity (for example, through education) and support their labor force participation through care service provision and access to financial capital (i.e. microcredits), leaving markets’ free functioning to do the rest. These policies are, contrary to the heterodox tradition, profoundly technocratic and apolitical. They also miss the obvious: for women’s greater productivity to translate into growth, there must be enough demand to employ them (Esquivel 2017). The concept “women’s economic empowerment”, commonly used by both feminist economics’ development traditions illustrates their different approaches (Kabeer 1999, 2016; Gammage et al. 2016). In the orthodox tradition, women’s economic empowerment is equated with equality of opportunity in access to education and employment. As Klugman and Tyson (2017) have put it, women’s economic empowerment “is the right and smart thing to do. … The human development, economic and business gains from empowering women are substantial. Greater gender equality means a country is associated with better education and health, higher per capita income, faster and more inclusive economic growth, and greater international competitiveness.”10 Though “association” is not causality – it is unclear whether greater gender equality, including in the labor market, leads to faster and more inclusive growth, or the other way around – one frequently slips into the other. A recent global study by McKinsey (2016), for example, assumes that women who participate in the labor force contribute a level of productivity that automatically translates into greater GDP growth.11 An alternative view on women’s economic empowerment “goes beyond the idea that women are empowered when their capabilities are enhanced or when they are able to compete with men for jobs. Empowerment implies secure livelihoods, the ability to enjoy their human rights, a reduction in the unpaid work that hinders the enjoyment of rights, and meaningful participation as actors and leaders in their communities” (Expert Group Meeting 2016, p. 1). In this view, women’s economic empowerment means equality of outcome (or substantial equality), readdressing women’s socioeconomic disadvantages (UN Women 2015). Genuine women’s economic empowerment implies challenging unequal power relations that reflect and reinforce the poor material conditions of women’s existence, in households and



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markets, and in the instances in which decisions on macroeconomic and development policies are taken (Gammage et al. 2016). In other words, women’s economic empowerment should be “empowerment with power” (Esquivel 2016a). These views compete in the implementation of the current development agenda, Agenda 2030 (UN 2015). In it, SDG 5, “achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls,” includes in target 5.4 the “recognition and value of [the] unpaid care and domestic work through the provision of public services, infrastructure and social protection policies” – a defining feminist economics starting point and a crucial dimension of women’s economic empowerment (Esquivel 2011). However, the second element of women’s economic empowerment in Goal 5, as expressed in target 5.a, undertaking “reforms to give women equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to ownership and control over land and other forms of property, financial services, inheritance and natural resources, in according with national laws,” even if welcomed, reemphasizes equality of opportunity over equality of outcome, in World Bank and IMF fashion (World Bank 2015; Kochhar et al. 2017). Yet, women’s economic empowerment cannot stop at leveling the playing field to afford women equal participation in the market economy, precisely because it is when they participate that their livelihoods as paid workers, producers, and unpaid carers are not secured, given their overrepresentation among informal workers, occupational segregation, and persistent gender wage and earnings gaps.

Feminist Economics in the Periphery: Contributions from the South Feminist critical contributions to gender and development debates emerged early in the Global South. They followed on the steps of WAD approaches, arguing that development processes should be evaluated from the “vantage point” of poor women in the South; and that change could only come from bottom up, through women’s organization (Sen and Grown 1987). From there, criticism further evolved both on the very existence of the universal “Third World Women” and on conflating gender relations and poverty (Mohanty 1988). On the former, postcolonial scholars criticized the Western perspective in both development and gender and development approaches to interpret non‐Western women’s experiences, which led to policies to educate, liberate, and (even) civilize Third World women according to Western (superior) ideals (Zein‐Elabdin and Charusheela 2004). Implicit in this line of reasoning is the idea that Third World women are uneducated, dependent, and tradition‐bound, blurring the differences among these women and perpetuating the dominance of “First World women” – and therefore, the developed world  –  over them (Beneria et  al. 2016, pp. 14–21). The tensions between particularism – the attention to difference and context – and the possibility of forging broad alliances between women in the South were also brought to the fore. On the latter, a word of caution on treating gender relations only in relation to poverty has emerged as a critique to development policy’s focus on economic growth as a means to alleviate poverty and gender inequalities. Gender inequalities, however, are not confined to the poor, as they cut across class (and other) inequalities (Kabeer 2015). At the same time, taking seriously poor women’s standpoint means

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bringing their views and experiences to evaluate policy alternatives, acknowledging the difficulties of their (mis)representation by other women (Kabeer 2004; Verschuur and Destremau 2012). A different take is behind the emergence of feminist economics in Latin America, prompted by the need to produce knowledge outside (or beyond) the English‐­speaking knowledge production circuits  –  even by English‐speaking, postcolonial Southern scholars (Esquivel 2012). Latin American feminist economists rely on concepts developed in the Saxon world, both in economics and in feminist economics, but have extended and sometimes questioned those same concepts to produce grounded, transformative knowledge (in the sense of contributing to change the structural factors underpinning the inequalities of gender, class, ethnicity, and generation). Similar to other contributions from the South, Latin American feminist economists recognize the heterogeneity of women in Latin America – a heterogeneity that mirrors deeply entrenched income inequalities. But originally, they adopt a structuralist perspective to analyze the differential positions of women and men in the economy (Bárcena and Prado 2016). Authors have identified the impacts of different accumulation regimes, and their crises, on women and on gender inequality (Espino and Azar 2008; Todaro 2008; Espino 2013; Esquivel and Rodríguez 2013; Braunstein et al. 2014); but they go beyond the analysis of the gendered consequences of economic policy to understanding gender (and other) inequalities as structuring the functioning of Latin American economies (Vásconez 2012, 2017).12

Measurement Feminist economics’ contributions have had a strong correlate in measurement, reversing economics’ inclination for focusing on what is (quantitatively) measurable and forgetting about the rest – i.e. to treasure what we measure. By making groundbreaking contributions in the measurement of all forms of work, of well‐being and of assets, among others, feminist economics have contributed to measure what we treasure (Winkler et al. 2014). The push for measuring unpaid care and domestic work has prompted the rapid expansion of time‐use surveys in both developed and developing countries (Esquivel et al. 2008; Hirway 2017). The SDGs’ monitoring indicator for target 5.4, “Percentage of time spent on unpaid domestic and care work, by sex, age group and location” (ECOSOC 2016) will possibly expand these surveys further. Beyond the stylized finding that women everywhere bear the brunt of the costs of this provision, time‐ use data show that the economic and social environment, household structure, income distribution, and social and economic policies all shape the ways in which some women and households more than others, and some countries more than others, do unpaid care and domestic work. Evidence of gender and class inequalities in the distribution of unpaid care and domestic work, overwork, and even care deficits – when the most basic care needs are not met – has helped feminist advocates and scholars, as well as policymakers, to envision social and macroeconomic policies that would reverse these persistent disparities (Esquivel 2011, 2016b). Measurements of well‐being have been receptive of gender considerations, particularly the capabilities approach and the gender‐based indices derived from it



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(Beneria et al. 2016; Robeyns 2017). However, it is still the case that official inequality and poverty measures are based on income and evaluated at the household level, disregarding gender inequalities within households, the well‐being enhancing role of unpaid care and domestic work, and dimensions of deprivation other than income. One exception to this rule is the “time and income poverty” analysis, which factors in the necessary unpaid care and domestic work in income poverty measures. Time poverty and income poverty combine to give a truer picture of deprivation, as some households might have neither the time to provide the necessary unpaid care and domestic work nor the income to buy substitutes for it. The time and income poverty measure is calculated at the level of the individual, finally “breaking into” the household (Antonopoulos et al. 2012). Feminist economics research on gender asset inequalities is relatively recent compared to gender earnings inequalities, due to the lack of gender‐disaggregated data on asset ownership (Beneria et al. 2016). Several initiatives have attempted to revert such deficiency. The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)’s Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) is based on survey data to measure the empowerment, agency, and inclusion of women in the agriculture sector. Among its indicators, the WEAI includes ownership of assets, the purchase, sale, or transfer of assets, and the access to and decisions on credit (IFPRI 2012). A recent study drawing on surveys which collected individual level ownership data in Ecuador, Ghana, and the state of Karnataka in India showed that property rights – i.e. being legally allowed to own and manage property – are not enough to explain whether women are able to accumulate wealth; and that wealth accumulation also depends upon the marital and inheritance regimes which in some contexts penalize wives and widows (Deere et al. 2013).

Conclusion This chapter has presented feminist economics along two conceptual axes. First, it discussed the different approaches to feminist economics stemming from orthodox and heterodox economics. The chapter has elaborated on the common ground and the unbridgeable differences between the two, as well as on how these views permeate development economics and current development debates. Second, and perhaps relatively less explored, the chapter has summarized contributions from both Southern and Northern scholars, highlighting the differential emphases between the two. In setting this conceptual map, the chapter aims at charting feminist economics both for feminists and for economists curious of exploring it more. As emerges from the previous account, feminist economics is plural in its approaches and methods. Abundant in practitioners, it has grown beyond the heads of its founding mothers, most of whom are active scholars and mentors. The engagement of scholars from the South has enlarged feminist economics’ thematic reach and broadened its political breath. And new undergraduate and postgraduate feminist economics courses, both in the North and in Latin America, will contribute to enlarge the numbers of its practitioners even more. Feminist economists keep pushing the frontiers of knowledge production in economics: macroeconomic modeling, fiscal policy, and ecological economics are some

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of the promising areas for continuous expansion, along with the consolidation of the study of the care economy and the implementation of care policies. Feminist economists continue to participate in development debates from a normative, human rights perspective (Balakrishnan et al. 2016) – particularly in developing countries and at the global level, in the context of SDGs’ implementation. And lastly, feminist economists are progressively engaging with women’s and social movements, with future generations of economists, and with women’s machineries, finance, labor, and development ministries, forging broad alliances to help bringing about progressive change.

Notes   1 For a review of the conceptual evolution from reproductive work to care economy and main contributions, see Esquivel (2013).   2 This is a convenient assumption in as much utility is assumed to be defined for individuals, and not for households. But if there are no conflicts within households, they could be treated as if they are individuals.  3 In the simplest terms, the economic analyses that pertain to particular markets. The implicit assumption of orthodox economics is that the economy as a whole is the sum of all markets.   4 This does not mean all feminist economics contributions under these themes are orthodox, but that orthodox contributions are dominant in these fields.   5 For a different take on taxation, see Grown and Valodia (2010).   6 Macroeconomics deals with economic aggregates (gross domestic product and its components) in order to understand why an economy grows, whether such growth is sustainable, and what the impacts of such growth levels are.  7 http://www.feministeconomics.net/   8 Among the reasons not to include household services as part of GDP, the System of National Accounts (SNA) 2008 lists “the relative isolation and independence of these activities from markets, the extreme difficulty of making economically meaningful estimates of their values, and the adverse effects it would have on the usefulness of the accounts for policy purposes and the analysis of markets and market disequilibria” (European Commission et  al. 2009, p. 99, 6.30). Feminist economics has produced extensive evidence that none of these assumptions is the case.   9 For a critique, see Berik (2017). 10 That greater gender equality is associated with greater international competitiveness is disputed. See for example Seguino (2000) and Berik et al. (2009). 11 The model’s “approach is to model the labor supply to help establish a GDP aspiration from increased participation of women; we do not take into account demand‐side factors that could influence the ability to create jobs to absorb additional female workers” (McKinsey 2016, p. 31) – precisely my point in the paragraph above. 12 I have not been able to identify a similar, home‐grown approach to feminist economics in French‐speaking contributions.

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16 Feminist Ethnography Dána‐Ain Davis and Christa Craven

Introduction Is feminist ethnography an epistemological perspective, a particular constellation of methods, a writing style, a commitment to social justice or activist‐scholarship … or a combination of all of these? Attempts to define feminist ethnography, reveal there is no one single definition. What is also clear is that in defining feminist ethnography, one inevitably ends up discussing the “doing” of feminist ethnography. Feminist ethnography does not have a single scholarly trajectory, historical course, or topical focus. In that spirit, this chapter is divided into three sections to address areas of feminist ethnography that emerge in efforts to define the field. These are centered around History, Politics, and Production. In historicizing feminist ethnography, this chapter reviews a number of ways it has been defined across disciplines. Where one begins with that history can influence how one defines the field. Considering the influence of early travelers and writers who did not identify as ethnographers – or feminists, for that matter – offers possibilities for lifting up the works of those who helped to shape the field. Feminist ethnography has circulated as a methodological tool to study culture. While the exploration of culture has most often been viewed as the purview of anthropologists, in fact, feminist ethnography has rarely been only a cultural project. Its political inclinations, both in theory and practice, have been aimed at interrogating power. Thus, the second section explores some of the ways feminist ethnography has traveled and been shaped toward a political analysis. Reflecting on the politics of this history also facilitates consideration of efforts to question power and decolonize the practice and production of feminist ethnography. The section on the politics of feminist ethnography maintains a focus on the contributions of feminists of color, who have long been minimalized in much of the feminist literature on ethnography (see Davis and Craven 2016a), and often continue to be in a political climate that

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prefers to emphasize “global” and transnational research, and not that which interrogates inequities within the countries where ethnography is typically produced and circulated. Finally, we emphasize that the flexibility of feminist ethnography is evidenced by ways it has been shaped and produced in the hands of feminist ethnographers. As a genre it has a long history of drawing on innovative production that seeks to expand the circulation of ideas by reaching a variety of publics. The chapter closes by considering how innovative possibilities for the production of feminist ethnography reveal multiple avenues for ethnographic writing, digital scholarship, and production – that will shape where the field will move, continue to revise its definition, add to its historicization, and reframe the possibilities of how feminist ethnography can be produced in the future.

Historicizing Feminist Ethnography The beginnings of feminist ethnography are often dated to the 1970s, taking the popular 1970s “Sisterhood is Global” movement as the starting point. Although this timeframe coincides with the rise of feminist activism and feminist scholarship within the academy, this historicization largely flattens both tensions and diversity within the feminist movement, particularly as it intersected with other social and political organizing, such as the Civil Rights Movement, the American Indian Movement, and Gay Liberation Movement/LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer) Movement (Davis and Craven 2016a). Inspired by a critical review of feminist ethnography that begins in the late nineteenth century (Visweswaran 1997), this chapter looks to earlier applications of feminist sentiments or inclinations in ethnographic work. It is notable, however, that many of these antecedents were unable to achieve the kind of critical lens that allowed them to critique the lack of diversity and difference in their work and the emergent field of feminist ethnography at the time. The historical location of feminist ethnography most often begins with a recitation of the work of female anthropologists. The presumed foremothers of feminist ethnography include figures such as Matilda Cox Stevenson (1849–1915), Alice Fletcher (1838–1923), and Elsie Clews Parsons (1875–1941). Each of these women, in different ways, contributed to the genealogy and development of feminist ethnography by legitimizing gender as a legitimate field of inquiry. They opened up dialogs about social structure and patriarchy. Important as they were to the discipline, if we define the field of feminist ethnography as an enterprise where method of data collection, analysis, and politics merge, then there is a much earlier history; one that is not harnessed to the discipline of anthropology, but rather informed it. The question of who can be claimed as a feminist ethnographer is well rehearsed (Behar and Gordan 1995; Davis and Craven 2016a), but it is useful to consider several figures who have influenced the field outside of the United States, and outside of academia. The early history referred to here, often cast women not as ethnographers, but as travelers (Pratt 2008). For example, this would include Flora Tristan, the mid‐ nineteenth century journalist, documentarian, and organizer of workers in France and England. Tristan’s ethnographic acumen is frequently placed in the background



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of social theory. She has not been viewed as a social and political critic, but rather constructed as a traveler (Pratt 2008). Tristan was a French feminist and socialist, born to a well‐off Peruvian father and French mother. As an adult, she documented the exploitation of workers in London and published her observations of working class London, Promenade dans Londres (1840) five years before Friedrich Engels published The Condition of the Working Class in England (Engels 1845). Tristan’s work attended to women’s needs as workers and serves as one example of how documenting social problems coupled with an agenda of social change. Her work is an example of the type of ethnography that contemporarily, is often concerned with social justice. In this same tradition of producing feminist ethnography  –  that is, an ethnographic account of an issue that accounts for power dynamics across multiple areas of difference, feminist ethnographers contribute across disciplines, such as sociology, anthropology, political science, and geography. They explore issues such as the racial formation and dynamics of transnational commercial surrogacy (Deomampo 2016) and the spatial dynamics of activism in urban areas (Isoke 2013). On the whole, ethnographic inquiry shares a great deal in common with the research priorities of many feminist and women’s studies scholars. Feminist research, according to this view, should redress the exploitation of women as objects of research. Those who subscribe to this view assert that feminist research should represent an alternative approach that emphasizes the experiential (Harrison 1997, p. 24).

Defining Feminist Ethnography While feminist methodology has been described as full of promise, it lacks a singular definition (Schrock 2013). Some scholars view feminist ethnography as placing gender at the center of inquiry (Hesse‐Biber 2014); others argue that it is a theory guiding the research process (Skeggs 2001). Still others define it in relation to conducting research on people who are often outside the dominant paradigms of research and being attentive to the political relevance of that research (Craven and Davis 2013). Despite the differences and difficulty of defining feminist ethnography, there is much that feminist ethnographers agree upon as goals for the field. Most would agree with political scientist Nadia E. Brown, that “feminist ethnography is undergirded by feminist theory, which examines women’s lived experiences and social roles as it seeks to overcome gender bias in research … as well as acknowledge the role of researcher in the production of knowledge” (2012, p. 30). Women’s lived experiences, however, has been broadened as feminist ethnography’s methodological possibilities engage with a diversity of human subjects. Feminist ethnography’s “unit of analysis” has become more flexible, moving the feminist ethnographic project beyond the initial focus on “women’s” experiences and even gender. Such flexibility has encouraged the prioritization of projects that impact a variety of constituencies, including people of color, differently abled people, LGBTQI+ people, and poor or low‐income people (Brown 2012). Thus, feminist ethnography as a practice, has become organized around supporting the struggles of people whose lives are marked by structural inequalities making attention to power one of the most important aspects of feminist ethnography.

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Thus, a working definition of feminist ethnography might involve a commitment to paying attention to marginality and power differentials, attending to a feminist intellectual history, seeking justice, and producing scholarship in various creative forms that can contribute to movement building and/or be in the service of the people, communities, organizations, and issues we study (Davis and Craven 2016a, p. 11). Feminist ethnographers must critically interrogate the ways inequalities are ­structured. Consideration of the possibilities for feminist ethnography toward social change has also meant that attention has been directed toward research that prioritizes engagement with the groups we study. At times this takes the form of activism, as we discuss, but how activist‐scholarship is conceived is one that has merited a good deal of debate among feminist ethnographers. For example, the complexities of the relationship between the researcher and researched, including the hierarchies – and the possibility of reinforcing hierarchies – when working in collaboration with, or on behalf of marginalized groups, is an issue several scholars explore (Pierre 2008; Davis 2013). Activism, as an expression of the combination of positionality and politics, has become a central element in many contemporary feminist ethnographies. Although activism is one possible relationship that emerges in the context of feminist ethnography (Craven and Davis 2013), it is not always the desired outcome, particularly for researchers who study groups they do not seek to support, such as the Ku Klux Klan (Blee 1992, Ross as cited in Davis and Craven 2016c, p. 111). Ethnography is an entanglement and its lineage is often linked to the discipline of the feminist practitioner.

Feminist Epistemology, Methodologies, and Methods Many contemporary feminist ethnographers have drawn inspiration from feminist philosophers. The questions they raised in the 1980s included concerns about patriarchy, power, and authority in the creation of knowledge. These questions centered on critiquing the role of gender in the research process (Code 1981). Some scholars engaged in making distinctions between epistemology, methodology, and method (Harding 1987; Alcoff 1998). Feminist epistemology considers how, and by whom, knowledge is produced and valued – a direct challenge to the false dichotomies of positivist approaches. Positivism, which has assumed an objective researcher and been viewed as masculinist and detached, has dominated the social sciences (Oakley 1981). However, knowledge production from a feminist perspective emphasizes that “epistemological assumptions … guide our choice of different methodologies, how we proceed to implement particular methods, and how we determine what form the written project should take” (Naples 2003, p. 3). Such epistemological assumptions as those just described, led to situating feminist scholarship within the context of a particular set of values  –  ones that do not reify the objectivity required by most positivist research. Thus, feminist methodologies offer researchers a conceptual approach to research that foregrounds feminist ethics in its design, implementation, and production. Within this framework, there has been emphasis on the importance of not conflating method and methodology. Methods are particular techniques for identifying and collecting data to answer questions. They are not inherently feminist or nonfeminist (Harrison 2007). Methodologies on the other hand, are the abstract, theoretical, and



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principled perspectives of research leading to the production of knowledge. Ethnography can be informed by these edicts and deployed in the interests of feminist principles (Harrison 2007).

Politics of Feminist Ethnography Coloniality and Postcoloniality Feminist ethnography cannot escape its legacy and relationship to colonialism. A brief discussion of that relationship is necessary to understand the need for and current efforts toward decolonizing and politicizing feminist ethnography. Postcolonial theory seeks to explore and highlight how knowledge that is produced in the West and intersects with imperialist and colonial power, which ultimately creates and sustains a knowledge that is dominated by and in a Western context. Critiques of such Eurocentric knowledge claims include that coloniality is in and of itself a tactic of epistemological control. The production of knowledge is based on and perpetuates a seemingly universal perspective that undermines or neglects the legitimacy of other ways of knowing. Three texts echo and amplify the call that anthropologist Dell Hymes made in 1969 to decolonize anthropology, which intersected with the anti‐colonialist perspective. This was followed by an analysis critiquing Western academics, in particularly the anthropological approach that served as the “handmaiden of colonialism.”1 In pursuit of decolonizing scholarship broadly, we find academics resisting the imposition of linguistic colonization and choosing to write in their native language rather than that of the colonizer (Thiong’o 1986). The intellectual, theoretical, and practical application of decolonizing ethnography was propelled by feminist theorists interrogating how the researcher reports on the “other.” This requires an analysis of researcher’s power (Spivak 1988). In other disciplines, the decolonizing project took up a deeper engagement with the relationship that scholars have with those being studied and those who they are studying (Harrison 1997). Concerns about the academic enterprise, data collection, colonial rule, and its relationship to global capitalism made it impossible to think that liberation was possible if theory and praxis were not rooted in social justice. Critics have taken up the issue that cultural imperialism has shrouded knowledge production, which in turn has resulted in rethinking the western concept of research and its effects (Smith 2012[1999]). This is the context in which feminist scholars engaged in ethnography and grappled with both the history of colonial contexts and knowledge production. For at the same time that decolonizing intellectualisms took root, there was a rush to decolonize feminism as well. Among the most profound writings on this effort was Chandra Mohanty’s (1984) “Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses,” which takes Western feminists to task for the construction of the category of Third World woman. Mohanty proposes that the practices accompanying postcolonial ethnography involves, or rather encourages, the researcher to be reflexive and attend to issues of positionality and representation. Postcolonial analyses question the authority and significance of scholars. In particular, it refrains from imposing Western perspectives (or Western eyes) in understanding gender relations.

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Most profoundly though, it seeks to dismantle or excise the process of “othering” the subject and exploiting their vulnerabilities. “Othering” practices led to the development of an ethnography that was decolonized. The decolonizing moment, the arrival of decolonizing ethnography, denounced the colonial role played by the social sciences. Decolonization involves a divestment of methodological practices that mimic colonial practices, yet even in its feminist applications, ethnography does not ­automatically resolve the power disparities involved in women studying women (Stacey 1988). Decolonizing feminist ethnography mandates that the production of ethnography not be recast in the mold of imperialism or a Western perspective. It is a careful interpretive dance between understanding what is and is not feminist, since feminist history also benefits from and has reified colonial perspectives. To decolonize feminist ethnography is to rethink the imperialist framework that guides ­understanding and inquiry.

Ethnographic Crisis Alongside the project of decolonization was the crisis of ethnography. In the US, this was precipitated, among other reasons, by the Civil Rights movement and the women’s movement. As Stuart Hall (1992) has explained, the politics of producing culture, emerged from the dynamic of marginalized people gaining more central access to the world stage. In other words, people who were historically disenfranchised made demands for recognition and thus shifted the terrain of who was included in the production of knowledge and scholarship. The feminist intervention was to identify the androcentrism and ethnocentrism of what had passed as value‐free science and to argue instead that all knowledge is perspectival (Bettie 2002, p. 22). Ethnography came to be understood by many feminists (and other scholars) as not a true form of reality, but a negotiation of perspective between the researcher and the researched. Feminist ethnography has been a framework that further complicated the decolonization project. On the heels of decoloniality, ethnography underwent its own a crisis. It was a strident critique of authority and a pull toward experimental writing that incorporated reflexivity, intersubjectivity, and autoethnography (Allen and Piercy 2005). While anthropologists James Clifford and George Marcus (1985 , pp. 20–21) argued that feminists had not significantly contributed to the creative production of ethnography, nor undertaken the important task of reflexively assessing the role of the researcher, that was patently untrue (Wolf 1992; Behar and Gordon 1995). For ethnographic writers, reflexivity is more than merely “slamming down a list of intersecting coordinates about who you are (gender, race, class, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age, regional background, and so on)” (Narayan 2012, p. 96). It is about interrogating the position from which one researches and writes. In their influential edited volume, Women Writing Culture, anthropologist Ruth Behar and women’s studies scholar Deborah Gordon (1995), invited scholars to demonstrate the range of scholarship that women ethnographers had produced that were textually creative, rich, and reflexive. From Zora Neale Hurston to Barbara Tedlock, the ethnographic encounter and the distinct contributions of feminist ethnographers, shed light on a lineage of women’s contribution to the field of ethnography.



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The reflexive turn required that scholars engage with their own positionality in the research process and the ways in which that influenced or shaped how they told a story. Later researchers, such as feminist media scholar Radhika Parameswaran, who conducts research on young, middle‐class women in urban India, have compelled scholars to pay attention to the politics of representation and to explore how power differentials are articulated in the field. She reflects on the failure, successes, and dilemmas during research processes, and shows how feminist media ethnographies are embedded within discourses of power (Parameswaran 2001). Paying attention to the politics of inequity also means that feminist ethnographers necessarily have to admit to the power differentials between us, as researchers, and those who we researched. It was this power differential and the potential impact it had on both our scholarship and participants in our research that was taken up notably by sociologist Judith Stacey in her 1988 polemic, “Can there be a Feminist Ethnography?” By the 1980s, feminist ethnography as practice and method had generated important questions about ethnographic authority, ethics, and production. Stacey’s classic article undertook a critical assessment of both the feminist ethnography research process and its product. Stacey rightly assessed the role of feminist ethnography as an approach to address the imbalances of masculinist scholarship, an issue discussed above with regard to epistemology. She raised critical questions about feminist ideals of equity in the research encounter. Stacey was concerned about feminist ethnography’s promise to address the inherently unequal relationship that researchers had with informants. The contradiction between feminist principles and the practice of feminist ethnography turns on its goal of producing nonhierarchical, collaborative research, and the fact that feminist ethnographers’ data can compromise a participant’s integrity. Feminist ethnography, in fact, could exploit the experiences that participants share. So, despite the equitable intentions of feminist ethnography, there are numerous fieldwork experiences that can precipitate conflict of interest and emotional conflict between the ethnographer and the participant. Ethnography is by no means inherently feminist, particularly in the sense that it could ever successfully avoid all inequity between researcher and participant (Visweswaran 1994). In fact, while postcolonial critique and feminist ethnography intersect in many domains, reflexivity has been particularly important to contemporary feminist ethnography as authors have interrogated and worked through these relationships. Although reflexivity is sometimes dismissed as self‐absorption, it remains a primary methodological strategy used to address issues of inequity often found in the ethnographic encounter. For example, there are several layers of concern that a feminist ethnographer takes seriously enough to address when doing fieldwork. These include negotiating complex power relations between you and your participants, some of which can be addressed by thinking through one’s perspective and position (Manning 2015). A second concern is that of how one represents “Third World” ­subjects with an emphasis on ensuring that those representations do not fall prey to “othering” of subjects or portrayals that do not account for participants’ agency (Mohanty 1984). Being reflexive about the feminist ethnographic encounter is not only about collecting stories. It involves being committed to understanding the everydayness of life (Manning 2015). And still a third concern that is addressed by reflexivity is awareness of how one’s voice, place, and privilege can intersect with the lives of participants (Sangtin Writers Collective and Nagar 2006; Özkazanç‐Pan 2012).

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The work of feminist ethnographers of color and indigenous scholars have been particularly useful in interrogating the role of colonialism and imperialism in the construction of knowledge (Smith 2012[1999], among others). Feminist scholars of color have highlighted that “ethnography is a gift of reciprocity, not an imperial entitlement” (Craft et al. 2007, p. 67). Central to building a reciprocal process is the development of long‐term relationships with those involved in the research to create a respectful framework within which to frame, design, carry out, and circulate the results. Communication studies scholar Marı ́a Cristina González conceptualizes this as a cyclical, four‐seasons approach to ethnography, a way of knowing closer to that “experienced and often expressed by Native American Indian culture” (2000, p. 626). Policy researcher Bagele Chilisa devotes a chapter in her textbook, Indigenous Research Methodologies, to “Postcolonial Indigenous Feminist Research Methodologies.” Here, she emphasizes the possibilities for utilizing participatory‐ transformative feminist research methods that privilege non‐Western women’s voices, promote sensitivity to the inclusion of gender, age, class, race, ethnicity, and disability in the research process, and work to build “coalitions of knowledge systems” (2011, p. 270). Building such coalitional knowledge systems occurs in multiple ways through relational practices: by engaging with participants in the ethnographic research process, by participating in one’s professional field, as well as celebrating those whose work has influenced your own. This “feminist intellectual genealogy” is a key aspect of charting this work (Davis and Craven 2016a, p. 11). It is particularly important to take this under consideration as feminist ethnographers work through the power and politics of citational practices.

Citational Politics The fact that women in general and women of color ethnographers in particular tend to be cited less, has important implications for canon‐making and careers. For instance, Dominguez et al. (2014) discuss research demonstrating that publications with women authors  –  whether as sole authors or coauthors  –  are cited less frequently than those attributed to male authors. Further, anthropologist Lynn Bolles stresses that African American women’s publications are significantly undercited by other scholars, including feminists. This is the point that we wish to underscore here. It is not uncommon – and frighteningly problematic – that feminist ethnographers downplay their own complicity in this trend. As Bolles writes: Many of the writers of the key canonical texts in feminist anthropology reproduced the practices of exclusion practiced by the discipline at large. [For instance,] the two foundational texts in feminist anthropology were published within months of each other, Woman, Culture, and Society (1974) edited by Michelle Rosaldo and Louise Lamphere and Toward an Anthropology of Women (1975) edited by Rayna Rapp (then Reiter). Between the two, [none] of the contributors [were] African American. (2013, p. 65)

Who is cited – and equally important, who is not cited – shapes our projects in important ways. In fact, as media and communications scholar Sara Ahmed (2013) emphasizes in her research blog, “Feminist Killjoys,” citation is quite an effective



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“reproductive technology, a way of reproducing the world around certain bodies.” In practice and in writing about research, feminist ethnographers generate ideas and knowledge in the context not only of their own life experiences, as feminists have long argued, but also in relation to the scholars, activists, and others who influence their work. The call to center the voices of scholars of color and non‐Western voices in the production of feminist research has deep resonance for many contemporary feminist ethnographers, such as the popular #CiteBlackWomen hashtag launched by Christen Smith.

Public Scholarship: Innovative Production, Digital Ethnography, and Activist Scholarship As feminist ethnography has become more established across a range of academic disciplines – including communication studies, education, human geography, political science, psychology, sociology, and in a range of interdisciplinary fields such as American studies, critical race studies, ethnic studies, among others – the possibilities for producing research that impacts and addresses a wide variety of publics is central to thinking through the future of the field. There is significant overlap in style and form among ethnographic writing, ­creative nonfiction, memoir, biography, nature writing, travel writing, literary journalism, and cultural criticism. Indeed, many feminist ethnographers have found inspiration beyond the ethnographic canon, and produce work that experiments with a variety of literary and creative genres (Narayan 2012). Others have emphasized the importance of using interactional and relational methods, including ­interactive small‐group work, role‐plays, art‐based methodologies, body sculpture, song, and storytelling (Chilisa 2011, p. 279). Employing innovative and interactive feminist ethnographic methodological approaches can also yield creative and ­ ­accessible approaches to the production and circulation of ethnographic research. It is beyond the scope of this chapter to review all possibilities for producing and circulating research, and innovative feminist research methodologies have been written about in a variety of methodology textbooks (see, for example, Naples 2003; Sprague 2016; Chilisa 2011). Thus, the remainder of this chapter highlights possibilities for the production of feminist ethnography that can reach broader publics, and has the potential to expand the impact of feminist ethnography. Public scholarship, while it intersects with many of the genres mentioned above, is also important as an explicit attempt to engage with non‐academic audiences. While the public “turn” has been advocated officially by the leadership of several social science organizations (such as the American Anthropological Association and the American Sociological Association), feminist ethnographers have been at the forefront of engaging in this work. Feminist ethnographers are regularly featured on blogs like Anthrodendum about public anthropology, and online publications such as The Feminist Wire, The Huffington Post, and King’s Review, writing about race and feminism, same‐sex marriage, cyberbullying, revitalization efforts in Haiti following the 2010 earthquake, confronting white supremacist violence in Charlottesville, Virginia and beyond (Moses 2017), and living the consequences of hurricane Maria on Puerto Rico (Bonilla 2017).

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In addition, the possibilities that digital technologies in academic and public usage have greatly increased the possibilities for the production and circulation of feminist ethnographic research. Public digital storytelling projects, like StoryCorp through National Public Radio (NPR) and the Center for Digital Storytelling (www. storycenter.org), has allowed broad access to recording, archiving, and sharing stories. The increased accessibility of cell phones with standard recording options, equipment to make documentary films (such as iMovie for video editing, which is included free on all Mac computers), user‐friendly website platforms (such as WordPress), and digital technology to produce interactive timelines and museum exhibits (such as Scalar and Omeka) have revolutionized the options for feminist ethnographers to bring their research to broader audiences. A key factor is that most of these digital technologies foreground oral narrative, contributing both to long‐ held feminist efforts to highlight stories and experiences, and as an important and valid part of social science research (e.g. DeVault 1999; Harding 1987; Naples 2003; Collins 2009 [1990]). An important role remains for scholars as cultural translators in this new media environment. Digital media offer opportunities to create “non‐linear presentation that brings together disparate voices and empowers audiences to affect their own encounters with texts” (Underberg and Zorn 2013, pp. 11–12). In this final section, examples of creative production, collaborative writing, visual ethnography, digital ethnography, and activist scholarship, are centered. Although these particular categories are useful and emblematic of some of the innovations within feminist ethnography, many of the examples span across these categories (employing, for instance, collaborative writing and activist scholarship), demonstrating the complexity of contemporary approaches to feminist ethnography. The point here is to bring feminist ethnography into conversation with a variety of publics within and beyond the academy.

Creative Production What are the possibilities of writing and producing ethnography creatively? We know that work of pioneers like Zora Neale Hurston (1935[1978], 1937[2013]) and Margery Wolf (1992) has shown us some of the possibilities in terms of creating innovative approaches to writing ethnography. But anthropologist Aimee Cox argues there are liberatory possibilities of writing “with lyricism, to not be afraid to cross genres.… we have to think about the different ways people have to narrate themselves and talk about themselves that aren’t always in the social science frame” (Davis and Craven 2016b, p. 129). Feminist ethnographers, have bent the “rules” of ethnography by incorporating poetry in their work as substantive representations of culture (Abu‐Lughod 1993, 1999). Feminist ethnographic writing can be guided by concerns about poverty and human inequality (Naples 1998). These forms of writing are humanist in their challenge to the value of positivist scientific research and understanding. Such work views research as an important tool in assessing the consequences of inequality to individuals and humanity (Tsing 2015). The affective, emotional, political power of performance is also a form of creative production adopted by many feminist ethnographers. Performance frequently brings feminist ethnography to audiences well beyond academic ones. For instance, Gina Athena Ulysse’s TEDx Talk “Untapped Fierceness/My Giant Leaps” (2013), presents her journey as an anthropologist and a Haitian American woman through



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a combination of song, dance, performance, and personal revelation. In addition, Ulysse’s CD “I am Storm: Songs and Poems for Haiti” (2010) has received critical acclaim and her one‐woman performance piece “Because God is too Busy: Haiti, Me and The World” is a dramatic monolog that weaves spoken word poetry and Vodou chants into a fierce critique of the post‐earthquake dehumanization of Haitians in the global media. Performative ethnography suggests a degree of intimacy in part because it invites a gaze. Ethnography informs performance by drawing on life stories to reveal the power of reality through narration (Carver and Lawless 2010).

Collaborative Writing One form of feminist ethnographic production is collaborative writing. The emphasis is on writing and producing an analysis not only from the researcher’s point of view, but writing across the borders that typically separate researcher and participant. Collaborative writing of feminist ethnographic work can certainly shift power dynamics as the ethnography does not inherently “belong” to the scholar. What may ultimately be mastered by engaging in this form of feminist practices is both humility and flexibility, and accountability. The words are not yours, so to speak. Collaboration requires constant presence and negotiation (Sangtin Writers Collective and Nagar 2006; Nagar 2014). Geography and women’s studies scholar Richa Nagar (2014), for example, engaged in long‐term collaboration and coauthorship with a collective of women employed by a large NGO (Non‐Governmental Organization) in Uttar Pradesh, India, as activists in their communities. Their book, Playing with Fire: Feminist Thought and Activism Through Seven Lives in India, braids the lives of these women through engagement with jointly created diaries, interviews, and conversations among the Sangtin Writers to interrogate the colonialist history, sexism, casteism, and communalism that impact local struggles for solidarity. Importantly, Nagar advocates for an approach to feminist reflexivity that moves beyond discussing individual positionality to engaging more collaboratively in the face‐to‐face work of what she and her coauthor, historian Susan Geiger, call a “speaking‐with” approach. “Speaking‐with,” they argue, addresses reflexivity and positionality with collaborators as a process that evolves across both time and space in order to create “situated solidarities” that are rooted in the specificities of these relationships, spaces, and contexts (Nagar and Geiger 2014, p. 85). Another example is anthropologist Louise Lamphere’s (2007) collaboration with Eva Price, Carole Cadman, Valerie Darwin in the book, Weaving Women’s Lives: Three Generations in a Navajo Family. The book grew out of Lamphere’s four‐­ decade relationship with three generations of a Navajo family who narrated Navajo life as a form of testimony and an opportunity to pass along community tradition. Feminist researchers have long advocated collaborative writing, but as many underscore, it can never fully ameliorate the inequities between researchers and those they collaborate with (Stacey 1988). While this issue was raised over 30 years ago, more recent feminist ethnographers remain troubled by similar concerns. For even when collaborative ethnography is done well, it can still “commit countless small betrayals in its making” (Goett 2016, p. 93). In fact, many feminist ethnographers encounter significant ethical concerns about employing the labor of collaborators

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when there are often few tangible benefits that result from academic publication. Moreover, many also bump up against the reality that not all participants have the desire, inclination, or ability to engage with their scholarship. Yet the authors above chart fruitful and productive paths toward possibilities for collaboration in feminist ethnography.

Visual Ethnography Non‐literary forms of representation are important to public scholarship. Ethnographic film is aligned with documentary film and is frequently associated with non‐Western communities. This narrow definition, however, is not necessarily a feature of feminist ethnographic film or visual ethnography. For instance, if we trace the production of visual ethnography back to such anthropologists as Zora Neale Hurston, we find that she produced ethnographic film shorts that were not non‐Western. Her focus was a variety of moments in Black life, with footage capturing Children’s Games and Logging (Hurston 1928a,b) (Library of Congress). Through film, topics related to gender, sexuality, masculinity, and religion are consumed by audiences far beyond academia (see, for instance, Harjant Gill’s trio of films on Indian Masculinity, “Roots of Love” in 2011, “Mardistan (Macholand)” in 2014, and “Sent Away Boys” in 2016). Feminist ethnographic film that has been used widely by workers’ rights activists, as well as in the academy. An example of this type of ethnography is found in Michelle Téllez’s “Workers on the Rise” (2012). Téllez collaborated with an Phoenix‐based editor Justine García and members of the Arizona Worker Rights Center, which tracks labor rights violations, challenges abusive employers, promotes worker‐friendly legislation, and develops worker leadership and community in Phoenix. The film was originally sold in hard copy to fundraise for the nonprofit organization it is centered around. Film serves as important methodological intervention, as well as a distribution strategy. When using film with a researcher’s partners, it can broaden the dialogue about the issues that groups one is collaborating with face (Schuller and Thomas 2013). Visual ethnography, including documentary films, also offer important opportunities to engage with a variety of audiences. For example, both Gill and Téllez’s films, mentioned earlier in this section, are now available for free viewing on Vimeo, further enhancing their accessibility.

Digital Ethnography Digital ethnography demands interaction with spatial vocabularies that are necessarily gendered – girls creating autoethnographies with their photos while in their rooms, people walking down the street capturing their moods and thoughts, digitally. The digital ethnographic encounter is often self‐produced and self‐narrated and “spontaneous productions of the self” (Zacharias and Arthurs 2007). There has been much discussion in recent years of the “digital humanities,” though far less concerning the social sciences. The digital humanities are broadly conceived as an engagement between humanists and computer science and/or information technology. Humanist scholars in cultural studies, history, and the languages, among



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other disciplines, have engaged with digital technology to produce a range of projects, including visualizations of large textual databases or image sets, 3D‐modeling of historical artifacts, hashtag activism analysis, and alternate reality video games (Svensson 2010). Much of the recent work in this field “has a markedly political bent [with a] renewed attention to the entrenched nature of state‐authorized violence against black bodies at the same time that scholars who spoke out against these and other acts of systemic injustice found job offers revoked” (Klein and Gold 2016). The emerging field of digital ethnography, while less well explored, has generated interest in recent years (Underberg and Zorn 2013). And social scientists, including ethnographers, have increasingly contributed to projects like RACE: Are We So Different? (www.understandingrace.org) and cultural heritage‐based education, such as the Digital Himalaya Project (www.digitalhimalaya.com) and PeruDigital (create.cah.ucf.edu/initiatives/perudigital). An example of hybrid digital scholarship that built on collaborative community‐ based feminist participatory action research (PAR) is the Fed Up Honeys, an in‐­ person and virtual project to address the concerns of women of color living in the Lower East Side in New York City. One of the researchers is feminist ethnographer Caitlin Cahill, an environmental psychologist from New York City, who specializes in PAR research. Committed to interdisciplinary, engaged scholarship, Cahill has received a Taconic Fellowship from the Pratt Center for Community Development and a special recognition from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) for her work with young people on educational rights. Together, Indra Rios‐Moore, Erica Arenas, Jennifer Contreras, Na Jiang, Tiffany Threatts, Shamara Allen, and Caitlin Cahill published a research report “Makes Me Mad: Stereotypes of Young Urban Womyn of Color” (2004) and launched the website www.fed‐up‐honeys.org focused on the collaborative research and activist outcomes of the Fed Up Honeys work. Applications of feminist autoethnography have also produced powerful explorations the ethics. Digital humanist Moya Bailey (2015), for instance, emphasizes collaborative construction and transparency with collaborators in the research she conducted on the networks that contemporary Black trans women create through the production of digital media. Bailey’s research centered on analysis of digital media produced on Twitter with the #girlslikeus hashtag, which originated in 2012 when trans activist Janet Mock first used it to support Jenna Talackova, a Miss Universe Pageant contestant who was disqualified by the pageant officiates who held that only “natural born women” could participate. Although digital media analysis is possible – and most frequently engaged in – without collaborating with the communities who create it, Bailey committed to contacting and working directly with those who used the hashtag to make the emotional and uncompensated labor of this community visible. By enacting a transformative feminist process of writing and researching that emphasizes collaborative consent, Bailey offers important insights on ethics and collaboration for feminist ethnographers. Particularly instructive is her template for the types of questions researchers of digital media can draw from, aimed as enacting connection, creation, and transformation in research collaborations, as well as her commitment to making both her research and reflections available for public consumption (Bailey 2015, p. 34). What is remarkable to us about this work as a whole is the attention of scholars to building community, and building strength within communities that runs far

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deeper than the production of an academic monograph. Rather, it does something collaboratively and fortifying for the people engaged in it. This focus on community‐ building leads us to the last theme we would like to highlight in feminist ethnography as an increasingly public engagement: activist scholarship.

Activist Scholarship A theme that threads through many of the projects highlighted here is a commitment to being engaged scholars and, in many cases, engaging in activist research. While public engagement and activism are by no means new to the field (Davis and Craven 2016a), the tone, breadth, and the depth of activism that shows up in contemporary feminist ethnography offers new possibilities for meaningful engagement. One example is Christen A. Smith’s Afro‐Paradise: Blackness, Violence, and Performance in Brazil (2016), which challenges notions of Bahia as a tropical paradise. Instead, Smith follows a grassroots movement against racial violence and documents the social protest theater troupe Choque Cultural’s campaign Reaja ou Sera Mortx! (React or Die!/React or Be Killed!). Her book is organized around the troupe’s play “Stop to Think,” which, along with her historical and ethnographic research, exposes the realities of anti‐Black violence in Brazil. As an activist within this movement, Smith links her research on anti‐racist organizing in Brazil with global activism against racialized policing practices the US through the Movement for Black Lives, as well as in Latin America, and the Middle East. Jennifer Goett’s (2016) Black Autonomy: Race, Gender, and Afro‐Nicaraguan Activism illustrates important coalitional possibilities for politically engaged research. As an anthropologist committed to the activist struggle of Afro‐descendant Nicaraguans for autonomy, Goett is throughout attentive to her racial, class, and national privilege as a white woman from a middle‐class background who was raised in the United States, writing that the relationships she built with community members centered around political solidarity. She advocates for a politically engaged feminist ethnography, where researchers “work in collaboration with marginalized communities [and] can contribute strategic knowledge to these endeavors by supporting coalitional alliances” that are attentive to gendered, racialized, and colonial systems of oppression (2016, p. 177). The possibilities for coalitional alliances, and other forms of politically engaged and activist scholarship are at the center of many contemporary feminist ethnographic projects. Particularly in the wake of neoliberalism, in a political moment where researchers have borne witness to the effects of a rise of conservative politics in many areas of the globe, the stakes for feminist ethnographers have become increasingly high. Possibilities for contributing to social movement building and taking on active roles in social justice movements mark a compelling direction for the future of the field.

Conclusion: Possibilities for the Future If one looks back to earlier influences in and on the field of feminist ethnography it has the potential to become praxis – an actively engaged process that is embodied, taught, learned, and relearned. For many, feminist ethnography was also a place of



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possibility, an approach that could produce work aimed at social change and sharpen our work in spaces beyond the academic canon, through performance and platforms such as blogs, film, and op‐eds that reach diverse publics. Renewed attention to diverse histories within the field, citational politics, and possibilities for the production of feminist ethnographic research, are a reminder of D. Soyini Madison’s prescient call for more generosity within the academy, as well as on paper and in the field. As she writes, “I wish that academic generosity (of information, influence, resources, and praise) becomes as important to us as academic freedom” (Madison 2008, p. 404). Being in conversation with other feminist ethnographers, and supporting scholars engaged in critical and creative work – often in the face of powerful institutional bodies choosing whose work is deemed valuable for mentoring, funding, hiring, tenure, and promotion  –  makes the value of feminist ethnographic work for future generations of feminist ethnographers all the more important.

Note 1 As Kamari M. Clarke (2015, p. S301) explains, the phrase “handmaiden of colonialism” is often nonspecifically attributed to Claude Lévi‐Strauss, but was popularized by Talal Asad (1973).

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outlook/how‐puerto‐rican‐hurricanes‐devastate‐many‐and‐enrich‐a‐few/2017/09/ 22/78e7500c‐9e66‐11e7‐9083‐fbfddf6804c2_story.html?utm_term=.f3dcf1cc09f3 Brown, N.E. (2012). Negotiating the inside/outsider status: black feminist ethnography and legislative studies. Journal of Feminist Scholarship 3: 19–34. Carver, M.H. and Lawless, E.J. (2010). Troubling Violence: A Performance Project. University of Mississippi Press. Chilisa, B. (2011). Indigenous Research Methodologies, 1e. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Clarke, K.M. (2015). Toward a critically engaged ethnographic practice. Current Anthropology 51 (S2): S301–S312. Clifford, J. and Marcus, G. (1985). Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography. Berkeley: University of California Press. Code, L. (1981). Is the sex of the knower epistemologically significant? Metaphilosophy 12: 267–276. Collins, P.H. (2009[1990]). Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment, 2e. New York: Routledge: Routledge Classics. Craft, R.A., McNeal, M., Mwangola, M.S., and Zabriskie, Q.M.E. (2007). The Quilt: Toward a Twenty‐First Century Black Feminist Ethnography. Performance Research (Blackness/ Diaspora, Special Issue) 12 (3): 54–83. Craven, C. and Davis, D.‐A. (2013). Feminist Activist Ethnography: Counterpoints to Neoliberalism in North America. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Davis, D.‐A. (2013). Border crossings: intimacy and feminist activist ethnography in the age of neoliberalism. In: Feminist Activist Ethnography: Counterpoints to Neoliberalism (eds. C. Craven and D.‐A. Davis), 23–38. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Davis, D.‐A. and Craven, C. (2016a). Feminist Ethnography: Thinking Through Methodologies, Challenges, and Possibilities. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Davis, D.‐A. and Craven, C. (eds.) (2016b). Aimee Meredith Cox on writing, establishing relationships, and failure. In: Feminist Ethnography: Thinking Through Methodologies, Challenges, and Possibilities, 129. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Davis, D.‐A. and Craven, C. (eds.) (2016c). Loretta Ross on working with former skinhead white supremacists. In: Feminist Ethnography: Thinking Through Methodologies, Challenges, and Possibilities, 111–113. Lanham, MD: Roman & Littlefield. Deomampo, D. (2016). Transnational Reproduction: Race, Kinship, and Commercial Surrogacy in India. New York: New York University Press. Dominguez, V., M. Guttman, and C. Lutz. (2014). “Problem of Gender and Citations Raised Again in New Research Study.” Anthropology News. http://www.academia.edu/9138083/_ Problem_of_Gender_and_Citations_Raised_Again_in_New_Research_Study. DeVault, M.L. (1999). Liberating Method: Feminism and Social Research. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Engels, F. (1845). The Conditions of the Working Class in England. Leipzig: Otto Wigand. Gill, H. (2011). Roots of Love. Tilotama Productions. Gill, H. (2014). Mardistan (Macholand) Reflections on Indian Manhood. Tilotama Productions. Gill, H. (2016). Sent Away Boys. Tilotama Productions. Goett, J. (2016). Black Autonomy: Race, Gender, and Afro‐Nicaraguan Activism. Stanford: Stanford University Press. González, M.C. (2000). The four seasons of ethnography: a creation‐centered ontology for ethnography. International Journal of Intercultural Relations 24: 623–650. Hall, S. (1992). What is this ‘black’ in black popular culture. In: Black Popular Culture (ed. G. Dent), 21–33. Seattle, WA: Bay Press.



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Harding, S.G. (1987). Feminism and Methodology: Social Science Issues. Indiana University Press. Harrison, F.V. (1997). Decolonizing Anthropology: Moving Further Toward an Anthropology for Liberation, 2e. Arlington: American Anthropological Association and Association of Black Anthropologists. Harrison, F.V. (2007). Feminist methodology as a tool for ethnographic inquiry on globalization. In: The Gender of Globalization: Women Navigating Cultural and Economic Marginalities (eds. N. Gunewardena and A. Kingsolver), 23–31. Santa Fe: School for Advanced Research Press. Hesse‐Biber, S.N. (ed.) (2014). Feminist Research Practice: A Primer. Second Edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Hurston, Z.N. (1928a). Children’s Games. Dir: Zora Neale Hurston (US 1928), si, b&w, 16mm. Archive: USW. Hurston, Z.N. (1928b) Logging. Dir: Zora Neale Hurston (1928) si, b&w, 16mm. Archive: USW. Hurston, Z.N. (1978). Mules and Men. ©1935. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Hurston, Z.N. (2013). Their Eyes Were Watching God. ©1937. New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics. Hymes, D.H. (1969). Reinventing Anthropology. New York: Pantheon Books. Isoke, Z. (2013). Urban Black Women and the Politics of Resistance. Palgrave McMillan. Klein, L.F. and Gold, M.K. (2016). Debates in the Digital Humanities. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press https://www.upress.umn.edu/book‐division/books/debates‐in‐the‐ digital‐humanities‐2016. Lamphere, L., Price, E., Cadman, C., and Darwin, V. (2007). Weaving Women’s Lives: Three Generations in a Navajo Family. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. Madison, S.D. (2008). Narrative poetics and performative interventions. In: Handbook of Critical and Indigenous Methodologies (eds. N.K. Denzin, Y.S. Lincoln and L.T. Smith), 391–406. Los Angeles: Sage. Manning, J. (2015). A postcolonial feminist ethnography. www.liverpool.ac.uk/media/livacuk/ schoolofmanagement/docs/ethnography2015/manning.pdf Mohanty, C.T. (1984). Under western eyes: feminist scholarship and colonial discourses. Boundary 2: 333–358. Moses, Y.T. (2017). “After 10 years the AAA Race Project is still needed now more than ever.” American Anthropological Association Blog. September 18, 2017. https://blog. americananthro.org/2017/09/18/after‐10‐years‐the‐aaa‐race‐project‐is‐still‐needed‐now‐ more‐than‐ever. Nagar, R. (2014). Muddying the Waters: Coauthoring Feminisms across Scholarship and Activism, Dissident Feminisms. Urbana, Chicago, and Springfield: University of Illinois Press. Nagar, R. and Geiger, S. (2014). Reflexivity, positionality, and languages of collaboration in feminist fieldwork, part 1. The original argument: beyond the impass. In: Muddying the Waters: Coauthoring Feminisms across Scholarship and Activism, Dissident Feminisms (ed. R. Nagar), 81–89. Urbana, Chicago, and Springfield: University of Illinois Press. Naples, N.A. (1998). Grassroots Warriors: Activist Mothering, Community Work, and the War on Poverty, 1e. New York: Routledge. Naples, N.A. (2003). Feminism and Method: Ethnography, Discourse Analysis, and Activist Research. New York: Routledge. Narayan, K. (2012). Alive in the Writing: Crafting Ethnography in the Company of Chekhov. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

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Oakley, A. (1981). Interviewing women: a contradiction in terms. In: Doing Feminist Research (ed. H. Roberts), 30–61. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Özkazanç‐Pan, B. (2012). Postcolonial feminist research: challenges and complexities. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal 31 (5/6): 573–591. Parameswaran, R. (2001). Feminist media ethnography in India: exploring power, gender, and culture in the field. Qualitative Inquiry 7 (1): 69–103. Pierre, J. (2008). Activist groundings or groundings for activism?: the study of racialization as a site of political engagement. In: Engaging Contradictions: Theory, Politics, and Methods of Activist Scholarship (ed. C.R. Hale), 115–135. Berkeley: University of California Press. Pratt, M.L. (2008). Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation, 2e. New York: Routledge. Rios‐Moore, I., Arenas, E., Contreras, J. et al. (2004). Makes Me Mad: Stereotypes of Young Urban Womyn of Color. New York: Center for Human Environments, The Graduate Center, City University of New York. Said, E.W. (1978). Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books. Said, E.W. (1993). Culture and Imperialism. New York: Vintage Books. Sangtin Writers Collective and Nagar, R. (2006). Playing with Fire: Feminist Thought and Activism through Seven Lives in India. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Schrock, R.D. (2013). The methodological imperatives of feminist ethnography. Journal of Feminist Scholarship 5 (1): 48–60. Schuller, M. and Thomas, D.A. (2013). Archiving violence: a conversation on the making of Poto Mitan and bad Friday. Transition 112: 153–168. Skeggs, B. (2001). Feminist Ethnography. In: Handbook of Ethnography (eds. P. Atkinson, A. Coffey, S. Delamont, et al.). London: Sage. Smith, L.T. (2012 [1999]). Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples, 2e. London: Zed Books. Smith, C.A. (2016). Afro‐Paradise: Blackness, Violence, and Performance in Brazil. University of Illinois Press. Spivak, G.C. (1988). Can the subaltern speak? In: Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture (eds. C. Nelson and L. Grossberg), 271–313. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press. Sprague, J. (2016). Feminist Methodologies for Critical Researchers: Bridging Differences. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Stacey, J. (1988). Can there be a feminist ethnography? Women’s Studies International Forum 11 (1): 21–27. Svensson, P. (2010). “The landscape of digital humanities.” Digital Humanities Quarterly 4 (1) http://digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/4/1/000080/000080.html. Téllez, M. (2012). Workers on the Rise. https://vimeo.com/85164509. Thiong’o, N.W. (1986). Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature. London: Heinemann Educational. Tristan, F. (1840). Promenade dans Londre. Paris: H.‐L. Delloye. Tsing, A.L. (2015). The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins. New Brunswick, NJ: Princeton University Press. Ulysse, G.A. (2010). I Am Storm: Songs and Poems for Haiti. [CD] Ulysse, G.A. (2013). Untapped Fierceness/My Giant Leaps. TEDxUofM. https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=xHhngXU8Zw4. Underberg, N.M. and Zorn, E. (2013). Digital Ethnography: Anthropology, Narrative, and New Media. Austin: University of Texas Press. Visweswaran, K. (1994). Fictions of Feminist Ethnography. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.



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Visweswaran, K. (1997). Histories of feminist ethnography. Annual Review of Anthropology 26: 591–621. Wolf, M. (1992). A Thrice‐Told Tale: Feminism, Postmodernism, and Ethnographic Responsibility. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Zacharias, U. and Arthurs, J. (2007). Feminist ethnographers in digital ecologies. Feminist Media Studies 7 (2): 203–213.

17 Feminist Historiography Ariella Rotramel

they ask me to remember but they want me to remember their memories and i keep on remembering mine. (Clifton 2015, p. 262)

Introduction Lucille Clifton’s poem, “why some people be mad at me sometimes,” offers an entry point into the aims and challenges of feminist historiography. Feminist historiography offers an opportunity to contest dominant histories that ignore women as social actors; to show how ideas and practices tied to gender, sexuality, and other social identities are central to historical changes and continuities; and to develop research practices – from collection and preservation to analysis – that challenge hegemonic histories. If the memories Clifton discusses are viewed as pieces of historical or social memory, then she is questioning the dynamics between herself as an individual Black woman and a social demand that she share dominant memories and give up her own recollections. As Clifton defies expectations that she cede her own memories, feminist historians also choose to create works that seek to fundamentally shift how we understand human history to include women and other marginalized people. Feminist historiography is based in a commitment to producing work that is about connection; scholars work to bring into the collective memory the experiences of people who have been marginalized. As a form of feminist praxis, feminist historiography highlights a need to consider how scholars read, interpret, and work with history as much as what types of works they use to develop their scholarship. This Companion to Feminist Studies, First Edition. Edited by Nancy A. Naples. © 2021 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Published 2021 by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

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approach requires a recognition of one’s own positionality and desires, as well as a critical consideration of what approaches make what types of histories legible and at what cost. For example, archival records vary based on their institution’s histories and the types of people or materials that have been valued, while oral histories are a relatively recent and also labor‐intensive method. Moreover, scholars navigate the complexities of sharing some social identities or political commitments with their research subjects; they also traverse differences and distances of time and culture that shape how they understand themselves as people and social actors. This chapter attends to the varying approaches scholars use, including conceptual and methodological developments that have occurred in the field and are part of this effort to build feminist futures out of feminist pasts.

Feminist Historiography as Feminist Praxis Cultural critic bell hooks famously defines feminism as “a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression . . . As a definition it is open‐ended. To understand feminism it implies one has to necessarily understand sexism” (hooks 2014, p. 1). For feminist scholars, their political commitments can, in part, be enacted through scholarship that seeks to dig deeply into how sexism functions and how people have sought to break its hold in society. Feminist historiography produces an ongoing cycle of innovation and critique as it is practiced within and beyond the walls of academia; researchers seek to create work that is inclusive and furthers an understanding of a world that honors the lives of women and other marginalized people. Historians’ intentional intellectual and political effort can be read as a form of feminist praxis, “a grassroots strategy and an ongoing achievement based in the philosophy and practice of participatory democracy and situated knowledges” (Naples and Dobson 2001, p. 117). Feminist praxis is based in approaching theory and practice dialectically. The back and forth between concepts and the collection and analysis of historiographic materials provide the necessary productive tension at the heart of feminist history. Feminist historiography seeks to intervene in the broader field of history as it holds a key role in our society as a means to understand the past and present through narrative. These stories can engage with women and other marginalized social actors with complexity and respect as feminist historians strive to enact or perpetuate the erasure and flattening of their participation in the making of our world. A 1938 essay by Carl Becker, “What is Historiography?” presented the work of historians as not seeking to uncover or adjudicate the truth of the past: But the existence and pressure of the ideas about the past which men have entertained and acted upon. His object would be to reconstruct, and by imaginative insight and aesthetic understanding make live again, that pattern of events occurring in distant places and times past which, in successive periods, men have been able to form a picture of when contemplating themselves; and their activities in relation to the world in which they live (p. 27).

Scholars are thus responsible for struggling with historical materials to build narratives that can tell us about the reasons that our past played out in the way it has as well as illustrate how people at the time understood and participated in these events.



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In turn, we can draw on these histories to reflect on our contemporary moment, how and why it is the way it is, and what past actions we can choose to reproduce or transform. As Becker’s usage of masculine gender pronouns indexes, women were too often viewed as invisible or marginal actors in history. A more robust approach to historiography takes the project further to emphasize a critical reading of the politics of the writing of history; this critical reading of the politics could range from addressing the concepts that circulate to what is valued with narratives by authors. Feminist historiography works through both the past and present with an attention to feminist concerns. As Nancy Hewitt writes in her introduction to the collection, No Permanent Waves: Recasting Histories of U.S. Feminism, it is important to have feminist research that: Integrates women from diverse racial, ethnic, and class backgrounds; recognizes the centrality of economics, sexuality, culture, and politics; and highlights the shared and contested character of women’s rights, gender equality, and sexual liberation across time . . . [such work can] inspire us to rethink our visions of feminisms past and present and thereby to reimagine possibilities for the future. (2010, p. 10)

Feminist historians hope to create knowledge that holds an explicit import for feminist activism; they do this through their efforts to take a broader view of the feminist past and to acknowledge the tensions and contradictions in histories. For the purposes of this chapter, feminist as a descriptor of historiography can be understood as flexible, offering a sense of the mix of political, personal, and scholarly commitments that drive research, writing, and teaching in the field.

Claiming Expertise and Building the Field Groundbreaking scholar Gerda Lerner highlighted the historical interventions that scholars have made when she took stock of the first 20 years of the field of women’s history. She argued that the field had “obscured, neglected, and distorted the historical record and experience of half the world’s population,” as it took a masculinist approach that centered the actions of men and often ignored aspects of quotidian life (Lerner  1988). While commending women historians for their interventions, she called for the development of concepts from within the field and for scholars to challenge the trends that she observed in US women’s history; these trends included a lack of scholarship on housework and women of color. Lerner presented a set of questions as necessary for the transformation of the field: ●●

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How does the concrete social situation differ for men and women at any given time, and how does that difference affect the outcomes? What is the tension between reality and myth in women’s lives, and how has it affected women’s consciousness? What is the relationship between changing gender definitions and changing economic and social conditions? What are the points of change in women’s historic experience by which we might periodize the history of women?

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The core of Lerner’s questions focuses on how difference functions across time and what key dynamics remain salient for work in the field. This core is attended to by scholars who have expanded the field to study gender in relationship to intersecting categories such as sexuality, race, class, and nation – subfields that enable scholars to develop relevant concepts and methodologies; these subfields can also allow scholars to take on some of the concerns that Lerner raised about the field in the 1980s. Feminist historiography continues to serve as a corrective that addresses the unstated questions of knowledge, ethics, and power that undergird historical inquiry (Glenn 2000, p. 389). Suzanne Raitt and Raka Ray assert that feminist historiography takes up these concerns as it uncovers, reinterprets, or values histories that are too frequently marginalized or distorted by masculinist narratives. In their view, for women of the past as well as contemporary women, “the consequences of forgetting or misacknowledging are grave” (Raitt and Ray 2004, p. 561). Feminist historians read governmental records, memoirs, news accounts, oral histories, clothing catalogs, and other materials in a manner that is mindful of gender as an idea, practice, and experience. Masculinist histories ignored the relevance of gender or elided women’s particular histories; thus, the work of feminist historians has been political in response to these practices. As Raitt and Ray suggest, these erasures in masculinist histories not only have presented an intellectual failure to more fully study history, but they have also prevented the possibility of learning from both the harmful and positive elements of feminist history. Without feminist historiography, silences have left the history of women and other marginalized groups to be imagined through gender stereotypes rather than grounded in the complex realities of people’s lives. Through the creation of the field of feminist historiography, researchers have presented narratives that more fully illustrate women’s experiences and actions across time. However, feminist knowledge within academia continues to have a marginal status, and a particular form of the discomfort that some have is with knowledge that is from “activist communities that may be perceived as ‘too political,’ ‘emotional’ or ‘self‐interested’ or ‘partial’” (Withers  2014, p. 131). Despite these criticisms, feminist historians continue to seek out ways to challenge masculinist and underanalyzed histories, demonstrate an ability to claim scholarly rigor, and attend to the broader sociopolitical concerns that drive their work. The balancing act of scholarly and political commitments that gave rise to feminist historiography has often been difficult and impossible to fully satisfy. Natalie Zemon Davis observed in 1976 that for over two millennia, writers composed works about “Women Worthies” or “virtuous women” as they sought to demonstrate women’s capacity to participate in and benefit from education (Davis 1976, p. 83). Scholars in the twentieth century pushed against the bounds of respectability, seeking out narratives that crossed boundaries of race, class, and other axes of identity; with this boundary‐pushing, they broadened feminist historiography and signaled a recognition of the value of work that took risks. Today, scholars take a range of approaches, as some claim an overtly social orientation toward their work while



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others present their work within the bounds of standard academic discourse. Historian Leila J. Rupp summarized the trajectory of the field, noting that: Despite sometimes fierce contestation over differences of subject and method, historians have combined deconstructionist and social history methods in exploring the complex relationships between women’s actions and constructions of gender . . . (Rupp 2006, p. 468)

Feminist historians continue to debate how they approach their work, and they have benefited from drawing upon feminist theoretical concepts such as intersectionality to gain a sophisticated understanding of why complex identities matter to the field (Crenshaw 1991). In the late 1980s, Kimberlé Crenshaw theorized intersectionality to address the inability of legal analyses to account for Black women’s experience as simultaneously Black and women, rather than solely recognizing them through one axis of their identities. Through the metaphor of a car accident, with discrimination flowing in multiple directions, she argued that it was necessary to recognize multiple forms of oppression (Crenshaw  1989, p. 149). Patricia Hill Collins and Sirma Bilge provided a working definition of the term that conveys the breadth of uses of the concept as it has moved across academic fields: Intersectionality is a way of understanding and analyzing the complexity in the world, in people, and in human experiences. The events and conditions of social and political life and the self can seldom be understood as shaped by one factor. They are generally shaped by many factors in diverse and mutually influencing ways . . . Intersectionality as an analytic tool gives people better access to the complexity of the world and of themselves. (Hill Collins and Bilge 2016, p. 2)

Their definition highlights the explanatory potential of intersectionality as it provides the analytical sophistication necessary to understand history more fully. As the concept has gained currency, intersectionality has contributed to the emergence and increased recognition of scholarship that critically considers gender in relationship with race, class, nation, sexuality, and other social categories. Intersectionality has also been used to describe earlier work. For example, historians and their subjects, including Anna Julia Cooper in the late 1800s, recognized that gender did not exist outside of dynamics of race, class, and other social categories (May 2007). The following sections explore how feminist historians use theory and method to create work that brings new knowledge about how sexism and related oppressions operate and how people from varying positionalities navigate these systems.

Feminist Historiography and Critique Feminist historiography has required and continues to require scholars to struggle with the tensions of their work, from the categorization and representation of historical subjects to methodological limitations. Critique, the constructive questioning and reconsidering of scholarly praxis, holds a key function. As Gerda Lerner noted,

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feminist historians have drawn upon a range of scholarly fields from literary studies to anthropology; these borrowing and modifying practices have enabled feminist historians to reconceptualize how they pursue historical projects from research questions and data collection to analyzing and writing histories. Feminist praxis, as the mix of theoretical and practical concerns, has driven scholars to be explicit about the intent, limitations, and possibilities of their work as the field has developed. Feminist historians have drawn upon multiple strands of thought in their work, reflecting the different types of contexts that their work addresses. For example, postcolonial scholarship emerged out of political struggles across the globe and provided a framework to study history in a manner that disrupted Western assumptions and attitudes that assumed European superiority. While scholars such as Edward Said and Frantz Fanon became most well known for their contributions to critical readings of nation, race, colonization, and Western thought, feminists created works that also included intersections with gender and sexuality. In the 1980s, Gayatri Spivak questioned the representations of marginalized groups in “Can the Subaltern Speak?” and developed the idea of “strategic essentialism” that offered an understanding of identity claims as a political move rather than a claim to an unchanging shared identity. Postcolonial scholarship has provided feminist historians with an explicit challenge to refine their understanding of their assumptions about feminism that underpin their research. Anthropologist Saba Mahmood explicitly addressed feminist historians in her comments on a set of essays by feminist historians for The Journal of Religion. She argued that critique can play a central role in sharpening scholars’ engagement with the past. She posited: We need to consider how critique might be most powerful when it is undertaken not simply to condemn or expose the implausibility of another’s position or worldview but to leave open the possibility that one may be remade through engagement with (an) Other perspective. . . the certainty of one’s own political commitments could not be so easily maintained and they would need to be rethought from within the context of what has been termed the process of subjectivation. . . (Mahmood 2004, p. 578)

In this discussion, she claimed a need to continuously be open to different perspectives and the changes that can result. She asserted that such an openness necessitates a far more circumspect understanding of who the scholar is, particularly in regards to their feminist views. When engaging with difference, particularly across culture and time, researchers must deepen their understanding of how subjects came to understand themselves and navigate their world. Mahmood recognized the particular challenge she posed to feminist historians as she stated “[it is] a question that brings the analytical and politically prescriptive projects of the feminist tradition in some tension with each other” (Mahmood  2004, p. 579). Feminist scholars have simultaneously critiqued oversimplified histories while also holding onto concepts like “emancipation and freedom” (Mahmood 2004, p. 578). According to Mahmood, these two ideas are “conflicted” but also align with a response to the struggle against oppression that is critical to feminism as defined by hooks (Mahmood 2004, p. 578). She marked the ongoing need for feminist scholars to consider their own political commitments and assumptions when reading histories; she also suggested that



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s­ cholars open up the potential for unexpected or contradictory findings that do not necessarily align with contemporary feminist commitments. Poststructuralist works overlapped with postcolonial thought, and the resulting cultural turn in history during the 1980s and 1990s challenged historians to reconsider how they worked with texts and conceptualized the past. Key figures such as Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault produced works that questioned fundamental assumptions about how knowledge is created and expressed in language. As ideas such as deconstructionism circulated, they were taken up across many fields by scholars willing to question the fundamental assumptions about truth and evidence. Historian Gabrielle Spiegel built on leading feminist historian Carroll Smith‐ Rosenberg’s point that language cannot be read outside of the context of the speaker’s social position (1986). She asked scholars to delve more fully into thinking through the process through which historical sources are produced and read; she argued that “Texts, as material embodiments of situated language use, reflect in their very materiality the inseparability of material and discursive practices and the need to preserve a sense of their mutual implication and interdependence in the production of meaning” (Spiegel 1990, p. 84). From this perspective, historians could deepen critical readings of historical texts while asking questions about the broader context and production of such texts. Oral history has also has been taken up and scrutinized within feminist history. In 1990, historian Susan Geiger asked “What’s So Feminist About Women’s Oral History?” Her essay argued that oral history is a long‐standing practice that becomes a method when it is pursued as a means of gaining information. In turn, oral history can be conceptualized as a feminist methodology only if it is systematized and its objectives are pursued using feminist values. Practitioners of oral history embraced non‐elite interview subjects by the late 1960s, and interviewers emerged from social movements including feminist movements (Ritchie 2015, p. 7). Oral histories have become more fully considered in terms of both their limitations and necessary role in feminist historiography, much like deeper discussion of archival material. As discussed later in this chapter, feminist historians have had to think differently about sites of information about the past, how the present is preserved, and how interpretations are developed within particular sociopolitical moments and contexts.

Essentialism and Difference Within feminist historiography, concerns arose around the assumed and potentially essentialist identities of historical subjects presented within the field. When identities such as woman were treated as if they contained universally shared characteristics and experiences, scholars struggled to capture the social structures that produced these shifting categories and the continued need for feminist historiography. Nancy Hewitt’s 1985 essay, “Beyond the Search for Sisterhood,” mapped out the necessity of a feminist historiography that rejected a facile imagining of an overarching and elitist sisterhood. She called for an approach that recognized that “community was more a product of material conditions and constraints than of ideological dictates. And that therefore diversity, discontinuity, and conflict were as much a part of the historical agency of women as of men” (p. 316). Her intervention squarely demon-

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strates that a search for an overarching investment in liberal gender‐based solidarity undermined scholars’ capacity to engage the range of women’s experiences and sociopolitical commitments in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Scholars from within history and beyond have contributed to academic discussions about identity and difference. In philosopher Uma Narayan’s  1998 essay, “Essence of Culture and a Sense of History,” she posed a dual critique that drew upon a detailed reading of “sati (suttee), the immolation of widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands” (p. 93). Through her reading, she challenged the unquestioning acceptance of a narrative that framed sati as a fundamental Indian practice, rather than a means used both by British colonial and Hindu fundamentalists for political ends. Narayan offers a scholarly approach that refuses to accept simplistic definitions of difference or a shared past, and this provides one means of responding to Spivak’s concerns about representation. Narayan’s approach seeks to open up room for postcolonial feminists to reread and respond to historical narratives. As Joan W. Scott famously argued in “The Evidence of Experience,” historians failed to account for how and why social differences are produced and construct subjects (1991, p. 777). Her essay provided a sense of concerns about the direction of the field and how scholars could deepen their understanding of pertinent questions in feminist historiography. She drew upon Natalie Zemon Davis as she described the effort to move from a focus on “women” to thinking about gender relationally, quoting her “Women’s History in Transition” argument: Our goal is to discover the range in sex roles and in sexual symbolism in different societies and periods, to find out what meaning they had and how they functioned to maintain the social order or to promote its change. (Davis 1975–1976, 90 quoted in Scott 1986, p. 1054)

Despite these efforts, Scott observed that women’s history in the 1980s had been marginalized and pigeonholed as largely descriptive rather than making explicit analytical interventions within the larger field of history (Scott 1986, p. 1055). Scott reviewed key frameworks from scholars across a range of fields that informed feminist historians, and she highlighted three theoretical positions and their limitations; the first focused on addressing patriarchy and its roots, the second synthesized Marxism and feminism, and the third psychoanalytic approach – while split along poststructuralist and object‐relations lines – was invested in the exploration of gender identity (Scott 1986, p. 1057). Calling for work that more fully engaged history while keeping an analytical edge, she argued for two focused questions that shifted from a study of women to gender: How does gender work in human social relationships? How does gender give meaning to the organization and perception of historical knowledge? The answers depend on gender as an analytic category. (Scott 1986, p. 1055)

Through this usage, Scott was arguing that historians must understand gender as socially, and thus historically, produced. The social origins of man and woman as identities and broader ideas about masculinity and femininity could be understood



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through gender history (Scott 1986, pp. 1055–1056). Scott pushed for a move from describing gender dynamics to an explicitly analytical approach. This approach emphasized that “gender is a constitutive element of social relationships based on perceived differences between the sexes, and gender is a primary way of signifying relationships of power” (Scott 1986, p. 1067). In this sense, it is not only critical to consider how gendered meaning has been assigned to people based on assumptions about sexed bodies, but it is also crucial to examine how institutions or practices are read as masculine or feminine and how these ideas circulate. As Scott argued, “Attention to gender is often not explicit, but it is nonetheless a crucial part of the organization of equality or inequality” (Scott 1986, p. 1073). Gender may seamlessly be inscribed onto sexed bodies, naturalizing ideas of maleness and masculinity and femaleness and femininity; gender is also a lesser‐acknowledged but present feature in how systems of oppression such as racism and classism are maintained, and it is exists in the language and practices of war and politics. Scott called for a feminist history that would be intersectional as it sought to revitalize key historical questions, highlight women’s agency, and thoughtfully bridge past and contemporary language around gender. Like Lerner, she provided her own set of questions for scholars to grapple with: ●● ●●

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What is the relationship between laws about women and the power of the state? Why (and since when) have women been invisible as historical subjects, when we know they participated in the great and small events of human history? Has gender legitimated the emergence of professional careers? Is (to quote the title of a recent article by French feminist Luce Irigaray) the subject of science sexed? What is the relationship between state politics and the discovery of the crime of homosexuality? How have social institutions incorporated gender into their assumptions and organizations? Have there ever been genuinely egalitarian concepts of gender in terms of which political systems were projected, if not built? (Scott 1986, p. 1074– 1075) [Reformatted from original text into a bulleted list for ease of reading]

While wide‐ranging, these questions illustrate how understanding gender as a category of analysis matters. As historians seek to explain the past, they can attend to how state and institutional power has been gendered, such as the inclusion and exclusion of people from citizenship, the subordination of women and people of color in the workplace, and the medicalization of sexual and gender identities. Scholars pay explicit attention to these dynamics, and that allows them to maintain a sense of historicity and to denaturalize the subordination of women and other marginalized groups. However, feminist historians continue to find themselves grappling with assumptions about the stability of social categories that prove to be far more inconsistent across time and place. Iranian historian, Afsaneh Najmabadi, took up Scott’s intervention in her 2006 essay “Beyond the Americas: Are Gender and Sexuality Useful Categories of Analysis?” In this work, she asked how feminist historical concepts traveled across time and context. Using the case of the term jins that became more frequently used

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as sex in the twentieth‐century Persian, she was prompted to ask “how has sex become sex?” (Najmabadi 2006, p. 13). She reviewed how she took up Scott’s call in her research on Qajar Iran and modernity through an analysis that considers gender through “metaphoric, symbolic, narrative, and rhetorical” levels; after this she presented readers with an unsettling piece of feedback she received from a reader (Najmabadi 2006, pp. 13–14). She summed up their point as “The overall narrative effect of my book had put woman in a position to carry the burden of gender and man that of sexuality” (Najmabadi 2006, p. 15). As this case highlighted, without an intersectional analysis that was simultaneously anti‐essentialist, it was easy to slip into a narrative that conflated categories (women/gender, men/sexuality) rather than address how all four terms interacted. Najmabadi took the reader’s concern seriously and delved into critical questions about what historians are looking for as they turn to the past and particularly what assumptions they are making as they seek to uncover marginalized histories of gender and sexuality. Scholars have sought to cease projecting contemporary notions of homosexuality into the past, and Najmabadi noted: To replace “homosexuality” with “same‐sex practices and desires,” while overcoming its nineteenth‐century sexual burden, [this approach problematically] gives us a term that carries a binarized nineteenth‐century gender‐burden, anachronistically and inappropriately used for earlier times. (Najmabadi 2006, p. 17)

She not only questioned the presence of a Eurocentric gender binary and the theories that take such a binary for granted for studies such as her own, but Najmabadi also pushed the point further in reference to naming people as lesbians in histories of medieval Europe (Bennett  2000; Najmabadi  2006, p. 18). She asked what would happen if, instead of asking students if lesbians existed in medieval Europe, students were asked if there were any women. She argued that the lack of investigation of this question is based on the assumption that woman is an unchanging category. She asked, “What does it mean that we do not have the same discomfort with presuming the possibility of existence of women in medieval Europe that we have about lesbians?” (Najmabadi 2006, p. 18). Through this simple substitution, Najmabadi got at the heart of the difficulty scholars face if they are to fully take up the call of understanding gender as a category of analysis. Rather than simply assuming that gender is a binary and that subjects can be easily categorized, she questioned how much scholars are willing to risk in order to be rigorous. She argued that there was a need to acknowledge the contingent basis for gender and sexuality history, including the incoherence of these key social categories across time and culture (Najmabadi 2006, pp. 18–19). Najmabadi offered a recognition of how fraught the project of feminist historiography remains in the twenty‐first century. Scholars must embrace uncertainty and ambivalence if they commit to readings that are forcing contemporary ideas onto their subjects; this means that they will continue to pursue historical inquiry outside of the mainstream. As the next sections demonstrate, feminist historians have taken up the call to continue pushing their research in directions that open up opportunities for new understandings of and respect for historical subjects.



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Refining Feminist Methods in the Archives The theoretical questions raised within feminist history inform how scholars approach archives as a key research source. For example, Elizabeth Quay Hutchison’s 2001 Labors Appropriate to Their Sex: Gender, Labor, and Politics in Urban Chile, 1900–1930, demonstrates how insights building off of Joan Scott’s essay continued to prove fruitful. Her argument centered anxieties about working‐ class women as they participated in the urban workforce. She challenged readings of census records that showed women moved out of the labor force, and she highlighted the reality that many moved into the informal economy. This study provided an exploration of women’s labor and social history that examines how labor organizers, elite women, and state actors sought to manage women’s participation in the economy; the study challenged previous histories that ignored the centrality of gender in labor and state politics. Other scholars, such as the ethnic studies‐trained Eithne Luibhéid (2002) and historian Mae Ngai (2004), have similarly used court documents along with other legal, political, and media archival sources to produce histories that address the history of immigration in the United States. Luibhéid explicitly asked questions of how gender and sexuality interacted with racial and national agendas to create and maintain exclusionary immigration laws. Ngai’s work provided a complementary understanding of how the category of “illegal aliens” was constructed and used against migrants. Their works analyzed how lawmakers and courts understood their role in creating and maintaining immigration policies; their work also provided, through existing records, insights into how people – such as a Mexican‐born woman contesting her deportation based on her purported lesbian identity or interned Japanese Americans during World War II – responded to their entanglements in US practices of nationalism. These scholars demonstrated the ongoing value of reading archival materials through lenses of gender along with nation, class, and other categories of analysis to reinterpret historical narratives. Scholars have sought to recover the histories of enslaved women; they have worked with materials produced by actors invested in colonial and slavery projects. As these sources most immediately reflect the perspectives and priorities of those who sought to control and exploit enslaved women, historians developed innovative ways of working with materials to center enslaved women’s histories. For example, Jennifer L. Morgan’s 2004 Laboring Women: Reproduction and Gender in New World Slavery effectively follows enslaved African women from Africa to British colonies in North America and the Caribbean. She drew upon materials – including European representations of African women, demographic data, and slaveowners’ legal documents  –  that she critically read through lenses of race and gender to uncover how ideas of Blackness and African women were constructed. Notably, through her writing, she gave readers a sense of how enslaved women experienced and navigated bondage, disrupting the binary assumptions of enslaved people as simply either being resistant or accommodating to slavery. Marisa Fuentes’ 2016 Dispossessed Lives: Enslaved Women, Violence, and the Archive takes up the methodological challenge of writing enslaved women’s histories from archival materials in her study of urban slavery in colonial Bridgetown, Barbados. Rather than writing a history that reified white discourses about enslaved

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women, her book approached these sources as a means to understand how such women lived their lives. She built on the work of historians Jennifer L. Morgan, Deborah Grey White, Camilla Townsend, and Natalie Zemon Davis while also taking insights from literature and cultural studies scholar Saidiya V. Hartman’s Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery, and Self‐Making in Nineteenth‐Century America. Fuentes sought out “what other knowledge can be produced from archival sources if we apply the theoretical concerns of both cultural studies and critical historiography to documents and sources” (Fuentes 2016, p. 6). The resulting project included a range of women, from free women of color to fugitive enslaved women, who lived in the city. In her final chapter “Venus,” Fuentes meditated on the many unnamed enslaved women’s experiences of violence whose stories haunt the archive. Fuentes argued that: the ubiquity and brutality of the violent images that dominate this archive, challenges us to grapple with the historicizing of enslaved female subjects.  .  . to consider the enslaved women’s “dreadful cries” [as she was beaten to death by her owner] as another genre of humanity and a historical opening evoked rhetorically in the throes of trauma and the threshold of death. (Fuentes 2016, p. 129)

Fuentes concluded her analysis of the archival record with the story of this woman’s cries and her death, claiming that the woman’s cries may include “the sound of someone wanting to be heard, wanting to live or wanting to die. But the struggle against dehumanization is in the wanting. And sometimes we can hear it” (Fuentes 2016, p. 143). Scholars such as Fuentes, while cognizant of the limited access they have to their historical subjects, reaped from archival research and their reading practices opportunities to bear witness to enslaved women’s experiences. As religion scholar Shelly Matthews argued, “the best feminist historiography pays close attention to representation in texts while still attempting to reconstruct a history of women. . . [I argue] for the importance of acknowledging repeatedly and unapologetically the political nature of historiography” (Matthews 2001, p. 52). Through their efforts, these scholars challenged contemporary along with historical devaluing of Black women’s lives. Alongside feminist historians’ efforts to read archives that are largely composed of materials created by dominant actors, there is an increasing number of archives that seek to preserve marginalized histories. Different types of archives provide varying points of access, preservation capacities, and organization. As women’s and gender studies scholar Agatha Beins summarized, “Community archives exist in relation to and in tension with conventional archives, a term I use to denote a connection with a formal institution and the adoption of archival practices that reflect the traditional principles of archival sciences” (Beins 2015, p. 27). Despite these differing institutional statuses and behaviors, as English scholar Ann Cvetkovich argued, “distinctions between institutional archives and counterarchives grow increasingly blurry . . . the archive even as conventionally understood has been transformed by queer collections as well as by the creative methods of queer archival research” (Cvetkovich 2015, p. xvii). In this case, queer simultaneously is referring to: (i) materials that have been produced by and/or for members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual,



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and transgender community (with queer functioning as an expansive umbrella term analogous to LGBT) and (ii) the emergence of “queer” as a critical framework for understanding the politics of sex and sexuality (Cohen 1997). Scholars have continued to develop the analytical frameworks for reading as feminist and queer materials have become acknowledged parts of existing institutional archives, as well as preserved in community archives. Queer archives serve as an example of efforts to collect, preserve, and engage with the past, present, and future of marginalized communities. Bein’s essay considered how Brooklyn’s Lesbian Herstory Archives (LHA) operates as a unique archival and community space for LGBT or queer research; this archive is contrasted with the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College and the Schlesinger Library at the Radcliffe Institute, two academic sites established to preserve women’s history that include materials related to the LGBT community and queer past. The LHA is part of an expanding network of archives that are explicitly focused on queer community. The ONE Archive housed at the University of Southern California Libraries is the oldest existing US LGBTQ organization and holds the largest collection of LGBTQ materials in the world (ONE Archives 2018). This archive emerged out of collector Jim Kepner’s start in “1942 with the purchase of Radclyffe Hall’s book The Well of Loneliness”; Kepner’s efforts substantiate Cvetkovich’s emphasis on the blurring of boundaries, as a queer man purchased an explicitly lesbian novel, and the fruits of his efforts form the core of a now institutionalized collection. Current and future feminist historians have the opportunity to build and maintain these materials by working with collections that offer more directly robust entries into the lives of historical subjects.

Oral History and Questions of Subtext and Representation Oral history has served as a key practice of feminist historiography, and the trajectory of this approach and its subsequent questions demonstrate the tensions inherent to feminist praxis. The approach tends to utilize an open‐ended format, and it situates both the interview subject and narrator in a dynamic interaction with the interviewer. This interaction thus creates an exchange that holds multiple possibilities for the sharing of authority over the construction and interpretation of the oral history itself (Leavy 2011, pp. 8–9). However, the dynamic between narrators and interviewers is not quite so simple in practice. Gluck and Patai’s 1991 Women’s Words: The Feminist Practice of Oral History is an edited collection that brought together essays from scholars trained in a range of fields. They argued in their introduction that: Whatever control they [narrators] exercise during the interview, when they are able to negotiate the terrain, usually ends once the session is complete. This shift in control over the narrative reveals the potential for appropriation hiding under the comforting rationale of empowerment. (Gluck and Patai 1991, p. 2)

This early collection highlighted the need to open up discussions about the ethical and methodological challenges of oral history, and 20 years later Gluck returned to

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the political dimensions of this methodology. Her 2011 essay “Has Feminist Oral History Lost Its Radical/Subversive Edge?” marked a shift from a first generation. The first generation included scholars like Elizabeth Kennedy Lapovsky, who uncovered histories that were previously denied and were largely focused on relatively narrow approaches to women’s and lesbian and gay history; these histories centered autobiography and were insufficiently engaged with non‐white or economically privileged communities (Gluck 2011, p. 65). Gluck identified a second generation emerging in the 1990s that integrated an intersectional approach, one that challenged narratives such as the feminist wave model, citing the work of scholars such as Premilla Nadasen, A. Finn Enke, and Tamar Carroll (Nadasen 2005; Enke 2007; Gluck 2011, p. 67; Carroll 2015). Across these groups, Gluck found that scholars claimed a continuing relevance of oral history to social movements because they shift discourses and provide a platform for activists to share their knowledge as well as learn from their histories. For scholars working within the field of queer history, there are ongoing challenges around the politics of oral history. Nan Boyd asked “Who Is the Subject? Queer Theory Meets Oral History” in her 2008 essay for the Journal of the History of Sexuality. As Najmabadi took on concerns about archival methodologies, Boyd turned to the frequent use of oral histories in the field. Drawing upon Foucaultian understandings of sexuality and power, she was concerned with the centrality of sexual self‐disclosure to oral histories (Boyd 2008, pp. 178–179). While some early works in the field (D’Emilio 1983; Bérubé 1990) did not substantively address methodology, she identified an important example of reflective and circumspect use of oral histories. She returned to Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy and Madeline D. Davis’ acclaimed 1993 Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The History of a Lesbian Community. Their book studied Buffalo, New York’s working‐class lesbian community from the 1930s into the 1960s and drew upon over 40 oral history interviews. As Boyd noted, “they outline a method that enables them to produce results that lean toward material reality without dismissing discursive limitations. They asked open questions.  .  . Narrators, they argued, interview themselves” (Boyd  2008, p. 182). While they used other materials for background information, they drew upon a set of interviews to crosscheck and gain a sense of a cohort’s ideas and practices of sex. Along with other scholars discussed, Boyd applauds Kennedy and Davis’ recognition of the limits of their interviews, e.g. in terms of visibility, while making these challenges legible to readers in the text (Boyd 2008, p. 183). As these practices have continued, Boyd identified increasing sophistication but ongoing challenges for oral historians, such as interviewees asking her to remove their references to lesbian sadomasochism and sex work (Boyd 2008, p. 189). She argued that approaches such as John Howard’s use of “secondhand stories challenge us to comprehend the way the history of sexuality is structured through the voices of intelligible speakers. We understand the ‘men who liked that’ through the voices of ‘men like that’” (Howard 1999; Boyd 2008, p. 189). Scholars continued to struggle with questions of representation, building a deeper canon through collections such as Boyd and Roque Ramirez’s 2012 Bodies of Evidence: The Practice of Queer Oral History. At the same time, with the 2017 republishing of ¡Cuéntamelo! Oral Histories by LGBT Latino Immigrants, a bilingual collection of seven migrants, Juliana Delgado Lopera demonstrated the ongoing willingness for the collection of oral



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­ istories from beyond the academy. In light of queer Latinx politics becoming h increasingly visible in the mainstream, the multicultural women’s press, Aunt Lute, took on releasing Lopera’s collection after her self‐published edition of 300 books sold out in the first day (Kost 2017). Oral history provides opportunities for historians conducting research, particularly in postcolonial contexts, to collect and analyze women’s histories in a manner that is attuned to both power dynamics and ambivalences highlighted in theoretical works. African diaspora studies and gender and women’s studies scholar Selina Makana built on the work of scholars such as and Kumari Jayawardena (1986) Anne McClintock (1993) and about the connections between women, nation, culture, and motherhood. She used the framework of patriotic motherhood, “the complex interweaving of societal expectations around women’s reproductive labor with the politics of nationalism” and situated her work within a robust set of scholarship addressing women’s participation in African anti‐colonial and nationalist movements (Urdang  1979,  1989; Geisler 1987; Hassim 1993; Geiger 1997; Kaler 1997; Sheldon 2002; Schmidt 2005; Tripp et al. 2009; Decker 2014; Makana 2017, p. 354). She drew upon “twenty‐five ethnographic interviews with Angolan women ex‐combatants” and found that women used “patriotic motherhood as a positive and affirming resistance to racial and colonial subjugation” (Makana 2017, p. 352, 356). Rather than assume an essential relationship between motherhood and nation, Makana’s essay used oral histories to trace how ideas and practices of motherhood shifted under colonization and during the armed conflict. As a result, she succeeded in addressing the role of women and motherhood in war while refusing to naturalize these linkages and practices. Oral histories have also served as a resource for fictional accounts of feminist history. In Deepti Misri’s 2011 essay “The Violence of Memory: Renarrating Partition Violence in Shauna Singh Baldwin’s What the Body Remembers,” she considers how the novelist Singh Baldwin wrote a nuanced history of the India‐Pakistan Partition. Singh Baldwin used oral histories from Indian feminist publisher and activist Urvashi Butalia’s 1998 The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India. Butalia based her book on interviews conducted over 10 years and put them into context with personal and governmental documents. Singh Baldwin’s (1999) novel draws on Butalia’s collection by fictionalizing an account of a woman’s dismemberment that was told twice by her brother in a manner that raises doubts about the woman’s willing participation in her killing (Misri 2011, pp. 13–14). Through her use of fiction, Singh Baldwin is able to draw readers into these stories as witnesses. Misri argues that in the novel, “gendered bodies serve not merely as sites or ‘grounds’ of inscription for violence. . . but also as living archives that house the memory of violence” (Misri 2011, p. 20). In this manner, Singh Baldwin’s novel demonstrates the potential of oral histories and fiction to create feminist histories akin to the work of scholars such as Morgan and Fuentes in their work with archives.

Feminist Praxis Futures Along with the methodological approaches outlined above, scholars are increasingly using digital technologies to research, collaborate, and share their work. For example, the Queering Slavery Working Group has brought together scholars concerned

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with questions of intimacy, sexuality, and sex in the Atlantic Slave trade; they have come together virtually and in‐person to support and collaborate with each other. Their project, along with many others, is highlighted in The Digital Archive section of the slyly named site Africa is a Country; the project connects archival and historiographical work to the site’s commitment to African and diaspora politics. As librarians across the world build digital collections and create newly accessible opportunities for people interested in feminist histories, activists and public intellectuals are also sharing in the possibilities created by the emergence of the internet. Feminist historians also take on a public role beyond the walls of the academy. For example, Laura Briggs, who has written histories of gender and empire, wrote an explicitly political reading of recent history. Her 2017 book, How All Politics Became Reproductive Politics from Welfare Reform to Foreclosure to Trump, is an example of a feminist historian turning to writing a well‐argued and substantiated text to address policy. Feminist historians are also increasingly using Wikipedia in the classroom and in edit‐a‐thons to improve the open source encyclopedia. As a leading source of information for people across the globe, Wikipedia is an important platform for engagement, yet it continues to have a dearth not only of women editors but also subject matter that is not associated with contemporary hegemonic masculinity. Through concerted efforts that include feminist teachers, professors, librarians, archivists, and community groups, feminist history is increasingly becoming part of this resource. Historian Tamar Carroll has taken her work on social history as a basis for work on Wikipedia in the classroom as well as for a public arts collaboration. The exhibit, “‘Whose Streets? Our Streets!’ New York City: 1980–2000” highlights work by over 30 photojournalists to share images from a range of social movements; during these two decades, New Yorkers protested local, national, and international issues ranging from HIV/AIDS and police brutality to gentrification and war. These different examples show the potential to use more “old school” approaches such as exhibitions and work in archives with “new school” web‐based platforms and internet communication technologies, all of which demonstrate that the field of feminist historiography continues to emerge.

Conclusion What brings us back to remembrance is both individual and collective; both intentional and an act of surrender. . . Daring to recognize each other again and again in a context that seems bent on making strangers of us all. . . (Alexander 2005, p. 278). Efforts to reject the historical amnesia that makes us strangers to each other requires ongoing efforts to refine, reconsider, and repurpose historical concepts, methods, and findings. In 2017, the Brooklyn Museum curated an exhibition “We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965–85,” that focused on “the political, social, cultural, and aesthetic priorities of women of color during the emergence of second‐wave feminism” (Brooklyn Museum 2018). It was the first exhibition centering feminist women of color artists during this period. The exhibition offered insight into the historical continuities around the difficulties found in pursuing intersectional feminist praxis across contexts; it also demonstrated the central role that  historical methods and memory play in settings beyond the academy. As the



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exhibition traveled, it introduced visitors to historical materials from meeting notes, letters to family members and friends, journals, and news coverage; these materials were present alongside photographs of performance art pieces and a mix of artwork including clothing, video, photography, painting, and multimedia pieces. The exhibition broke down assumptions about US feminism and provided insight into how the women of color artists included in the exhibition, primarily Black women, navigated the art world, Black artist collectives, and feminist groups that were mixed‐race as well as women of color spaces. A key artwork included in the exhibition is Lorna Simpson’s The Waterbearer (1986). The piece features an image of a dark‐skinned woman standing in a white loose garment, facing away from the camera, as she pours water out of two containers. In one hand, she holds a silver pitcher and in the other, a plastic jug. Underneath the photograph, the words in all caps read: SHE SAW HIM DISAPPEAR BY THE RIVER, THEY ASKED HER TO TELL WHAT HAPPENED, ONLY TO DISCOUNT HER MEMORY. As bell hooks wrote in her essay about Simpson’s artwork: Her knowledge threatens – cannot be heard. She cannot bear witness. She is refused that place of authority and voice that would allow her to be a subject in history . . . By turning her back on those who cannot hear her subjugated knowledge speak, she creates by her own gaze an alternative space where she is both self‐defining and self‐determining . . . The black woman in the photograph understands that memory has healing power . . . Hers is a portrait of serenity, of being, of making peace with oppositional history. (hooks 1993, p. 136)

Through this photograph and text, Simpson addresses the fundamental function of feminist historiography  –  claiming knowledge. While scholars differ in their approaches, they share the common aim to uncover, preserve, or differently read histories that contain the subjugated knowledges of women and other marginalized groups. As a form of oppositional historical practice, such efforts provide an opportunity to create recognition instead of the estrangement that is too often reaffirmed by historical narratives that ignore or misrepresent how we have lived our lives.

References Alexander, M.J. (2005). Pedagogies of Crossing: Meditations on Feminism, Sexual Politics, Memory, and the Sacred. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Baldwin, S.S. (1999). What the Body Remembers. New York: Anchor Books. Becker, C. (1938). What is historiography? American Historical Review 44 (1): 20–28. Beins, A. (2015). Making a place for lesbian life at the lesbian herstory archives. In: Out of the Closet, into the Archives: Researching Sexual Histories (eds. A.L. Stone and J. Cantrell), 25–50. Albany: State University of New York Press.

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Bennett, J.M. (2000). ‘Lesbian‐like’ and the social history of lesbianism. Journal of the History of Sexuality 9.1 (2): 1–24. Bérubé, A. (1990). Coming Out Under Fire: The History of Gay Men and Women in World War Two. New York: The Free Press. Boyd, N.A. (2008). Who is the subject? Queer theory meets oral history. Journal of the History of Sexuality 17 (2): 177–189. Boyd, N.A. and Roque Ramirez, H.N. (2012). Bodies of Evidence: The Practice of Queer Oral History. New York: Oxford University Press. Briggs, L. (2017). How All Politics Became Reproductive Politics: From Welfare Reform to Foreclosure to Trump. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Brooklyn Museum. (2018). We wanted a revolution: black radical women, 1965–85. Accessed August 3 2018. https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/we_wanted_a_revolution. Butalia, U. (1998). The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India. Penguin Books India. Carroll, T.W. (2015). Mobilizing New York: AIDS, Antipoverty, and Feminist Activism. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. Clifton, L. (2015). The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton 1965–2010. BOA Editions Ltd. Cohen, C. (1997). Punks, bulldaggers, and welfare queens: the radical potential of queer politics? GLQ 3 (4): 437–465. Collins, P.H. and Bilge, S. (2016). Intersectionality. Malden, MA: Polity Press. Crenshaw, K. (1989). Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: a black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory and antiracist politics. The University of Chicago Legal Forum 140: 139–167. Crenshaw, K. (1991). Mapping the margins: intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. Stanford Law Review 43 (6): 1241–1299. Cvetkovich, A. (2015). Foreword. In: Out of the Closet, into the Archives: Researching Sexual Histories (eds. A.L. Stone and J. Cantrell), xv–xviii. Albany: State University of New York Press. Davis, N.Z. (1976). ‘Women’s history’ in transition: the European case. Feminist Studies 3 (3/4): 83–103. Decker, A. (2014). In Idi Amin’s Shadow: Women, Gender, and Militarism in Uganda. Athens: Ohio University Press. D’Emilio, J. (1983). Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities: The Making of a Homosexual Minority in the United States. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Enke, A.F. (2007). Finding the Movement: Sexuality, Contested Space, and Feminist Activism. Duke University Press. Fuentes, M.J. (2016). Dispossessed Lives: Enslaved Women, Violence, and the Archive. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Geiger, S. (1990). What’s so feminist about women’s oral history? Journal of Women’s History 2 (1): 169–182. Geiger, S. (1997). TANU Women: Gender and Culture in the Making of Tanganyikan Nationalism, 1955–1965. Portsmouth: Heinemann. Geisler, G. (1987). Sisters under the skin: women and the women’s league in Zambia. The Journal of Modern African Studies 25 (1): 43–66. Glenn, C. (2000). Truth, lies, and method: revisiting feminist historiography. College English 62 (3): 387–389. Gluck, S.B. (2011). Has feminist oral history lost its radical/subversive edge? Oral History 39 (2): 63–72.



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Gluck, S.B. and Patai, D. (1991). Introduction. In: Women’s Words: The Feminist Practice of Oral History (eds. S.B. Gluck and D. Patai), 1–6. New York: Routledge. Hassim, S. (1993). Feminism, motherhood, and Zulu nationalism: the politics of the Inkatha’s women’s brigade. Feminist Review 43: 1–25. Hewitt, N.A. (1985). Beyond the search for sisterhood: American women’s history in the 1980s. Social History 10 (3): 299–321. Hewitt, N.A. (2010). Introduction. In: No Permanent Waves: Recasting Histories of U.S. Feminism (ed. N.A. Hewitt), 1–12. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. hooks, b. (1993). Lorna Simpson: Waterbearer. Artforum International 32 (1): 136. hooks, b. (2014). Feminism Is for Everybody, 2e. New York: Routledge. Howard, J. (1999). Men Like that: A Southern Queer History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Hutchison, E.Q. (2001). Labors Appropriate to Their Sex: Gender, Labor, and Politics in Urban Chile, 1900–1930. Durham: Duke University Press. Jayawardena, K. (1986). Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World. London: Zed Press. Kaler, A. (1997). Maternal identity and war in ‘mothers of the revolution’. NWSA Journal 9 (1): 1–21. Kennedy, E.L. and Davis, M.D. (1993). Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The History of a Lesbian Community. New York: Routledge. Kost, Ryan. (2017). “¡Cuéntamelo! Oral Histories by LGBT Latino Immigrants.” San Francisco Gate, December 7. https://www.sfgate.com/books/article/Cu‐ntamelo‐Oral‐Histories‐by‐ LGBT‐Latino‐12413448.php. Leavy, P. (2011). Oral History. New York: Oxford University Press. Lerner, Gerda. (1988). “Priorities and Challenges in Women’s History Research.” Perspectives on History. April. https://www.historians.org/publications‐and‐directories/perspectives‐ on‐history/april‐1988/priorities‐and‐challenges‐in‐womens‐history‐research. Lopera, J.D. (2017). ¡Cuéntamelo! Oral Histories by LGBT Latino Immigrants. San Francisco, CA: Aunt Lute Press. Luibhéid, E. (2002). Entry Denied: Controlling Sexuality at the Border. Minneapolis; London: University of Minnesota Press. Mahmood, S. (2004). Women’s agency within feminist historiography. The Journal of Religion 84 (4): 573–379. Makana, S. (2017). Motherhood as activism in the Angolan people’s war, 1961–1975. Meridians 15 (2): 353–381. Matthews, S. (2001). Thinking of Thecla: issues in feminist historiography. Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 17 (2): 39–55. May, V.M. (2007). Anna Julia Cooper, Visionary Black Feminist: A Critical Introduction. New York: Routledge. McClintock, A. (1993). Family feuds: gender, nationalism and the family. Feminist Review 44: 61–80. Misri, D. (2011). The violence of memory: renarrating partition violence in Shauna Singh Baldwin’s What the Body Remembers. Meridians 11 (1): 1–25. Morgan, J.L. (2004). Laboring Women: Reproduction and Gender in New World Slavery. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Nadasen, P. (2005). Welfare Warriors: The Welfare Rights Movement in the United States. New York: Routledge. Najmabadi, A. (2006). Beyond the Americas: are gender and sexuality useful categories of analysis? Journal of Women’s History 18 (1): 11–21.

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Naples, N.A. and Dobson, M. (2001). Feminists and the welfare state: aboriginal health care workers and U.S. community workers of color. NWSA Journal 13 (3): 116–137. Narayan, U. (1998). Essence of culture and a sense of history: a feminist critique of cultural essentialism. Hypatia 13 (2): 86–106. Ngai, M.M. (2004). Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ONE Archives. (2018). “History.” Accessed August 3 2018. https://one.usc.edu/about/history. Raitt, S. and Ray, R. (2004). Preface. Feminist Studies 30 (3): 561–565. Ritchie, D.A. (2015). Doing Oral History, 3e. New York: Oxford University Press. Rupp, L.J. (2006). Is the feminist revolution still missing? Reflections from women’s history. Social Problems 53 (4): 466–472. Schmidt, E. (2005). Mobilizing the Masses: Gender, Ethnicity, and Class in the Nationalist Movement in Guinea, 1939–1958. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Scott, J.W. (1986). Gender: a useful category of historical analysis. American Historical Review 91 (5): 1053–1075. Scott, J.W. (1991). The evidence of experience. Critical Inquiry 17 (4): 773–797. Sheldon, K. (2002). Pounders of Grain: A History of Women, Work and Politics in Mozambique. Portsmouth: Heinemann. Smith‐Rosenberg, C. (1986). Writing history: language, class, and gender. In: Feminist Studies/ Critical Studies (ed. T. de Lauretis), 31–54. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Spiegel, G.M. (1990). History, historicism, and the social logic of the text in the Middle Ages. Speculum 65 (1): 59–86. Tripp, A.M., Casimiro, I., Kwesiga, J., and Mungwa, A. (2009). African Women’s Movements: Changing Political Landscapes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Urdang, S. (1979). Fighting Two Colonialisms: Women in Guinea‐Bissau. New York: Monthly Review Press. Urdang, S. (1989). And Still They Dance: Women, War, and the Struggle for Change in Mozambique. London: Earthscan. Withers, D.M. (2014). Strategic affinities: historiography and epistemology in contemporary feminist knowledge politics. European Journal of Women’s Studies 22 (2): 129–142.

18 Feminism, Gender, and, Popular Culture Diane Grossman

Feminism has always had a complicated relationship with popular culture, ranging from a near‐complete repudiation by radicals to demands for inclusivity from liberals to postmodern approaches that emphasize textual polysemy to third‐ and even fourth‐wave feminist reclamations of “girl power.” Critics of popular culture have tended to vilify it because “women are depicted as second‐class citizens in popular films, television, advertising, and newspapers, which is supposed to have disastrous consequences for their self‐image” (Hermes 1995, p. 56). Liberal and neoliberal feminists have offered a more tempered critique, seeking not to reject popular culture in toto but rather to advocate for the inclusion of more (and more positive) models of women that transcend gender stereotypes. All of these critical perspectives share both a focus on the production and content of popular culture and an assumption that texts are univocal. In contrast, psychoanalytic theorists and cultural studies ­critics have shifted the focus to women’s reception of popular texts. In many cases, they seek to understand the pleasure that so many women derive from their viewing experiences; for some, it is vital to move beyond simplistic explanations like “false consciousness” to understand and perhaps even respect women’s choices and desires. Some theorists, especially lesbians and women of color, have emphasized marginalized women’s agency and their ability to “read against the grain”;1 such perspectives offer alternative readings of even the most maligned texts. Feminist post‐structuralist thinkers, influenced by Freud and Lacan, venture beyond both reception and production to theorize gender as a sign rather than as tied to specific female bodies. Such theorists have linked the degraded popular to the feminine, not only because popular culture genres tend to be filled with women as subjects, but also because the passivity and “moral vacuousness” associated with mass‐market culture and consumers of such culture have been “feminized” (Huyssen 1986); thus, to reclaim the popular might be understood as reclaiming a woman’s domain. Despite their differences, these theoretical vantage points all presuppose that popular cultural texts speak with one voice. They ignore the fissures and ambiguities in Companion to Feminist Studies, First Edition. Edited by Nancy A. Naples. © 2021 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Published 2021 by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

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popular texts and assume a hegemonic reading. In contrast, late twentieth and early twenty‐first century cultural critics (both in and out of feminist theory) have deployed a number of theoretical lenses, including postmodern theory, to argue that debates over the value of popular culture often mask the reality that popular culture is not monolithic or static, and that the “texts” (whether written or visual) comprising popular culture often produce contradictory effects; those contradictions might even be a source of pleasure for viewers. This chapter explores these competing perspectives on gender and popular culture, concluding with a brief look at how popular culture today constructs both the feminine and the feminist.

What Is Popular Culture? Cultural studies professor John Storey (2018) maintains that there are at least six different definitions of popular culture, and, though this brief chapter cannot elaborate on those competing definitions, one should note that there is no consensus on what defines popular culture. The field itself is unquestionably eclectic, ranging from studies of film noir to the Harlequin romance to Beatles music to reality television to professional wrestling to dating sites to cooking shows and much more. Further, the very boundaries of popular culture are often unclear, as is the case with television, where advertising and programming may blur, where fan communities tweet and blog in reaction to shows they are watching, or with crossover trends, where popular stars become associated with product lines.2 Despite controversies over what constitutes the field, Ray Browne’s (1988b) succinct definition probably provides a useful and simple way into the study of the field. For Browne, founder of US popular culture studies, popular culture is the “vernacular, everyday culture of the people, as opposed to the narrow elitist culture which artificially constitutes some ten percent of a national’s lifestyle” (1988b, p. i). Later he refers to it as “our total life picture” (1988a, p. 1). In addition, much of popular culture is targeted at small audiences,3 what sociologist Herbert Gans (1999) terms “taste cultures” that share “common aesthetic values and standards of taste” (p. 6). Viewers of popular culture know that the field is profit‐oriented, and, as a result, popular culture is often characterized by self‐referentiality and an ironic tone. Further, given that most popular culture production is complex and often involves the labor of many individuals, the resulting work may contain within it conflicts and fissures ripe for analysis, including feminist analysis. Most scholars agree that popular culture is a product of mid‐ to late‐twentieth century technologies that allowed the easy proliferation and reproduction of a variety of cultural products – film, television, radio, books, and music, for example. In the late twentieth and early twenty‐ first centuries, new digital technologies have rendered popular culture more diverse, more individualized, and more ephemeral; the omnipresence of personalized blogs, individual and group Facebook accounts, tweets, Instagram, and Pinterest means that popular culture is both personal and mass. New technologies also mean that popular culture is now global, and as such can disrupt or/ and reinforce geographic and political divisions. Further, “entertainment is said to be the USA’s biggest export” (During 2005, p. 14), so there is no question of the influence



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of global markets on popular culture. Given that academic study has tended to focus on the enduring, the weighty, and the universal, theorizing popular culture – given its diversity, its transitoriness, and its local nature – has seemed to require a defense. And, perhaps precisely for the same reasons, studying popular culture is often lauded as anti‐elitist and democratizing. But the growing hegemony of popular culture was not initially embraced by cultural theorists, and Frankfurt School theorists Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer (1993) wrote scathing critiques of the then‐emerging genres of popular film and music. Looking at the production of mainstream culture, from radio to television to film to magazines to “women’s serials” (p. 13) (which they later denigrate as “idiotic” [p. 16]), they see no individual voice or manner of expression anywhere. In the classic 1944 essay “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception,” Adorno and Horkheimer bemoan the homogeneity of mass culture: “culture now impresses the same stamp on everything” (p. 1). Personality is reduced to “shiny white teeth and freedom from body odor and emotions” (p. 24). Thus, any “individuality” one imagines in these cultural artifacts is an illusion: In the culture industry the individual is an illusion not merely because of the standardization of the means of production. He is tolerated only so long as his complete identification with the generality is unquestioned. Pseudo individuality is rife: from the standardized jazz improvisation to the exceptional film star whose hair curls over her eye to demonstrate her originality. …The peculiarity of the self is a monopoly commodity determined by society; it is falsely represented as natural. It is no more than the mustache, the French accent, the deep voice of the woman of the world, the Lubitsch touch: finger prints on identity cards which are otherwise exactly the same … (p. 18)

Films, they argue, are all predictable; “as soon as the film begins, it is quite clear how it will end” (p. 3). As Marxists, they emphasize the centrality of mass or popular culture to ideology (it tames “revolutionary and barbaric instincts” [p. 17]), and they note the ways that popular culture blurs with commercial advertising, ultimately bolstering capitalist ideology and exacerbating alienation. Perhaps as a product of 1960s radical countercultural and second‐wave feminist activism, an emerging body of scholarship from the 1960s to the 1980s defended popular culture against these kinds of universalizing claims. In 1970, Russel Nye maintained that studying popular culture, if done “seriously and with proper purpose and methodology,” can enable us to achieve a “broader and deeper understanding of our society” (p. 80). In 1974, Gans argued for “cultural democracy” (p. xi), and defended popular culture against critics who claimed it was a threat to democracy, exploitative of the masses, and a vulgarization of high culture. For Gans, popular culture is not a danger to democracy, and he simplistically maintains that “all taste cultures are of equal worth” (p. xv), that the differences between high and popular culture have been exaggerated by critics of popular culture, and that “everyone should get the culture they want” (p. xvi). Further, for Gans, audiences are not passively imbibing whatever they are fed in popular culture; “I cannot subscribe to the notion that popular culture is simply imposed on the audience from above” (p. xi). Later, in the 1980s and 1990s, critics like Stuart Hall and John Fiske, while not denying the profit‐motive behind popular culture production, also maintained that a popular cultural text “can no

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longer be seen as a self‐sufficient entity” (Fiske 1997, p. 130), and that popular culture audiences can contest power relations with “semiotic resistance that not only refuses the dominant meanings but constructs oppositional ones that serve the interests of the subordinate” (Fiske 1989, p. 10). Popular culture, then, offers the potential for resistance and critique, though early critiques were written largely by men and, for the most part, ignored the role of gender in popular texts. The field of popular culture is now more than 50 years old, and it is rare that cultural critics today feel the need to justify their interest in the subjects that comprise the field. But, for some time, given the inherent elitism of “high” theory, academics and activists who sought to study popular culture had to defend their focus on the “low.” Further, feminist critics sought to salvage so‐called “women’s texts,” largely neglected in both mainstream and popular culture scholarship. Cultural critics like sociologist Andrea Walsh maintained that examining the texts of popular culture can, unlike traditional historical research, not only provide a lens into a culture’s surface but also reveal hidden (and often contradictory) fantasies “through the mediation of myth and symbol” (Walsh 1986, p. 4). The analyst of popular culture must abandon the criteria of realism at the door of the theater, the cover of the novel, the dial of the television or radio. It is not sufficient to measure fiction against real life. Rather, to interpret popular culture, one must enter the world of cultural mediation, of symbol and metaphor, of collective dream and fantasy. The challenge of cultural analysis is to decode that symbolic structure, and analyze why audiences and readers … prefer particular patterns of fantasy over others. (Walsh 1986, p. 6)

Those fantasies, as critics like Simon During point out, “help to form identity” (2005, p. 193), and can even provide the basis for obsession. “It’s the mirror in which the culture recognises itself…. It draws national – and international – communities together, dotting conversations and private and communal memories” (p. 193). And writing in 1988, political scientist James Combs predicted a “popular culture revolution” of the twentieth and twenty‐first centuries such that popular culture would alter consciousness. He argues presciently that soon fantasy will supersede reality, and “entertainment [will] become the ‘ritual center’ of our lives,” providing the meaningfulness that was once expected of religion. Given that many feminists, post‐structuralists, and the vast majority of gender theorists view “gender” itself as a social construction the study of popular culture is particularly well‐suited to the analysis of gender; further, one can profitably use “gender” as a lens through which to understand popular culture itself. However, it was not until feminist theorists began to explore popular culture texts that analyses of gender became central to the field. And the proliferation of work over the last thirty of so years on “readings” of popular culture texts suggests how ripe the field is for feminist interventions and methodologies. As a number of feminist theorists have pointed out, we ignore or vilify popular culture at our own peril; Australian writer Catherine Lumby (1997), for example, notes: “If feminism is to remain engaged with and relevant to the everyday lives of women, then feminists desperately need the tools to understand everyday culture … the prime means of communication in our culture” (p. 174).



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Second‐Wave Feminism, Gender, and Popular Culture In the 1960s, Anglo‐American feminism launched an attack on representation – often media representation – of women; these critiques focused on the invisibility of women in media, and on the ways that such works, when they did feature women, reinscribed traditional gender stereotypes. Betty Friedan, in the classic 1963 second‐ wave work, The Feminine Mystique, has nothing but contempt for the “image by which modern American women live” (p. 34), an image she believes has been “created by the women’s magazines, by advertisements, television, movies, novels, columns, and books by experts on marriage and the family” (p. 34). Clearly, Friedan’s analysis begs the question whether there ever was one image of “American” women, and her blindness to race and class privilege as well as the heterosexist nature of her argument, limits the analysis’s usefulness. Nevertheless, her approach reflects the dominant strain of second‐wave Anglo‐American feminism that popular culture – along with economic inequality like the wage gap – was a major source of women’s oppression; further, it maintained that, unlike the wage gap, media representation of women both produced and reinforced gender role socialization. Likewise, Germaine Greer, arguably a more radical second‐wave feminist than Friedan, was highly critical of mass media. In her classic work, The Female Eunuch (1970, reissued 1991), she lambastes the “highly sophisticated accounts” (p. 128) of Freud, Karen Horney, Erik Erikson, Plato, Aristotle, Herbert Marcuse, and others. But, along with those attacks, she also condemns a wide variety of popular cultural artifacts. She notes, for example, that “every women’s magazine” warns of the “horrors of vaginal odour” (p. 44). She denounces popular songs (pp. 183–184) for their messages about love; “pulp stories” (p. 189) and “romantic fiction” (p. 191) where female protagonists give up independence and careers for the sake of a “husband’s pressing love” (p. 189); and “trash weeklies”4 (p. 195) that cater to teenage girls and sell millions of copies a week, and are preoccupied with clothes and populated by women who “cherish the chains of their bondage” (p. 202). Not even Charles Shultz’s Peanuts cartoon series is immune to her hostility, as Greer reads the character of Lucy as an anti‐feminist, misogynist foil to the beleaguered Charlie Brown (p. 327). In other second‐wave feminist analyses of popular culture, feminists went beyond abstract theorizing to inventory the actual content of popular cultural texts in order to draw attention to gender stereotyping. For example, in 1970, Jan Sinott reviewed 34 hours of Saturday morning cartoons for the journal Off Our Backs. She created a scale of 1 through 5 for the “chauvinism” of the programming, where a “1” meant a “liberated female character.” Sinott found no 1s and only one 2, and the majority of the shows earned 4s or 5s (Blakemore 2015). Such second‐wave projects continue in more popular tools like the “Bechdel Test,” which first appeared in Alison Bechdel’s comic strip “Dykes to Watch Out For” (1986), as a personal policy of one of the characters who boycotts any film that doesn’t have at least two female characters5 who talk to each other about something other than a man. This “body count” approach suffers from a number of problems, not the least of which is that it conflates gender and sex, and seems to presume that the mere presence of strong female characters is feminist. Such analyses share at least three questionable approaches: first, they ignore or discount viewers’ responses, in particular the pleasure that viewers may derive from

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popular cultural texts. “False consciousness” seems far too facile an explanation for such a complicated phenomenon. Second, these analyses conflate sex and gender. That is, they tend to assume that by counting women’s bodies, we have also accounted for gender and for gender messaging. Finally, these critical perspectives beg the question whether there is consensus as to what counts as a feminist and/or emancipatory text. Later popular cultural analyses would challenge all of these claims. Paving the way for such a shift was John Berger’s groundbreaking 1972 work, Ways of Seeing, which moved away from analyses of production or of content to explore reception, to theorize how viewers see. Using images from classical art as well as popular advertising and mass media, Berger’s thesis is fairly simple: that “the way we see things is affected by what we know or what we believe” (1972, p. 3). Seeing, for Berger, comes before speaking or writing, and, once we realize that we see, we also realize that we can be seen. Further, Berger argues that in an age when images can be mechanically reproduced,6 those images can be used for a variety of purposes and to convey a variety of messages; thus, the “meaning” of an image is no longer fixed (if it ever was). Images can be used to serve commercial purposes or political purposes or even to caricature the original image. As a result, the “modern means of reproduction” has destroyed the “authority of art” (p. 32). Berger’s analysis provides a foundation for understanding not only gender dynamics in the visual but also how that dynamic may be disruptable. The “presence” of men in art is dramatically different from the presence of women in art; men’s presence promises power, whether it be moral, physical, spiritual or political; and that power is exteriorized. By contrast, women’s presence reflects an interiorized power which results from how she negotiates her space in a male‐dominated world. As Berger writes, To be born a woman has been to be born, within an allotted and confined space, into the keeping of men. …She has to survey everything she is and everything she does because how she appears to others, and ultimately how she appears to men, is of crucial importance for what is normally thought of as the success of her life. Her own sense of being in herself is supplanted by a sense of being appreciated as herself by another. (p. 46)

Or, as he later puts it, “men act and women appear” (p. 47). Berger implicitly rejects gender essentialism, even as he generalizes about how visual images portray men and women: Women are depicted in a quite different way from men – not because the feminine is different from the masculine – but because the “ideal” spectator is always assumed to be male and the image of the woman is designed to flatter him. (p. 64)

Here Berger anticipates feminists like Sandra Bartky who argue that women possess a kind of double consciousness or self‐estrangement where they see themselves as men see them; in other words, they have internalized the male gaze. What occurs is not just the splitting of a person into mind and body but the splitting of the self into a number of personae, some who witness and some who are witnessed; and,



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if I am correct, some internal witnesses are in fact introjected representatives of agencies hostile to the self. Women have lost control of the production of our own images, lost control to those whose production of these images is neither innocent nor benevolent, but obedient to imperatives which are both capitalist and phallocentric. (Bartky 1982, p. 138)

Out of “obedience to patriarchy,” women police themselves, recognizing that “she is under surveillance in ways that he is not” (Bartky 1988, p. 81). Like Berger and, before him, Simone de Beauvoir (1952), Bartky maintains that gender is not innate – we are not born masculine or feminine (1988, p. 64), but modern disciplinary techniques  –  effective because they are mostly invisible and lateral (“everywhere and nowhere” [1988, p. 74]) – work “in pursuit of a body the right size and shape” (1988, p. 136): docile women’s bodies. Thus, “femininity” as gender expression is not only artificially constructed; it is also an achievement, constructed through women’s own “voluntary” actions and attitudes. Though Barky does not explicitly name popular culture as the enemy, she uses the phrase “fashion‐beauty complex” (1982) to refer to the collective actions of mass‐circulation magazines (Vogue frequently comes under fire) with their omnipresent articles on dieting, advertising, and the fashion and make‐up industries. For Bartky, gender – femininity – is alienation. Given that particular understanding of gender, it is not surprising that theorists of popular culture would position the female viewer as passive and compliant. A number of feminist film critics in the 1970s used psychoanalytic theory, influenced by post‐structuralism and the work of Jacques Lacan, to create what eventually became known as “sexual difference theory.” That theory, associated with journals like Screen and m/f posits the unconscious as central to sexual difference and to gender itself, and led to an “acknowledgement of both the fragmented nature of subjectivity and the difficulty of maintaining stable, unified identities” (Franklin et  al. 1997, p. 259). In her widely cited work, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” (1975), Laura Mulvey uses psychoanalytic and semiotic theory to argue that narrative film places women in the position of the object, of the to‐be‐looked‐at, while men are always already spectators who have the privilege of the gaze. “In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and ­passive/ female” (p. 837). Likewise, feminist film critic Mary Ann Doane (1982) maintains that the female spectator is limited to one of three strategies for viewing a film: she can take on the masculine position (“transvestitism”); she can over‐identify with the female character (“masochism”); or she can “masquerade.” For Mulvey, even the so‐called “femme fatale” of film noir lacks agency, despite appearances to the contrary. Thus, in a patriarchal culture, gender difference is fixed as gender inequality. Given the inevitability of this sexual arrangement, Mulvey and Doane, along with other early feminist media critics, could only argue for the creation of new, avant‐garde films, produced by women (or, rather, by feminist women) that would serve as a form of “counter‐cinema.” By implication, such a view implicitly recommends that women resist and boycott mainstream film and other misogynistic cultural productions. In effect, this analysis either denies the pleasure women derive from mainstream film (and, by extension, popular culture more generally), or identifies that pleasure as a dangerous symptom of false consciousness. And, from a theoretical perspective, the theory itself is unfalsifiable; how can we prove or disprove the idea that gender determines whether

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one’s viewing is active or passive? Further, there seems to be no possibility for a more nuanced or even ambiguous understanding of the role that gender plays in viewing the popular, that is, for an analysis that allows both activity and passivity to be present in the same viewing presence. Many critics also argued that this perspective naturalized gender inequality. On the other hand, the work served to challenge the notion of a self as a unified subject, and to shift the theoretical focus from simplistic readings of content to analyses of fantasy, pleasure, and desire.

Critical Perspectives: The Third Wave Feminists have “long relied on an eclectic combination of frameworks and methods, often extracted from traditional disciplines and reworked to take account of gender” (Franklin et al. 1997, p. 264), and that has perhaps never been truer than in the late twentieth and early twenty‐first century feminist work in popular culture. Third‐ wave feminist analyses, often influenced by post‐structuralism, semiotic theory, critical race theory, and deconstruction as well as activist politics, began with the premise that women could read texts through their own agency, not as passive and mindless viewers or readers. Whereas much of second‐wave theory and activism were structured around an assumed opposition between feminism and femininity, third‐wave feminists have tended to embrace both. For traditional second‐wave theory, including radical feminism, liberal feminism, and Marxist‐feminism, femininity itself was deeply complicit with patriarchy and gender inequality. Further, the women’s movement of the 1960s and the 1970s “was conceived as a social movement that was ‘outside’ of, and frequently oppositional to, the dominant culture” (Hollows and Moseley 2006, p. 3). In addition, the period’s psychoanalytically oriented perspectives on gender and popular culture construct femininity as passivity and submission. However different these theoretical perspectives might be, they share three key premises: first, that women can be treated as a homogeneous group with shared interests and shared experiences under capitalism/patriarchy; second, that the male gaze is universal, active, and monolithic; and, finally, that the gender ideology implicit or explicit in popular culture is unequivocally and uncontroversially problematic. But a large body of scholarship beginning in the 1980s and 1990s challenged those premises; in particular, critics charged psychoanalytic theories of gender with essentialism and overdetermination. Influenced by various types of reader‐response theories, such scholarship paved the way for a shift from “objectivist” readings of texts to a focus on the active reader. As such challenges emerged, feminists began to question whether the gaze is inherently male and whether gender is as overdetermined as many had argued. Teresa de Lauretis (1987), for example, challenged ­feminist analyses of gender as sexual difference. Doing so, she argues, not only positions men in opposition to women; it also undermines the “radical epistemological potential of feminist thought” to posit a “subject … not unified but rather multiple, and not so much divided as contradicted” (p. 2). Gender, then, becomes an effect produced in bodies, but is not any sort of property of bodies. De Lauretis wants us to think of gender “as the product of various social technologies, such as cinema, and of institutionalized discourses, epistemologies, and critical practices, as well as practices of daily life” (p. 2).



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How do we understand the pleasure (often termed “guilty pleasure”) women experience in popular culture? Is there a female gaze with an agency of its own? Is “femininity” necessarily a form of false consciousness, an inevitable passivity? Popular culture theorists, including feminists, began to argue that popular culture – in its variety of manifestations – “cannot be simply categorized as the “top‐ down” imposition of fantasy material on an all‐receptive mass, the audience” (Walsh 1986, p. 3). Often, to do so, these theorists shifted the focus from abstract theoretical discussions of popular media, to ethnographic studies that made women’s voices central, which actually spoke to women. Some analyses found pleasure, others resistance; but all suggested that female viewers were hardly passive dupes of media. Andrea Press (1990), for example, interviewed middle‐class white women about their reactions to the popular primetime soap opera Dynasty (1981–1989).7 Press found that the middle‐class viewers in her study were critical of the show, viewing it as “unrealistic.” Ien Ang (1985) studied Dutch viewers’ reactions to the hit primetime soap opera Dallas to understand the pleasure that the show provided for them; according to Ang, even a Marxist analysis would have to untangle the mode of production of a cultural object from how it is consumed, from its use‐value. Theorists like Hermes argued that working‐class women “resist the soap opera” (Hermes 1995, p. 62), implicitly challenging the universality of women’s experiences. As such theorists shifted their focus from texts to audiences, from the male gaze to feminine narcissism and pleasure, they found empowerment in many of the genres associated with conventional female roles. Tania Modleski (1982), Cora Kaplan (1986), Carol Thurston (1987), and Janice Radway (1984), for example, studied the readers of romantic fiction (including gothic novels, erotic novels, Harlequin romances, and soap operas) in order to determine “how various groups appropriate and use the mass‐produced art of our culture” (Radway 1984, p. 222), thereby producing female subjectivity. They argue that these genres allow women (both literally and figuratively) to effect a break from their own lived experiences. Other critics, mostly feminists of color, questioned what bell hooks describes as the “totalizing agenda” (1992, p. 124) of white feminism and particularly of feminist film criticism. Theorists of color like hooks, Jacqueline Bobo (1988, 1995), and Jane Gaines (1986), like de Lauretis, challenge the feminist cultural critic’s emphasis on gender as sexual difference, but they also add that doing so confines feminist theory to a single‐lensed focus that ultimately erases race. Gaines, for example, argues that the focus on sexual difference has meant that such theory is “unequipped to deal with a film which is about race difference and sexuality” (1986, p. 12). Such critical approaches, including intersectional theory (Crenshaw 1989), maintain that gender cannot be neatly teased apart from other aspects of identity, including race, sexuality, and social class, and that women’s lived experiences cannot be analyzed from a gendered perspective alone. Indeed, for such theorists, gender itself is transformed through its imbrication with other aspects of identity. For theorists of color, women of color have always been “oppositional” readers of popular culture; they have rejected both the phallocentric gaze and the alleged passivity of the white female spectator to offer readings “against the grain” (hooks, p. 126), or what Patrocinio Schweickart (1986) refers to as the “resisting reader” (p. 42) who discovers elements in the text that are “suppressed in the dominant models of reading” (p. 39). More recently, Erin Meyers (2015) notes the ways that women of color viewers often form

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fan communities that tweet or blog to fill in narrative gaps, thereby creating ways to find pleasure in their readings as well as to bond with other women of color. Jacqueline Bobo, using Lawrence Grossberg’s argument that every text offers alternative ways for audiences to decode it, maintains that viewers can read film – here The Color Purple – subversively, against the grain. Women of color, she argues, often possess “an oppositional posture [that] can lead to a subversive reading of a work” (Bobo, 1988). In her extended 1995 work, Black Women as Cultural Readers, Bobo uses textual analysis and interviews to describe the ways that black women, as members of an “interpretive community,” make “productive use” out of even problematic films (p. 4). Bobo hypothesizes that Black women have become adept readers of media, and have learned how to navigate racist images. Analyses such as Bobo’s suggest that viewers can negotiate meaning, and that “the female spectator thus learns to look at new representations of femininity” in popular culture “in a critical manner, but with political involvement and with pleasure” (Smelik 1995, p. 80).8 Centering race in popular culture analysis has transformative potential, and the contrast between two readings of the cultural icon Madonna can provide one such example. Both hooks and mainstream white critic John Fiske offer readings of Madonna, a figure obsessively studied in 1980s popular culture theory. For Fiske, Madonna is a “site of semiotic struggle between the forces of patriarchal control and feminine resistance, of capitalism and the subordinate, of the adult and the young” (1997, p. 132); in Fiske’s view, the parodic aspects of Madonna’s performativity can even challenge patriarchy. Where Fiske reads Madonna through her fan base, and argues that she inspires young girls to “find in her image positive feminine‐centered representations of sexuality” (1989, p. 104), hooks sees a far more ambiguous and potentially dangerous message in her reading of Madonna. Where Fiske does not mention race (and we assume that the fan base he studies is largely if not exclusively white girls), hooks’s focus is on the ways that Madonna works both to “exploit and transgress traditional racial taboos” (p. 161). Where Fiske notes Madonna’s “courage just to be herself” (1989, p. 99), hooks examines the ways that Madonna’s “self” results from an appropriation of black (and gay male) culture. And whereas hooks does not doubt the seductiveness of Madonna’s persona and performance, she also sees that seductiveness as linked problematically to white female gender identity; for hooks, unlike Fiske, the power of seduction must not be confused with the power of real transformation. In 1992, Rebecca Walker, galvanized by the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearing, described in Ms. Magazine a “third wave” that was more racially and sexually inclusive (Walker 1992). Leslie Heywood and Jennifer Drake, editors of the collection Third Wave Agenda: Being Feminist, Doing Feminism (1997), do not repudiate second‐wave feminism but make clear that a new vision of feminism decenters gender; such a vision must “come to terms with the multiple, constantly shifting bases of oppression” (p. 3). The “third wave,” they maintain, contains elements of second wave critique of beauty culture, sexual abuse, and power structures while it also acknowledges and makes use of the pleasure, danger, and defining power of those structures. (p. 3)

Younger feminists, often the beneficiaries of second‐wave feminism, articulated a messier vision of feminism, one where pleasure and danger are not mutually exclusive.



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British cultural theorist Angela McRobbie (1984) observed that teenage girls were able to negotiate an alternative to the hegemonic reading of the film Flashdance by finding an affirming pleasure in their own bodies; in a later work (1991), she explores how girls negotiate their own subcultures. Whereas second‐wave feminism posits femininity as a linchpin in oppression, younger and third‐wave feminists see femininity and feminism as compatible, and popular culture as a site for empowerment (often through sexuality) and identity formation (e.g. Heywood and Drake 1997). Younger feminists grew up with feminism, ironically often through popular culture itself: television programs like Charlie’s Angels (1976–1981), Wonder Woman (1976–1979), My So‐called Life (1994–1995), and Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1996–2003); girls’ magazines like Sassy, Seventeen, and Jackie; entertainers like Madonna, Beyoncé, and the Spice Girls; and films like the “brat pack” series of the 1980s, Clueless (1995), Titanic (1999),9 and Mean Girls (2004). The cultural moment of the 1990s in particular was ripe for entertainment directed at young women, especially teenage girls; both the popular press and scholarly work acknowledged the “rising power” of teenage girls “as a demographic group to be reckoned with” (Karlyn 2011, p. 2). Karlyn’s work looks at the “unruly girls” of film (like the canonical Now, Voyager and the more recent Titanic) who rebel against their more traditional mothers, a trope that could just as easily describe intergenerational feminist conflict. Whereas earlier feminists were proudly “outsiders,” recent contestations – even violent contestations  –  occur within the landscape of popular culture (Hinds and Stacey 2001). Insisting on the oppositional nature of feminism means necessarily that feminism can never become mainstream. Today, for better or for worse, feminism has become part of popular culture. Television shows like 30 Rock (2006– 2013) actively engage with the tensions of gender, power, and feminism itself, making clear the twenty‐first century’s ambivalence about women, especially women in positions of power. Comedy itself, as culture theorist Linda Mizejewski points out, “has become a primary site in mainstream pop culture where feminism speaks, talks back, and is contested” (2014, p. 6). Comedians like Tina Fey, Sarah Silverman, Wanda Sykes, and Ellen DeGeneres challenge the gender stereotype that one can be “pretty” or “funny” but not both. There are clear implications for popular culture and popular culture analysis in this characterization of the third wave. The feminist work of the 1980s and 1990s made it impossible, both theoretically and politically, either to posit “woman” as a unified category or to uncritically extol the notion of “sisterhood.” This new emphasis on difference led naturally to a shift in popular culture analysis, from an earlier insistence on homogenous audiences and unidimensional textual interpretation to an awareness of the ways that the meaning of gender can shift and audiences can challenge a dominant reading. While earlier critics saw popular culture texts as manifestations of top‐down, patriarchal hegemony, these theorists sought to reclaim delegitimized cultural texts and to describe and analyze the ways that female readers negotiated with those texts. To adopt such a position was not to naively assume that capitalism and patriarchy could be ignored; rather, influenced by post‐structuralism, multicultural feminism, and queer theory, among others, the popular culture analyses of the late twentieth century emphasized both the contradictory elements within cultural texts and the viewer’s ability to negotiate with those texts.

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In addition, the rejection of a hegemonic reading of a text allows feminist culture theorists to play with and open up texts to explore competing meanings, even of gender, within those texts. Lisa Coulthard, for example, explores the challenges involved in “reading hybrid and contradictory postmodern texts such as [the film] Kill Bill” (2007, p. 158) whose femininity is idealized as white, heterosexual and eroticized, but where the female characters control the flow of the narrative. Full of graphic violence, typically read as masculine rather than feminine, in Kill Bill the fight scenes all “position gender… at the forefront” and they become opportunities for the women to bond; further, the highly violent fight scenes “are defined by the strong kinetic action of the heroine” (p. 160). Both Coulthard and Jacinda Read (2000) analyze a genre they call “rape‐revenge films” that can easily be read as “simultaneously feminist, antifeminist, classist, racist, and often even radically critical of dominant ideology” (Coulthard 2007, p. 162).10 Adopting a similar theoretical lens, Suzanne Leonard in her book‐length treatment of Fatal Attraction (2009) places the film in the genre of “erotic thriller[s]” (p. 3) like Play Misty for Me and Body Double, and examines the competing genders that populate it. Where many critics saw the 1987 film as an attack on feminism, with its hostile portrayal of career woman Alex,11 Leonard argues that the film suggests a more complicated reading. Fatal Attraction, Leonard argues, offers a “battle of femininities” (p. 33) as wife and mistress face off for the control of the hapless, unfaithful husband. Likewise, Melissa Click refuses neat conclusions about the global success of erotic romances like the Twilight Series and Fifty Shades of Grey; the latter has sold over 70 million copies worldwide. Linking herself to the earlier work of Radway, Click notes that the enormous popularity of these works among women is not the “dire sign” of “women’s submission to our sexualized culture,” but perhaps an indication that “most women’s lives are framed in shades of grey” (2015, p. 29).

Post‐feminism, Gender, and Popular Culture Elana Levine has pointed out that the “cultural products targeted to and experienced primarily by women have proliferated in the twenty‐first century” (2015, p. 1), and that large popular spaces are now signified as feminine. The rise of digital media has allowed for what Levine calls “horizontal relationships” (p. 8), where audiences are fragmented, needs are highly individualized (through blogs and Facebook pages, for example), sources of information are disparate (and often contradictory), and culture has become global. Many traditional forms of popular culture – the women’s magazine, cookbooks, and soap operas, for example – have been displaced by blogs and websites that come and go fairly frequently. Reality television shows like The Bachelor have millions of viewers who then blog their support or opposition to a particular contestant. Celebrities like the Kardashians have thousands if not millions of followers as well as extensive product lines; through the internet, we are able to witness what Barack and Michelle Obama give each other as anniversary gifts. Viewers routinely debate each other, through tweets and blogs, about how to interpret texts. Thus, we are witness to the collapse of the split between the public and the private, and, with the election of reality television star Donald Trump President, between the world of politics and the world of celebrity. The #MeToo movement



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likewise has made activists out of stars like Ashley Judd, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Jennifer Lawrence; feminism has been a subtext if not an explicit topic in the conversations that have resulted.12 Debates about the nature of post‐feminism go beyond the scope of this chapter. But most feminist and cultural studies critics agree that “post‐feminism” emerged in the 1990s and beyond largely as a result of the success of feminism. Bridget Jones’s Diary was one of the “first genres to be labeled ‘post‐feminist’” (Click 2015, p. 20), and television shows like Sex and the City and popular series like The Bachelor are also held up as post‐feminist. Unlike third‐wave feminism, post‐feminism is often actively hostile to feminism. Though that historical shift presupposes feminism (one must note here: liberal feminism), including its gains, at the same time it trivializes or dismisses feminism as old‐fashioned or unnecessary or both. In post‐feminist popular culture, we see working women and mothers, sexually active women and girls, and even what some refer to as “lady porn” (Click 2015). Post‐feminist “sensibility” is highly conscious of age and thereby positions feminism itself as old, passé, and outdated. In post‐feminism, “girlhood is imagined… as being for everyone” (Tasker and Negra 2007, p. 18). Emphasizing the “tropes of freedom and choice” (McRobbie 2009, p. 3), post‐ feminist ideology is highly consumer oriented, and tends to be both race‐ and class‐ blind. Roberts notes that post‐feminist ideology tends to embrace “bourgeois gender identities and the consumer culture that goes with them” (p. 244), and television reality shows that focus on makeovers (e.g. What Not to Wear and The Swan, Nip and Tuck, and others) emblematize post‐feminist values where every one of us has an obligation to be as fit and as beautiful as we can be. Post‐feminism refuses any “exclusionary” definition of feminism; the message is that one can choose one’s own brand of feminism, that one can define it however one chooses. Highly individualistic and apolitical, post‐feminism has both “naturalized popular feminism” and constructed feminism as “extreme, difficult, and unpleasurable” (Tasker and Negra 2007, p. 4). On the other hand, mass viewings of events like the Kavanaugh confirmation ­hearings may underline the continued need for feminist analysis and activism.

Conclusion In June of 1998, the cover of Time magazine asked the question “Is Feminism Dead?” The tie to popular culture was obvious: the last of the four images of women on the cover was Calista Flockhart, the actress who played Allie McBeal on the eponymous television series. And as recently as 2005, cultural critic Simon During wrote of the “withering of feminism,” maintaining that “feminism is no longer cool.” As evidence, he noted that “commercial culture and marketing is [sic] more plastered with images of hot babes than it was before the feminist movement began” (p. 172). Interestingly, During ties the “withering” of feminism to popular culture: feminism, he claims, “was a victim of popular culture which routinely regarded it as an enemy, reducing it to a bunch of stereotypes” (p. 172). But today this characterization is far too simplistic, and that was probably also the case in 2005. If one googles “actresses who say that they’re feminist,” the search produces 2 380 000 hits. Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TED talk “We Should All Be Feminists” has been translated into 47 languages and has now

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received more than 14 850 000 views. Singer Beyoncé has riffed on Adichie’s talk in one of her songs, and even performed with the word ‘feminist’ in large bold letters as the backdrop to her concert. Taylor Swift openly embraced the label “feminist” after being widely criticized for rejecting the label. Emma Watson, one of the stars of the Harry Potter movie series, spoke at the United Nations about women’s rights and feminism, and helped to start the HeForShe movement. Comedian and actress Amy  Poehler founded the Smart Girls organization, and actress Geena Davis’s ­foundations is, as their website notes the first and only research‐based organization working within the media and entertainment industry to engage, educate, and influence content creators, marketers and audiences about the importance of eliminating unconscious bias, highlighting gender balance, challenging stereotypes, creating role models and scripting a wide variety of strong female characters in entertainment and media …

Scarlett Johnansson gave a speech at the January 2017 Women’s March, and Kerry Washington (of Scandal fame) spoke at the 2015 GLAAD Media Awards ceremony. Celebrities who have “come out” as feminist include Claire Danes, Lena Dunham, Ellen Page, Alicia Keys, Anna Kendrick, Charlize Theron, Miley Cyrus, Tina Fey, and many others. In addition, there is empirical research that rejects the notion that feminism has become passé and unappealing to younger women. Hall and Rodriguez, for example, looked at data from 1980 to 1999 and found no evidence that fewer women self‐define as feminist. They write: “Our research shows that post‐feminism currently is a myth; women continue to support feminism and find it relevant in their lives” (2003, p. 878). But they also note the power of perception, and the dangers of relegating feminism to the past. As they put it, “the emphasis on post‐feminism in the popular media may create a future reality in which collective struggle is deemed unnecessary. This possibility is the ultimate danger of the postfeminist argument” (p. 879). It is not surprising, then, that we leave this topic facing ambiguity – it seems clear that feminism is no longer invisible and certainly not the much‐maligned ideology that conservatives love to vilify. But as feminism (and popular culture) become increasingly personal, and increasingly “micro,” we cannot help but wonder what remains of the liberatory potential that many have seen not only in feminism but also in popular culture itself.

Notes 1 There is no consensus on the origin of this expression, but one early appearance can be found in Bartholomae and Patrosky in 1987. Similarly, Judith Fettereley coined the term “the resistant reader” (1978). 2 As of 2013, 42% of the starts of the Real Housewives series started their own product lines (Lee and Kornowski 2013). 3 Even more so with countless cable television channels and internet technologies. 4 Though in the preface to the 1991 reissue of the book, Greer does admit that “women’s magazines are now written for grown‐ups” (p. 9).



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  5 At times, the Test adds that the female characters must be named.   6 Berger acknowledges his debt to Walter Benjamin for this analysis.   7 A reboot has been made of this show, which premiered on October 12, 2017 internationally on Netflix, with 22 episodes planned.   8 Lesbian readers of popular culture have made similar critiques of mainstream feminist analyses.   9 60% of the viewers of Titanic were female, 63% of those viewers were under 25 years old, and 45% of those were repeat viewers (Karlyn 2011). 10 Coulthard ultimately suggests that violent action heroines serve as “markers for the ambivalent and problematic pleasures, regressions, and recidivisms of post‐feminist feminist culture (2007, p. 173); as she points out, in most cases the violence is narrativized as aberrant and exceptional, “purposefully aimed at the reestablishment of family unity” (p. 170). 11 Dan Kehr of the Chicago Tribune in an early review thought that Fatal Attraction made the career woman the “most feared figure in Hollywood films” (Heching 2017). 12 It is noteworthy that the #MeToo movement began with Tarana Burke, an African‐ American woman, but that the movement has been criticized by women of color for its focus on white women (see Prois and Moreno 2018).

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Part IV Feminist Praxis

19 Feminist Pedagogy Danielle M. Currier

A pedagogy is a “science of teaching” (hooks 1989, p. 50), and since the 1970s, feminist pedagogy has emphasized gender as a central aspect of human experience, and thus of teaching and learning. It initially focused on bringing women, women’s voices, and women’s experiences into education as valid and necessary sources of information. Feminist pedagogy developed as theoretical and practical tools to create and promote gender equality in and out of the classroom (through individual, social, and institutional change). Feminist pedagogy has expanded to integrate the multifaceted concept of intersectionality and to include, hear, and honor the myriad voices and experiences of those who have historically been silenced, erased, or ignored. In recent years, it has expanded to address other interlocking systems of oppression including race, class, ethnicity, sexuality, nationality, religion, ability, and other categories of difference and to respond to trans and queer critiques of gender and sexual essentialism in earlier approaches. In that sense, it is more accurate to discuss feminist pedagogies, than to consider it in the singular. Since education is at the center of socialization for most societies, the ideologies underlying teaching and learning affect how individuals (and societies) will view knowledge, other people, and themselves. As Richard Schauall wrote in his preface to Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970), There is no such thing as a neutral educational practice. Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate the integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity to it, or it becomes “the practice of freedom,” the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world. (Schaull 1970, p. 15)

Historically, the “present system,” or status quo, has disadvantaged women of all races, classes, and sexualities. Women were primarily excluded from the “hallowed Companion to Feminist Studies, First Edition. Edited by Nancy A. Naples. © 2021 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Published 2021 by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

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halls of learning” in higher education, and when they were allowed in, they were usually marginalized and kept in subordinate positions (Collins 1990; Johnson 2014; Lorber and Farrell 1990; Stacey and Thorne 1985). This was particularly salient for women of color and queer women, and consequently, most of what was taught and considered knowledge came from white, heterosexual, male‐centric positions (Belenky et al. 1986; Collins 1990; Deats and Lenker 1994; Ellsworth 1989; Freire 1970; hooks, 1984; hooks, 1989; hooks, 1994; Johnson 2014; Lorber and Farrell 1990; Stacey and Thorne 1985). The inception of Western feminist pedagogies in the 1980s (starting with bell hooks’ books in 1984 and 1989) were (and continue to be) a concerted attempt to include women’s voices in the construction of knowledge, the teaching and learning of the various knowledges that emerge when diverse voices are included, and the intentional connection between theory and practice and the personal and the political (Bauer 1990, 2000; hooks 1984, 1989, 1994, 2014; Maher and Tetreault 2001; Naples and Bojar 2002a; Scanlon 1993; Villaverde 2007). Creating equality in education (which includes both access to education and inclusion of content and theory specific to different people’s experiences and knowledge regardless of gender, sexuality, ability, race, class, etc.) is at the core of feminist pedagogy designed as a critical intervention for social change. In this chapter, I offer various working definitions of feminist pedagogy, examining the underlying aspects of feminist thought and practice that permeate all aspects of this pedagogy. I examine the history of feminist pedagogies and trace the ways intersectionality has always been a component of these pedagogies and has increasingly taken a front seat in the intellectual and practical fight for equity and equality. (See Additional References and Valuable Resources that I do not have space to address in this chapter.)

History of Feminist Pedagogy and Praxis Feminist pedagogy was developed to bring feminist ideas, methodologies, and sensibilities into education and distinctively focused on women’s lives, gender oppression, and a gendered analysis of social, cultural, and historic effects (Ellsworth 1989; hooks 1989, 1994, 2003; Lorber and Farrell 1990; Luke and Gore 1992). Maher and Tetreault (2001) explain that: Feminist pedagogy … evolved from many different sources: the consciousness‐raising practices derived from the women’s movement, the progressive tradition in American education created by John Dewey, and the more general forms of “liberatory teaching” espoused by Paulo Freire and others. What has made feminist pedagogy unique has been its attention to the particular needs of women students and its grounding in feminist theory as the basis for it multidimensional and positional view of the construction of classroom knowledge. (p. 3)

One of the most influential theorists in articulating critical education theory was Paulo Freire. In Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Freire (1970) contended that the educational system has historically been based on a “banking” model of education, in which knowledge is “a gift bestowed by those who consider themselves k ­ nowledgeable upon those whom they consider to know nothing” (p. 72). Critiquing this model as



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elitist and grounded in the privilege of availability to education and knowledge, Freire promoted the idea that knowledge is socially constructed, not objective or something concrete to be discovered and/or passed on by a privileged few (historically rich white men). Critical pedagogy (Freire 1970) starts with the argument that we must move beyond the banking concept of education and its assumption that students are passive vessels to be filled with knowledge by expert teachers. Within this model, students get high marks by regurgitating information back to teachers without incorporating their own analysis or voices into the material. Alternatively, Freire argues that we can practice co‐intentional education in the classroom, which involves teachers and students critically engaging with academic scholarship and creating new knowledge together. (Ganote 2010, p. 81) Feminist pedagogy critiques and challenges existing social structures primarily ­patriarchy and other “relations of ruling” (Smith 1990) and social arrangements based on inequality. It expanded in focus to capture the complexity identified through Black feminist praxis (Combahee River Collective 1995 [1975]) is more expansive than is traditional critical theory because it centers on feminist and intersectional theorizing (see Chapter 7 in this volume and the section “Key Tenets of Feminist Pedagogy” below) and practice (Ellsworth 1989; Ganote 2010; hooks 1994; Luke and Gore 1992; Naples 2002; Shrewsbury 1987). It also incorporates feminist beliefs that prompted the Western women’s movement of the 1960s and 1970s and is overtly activist in its implementation and goals (Bauer 1990; Costa and Leong 2013; hooks 1989, 1994, 2014; Lorber 2010; Naples and Bojar 2002a; Peet and Reed 2002; Revelles‐Benavente and González 2017; Villaverde 2007). As Crawley, Lewis and Mayberry (2008a) point out, “feminism, and by extension feminist pedagogy, is not a limited perspective.” They explain that: Although feminism is, in substance, always attentive to power differences that create inequalities, particularly those that create differential opportunities for women and men (but also those that create racial and ethnic, class‐based, or sexuality‐based inequalities), feminism is also an epistemological shift away from a history of androcentric bias in the sciences, social sciences, and humanities. As such, it is not just an “area study” (again, not just about ‘women) but something much deeper: a way of orienting to academic work that is attuned to power relationship, both within the academy and within knowledge construction itself. (p. 2)

Feminist pedagogy is not just about women, although its primary focus started as the inclusion and empowerment of women and women’s experiences in education, both as individuals and a group. It is also about human relationships and offers ways to analyze and challenge the various interlocking inequalities and systems of oppression present in all institutions, specifically education.

Defining Feminist Pedagogy Feminist pedagogy is defined in multiple ways. Vanderbilt Center for Teaching (2018) defines it as “an overarching philosophy – a theory of teaching and learning that integrates feminist values with related theories and research on teaching and

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learning” that is both by definition and practice, an ongoing and collaborative intellectual and lived endeavor. By “lived,” Vanderbilt means that it is a practice of both teaching and living. Feminist pedagogs rely on and draw from the lived experiences of themselves, their students, and/or their colleagues in creating theory that can lead to social change and gender equity. Many have come to refer to feminist pedagogies because of the many ideas and practical applications they encompass and the ways they attend to multiple standpoints, positionality, and structural inequalities (Crawley et  al. 2008a, b; GEA 2018; hooks 1989, 2014; Lee and Johnson‐Bailey 2004; Macdonald and Sánchez‐Casal 2002; Mohanty 2003; Shrewsbury 1987; Smith 1990; Vanderbilt Center for Teaching 2018). It is about teaching and learning, both of which happen in and out of academia. It has been most clearly articulated and applied in classrooms, but it also has wide‐reaching practical applications in the day‐to‐day lives of people far from the (often insular) halls of colleges and universities. Many of us who use and apply feminist pedagogy in intentional, conscious, and practical ways are teachers and researchers, yet others work in non‐profits, are social workers or lawyers, or work in other professions dedicated to individual and macro‐ level gendered social change (Cloete 2014; Costa and Leong 2013; Fuller and Russo 2018; Hernández and Rehman 2002; hooks 2014; Martin et al. 2017; Moraga and Anzaldúa 2015; Villaverde 2007). Because there is no one definition of feminist pedagogy, I offer several below. There are commonalities in these definitions, yet there is also an underlying flexibility and expansiveness that allows for feminist pedagogical theory and practices to be applied in diverse academic settings. For Forrest and Rosenberg (1997), feminist pedagogy centers teaching as both a process and a method that attends to feminist values of attending to power differentials in the classroom and in knowledge production more generally. This attention to inequality is echoed by Borshuk (2017), who sees feminist pedagogy as a process of infusing values into the classroom. For many, feminist pedagogy holds a vision of what the classroom should be like, but more than often, is not. This is a liberatory environment where students and teachers go from operating as objects to subjects through a reflective process that deconstructs multiple axes of oppression (Shrewsbury 1987). Feminist pedagogies value critical inquiry in students, thereby encouraging students to rely less on instructors as the bearers of knowledge, and thus challenging traditional hierarchies (Shackleford 1992, p. 570). For Storrs and Mihelich (1998), the core goal of this critical inquiry is to foster emancipation and liberation through a reflexive lens that locates and dismantles sexism, racism, homophobia, and classism (Naples and Bojar 2002b; Welde et al. 2014, p. 106). This work is inherently political in that feminist pedagogies are invested in consciousness raising and activism (Belenky et al. 1986) rooted in the critique of Western rationality, androcentrism, and inequality (Lee and Johnson‐Bailey 2004, p. 57). This sampling of definitions reveals several permeating themes that incorporate aspects of feminism and educational practices emphasizing gender equality, inclusion, and intersectionality. The intertwined core values are: challenging interlocking systems of oppression and inequality in education, including patriarchy, classism, homophobia, and transphobia; challenging historic ways of teaching and learning that privilege the role of the professor as well as certain voices (particularly heterosexual, wealthy, white men); challenging the idea that knowledge is “objective” and



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taking a critical view of power and authority in the classroom; incorporating the voices of women and other marginalized groups; and affecting individual, ­institutional, and broad gendered social change through news ways of teaching and learning.

Key Tenets of Feminist Pedagogy 1  Dismantling Intersectional Systems of Oppression and Privilege in/of the Educational System and Society First and foremost, feminist pedagogy initially challenged the patriarchal bases of education and sought “a transformation of the academy and points toward steps, however small, that we can all take in each of our classrooms to facilitate this transformation” (Shrewsbury 1987, pp. 7–8). Feminist pedagogy foregrounded how most societies, institutions, and organizations are rooted in patriarchy, and as a result are androcentric, i.e. male‐dominated, male‐centered, male‐identified perspectives and voices (Johnson 2014; Lewis and Simon 1986; Lorber and Farrell 1990). In most cultures, men have more power, more authority, and more access to and control over resources (for example, jobs, money, education, political positions, and cultural norms and artifacts). Thus, most societies tend to be organized in a way that is determined by and controlled by men, and their ways of thinking and doing things dominate public (and often private) spheres. (For more on androcentrism, see Gilman 1911/2013; Lapayese 2012.) Because of how institutions and organizations perpetuate ideologies of the wider societies in which they exist, feminist scholars assert that education is and has been a major social site of the creation and the perpetuation of the patriarchal structures and androcentric beliefs underlying most societies (Collins 1990; Daniel and Saroca 2015; Hernández and Rehman 2002; hooks, 1984, 1989, 1994, 2003; Johnson 2014; Lewis 1990; Lewis and Simon 1986; Lorber 2010; Lorde 1984; Maher and Tetreault 2001; Naples and Bojar, 2002a; Naples and Bojar, 2002b; Peet and Reed 2002). Patriarchal traditions in the formal educational system (and other primary social institutions) are seen in various ways: the historic exclusion of women from being educated; the dearth of women in professorial and leadership positions; the lack of content devoted to women and women’s participation in all levels of society; and the ways in which classrooms have historically been organized and managed. In conjunction with challenges to patriarchal systems of domination, feminist pedagogs also contest other powerful systems of oppression – racism, classism, homophobia, transphobia, and xenophobia. 2  Challenging Traditional Ways of Teaching and Learning: Power‐Sharing in the Classroom One of the first steps in transforming the gendered nature of education is challenging the traditional ways of teaching and learning in education. Historically, white men were the majority of teachers (and professors) and thus controlled what was taught and how it was taught. In contrast, feminist pedgagogs emphasize “knowledge construction” as a collaborative endeavor between teachers and students that decenters normative assumptions around power and the creation of

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knowledge. To that end, as stated by hooks (1989), “we must relinquish our ties to traditional ways of teaching that reinforce domination … we must first focus on the teacher‐student relationships and the issue of power” (p. 52). By rejecting historical uses of power in the classroom, feminist pedagogs recognize that power does exist and that power is a component of all social interactions. Thus, the goal is to find ways to use (and share) power in ways that are positive, productive, and generative for all parties involved (hooks 1989, 1994; Lorde 1984; Okin 1989). One mechanism for using power in ways that are positive include instituting democratic processes in the classroom to make power less centralized (Shrewsbury 1987, p. 7). In the feminist classroom, students and faculty learn to share power; both students and instructors are able to identify and enact personal, learning, and social goals which is rarely encouraged (or allowed) in traditional classrooms. This power‐ sharing is a key component of social justice work outside the classroom. Teaching students that they have power in social interactions is central to helping them learn to use it outside of academia. In the process of sharing power in the classroom, teachers must also be willing and able to say “I don’t know.” As hooks (1989) argues, as feminist teachers we must acknowledge (and share with our students) that we are not “all knowing.” For hooks, when professors and instructors acknowledge that they are not all knowing, it functions as a “gesture of respect” (p. 52) toward our students because it demonstrates our willingness to be vulnerable and honest. The illusion that teachers are all‐knowing is not helpful or productive. Feminist pedagogs want to teach students that saying “I don’t know” can be a sign of power, confidence, and honesty. It can also open everyone up for additional and deeper understanding of themselves and others. Modeling to the students (particularly traditionally successful ones) that people in positions of power can openly admit the limits of what they know is an important lesson that is a direct challenge to traditional forms of teaching, where teachers were assumed to be the ultimate authority on information and “knowledge” (Freire 1970). Feminist pedagogs are attentive to the fact that knowledge is something created through collaboration, interaction, and negotiation (Barkley et al. 2014; Colwill and Boyd 2008; Currie 1992; Haraway 1988), and students can and should participate in their own learning by co‐creating knowledge with their teachers (Forrest and Rosenberg 1997, p. 185). The rejection of traditional uses of power in the classroom is central to feminist pedagogy because historic ways of teaching reinforce existing inequalities and forms of both social and intellectual domination (hooks 1989, 1994; Forrest and Rosenberg 1997). Specifically, this rejection draws attention to how traditional teaching styles and practices actually reinforce a gendered hierarchy (Colwill and Boyd 2008, p. 219). The “teacher” has historically been a controlling and dominant (“masculine”) position, regardless of the sex or gender of the instructor. Sharing power and knowledge creation challenges the deeply masculinist and patriarchal roots of education. In addition, other feminist pedagogs have addressed how race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation of both teachers and students can add even more complexity to power dynamics in the classroom (Bernal et al. 2006; Collins 1990; Crabtree et al. 2009; Daniel and Saroca 2015; Goldthree and Bahng 2016; Hernández and Rehman 2002; hooks, 1989, 1994, 2014; Lee and Johnson‐Bailey 2004; Mohanty 2003;



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Moraga and Anzaldúa 2015; Omolade 1993; Rabinowitz 2002; Sellers 2008; Valle 2002). Historically, Western education has been dominated by white (mostly male) teachers and scholars. Furthermore, the concept of “whiteness” as a subjective perspective has only recently been introduced into the academic and the wider culture (Crenshaw et al. 1995). Of central import has been the recognition that “white perspectives” maintain the status quo (Crenshaw et al. 1995). Whiteness is both invisible and highly consequential in this process (Maher and Tetreault 2001, p. 8). A tangible result of this awareness has been that in recent years, feminist pedagogs have begun to address the multiplicity of oppressions, acknowledging that gender oppression does not apply universally to all women (and men). The identities of “woman” or “man” cannot be separated from other identities, including but not limited to race, ethnicity, sexuality, and physical ability. Crenshaw (1989) developed the concept of “intersectionality” to capture the complexity of the intersection of different subject and social positions and systems of oppression that organize their lives. Collins (1990) also explores this critical insight, drawn from Black feminist thought and activism, that race, class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, nation, ability, and age operate not as unitary, mutually exclusive entities, but rather as reciprocally constructing phenomena (see, also, Collins 2015). The concept of intersectionality is now widely used by scholars, activists, and social policy makers as an analytic tool to help deconstruct and understand the intricate web of power dynamics that exist among people (see, for example, Crenshaw et al. 1995). In practice, intersectionality is a tool to critique (and hopefully dismantle) the various interlocking systems of oppression in any given society (see also Chapter 7 in this volume). Related to the addition of intersectional theorizing to feminist pedagogy has been a small but growing use of feminist pedagogy in non‐Western environments. Feminist social movements have been very active for decades and have varied levels of success around the globe. As Schoeman (2015) concluded in her study of South African schools, there is a need for “increased scholarship in feminist pedagogy and teacher education” and “innovation and evolution of initial teacher education” (p. 8). Mirroring this conclusion, Chirenje (2017), who carried out a study in Zimbabwe, argued that feminist pedagogy be applied to different geopolitical contexts and their educational systems (as well as other social institutions). Feminist pedagogy and gender issues need to be incorporated into grassroots movements if there is to be success. If feminist pedagogy is going to thrive in different geopolitical settings, according to Kwon (1992), the education of women as a tool of social transformation must be able to address the complexity of their lives “as conditioned by their class and nationality as well as their gender” (p. 6). One of the practical applications of intersectionality is that feminist pedagogs recognize that race, ethnicity, and sexuality, among other identities, will play a part in their teaching, and thus in the learning environment for both them and their students. In conjunction with the recognition that there is a multitude of structural forces and personal experiences that shape each individual, feminist pedagogy emphasizes the importance of the diverse standpoints from which individuals experience, interact with, understand, and resist relations of ruling in everyday life (Smith 1980), and how each person should have the right and space to speak, to have their “voice” be heard.

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3  Valuing Personal Experience When these students feel they are not able to speak up, the goal of feminist pedagogs is to help them understand that it is their structural privilege that makes them feel silenced, and that they are not “less” important, but that they are experiencing what it means to be “equally” important rather than ‘more’ important. In this way, the feminist classroom will hopefully help those with privilege recognize that it is valuable to hear the diverse voices, not just the voices of those deriving from social identities and positions of power (Kilby 2013; Kleinman and Copp 2009). In feminist pedagogy, the emphasis on hearing and honoring diverse voice intersects and is supported by the idea that personal experience is knowledge and that sharing lived experiences is central to both learning and teaching (Naples 2003; Smith 1987). For Forrest and Rosenberg (1997), honoring the place of personal experience as a source of knowledge creation is a powerful pedagogical tool that enables the deconstruction of empirical and theoretical assumptions identifying the significance of experience. Historically, there has been a disconnect in academia between knowledge generated from personal experience and what is considered reliable or significant in terms of “knowledge” beyond local everyday life. Personal experience was often called “anecdotal” and, at best, data for more systematic scientific ways of knowing. The standpoint experiences of marginalized communities was dismissed as “not knowledge” because it was not rational or “objective.” However a vital aspect of feminist pedagogy is the recognition that our lived experiences are “real” and significant. As stated by hooks (1989), “feminist pedagogy should engage students in a learning process that makes the world ‘more rather than less real.’ In my classrooms, we work to dispel the notion that our experience is not a ‘real world’ experience (p. 51).” In order to create the context for sharing and valuing personal experience, feminist pedagogs strive to create classes as spaces for open dialogue that include managing difficult conversations and diverse perspectives. When people feel connected to others, they feel a sense of responsibility to those people and their mutual community. In a feminist classroom, there is both an intellectual and an emotional connection forged. Thus, there is a level of emotion in a feminist classroom that is necessary for the teaching and learning goals to be achieved (Borshuk 2017; Collins 1990; hooks 1994, 2014; McCaughtry 2003; Morley 1998). With the integration of personal experience and emotional expression, students will (hopefully) see that there is a false dichotomy between “knowledge” and “experience” and their emotions about their experiences and “the assumed split or separation between theory and practice is a misconception; deep intellectual work should produce altered, or at least more informed, private and public acts” (Villaverde 2007, p. 121). 4  Creating Safe and Contested Spaces A primary way feminist pedagogs challenge historic ways of teaching and learning and encourage power‐sharing in the classroom is to create space for all voices to be heard, particularly those that have been historically silenced, erased, excluded, or minimized – women, people of color, queer people, and other marginalized groups (Anzaldúa 2012; Collins 1990; Lee and Johnson‐Bailey 2004; Mohanty 2003; Moraga and Anzaldúa 2015; Rabinowitz 2002; Sellers 2008; Valle 2002). In addition to recognizing intersecting systems of oppression, hooks also speaks to the historic power dynamic between teachers and students in which the teacher had the



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power to determine what was talked about, how it was talked about, and who got to speak. In feminist classrooms, the goal is to allow all voices to be heard while simultaneously attending to power differentials among students. This power‐sharing is not exclusive to instructor–student dynamics, but also includes attention to how race, sex, class and other dynamics of power tend to privilege some students over others (hooks 1994, p. 185). In the past few decades, the concept of “safe spaces” has emerged from the movement to incorporate traditionally silenced groups into wider academic (and social) discussions. There are two broad types of safe spaces, both of which can be created by feminist pedagogs: those in which marginalized persons can gather with like‐ minded people and feel safe expressing their thoughts without negative repercussions, and those in which people who are not like‐minded gather to respectfully and critically discuss and/or debate their differences (Ho 2017). The latter is what Ludlow (2004) termed a “contested space,” one in which difference (and often conflict) is used as a tool for learning. In this type of classroom, space is created for students and teachers with different experiences and different views to have an open dialogue that supports and engages with, rather than tries to avoid, conflict. The goal is for all to learn to listen to and talk to each other rather than try to create a “conflict free” space. In this space, students can recognize that conflict in the form of respectful disagreement and critical thinking can lead to intellectual and personal growth for all. Creating “safe” and “contested” spaces is not always an easy (or even, in some cases, possible) process, and changing the ways of teaching and the ways of learning requires flexibility among both teachers and students (Crawley et al. 2008b; Maher and Tetreault 2001; Vanderbilt Center for Teaching 2018). Teachers and historically privileged students often need to learn to listen in a deep way, and other students need help finding their voices. This is a complex process and involves both talking and listening. Traditionally, safety has meant a lack of conflict; however, without conflict, as history has shown us, there will be no social change. “Safety” means different things to different people. For those traditionally in a position of privilege, having their status (or the status quo) questioned can feel unsafe. However, to create social change and challenge injustice, one needs to question and confront the status quo and the systems of privilege and oppression. Those systems have historically only allowed certain voices (and experiences) to be heard and considered real. Creating a “safe space” does not, however, mean indiscriminate speaking by all parties involved. The goal is to empower members of historically silenced groups to critically engage their experiences with broader, structural approaches to inequality. The process of creating an intellectual and physical space in which a conversation containing diverse voices can happen productively and healthily involves several components, only one of which involves marginalized participants finding the space to speak of their experiences. Creating space for historically silenced voices can also be challenging for those whose voices have traditionally been privileged, particularly white heterosexual men (Johnson 2014; Orr 1993). 5  Acknowledging and Supporting Different Ways of Knowing: Experiential Learning and Reflectivity Teachers who employ feminist pedagogy recognize the diverse ways that students learn. Given the overemphasis on rote learning, memorization, and testing in most

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traditional classrooms, it is not a surprise that feminist pedagogs adopt a more varied approach that draws on, among other strategies, self‐reflectivity to understand how well learning goals are being met and experiential learning. In her co‐edited book with Karen Bojar, Naples (2002a, p. 7) “locates the antecedents of feminist pedagogy in the works of John Dewey and calls attention to the close relationship between feminist pedagogy and critical education theorists such as Paolo Freire and Henry Giroux.” For example, she explains, according to Dewey (1944/1966, p. 139), “mere activity does not constitute experience.” Experience requires a process of self‐­ reflexivity, that is, “learning from experience” (quoted in Naples and Bojar 2002a). Naples (2002) explains the importance of “a critical feminist pedagogy that is open to self‐reflexivity about the processes by which we produce knowledge for and with our students” (also see hooks 1994). Self‐reflexivity is a key component of consciousness‐raising groups that were generated by feminists during the Women’s Movement of the 1970s. Naples explains: The notion of the ‘personal is political, the central tenet of consciousness‐raising groups of this period, provided the pedagogical framing for many of these classroom exercises. However, these techniques could be adopted without incorporating the group process and collective action that had been central aspects of consciousness raising (CR) during the Women’s Movement of the late 1960s and 1970s.

Feminist pedagogical practice encouraged the development of “learning communities” (hooks 1994) where people (teachers and students alike) shared personal experiences, interpersonal investments, theoretical ideas, and community goals. This contributed to a deepening of complex theoretical perspectives, personal growth, and strategies for activism. According to Shrewsbury (1987), learning communities are invaluable feminist pedagogical tools because they challenge the competitive texture of classroom environments while simultaneously encouraging the reality that learning is a shared venture from where students benefit from being connected to one another throughout. 6  Activism and Social Change: Hand‐in‐Hand with Personal Growth Feminist pedagogs continue to draw on the power of consciousness‐raising practices in their classrooms. Community‐based educational projects and community‐ engagement are currently foregrounded in the mission statements of many universities and colleges. However, administrators often balk at ones that employ activist goals which may unsettle some community leaders and politicians. Feminist pedagogs resist the tendency to construct community engagement purely in terms of depoliticized service‐learning or internships. According to Freire (1970) and other critical theorists, one of the problems with traditional classrooms is that teachers were trained to see their role as “apolitical.” They were led to believe that good teachers were unbiased and the goal was to teach their students unquestioned facts about the social world. But as elucidated above, no classroom is unbiased. All pedagogical choices are political ones in terms of, among other things, what counts as knowledge, whose voices are privileged, and how to assess learning outcomes. Unlike most traditional classrooms, feminist classrooms are based on the knowledge that “the personal is political” (hooks 1994). Feminist



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pedagogy challenges the separation between academic knowledge and politics, of theory and experience. For feminist pedagogs, classroom instruction is an inherently political project that provides instructors the opportunity to shape and reshape which writings are considered significant and why, as well as to reshape learning practices (Belenky et al. 1986, Forrest and Rosenberg 1997, hooks 1994). For feminist pedagogs, being “political” in the classroom is unavoidable, unless one divorces oneself from society. While all classrooms are political spaces, feminist pedagogy makes these dynamics visible. As Forrest and Rosenberg explain, the choice of materials that are used in a course is political in that it reveals the preference and bias of the teacher. I am clear from the first day of class that I do have clear political opinions, that I want to see social change occur, that I am not “objective.” However hopeful I might be that some students will agree with me politically, I do not try to legislate their politics. In fact, the politics of a feminist classroom purposefully allows for much disagreement… (Scanlon 1993, p. 9)

The concept of being “political” in the classroom is related to the fact that feminist pedagogs are activists and working for social change (primarily challenging patriarchy, but also other types of privilege) (Lee and Johnson‐Bailey 2004; Martin et  al. 2017; Naples 2003; Naples and Bojar 2002a, 2002b; Peet and Reed 2002; Scanlon 1993; Villaverde 2007). The key for feminist teachers is to acknowledge their own biases and perspectives and be able to work in a positive way with ­students who may or may not share the same views.

Putting Feminist Pedagogy into Practice The starting point for much of feminist pedagogy is students’ critical goals: learning to think for themselves, coming to their own voices, learning to listen deeply to others, particularly those different from themselves, and learning to be engaged citizens who are committed to social change. They share the same objectives as other critical pedagogs in encouraging students’ critical reading, writing, and analytic skills. Starting with goals and objectives for critical learning, rather than centering specific readings or assignments, addresses teaching and learning as a process, and necessitates student involvement. In some educational settings this has become known as a “backward design” method (Wiggins and McTighe 2005), and it begins with, rather than ends with, the questions: “What should students know, understand, and be able to do? What is worthy of understanding? What enduring understandings are desired?” (Wiggins and McTighe 2005 , p. 17). Many feminist pedagogs would argue that this has been in practice in feminist and critical classrooms for decades. Because it is a theory and a philosophy of teaching and learning, rather than a list of details, feminist pedagogy doesn’t “automatically preclude any technique or approach [but focuses on] the relationship that specific techniques have to educational goals” (Shrewsbury 1987 , p. 14). One of the most valuable tenets of feminist pedagogy is the knowledge that not all classrooms are alike. It is precisely in this difference that the reflexive, flexible, and dynamic methods employed by feminist

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pedagogs become realized. (Shrewsbury 1987, p. 12). This underlying flexibility and reflexivity are among the greatest strengths of feminist pedagogy – they allow teachers to accommodate different students and shifting dynamics in the classroom as well as to respond to changes in the wider social, political, and cultural context. In addition, they allow us to honor the critical role of teaching as a “practice of f­ reedom” that touches both students and teachers in a deep way. In the words of the wise bell hooks (1994): To educate as the practice of freedom is a way of teaching that anyone can learn. That learning process comes easiest to those of us who teach who also believe that there is an aspect of our vocation that is sacred; who believe that our work is not merely to share information but to share in the intellectual and spiritual growth of our students. To teach in a manner that respects … the souls of our students is essential if we are to provide the necessary conditions where learning can most deeply and intimately begin. (p. 13)

As feminist pedagogy has become more widely used and accepted both as an ­ideology and a practice, the components it contributes that were initially so counter to traditional ways of teaching and learning have become more commonplace and integrated into learning environments that aren’t necessarily defined as “feminist.”

References Anzaldúa, G. (2012). Borderlands: La Frontera, the New Mestiza, 4e. San Francisco, CA: Aunt Lute Books. Barkley, E.F., Major, C.H., and Patricia Cross, K. (2014). Collaborative Learning Techniques: A Handbook for College Faculty. San Francisco, CA: Jossey‐Bass. Bauer, D.M. (1990). The other “F” word: the feminist in the classroom. College English 52 (4): 385–396. Bauer, M. (2000). Implementing a liberatory feminist pedagogy: bell hooks’ strategies for transforming the classroom. Melus 25 (3/4): 265–274. Belenky, M.F., Clinchy, B.M.V., Goldberger, N.R., and Tarule, J.M. (1986). Women’s Ways of Knowing: The Development of Self, Voice, and Mind. New York: Basic Books. Bernal, D.D., Alejandro Elenes, C., Godinez, F.E., and Villenas, S. (2006). Chicana/Latina Education in Everyday Life: Feminista Perspectives on Pedagogy and Epistemology. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Borshuk, C. (2017). Managing student self‐disclosure in class settings: lessons from feminist pedagogy. Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning 17 (1): 78–86. Chirenje, Grace. (2017). “Feminist pedagogy: Unpacking the reality and building towards a new model of education for women and girls in Zimbabwe.” Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa. Cloete, Joy‐Mari. (2014). “The feminist activist guide: 100 things you can do now.” Collective, C.R. (1995 [1975]). A Black Feminist Statement. In: Words of Fire: An Anthology of African‐American Feminist Thought (ed. B. Guy‐Sheftall), 232–240. New York: New Press. Collins, P.H. (1990). Black Feminist Thought. New York, NY: Routledge. Colwill, E. and Boyd, R. (2008). Teaching without a mask? Collaborative teaching as feminist practice. NWSA Journal 20 (2): 216–246.



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Costa, L.M. and Leong, K.J. (2013). Introduction: critical community engagement: feminist pedagogy meets civic engagement. Feminist Teacher 22 (3): 171–180. Crabtree, R.D., Sapp, D.A., and Licona, A.C. (eds.) (2009). Feminist Pedagogy: Looking Back to Move Forward (A Feminist Formations Reader). Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Crawley, S.L., Lewis, J.E., and Mayberry, M. (2008a). Introduction: feminist pedagogies in action: teaching beyond disciplines. Feminist Teacher 19 (1): 1–12. Crawley, S.L., Curry, H., Dumois‐Sands, J. et  al. (2008b). Full‐contact pedagogy: lecturing with questions and student‐centered assignments as methods for inciting self‐reflectivity for faculty and students. Feminist Teacher 19 (1): 13–30. Crenshaw, Kimberlé Williams. 1989. “Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex; a black feminist critique of anti‐discrimination doctrine, feminist theory and anti‐racist politics.” The University of Chicago Legal Forum, article 8. 336. Crenshaw, K.W., Gotanda, N., Peller, G., and Thomas, K. (eds.) (1995). Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings that Formed the Movement. New York: New Press. Currie, D.H. (1992). Subject‐ivity in the classroom: feminism meets academe. Canadian Journal of Education 17: 341–364. Daniel, M. and Saroca, C. (2015). Feminist pedagogy and research in a culturally diverse classroom in a women’s university in Bangladesh. In: At the Center: Feminism, Social Science and Knowledge (Advances in Gender Research, Volume 20) (eds. V. Demos and M.T. Segal), 223–246. Binkley, UK: Emerald. Deats, S.M. and Lenker, L.T. (eds.) (1994). Gender and Academe: Feminist Pedagogy and Politics. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Ellsworth, E. (1989). Why doesn’t this feel empowering? Working through the repressive myths of critical pedagogy. Harvard Educational Review 59 (3): 297–324. Forrest, L. and Rosenberg, F. (1997). Á review of the feminist pedagogy literature: the neglected child of feminist psychology. Applied and Preventive Psychology 6: 179–192. Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Seabury Press. Fuller, L. and Russo, A. (2018). Feminist pedagogy: building community accountability. Feminist Teacher 26 (2–3): 179–197. Ganote, C. (2010). Integrating critical pedagogy, feminist pedagogy, and standpoint theory: connecting classroom learning with democratic citizenship. Conhecimento & Diversidade 3: 78–89. Gender and Education Association. (2018). “Feminist pedagogy.” http://www. genderandeducation.com/issues/feminist‐pedagogy Gilman, C.P. (1911/2013). Our Androcentric Culture, or the Man‐Made World. Project Guttenberg Ebook. Goldthree, R.N. and Bahng, A. (2016). #BlackLivesMatter and feminist pedagogy: teaching a movement unfolding. Radical Teacher 106: 20–28. Hernández, D. and Rehman, B. (2002). Colonize this! Young Women of Color on Today’s Feminism. New York, NY: Seal Press. Ho, Katherine. (2017). “Tackling the term: what is a safe space.” Harvard Political Review, 30 January. Online edition. hooks, B. (1984). Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center. Boston, MA: South End Press. hooks, B. (1989). Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black. Boston, MA: South End Press. hooks, B. (1994). Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. New York, NY: Routledge. hooks, B. (2003). Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope. New York, NY: Routledge.

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hooks, B. (2014). Feminism Is for Everyone: Passionate Politics, 2e. New York, NY: Routledge. Johnson, A.G. (2014). The Gender Knot: Unraveling our Patriarchal Legacy, 3e. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Kilby, Jane Kilby. (2013). “In letting the perpetrator speak: Sexual violence and classroom politics.” 89–110 in Gendered Perspectives on Conflict and Violence Part A (AGR 18A). Kleinman, S. and Copp, M. (2009). Denying social harm: resistance to lessons about inequality. Teaching Sociology 37: 283–293. Kwon, Mee‐Sik. (1992). Conceptualization of critical feminist pedagogy as a theoretical tool of social transformation and its applicability in a Korean context. Doctoral dissertation. University of Massachusetts‐Amherst. Lapayese, Y. (2012). Androcentrism in schools. In: (Re)Imagining K‐12 Education (ed. Y. Lapayese), 11–15. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Lee, M.‐y. and Johnson‐Bailey, J. (2004). Challenges to the classroom Authority of Women of color. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education 102: 55–64. Lewis, M.G. (1990). Interrupting patriarchy: politics, resistance and transformation in the feminist classroom. Harvard Educational Review 60 (4): 467–488. Lewis, M. and Simon, R.I. (1986). A discourse not intended for her: learning and teaching within patriarchy. Harvard Educational Review 56: 457–472. Lorber, J. (2010). Gender Inequality: Feminist Theories and Politics, 4e. New York: Oxford University Press. Lorber, J. and Farrell, S.A. (eds.) (1990). The Social Construction of Gender. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Lorde, A. (1984). Sister Outsider. Freedom, CA: Crossing Press. Ludlow, J. (2004). From safe space to contested space in the feminist classroom. Transformations: The Journal of Inclusive Scholarship and Pedagogy 15 (1): 40–56. Luke, C. and Gore, J. (1992). Feminisms and Critical Pedagogy. New York, NY: Routledge. Macdonald, A.A. and Sánchez‐Casal, S. (2002). Twenty‐First Century Feminist Classrooms: Pedagogies of Identity and Difference. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Maher, F.A. and Tetreault, M.K.T. (2001). The Feminist Classroom. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Inc. Martin, J.L., Nickels, A.E., and Sharp‐Grier, M. (eds.) (2017). Feminist Pedagogy, Practice, and Activism: Improving Lives for Girls and Women. New York, NY: Routledge. McCaughtry, N. (2003). The emotional dimensions of a teacher’s pedagogical content knowledge: influences on content, curriculum, and pedagogy. Journal of Teaching in Physical Education 2 (1): 30–47. Mohanty, C.T. (2003). Feminism without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Moraga, C. and Anzaldúa, G. (eds.) (2015). This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, 4e. Albany NY: State University of New York Press. Morley, L. (1998). All you need is love: feminist pedagogy for empowerment and emotional labour in the academy. International Journal of Inclusive Education 2 (1): 15–27. Naples, N.A. (2002). The dynamics of critical pedagogy: experiential learning and feminist praxis in women’s studies. In: Teaching Feminist Activism: Strategies from the Field, Edited by Nancy a. Naples and Karen Bojar, 9–21. New York, NY: Routledge. Naples, N.A. (2003). Feminism and Method: Ethnography, Discourse Analysis, and Activist Research. New York, NY: Routledge. Naples, N. and Bojar, K. (2002a). Teaching Feminist Activism: Strategies from the Field. New York, NY: Routledge. Naples, N. and Bojar, K. (2002b). Feminist pedagogy and teaching activism: an introduction to a special section of this issue of Feminist Teacher. Feminist Teacher 14 (2): 101–105.



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Okin, S.M. (1989). Justice, Gender and the Family. New York: Basic Books. Omolade, B. (1993). A black feminist pedagogy. Women’s Studies Quarterly 21 (3/4): 31–38. Orr, D.J. (1993). Toward a critical rethinking of feminist pedagogical praxis and resistant male students. Canadian Journal of Education 18: 239–254. Peet, M.R. and Reed, B.G. (2002). The development of political consciousness and agency: the role of activism and race/ethnicity in and introductory women’s studies course. Feminist Teacher 14 (2): 106–122. Rabinowitz, N.S. (2002). Queer theory and feminist pedagogy. In: Twenty‐First‐Century Feminist Classrooms (eds. A. MacDonald and S. Sánchez‐Casal), 175–200. Palgrave Macmillan. Revelles‐Benavente, B. and González Ramos, A.M. (eds.) (2017). Teaching Gender: Feminist Pedagogy and Responsibility in Times of Political Crisis. New York, NY: Routledge. Scanlon, J. (1993). Keeping our activist selves alive in the classroom: feminist pedagogy and political activism. Feminist Teacher 7 (2): 8–14. Schaull, R. (1970). Preface. In: Pedagogy of the Oppressed (ed. P. Freire), 1–15. New York: Seabury Press. Schoeman, S. (2015). Feminist pedagogy as a new initiative in the education of South African teachers. Koers 80 (4): 1–9. Sellers, S.A. (2008). Native American Women’s Studies: A Primer. New York, NY: Peter Lang. Shackleford, J. (1992). Feminist pedagogy: a means for bringing thinking and creativity to the economics classroom. Alternative Pedagogies and Economic Education 82 (2): 570–576. Shrewsbury, C.M. (1987). What is feminist pedagogy? Women’s Studies Quarterly 15: 6–14. Stacey, J. and Thorne, B. (1985). The missing feminist revolution in sociology. Social Problems 32 (4): 301–316. Storrs, D. and Mihelich, J. (1998). Beyond essentialisms: team teaching gender & sexuality. NWSA Journal 10 (1): 98–118. Valle, M.E. (2002). Antiracist pedagogy and Concientización: a Latina Professor’s struggle.” Ch. 6. In: Twenty‐First Century Feminist Classrooms (eds. A. Macdonald and S. Sánchez‐ Casal), 155–173. Palgrave Macmillan. Vanderbilt Center for Teaching. (2018). “A guide to feminist pedagogy.” https://my.vanderbilt. edu/femped. Villaverde, L.E. (2007). Feminist pedagogy and activism. In: Feminist Theories & Education Primer (ed. L.E. Villaverde), 119–142. New York: Peter Lang Publishing. Welde, D., Kristine, N.F., Hayford, M., and Rosenthal, M. (2014). Team teaching “gender perspectives”: a reflection on feminist pedagogy in the interdisciplinary classroom. Feminist Teacher 23 (2): 105–125. Wiggins, G. and McTighe, J. (2005). Chapter  1: backward design. In: Understanding by Design, 2e (eds. G. Wiggins and J. McTighe), 13–34. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development.

Additional Reading and Media Resources https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_ngozi_adichie_we_should_all_be_feminists https://www.ted.com/talks/roxane_gay_confessions_of_a_bad_feminist https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akOe5‐UsQ2o This is a discussion of intersectionality. Baker, A.A. and Ryalls, E. (2016). Technologizing feminist pedagogy: using blog activism in the gender studies classroom. Feminist Teacher 25 (1): 23–38. Barriteau, E. (2004). Constructing feminist knowledge in the commonwealth Caribbean in the era of globalization. In: Gender in the Twenty‐First Century: Caribbean Perspectives, Visions and Possibilities (eds. B. Bailey and E. Leo‐Rhynie), 437–465. Kingston: Ian Randle.

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Bignell, K.C. (1996). Building feminist praxis out of feminist pedagogy: the importance of student perspective. Women’s Studies International Forum 19: 315–325. Bretz, A. (2014). Making an impact? Feminist pedagogy and rape culture on college campuses. ESC: English Studies in Canada 40 (4): 17–20. Briskin, L. (1990). Feminist Pedagogy: Teaching and Learning Liberation. Ottawa, Ontario, Canada: Canadian Institute for the Advancement of Women. Bunch, C. and Pollack, S. (1983). Learning our Way: Essays in Feminist Education. Trumansburg, N.Y: The Crossing Press. Culley, M. and Portuges, C. (eds.) (1985). Gendered Subjects: The Dynamics of Feminist Teaching. New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Eudey, N. (2013). Civic engagement, cyberfeminism, and online learning: activism and service learning in women’s and gender studies courses. Feminist Teacher 22 (3): 233–250. Feminist Teacher, journal. http://www.press.uillinois.edu/journals/ft.html (many valuable resources). Fisher, B.M. (2001). No Angel in the Classroom: Teaching through Feminist Discourse. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Florence, N. (1998). bell hooks’ Engaged Pedagogy: Education for Critical Consciouness. Michigan: Bergin & Garvey. Friedman, K. and Rosenberg, K. (2007). Performing identities in the classroom: teaching Jewish women’s studies. Teaching Sociology 35 (4): 315–333. Gore, J. (1990). What can we do for you! What Can we do for you! Struggling over empowerment in critical and feminist pedagogy. Educational Foundations 4 (3): 5–26. Haltinner, K. and Pilgeram, R. (eds.) (2016). Teaching Gender and Sex in Contemporary America. New York: Springer Publishing. Hayes, E. (1989). Insights from women’s experiences for teaching and learning. New Directions for Continuing Education 43: 44–66. Heald, S. (1989). The madwoman in the attic: feminist teaching in the margins. Resources for Feminist Research 18: 22–26. Jesperson, T.C. (2015). Literary identification as transformative feminist pedagogy. Feminist Teacher 24 (3): 221–228. Kenway, J. and Modra, H. (1992). Feminist pedagogy and emancipatory possibilities. In: Feminisms and Critical Pedagogy (eds. C. Luke and J. Gore), 138–166. New York: Routledge. Lewis, M.G. (1989). The challenge of feminist pedagogy. Queen’s Quarterly 96: 117–130. Loring, Katherine, ed. (1983). “Feminist pedagogy and the learning climate. Proceedings of the Annual Great Lakes Colleges Association Women’s Studies Conference.” Ann Arbor, Michigan, 4–6 November, 1983. ERIC, ED 252 493. Love, M.A. and Helmbrecht, B.M. (2007). Teaching the conflicts: (re)engaging students with feminism in a postfeminist world. Feminist Teacher 18 (1): 41–58. McCabe, T. (1995). Teaching in the promised land: ideals and limits in feminist pedagogy. Feminist Collections 17: 5–7. Smith, D.E. (1987). The Everyday World as Problematic: A Feminist Sociology. Northeastern University Press. Wagner, A. (2014). Re‐imagining the (un)familiar: feminist pedagogy in rural spaces. Gender and Education 26 (5): 553–567. Weiler, K. (1988). Women Teaching for Change: Gender, Class, and Power. South Hadley, MA: Bergin and Garvey.

20 Feminist Praxis and Globalization Manisha Desai and Koyel Khan

Naples (2013) conceptualizes feminist praxis as a self‐reflexive process of knowledge production and democratic political practice that “include the goals of inclusion, empowerment, challenging inequality, and organizing across differences for social justice goals” (Naples 2013, p. 659). Yet, this definition leaves unexplored inclusion into what, and the meanings of social justice. As feminist debates within and outside the academy, in and outside the United States over the past 50 years have shown us, these are highly contested terms. Thus, in an increasingly global context where such terms circulate across many borders, it is imperative that we take seriously the particular histories and contexts from which they emerge and acknowledge and engage other ways to understand and imagine them. Toward that end, in this chapter, we provide a decolonial elaboration of feminist praxis that begins with recognizing the coloniality of gender (Lugones 2014); that sees modernity and its emancipatory projects, including feminism, as part of the matrix of coloniality and capitalism (e.g. Conway 2012, 2017); and that is informed by social imaginaries of gender justice beyond the modern, whether liberal or socialist.

Coloniality of Gender Although colonialism and its consequences for gender relations have figured prominently in the works of postcolonial feminist scholars in the Global South or writing about the Global South – e.g. Grewal and Kaplan (1994), Alexander and Mohanty (1997), it is only at the insistence of indigenous feminists that it has come into focus in the Americas. Inspired by indigenous feminist praxis, Maria Lugones has extended Quijano’s (1995; Quijano and Wallerstein 1992) coloniality of power to conceptualize the coloniality of gender. Quijano defined coloniality as an ongoing process of social and political stratification in settler colonial countries of the Americas even after the end of Spanish and Portuguese colonialism. According to Quijano (2000, Companion to Feminist Studies, First Edition. Edited by Nancy A. Naples. © 2021 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Published 2021 by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

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p. 533), “The racial axis has a colonial origin and character, but it has proven to be more durable and stable than the colonialism in whose matrix it was established. Therefore, the model of power that is globally hegemonic today presupposes an ­element of coloniality.” As articulated by Maldonado‐Torres (2007): Coloniality is different from colonialism. Colonialism denotes a political and economic relation in which the sovereignty of a nation or a people rests on the power of another nation, which makes such nation an empire. Coloniality, instead, refers to long‐standing patterns of power that emerged as a result of colonialism, but that define culture, labor, intersubjective relations, and knowledge production well beyond the strict limits of colonial administrations. (Maldonado‐Torres 2007, p. 243)

Thus, coloniality remains even after colonialism ends. Drawing upon this conceptualization of coloniality, Lugones (2010) articulates the “coloniality of gender” as the gender system that flows from the dichotomizing of the human and the nonhuman, men and women, under colonial, capitalist modernity. With colonial modernity, which began with the colonization of the Americas and the Caribbean, European gender binary with its accompanying gender stratification was seen as a mark of civilization. The colonizers viewed the colonized as lacking gender – a characteristic of humanity, and thereby saw indigenous people and later enslaved Africans as nonhuman. White, bourgeois, European, heterosexual, Christian men were projected as civilized and human, and the white bourgeois, sexually passive, and pure European women became human in their relation to white European bourgeois men. The colonized were judged as sexually promiscuous and non‐gendered – despite the multiplicity and fluidity of gender in indigenous communities – and hence the European gender binary, first as sex difference, was imposed on them to civilize them. Not all feminists agree that the gender binary is uniquely European (e.g. Connell 2016). Yet the European binary did transform more fluid understandings of gender that were evident in many societies prior to colonization. What ensued in the guise of a “civilizing mission” was immense exploitation of indigenous communities via sexual violence, control of reproduction, and widespread systematic terrorism. The goal of the colonizers was not to turn the colonized into what they perceived to be humans, but to erase indigenous peoples’ sense of self, their ontology and cosmology – essentially colonize their memory and imaginations (e.g. Gordon 2007; Nandy 1982; Suárez‐Krabbe 2008). While this project did lead to genocide and render indigenous and enslaved populations as racialized and inferior others, it did not completely erase their cosmologies and ontologies, making it possible to “overcome the coloniality of gender” via decolonial practices (Lugones 2010). According to Lugones, these decolonial practices begin with acknowledging other gender systems beyond the gender binary and using local languages rather than colonial articulation of alternative gender designations. For example, in the Zapotec community (an indigenous community in Mexico), los muxes (“Muxes” being a Zapotec word that has been derived from the Spanish word for woman) are a unique group and have been described as the third sex who identify as neither men nor women, but as muxes, and are widely accepted. The community at large and the



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muxes themselves believe that one is born a muxe, and it is not a voluntary choice (Mirandé 2012). Similarly, many native communities in North America include Two‐ Spirit people who may be born as one gender but live as the opposite gender (Driskill 2010). Earlier these people were called berdache, a French term denoting non‐­ heteronormative sexuality (Driskill 2010). Lugones rightly calls such colonial terms an exercise in coloniality of language. Chachawarmi and urin are other gender terms that cannot be translated into colonial languages but denote other gender ­possibilities. It is ironic then that after centuries of imposing gender binaries on indigenous communities, the transgender movements within settler colonial communities are now seeking to undo those binaries (Bornstein 1994; Koyama 2003). To acknowledge the multiplicity and fluidity of gender expression and identity, is to begin to undermine the coloniality of gender. The transgender unraveling of the gender binary, however, is often framed as an individual’s right to identity and expression and does not necessarily engage the coloniality of gender per se. It emerges from a modernist project of individual rights expressed as gender emancipation. In a call for decolonizing the transgender category, Dutta and Roy (2014) focus on South Asian discourses and practices of gender/sexual variance and point out that such discourses and practices become termed “local” expressions of transgender identity due to the attempted universalization of the term transgender, where this universalization takes place without any interrogation of the concepts associated with the transgender category (such as the homo‐trans and cis‐trans binaries). Particularly in the Indian context, subsuming the discourses and practices of gender/ sexual variance under the category of transgender strengthens the long‐standing and continuing (post)colonial construction of hierarchies of scale between transnational, regional, and local levels of discourse and praxis, as evidenced in the relation between the hegemonic anglophone discourse of LGBTIQ identities recognized by the state and the development sector, on one hand, and forms of gender/sexual variance that are positioned as relatively regional or local on the other.” (Dutta and Roy 2014, p. 321)

The authors argue that the deployment of the transgender category, particularly by the state and the development sector may associate a stable identification with the “opposite” gender and transitioning as the defining factors of trans identities. However, existing South Asian discourses often blur the cis‐trans or homo‐trans binaries. Thus, the relegation of many forms of gender/sexual variance to the scale of the “local” is colonizing, especially when these span multiple regions of South Asia. The transgender category in this context may become hegemonic and provide opportunities to those who can access the term (usually the elite), and upward mobility to those who fit the official definitions and thereby qualify for aid, while delegitimizing the discourses of gender/sexual variance of the working class and the dalit communities, particularly the kothi‐hijra communities. Kothi refers to feminine male‐assigned persons. They may or may not identify as (trans) women. The kothi community includes those who wear standard male attire (kodi kothis), and also those who wear feminine clothing (referred to as bhelki, bheli, or bhorokti kothis). Kothis may also switch between the kodi and bhelki states.

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Hijras are part of a structured community of feminine‐identified persons. They take part in distinctive professions, such as offering blessings during weddings and childbirth. Customarily, they wear women’s clothes and may undergo penectomy and castration. Some kothis may also join hijra groups or professions. With the ascendance of the usage of the term transgender, especially for official purposes, the various communities who are subsumed under the term transgender still prefer using the local terms. For example, kothis still call out to community members and hail each other using the term kothi. However, funders, state officials, and community‐ based organization leaders use transgender without referencing the local terms, thereby signaling a split between the ways of community building and the language of political representation. The authors suggest that “process of deontologizing transgender (dissociating it from ontological identification) has to be coupled with the critique and gradual dismantling of the scalar hierarchy between ‘transnational’ and ‘local’ or ‘regional’ discourses, so as to enable more equitable conversations and engagements with other epistemologies of gender/sexual variance or marginality.” The authors stress that the decolonization cannot be achieved in isolation, but necessitates the deconstruction and democratization of LGBTIQ activism within and outside the “West.” Furthermore, Lugones argues that it is not possible to resist the coloniality of gender without resisting systems that undermine the significance of life for profit, and of communalism for individualism. Therefore decolonial practices also need to become central to feminist anti‐capitalist praxis which has primarily been conceptualized in a modernist register.

Beyond Modern, Emancipatory Feminist Praxis Marxist and socialist feminists have long critiqued the liberal, modern project and its complicity with capitalism, e.g. Eisenstein (2009), Federici and Austin (2017), and Hartmann (1979) among others. They have argued that within capitalism women could achieve liberation only through their involvement in production based on men as the bread winner which would always disadvantage women. Thus, Federici and others began the Wages for Housework campaign as a way to recognize the productivity of women’s reproductive labor. Hartmann (1979) argued that “a partnership of patriarchy and capitalism has evolved” and the flaw with Marxist attempts to address feminist issues was that the former still focused on capitalism instead of patriarchy as also contributing to the oppression of women and men as beneficiaries of their labor. Thus, though Marxism could be used to analyze the position of women in relation to the economy, it did not take into account that men, being the beneficiaries of their reproductive labor might continue with the oppression of women especially since the oppression of women, though reinforced by capitalism, predates capitalism. Feminists of color, similarly highlighted the complicity of capitalism and their oppression. For example, the Combahee River Collective ([1978] 2014, p. 274) stated that “the liberation of all oppressed peoples necessitates the destruction of the political‐economic systems of capitalism and imperialism as well as patriarchy.” According to them, a socialist revolution cannot guarantee liberation unless it is also a feminist and antiracist revolution.



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Postcolonial and transnational feminists illuminated the complicity of colonialism, capitalism, and nationalism in women’s oppression and the need for solidarities across borders as a way toward emancipation. According to Mohanty (2011), imperial feminist projects emphasizing the need to bring freedom and democracy to the oppressed women in the Third World have bolstered justifications for war and occupation. Like the eighteenth‐ and nineteenth‐century colonialism, the gendered rescue narratives only get reincarnated in the current wars initiated by the United States to further neocolonialism. According to Grewal (in Roy 2017), Western feminism in the past was enabled by empire, and now through neoliberal processes is creating women as market subjects. According to her, “Maybe we feminists have been complicit in some way or the other, in trying to say that every woman’s life is worth something outside of the family but inevitably, in that context, that claim took us to the market” (Grewal in Roy 2017, p. 257). Cross‐border and cross‐community coalitions and the “insurgent knowledges” generated by such activism create new political visions of citizenship necessary to combat imperial democracies. Mohanty (2011, p. 84) writes that: it is the experiences of marginalized communities, especially women who so often sustain the networks of daily life, which must inform processes of creating radical cross‐ border visions for economic and gender justice. Another world is always possible, especially as people begin to build cross‐border solidarities that allow us to see and create another way.

She makes a compelling call that, “An alternative vision of connectivity and solidarity requires building ethical, cross‐border feminist solidarities that confront neoliberal militarisation globally” (Mohanty 2011, p. 83). With the emergence of neoliberalism, however, such critiques of capitalism were marginalized in favor of neoliberal feminism. Neoliberal feminism promotes individualism, and market‐driven solutions to social problems, exemplified by “lean in” feminism of the type popularized by successful white women such as Sheryl Sandberg. Fraser attributes the easy complicity of feminism with neoliberalism to liberal feminism’s privileging of identity claims over economic justice (Rottenberg 2014). Neoliberal rationality seeks to colonize more and more domains. Through the production of neoliberal feminism, feminism becomes one more domain that neoliberal governmentality colonizes and reshapes. Hence, Fraser (2011, p. 157) among others argues that feminists should end “our dangerous liaison with marketization and forge a principled new alliance with social protection” and revive the anti‐capitalist spirit of the second wave. However, there is no emphasis on decolonization. Other scholars have contemplated alternate modes of production and social relations to envisage a social transformation that would challenge neoliberalism and capitalism. Maria Mies (1986) and Vandana Shiva (1989) were among early feminists who called for a more local and subsistence‐based vision as a way to address the coloniality and patriarchy of modern, global capitalism. Maria Mies conceptualized the woman’s body as the third colony, along with colonized states and subjected nature. Mies argued that a growth‐based economy is not compatible with sustainability and instead proposed an alternate model where preservation of life constitutes the central objective. Thus, in this model, reproductive activities would be shared by

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men and women and would also include the stakeholders previously excluded by capitalism, like nature. According to her, priority should be given to local and regional economies instead of global markets (Mies 1998 in Aguinaga et al. 2016). Those feminists who highlight the importance of the economics of care demand a public policy for care that would provide a collective that is missing under neoliberalism. German socialist feminist Frigga Haul proposed a “time economy.” According to her, time should be distributed between paid work, reproduction, culture, and political participation. She proposed that paid work should be cut down to four hours a day to ensure the required productivity and also to democratize access to work in the times of employment crisis (Haul 2009 in Aguinaga et al. 2016). J.K. Gibson‐Graham and Community Economies Collective (CEC) members have worked to imagine and enact actions that diversify the economy. An important focus for them has been identifying, gathering, and amplifying existing ethical economic practices (Gibson‐Graham and CEC 2017). Though in conventional usage economy often refers to a system of monetary exchange and formal commodity production, for Gibson‐Graham and CEC, the use of the term is much broader and refers to “all of the practices that allow us to survive and care for each other and the earth.” Thus, they prefer the use of the terms “economic practices” and “economies” instead of “the economy” or “the economic system.” A type of economy they discuss is the community economy which is “the explicit, democratic co‐creation of the diverse ways in which we collectively make our livings, receive our livings from others, and provide for others in turn.” Some of the concerns that influence the building of community economies are how we can balance our survival needs with the survival needs of others and the planet; what can be done to use surplus to enhance social and environmental health; what we need to consume and how can we consume sustainably. They highlight the importance of worker‐owned cooperatives and the organizations that promote and support such cooperatives, such as the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives, the Australian Business Council of Cooperatives and Mutuals, and Solidarity Economy initiatives. Some other ways through which communities are innovating alternate pathways are through peer‐peer financing and do‐ it‐yourself financing (Gibson‐Graham and CEC 2017). Feminists from the South have also proposed starting from women’s alternatives, and rejecting profit centered development and capitalism (Miles 2001). For example, DAWN (Development Alternative with Women for a New Era), a Third World women’s network (among others), proposed a feminist project based on what are assumed to be women’s values and priorities: The women’s movement … can have an ethic drawn from women’s daily lives. At its deepest, it is not an effort to play “catch up” with the competitive aggressive “dog‐eat‐ dog” spirit of the dominant system. It is, rather, an attempt to convert men and the system to the sense of responsibility, nurturance, openness, and rejection of hierarchy that are part of our vision. (Sen and Grown 1987 in Miles 2001, p. 873)

Several regional and international networks have been formed which affirm the core values of human and nonhuman life and oppose the profit‐based economy, for example Diverse Women for Diversity, Caribbean Association for Feminist Research



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and Action (CAFRA), Indigenous Women’s Network, and Women Environment and Development Organization (WEDO), among several others (Miles 2001). Other scholars have also examined peer production, open learning, and sharing economy as alternatives. Even though it is debated whether these can bring about a transformation in society, these scholars still leave out coloniality from the conversation and do not assess the usefulness of these alternate frameworks in the process of decolonization. For as some indigenous scholars have suggested, indigenous rights, environmental protection, anti‐capitalist, and decolonization struggles reinforce each other. As Vandana Shiva has pointed out, life itself is being colonized in the era of genetic engineering and patents (Shiva 1997). McAfee (1999) critiques the prevalent global discourse on biodiversity and ­demonstrates how this discourse advocates selling nature in order to save it, and in the process further exacerbates the North–South divide. She uses the term “green developmentalism” to show how nature is constructed as a world currency, and ecosystems are viewed as warehouses providing genetic resources for biotechnology industries through global environmental institutions such as the Convention on Biological Diversity and the World Bank, which attempt to regulate international flows of “natural capital.” Thus, “green developmentalism” attempts to provide market solutions for environmental issues through the strengthening of property rights, including intellectual property rights (IPR). This valuing of local nature in terms of its relation to international markets (by denominating diversity in currencies such as dollars or euros) further abstracts nature from its spatial and social contexts. Escobar (1998) calls for an examination of the mechanisms through which concepts and objects of study are constructed in the dominant biodiversity framework. Although there has been an increasing recognition of traditional knowledge, the constructed scientific disciplines continue to be more dominant in this field. This has led to transnational coalitions consisting of indigenous people, peasants, and non‐governmental organizations (NGOs) who oppose biopiracy and the patenting of living organisms, and fight for international environmental justice. Indigenous communities have been at the forefront of protesting against the continuing colonialism carried about by multinational corporations and environmental damage, and the destruction of indigenous livelihoods. The indigenous movement in Ecuador, for example, has been successful in securing not only indigenous rights but also linking their rights with environmental rights. Their protests have been geared against multinational corporations who carried out immense environmental exploitation in the Amazonian region, for example, the dumping of crude oil and toxic waste in the Amazonian jungle by Chevron. The Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (Confederacio’n de Nacionalidades Indı’genas del Ecuador: CONAIE) successfully united indigenous people and called for constitutional validation and recognition of their rights (Singh 2018). Subsequent developments have led to the recognition of the right of the earth to exist. Ecuador became the first nation in 2008 to give rights to nature through constitutional amendments. The constitution grants earth, pachamamma, an inalienable right to exist, persist, and be respected (Whittemore 2011). This is a change from the anthropocentric articulation of environmental value adopted by most countries. The amendment also guarantees that Ecuadorian citizens have the right to sue if the right of the environment is violated.

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This lack of discussion on decolonization is also evident in the neoliberal academy and knowledge production where a particular white neoliberal feminism dominates even as diversity and multiculturalism are heralded. Moreover, Hong (2008) argues that universities, by being complicit in maintaining the inequities in wealth and access to resources, further marginalize subaltern communities. Hong situates Black feminism as a site of alternative futurity. Drawing from Barbara Christian’s work, Hong reflects on the many barriers to Black feminism – material, institutional, and intellectual  –  and to new generations of African‐Americans. At the same time the universities’ fetishization and contradictory increase in ethnic studies can ironically produce black, brown, or native feminisms without black, brown, or native students or faculty. Thus, decolonial feminist praxis needs to take seriously what constitutes knowledge, and the conditions under which knowledge is produced in the neoliberal academy. As Patricia Hill‐Collins reminded us, we need to be aware of the “Eurocentric masculinist criteria for methodological adequacy” (Collins 1989, p. 753) as it prevents knowledge production by Black and other subaltern feminists who study communities that have faced systematic erasure for centuries. Indigenous scholars and activists have taken steps to decolonize such knowledge production and consumption. Some of the steps taken include educating non‐indigenous allies. For example, in 2009 Dakota activists organized a 10‐week course – “Dakota Decolonization: Solidarity Education for Allies” in Minneapolis (Steinman 2016). Scholars of Native Science have proposed these forms of indigenous knowledge as a complement to Western science and are working on including such knowledge in applied science education programs in secondary school level and college courses, and incorporating such knowledge in climate change and environmental efforts (Nelson 2008). A decolonial perspective also needs to be emphasized to ensure present social approaches and policies do not continue to endanger the lives of those marginalized by the processes of colonization. The lack of a decolonial perspective leads to false assumptions. For example, the proposal of the Dakota Access Line lacked an understanding of Native American religious traditions and their sacred associations with particular landscapes. The religious aspect of the land through which the pipeline had been planned was not acknowledged by the Army Corps and Energy Transfer Partners and they argued that there was no evidence of buildings or burials on the proposed route. The assessment, however, came from an ethnocentric European colonial perspective where a holy or sacred place must have a building or be a burial ground. The indigenous worldview of the animate earth is fundamentally different from that based on Western civilization. Each geographical formation – cliffs, caves, springs – has a spirit that influences the cosmos and thus, sacred places are notable landscape features without structures. Western religions, on the other hand, consider built structures, like churches, as sacred (Campbell 2017). At Standing Rock, the opposition along with being ecological, was also religious, as the pipeline would destroy what to them was religiously sacred. As Floris Whitebull, an indigenous activist at Standing Rock articulated, “Those are our synagogues. Those are our Eiffel Towers, our pyramids. When you look out at the land, you do not see anything like [Turtle Island]; how it comes out of the ground. Everything about us is with the Earth, including our [sacred] sites” (Floris Whitebull in Campbell 2017).



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Feminists are among those who have contributed to making visible alternate knowledges. For example, Smith’s (2016) articulation of three pillars of white supremacy and ways to move beyond is one such effort. Smith argues that in the United States white supremacy is not enacted as a monolithic logic, but rather in three different modes which require different strategies of liberation. The three interconnected pillars of white supremacy are genocide/colonialism, slavery/capitalism, and Orientalism/war. Genocide of native communities during colonialism laid the foundation for white supremacy. Those who were not eliminated were confined to reservations and coerced to assimilate to white, Christian cosmology. Most importantly, this original sin is erased as white settlers and later immigrants became the rightful inheritors of the land. As labor was needed for the land stolen from the native communities, Africans were enslaved and brought to the new world, adding another pillar to cement white supremacy. Like the natives, slaves were also not considered human but property to be bought and sold to work on the plantations of white settlers, which enabled capitalism to take off. The enduring legacy of slavery continues in the contemporary era via various segregated practices, among them the prison‐industrial complex. The third pillar, Orientalism/war, is the process through which the West in general and the US in particular sees the Orient as a constant threat to its wellbeing justifying a constant state of war. Thus, the US uses Orientalist logic to racially profile Arab Americans and carry out its “War on Terrorism.” Smith uses this framework to outline alternative strategies of organizing for social justice that can serve as a guide to decolonizing feminist praxis. For example, Smith argues that gaining rights and access to institutions makes us complicit in maintaining white supremacy. Thus, immigrants and others who seek and are granted the “American Dream” do so by settling on indigenous land and furthering the settler colonial project. Or the strategy some marginalized communities in the US use to escape poverty, i.e. join the military, furthers US imperialism. Therefore, our strategies of liberation cannot be based on oppression of others at home or abroad. Smith argues that heteropatriarchy is the building block of the nation‐state form of governance. Thus, any liberation struggle must challenge heteronormativity in order to challenge colonialism and white supremacy. According to Smith, “we need a model based on community relationships and on mutual respect” (Smith 2016, p. 70). In a similar vein, Maria Lugones argues that the most salient characteristic of colonial intrusion is the attempt to annihilate the communities that were colonized and to ensure that these communities view themselves as separate and therefore closed to one another. For Lugones, the decolonial project is one that overcomes these attempts of fragmentation and separation of colonized communities through coalitions. According to her, Coalition is a radical deepening of that permeability through learning others’ ways of living, their spiritual and social relations and longings, their knowledges, their economies, their ecologies towards liberation. It is a moving together defying colonial cartographies, seeking autonomy from the nation state, enriching the communal senses of self, designing practices of self‐government that place all members at the place of deliberation and decision making and accord each the power to participate.” (Lugones 2014, p. 3)

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For her, decolonial feminism needs to function with the recognition that we are beings in relation, not dichotomously split in hierarchical systems. According to Pérez (2010, p. 123), “a decolonizing politics must introduce, engage, and circulate previously unseen marginalized and stigmatized notions of “spirituality,” “philosophy,” “gender,” “sexuality,” “art,” or any other category of knowledge and existence.” Pérez (2010, p. 124) argues for a “profound solidarity based on a politics of identification with the otherness of the other as an imbricated, interdependent part of our own selves and being even as it is a recognition of the irreducible difference of the other as such.” Thus, Perez is not referring to “difference subsumed in a unity based on dominant cultural translations that in effect represses what is too different and/or challenging, that renders difference into ‘same,’ or ‘totality,’” but to a perspective that is based on a view that to her came from “Buddhism and the Maya concept of In′Laketch, tú eres mi otro yo, you are my other self” (Pérez 2010, p. 124). This concept has been used in the Chicana/o movement since 1965. This is conceptualized as “though we are not identical, we are nonetheless also one” and what this implies to her is “not only that your fate is tied to my own, but most to the point here that some of your own actual and seeming differences may also perhaps be part of the part of my own potential subjectivity that present power relations have rendered other or mute within me.” Along with class consciousness and awareness of racialization, coalition and solidarity, decolonization must also entail “the de‐gendering and de‐heteronormativizing of our conscious subjectivities” (Pérez 2010, p. 125). As these feminists imply, true emancipation cannot be achieved within a modern emancipatory project. One needs to conceptualize gender justice otherwise to do so.

Gender Justice Otherwise Even as feminists everywhere have begun to recognize the complexity and diversity of women’s lives and agencies, often our understanding of gender justice and women’s empowerment do not reflect that diversity. Following the coloniality of gender, most feminists in both the Global South and Global North, have assumed a gender division of labor, with women engaged in social reproduction or care work and men in productive labor as a major factor in gender inequality. Hence feminists, e.g. Molyneux (1979), consider undermining this division of labor as strategic to women’s liberation and empowerment. But many scholars have critiqued such an assumption of women’s empowerment. For example, based on Oyo Yoruba of Western Nigeria, Oyèrónké Oyěwùmí (1997) argued that gender as a social category did not exist and that age was more important than gender in conferring power. Hence older women were empowered, even if they engaged in care work. Hence, undoing a presumed universal gender division of labor is not necessary to empowerment. Similarly, scholars studying Muslim women have shown that a gender division of labor does not preclude women’s agency and empowerment. Saba Mahmood’s (2005) study of pious Muslim women in the Mosque movement in Egypt showed that these women actively inhabited their religious practices and were far from oppressed or victimized subjects. Lila Abu Lughod’s work (2013), also in Egypt, also argued that Muslim women did not see themselves



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as oppressed women without rights. Drawing upon colonial Indian history, Mrinalini Sinha (2012) similarly cautions against assuming what work gender division of labor does in a specific context. Most recently, indigenous feminists have been at the forefront of defining ­women’s empowerment and gender justice otherwise. In the words of Ross (2009, p. 50), “My notion of indigenous/feminism seeks to empower communities. It includes female, male, and other genders. My indigenous/feminism privileges storytelling as a way to decolonize and empower our communities.” Common to most indigenous communities is the understanding of gender relationships as complementary and reciprocal rather than hierarchical. In such a conception the gender division of labor is not disempowering. For example, Paravasini‐Gebert (1997) shows that in rural Haiti women’s control of the distribution of goods gives them economic power and social power in the community even when men practice polygyny. Jamaican women’s control of sexuality and pleasure runs parallel to their role in care work and providing for their families. For Sámi feminist Kuokkanen (2015), indigenous feminism emerging from indigenous women’s political struggles for self‐determination and freedom from violence is relational, local, and collective. Passing on Sámi language and culture is part of empowerment. Hence, reindeer‐herding laws, and encroachment of their territories are as important to Sámi feminists as gender discrimination. Nation building is about community building, not constructing a nation‐state which is premised on violence. Hence, many Sámi activists are more comfortable in environmental movements than feminist movements. Consensus building is an important element of justice. Marcos (2005), who has been active in indigenous and non‐indigenous feminisms in Mexico, notes that indigenous women’s worldview is premised not on equality but on parity, on walking together. For indigenous women, the cosmos contains different elements that balance each other out; so to them “‘Equality’ sounds like stasis, like something that did not move. Furthermore, no two beings are equal in the sense of being the same. With the concept of duality anchoring their daily lives and rituals, equality did not make sense (Lopez Austin 1984, p. 85; Marcos 1998, p. 374)” (Marcos 2005, p. 87). “Caminar Parejo,” walking together is the metaphor they work with toward a just relationship with their men. Moreover, as Lenkersdorf (1999) notes, for indigenous communities, collectivity expressed as “estamos parejos” or “we are all subjects” is key and expresses “intersubjectivity” (Lenkersdorf 1999 in Marcos 2005). “It does us no favor to congregate only among women, because when the men hear our voices, they begin to be reeducated” (Tomasa Sandoval, a Purepécha from the State of Michoacan, in Marcos 2005, p. 88). Another feature of gender justice otherwise is the centrality of land and earth. Earth is seen as sacred for all living beings who are interconnected. It cannot be owned by individuals. Svampa (2016) discusses multiple perspectives that all share the vision of decolonization, for example, the environmental perspective that emphasizes the principle of Buen Vivir; the indigenous, communitarian approach; the eco‐feminist perspective with a focus on the care economy and the struggle against patriarchy; and the eco‐ territorial standpoint that is linked to social movements that have developed a political stance based on the ideas of environmental justice, food sovereignty, common goods, territory, and living well.

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A whole range of possibilities is offered by Latin American social, communitarian, and solidarity based economies which require strategic planning to strengthen them. A greater participation of ordinary people, and also a great degree of support from the state, are needed. The existing notion of development needs to be challenged, which is made difficult by the fact that “patterns of consumption related to the hegemonic model of development permeate the whole population” (Svampa 2016: 145). A need to change the cultural imaginary that links the quality of life to consumption is imperative. Thus, a decolonization of social needs is necessary (Svampa 2016). South Asian Feminist Network for Gender Transformation, SANGAT, has also proposed gender justice that is articulated beyond the nation‐state, the political economy of death, and militarized notions of security to more regional, local, and participatory collectives that are explicitly feminist and engage the diversities of class, caste, and religion that have led to great violence in the region (Desai 2018). In some South Asian languages, the word “Sangat,” refers to a gathering or community of similar minded people for a good and just cause. Born in colonial violence and reproducing Eurocentric state formations, SANGAT have engaged with the problematic nature of the nation‐state itself. Their feminist vision calls for moving beyond the nation‐state to a people’s union in the region with more local political control and decision‐making that includes all people. According to them, “Instead of the earlier emphasis on ‘Declaration of Independence’ what we need today is ‘Declaration of Interdependence’” (SANGAT, 2018). While feminists have long critiqued and defined a strategy of working with, against and through the state, very few have proposed moving beyond the nation‐state. This is a significant move worthy of further debate. They embrace an alternative model of development articulated by global justice movements (for example, by the World Social Forum events and processes) and guided by values of equality, justice, cooperation, peace, diversity, democracy, and decentralization. The basic principles they espouse are protecting subsistence economies and agriculture, resisting monetization of land and water, restituting the right to the commons, creating internal markets between local producers and consumers, resisting new colonization with food as a weapon, and ensuring social and economic citizenship‐ based entitlements. Their vision demands that “women and other marginalized groups be empowered not to adapt to or serve the present system but to challenge it” (SANGAT 2018). The model of development needs to be redistributive and sustainable based on people’s knowledges as well as science. They reiterate the need to recognize women’s contributions to the care economy and engage men and boys in it as well. Thus, decolonial feminist praxis in a globalizing world needs to rethink women’s empowerment and gender justice beyond the modernist emancipatory logic and locate it within anti‐racist, anti‐capitalist, and anti‐settler colonial struggles that seek alternative relations among humans, with other species, and with nature.

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21 Feminism and Somatic Praxis Gill Wright Miller

The year was 1952. At my impending birth, my albino and functionally blind 29‐year‐ old mother was doing her best to craft for herself and her family a US, Midwest, middle‐ class, heteronormative, suburban life. Family lore narrates she was at her wit’s end in the last stages of that pregnancy – she was already chasing after my three‐year‐old sister and two‐year‐old brother. Her ob‐gyn induced labor, prompting her to give birth days ahead of my due date.

Birthing is one of our earliest exchanges of understanding ourselves in connection to others and gaining important experience in both asserting our own needs while listening to and negotiating with the needs of others. “Birth itself,” says Linda Hartley, “is the first wholehearted act of will of this new being, a thrust toward greater consciousness and autonomy, a reaching toward a higher level of evolution” (1989, p. 42). This first experience in negotiating is beneficial to our knowledge acquisition in a materialist way. The body actually experiences material adaptations through the process of preparing for and actuating this activity. “A general alertness, new brain connections, and new proteins are provided for the greatest movement from the known to the unknown ever to be undertaken,” Joseph Pearce confirmed in Magical Child (1977/1992, p. 52). Thus, the birth process is an early experience in building the biological network for the development of empathetic compassion. Because of the circumstances surrounding my own birth, the potential of my negotiating with my mother was subsumed by a deeply embedded and unconscious pattern within my nervous system of “Wait! Wait! I’m not ready.” While I was sufficiently developed to survive outside the womb, I was not prepared to express, in dialogue with my first partner, my own needs about how this important learning opportunity might unfold. The “outward appearance of,” but “incomplete readiness for,” was then experienced over and over again. I recognized myself in situations where, although I surely would survive, my cells were not prepared to be fully Companion to Feminist Studies, First Edition. Edited by Nancy A. Naples. © 2021 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Published 2021 by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

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­ resent. These early experiences then fused with physical and mental anxieties  – p whether those manifested in, say, feeling “not quite ready” to tackle a tough ski slope or feeling “not quite ready” to defend my dissertation. In contrast, with the study of somatic practices including Alexander Technique™, Body–Mind Centering®, Ideokinesis™, and Laban Movement Analysis, somatic praxis taught me to ask myself in each new situation whether this anxiety was related to my birth story and the resultant development of my nervous system sending irrelevant messages or to an actual un‐readiness that could be mediated with mentoring, study, and practice. Without understanding the lessons of the body – both our own and our research collaborators – we are vulnerable to misinterpretation. Once aware of the messages our bodies are voicing, we have the option of pausing, speaking our needs, feeling ourselves finding alternate pathways, and engaging with the fortitude of our own agency while respecting that of others. In short, somatic praxis teaches us to listen, to absorb, to process, and to empathize. How might we articulate an epistemology and develop a methodology to assess the pedagogies of the body? In her 1989 essay “The Project of Feminist Epistemology: Perspectives from a Nonwestern Feminist,” Uma Narayan suggested a fundamental premise of feminist epistemology proposed our location in the world made it possible for us “to perceive and understand different aspects of both the world and human activities in ways that challenge the male bias.” Mainstream theories, she said, were “one‐dimensional and deeply flawed” because of the exclusion of women’s contribution. She concluded that integrating feminist perspectives with science would result in a shift of understanding, enabling us to see “a very different picture” (p. 256). Here, I am exploring what that inclusion might look like by addressing the integration of feminism and somatic praxis – an integration that proposes that, simultaneously, our biology is a template for behavior choices while our movement histories influence and reshape our biology. I will map out how that epistemology might be engaged by a methodology in two parts: tuning into the self and reaching from self to others. Finally, I will illustrate this methodology applied in several personal narratives that are meant to help the reader grasp – even without extensive training in a particular somatic approach – how this perspective can reshape each of our stories, relying on the fact that we each have a body history and react to others from a set of material experiences wired into the soma. Ultimately, engaging in this methodology through acknowledging our own somatic histories and respecting the somatic histories of others will facilitate a development of empathetic resonance, and the building of empathetic resonance will facilitate our being the change we hope to see in the world.

Feminism and Body‐Based Theory When late twentieth century Western feminists said we were “theorizing the body,” we meant something completely different than what was meant by late twentieth century Western somaticians. In the early 1900s, F. Matthias Alexander offered a London clientele relief from patterns of tension manifested in habitual reactions. During that same period, Dr. Mabel Todd offered her clients improved movement fluency through guided imagery. Mid‐century, disciples of these two and other somaticians populated Western culture. By the start of second wave of contemporary



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feminism, there had been considerable discussion by Western scholars of the body as a carrier of personal histories and wisdom (Alexander  1923; Todd  1929, 1953; Feldenkrais 1949; Hanna 1970). In the 1970s, American sociologist Herbert Blumer (1986) claimed “social ferment” and “popular excitement” surrounded the centrality of the body as investigations of personal and political stance. For example, a philosopher at the University of Florida, Thomas Hanna, having written Bodies in Revolt: A Primer in Somatic Thinking (1970), was introduced to the work of Sorbonne‐trained, Israeli physicist Moshé Feldenkrais, author of Awareness through Movement (1977). These exchanges were concurrent with the mid‐1970s development of somatic principles and theories of Body–Mind Centering (BMC) by Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, and a system of movement observation and recording extending the work of Rudolf Laban called Bartenieff Fundamentals™ developed by Irmgard Bartenieff. Somatics as a social movement was off to a good start. Concurrently, French feminist Hélène Cixous et al. (1976) devised the term écriture feminine, explaining it “serves as a disruptive and deconstructive force, shaking the security and stability of the [Lacanian] phallo‐logo‐centric Symbolic Order, and therefore allowing more [Derridian] play.” This approach to writing clearly comes from the female body, but continues to privilege language (rather than the body itself) as the primary location to unravel understandings of the psyche. A year later, however, Belgian‐born feminist Luce Irigaray (1985[1977]) considered the somatic body as a site in her essay “This Sex Which is Not One.” In passages like “two lips kissing two lips: openness is ours again,” she inaugurated listening to the body’s own agency in feminist writing. Unfortunately, however, conversations in the various arenas of Western post‐ structural and theoretical feminism quickly transformed – perhaps as an unspoken condition of their invitation to join the academy – to consider the body as a carrier of cultural markers and identification in conflict. Through historical clusters of thought and development (see, for example, second‐wave radical and libertarian debates articulated by Ann Ferguson [1984]), then coming to definitions of epistemologies (see, for example, Epistemic Responsibility by Lorraine Code [1987]), and finally in the creation of disciplinarity (drawing on accepted practices of academic traditions as “women’s studies” became programs and departments in colleges and universities), various conversations laid bare certain contradictions (like power imbalances between researcher and researched or insider/outsider knowledge) and made space to identify and accommodate the positioning of a female‐identified, gestalt self. In the 1980s, activated by the work of the Combahee River Collective, Patricia Hill Collins, bell hooks, and other scholars contributed to Kimberlé Crenshaw’s (1989) naming intersectionality. This theory brought both individual race/gender needs and cultural experiences into focus. Crenshaw insisted we must relocate the most marginalized to “recenter the discrimination discourse at the intersection.” She implored us “to look beneath the prevailing concepts of discrimination” which named this intersection, but she asked that we “develop language which [was] critical of the dominant view and which [provided] some basis for a unifying activity” (1989, p. 167). Intersectional theory, intensely valuable for considering a matrix of domination, gave us “reasons” but not “tools” for understanding self and others.

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It  failed to articulate the body as having unique birthing journeys and toddler ­experiences literally shaping the nervous system’s myelination and pathways which consequently influence what we might otherwise imagine as “intuitive responses.” In other words, these feminist colleagues centralized the body primarily as recipient of others’ constructions – that is, as the object of cultural subjugation – while ignoring, minimizing, or silencing early childhood contributions as constitutive of meaning‐ making, and on which years of patterned responses would be built. In other 1980s work, a long list of scholars including Gloria Anzuldúa, Susan Bordo, Rosi Braidotti, Donna Haraway, Annette Kuhn, Audre Lorde, Catherine MacKinnon, and Emily Martin valiantly and worthily consider/ed feminism and the body. In these accounts, their theories avoided challenging subjective representation – what Sandra Harding (1998) later named “advanced institutional and societal euro‐centric” representation. Concerns for social justice included combinations of generosity, understanding, acceptance, ally‐ship, sisterhood, and solidarity, yet, as Harding might have claimed, they continued to reckon with the body as a gestalt within a cultural context. Elizabeth Grosz’s Volatile Bodies (1994), then, was a veritable trailblazer in feminist body theory. She acknowledged topographies from “inside out” and “outside in,” indicating “A person’s own body . . . is a place from which both external and internal perceptions may spring” (1994, p. 37). Grosz concluded the “body” that had been theorized was unswervingly male. She turned, instead, to essentializing female experiences  –  menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth, lactation, menopause  –  to lay the groundwork for a body‐centered approach to corporeality. Although, as Leavy (2015, pp. 152–153) confirmed, her text did distinguish approaches that were inscriptive (a site where social meanings are created and resisted) from those that were phenomenological (people’s experiential knowledge); her scholarly peers immediately insisted feminism veer away from the corporeal body as a site of knowledge. Two popular collections in Western feminist literature illustrate my point. In 1997, Katie Conboy and Nadia Medina published an anthology, Writing on the Body: Female Embodiment and Feminist Theory. The editors emphasized the ways the (female) body was “read” in various locations like Seneca Falls and Latina communities, was replete with potentially erotic reproductive organs, and was “performed” whether intentionally (as in carnival or pornography) or unintentionally (as in taking on culturally assigned roles). Two year later, in 1999, Janet Price and Margaret Shildrick compiled a reader, Feminist Theory and the Body. Price and Shildrick suggested we had been battling “somatophobia” from Plato to the Enlightenment. In contrast, they claimed essays selected for this volume would consider the body as purely physical, the carrier of self‐identity, and as positioned in social and cultural hierarchies. Yet, the collection comprised theories of cultural inscription, female masculinity, and scientific investigation, positing the body as a material gestalt that was seen, read, and perhaps coerced into liminal spaces. In the late‐twentieth century, feminist researchers were most often trained in humanities and social sciences methodology. However, at least two researchers  – psychologist Elizabeth Wilson and biologist Anne Fausto‐Sterling – presented perspectives that explored feminism and the body from the perspective of the sciences. Wilson (1999) reported in Australian Feminist Studies that “The vicissitudes of



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c­ulture, history, and language are being circumscribed by the nature of biology.” These shared convictions, says Wilson, lead us to the axiomatic belief that “informed accounts of culture, history or language cannot be grounded in the nature of human biology.” Wilson concludes “the force of this statement  .  .  .  has been lost in the accounts of ‘the body’ that many feminists now produce with habitual ease. [. . .] Feminist theories of embodiment have proceeded, it would seem, as though the nature of biology is immaterial” (p. 7). Fausto‐Sterling (2000, 2005) explained in Sexing the Body – which contends with three dualisms (sex/gender, nature/nurture, and real/constructed) – that our behavior literally changes our biology. In her chapter, “Gender Systems Toward a Theory of Human Sexuality,” Fausto‐Sterling claims we are taught societal norms and then, through practicing them, our behavior reshapes our biology. In the twenty‐first century, neuroscientists have clearly reenergized these points. Examples range from Norman Doidge’s 2016 text The Brain’s Way of Healing (offering several convincing anecdotes) to Sara Lazar et al.’s (2005) “Mindfulness Meditation Experience is Associated with Increased Cortical Thickness” (offering the first structural evidence for experience‐dependent cortical plasticity.) Feminist theorists, however, have not been quick to pick up this thread. In spite of the nod toward the body, and sometimes a framing in the body as a materialist source of knowledge, feminist theorists reified a gestalt body – an essentialized body perceived as the intersection of many interpretable cultural arenas. Feminist theorists had integrated Laura Mulvey’s 1975 “male gaze” theory (empowering heterosexual men and objectifying women), without consideration of the profound, innervated layers of individuation that compose and comprise our sense of our own bodies from the inside, from our sensed and felt experience. Feminist theory, by and large, avoided awarding agency to an actual somatic body as a site of meaning‐making.

The Gestalt Body/The Somatic Body Two examples illustrate the distinction between addressing the body through a gestalt lens and a somatic lens. Many gender studies introductory classrooms engage students in a “Privilege Walk” exercise where students may start shoulder‐to‐­shoulder but gradually get “separated” by advancing or retreating based on personal answers to specific “life” questions (e.g. “are your parents still married?” or “is there public transportation between your home and your work?”). The teacher is charged with noticing which students move forward and which move backward, and then naming how those students fit into institutionalized or systemic patterns of cultural oppression. In an effort to demonstrate cultural advantages not of one’s own making, the teacher points to unintentional “membership” in groups that are disadvantaged in a particular society. Pedagogy identifies this kind of classroom activity as “­experiencing” – indeed sometimes using the term “embodying” – knowledge due to the physical nature of the exercise. Contrast this example with a narrative published in Ms. Magazine in 1986. Brent Staples wrote about his ability to alter public space simply because of his “presence” as a large, black, masculine body. He describes his effect on a young white woman across the street who picked up her pace until she was running. He explored stories

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of his youth in Chester, PA, where he “fit in” and therefore failed to notice the power that his physical body had on strangers. He then moves to a final assessment: I move about with care, particularly late in the evening. I give a wide berth to nervous people on subway platforms during the wee hours, particularly when I have exchanged business clothes for jeans. If I happen to be entering a building behind some people who appear skittish, I may walk by, letting them clear the lobby before I return, so as not to seem to be following them. [. . .] And on late‐evening constitutionals I employ what has proved to be an excellent tension reducing measure: I whistle melodies from Beethoven and Vivaldi and the more popular classical composers. Even steely New Yorkers hunching toward nighttime destinations seem to relax, and occasionally they even join in the tune. Virtually everybody seems to sense that a mugger wouldn’t be warbling bright, sunny selections from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.

Without question, much could be said about the oppressive conditions he describes. I don’t mean to ignore or belittle how offensive those are. However, in this analysis, I am asking that we consider the robust awareness Staples discovered ­concerning his own corporeal influence on relationships and notice his drive toward finding ways to reduce tension in these experiences by “comfort[ing] his partners,” which can, eventually, invite them into conversation about their own actions. Perhaps as a remnant of Cartesian ideology, academics more often bracket and overlook valuable carnal information when we solicit and guide cognitive responses to the sociopolitical positions of a gestalt body to be assessed, analyzed, and argued rather than encourage responses to the sensations of the somatic body to be acknowledged, listened to, and heeded. Notice that the first example is not “somatic” simply because the medium is experiential; nor is the second example “theoretical” simply because the medium is written. Notice, as well, that the two perspectives – gestalt and somatic – are not mutually exclusive. Yet, feminist researchers would benefit from embracing and integrating somatic praxis to guide us toward the intimacies of relationship and frame the stories we tell as coming from a place of personal, intrinsic, cellular knowing. In feminism’s desire for empathic confluence, somatic praxis will show us a way to develop openness and flexibility, rendering us more ready to be the change we seek in an unjust world.

Describing Somatic Praxis What we perceive is influenced by what we have already experienced and therefore anticipate. –Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen Sensing, Feeling, and Action

Somatic Epistemology Feminist researchers exploring social consciousness, justice, and change have something tangible to gain by investigating the biases inherent in our own bodies from infancy onward. We look not only to adhere to accepted disciplinary practices and



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ethics, to name our politicocultural positions, and to maintain a decentered nonessentialized flexibility, but also to unravel why we feel and think this way so that our past experiences, and what they have written on our physical bodies, can be consciously directed in our everyday interactions. As Anne Fausto‐Sterling posited nearly 20 years ago in Sexing the Body (2000), we must begin to bring up the tone on the knowledge that “past experiences literally change our biology.” Consider the 2010 movie Bébés directed by Thomás Balmès, a documentary that follows four infants from Japan, Mongolia, Namibia, and the United States through their first year of life. The documentary illustrates vast differences in the development of personal agency and movement support for these babies by simply acknowledging the environment in which they were encouraged to experience early childhood. Their daily explorations exposed them to a variety of trials from which they gleaned knowledge about the world around them, and the resultant perceptions grew directly from these practices. Somatic epistemology – the study of the scope of our knowledge and a justification of the means of the production of that knowledge – posits that we acknowledge as foundational all experiences written on the soma as shaping our sometimes‐unwitting awareness and response.

Somatic Methodology It’s January 1989. I am in London to conduct research. I’m staying at a Kensington apartment six blocks away from the Language of Dance Center near Holland Park. It is a lovely area – groomed and clean – but I am in a distant land staying by myself for the first time. The sun sets at 4:15 and I will be walking home, through unfamiliar neighborhoods, in the dark. All of the faces, all of the brief interactions, all of the energy swirling around me on my way home is unfamiliar. I am coping with a low‐grade anxiety – listening in on sympathetic and parasympathetic negotiations – and I try to take charge of that internal conversation by deepening my breathing. Gradually, I pull myself away from “sensing my weight and flow” to “widening my awareness and picking up my pace.” The next morning, my mentor asks me where I am living for these few months, and then shares that I may be passing the Cameroon High Commission each night on my way home. She encourages me to notice the beautiful clothing and communal dancing on the brownstone steps while wandering around my temporary neighborhood. I feel my physical body shift, then reshape. I consider anew whether I will venture east to the Little Yellow Door, a cocktail lounge on Notting Hill Gate, in the opposite direction of “home.” I remember that I was raised by a blind mother, and rarely left to my own adventures as an infant. I realize that the smallest piece of information serves as a belaying device, aiding me in acknowledging, adjusting, or changing my behavior.

Somatic methodology can be approached by imagining the cells as microcosmic indicators of macrocosmic relationships; the systems as distinguishable yet co‐aligned social arrangements; developmental movement as the building blocks supporting our transitions from dependent to independent able to shift, move, and grow with increasing nuance and sophistication; and Bainbridge Cohen (2012) states, “Through the

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exploring of the perceptual process, we can expand our choices in responding to ourselves, others, and the world in which we live” (p. 6). Researchers become more self‐aware through a general acquaintanceship with the systems approach of Body-Mind Centering (R) (BMC) and relational‐aware through a general acquaintanceship with effort and shape observations of Laban Movement Analysis (LMA). Over many decades of applying and contouring these two somatic theories, I have reduced and adapted this work to make it applicable for what I call stock assessments – a way to check in with the self and others through the soma. Through these brief somatic sketches, I work at tailoring wakeful conversations that can bring awareness to points of resonance and dissonance between collaborators. As a methodology that resonates first with self and then with others in the context of specific situations, a somatic response is vital to the process of nurturing compassionate empathy.

Tuning into Self Embryology of the cells and systems provides a template for diversity, expansion, and differences of perspective; it gives us ways to “read” and “be read” in order to find resonance with others. Within a cell body, the various organelles are both codependent and cooperative. The very fact that they work with each other, respecting and relying on the different contributions each makes, is an indication that we are constructed to cooperate. Whether developing axons for dispatching signals, or flexible membranes to narrow and fit in new ways, or changes in length to vary force, the body works efficiently because of the diversity the cells embrace. This serves us well as a prototype; our cells are testimonials that we have already experienced ways to cooperate for the good of the whole. Eventually, an anatomical body matures into tissue territories, each with its own kind of messaging. Applying categories articulated by Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen’s Sensing, Feeling and Action and framed for the lay reader by Linda Hartley’s Wisdom of the Body Moving, cellular territories fall into three fundamental communities. Our container systems indicate how we meet and are met by the outside world; our contents systems provide the source for our functional and emotional sensations; our communication systems connect outside and inside so that we can negotiate what we are taking in with what we can give out. Researchers not trained in somatics can attune, easily, to these three kinds of resonances – what in somatics we might call “minds” – because they have already been experienced in the body. The “mind of the system,” then, describes the quality of the movement based on the nature of the tissue territory (Bainbridge Cohen 2012, p. 10) (See Table 21.1.) The container is represented by the systems that hold the shape of our presence: bones and joints, muscles, and ligaments. The skeletal system (bones/joints) lever us through space and support our weight, giving us a scaffolding on which to hang definitions as we position ourselves within communities. The joints give us pivot points around which we move and make changes. The ligaments set the boundaries. Within the world of feminism and social justice, the mind of these systems combines to lead us in regulations, scaffolding, and orienting through opportunities. Through the mind of the skeleton, we become structurally organized, both grounding our thoughts and leveraging our ideas, but also keenly aware of the axes around



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Table 21.1  Tuning into self through systems categories. Container

Contents

Communication

Bones, Joints, Muscles, Ligaments

Organs, Endocrine

Nervous System, Fluid Systems, Fasciae

Provides the materiality for our presence in space. Provides a frame, gives us definition, regulates what comes in and stays out, makes tangible a mobile/stable negotiation by defining both the way and the space into which one part “grounds” while another part “moves.”

Provides the materiality for our mass and impact. Provides vital sustenance (e.g. air, food), provides the fullness and vivaciousness of our presence, and tempers the degree of energy/ calm needed to act/ react/impact.

Provides the materiality for our sharing, adapting, negotiating. Provides the coordination of information, supports its fluidity around the body, gives us precision and community.

It is here that we recognize and scaffold categorization, leverage around new organizations, can identify implied or assumed structure, resilience, and resistance.

It is here that we notice the vitality, the commitment to, the passion for a situation or idea.

It is here that we connect one part with another, find the pathways for solutions.

Container / Contents / Communication Skin (part of all three system categories): Provides the materiality to separate and connect us from self to other.

which we can pivot because the space between our ideas allows us to sense new relationships. Our container provides a three‐dimensional elastic force, giving us the ability to dialogue around resistance and resolution with power whether quick action or endurance is more appropriate. When we investigate the mind of the ligaments, we are asking about cultural systems, family systems, legal systems that define, guide, and protect the status quo but also give us specificity, clarity, and efficiency for pushing back, for making change. Like cultural organizations, ligaments, expressing a smaller, stronger, deeper mind do not elongate easily; they are designed to hold existing structures in place, to protect the status quo. Yet, healthy ligaments do have elastic qualities that change when approached overtime and with care. Inside that container, the contents are represented by a range of reactions to relationships. Identified as our organs and endocrine system, the body’s contents facilitate breath, nourishment, elimination, and homeostasis  –  our very survival in the environment. Bainbridge Cohen said, “As the primary habitats of our emotions, aspirations, and memories of past experiences, the organs imbue our movement with personal involvement and meaning” (2012, p. 30). Our organs define us as full‐bodied, vivacious, and authentic. Endocrine glands mediate those organ responses by keying internal stillness and, equally, surges and explosions of emotion. Our sense of balance and chaos is governed by the endocrine gland’s intuition and perception. Within the world of feminism and social justice, the mind of our contents allows us to express explicit needs that must be addressed, to expand and contract in rhythmic phasic patterns, and mediate the “in” and “out” of foreign and unfamiliar ideas.

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As feminist researchers, we have different resonances within the spectrum of parched deprivation to juicy full‐bodiedness, and those experiences both support and interfere with the full development of these qualities. Noticing our expressions (which can be read, for example, as apathy or enthusiasm or passion) – whether they are lacking, minimal, nuanced, or abundant – colors our communication with each other in profound and meaningful ways. The body also has systems designed to transport information and body memory (cellularly distinct from cognitive memory) to new sites for variations in response. The nervous system, the fluids, and the fascia (connective tissue) serve in primary roles here. One coordinates information, guiding our perception by giving precision to that coordination. Another transports information – through oceanic, canal‐like, or pond‐like environments – while providing us with ease in movement, often read as fluidity, flexibility, and resilience. The third provides a “soft container,” wrapping and hugging together various structures of the body. What this means in terms of methodological design is that a healthy, functioning, and efficient nervous system, sufficient and lush fluid systems, and adequate whole‐body fascia provide the ability to negotiate multiple thoughts and opinions at once. In the world of feminism and social justice, the mind of the communication systems provides us with the ways we transport information, try it on for size and fit, remold what we feel and think, set the tone for transparency, share information, and stay connected through horizontal, leaderful veiling. The tissue that connects the parts within ourselves also connects between and among us. While it is delicate – prone to rips and tears when care is not taken – it is also deliberate, strong, and resilient. Synchronizing all of these tissue territories is the skin, a system that provides a conduit through touch. Skin both encloses and connects the body; it mediates and regulates sensation (moisture, temperature, germs, and toxins); it transports messages internally and externally. Skin separates self from other, but simultaneously mediates self and other. Both individuals and groups of people demonstrate preferences for various ­systems. For example, those who work well with structure, guidelines, and delimitations are expressing the mind of the skeletal system while those who prefer reactionary, improvisations are expressing the mind of the organs. Those who are always making certain people know about events that are occurring are expressing the mind of the nervous system, while those who seem to “go with the flow” are expressing the fluids. Identifying self as expressions of systems helps us to identify ways to group and to work together and invites a kind of joy in difference that celebrates collaboration. It is also true that our preferences may vary depending on the kinds of support we perceive surrounding new ideas. That is, a context offering support allows us to select other responses. The basic design of a somatic methodology, then, first asks us to assess the degree to which we are responding from a (series of) previously held experience(s) potentially in conflict with a current situation. Once we read our own bodies as, for example, “skeletal,” “organ‐y,” or “fluid,” we can determine if our responses are embedded and stuck in the past or flexible and improvisatory in the present. Perhaps our work is first on self, to expand our range of responses. Then, we may notice that we prefer to work with those who are like us or those who complement us. These responses, then, illustrate a read of the soma in relationship.



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Reaching from Self to Others I am seated on an airplane next to a mother and her teenage son. For the first hour, I focus sagittally, narrowing my own use of space to fit within my seat, and hoping not to disturb them. Equally, I suspect, I am hoping to convince them by my action that they will stay within their seats as well. Midway through the flight, the son throws his head back and exhibits soft, semi‐flailing gestures with his arms. The mother reaches for the call button and asks the soon‐to‐arrive flight attendant for a glass of water. The remote state – a product of binding rather than freeing my sense of flowy ongoingness and focusing rather than expanding my attention to space – I feel in my own body releases as I attune to my row‐mates. Through breath, I focus on my cells more carefully, shifting my own state to a light intention and indirect attention (a “stable state”). The mother is loving, attentive, and kind, reassuring her son that he has weathered the incident in his body and that we are all OK. The son is responsive and consoled, as he reaches for her hand and squeezes it while smiling. I turn to my cell phone and type into the translator: “You are a very loving mother. Deep respect.” (Você é um muito mãe amorosa. Profundo respeito.) I hold out my phone for her to read. My intention to communicate with her is delayed as she has to reach for her glasses, breathing shallowly, her eyes showing concern. When she reads my message, we look at each other and smile. She relaxes in her seat, settled now that she and her son – in whatever way they might be imagining – are not disturbing me in any way. As we land, he reaches across her lap for me, so that I might share with him the excitement of the landing.

Within attuning to the primary systems from which our own bodies speak, we need also to consider relational dynamics in the ways the stories are being exchanged. Somatic methodology provides us with at least two avenues for accomplishing this. First, through the dynamic output of one’s own movement and simultaneous observation of a partner’s reaction, we adapt our movement, whether intentionally or not. Consider, for example, what happens when we want to add humor to a conversation. If people laugh, we may continue to invest in that humor. If they cringe, we get the message that we should hold back to avoid further discomfort. Second, by accommodating our physical shape as a bridge between the material body and the space in which we are acting, we embed into the emotional expression a message about form and forming as a partnership. While we may “prepare” in non‐dimensional actions, our relationship‐lives reach others through one‐ and two‐ dimensional connections, offering an unwavering relationship. When appropriate, we can also fully embrace three‐dimensional relationships, offering our partners a negotiation of the bodies in space so that we are mutually accommodating. The methodology, then, for reaching from self to others can be explored through a basic application of LMA Effort and Shape modalities. We read the effort of the exchange through acts of progression, in combination with attention, decision, and intention. We address those dynamic expressions in relations to an inner/out, self/ other exchange as non‐dimensionally focused, connecting linearly, or embracing fully (see Table 21.2.). In 1950, Rudolf Laban claimed our inner sensations were expressed out into the world through a certain kind of propulsion he labeled Antrieb. Half a century later,

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Table 21.2  Reaching to others through effort expression. Effort

Flow

Space

Time

Weight

Spectrum identifying the range of responses:

Free (ongoing, letting go) to Bound (holding back, holding on)

Indirect (multidirect Sustained (an and widespread) attitude of “all to the time in the Direct (pinpointed world”) and specific) to Urgent (an attitude of Hurry! Hurry!)

States:

Combinations of two Effort qualities set a tone‐pool that describes our movement quality. Each “state” has an infinite number of variations: Dream (Weight/Flow) Awake (Time/Space) Rhythm (Weight/Time) Remote (Space/Flow) Mobile (Time/Flow) Stable (Weight/Space)

Drives:

Combinations of three Effort qualities are often seen to add punctuation to an otherwise more generalized description of movement qualities: Action (Combinations of Weight /Time/Space are supported by underlying Flow) Spell (Combinations of Flow/Weight/Space are supported by underlying Time) Vision (Combinations of Flow/Time/Space are supported by underlying Weight) Passion (Combinations of Flow/Weight/Time are supported by underlying Space)

Light (delicate, defying gravity) to Strong (exertion of increasing pressure)

Laban theorist Ed Groff (1995) confirmed this when he said, “At the heart of LMA is a recognition that movement is a psycho‐physical process, an outward expression of inner intent.” We can attend to these sensations by observing not just the “what” but indeed the “how” of expression. According to Studd and Cox (2013), “how we change the ways in which we organize and expend energy” includes “how we focus our attention in the world around us; how we express the passage of time; how we exert control; and how much force we use” (p. 81). The underlying foundation for this expression is an ongoingness – described as a spectrum ranging from bound or held to free and flowing. Basic, intentional combinations ride or combine with that ongoingness when we respond by attending globally and widespread or clearly and directly (through attention to our spatial orientation), when we pause/sustain/consider or jump in impatiently (through a decision to initiate an action), or when we act delicately or dig in our heels (through our intention to commit). Most of the time we act with nuanced combinations of these “effort qualities” such that we perform our presence in a variety of “states” (combinations of two of the efforts) punctuated by “drives” (combinations of three of the efforts). While LMA theory is complex and nuanced, these are ways of expressing our inner selves that we each observe every day by noticing that someone is alert and attentive, anxious and fidgety, or aloof and hardly listening to the challenging details of a story. Common adjectives help us articulate the dynamic color and tone of



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an  individual; we name them as affectionate, apprehensive, boorish, cantankerous, careless, fragile, hot‐headed, meticulous, mysterious, nimble, peaceful, restless, ­ thoughtless, vivacious. Common adverbs help us describe their actions: awkwardly, briskly, carefully, gracefully, lifelessly, quickly, recklessly, unabashedly, worriedly. As adults, we may begin our relationship with others by noticing dynamic identifiers as important signifiers of a person’s integrity. Somatic praxis determines noticing these dynamics of the somatic body is as important as noticing descriptions of cultural identity markers that mark the gestalt body. What accommodation in the body connects the space between conversation partners? One option is a generic growing and shrinking, a kind of expansion into the space and then retracting into self without judgment – what BMC might identify as a continuum of in utero developmental movement patterns including cellular breathing, sponging/pulsing, and navel radiation. Irmgard Bartenieff said about this shape‐ flow idea: “Movement goes out into space and creates shapes. But also, there is inner space, and breath is an inner shaping experience. The body shrinks and grows with each breath. Inner breath changes can be supported by sound. Posture is not built by muscles but by the whole way you breathe” (Konie 2011). The more relational aspects of modes of shape‐change appear in dimensional expressions bridging to or embracing fully another person/idea. “Bridging” presents what I call acknowledgment – a lifeline has been tossed out, the two aspects are somehow tethered together and can both define and hold the space between them. In embracing, there is what I call participation – where the collaborators shift, change, mold and are molded by not one or the other but by both equally sharing space (see Table 21.3.). In the airplane example above, we were initially connected in the claiming of “our own” space – defining it and trying not to spill over. After our exchange, both the relationship between us and the space around us shifted as we made room for each other. Table 21.3  Reaching to others through shape accommodation. Shape Non‐dimensional

Linear/Arc like

Embracing

Growing and shrinking, Reaching for or withdrawing There are many ways to usually small movefrom a particular “point in embrace three‐dimensionments that are often space” (whether person or ally. They include combinarepetitious. object) through a line in tions of rising, sinking, For example, shaking a space. enclosing, spreading, foot on the leg crossed For example, pushing a retreating, and advancing. over another leg while drawer closed. Functionally, we often sitting; the joint moving Swinging toward or away embrace in multiple ways and stretching that simultaneously. from something through accompanies a yawn For example, reaching out for an arc in space. a baby being passed to you, For example, pulling open a you may advance in the door attached by a hinge. whole body while wrapping the arms to coddle the child but retreat with the hand to hold and pull the head toward your heart.

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In sum, then, where the systems approach highlights inclinations of internal processing, the effort and shape observations help us name attunement. By identifying dynamic outputs exhibited by self and others, in ranges of possibilities, accompanied by accommodations to the relationship itself, we can tease apart whether the person or the message resonates. For example, recently a colleague brought into question whether her “integrity” was being challenged when student research was of excellent quality but did not meet programmatic guidelines. Observations of her effort and shape helped me respond to the question she was asking from the delivery of that same question to the group. My aim was to assure her the responses we gathered could help us all respond to student work more specifically and were not about her personally. We met her question not with passion or defensiveness but rather by teasing apart other possible options for the work we shared without increasing her anxiety about her personhood. By recognizing the experience of the soma, and then identifying with the effort dynamics and choices made by the colleague before gently shifting them, we were able to “be on the same wave length” (sometimes known as tracking the other person through mirror neurons as described by Calvo‐Merino 2010, pp. 156–159) before suggesting changes that we could all make to better align with programmatic goals.

Applying Somatic Praxis To integrate feminism and somatic praxis is to ask ourselves questions about our own preferences and expectations, to notice and take responsibility for the delivery of our expression, and to aim to shape multidimensionally with the other participants. We need not use the specific language above to make these observations, but we must take into account somatic epistemology – that the soma provides a way of knowing, distinguishing that knowledge from opinion, while also providing a method for shifting those beliefs. The basic design of a somatic methodology requires that we consider dialogic exchanges first by considering the degree to which, and how, we ourselves are responding from previously held experiences that are now patterned into our current response. As in the story at the start of this chapter illustrates, early experiences (e.g. birthing and young childhood experiences) imprint in our nervous system and are carried into new relational situations as biologically supported affinities. Identifying our system preferences actuating in a particular situation helps us identify ways to group ourselves and to work together while inviting a kind of joy in difference that celebrates collaboration. Second, when we are working with collaborators, our movement expresses an attitude about self, about others, and about the partnership itself. Here, too, previous experiences myelinate our choices of mobile/stable, dream/awake, or remote/rhythm states as “go‐to” responses, but we are also responsive to our partners by, for example, seeking similarities or seeking balance through opposition. This form of attunement then defines the relationship. Finally, the mind of the system(s) expressed dynamically is then met with a sensing of self or an agreement to partner in relation to the environment. In the partnership options, by noticing in the body an exchange of body/space/dynamic shaping,



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Table 21.4  Applying somatic methodology. The mind of the system

The dynamic output

The relational signals

Recognize our preferences and notice our expectations that stem from previous physical experiences now embedded in our soma

Reveal choices in the dynamics we exercise to express ourselves to others; variations occur in particular situations

Reveal a willingness to resonate with self/others by containing, bridging, or embracing; variations occur in particular situations

Container Contents Communication Skin

Progression/Feeling Attention/Thinking Decision/Committing Intention/Sensing

Non‐Dimensional Linear Embracing

we sense a direct acknowledgment or, possibly, a full‐bodied commitment. It is vital, then, to do the work of coming into self, somatically, to assess our biases inherent in our bodies and expressed through our behaviors, our attitudes, and our responses (see Table 21.4). In the uncovering of my birthing story, the pattern of “Wait! Wait! Not yet!” arose as my deepest and longest‐held history. In present decisions, I have at least three choices. First, I can acknowledge the feelings I am having about a new experience likely come from this early memory – not a cognitive memory, but an imprinted pattern that has altered my central and peripheral nervous system to “speed‐dial” this decision in future new challenges. Second, I can push away the sensation of “wait” and instead try something new to feel the experience (and perhaps the pleasure) of it. In that way, I am discovering and then – if I repeat it – establishing a new pattern that gets to compete with the older one as an equally appropriate response to the next new challenge. Third, I can acknowledge that I may, in fact, not be ready for this new challenge. A raw honesty will permit me to name, locate, and participate in the preparation I need to engage in something new. With regard to my feminist research and partnerships then, this corporeal knowledge allows me to witness myself; equally it teaches me to witness others with ­generosity and without judgment. Brent Staples (1986) claimed he “learned to smother rage” at the presumption of criminality. Reflecting on his body’s response, he noticed that “[entertaining that rage] would have led to madness.” That rage probably making his breath shallow and his blood collect around his organs might also have caused him to have a nervous breakdown or suffer a heart attack had he not decided to stifle it. He was conscious of others’ skittishness (i.e. that they were actively in the mind of the nervous system), and he derived a plan (whistling Vivaldi) to communicate, through auditory perception, his harmlessness, his sociability, his education, even his willingness to identify with an élite, classical Western art form. He made an active decision to care for himself and, in doing so he was simultaneously caring for his collaborators. With regard to feminist research and partnership then, he acknowledged and practiced an empathetic resonance with others – yielding to a new behavior – for the good of the relationship.

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The London neighborhood story acknowledged an inward investigation through the mind of the container witnessed in the comments “I’m staying at a Kensington apartment six blocks away from the Language of Dance Center near Holland Park. It is a lovely area – groomed and clean . . .” It also acknowledged the mind of the nervous and respiratory systems by claiming “I am coping with a low‐grade anxiety – listening in on sympathetic and parasympathetic negotiations – and I try to take charge of that internal conversation by deepening my breathing.” The outward expression of these systems was observed in describing effort states: “I pull myself away from “sensing my weight and flow” to “widening my awareness and picking up my pace.” The pattern shifted through the directional reach‐out by the mentor offering an explanation of events and guiding me toward ways of approaching those events. Because of that support, I was able to risk personal changes, here described as exploring the opposite direction from my home. The support is affirmed at the end of that story: “the smallest piece of information serves as a belaying device, aiding me in acknowledging, adjusting, or changing my behavior.” In the airplane story, a mother/son duo and I, without so much as a shared language, realized we were communicating through the soma: me, addressing a focused need to occupy yet contain my space; she, feeling responsible for acute attention to her son and to the stranger randomly seated beside her. The witnessing of her care invited me to reevaluate the impact my aloofness might have on them, and I reached out simply to offer my appreciation which I hoped would give her the room to do what she needed to do without apprehension or concern. What transpired was a softening on each of our parts, and a reach across our space. That pleasure, then, likely experienced in each of our bodies – but I will speak here only of mine – set in motion a distinct materialist pattern to repeat that action the next time an opening occurred.

The Significance of Somatic Praxis for Social Justice Why might gathering somatic data be an important contribution to global feminism and in the social justice work that now engages us? Like Argentinian feminist philosopher and social critic María Lugones (1999), we center our work in “the connection between rhetorical spaces where the ideal is articulated and the space of action where the ideal is enacted” (p. 88). That connection is the body. Forty years ago, at the intersection of explorations of the body and invitations to join the academy, feminists chose an allegiance with institutional and systemic patriarchal values, values that largely excluded trusting the body. When feminist editors collected essays for Writing on the Body: Female Embodiment and Feminist Theory and Feminist Theory and the Body, we had the opportunity, and, I am arguing, the responsibility to account for that somatic resonance, but we deflected it, perhaps to honor the hierarchy prevalent in educational institutions as we were granted formal admission to the academy. Opportunities to engage with others as humans in the struggle, the confrontation, the cultural codes, indeed in the politics of making it to Blumer’s “third stage” of



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social evolution  –  a stage that transcends individuality and sociality  –  is precisely what has slipped into the shadow in this current technoculture. Somatic praxis invites back the visceral closeness of the face‐to‐face. If we are to embrace meaningful learning, it means coming to the task, as Mexican‐American scholar of Chicana cultural studies and queer theory Gloria Anzaldúa said, “with my heart in my hand,” to be physically present in a location where, citing Marìa Lugones and Spelman (1983), “we have neither a calling card nor the authority of knowledge” (p. 581). Somatic empathy implies the capacity to understand or feel what we and another person are experiencing. This happens physically, in the body’s soma, by activating identical sets of neurons in an individual who is simply witnessing another person. In other words, acting together actually generates motoric, psychosocial, and cognitive functions, including specific psychosocial issues related to attunement and attachment; it is acting together, even imperfectly, that generates empathy (Berrol 2006, p. 302). What does acknowledging the somatic body mean with regard to social justice? Having witnessed it in a delinquent boys’ ranch when I was a house‐parent, I found a near‐immediacy in the teens coming to presence by beginning their afternoons in a circle, holding hands. Feeling the energy of the person standing next to them, they did not break the circle until there was attunement. Having witnessed this in the African Diaspora dance classes at my predominantly white Midwestern college, I found a near‐immediacy in the development of a mutual respect followed quickly by dialogue and then friendship born out of the sweat‐and‐tears exchange. Having witnessed it in the Cincinnati courtroom, I found a near‐immediacy in the touch – indeed, the hug  –  from Rukiye Abdul‐Mutakallim  –  the mother whose son, Suliman, had been shot and killed as he walked home with food for his family – to Javon Coulter, the perpetrator. Integrating feminism and somatic praxis is an antidote to the now more common disembodied experience in our daily lives and work. Oppression is often impersonal, either by associating it with systemic imbalances or by a disassociating with the individual. To approach personalizing global oppression, then, we must compel physical understandings of ourselves and each other, because humanity generates smaller, deeper pockets of empathy. Collective empathy, in the long run, will serve all of us in our quest for social justice.

References Alexander, F.M. (1923). Constructive Conscious Control of the Individual. New York: E. P. Dutton. Bainbridge Cohen, B. (2012). Sensing, Feeling and Action: The Experiential Anatomy of Body‐ Mind Centering®, 3e. Northampton, MA: Contact Editions. Balmès, Thomas. 2010. Bébés [film: documentary] Berrol, C. (2006). Neuroscience meets dance/movement therapy: mirror neurons, the therapeutic process and empathy. The Arts in Psychotherapy 33 (4): 302–315. Blumer, H. (1986). Symbolic Interactionism: Perspective and Method. Berkeley: University of California Press. Calvo‐Merino, B. (2010). Neural mechanisms for seeing dance. In: The Neurocognition of Dance: Mind, Movement and Motor Skills (eds. B. Bläsing, M. Puttre and T. Schack), 153–176. New York: Psychology Press.

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Cixous, H., Cohen, K., and Cohen, P. (1976). Laugh of the Medusa. Signs 1 (4): 875–893. Code, L. (1987). Epistemic Responsibility. Hanover, NH: Brown University Press. Conboy, K. and Medina, N. (1997). Writing on the Body: Embodiment and Feminist Theory. New York: Columbia University Press. Crenshaw, K. (1989). Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: a black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory, and antiracist politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Legal Forum 1989 (1): 139–167. Fausto‐Sterling, A. (2000). Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality. Revised ed. New York: Basic Books. Fausto‐Sterling, A. (2005). The bare bones of sex: part I – sex and gender. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 30 (2): 1491–1527. Feldenkrais, M. (1949[1950/1966/1983]). Body and Mature Behavior: A Study of Anxiety, Sex, Gravitation, and Learning. New York: International Universities Press. Feldenkrais, M. (1977). Awareness through Movement: Health Exercises for Personal Growth. New York: Harper & Row. Ferguson, A. (1984). Sex war: the debate between radical and libertarian feminists. Signs 10 (1): 106–112. Groff, E. (1995). Laban Movement Analysis: Charting the Ineffable Domain of Human Movement. Journal of Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance 66 (2). Grosz, E. (1994). Volatile Bodies: Toward a Corporeal Feminism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Hanna, T. (1970). Bodies in Revolt: A Primer in Somatic Thinking. Novato, CA: Freeperson Press. Harding, S. (1998). Is Science Multicultural?: Postcolonialisms, Feminisms, and Epistemologies (Race, Gender, and Science), 1998. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Hartley, L. (1989). Wisdom of the Body Moving: An Introduction to Body‐Mind Centering. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books. Hill, C.P. (1990). Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. New York: Routledge. Irigaray, Luce. 1985. This Sex Which is Not One (originally published as “Ce Sexe qui n’en est pas un,” 1977, Editions de Minuit.) Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Konie, Robin. 2011. “A brief overview of Laban Movement Analysis.” https://pdf4pro.com/ view/a‐brief‐overview‐of‐laban‐movement‐analysis‐561136.html Lazar, S., Kerr, C., Wasserman, R.H. et al. (2005). Meditation experience is associated with increased cortical thickness. Neuralreport 16 (17): 1893–1897. Leavy, P. (2015). Method Meet Art: Arts‐Based Research Practice, 2e. New York: Guildford Press. Lugones, M. (1999). Tenuous connections in impure communities. Ethics and the Environment 4 (1): 85–90. Lugones, M. and Spelman, E.V. (1983). Have we got a theory for you! Feminist theory, cultural imperialism and the demand for ‘the Woman’s voice. Women’s Studies International Forum 6 (6): 573–581. Mulvey, L. (1975). Visual pleasure and narrative cinema. Screen 16 (3): 6–18. Narayan, U. (1989). The project of feminist epistemology: perspectives from a nonwestern feminist. In: Gender/Body/Knowledge (eds. A.M. Jagger and S.R. Bordo), 256–269. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. Pearce, J.C. (1977/1992). Magical Child. New York: Penguin Group. Price, J. and Shildrick, M. (1999). Feminist Theory and the Body: A Reader. New York: Routledge.



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Staples, Brent. 1986. “Just Walk on By,” Ms. (aka “Black Men and Public Spaces”; Harper’s, 1987). Studd, K. and Cox, L. (2013). EveryBody Is a Body. Indianapolis: Dog Ear Publishing. Todd, M. (1929). “The balancing of forces in the human being.” Syllabus for Teachers College. Columbia University. Todd, Mabel Elsworth. 1953/1976. The Hidden You: What you Are and What to Do About it. Wilson, E.A. (1999). Introduction: somatic compliance‐feminism, biology and science. Australian Feminist Studies 14 (29): 7–18.

Further Reading Bartenieff, I. (1981). Body Movement: Coping with the Environment. New York: Gordon and Breech. hooks, b. (1984/2000). Sisterhood: political solidarity among women. In: Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center (ed. b. hooks), 43–67. Laban, R. (1950). The Mastery of Movement. London: MacDonald and Evans. Mohanty, C.T. (2003). Feminism without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity, 5e. Durham: Duke University Press. Snowber, C. (2016). Embodied Inquiry: Writing, Living, and Being through the Body. New York: Springer. Sweeney, L.J. (1998). Basic Concepts in Embryology: A Student’s Survival Guide. New York: McGraw Hill Companies. Sweigard, L. (1974). Human Movement Potential: Its Ideokinetic Facilitation. New York: Harper & Row. Todd, M.E. (1937/1949 [/1959/1968/1975]). The Thinking Body: A Study of the Balancing Forces of Dynamic Man. Brooklyn: Dance Horizons.

22 Feminist Health Movements Meredeth Turshen and Marci Berger

Introduction In the century since World War I the context of women’s movements generally and women’s health movements in particular has lurched from a world dominated by the British Empire’s Victorian and Edwardian morality through the sometimes bloody struggles for colonial independence to a world in the grasp of neoliberalism and religious fundamentalism. Along the way women met with the atrocities of World War II, to which the international community responded by creating the United Nations (UN); the UN in turn crafted a human rights agenda that codified the first attempts to globalize equality for the sexes and enshrine health as a human right. This chapter recounts the challenges and successes of women who joined together to press for feminist healthcare, which repositions demands for sexual and reproductive rights in a political context of intersecting race, gender, and class oppressions. We begin with a series of definitions – social movements, feminist health movements, body politics, reproductive rights and reproductive justice; then we describe the antecedents to today’s movements before turning to new trends since 2000. We conclude with a selection of accomplishments – birth control, legalization of abortion, curbed abuse of sterilization, attention to infertility – and finish with a consideration of the implications of the conservative backlash for today’s movements.

Definitions Social movements generally comprise networks of informal interactions that tie together informal groups and individuals (and sometimes formal organizations) in struggles for systemic social change on the basis of shared interests and identities. These movements, of which feminist health movements are a part, often begin locally,

Companion to Feminist Studies, First Edition. Edited by Nancy A. Naples. © 2021 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Published 2021 by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

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at the grassroots, and focus on change. Whether they are reform movements, which focus on legal change, or radical movements, which contest the political order and work to transform values and norms, women’s social movements advocate for improvements in women’s status. It is critical to note that not all social movements are progressive; in fact, from the Tea Party movement in the United States to Boko Haram in Nigeria (and similar militant movements in other parts of the world), regressive forces are combating women’s advances toward bodily integrity. Social movements often coalesce in civil society associations, called non‐state actors in UN parlance. They are different from non‐governmental organizations (NGOs); although their interests may overlap, their strategies and goals diverge. Like social movements and civil society associations, NGOs are advocates of reform and try to redefine political priorities; social movements place more emphasis on systemic social change. The majority of international NGOs are based in the Global North; a greater percentage of NGOs based in the Global South focus on the local, national, or regional context (AWID 2014). Many NGOs furnish goods and services to fill gaps in state provision. By definition they operate in the private sector, sometimes undermining public options. In selecting their projects and preferred target groups (for example, healthcare for poor women), NGOs also characterize the beneficiaries and determine the nature of goods and services that women come to expect. For example, NGOs might offer individualized personal services for victims of violence, whereas social movements might contest male privilege and machismo as causes of gender violence. NGOs (both non‐profit and for‐profit) tend to absorb social movements, sometimes diluting their goals and coopting their leadership. To qualify as implementing agencies for the provision of goods and services, NGOs must adopt agendas that satisfy their donors and professionalize their staff. Professionalization has removed them even further from the shared interests of social movements and mass resistance. And professionals in NGOs often network in ways that are different from the organizing dynamic developed by social movements (Bendaña 2006; Harcourt 2006; Narayanaswamy 2016). We understand feminist health movements as political movements that seek justice for women around sexual and reproductive issues. We use the term “feminist” in two senses: to refer to pro‐women activists who assume that gender is constructed across biology and social conventions, and to reference power relations between women and men. We focus on the response of social movements around the world to gender inequities that manifest in healthcare, in legislation affecting women’s health, and more broadly in oppressive social attitudes and practices that interfere with women’s bodily integrity. We note that since, for political and social reasons, not all such movements use the term feminist, we have made our selection based on evidence of their praxis in the quest for social justice. Body politics is the term used to refer to complex notions of “gender differences that are marked out in cultural, social, economic and political positionings of the physical body” (Harcourt 2006, p. 4). The concept covers struggles around gender violence, sexual rights and women’s health; this set of concerns differentiates ­women’s rights movements from other rights movements. Reproductive rights include access to sexual and reproductive healthcare and information, as well as autonomy in sexual and reproductive decision‐making.



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As  human rights, they are universal, indivisible, and undeniable, and they are grounded in other essential human rights. Reproductive rights rest on the recognition of the basic rights of all couples and individuals to decide freely and responsibly the number, spacing, and timing of their children and to have the information and means to do so, and the right to attain the highest standard of sexual and reproductive health. Rights include freedom from discrimination, coercion, and ­violence and the right to privacy (Amnesty International USA; amnestyusa.org/ women; UNFPA 2014). Reproductive justice is a concept that links reproductive rights with social justice. Reproductive justice provides a framework that focuses on the social, political, and economic inequities among different communities that contribute to infringements of reproductive justice. The reproductive health framework addresses inequalities in health services by advocating for the provision of services to historically underserved communities. The reproductive rights framework emphasizes the protection of an individual woman’s legal right to sexual and reproductive health services, focusing on increasing access to contraception and legal abortion. The reproductive justice framework uses an intersectional analysis of women’s experiences and focuses on changing the structural inequalities that affect women’s reproductive health and their ability to control their reproductive lives (Ross et al. 2017). One example is the need to integrate access to contraception and abortion with other social justice issues like differential maternal and child mortality rates.1

Earlier Women’s Health Movements The history of national women’s movements belies the position frequently taken by opponents that feminism is a Western concept, alien to some societies and cultures. Many women’s movements date back to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Race, class, caste, and religious issues dominated the early feminist movements in many nations and conditioned their engagement in abolitionist, anticolonial, and nationalist movements as well as in struggles to improve women’s status and health (Antrobus 2004). Participation was often personally costly, and non‐white, lower‐ class and lower‐caste women paid more heavily than elite women in terms of imprisonment and persecution. For example, Indian women were involved in politics from the late eighteenth century when impoverished women and men staged famine revolts against British colonialists. Struggles for political, economic, and social equality represent women’s challenges to traditional roles. The Egyptian women’s movement began in the nineteenth century with upper‐class women in urban areas considering such issues as seclusion, segregation, and veiling. From the beginning of national women’s movements, women’s health was salient. Egyptian women immediately put health concerns on the agenda: maternal and child health services, tuberculosis treatment, provision of clean water and prevention of water‐borne diseases (Badran 1995). In India, the 1931 All‐Asian Women’s Conference discussed health and welfare, trafficking in women and children, and alcoholism (Nijhawan 2017). The colonial powers responded to such demands by passing laws that restricted women’s access to abortion and contraception. The French outlawed abortion in 1810; Portugal in 1852;

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England and Wales prohibited abortion in 1861; and the Belgian law against ­abortion dates from 1867. These laws were imposed on all colonial possessions where they persisted long after women achieved reforms in Europe and even after independence. From 1821, when Connecticut became the first state to make abortion illegal, such laws spread across the United States. Margaret Sanger, a nurse from New York City, took the first step in direct conflict with the 1873 Comstock Act (which criminalized abortion and contraception) when she opened the first birth control clinic in 1916. Within days the clinic was shuttered and Sanger imprisoned, but the work went on and the clinic, eventually named the Margaret Sanger Research Bureau, increased its services to include infertility counseling and treatment. Sanger founded the American Birth Control League in 1921, which became Planned Parenthood Federation of America in 1942. Planned Parenthood meetings ignited an international birth control movement that would spread across the globe. Sanger’s British counterpart was Marie Stopes, who also campaigned for eugenics ­(discussed below) and women’s rights and opened the first birth control clinic in London in 1921. Elizabeth Bagshaw, one of Canada’s first female doctors, championed the notion that women should have the right to prevent pregnancy. She ­established Canada’s first family planning clinic in Hamilton, Ontario, in 1932, despite the illegality of the act and intense criticism from the medical and religious communities. But times were changing: by 1937 the American Medical Association began encouraging its members to learn about contraception. An International Congress on Population and World Resources in Relation to the Family met in Cheltenham, UK, in 1948; American activist Margaret Sanger’s message was that the world needed to cooperate to promote knowledge of population trends and world resources in relation to the standards of family needs. She noted that the problem was no longer local or national but worldwide, and she said it should be on the agenda of the UN. By 1952 there were eight national family planning associations, including one in India, and together they founded the International Planned Parenthood Federation.

Eugenics and Forced Sterilization A discussion regarding the history of the birth control movement is not complete without an examination of eugenics. First described in 1883 by Francis Galton, a British naturalist, eugenics was a commonly accepted means of protecting society from those deemed “unfit”  –  criminal, poor, mentally ill, people of color  –  while encouraging reproduction in those seen as “fit” – intelligent, healthy. An international phenomenon, eugenics movements first appeared in the United States, Germany, and Britain at the turn of the twentieth century with later movements appearing in France, Norway, Sweden, Russia, Cuba, Brazil, and Japan (Dolan DNA Learning Center n.d.). Some supporters thought eugenics helped women’s emancipation since women should be well educated to make rational choices about marriage and not burdened by social conventions or economic necessity. By the 1890s, modern and independent “New Women” were taking up such ideas as putting eugenic social duty before their own feelings and desires. So‐called “positive” eugenics tried to encourage middle‐ class women to have more children, while “negative” eugenics targeted the poor to prevent childbirth (Burdett 2014).



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At a time when large numbers of immigrants from southern and eastern Europe were arriving in the United States, the theories behind eugenics contributed to racist and anti‐immigrant sentiments. During the same period, more women were entering the workforce, and young, single women were moving to cities. Supporters of eugenics promoted the idea of forced sterilization of the poor (often people of color) and to those confined to mental hospitals. Some activists in the birth control movement supported family planning based on eugenic principles. Margaret Sanger herself subscribed to the philosophy in her 1921 paper, “The Eugenic Value of Birth Control Propaganda” (The Public Papers of Margaret Sanger: Web Edition). Support of eugenics enabled Sanger to bring physicians into her birth control strategy, giving doctors the exclusive right to disseminate contraceptives. The 1927 US Supreme Court case Buck v. Bell codified the related practice of forced sterilization. Although the eugenics movement was debunked after World War II, forced sterilization continued well into the 1970s. Activists like Dr. Helen Rodriguez‐Trias finally brought attention to the punitive and abusive acts that left about one‐third of all Puerto Rican mothers aged 20–49 sterilized by 1965 (Presser 1969). By focusing on sterilizations performed without consent and often through government‐funded programs, Rodriguez‐Trias provided a voice for women of color and poor women. She helped found both the Committee to End Sterilization Abuse and the Committee for Abortion Rights and Against Sterilization Abuse, which were among the groups instrumental in bringing about federal sterilization guidelines in 1979 (Wilcox 2002). At the same time the Southern Poverty Law Center won the Relf v. Weinberger case: the 12‐ and 14 year‐old Relf sisters, who were poor, black, and living in the American South, became victims of unconsented sterilization; their case led to stringent, informed consent requirements and prohibited the use of ­federal funds for involuntary sterilizations (www.splc.org accessed July 2, 2017).

Women’s Health Movements After 1950 Issues of race, class, caste, and religion continued to dominate women’s movements through the twentieth and into the twenty‐first century. Women’s health movements flowered in many parts of the world in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. In South Africa, where women campaigned against the racist apartheid regime, the 1955 Congress of the People adopted the Freedom Charter of South Africa, a document that became the common program enshrining the hopes and aspirations of all progressive people. The Charter included a call for free medical treatment for mothers and young children at the behest of women organizers and participants (a call finally realized by the majority Black government in 1994). Algerian women were rewarded for their participation in the war of liberation against the French with the establishment of a national maternal and child health service in 1962; it included preventive care and, in 1973 family planning; from 1975 the national healthcare system was free (Ladjali 1991). Feminist history in the United States is often plotted in three waves, covering distinct eras in the twentieth century that focus on different priorities. The first wave (c. 1840–1920) promoted women’s suffrage; the second wave, “women’s liberation,” (c. 1960–1980) revolutionized women lives, giving them the ability to control their reproductive choices and their careers. The third wave (1990–2000) brought to ­feminism a young, diverse generation with an inclusive vision of women as having

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ethnic, racial, national, religious, and cultural identities as well as a range of gender expressions. In the twenty‐first century a fourth wave (from 2008) arose in response to the introduction of new tools for activism (technology, the internet, and social media). This wave’s scope is global, focusing on online activism and international connections, as well as more personalized and individualized campaigns that are quick, reactive, and diverse in themes. Women’s campaigns for sexual and reproductive healthcare in the decades from 1950 through 1970 meshed with a growing emphasis on global population control led by private US groups, notably the Population Council, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Ford Foundation. These organizations funded initiatives that led to the invention of hormonal contraception, significant research on human reproduction, and a concerted effort to liberalize laws restricting access to abortion and contraception. Because the World Health Organization (WHO) was reluctant to divorce birth control from sexual and reproductive healthcare, a separate agency, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), was created in 1967 (WHO 2011). By the mid‐1970s the UN system was firmly in support of the largely US‐funded population control program, and women’s health movements faced a new set of issues (Hartmann 2016). In response to the increasingly vocal opposition of the Vatican and its allies to women’s demands for abortion and contraception on the one hand, and in reaction to national campaigns for mass sterilization and long‐lasting injected or surgically inserted hormonal contraception on the other, women decided to rethink their positions and create new strategies to achieve their goals. Since the 1980s the number of women’s groups has grown dramatically; for example, international organizations like Isis International, the Women’s Global Network for Reproductive Rights, the International Women’s Health Coalition, and the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective enabled national women’s health groups and networks to learn from each other. Building solidarity in their search for solutions to the problems women defined, regional coalitions like the Latin American and Caribbean Women’s Health Network and the Asian‐Pacific Resource & Research Centre for Women (ARROW) drew thousands of members, some of them national networks representing dozens of local groups. The International Women and Health Meeting, which has convened every three years since 1974, is an important forum where women’s grassroots organizations, academics, and advocates promoting women’s health discuss sexual and reproductive rights. The UN provided many platforms on which women met and exchanged ideas: the UN International Decade of Women (conferences in Mexico City, 1975; Copenhagen, 1980; Nairobi, 1985); the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro; and the World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna, 1993. At these meetings women developed the language of their demands for sexual and reproductive rights; by the time the UN held the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo in 1994, women had hammered out a progressive Program of Action. They then took this program to the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995 (UN 1995). The Cairo and Beijing meetings were historic milestones; they represented a paradigm shift that moved women’s sexual and reproductive healthcare away from demographic targets and control, expressly rejecting the use of incentives and targets in family planning services. Putting women at their center, the Cairo and Beijing



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recommendations endorsed population programs that provided comprehensive ­sexual and reproductive health services integrated and coordinated with other health services. The documents that came out of those meetings envisioned a world based on human rights, in which there would be universal access to a wide range of sexual and reproductive health services, including family planning. Feminists in the Global South became profoundly critical of the Cairo consensus and process, however. By endorsing the introduction in healthcare of market principles, business management theories and practices and private enterprise, the ICPD program failed to challenge neoliberalism. This trend to commercialization shifted public healthcare away from free government services, thereby undermining the groundbreaking principles and goals of sexual and reproductive rights articulated at Cairo (Rao and Sexton 2010).

New Trends Since 2000 Neoliberal economic and health policies that privatize and commercialize health services, which have been implemented over the past two decades, have contributed to the decline or collapse of public health services and the deterioration of women’s health and their control over childbearing. Neo‐Malthusian thinking – the belief that population growth will outstrip the earth’s resources and that welfare services only encourage high birth rates  –  is as ingrained as ever in development institutions, donor agencies, and government departments. Religious fundamentalists opposed to women’s rights are advancing in many countries North and South, as well as in the UN arena. These trends are in direct conflict with the broad view of human rights as a key mobilizer for women; sexual and reproductive rights emphasize the principle that women can truly choose their destiny only if they have real options in economic, political, social, and cultural spheres. The advent of new technology has coincided with the globalization of social movements (which itself is a response to the globalization of neoliberalism). Information and communications technologies (ICT) have transformed women’s movements, although access has been uneven.2 Websites offer research and information on a broad range of women’s health issues, gender equality, and violence against women. ITC has also given women the ability to contact groups that are mobilizing to address problems.3 Social media provide a forum for like‐minded participants to express ideas; the proliferation of such platforms affords activists almost unlimited opportunities to share stories and lived experiences, stimulating global conversations. Activism now extends beyond in‐person connections through meetings, marches, and rallies to online communication; “hashtag activism” sometimes leads to mass demonstrations.

“Hashtag Activism” In 2016, for example, following the election of Donald Trump to the US presidency, Teresa Shook of Hawaii created a Facebook event and invited friends to march on Washington in protest. Her initiative took off and eventually led to a worldwide protest on January 21, 2017 with over 670 marches in the US and 81 other ­countries.

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Gathering an estimated 4.9 million participants in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East, the Women’s March advocated legislation and policies for women’s human rights, sexual, and reproductive rights, lesbian and gay rights (LGBTQI rights) and healthcare reform, as well as other issues like immigration reform, environmental protection, racial equality, freedom of religion, and workers’ rights. In India, to cite one example, thousands of women in 30 cities and towns marched to reclaim women’s rights to safe public spaces: a follow‐up campaign, #IWillGoOut, is an ongoing nationwide response to sexual harassment and misogyny. The following paragraphs present some important examples of hashtag activism to give an idea of the geographical reach of this form of expression. #BringBackOurGirls raised awareness of the kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls from the Chibok Government Secondary School by Boko Haram terrorists in Nigeria. In May 2017, Boko Haram militants freed 82 of the schoolgirls in exchange for prisoners, adding to the group of 21 released in October 2016; 113 are believed to be still in captivity. #FreeTheFive was an effort to obtain the release of five young Chinese women who were arrested in March 2015 for protesting against gender inequality after trying to organize a nationwide campaign against sexual harassment on public transportation in the People’s Republic of China. In another example of their activism they walked the streets in blood‐spattered wedding gowns to draw attention to domestic violence; and in an earlier public campaign they occupied men’s public restrooms to pressure officials to build more public toilets for women. The Chinese authorities released the five women on bail a month later, after the international community harshly criticized their detention. #ShoutYourAbortion is a decentralized network of individuals talking about abortion on their own terms and creating space for others to do the same. Started in 2015 by Amelia Bonow and Lindy West as a reaction to attacks on Planned Parenthood, the activists were motivated by the feeling that too many people had forgotten that abortions are lawful medical procedures in the United States; they wanted to jog memories and inspire new conversations about abortion, so they took to Twitter to reverse the narrative of shame and silence that has dominated discussions of pregnancy termination. An example of the international reach of this site is the inclusion of a GoFundMe link to the Abortion Rights Roadshow, which supported Repeal the Eighth, a movement to amend the Irish Constitution’s prohibition on abortion. #EndFGM is a global movement against female genital mutilation (FGM), a ­cultural practice that affects more than 200 million women and girls worldwide. The practice can lead to lifelong health problems, increased risks during childbirth, psychological trauma, and even death. Rejection of the rite can leave girls ostracized and ineligible for marriage. Many feminists believe that FGM is a human rights violation deeply rooted in gender inequality and discrimination, an argument that has been going on for decades. Among the many approaches to eradication, that of Tostan, based in Senegal, stands out for its model of community‐led change, which emphasizes knowledge of health and human rights (www.tostan.org). #EverydaySexism is a UK‐based project started by Laura Bates in 2012 to represent women from all over the world  –  girls as young as 7, widows as old as 70,



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including the disabled and able bodied, religious and non‐religious, gay, straight, and bisexual – who experienced instances of sexism in their daily lives; they are united by their need to share their stories of gender inequality. Similarly, in the United States, the #MeToo campaign enabled women to voice their experiences of sexual assault and harassment. This campaign has now spread to many other countries (Fox and Diehm 2017). #SayHerName was launched in 2015, two years after #BlackLivesMatter began an international activist movement. The Say Her Name campaign focuses attention on Black women subjected to police violence by raising the profiles of women like Sandra Bland, who died in police custody in Texas in 2015, and Rekia Boyd who was shot dead by an off‐duty Chicago detective in 2012. The goal is to include Black women’s stories in demands for justice, policy responses to police violence, and media representation of the victims of police brutality in the United States.

New Dynamic Youth Groups In addition to hashtag activism, dynamic youth groups are forming around the world, all advocating for aspects of sexuality and sexual and reproductive justice. We describe a few of them in the following paragraphs. RESURJ (Realizing Sexual and Reproductive Justice) is a global alliance of feminists under 40 years of age working for sexual and reproductive justice through national, regional, and international advocacy and movement‐building strategies in countries of Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East. The Youth Coalition for Sexual and Reproductive Rights4 aims to ensure that the sexual and reproductive rights of all young people are respected, guaranteed and promoted, and strives to secure the meaningful participation of young people in decision‐making that affects their lives, by advocating, generating knowledge, sharing information, building partnerships and training young activists with a focus on regional and international levels. Sexuality Policy Watch (SPW) is a global forum based at the Brazilian Interdisciplinary AIDS Association. Composed of researchers and activists from a wide range of countries and world regions, it was launched in 2002 as the International Working Group on Sexuality and Social Policy and became the SPW in 2006. SPW undertakes strategic analysis devoted to the critical mapping of conditions prevailing in sexual politics landscapes globally and locally. It is a credible source of updated information on facts, research findings, and public debates around a wide range of sexual rights areas such as abortion, gender‐based sexual violence, sex work, LGBTQI rights, HIV, and AIDS. In 2013, SPW began a cycle of capacity‐building programs on the linkages between sexuality research and political change. S.H.E. (Social, Health, and Empowerment) is a feminist collective of transgender and intersex women of Africa based in South Africa and established in 2010. S.H.E is pioneering an African trans feminist movement aimed at expanding feminism to recognize the problems of African trans and intersex women and at exploring ways to involve transgender women in advocacy at local, regional, subregional, and ­continental levels.

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What Did the Earlier Movements Accomplish? The first accomplishment of early women’s health movements is that women’s health is now on UN and national agendas. This happened because many women’s groups took the stage to press the issues in political and social life, and some remarkable women emerged as leaders of women’s health movements. As a result of their work in national and international arenas, women worldwide made significant gains in access to birth control, abortion, and infertility treatment as well as in curbing sterilization abuse (OBOS n.d.). That national governments, international agencies and NGOs currently pay attention to women’s reproductive care and sexual health is an immense achievement. Before 1972 the maternal and child health program at WHO focused almost exclusively on children – and women as childbearing vessels. Women’s health movements changed attitudes, directed new resources to women’s health issues and established the principles of sexual and reproductive rights. The UN Millennium Development Goals (2000–2015) included specific targets to improve maternal health; the Sustainable Development Goals (2015–2030) reiterated those objectives and added a goal to ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive healthcare services, including for family planning, information and education, and the integration of sexual and reproductive health into national strategies and programs. The case for the accomplishments of women’s health movements should not be overstated; not every advance can be attributed to women’s mobilization and pressure for policy change. Measurement of movement success is tricky; for example, in the period when women’s goals aligned with those of the population establishment, can we attribute greater access to contraception to women’s movements? Or when the interests of major pharmaceutical companies in producing and distributing contraception coincided with women’s demands, can women take credit for the results? We detail here four of the outstanding achievements of women’s health movements for sexual and reproductive health reform.

Birth Control The ability to control one’s fertility is a founding principle of the women’s movement. Over the past 150 years challenges have included liberalizing restrictive legislation that banned contraceptive sales; easing access to contraceptives for women of all ages, married and unmarried; expanding the number and types of safe methods available; and reducing the costs of supplies. The success of these efforts can be measured by the fact that in 2015 worldwide, 64% of married couples and women of reproductive age living in union with partners were using some form of contraception. Whereas only a handful of techniques was available 60 years ago, an array of products is now on the market, from single‐use male and female condoms to long‐acting or permanent methods. After achieving legal access to contraception, women’s movements in several countries turned to issues of safety, successfully pursuing court cases against manufacturers of harmful products like high‐dose estrogen contraceptive pills. In India in 1997 the All India Democratic Women’s Association led an effective campaign to ban the use of the chemical quinacrine for the irreversible sterilization of women; the



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drug induces tubal scarring and raises the risk of gynecological cancer, according to WHO (2009). And remembering that a major trial for the contraceptive pill had been conducted in a public housing project in Puerto Rico in the mid‐1950s (Vargas 2017), women’s health movements campaigned against the use of women as human guinea pigs, especially when they were given insufficient information. Puerto Rican women were told only that the drug they were taking prevented pregnancy; they were not informed that it could cause serious adverse effects or that the drug had not yet been tested in a large‐scale human study. These protests eventually led to stricter informed consent requirements.

Legalized Abortion Abortion is often linked with birth control as both are a means of preventing birth, but abortion is the more contested as it has been a controversial procedure for the past 150 years. In 1920 the Russian Soviet Republic became the first country to allow the termination of pregnancy; it was followed in the 1930s by Denmark, Iceland, Mexico, Poland, Sweden, and Turkey, which allowed the procedure in specific circumstances. In the second half of the twentieth century, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Japan, Romania, Taiwan, and Yugoslavia followed suit. The UK legalized abortion in 1967, followed by Canada (1969) and the US (1973). In the Global South, Tunisia was the first in 1973 (Berer 2017). These legal changes came after massive campaigns, which women’s health movements organized using an array of tactics; for example, a full‐page advertisement in the French daily, Le Monde, was signed by prominent women like Simone de Beauvoir, who admitted that they had undergone the procedure when it was prohibited; and women organized marches and speak‐outs where they talked publicly for the first time about their illegal abortion experiences. A worldwide trend toward liberalization of abortion laws has continued since 2000; as of 2017, 33 countries had expanded the circumstances under which abortion is legally permitted. Nonetheless, in 2017, 42% of women of reproductive age lived in the 125 countries where abortion is highly restricted (prohibited altogether or allowed only to save a woman’s life or protect her health). A conservative backlash, discussed below in the section “Contemporary Challenges for Today’s Movements” can be seen in four countries (El Salvador, Japan, Nicaragua, and Poland) that have tightened restrictions or removed all grounds for legal abortion.

Curbed Abuse of Sterilization Sterilization is the world’s most widespread form of birth control (Hartmann 2016), but there is a vast difference between voluntary and involuntary procedures. Cases of forced and coerced sterilization have been reported in Africa, Asia, Europe, North and South America, and Oceania.5 Women who are poor are often stigmatized and they are the ones most likely to be deemed “unworthy” of the right to reproduction (Zampas and Lamačková 2011). Girls and women with disabilities are forcibly sterilized for various purposes including eugenics‐based practices of population control, menstrual management and personal care, and pregnancy prevention (including pregnancy that results from sexual abuse).

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Accountability for perpetrators of forced sterilization is as rare as justice for victims. For example, from 1995 to 2000, the Fujimori government in Peru forcibly sterilized 300 000 women, mostly poor indigenous peasants who did not speak Spanish. The Peruvian feminist movement has been trying to bring Fujimori and his officials to trial for this crime against humanity ever since. In November 2014 in the Indian state of Chhattisgarh, 15 women died and 70 were hospitalized in critical condition after undergoing sterilization. The government of India had paid the women to be sterilized, raising the question over whether they were forced, as their relatives maintain (Doane 2014). In June 2011, the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) issued new guidelines on female contraceptive sterilization and informed consent (Regan 2012). As with all such guidelines, the end result is the mark of the success or failure of the effort, and few countries have the ability to monitor all procedures.

Attention to Infertility Many women’s health movements have moved from a focus on preventing births and forced sterilization to the right to motherhood. The ability to conceive a child may be compromised by a lack of medical care. A so‐called infertility belt linked to untreated sexually transmitted infections was described in Africa as early as 1967 (Retel‐Laurentin 1967). According to WHO, more than 180 million couples in the Global South suffer from primary or secondary infertility. At the prompting of women’s groups, most countries in the Global North now recognize infertility as a medical condition, and they have provisions within national health policies to cover infertility treatment. Most international organizations think that countries in the Global South are overpopulated and in need of birth control; they seldom acknowledge infertility as a serious public health problem. Family planning programs in the Global South rarely incorporate treatment of infertility. Because so much infertility is linked to sexually transmitted infections, women’s demands for sexual and reproductive healthcare may help infertile couples by preventing or treating infections of the reproductive tract. Women’s demands for attention to infertility have been answered by the new assisted reproductive (ART) technology, not without much controversy (DasGupta and Dasgupta 2014). ART is used to achieve pregnancy with fertility medication, in vitro fertilization or surrogacy, sometimes turning to the Global South for women surrogates or their body parts. Same‐sex couples have benefited from these developments. Paradoxically, the areas of the world with the highest rates of infertility are also those with high birth rates and poor access to assisted reproductive techniques, which are extremely costly. A number of lost‐cost IVF initiatives to provide affordable care are overcoming this obstacle (Inhorn and Patrizio 2015).

Contemporary Challenges for Today’s Movements Globally, feminist health movements currently face a conservative backlash: ­opposition to the sexual and reproductive rights of women and girls is a hallmark of the rise of religious fundamentalisms in every world religion. In every instance,



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­ atriarchy rolls back the role of women to housework, childbearing, and care of the p elderly. The rejection of feminism is a central part of the conservative backlash. A recent report by the Observatory on the Universality of Rights6 notes that ultra‐ conservative actors have increasingly identified the international policy arena as a target for their organizing and advocacy (OURs 2017). The concern with fundamentalist opposition to women’s rights is twofold. On the one hand, conservative forces are intervening vocally and actively at international meetings and conferences to persuade delegates from nations of every part of the globe to adopt their anti‐rights policies and patriarchal views. On the other hand, women’s successes in promoting sexual and reproductive rights at the international level (described above in the section “What Did the Earlier Movements Accomplish?”) are increasingly blocked at the national level, where conservative forces prevent them from being implemented. The Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID 2009) surveyed 800 women’s rights activists globally to learn about the impact of religious fundamentalisms; activists cited over 600 examples of negative effects. The five most frequently mentioned were: reduced health and reproductive rights, decreased general autonomy for women, increased violence against women, diminished sexual rights and freedoms, and fewer rights for women in the public sphere. Many of the accomplishments in birth control, abortion rights, curbing sterilization abuse, and treating infertility were gained despite opposition from an active anti‐rights movement at the UN. Conservative religious positions opposed to women’s right to control their sexuality and fertility are represented at the UN by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (which comprises 57 member states as of 2020) and the Vatican, which nominally represents 1.3 billion Roman Catholics (as of 2017); both play key roles as Permanent Observers, a status that entitles them to rights of attendance and representation at the UN (OURs 2017). A substantially increasing number of conservative, religiously affiliated, non‐state actors is involved in the international human rights arena, joining the backlash against the gains of feminists and other progressive activists. Based mainly in the United States, these conservative civil society organizations attempt to export US “culture wars” in order to shape national policies regarding sexuality and gender identity in several African, Eastern European, and Latin American countries (OURs 2017). C‐Fam (the Center for Family and Human Rights, formerly the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute) has worked with the Holy See and the World Organization of Ovulation Method Billings (WOOMB International, proponents of a rhythm method of fertility control) to expose what they see as the dangers of assisted reproductive technologies. Family Watch International (FWI), a Mormon‐led organization that has consultative status with the Economic and Social Council at the UN under the name Global Helping to Advance Women and Children, has developed an anti‐ rights UN resource guide, The Resource Guide to UN Consensus Language on Family Issues. Among other issues, this guide flags an alleged trend among lesbians and unmarried women to use “sperm fathers to gain children.” FWI believes that these children are fatherless and that it is irresponsible to aid in the begetting of fatherless children and children who can never know who their fathers are (OURs 2017). From North to South in 2020 women witnessed a global backlash against their rights that has direct consequences for their health. To illustrate the impact of

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c­onservative power on feminist health movements and sexual and reproductive ­justice across the globe, the changed position of the US Government since the election of Donald Trump is analyzed below. It is clear that the Trump administration, in both domestic and foreign policy, has adopted the positions of conservative civil society organizations, which oppose abortion, claim that life begins at conception, and believe that families consist of a dominant husband, subservient wife, and children. The more extreme groups deny that women have rights, denounce the idea of sexual and reproductive rights, and reject comprehensive sex education. Anti‐rights actors like FWI describe UN agencies  – WHO, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and the UNFPA – as anti‐ family and as population ideologues. Immediately on assuming the US presidency in January 2017, Donald Trump signed an Executive Order, “Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance,” (also known as the global gag rule) and withdrew US support from Planned Parenthood. Furthermore, in April 2017, the president signed another order withdrawing US funds from UNFPA, thereby fulfilling a long‐term objective of conservative civil ­society organizations. These acts, which are meant to restrict women’s access to abortion, have far‐reaching effects on sexual and reproductive health and women’s rights movements worldwide. They reduce access to services that test, vaccinate, and treat women for cervical cancer (the cause of 311 365 deaths globally in 2018; Arbyn et al. 2019) and limit the availability of contraception and sex education. The poorest countries that are most heavily dependent on foreign aid will be hit the hardest. Conservative voices everywhere are emboldened by the rhetoric and policies of the Trump administration; women activists report a spread of hate speech that legitimizes discrimination against women and minorities. They remark on a more vocal right wing. Opposition to sexual and reproductive justice on the international stage comes not only from men but also from conservative women. At the March 2017 meeting of the UN Committee on the Status of Women (CSW), the Worldwide Organization for Women (WOW) took a hard line against all forms of comprehensive sex education provided through the UN by UNICEF, UNAIDS, UNFPA, and WHO. Many speakers at the CSW also condemned abortion and LGBTQI issues. WOW did not hesitate vocally to resist and condemn the UN’s efforts to support programs based on human rights principles that advance gender equality and the rights and empowerment of young people (Sugars 2017). At the same time, women worldwide are reporting the biggest marches for women’s rights in history, with high interest in issues of sexual violence, reproductive rights, and sex discrimination. For example, in Paraguay peasants, indigenous women, and women of all ages participated on March 8, 2017, International Women’s Day, in protests in front of the Health Ministry to demand an end to violence against women and better healthcare for women. In Turkey, women discussed the Trump phenomenon as a wakeup call for women, which brought home to them the realization that violation of women’s human rights and violence against women have become universal problems, reversing the fragmentation of the global women’s movement. Yakin Ertürk of Turkey said, “The Trump administration, while tightening borders, may in fact help bring back the common platform we need to strengthen our global solidarity and struggle more than ever before” (quoted in Yancopoulos and Seth‐Smith 2017).



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Organizers of the January 2017 Women’s March planned several follow‐up activities such as the Pledge of Liberation, an online petition reiterating the reproductive justice agenda, and the Women’s Convention (Detroit, MI, October 27, 2017). The Women’s March exemplifies an internationally successful feminist social movement based on the concept of sexual and reproductive justice. While the group attempted to build upon the momentum created by the January 2017 mobilization by promoting a “10 Actions/100 Days” agenda, participation in those events, including A Day Without A Woman, did not generate the same numbers as the initial protests. However, the Women’s March may have energized women, young and old, who previously had not participated in the policymaking process. Encouraging this involvement is made easier through online guides, such as the Indivisible Guide and the Pledge of Liberation Toolkit.

Conclusions This chapter has addressed feminist health movements with attention to reproductive justice as an important aspect. The contemporary conversation on women’s health appears to have narrowed from a broad spectrum of issues considered by women’s movements a decade ago (for example, disability, mental health, and clinical drug trials) to a focus on sexual and reproductive health issues. We attribute this contraction to the need to counter a sharpened attack by conservative leaders on women’s sexual and reproductive health rights. We are hopeful that the new hashtag activism suggests a reopening of the scope of the movements’ ­concerns. One lingering question is the definition of success in the age of digital mobilization. Often emerging from tragedies, hashtag activism creates sometimes short‐lived campaigns, raising questions about their durability and cohesiveness. Hashtag activism and social media may shift what is considered a victory to an arena outside of the public policy realm. Enabling thousands of previously silenced women to participate electronically, adding voices and stories often ignored in the past to the international conversation, may be considered success on its own merits. A brief analysis of the role of hashtag activism surfaced in a blog by Tamara Cofman Wittes (Brookings Institute, October 19, 2017). Focusing on the #MeToo campaign to raise awareness and share experiences by victims of sexual assault or harassment, Wittes, answers the “what next?” question by asking people to help engage in culture changing behavior by taking a specific action, #IWill. Although there is no way to monitor whether individuals followed through on their #IWill intentions, Wittes describes three positive outcomes from the campaign – support for individual survivors and organizations dedicated to fighting these abuses, increased conversation, and the possibility of behavior change. It remains to be seen whether digital campaigns can consolidate fleeting and fragmented local struggles to create a movement of movements. If one believes that consciousness‐raising and sustained organization of people are ways to create forms of countervailing power, then only by mobilizing and including the most marginalized groups will women be able to continue to challenge local and global power structures.

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1 Too often birth control is seen as a solution to high death rates, leaving already inadequate maternal and child health services unchanged and poor and minority women underserved. 2 Over 1.7 billion women in low‐ and middle‐income countries do not own mobile phones. Women in those countries are 14% less likely to own a mobile phone than men, on average (World Bank 2016). 3 Our Bodies Ourselves Global Initiative (OBOGI) delivers evidence‐based, culturally appropriate information on health, sexuality, and reproduction to girls and women all over the world. OBOGI collaborates with women’s organizations that request permission and technical support to translate and adapt Our Bodies, Ourselves for public education and political action in their country. For example, the Research Group on Women and Laws in Senegal (Groupe de Recherche sur les Femmes et les Lois au Senegal, or GREFELS) published Notre Corps, Notre Santé inspired by Our Bodies, Ourselves for (OBOS) French‐ speaking Africa. This book is considered an invaluable tool across sub‐Saharan Africa, reaching readers in 21 countries. Nuestros Cuerpos, Nuestras Vidas is a cultural adaptation of Our Bodies, Ourselves created specifically for Latina women. Guía de Capacitación para Promotoras de Salud is a companion curriculum guide for community health workers. The coordination and structure of this project is unique. Recognizing how essential it was for Nuestros Cuerpos, Nuestras Vidas to reflect the plurality of cultures, politics, and economics of Latinas throughout the Americas, OBOS initiated collaboration with 19 women’s health groups from 11 countries in the Caribbean, Central America, and South America. 4 The Youth Coalition for Sexual and Reproductive Rights should not be confused with the World Youth Alliance, which was founded in 1999 in response to the successes of the Youth Coalition at ICPD+5 to “fight against the dehumanizing, anti‐life, anti‐family trends of an increasingly decadent Western culture” (OURs 2017). 5 See, for example, Brady et al. 2001. 6 The Observatory on the Universality of Rights (OURs) is a new collaborative initiative that aims to monitor, analyze, and share information on initiatives that misuse religion, culture and tradition to undermine the universality of human rights. Grounded in a feminist framework, the OURs initiative works across regions, issues, and human rights spaces toward the advancement of social justice. The OURs Working Group includes: Asian‐ Pacific Resource & Research Centre for Women (ARROW), Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID), ARC International, Católicas por el Derecho a Decidir Mexico (CDD‐Mexico), Coalition for Sexual and Bodily Rights in Muslim Societies (CSBR), Cynthia Rothschild (independent expert), Due Diligence Project, International Civil Society Action Network (ICAN), Ipas, Planned Parenthood  –  Global (PPFA), Musawah: global movement for justice and equality in the Muslim family, Muslims for Progressive Values, Sexual Rights Initiative, and the World Council of Churches (WCC).

References Antrobus, P. (2004). The Global Women’s Movement Origins, Issues and Strategies. London: Zed Books. Arbyn, Marc, Elisabete Weiderpass, Laia Bruni, et al. 2020 "Estimates of incidence and mortality of cervical cancer in 2018: a worldwide analysis.” The Lancet, February 01. https:// www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214‐109X(19)30482‐6/fulltext



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AWID (2009). New Insights on Religious Fundamentalisms Research Highlights: Resisting and Challenging Religious Fundamentalisms AWID’s Strategic Initiative. Washington, DC: Association for Women in Development. AWID. 2014. Beyond investing in women and girls: mobilizing resources. https://www.awid. org/publications/beyond‐investing‐women‐and‐girls‐mobilizing‐resources, accessed 13 January 2018. Badran, M. (1995). Feminists, Islam, and Nation: Gender and the Making of Modern Egypt. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Bendaña, A. (2006). NGOs and Social Movements: A North/South Divide? Geneva: UN Research Institute for Social Development. Berer, M. (2017). Abortion law and policy around the world: in search of decriminalization. Health and Human Rights 19 (1): 13–27. Brady, Susan, John Britton and Sonia Grover. 2001. The sterilisation of girls and young women in Australia: issues and progress. www.humanrights.gov.au, accessed 2 July 2017. Burdett, Carolyn. 2014. Post Darwin: social Darwinism, degeneration, eugenics. http://www. bl.uk/romantics‐and‐victorians/articles/post‐darwin‐social‐darwinism‐degeneration‐ eugenics#sthash, accessed 21 July 2017. DasGupta, S. and Dasgupta, S.D. (eds.) (2014). Globalization and Transnational Surrogacy in India: Outsourcing Life. Lanham: Lexington Books. Doane, Deborah. 2014. “Is India’s sterilisation programme barbaric and anti‐women?” The Guardian, November 12. https://www.theguardian.com/global‐development‐professionals‐ network/2014/nov/12/indias‐sterilisation‐drive‐is‐barbaric‐and‐disproportionately‐ targeted‐at‐women Dolan DNA Learning Center. n.d. Image Archive on the American Eugenics Movement. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Cold Spring Harbor, New York. www.eugenicsarchive.org, accessed July 2, 2017. Fox, Kara and Jan Diehm. 2017. #MeToo’s global moment: the anatomy of a viral campaign. CNN. http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/09/world/metoo‐hashtag‐global‐movement/index. html, accessed 13 January 2017. Harcourt, W. (2006). The Global women’s Rights Movement: Power Politics Around the United Nations and the World Social Forum. Geneva: UN Research Institute for Social Development. Hartmann, B. (2016). Reproductive Rights and Wrongs: The Global Politics of Population Control. Chicago: Haymarket Books. Inhorn, M.C. and Patrizio, P. (2015). Infertility around the globe: new thinking on gender, reproductive technologies and global movements in the 21st century. Human Reproduction Update 21 (4): 411–426. Ladjali, M. (1991). Conception, contraception: do Algerian women really have a choice? In: Women and Health in Africa (ed. M. Turshen), 125–141. Trenton: Africa World Press, Inc. Narayanaswamy, L. (2016). Whose feminism counts? Gender(ed) knowledge and professionalisation in development. Third World Quarterly 37 (12): 2156–2175. Nijhawan, S. (2017). International feminism from an Asian center: the all‐Asian Women’s Conference (Lahore, 1931) as a transnational feminist moment. Journal of Women’s History 29 (3): 12–36. OBOS (n.d.) Global Network Partners & Projects https://www.ourbodiesourselves.org/ global‐projects, accessed 13 January 2018. OURs (Observatory on the Universality of Rights). 2017. Rights at risk: trends report. Toronto and Mexico City: Association for Women’s Rights in Development. https://www. oursplatform.org, accessed 2 July 2017.

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Presser, H. (1969). The role of sterilization in controlling Puerto Rican fertility. Population Studies 23 (3): 343–361. Rao, M. and Sexton, S. (eds.) (2010). Markets and Malthus: Population, Gender and Health in Neo‐Liberal Times. New Delhi: Sage Publications. Regan, Lesley. 2012. “Integrating human rights and women’s health  –  an educational approach.” International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics https://www.figo.org/ sites/default/files/uploads/wg‐publications/wsrr/Introduction%20to%20HRWH% 20Framework.pdf, accessed 13 January 2017. Retel‐Laurentin, A. (1967). Influence de certaines maladies sur la fécondité. Un exemple africain. Population 22 (5): 841–860. Ross, L.J. et al. (2017). Radical Reproductive Justice: Foundations, Theory, Practice, Critique. New York: Feminist Press. Sugars, Stephanie. 2017. “’Faith and family’: shrinking common ground at the UN CSW.” 25 March. https://www.opendemocracy.net/5050/stephanie‐sugars/UN‐CSW‐Worldwide‐ Organisation‐Women, accessed 2 July 2017. UN. 1995. Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing Platform for Action. http://www. un.org/womenwatch/daw/beijing/platform, accessed 12 January 2017. UNFPA. 2014. Reproductive rights are human rights. New York: United Nations.http://www. ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/NHRIHandbook.pdf, accessed 2 July 2017. Vargas, Theresa. 2017. “Poor women in Puerto Rico: Birth control pioneers or unwitting guinea pigs?”,. Washington Post, May 15. Wilcox, J. (2002). The face of Women’s health: Helen Rodriguez‐Trias. American Journal of Public Health 92 (4): 566–569. Wittes, Tamara Cofman. 2017. “#IWILL? What I learned from my week as an online activist”. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up‐front/2017/10/19/iwill‐what‐i‐learned‐from‐my‐ week‐as‐an‐online‐activist, accessed 26 October 2017. World Bank (2016). World Development Report 2016. Washington, DC: World Bank. World Health Organization. 2009. The safety of quinacrine when used as a method of non‐ surgical sterilization in women. http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/70085/1/ WHO_RHR_09.21_eng.pdf, accessed July 7, 2017. World Health Organization (2011). The Fourth Ten Years of the World Health Organization: 1978–1987. Geneva: WHO. Yancopoulos, Ourania S. with Niki Seth‐Smith. 2017. “How will President Trump’s administration affect women and girls across the world?” https://www.opendemocracy.net/5050/ourania‐s‐ yancopoulos/US‐trump‐gender‐women‐global‐foreign‐policy‐UN, accessed 2 July 2017. Zampas, C. and Lamačková, A. (2011). Forced and coerced sterilization of women in Europe. International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology 114: 163–166.

23 Feminist Praxis and Gender Violence Claire M. Renzetti and Margaret Campe

Introduction The 1960s and 1970s were urbulent decades in the United States. The country was embroiled in the Vietnam War, and the military draft resulted in thousands of young men being conscripted to fight in this unpopular conflict, sparking widespread protests on university campuses and city streets. Television cameras showed young demonstrators clashing, often violently, with police and national guardsmen. The Civil Rights movement, which raised public awareness of the racism deeply embedded in every dimension of the country’s social structure, also gave rise to protests at which police and white citizens turned fire hoses, dogs, clubs, and bullets on Black demonstrators, resulting in injuries and sometimes death. Growing in part from these movements, but also independently, was a resurgence of feminism, which focused on developing theoretical analyses of women’s subordination and engaging in political activism to end gender oppression (Rosen 2000). Although a historical account of feminism, in the US and abroad, is well beyond the scope of this chapter, a discussion of feminists’ early attention to violence against women is critical to understanding the development of various feminist theories of gender‐based interpersonal and structural violence. This chapter will begin, therefore, by examining second‐wave feminists’ analyses of violence against women, after which we will turn to specific theories of gender‐based interpersonal violence, and conclude with a discussion of a theoretical perspective that emphasizes the interrelationship between interpersonal and structural dimensions of social life, including gender‐based violence. It is important to note that the terms gender‐based violence and violence against women are frequently used interchangeably. Gender‐based violence refers to any physical, psychological, sexual, or economic harm or threat of harm inflicted on an individual or group, in public or in private, because of their gender. Although men

Companion to Feminist Studies, First Edition. Edited by Nancy A. Naples. © 2021 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Published 2021 by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

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and boys, especially those who do not conform to traditional or dominant norms of masculinity, may experience gender‐based violence, decades of research findings show that most gender‐based violence is inflicted on girls and women by boys and men (e.g. Black et al. 2011; Garcia‐Moreno et al. 2005). In addition, as the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE 2018) points out, it is important to emphasize that most violence against women is gender‐based because “this highlights the fact that violence against women is an expression of power inequalities between women and men.” Consequently, while we bow to the convention of using the terms interchangeably, the focus of the chapter is primarily violence perpetrated against women and girls by men and boys.

A Private Problem Becomes a Public Issue The problem of violence against women in its many forms, including wife abuse, sexual assault, and sexual harassment, was hardly new in the 1960s and 1970s, but until the resurgence of feminism, such behavior was largely hidden and was viewed as an anomaly – perpetrated by a few “sick” or drunken men against women who were often blamed for provoking it and secretly enjoying it. As Arnold (2006) notes, for example, during the early and mid‐twentieth century, wife abuse was frequently labeled “marital discord” by psychiatrists and social workers, who considered women’s reports of their victimization fantasies or evidence of female masochism. Similarly, rape victims were often accused of precipitating their assaults by their clothing or their behavior; those who reported sexual assaults to police were not believed and were often thought to be falsely “crying rape” out of revenge against a lover who jilted them or to save their reputations after they had willingly had sex (Caringella 2008). Among the most significant contributions of second‐wave feminism were raising public awareness about the problem of men’s violence against women and debunking popular myths about perpetrators and victims. A cornerstone of the feminist movement was consciousness‐raising groups, which often took the form of informal gatherings in women’s homes and dormitories. These groups afforded women safe spaces to share their experiences, including experiences of violent victimization. It quickly became apparent that physical, psychological, and sexual abuse of women was far more widespread than previously thought and was typically perpetrated not by strangers, but by men women knew, including husbands, boyfriends, fathers, and stepfathers (Ake and Arnold 2018). Feminist activists mobilized to change the popular discourse on violence against women and to improve responses to and services for victims (Koss and Harvey 1991). They held speak‐outs; launched public education campaigns; conducted trainings for law enforcement, legal, and healthcare professionals, and other service providers; and established hotlines, shelters, and rape crisis centers. Feminist researchers in sociology, psychology, criminology, and other disciplines developed analyses of violence against women using theoretical frameworks that focused less on the characteristics of victims and more on the unequal, gendered structure of social relations. Although each of these theories is feminist, they nevertheless differ in what they identify as the primary causes of violence against women. Liberal feminism and radical feminism provide examples of theories that are both feminist, but also differ in significant ways.



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Liberal Feminism Liberal feminists theorize that gender inequality stems from differential gender socialization, which assigns different and unequally valued roles to males and females, and from unequal formal legal rights. Liberal feminists focus on how, from birth, males and females are socialized into opposing social roles of appropriate masculinity and femininity, respectively. Boys and men are expected to be strong, unemotional, and aggressive; girls and women, in contrast, are expected to be weak, emotional, and passive. Masculine traits and roles are more highly valued than feminine traits and roles. Men’s and women’s gender roles, moreover, are mutually exclusive; that is, the “normal” male supposedly has no feminine traits, and the “normal” female supposedly has no masculine traits. Males and females who transgress these gender norms are punished – with ridicule, shunning and isolation, or even violence. Specifically, with regard to violence against women, liberal feminists point to how masculine norms of dominance and aggression coupled with disdain for all things feminine not only legitimate, but actually promote, men’s use of coercion and force to impose their will, get what they want, and ultimately control women. Popular stereotypes – for example, that women are manipulative, conniving, and untrustworthy; that they say no to sex when they mean yes, so men have to “work a ‘yes’ out”; that they whine and nag to get their way – reinforce men’s sense of entitlement and proprietariness toward women, and are used to justify violence against women under certain circumstances. Liberal feminists also emphasize that social institutions, especially laws, undergird gender inequality. Liberal feminists, for instance, pointed to rape statutes that allowed attorneys to question victims about their sexual history, which served as evidence that if they had engaged in sex in the past with the defendant or any man, they were likely to have consented to sex during the incident in question; therefore, they were not raped. The state also had to demonstrate that the victim had tried “sufficiently” to resist her assailant. Entire groups of women were deemed “unrapeable” – sex workers, for instance, and married women. In the US, until 1977 a husband could not be charged with raping his wife, since a wife was legally regarded as the property of her husband; certainly, no man could be prosecuted for a personal decision to use his property as he saw fit. When a woman married, she essentially gave up her right to say no to her husband if he wanted to have sex with her (Caringella 2008; Yllo and Torres 2016). Similarly, despite evidence of alarmingly high rates of violence in intimate relationships, assault laws were rarely enforced against men when the victims were their wives or girlfriends (DeJong et al. 2008; Fleury 2002). Liberal feminists’ solutions to these problems have concentrated on changing gender norms, so that males and females have more flexibility in the roles they pursue, and lobbying for legislative reforms. To some extent, their efforts have been successful. Consider, for example, educational programs, such as Girls Who Code, that encourage girls to enter traditionally male‐dominated fields, including science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). In 2017, women were 47% of the paid labor force, and there were more women in traditionally male‐dominated occupations (e.g. engineering, the construction trades, business, law, medicine) than in the past 40 years (US Department of Labor 2018a). Anti‐discrimination laws now prohibit many forms of gender discrimination that were historically routine in social institutions.

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Moreover, legislative reforms of sexual assault and domestic violence laws have resulted in increased reporting, arrests, and prosecutions of these crimes. In most sexual assault cases, for instance, the victim’s sexual history is not admissible in court, and husbands can be, and are, successfully prosecuted for sexually assaulting their wives (Caringella 2008). Many jurisdictions have also adopted mandatory or preferred arrest policies when police respond to intimate partner violence calls (Goodmark 2012). Nevertheless, there are multiple indicators that despite change, a good deal remains the same. There has been less success, for instance, getting boys and men to pursue traditionally female‐dominated activities and occupations, largely because these continue to be seen as less prestigious, but also because it remains more stigmatizing for males to engage in what are regarded as “feminine” behaviors (England 2010). Women’s median weekly earnings are about 82% of those of men, which is a substantial improvement over the past 40 years, but still significantly unequal (US Department of Labor 2018b). And the #MeToo movement has brought to light what appears to be unrelenting sexual harassment of women in educational institutions and workplaces, especially in male‐dominated fields such as technology development. At the same time, while sexual assault laws have changed, studies continue to show widespread acceptance of rape myths (Hayes et  al. 2016; Romero‐Sanchez et al. 2018), which influence case processing in the criminal justice system (O’Neal and Spohn 2017; Spohn and Tellis 2012). Some legislative changes that were intended to improve the criminal justice response to female victims of violence have instead had negative consequences for them. For instance, as a result of mandatory and preferred arrest laws, more women are being arrested for intimate partner violence if they defend themselves against their abusive partners (Durfee 2012; Hirschel and Deveau 2017; Miller 2005). Critics point out that liberal feminism’s reliance on socialization and formal legal rights as solutions to gender‐based violence is bound to produce only piecemeal change because reforms in these areas fail to address the larger patriarchal social structure in which individuals are socialized and in which the legal system and other social institutions operate. Liberal feminism has also been criticized for overlooking how gender inequality intersects with racial, ethnic, social class, and other inequalities to influence social relationships and life experiences, including gender‐based ­violence perpetration and victimization, among different groups of women and men (Renzetti 2013). Other feminist theories, as we will discuss shortly, attempt to address these issues.

Radical Feminism Radical feminism begins with the principle that gender inequality or sexism is the most fundamental form of oppression. Radical feminists maintain that, historically, women were the first oppressed group and that they remain today the most oppressed social group in the world, regardless of the type of society (e.g. agricultural, industrial) or type of economy or political system (e.g. capitalist, socialist) in which they live. Radical feminists point out that all men, regardless of their social class or their race or ethnicity, enjoy gender privilege at the expense of women. Moreover, the



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primary means by which men preserve their gender privilege and dominance is through their control of women’s sexuality. Male power and female subordination are preserved through compulsory heterosexuality and the threat or actual use of violence (MacKinnon 1982; Walby 1990). Rape, sexual harassment, battering, and other types of physical, psychological, and sexual abuse serve to keep men and women in their respective social places – that is, men in power and women relatively powerless (MacKinnon 1982; Stanko 1986). Solving such a fundamental problem as gender oppression, then, requires more than changing socialization practices and revising existing laws or enacting new laws, since all social institutions – e.g. the legal system, the healthcare system, the educational system – are patriarchally structured and operate in ways that reflect and preserve male power and privilege (MacKinnon 1982; Radford 1987). Gender equality and patriarchy are mutually exclusive. Radical feminism foregrounds gender‐based violence. Violence against women is not simply a manifestation of gender inequality and sexism; from this theoretical perspective, it is the fundamental means by which male power and dominance are maintained and enforced. As Susan Brownmiller (1975) expressed more than 40 years ago, the mere threat of violence is the means by which all men keep all women in a perpetual state of fear and, hence, submission. Radical feminists’ unrelenting efforts to turn the professional and public spotlights on men’s violence against women and the often harmful, rather than helpful, outcomes for victims when they disclose their victimization to others, including family, friends, and criminal justice and healthcare professionals, are considered to be among their greatest contributions to both social theory and social change. Still, radical feminists have been criticized for what some, including other feminists, see as an overly simplistic depiction of the criminal justice system and other social institutions as purely instruments of male domination and control. Radical feminists’ ­pessimism with regard to the potential for institutional reforms strikes some observers as too cynical (Messerschmitt 1993). Certainly, the criminal justice system, healthcare, ­education, and other social institutions deserve the close scrutiny and negative assessments that radical feminists have leveled against them. At the same time, however, significant institutional changes have occurred over the past several decades, which have resulted in improved institutional responses to gender‐based violence victims and perpetrators (Goodmark 2018; Iovanni et al. 2018; Miller et al. 2018; Townsend and Campbell 2018). There are also problems with the radical feminist characterization of all men as dominant and controlling, and all women as subordinated and victimized. First, this view overlooks the efforts of pro‐feminist men, who are working for gender equality and the elimination of violence, including gender‐based violence (DeKeseredy 2000; Katz 2018; Tolman and Walsh 2018). Second, although all men enjoy some gender privilege, many men experience disadvantage and oppression as a result of other inequalities, including social class inequality, racism, and heterosexism. Third, not all women are at equal risk of being victimized. Risk of violent victimization is significantly greater for some groups of women, especially women who are poor, racial and ethnic minority women, women with disabilities, and transwomen (Black et al. 2011; Rennison 2018). One additional criticism that both radical feminism and liberal feminism share is that they focus primarily on individual relationships. Despite their analyses of ­gender

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norms and institutional practices, neither radical feminism nor liberal feminism rises above the individual level in that they maintain a focus on interpersonal interactions between women and men and the institutional responses to these interactions. Although some second‐wave feminists early on labeled gender‐based violence as a human rights issue, thus framing it in a larger structural context (see e.g. Bunch 1993), historically the major efforts of the anti‐violence against women movement have been providing victims with services, holding perpetrators accountable, and reforming laws and institutional policies and practices (Ake and Arnold 2018). Feminists’ attention to structural violence emerged more fully in the 1990s as they began to address the essentialism inherent in many feminist perspectives, including liberal and radical feminisms.

Intersectionality In a 2012 essay, Lisa Bowleg discusses what she calls the “ampersand problem” or, more specifically, the problem with the term “women and minorities,” which became ubiquitous in disciplinary discourses, policy, and research during the last quarter of the twentieth century, and remains so today. As Bowleg notes, missing from this term is any sense that the two categories could intersect, as they do in the lives of women of color. Furthermore, the term “minority,” though it has come to be used synonymously with race/ethnicity, also refers to many other groups, such the LGBTQI population and people with disabilities. The isolation of gender from other social identities was one of the major criticisms of feminism made by women of color. Feminist theories were largely theories that used the experiences of white, middle‐ class, heterosexual women as the normative standard and, although there was a “tolerance” of pluralism, differences of power across different groups of women were generally overlooked (Baca Zinn and Thornton Dill 1996; Collins 2012; Higgenbotham 2012). Legal scholar, Kimberlé Crenshaw (1991) introduced the term intersectionality to describe the deleterious consequences of treating multiple, interlocking identities as if they are discrete or mutually exclusive, though she was not the first person to recognize the problem (see also Davis 2011). Crenshaw’s analysis of rape highlights well the serious limitations of traditional (e.g. liberal, radical) feminist theories of violence against women. She critiques the depiction of rape laws as reflecting male control over female sexuality, arguing instead that these laws allow for white men to regulate white women’s sexuality, given that historically, there has been no effort to regulate black female chastity, particularly in light of enduring racist stereotypes that portray black women as immoral and promiscuous (Crenshaw 2011). Indeed, the rape of black women by white men has often been justified on the ground that black women are inherently licentious (see also Gillum 2002). At the same time, black men were lynched at the mere accusation of sexual insult or assault of a white woman. Crenshaw thus emphasizes the need to examine not simply male power, but rather white male power over white and black women as well as black men. Her conclusion underlines the critical need to examine the power relations embedded in gender and race and other socially constructed differences, and the dynamic intersection of these differences:



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Even today some fear that anti‐rape agendas may undermine anti‐racist objectives. This is the paradigmatic political and theoretical dilemma created by the intersection of race and gender: black women are caught between ideological and political currents that combine first to create and then to bury black women’s experiences. (Crenshaw 2011, pp. 35–36)

Intersectionality is one of the central tenets of black feminism, which is distinct from liberal and radical feminisms – or what some have called collectively “hegemonic feminism” (Burgess‐Proctor 2006) – in this and several other important ways. As we see in the concept of intersectionality, black feminists analyze the ways various social identities, including gender, race, ethnicity, national origin, social class, sexuality, age, and physical ability, “mutually construct one another as unjust systems of power” (Collins 2012, p. 9). Each of these identities has a hierarchical structure, with differential power and privilege attached to each ranking in the hierarchy; that is, they constitute social inequalities. Importantly, however, these inequalities do not exist side by side; instead, they overlap, resulting in what has been labeled a “matrix of domination” (Collins 2000), because all women and men occupy a ranking of all of the hierarchies simultaneously (i.e. each of us is gendered, raced, classed, and so on at the same time, even though one or two identities may be more salient in any given situation). These interlocking inequalities shape us as individuals as well as our relationships with others, affecting our access to opportunities, rewards, privileges, and power, including our risk of being violently victimized or of perpetrating ­violence against another person. Despite the omnipresence of these intersecting inequalities in our everyday lives, black feminists reject an overly deterministic stance that denies human agency. They are also quick to point out that not all members of the same social group have identical experiences simply by virtue of their membership in that group, or that they interpret their experiences similarly. People’s simultaneously held multiple identities will result in group members having to address common as well as different challenges; their responses to some of these will be unified, but their responses to others will be divergent. Thus, black women may stand united against racism with black men, but nevertheless respond as black women to men’s sexist and violent oppression. Criminologist Hillary Potter (2006, p. 116), for example, found in her research on black women’s responses to intimate partner violence that black women who stay with abusive partners do so because of their fear of losing a father or father figure for their children as well as fear of being stigmatized as “another single black mother,” rather than fear of more severe abuse or of having to be financially independent. And she directly attributes these specific fears to black women’s unique experiences in white‐dominated and racist US society and their experience as women in the African‐ American community. Before discussing the important contributions of black feminism to an understanding of structural violence, it is first important to note that the intersectionality paradigm has not been free of criticism. One expressed concern is that the emphasis on intersecting inequalities sometimes results in an “oppression Olympics” (Hancock 2011), in which groups vie for recognition as “most oppressed,” resulting in divisiveness, rather than solidarity across marginalized groups, which serves to undermine collective action for progressive social change. Davis (2011) makes a similar point

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when she argues that debates over which categories of inequality and how many should be included in an intersectional analysis actually proliferates difference and division, which could be the “Achilles heel of intersectionality.” Of course, it would be naïve to claim that such competition and divisiveness do not occur, but at the same time, the criticisms reflect, to a large extent, a misunderstanding of black feminism more broadly, and of intersectionality specifically. Black feminism does not construct “hierarchies of oppression”; there is explicit recognition, in fact, that, with few exceptions, everyone experiences both privilege and oppression, and there is no single worst position (Collins 1997). There is also recognition that “truth seeking” requires dialogue among people who hold different social positionings with respect to a problem or issue, including members of various marginalized groups and members of privileged, hegemonic groups (Collins 1997). The issue of dialogue relates to another concern that the anti‐essentialism of intersectionality results in an overly relativistic approach, producing fragmented “localized narratives” and “identity politics” such that only those who share the same marginalized or oppressed identity are capable of truly understanding each other’s experiences (Flavin and Artz 2013; Naffine 2002). Black feminists, however, maintain that advocates do not have to be members of the group for whom they are advocating, and that allies emerge from multiple groups (Yuval‐Davis 2012). At the same time, activists, allies, and advocates must remain conscious of and reflect on their multiple social positionings (Collins 1990; Rudy 2000; Yuval‐Davis 2012). Despite the various criticisms and concerns, the impact of black feminism, and especially the analytical framework of intersectionality, on understanding gender‐based ­violence has been profound. Significantly, the intersectional framework has drawn attention to the complexity of gender‐based violence for many minoritized groups. Research on violence against transgender women and men illustrates this complexity well.

Violence Against Transgender Women and Men Although there are various definitions and manifestations of transgender, we will use the rather simplistic definition of a transgender person as an individual whose gender identity differs from the sex the individual was assigned at birth. Trans men are people who were identified at birth as female and were raised as girls, but because they feel a deep disjunction between their assigned sex and their identity, they make the decision to transition to live as men. Trans women are people who were identified at birth as male and were raised as boys, but the disjunction between their assigned sex and their identity lead them to decide to transition to live as women. Sometimes, but not always, trans men and trans women are assisted in their transition by hormone treatments and surgeries (Abelson 2015). Research consistently shows that transgender people are at significantly greater risk of violent victimization, including sexual assault, rape, dating violence, and intimate partner violence (IPV), than cisgender people (i.e. people whose assigned sex is consistent with their gender identity) (DiFulvio 2015; Goldenberg et  al. 2018; Guadalupe‐Diaz and Jasinski 2017). Moreover, this greater risk is compounded if one is a transgender person of color (James et al. 2016). Abelson’s (2015) research highlights the important differences in the experiences of trans men and trans women



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and how these experiences are simultaneously shaped by race, class, and other social locating factors. Abelson interviewed trans men about their sense of safety and fear of violent victimization and found that these changed after their transition. When they had lived as women, they were afraid of being sexually assaulted by men, but after they transitioned, they were suddenly perceived by women as potential assailants, while they themselves were more concerned about non‐sexual forms of v­ iolence by men and these concerns varied across racial identities, social class, and disability. For instance, the trans men of color in Abelson’s sample feared street violence as well as state‐sanctioned violence by white police officers. But regardless of these differences, all of the men in Abelson’s study expressed their fear of transphobic violence should others find out that they are transgender. As Abelson (2015) notes, the literature on fear of crime shows that women have significantly higher fear of victimization than men do and much of this fear is fear of men’s sexual violence (see also Stanko 1995). Research shows that transgender women experience gender‐based violence throughout their lives, including sexual abuse, rape, and IPV (Guadalupe‐Diaz and Jasinski 2017; Lanham et  al. 2018; Levine 2018). However, because many contemporary statutes as well as services are grounded in gendered and heterosexist assumptions, trans women who experience sexual assault, IPV, or other forms of gender‐based violence are often denied services as well as justice because they are considered men (Lanham et al. 2018; Levine 2018; Todahl et  al. 2009). Levine (2018), for example, points out that some states still define “rape” as penal‐vaginal penetration and apply the term “criminal sexual act” or “sodomy” to offenses involving same‐sex or transgender individuals. “Transgender women are women, and violence against them is violence against women … [but] transgender women may be classified as male or female depending upon their transition pathways as well as their access to and pursuit of legal status changes” (Levine 2018, p. 329). As Levine (2018) points out, these issues are not trivial or simply semantic; they have the potential to influence jurors, for instance, as prosecutors must convince jurors that sexual penetration with an object or “criminal deviate conduct” is morally and criminally the same as “rape” (see also Guadalupe‐Diaz and Jasinski 2017 for a discussion of the discrimination experienced by trans women who defend themselves against abusive partners). Valerie Jenness and Sarah Fenstermaker (2016) report that one of the most vulnerable, if not the most vulnerable, group to rape and other forms of sexual violence are transgender women in men’s prisons. Jenness and her colleagues (2007) found that sexual assault is more than 13 times more likely for transgender women in men’s prisons than for cisgender men in men’s prisons. As Jenness and Fenstermaker (2016, p. 19) explain, the correctional system in the United States operates on the assumption that “there are two, and only two, types of people: males and females.” In this system, transgender women are considered men and are incarcerated in men’s prison’s where a “hyper‐masculinized culture makes them ever‐available targets of sustained derogation” that includes repeated harassment and assaults by fellow prisoners as well as by corrections officers. In their interviews with prisoners, Jenness and Fenstermaker (2016) learned that cisgender men showed disdain for the transgender women’s femininity, describing them as useful for sexual relief since no “real” women are available as well as for performing other types of “women’s work” (e.g. cleaning the cells, washing clothes, cooking, sewing).

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Although Jenness and Fenstermaker (2016) acknowledge that there are unique characteristics of the carceral environment that make it far different from the environments in which most people live, they nevertheless maintain that the experiences of trans women incarcerated in men’s prisons can shed light on cultures and structural conditions that promote rape and other types of gender‐based violence: The tyranny of the sex categorical binary – male or female – brings with it often rigid expectations of accountable femininity and masculinity, including a presumption of heteronormativity. Such expectations, and the consequences that violation brings, is an ever‐present reminder of what constitutes “appropriate” behavior. Thus, as in the world outside the prison, and depending upon the situation, sexual assault and sexual coercion can be made intelligible to all concerned by reaffirming the feminine as weak, vulnerable, and deserving of being demeaned and overpowered. Likewise, the masculine demands distance from and derogation of the feminine and draws its power from such behavior. (Jenness and Fenstermaker 2016, p. 25)

Jenness and Fenstermaker’s argument reminds us of a serious limitation of many feminist analyses of gender‐based violence which, even when they claim to adopt an intersectional approach, often adopt a cisgender notion of “woman” (Levine 2018). At the same time, their research shows the importance of examining how the multiple interlocking inequalities that characterize social life in most societies throughout the world structure the realm of everyday interaction (i.e. the micro‐level) are also deeply embedded in the operation and functioning of social institutions (i.e. the macro‐level), thereby making the critical connection between interpersonal violence and structural violence.

Structural Violence John Galtung (1969) introduced the concept of structural violence to convey that beyond individual acts of discrimination, institutions also perpetrate widespread, systemic discrimination on entire groups of people, inflicting serious harm and preventing them from meeting their basic human needs (Barberet 2014). Systemic sexism, for example, constructs women as inferior to men, which translates into practices that deny women access to and enjoyment of a host of economic and social rights, including equal pay for equal work, employment and educational opportunities, housing and food security, and the ability to live in safety and free of the fear of being violently victimized. Using an intersectional framework allows us to connect structural violence to interpersonal violence by showing how some women are more vulnerable to gender‐based violence because of their membership in marginalized groups, such as racial and ethnic minority groups, but also, for example, as migrants and refugees. “Thus, women and girls’ experiences and risks of violence are not the same, although they may be attributed to similar causes testifying to the universalism of human rights within a world of difference” (True 2012, p. 9). Nevertheless, political scientist Jacqui True (2012) has been critical of many theories of violence against women, including intersectionality, for failing to adequately



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link women’s economic position and opportunities in a society with the violence perpetrated against them. True argues that we “must widen the violence against women framework to take account of the structural causes and consequences of violence evident in women’s poverty and labor exploitation, socioeconomic inequality with men, and lack of political representation” (True 2012, p. 7). She proposes a feminist political economy approach to gender‐based violence, which, she argues, addresses the root causes of gender‐based violence as well as its global scale and horrifying brutality.

A Feminist Political Economic Theory of Gender‐Based Violence True’s (2012) feminist political economic approach to gender‐based violence maintains that the foundation of all forms of power, including the use of violence, is the material relations of inequality within and across societies, such that power is exercised not only through direct coercion at the individual level, but also through the relations of production and reproduction at the structural level. Her theory has three main elements. The first element focuses on the gendered division of labor in the “public–private sphere.” Women continue to have primary responsibility for unpaid household labor and child care, even if they work full time outside the home. In fact, their family responsibilities often constrain the type and amount of education and paid work in which they can engage, and many of the paid jobs that women do hold are devalued as “female occupations” and, therefore, are poorly paid. True (2012) notes that this public–private division of labor has been extended transnationally as women from poor countries migrate for work as housekeepers and nannies to families in wealthier countries. A second, related element of the theory focuses on the global macroeconomic environment in which multinational corporations seek cheap labor and other production resources in poor, unregulated economies. Many women take these unskilled jobs, which provide them with some income, but in a context that offers them no protection from exploitation. At the same time, men may feel disempowered and demasculinized by poor employment and job opportunities, and may use violence to reassert dominance and control over women. And finally, the third element of the feminist political economic theory focuses on war and peace, which True (2012, p. 32) sees as “intertwined with both private patriarchy and the gendered structures of the global political economy.” When violent conflict erupts, frequently as a result of power struggles for political and economic control, violence becomes a “normal” part of life. War, militarization, and aggression are male pursuits, but women are vulnerable to ancillary violence, including war rape and enslavement. Conflicts are also expensive and use resources for militarization that could be spent for social services. Even during peacetime, women who cannot access physical security, social services, economic opportunities, and justice remain vulnerable to violence of many kinds. True’s theoretical argument is that violence against women is inextricably linked to macrostructural processes that create and maintain structural gender inequality. Laurie Cook Heffron’s (2018) recent research on violence against women migrants from Central America illustrates this position well. Heffron interviewed women who

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had migrated to the United States via Mexico from Guatemala, Honduras, or El Salvador. She found that the women experienced multiple, interconnected forms of violence pre‐migration, during migration, and post‐migration. Violence was, in fact, a primary motivator for migrating; the majority of women had experienced intimate partner and/or sexual violence in their home countries, but also lived in fear of gang violence, which abusive partners frequently used to reinforce threats they made against the women and to enhance their control. During migration, the women were vulnerable to sexual violence by the “coyotes” (those who were guiding the women across the border illegally). Once they arrived in the US, the women were vulnerable to intimate partner violence, sexual violence, and human trafficking. Their vulnerability was heightened by many factors related to their immigration status, including their social isolation, lack of English proficiency, lack of knowledge of their rights, inability to access social services, and limited employment opportunities, which compounded their economic marginalization. In applying a feminist political economic analysis to Heffron’s (2018) interview data, we see that women migrants experience violence at the interpersonal level in their everyday interactions with intimate partners and others in their communities, but they also experience structural violence in the form of persistent oppression and inequality (patriarchal gender norms, poverty, under‐ and unemployment, impunity for perpetrators, “illegal” immigrant status) that reinforces and helps perpetuate the interpersonal violence. As Heffron (2018, p. 28) writes, “Violence enacted on one scale is interdependent with violence enacted on other scales. Each level relies on the other levels for the maintenance and expansion of control over women.” In turn, these multiple and interconnecting forms of violence have compounding physical, social, psychological, and economic impacts on survivors. The feminist political economic theory of gender‐based violence, then, maintains that in order to ameliorate this problem we must do more than piecemeal legal reform or changing people’s attitudes through socialization, although both are certainly necessary. In addition, we must make the connection between interpersonal violence and larger, structural economic inequalities. As True (2012, p. 190) states, “Violence is an economic issue; economic policies engender violence.” True (2012) makes a compelling argument, although she is somewhat vague in terms of the specifics of what should be done to bring about long‐term change, except to argue for programs in which “men change men” and for economic empowerment for women. As we noted previously, there is already a variety of anti‐violence programs that have been developed by feminist men (e.g. Katz 2018; Tolman and Walsh 2018). More are certainly welcome, although rigorous evaluation of these programs is needed to determine their success with regard to actually reducing gender‐based violence and other manifestations of gender inequality. Economic empowerment for women is essentially defined as “providing meaningful employment and nondiscriminatory economic opportunities for women in their local environments” (True 2012, p. 189). But True does not elaborate on how, specifically, to do this. It is surely not going to be an easy or a quick task. True’s feminist political economic theory does provide a starting point for moving us “beyond saving one woman at a time to actually bringing about the policy changes that recognize and respond to the political economy of violence against women” (True 2012, p. 185), but one glaring limitation, in light of our earlier discussion of violence against transgender men and



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women, is that the theory does not expand the patriarchy‐based, gender‐binary ­feminist model to include interpersonal and structural violence against people with non‐binary gender identities.

Conclusion This chapter has reviewed several feminist theories of gender‐based interpersonal and structural violence, but it has by no means covered the full range of feminist, let alone non‐feminist, theories that have been developed. The point here has not been to be exhaustive, but rather to identify some of the central explanations that have been offered to account for a devastating and unremitting problem. Importantly, we have argued that, rather than being discrete and unconnected, interpersonal and structural violence are interrelated, dynamic, and mutually reinforcing. Solutions to this problem, therefore, must not only address individual cases, although sensitive, culturally competent, and effective responses to individual victims and perpetrators are critically necessary. But in addition, strategies must be developed to disassemble the interlinked structural inequalities that undergird gender‐based violence. Until we recognize the significance of structural violence in perpetuating interpersonal violence and develop ways to dismantle it, our individual‐level responses will continue to be merely band‐aids on an enlarging and festering wound.

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24 Feminist Political Ecologies in Latin American Context Astrid Ulloa

Introduction Gender as an analytical category was consolidated in the 1990s, based on criticism of the effects of (dual) modern notions in the creation of inequalities, especially for women. This is how, in the 1990s, feminist political ecology (FPE) bursts in, with a feminist perspective and criticism demanding a differentiated epistemology and methodology from the mainstream political ecology (PE). PE was consolidated in the decade of the 1980s as a systematic and critical way to analyze the local‐national‐ global interrelations linked to the processes of territorial and environmental appropriation, and its interaction with social movements, evidencing environmental, social, political, and territorial inequalities. PE highlighted the processes of access, use, control, and decision‐making regarding natural resources and its articulation with gender and ethnicity. However, a gender analysis was not a critical transversal perspective. Since the 1990s, there have been researchers who have deconstructed the dual notion of nature/culture and their effects on gender relations (Haraway 1985; Harding 1992; Escobar 1996). These perspectives allowed different scholars to position other tendencies and views around the power relations and processes that are transversal to the production of knowledge and social and political practices related to nature that naturalize inequalities. In the twenty‐first century, FPE was consolidated and there was a new path that allowed the study of cross‐cutting issues and debates on gender relations, starting with a critical and feminist methodology with systematic fieldwork to address the practices and production of knowledge related to environmental issues. This led FPE to be considered as a specific and differentiated field of the PE (Bryant 2015; Resurrección and Elmhirst 2008).

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Although there are several definitions of FPE, I present here those that in my opinion, allow us to see this perspective’s scope and goals. Harcourt and Nelson (2015a) define FPE: as process from our engagement, our encounters and our embodied learning and praxis. While we realize there are bodily limits to knowing or understanding certain specific issues (such as formulating theories/strategies for living on this planet under climatic conditions never experienced before), our collective aim is to open up the space to learn through the body and other epistemologies and cosmovisions, recognizing that this form of knowledge has been suppressed by Western approaches to scientific inquiry. (2015a, p. 6)

On the other hand, Elmhirst (2017), states that FPE currently: identifies and challenges dominant masculine conceptions and practices of knowledge and authority, while emphasizing forms of research and practice that empower and promote social and ecological transformation for women and other marginalized groups. (2017, p. 52)

FPE has responded to socially and historically contextualized environmental processes, which has generated a diversity of analyses and views. Therefore, proposals and perspectives have been consolidated that gave way to diverse perspectives of FPE, which respond to personal trajectories, collective positionalities, as well as academic demands for critical analyses according to specific contexts. As suggested by Harcourt and Nelson (2015b), an analysis stemming from FPE implies acting, thinking, and feeling in a connected way with experiences and specific knowledge, which implies diversity in the analyses and proposals. Therefore, we can now speak of multiple FPEs, among them, the Latin American feminist political ecology (LAFPE). Given my trajectory and relationship with PE and FPE, I cannot make a global account of FPEs. However, I can propose a partial and situated knowledge that locates my Latin American perspective of FPE and my relationship with two academic traditions the Anglo‐Saxon and the Latin American political ecologies. In this context, I focus on the genealogy, emergence, and perspectives of the Anglo‐Saxon FPE that have influenced not only my career but LAFPE more broadly. The two trajectories of PE, the Anglo‐Saxon and the Latin American, have common elements, but distance themselves from their historical, sociopolitical and environmental contexts, and from the demands and articulations with social movements. Both tendencies respond to diverse academic and thematic traditions, as well as relations with the diverse contributions from feminisms, gender studies and gender and development discussions, and the approaches of ecofeminism. It should be noted that the PE at the beginning of the twenty‐first century had different traditions and trajectories as well as specific themes (Peet et  al. 2011; Bryant 2015; Perreault et  al. 2015). However, in general, FPE perspectives are rarely highlighted. Therefore, FPE becomes a field of its own in which various compilations and investigations of individual trajectories emerge.



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Latin American political ecology (LAPE) has been in constant connection, dialogue, and confrontation with the Anglo‐Saxon PE. There are different scholars that produce PE about Latin America, but my focus here is the production from Latin American trajectories. Some theorists and precursors of the LAPE (Escobar 1996; Leff 2003; Alimonda 2011) have proposed in their analyses not only the common points with the Anglo and European traditions of PE, but have also marked other genealogies, distances, confrontations, and different proposals (Ulloa 2015). The LAPE has had a critical perspective, but without deepening discussion on gender ­differences or inequalities, they have privileged their focus of analysis on power ­relations in social processes or among cultural or ethnic groups. These processes have allowed the consolidation of an independent FPE, which has not been clearly recognized or systematized in terms of its contributions. Therefore, in this text, my aims are to present the contributions of what I call a LAPFE, which has a particular focus for receiving feedback and having strong relationships with diverse feminisms, feminist spatialities, feminist movements, and indigenous women’s movements. To explain these processes, I build upon my experience and on published books on PE and FPE, as well as some of the academic articles that are clearly positioned as FPE. Also, the production of the LAPE and the new approaches of LAPFE that have emerged in the twenty‐first century (especially the academic production in Spanish). Based on these readings, I develop this text in four parts: a brief account of the beginnings of FPE; an approach to the different perspectives of PFEs; the emergence and development of LAPE and the consolidation of LAFPE. Finally, I will outline the contemporary thematic trends in the various FPEs.

Beginnings of Feminist Political Ecology In the 1980s, different researchers (Blaikie 1985; Blaikie and Brookfield 1987; Guha 1989; Jones, 1990, 1991, 1995; Stonich 1995; Peet and Watts 1996) introduced analyses of power relations in the context of gender and ethnicity to understand control processes and access to natural resources. Since this moment, PE began to have different perspectives and emphases around gender. These studies explicitly offered historical and contextual analyses of the relationships between nature and society in different scales, which implied the inclusion of different actors, differences between men and women, as well as their perceptions, explanations, and interventions. In addition, they began to include negotiations, conflicts, and most importantly, resistance processes. In this way, the new social actors and their capacity for action began to be a central issue in environmental analyses. This emphasis on the actors’ capacity for action, expressed the influence of theories regarding social movements within PE. Environmental change (land degradation) and poverty continued to be central issues but new perspectives on environmental issues gave rise to the analyses of national policies and their impacts on the use of resources. Similarly, access to resources was analyzed in accordance with the perspective of gender and ethnicity. These studies included new topics and various discussions, however, there are many critics who assert that despite this diversity of perspectives, the political aspect was not considered in a broader sense (Blaikie and Brookfield 1987; Painter

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and Durham 1995; Peet and Watts 1996). Similarly, the feminist perspective in PE was not well developed. In the 1990s, PE revolved around global problems (the environmental crisis, demographic, and economic inequalities), post‐Marxist theoretical discussions, research focused on the capacity of action of social actors and poststructuralist interests in understanding power/knowledge relationships. In this decade, political activities regarding the environment and natural resources were related to different and new social actors (from social movements to multilateral institutions), which involved more complex analyses of the different levels of interrelation, as well as conflicts and the resistances that the relationship between humans and the environment implies. Moreover, developments in the theoretical perspectives on social movements, in PE, and in the analyses of poststructuralist discourses made it possible to highlight, more than ever, the political implications of the meanings and ­processes of knowledge construction, which allowed for a critique of modern categories such as development, nature, democracy, sustainability, and the political. In  this way, PE generated the potential to confront the policies of environmental hegemonic conceptions (Peet and Watts 1996). Likewise, there was a socioeconomic emphasis on class, gender, and ethnicity (Peluso 1995; Bebbington 1996). The analyses included gender, but not under a feminist perspective. In this context the work of Diane Rocheleau became essential for the foundation of FPE (Mehta 2016), in particular with the article by Rocheleau (1995) “Gender and biodiversity: a feminist political ecology perspective” published in 1995, which became a cornerstone text for FPE. The text presents an FPE approach about her work in Kenya in which she analyzes the inequalities of rights and responsibilities between men and women, when they access nature, as well as in relation to management and conservation practices. After this, the text “Feminist Political Ecology” by Rocheleau et  al. (1996), became, until today, the fundamental axis for contemporary debates, given that it placed a specific field and generated a methodological and theoretical proposal. The proposal of the authors posed new articulations within feminist studies and the environment, highlighting the articulations with ecofeminism, feminist environmentalism, socialist feminism, feminist post‐structuralism, and environmentalism. Likewise, they propose axes of analysis around: gender‐dependent knowledge, environmental rights and responsibilities based on gender, environmental risks in everyday life, environmental policy, and grassroots activism structured on the basis of gender, identity, and difference. Rocheleau, Thomas‐Slayter, and Wangari created one of the first definitions of FPE: This approach begins with the concern of political ecologists who emphasize decision‐ making processes and the social, political and economic context that shapes environmental policies and practices. Political ecologists have focused largely on the uneven distribution of access to and control over resources on the basis of class and ethnicity (Peet and Watts 1993). Feminist political ecology treats gender as a critical variable in shaping resource access and control, interacting with class, caste, race, culture, and ethnicity to shape processes of ecological change, the struggle of men and women to sustain ecologically viable livelihoods, and the prospects of any community has for “sustainable development.” (Rocheleau et al. 1996, p. 4)



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This proposal gave way to a wave of new articles and academic analyses that started to consolidate FPE (mentioning all of them here is a complex and difficult task). However, it is necessary to highlight the dialogues of FPE that involve proposals from different disciplines that focus on gender. Gender studies and development perspectives addressed (Simmons 1997; Peet and Hartwick 1999) the inequalities and poverty that development and related projects produce not only by acknowledging unequal gender relations, but also by reproducing them. These critics were in interaction with the discussions of environmental crises. In the 1990s, gender and environment formed a central axis of analysis of the complex interactions among social and environmental situations, in order to highlight the gender inequalities in the search for equal relationships among men and women. However, within this broader perspective there are different emphases and transformations. Some scholars such as Agarwal (1991), Braidotti et  al. (1994), Mellor (1997), and Buckingham‐Hatfield (2000), among others, make a strong critique of development, as well as the defense of the articulation of women movements in the protection of the environment and ecofeminist movements. Their central critique was to the structural processes of domination over nature and women. On the other hand, the emergence of diverse ecofeminisms calls to question the patriarchal position based on dualities that affect the life not only of women but also of nature. Mies and Shiva (1993) have been central in these debates, and they highlight the women and nature association and its implications for caring and defending territories and nature. They also critique the implications of Western binary categories, which consider nature as external and carry the potential for extraction, possession, and destruction. Nevertheless, there are critics of the women/nature association who propose to include gender as an historical category for understanding the relationships among women and men within the environment. They also state that the effects over nature and women do not respond to “natural causes” but to historical processes and to cultural constructions of gender and processes of intersectionality. Currently, these contexts are based on dual notions where the feminine is associated with nature, which extends to the territorial and generates inequalities, claimed for a new perspective, which could be ­generally classified as feminist environmentalism (Jackson 1993; Agarwal 1991). Therefore, FPE established conceptual interchanges with all the tendencies ­present in analyses discussed before as well as with networks pertaining to social movements, including ones led in defense of women’s rights. These articulations can be linked to the so‐called waves of feminisms, which, while responding to a Euro‐ and Anglo‐centric historical perspective, have generated positions and reactions from different perspectives. The different trajectories of FPE have generated particular propositions in their critical analyses of unequal gender relations and, from feminist critiques, on the relationships between gender, political, and environmental issues. Likewise, the debates from the different trajectories of FPE have contributed to the analytical perspectives of the social sciences. These perspectives and approaches have highlighted both the difference in the production of knowledge and the rights and processes of resistance around access, control, use, decision‐making, and rights surrounding nature (Rocheleau et al. 1996). FPE articulates not only environmental and ecofeminist perspectives but also feminist environmentalism and critiques to modern dual conceptions and development. In this way FPE offers a more complex perspective to deal with socioenvironmental and gender inequalities.

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Connections among feminisms, ecofeminisms, and women have been criticized for positing an essentialist relationship between women and “nature” (Archambault 1993). Similarly, there are also criticisms among the association of femininity and nature (Plumwood 1993), given that patriarchal relationships have delegated care to women, evidencing an androcentric perspective. However, there are related and new perspectives like demands by local women to care for nonhumans, and for the continuity of life to confront the processes of appropriation and globalization of ­natural environments, and the inequalities between women and men that generate extractive environmental exploitation and degradation. In the twenty‐first century, researchers within FPE theory have incorporated a broad conception of politics, civil society, historicity, as well as discussions about specific situations of particular knowledge. In this way, FPE transcends the institutional framework to access daily practices and the spheres of the private, the body, the intimate and emotions. Similarly, cultural dimensions were incorporated to appreciate local practices and interrelations with the environment from gender ­differences. Finally, the power/knowledge relationships and the specific historical situations of knowledge and practices in particular social and historical contexts have been examined according to gender, ethnicity, age, location, and other factors. The analyses have focused on the symbolic and the material, the production of meaning around the nonhuman, and the understanding of nature as social and linked with local–global dynamics that generate inequalities (gender, ethnicity, race, age, location). In a similar way, the analyses have focused on development, place, and scale, relationships of social inequality, in relation to political and environmental policies associated with knowledge, and discourses. Likewise, a new axis of analysis has focused on extractivist processes and the effects on the local social dynamics and environmental management, for example, water, forests, and processes of territorial appropriation and land‐ and green‐grabbing. Finally, it is recently in dialogue with perspectives that include nonhumans and new notions of environmental justice. Elmhirst (2015) strikes a balance between the current Anglo reading of FPE, presenting the analysis and thematic trends which are currently studied from capitalist transformations and the production of nature (neoliberal natures) to the effects of climate change and the local–global differences. These differences focus on the access and control of resources in family groups and the changes between men and women, the dynamics of the processes of dispossession and land and water grabbing, and transformations in domestic spaces. She highlights subjectivities and gender identities in relation to changing environments and the various power relations according to diverse interconnections (class, race, ethnicity, location, functionality, sexuality, caste), subjectivities, bodies, and identities related to the “natural.” This evidence the role of materiality, the agency of nature and the ethics of care towards it. Elmhirst states “In other words, the materiality of nature and its production through cultural meanings (around access) and work (daily labor practices) means that people’s commitments to forest ecologies also produce gender subjectivities” (2015, p. 524). Elmhirst calls for the repolitization of gender and looks for new perspectives of analysis around subjectivities and identities (bodies, human, non‐human), under new and complex assemblies of power.



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Current Scholarship on FPE In recent compilations by Resurrección and Elmhirst (2008), Harcourt (2016), Harcourt and Nelson (2015b) and Elmhirst (2015, 2017) show an overview of the contributions of FPE and suggest that there is a new FPE. These compilations evidence the fact that it is not possible to speak of a single FPE, making it is necessary to understand different trajectories and their tendencies. Resurrección and Elmhirst (2008) focus on the relationship between gender and management and the exploitation of resources while highlighting the critical and political perspective of this relationship, particularly in Asian contexts. They focus on the political dimensions and the power relations that cut across the naturalized conceptions of the feminine and masculine within sustainable development, highlighting the effects of the macroeconomic and neoliberal policies. Likewise, they analyze the knowledge and subjectivities associated with the gendered agencies. Even though they focus on the trajectories of gender and environment, the authors are positioned on a FPE approach. In their approach of FPE, they center on processes of access and control of resources, but arising from the constructions of gender and knowledge, to analyze the effects of power relations in the construction of differences. Harcourt and Nelson (2015b) present in their compilation, texts that contribute to conceptual discussions in relation to decolonial and postcolonial views, towards a situated and contextualized FPE based on their own experiences. These perspectives open the door for gender discussions in the direction of the recognition of identities associated with ethnicity, race, and intersectionality, and an opening towards viewing nonhumans as political actors. These approaches broaden FPEs and broaden their focus on natures‐cultures, posthumanism, emotions, and the performativity of feminism and environmentalism, social movements and activism, which complicates the current perspectives of FPE. Elmhirst (2017) states that her view from the Anglo production and her experience with social movements enables her to speak of four axes of FPE: “a) FPE and gender dynamics in access to resources and their dispossession; b) posthumanist ontologies, bodies and matter in FPE, c) sufficiency, the commons and feminist ethics of care, and d) decolonial feminist political ecology” (p. 53). There are new themes surrounding risks and perceptions of climate change and nuclear energy (Kimura 2015), a race that goes through gender as an analytical axis, making categories more complex (Mollett and Faria 2013) as well as the emotions attached to practices and daily environmental geopolitics (Sultana 2015). The body as a site of inscription territorialities, and the debate about which bodies import to FPE, appear as a key axis in the analysis of human and nonhuman corporalities (Hayes‐Conroy and Hayes‐Conroy 2015). Finally, masculinities and their differences and their relationship to women in specific contexts have been a new focus of ­analysis (Paulson 2016). Although the authors mentioned the need to speak of FPEs, there is no clear mention of LAPE and less of LAFPE. In these contexts, I consider it necessary to focus on the Latin American PE which is currently not well known.

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Historical and Specific Experiences and Knowledges: Latin American Feminist Political Ecology Environmental processes are related to historical analysis that produce diverse FPEs, as stated by Harcourt and Nelson (2015b). Therefore, LAFPE emerges as a situated perspective that deals with the colonial process of extractivisms. The Latin American PE has certain specificities around notions such as territory, ecological debt, analytical proposals, and contextualized contributions according to countries and their trajectories (Alimonda 2011; Leff 2013; Porto‐Gonçalves and Leff 2015; Alimonda et  al. 2017). All these processes have allowed for a unique development and the approach to issues in the context of colonial processes, modernity, development, and alternatives to development. This perspective demands historical research and the recognition of the power relations from the colony and the interrelations between development and appropriation of the environment by global processes that caused and still cause dispossession and violence and that generated episteme‐ethno‐ecocides. In the same way, other critical ways of relating to development are positioned by local people (Alimonda 2002, 2006, 2009; Leff 2003, 2013; Escobar 2011; Ulloa 2015). The Latin American perspective on PE offers a focus on both the critiques of development and the proposals from local processes of interrelation with the environment that have particularities in terms of spatial and temporal processes, and in which processes of environmental justice are demanded and debates related to decoloniality (Moreano et al. 2017). These interrelationships in current contexts of extractivisms have generated an academic production from LAPE that seeks to analyze the new appropriations of nature in contexts of the capitalist model (Alimonda 2011; Moncada et al. 2013; Alimonda et al. 2017). There is also the case of the books of Durand et al. (2012) in Mexico, and Bustos et al. (2015) in Chile, that present their localized perspectives, which focus on environmental conflicts (conservation areas, capitalist process or extraction and the reconfiguration of the local space), and discussions around nature, property, knowledge, and power, as well as tendencies and trajectories of the PE in their countries. In general, LAPE possesses a critical perspective, but it has not considered gender differences or inequalities in depth, given that it has privileged power relations in social processes or among cultural or ethnic groups. The works of LAPE related to gender and feminisms have remained solely in mentions of women or gender differences in relation to environment that, at the end, could reify a gender/sex binary, without making a deep critique of the structural implications of gender inequalities. These perspectives imply a masculinist/reductive approach to LAPE. This lack of recognition responds both to the geopolitics of the production of knowledge toward feminine production and to feminisms in the academic world, as well as to a lack of systematization and visibility of these debates and proposals coming from LAPE. However, there are some approaches to gender and feminist perspectives. For example, Leff (2004) presents a general connection among environment, gender, and women, and ecofeminisms. But in general, there are only minor references to gender. The journal Ecología Política no. 51, dedicated this 2016 issue to PE in Latin America. However, it includes only two articles that propose the inclusion of gender as an analytical category in the urban PE proposal (Quimbayo and Vásquez 2016)



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and the intersectional perspective for analyzing the Bolivian political context (Kaijser 2016). But there is no methodological or conceptual positioning from an FPE. The Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales (CLACSO)’s recent compilations of PE (Alimonda et al. vol. I and II 2017) position debates around epistemologies and other knowledges; gender is only mentioned in some chapters, but it is not used as a transversal category or from a feminist perspective. Therefore, LAPE has not focused on the analysis of gender relations, as a central analytical category to understand the differentiated processes between men and women in relation to the environmental conflicts and issues. Likewise, in the academic production of the LAPE, the perspective of an FPE is not as clear, either in terms of its trajectory or its space in the geopolitics of knowledge associated with the political dynamics related to environmental issues. Therefore, it is worth asking if there is no production or if there is but we are unaware of it. I posit that there is academic and activist production that can be called LAFPE, which responds to other trajectories and other connections within social movements, Latin American feminisms, and other theoretical perspectives.

Emergence of a Latin American Feminist Political Ecology In Latin America, in the field of research of unequal power relations surrounding environmental issues, there is academic production on discussions like the critical debates of the implications of the dual categories between nature/culture and unequal gender relations, according to race, ethnicity, and other notions of nature (Escobar 1996, 2010; Segato 2011; Ulloa 2013; Walsh 2015). However, the production of Latin American authors that stem from a critical feminist perspective of the PE, or of the authors who propose a criticism to the production of academic knowledge according to gender regarding environmental issues, are not known or have not positioned themselves within LAPE. In fact, feminist views from PE have not been considered in the trajectories of LAPE. This invisibility has also been due to the fact that the works of authors who have been key in the rethinking of the analytical categories of gender and natures are not seen as FPE. This is because LAPE has centered on specific topics linked to exploitation and extraction of “natural resources” under unequal relation of power, but there are not reflections about the basic assumptions of a gendered space and politicization of dual categories as the bases of producing inequalities. Also, within LAPE’s perspective publications of scholars that have a feminist perspective, even though their ­analyses are related to environmental discussions, are considered part of gender studies. Finally, feminist perspectives have recently been linked to environmental debates and demands of local peoples. In general, environmental movements did not consider gender as a central category and feminist movements did not consider the environment as part of their demands or areas of analysis. Likewise, the trajectories of LAFPE have other genealogies and paths. Therefore, I will position here the historical process of the LAFPE. Recently, in reflections of the historical development of LAPE, there is a recognition of the role of gender and of feminist perspectives. The perspective that various authors of LAFPE have highlighted include critical approaches to colonial relations

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between humans, between humans and nonhumans, and between nature and culture in their associations with the feminine and masculine categories, in the context of unequal relations of power and the imposition of colonialities. They claim that there were imposed colonial forms of being, knowledge production, power, and nature, as well as gender since colonial times in Latin America (Walsh 2007; Lugones 2008; Segato 2011; Ulloa 2013, 2015). Similarly, there has been a dialogue between various authors with the works of the Anglo‐Saxon FPE, especially the work of Diane Rocheleau, who for several years has been a key reference for the analysis of gender and environment in Latin America. Likewise, the critical proposals of gender and development have been retaken. But above all, analytical proposals have been constructed from ecofeminisms, Latin American feminisms and indigenous women’s movements, and gender and spatiality studies (feminist geographies). These articulations and connections allow us to speak of an LAFPE from these genealogies.

Ecofeminisms Latin American ecofeminisms emerged from various processes linked to feminist and environmental movements. The Venezuelan ecofeminist research and activist group, LaDanta LasCanta (2017b) highlights the movements of ecofeminist theology and ecofeminist organizations, as essential in the emergence of movements of resistance to extractivism, by positioning demands for rights over territories and autonomy. Also, the group considers that ecofeminism movements play an essential role in the emergence of a critical perspective within the feminist political perspective regarding environmental defenses centered on care and on the generation of alternatives to development. The work of the Network of Gender, Society, and Environment (Red Género, Sociedad y Medio Ambiente‐Red GESMA), led by Margarita Velázquez and Verónica Vázquez (2004) draws attention to the debates on ecofeminisms and the diverse tendencies of environmentalist feminist movements. The network’ publications have managed to compile texts of FPE and articulate the diverse currents of gender and development and their relationship to the environment around the feminist demands to revert socioenvironmental inequalities

Latin American Feminisms and Indigenous Women Movements Latin American feminisms build upon the debates and proposals of autonomous, communitarian and decolonial feminisms. I believe that the debates proposed by Latin American feminisms associated with resistance to capitalist processes and neoliberal dynamics about territories and natures have facilitated the understanding of extractivisms and created a Latin American perspective of PE. On the other hand, they create the space to analyze the processes led by indigenous, Afro‐descendent, and peasant women, who in some contexts identify themselves as feminists but not in others. This allows gender to be made a more complex category that permeates diverse scales and makes oppressions visible, especially for women. These perspectives are used again by some of the networks of indigenous women; therefore, I will highlight their contributions in a general way.



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Autonomous feminisms have had a diverse trajectory that has been linked to ­ roposals from indigenous and Afro‐descendent women, as well as to various genep alogies of feminisms (Declaración Feminista Autónoma 2009). Among these trajectories, the Latin American indigenous feminist approaches that stand out are the ones that pose a critique and an epistemological and political distancing regarding previous waves of feminisms, while at the same time, they propose subaltern and dissenting feminisms. These contributions create a critique around the patriarchal, neoliberal, and commodification logics in reference to nature and the environment. On the other hand, the views that arise from some indigenous women against hegemonic feminisms have allowed the consolidation of communitarian feminisms. The proposals that have the greatest international impact arise in Bolivia with Julieta Paredes and María Galindo through the organization Mujeres Creando. This is reflected in the preparation of the World Summit on Women in Beijing (1995) and through various challenges to the policies and programs of cooperation and neoliberal adjustment in their country. Julieta Paredes (2014) poses a critique of both hegemonic feminisms and the implications that neoliberal economic dynamics cause to indigenous peoples and women regarding recognition of their own cultural dynamics, violence and inequalities, both external and internal. The criticisms that arise from some indigenous women in the face of hegemonic feminisms and the unequal relations between men and women across various indigenous groups give rise to the idea that there is another type of indigenous patriarchy. Within these debates the proposals of communitarian feminisms are strengthened. For example, the critical proposal against indigenous patriarchy in the Bolivian context gave rise to a need to understand how inequalities manifest within indigenous communities. These discussions allow the emergence of communitarian feminisms. Such is the case of Lorena Cabnal (2010), indigenous Xinca from Guatemala, who proposes a communitarian feminism regarding the relationship between territory and body: “What for us began as a political slogan has become a category within communitarian feminism that is related to the defense and recovery of the body‐land territory” (Cabnal 2013, p. 3). After the critiques of hegemonic feminisms and debates about the decolonization of the 1980s, Latin American feminists proposed other analyses about feminisms and they considered themselves to be decolonial feminists (Curiel 2007; Bidaseca and Vázquez 2011; Gargallo 2012; Espinosa et al. 2014a,b). The decolonial feminist perspective proposes the decolonization of colonial impositions such as the production of knowledge, relations of power and notions of nature. Similarly, they consider that gender is a colonial introduction related to class, ethnicity, race and location, and criticize their previous articulations with hegemonic feminisms (Espinosa et al. 2014b). Most decolonial feminists combine activism and relationships with social movements and a production of critical knowledge within these movements from a political perspective. Recently, the demands of indigenous, Afro‐descendent, and peasant women have been positioned as processes that confront external gender visions and Western relations, as well as the effects of extractivism, violence, appropriation, and dispossession of their territories and natures. Protests and actions of indigenous, Afro‐descendent, and peasant women against extractive processes raise both criticisms and alternatives to the economic dynamics that derive from the modernity/coloniality relationship,

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and that have extractivism as one of their expressions, as well as an alternative to the commodification of nature that generates processes of dispossession by appropriation and patriarchalism. In the same way, they demand other gender relations between men and women in processes of defense of the territory‐nature, in work, and in mobilizations, struggles, and resistance. Therefore, they have developed alternatives that are based on the creation of alliances of movements of women against extractivisms to demand other development visions (alternatives to development) and cultural constructions of gender in contexts of extractivism, such as the ethics of care and notion of relational environmental justice (Ulloa 2016, 2017). Ulloa (2018) calls these political dynamics of women territorial feminisms. Under this concept, she understands: the environmental‐territorial struggles led by indigenous, Afrodescendent, and peasant women, and which focus on the protection of territory, body, and nature, as well as on the critique of development processes and extractivisms. The proposals are based on a vision of the continuity of life related to their territories. As a central axis, they posit the defense of life, starting from their practices and male/female relationships, and the relationships between human and non‐human. Similarly, they propose the defense of their everyday subsistence activities such as food sovereignty and their livelihoods. (2018, p. 273)

In the Latin American context, political debates are mostly centered on global capitalism, in particular, extractivist industries, given the overflowing number of extractivist industries throughout the region. Their effects are environmental and territorial dispossession around the continent. The socioecological inequalities of various kinds, as well as the cultural and social implications of such industrial processes are yet to be fully analyzed in Latin America and therefore these processes are related to LAFPE.

Feminist spatialities Discussions on gender, space, territoriality, and environment have also become part of LAPE. The feminist perspectives on space and spatiality have contributed to the positioning of other geopolitics, alter‐geopolitics, and privileging alternative territorial visions and political processes of control of these visions at different scales, starting with the body‐territory. These perspectives allow us to understand the political dynamics and resistances of both men and women against extractivism, which have become widespread in Latin America. They also allow us to understand the increase of various forms of violence against women, in extractive contexts, and the emergence of networks of indigenous, Afro‐descendant, and peasant women against extractivisms (Zaragocin et al. 2018). From the feminist perspective, the extractivisms and their devastating effects, including violence, are reconsidered. Likewise, a conceptual space is opened to understand women’s proposals for local control of extractive processes and the subsoil: which means to understand the local right to have a vertical politics of their territory (Ulloa 2016). These trajectories of the LAFPE allow us to understand the current academic production of their tendencies in the twenty‐first century.



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Trends of LAFPE In the LAFPE, diverse trajectories and articulations converge with ecofeminist, ­collective movements of critical geography and territorialities, Latin American feminisms, decolonial proposals, and academic approaches from FPE. Similarly, academic publications combined with specialized journals and different books and policy papers evidence diverse trends in this literature. The journal Ecología Política no. 54 (2017) was dedicated to ecofeminisms and feminist political ecologies mostly in Latin America. This issue focuses on a feminist perspective to critique capitalism and patriarchalism and to propose alternatives to development. It highlights the approaches of ecofeminisms (theological and anti‐ extractivism) and communitarian feminisms and their relationship with FPE. The texts also focus on alternatives to depatriarchalize and generate other ways of relating to the nonhuman in the generation of proposals related to collective life. Different scholars are doing research and analysis on environmental conflicts arising from a feminist perspective, and positioning themselves as political ecologists or feminist political ecologists. Because of the way LAFPE is being consolidated, it is necessary to give an account of its emergency and its articulations and to systematize the existing academic production in various countries. LAFPE is connected with local experiences and conflicts, as well as Latin American feminisms, which implies political engagement with local processes. In Colombia, scholars such as Ojeda (2011) and Ulloa (2007, 2016, 2017) have developed critical approaches around territorial and environmental issues related to feminist critiques and extractivism. These authors make research proposals related to the environment, gender, and feminism in reference to FPE. They also address the relationship between gender, public policies, and their territorialization process from an intersectional perspective, which seeks to understand spatial processes, as well as the differentiated implications for both men and women of territorialized environmental policies (Ulloa 2018). Finally, there is the proposal of Ulloa (2017) regarding relational environmental justice that recognizes nonhumans as political actors and indigenous ontologies to propose others approaches to FPE. In Chile, Bolados and Sánchez (2017), and Bolados et al. (2017), analyze the effects and socioenvironmental conflicts of the Ventanas Industrial Complex, in the Valparaíso Region, Chile, with more than 17 companies related to extractive processes of copper, coal, hydrocarbons, and gas. In particular, they focus on the effects on women and on the dynamics of resistance of the group of Women of Zones of Sacrifice in Resistance of Puchuncaví‐Quintero. The perspective presented by the authors articulates ecofeminisms, communitarian feminisms and EP of emotions, to address the suffering and emotions of women and make territories visible as areas of sacrifice. In Venezuela, the research group LaDanta LasCanta (2017a) centers the FPE perspective and highlights the articulation of a feminist perspective with Anthropocene debates. They focus on dualities and their implications for inequalities and power relations that affect women. Likewise, the group highlights the role of ecofeminisms in the current debates of the FPE (2017b). In Ecuador, El Colectivo de Geografía Crítica has been positioned, highlighting both a feminist perspective in the analysis of spatialities and territorialities, and the resistances against extractivism, as well as the commons and nature rights

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(https: //geografiacriticaecuador.org). Recently, Catherine Walsh (2015), from her work with indigenous peoples and decolonial perspectives, proposes other forms of thought and relationships with nature that confront the modern dichotomies of ­gender. In Argentina, Gabriela Merlisky (2017), from her work in CLACSO’s PE research group, has positioned a feminist perspective in her analysis of territorial conflicts and in relation to the debates of the commons. Finally, in Mexico, we must highlight the work of the Network of Gender, Society and Environment (Red GESMA) and the leadership of Margarita Velázquez and Verónica Vázquez, who positioned the debates on gender and environment, gender and development and compiled texts from FPE and environmental feminists as well as ecofeminisms of diverse trajectories (Vázquez and Velásquez 2004; Vázquez García et al. 2016; Velázquez Gutiérrez et al. 2016). These works have contributed to a LAFPF perspective and have become key texts for debates on gender perspectives and environment. Researchers from the perspective of the FPE have generated analysis around environmental justice, for example, Irene Bonilla (2015), who compares the processes of participation of women in environmental justice movements in order to confront the devastation of their territories. More recently, the work of Adriana Gómez (2017) under a perspective of FPE, analyzes the payment for environmental services and its effects on women in decision‐making, participation, and conservation processes in Milpa Alta, Mexico City. These trends and the academic production of the field of LAFPE are diverse and formed by different research groups and networks. The productions of these researchers are new perspectives and contributions from feminist spatialities, emotions, relational environmental justice, socioenvironmental inequalities, and new discussions related to the Anthropocene and Capitalocene.

Conclusions The diverse trajectories of FPE have generated multiple perspectives in their critical analysis of unequal gender relations and, from feminist critiques, of the relations between gender, political and environmental debates. They have also contributed to analytical perspectives within the social sciences. The current trajectories of new and diverse FPEs have elements in common like the criticism of patriarchal processes, the construction of inequalities toward women and nature, and the imposition of gender inequalities. In the same way, FPEs question current capitalist and neoliberal dynamics. Their perspectives respond to diverse historical contexts, so the trajectories and proposals differ, as in the case of LAFPE. These differences imply diverse conceptual and epistemological proposals, as well as alliances and themes. However, here I want to highlight common points among the different trajectories: ●● The urgency to rethink epistemologies and to deconstruct modern dualisms, to ultimately generate new methodologies that include nonhumans. ●● The need for situated knowledge to analyze the diverse trajectories situated historically and spatially. FPEs recognize local knowledge and territorial senses



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of belonging. Knowledge, subjectivities, identities, and practices around nature – as well as its specific transformations and in particular contexts – are not placed in equal relation to one another. Commitment to be engaged in local processes in terms of both activism and support for social movements. Even though there are many debates between local peoples and researchers, they agree to focus on (local, regional, national, and international) environmental processes and how they are reflected in local territories distinctly for women and men. ○○ The decolonization of colonial impositions such as specific ways of producing knowledge, and notions of nature and gender as unique categories, that are under unequal power relations. ○○ Generation of alternatives to development and other ways of living based on the defense of life, in order to present alternatives to neoliberal capitalism and patriarchy, which are themselves connected to a critique of the economic development model. ○○ Focus more on masculinities in order to understand the asymmetries of power in relation to women and nature in a historical way that unveils the structural and social practices that generates inequalities. At the same time, newly focus on differences that men under processes of exclusion by race or ethnicity suffer in environmental contexts.

It is difficult to identify specific or separate fields from FPE, but they are reflected in diverse analytical trends where the relationships between gender and environment become central to deal with neoliberal processes and environmental transformations such as climate change, the Capitalocene, and the Anthropocene. The different perspectives of FPEs, including LAFPE, have contributions that complement each other. In the same way, different feminisms also generate different ­perspectives on FPE. As Rocheleau (2016) puts it, “FPE as a networked and expanded feminist endeavor to deal with the social relations of power and justice connected to cultures, ecologies and economies is alive and well. It is currently rising to the challenge of decolonial thinking and politics, to the politics of being, differently” (2016, p. 57). This diversity is situated and rooted in a relational manner. FPEs pose questions about whether it makes sense to establish possible common paths or to have a single history. I think that it is the need to consolidate FPEs that are differentiated in some particular contexts, such as LAFPE, which leads us to the diversity of being, feeling, knowing, and thinking within situated realities related to feminist perspectives and diverse feminisms in contexts where nature is recognized as diverse, and where the nonhuman enters to play a new role for future analyses and proposals.

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25 Feminism and Social Justice Movements Molli Spalter

On January 21, 2017, approximately two‐million people arrived in buses, cars, and planes to partake in the first annual Women’s March. As the procession began through the main arteries of Washington DC, a diverse group of “pussyhat” clad women sang, clapped, and swayed. Other March participants carried handmade signs that read “RESPECT EXISTENCE OR EXPECT RESISTANCE,” “I am not free while any woman is unfree,” and “I will not go quietly back to the 1960s” and supporters hung out of apartment windows, some joining in song, some holding their own signs, some smiling and waving. The marching stalled as attempts to turn north toward the White House were interrupted by emergency vehicles. To pass the time along Independence Avenue, participants bounced and punched an oversized orange balloon decorated with the face of the 45th president. Collective call and response chants of “Black Lives Matter!” (BLM) and “No Fascist, No KKK, No Nazi USA” blended into one another. The March concluded in front of the White House a short distance from the National Museum of Women in the Arts, a museum whose mission includes educating the public about gender disparity. This touchstone event and its participants are part of a larger pattern within the feminist movement of women using their bodies and time to pursue political and social change through collective action. Social movements change the way we live in, and with, the world; formal and informal movements have organized around shared political agendas to challenge disempowering social and structural conditions. How do these social movements form? What makes them successful? Mainstream media outlets and social media feeds regularly broadcast a variety of fiercely debated issues around which social movements are organized: gun control, abortion rights, gender equality, gay and lesbian rights, immigration, religious freedom, war and peace, and so on. The social movements responding to these issues are equally visible as exemplified by the widespread coverage of the 2017 Women’s March, or the youth‐led gun control reform movement arising from the 2018 Stoneman Douglas High School shooting. Companion to Feminist Studies, First Edition. Edited by Nancy A. Naples. © 2021 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Published 2021 by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

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Explicating how social movements form and what makes them successful is f­undamental to understanding their influence. One principal intervention in the study of social movements is the feminist perspective, which analyzes the development and social change processes characteristic of feminist movements. Feminist approaches to social movement scholarship consider the extent to which dominant conceptions of gendered emotion influence the traditional scholarship, emphasizing the centrality of emotion in feminist movement building and sustainability (Ferree and Yancy Martin 1995; Hercus 1999; Taylor 1995). The implications of intersectional collective identities employed by social movements are examined with a focus on the consequences they carry for movements and their constituencies (Bassel and Emejulu 2014; Jihye et  al. 2013; Polletta and Jasper 2001; Townsend‐Bell 2011). Further, feminist scholarship approaches social movement tendencies from a global perspective, investigating movements’ reliance on internal and external resources and the role of small‐scale change (Batliwala 2014; Roth 2006; Jad 2010; Kuttab 2008). This chapter considers these trends in feminist social movement scholarship divided into four parts. I begin with a brief history of traditional social movement scholarship that examines the origins of social movement theory and strategies for success; surveying the arc of social movement traditions situated through a historical lens enables a broad view of the progress that has been made as well as areas that require sustained attention. I then interrogate the relationship between feminism and social movements, highlighting the achievements and challenges of centralizing gender equality within social change agendas. I then turn to feminist contributions to social movement theory. In the final section, I offer two examples of social justice movements explicitly impacted by the concerns outlined above: Palestinian Working Woman Society for Development (PWWSD) and BLM.

Social Movement Theories Engaging in various types of collective action, social movements articulate collective grievances and express concerns about the rights of their constituencies (Snow et al. 2004). Social movements are distinguished by several defining characteristics: a membership that is collectivized in formal or informal organizations, some endurance over time, a clear political agenda, and the use of a variety of collective actions in pursuit of the movement’s political goals (Batliwala 2014, p. 3). Consensus about how these collectives form and what makes them impactful has continued to elude scholars since the four classical social movement theorists – Marx, Lenin, Gramsci, and Tilly  –  posited what they believed to be central elements of collective action. Where Marx concentrated on the cleavages of capitalist society that created the potential for mobilization, Lenin located the mechanism of mobilization in an elite class. Gramsci focused on the need for consensus around movement goals, ignoring the political, social, and economic conditions that restrict mobilization. Tilly, addressing the holes in Gramsci’s theory, was attentive to the limiting factors on resource‐ poor individuals and movements (Tarrow 1998). In response to these early social movement theories, four recent traditions emerged: collective behavior theory, resource mobilization theory, framing and collective identity theory, and political process theory. These developments attempted to



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answer questions that continue to trouble contemporary theorists: When does the need for a social movement arise? What is the impetus for banding together? What is the most effective way for social movements to enact systemic change? As responses to these questions continue to evolve, a brief overview of the field sets the stage for future scholars to identify movement building approaches that may energize local and global movements with renewed commitment and impact.

How Do Social Movements Form? A group of women march demanding the right to vote, students occupy campus buildings lobbying for free‐speech, Black civil rights activists sit at white‐only diner counters protesting segregation. What compels a group of people to stand up against injustice? Is collective action the result of anger? opportunity? rational thinking? Seeking to answer how social movements are formed, and informed by Marx’s concentration on grievances, collective behavior theorists posit that movements are the result of strain, hypothesizing that: the motivation for movement participation is held to be based not so much on the desire to attain political goals as the need to manage the psychological tensions of a stressful social situation. (McAdam 1999, p. 9)

In this model, movements are made up of individuals experiencing a “disruptive psychological state,” who seek to escape the feeling of alienation and anxiety of their social isolation from “mass society” (McAdam 1999, p. 7). Collective behavior theorists posit that movements are non‐rational responses to individual pathology, easily interchangeable with other non‐political collectives. From this perspective, social movements are distinguished from rational politics and viewed as emotional engagement, disinterested in political action. Beginning in the 1970s, political process theorists recognize the political energy of social movements and suggested they emerge from “expanding political opportunities.” This claim emphasizes that the occasion for people to act collectively rather than social isolation and personal pathology is key to movement building (Goodwin and Jasper 1999; Tarrow 1998). According to Shorter and Tilly, social movement formation was a rational response to political opportunities, rather than psychological, “individuals are not magically mobilized for participation in some group enterprise regardless of how angry, sullen, hostile or frustrated they may feel” (1978, p. 38). Political opportunities encompass those opportunities which “lower the cost of collective action, reveal potential allies, and show where elites and authorities are vulnerable” and are the crucial determinant of social movement success (Tarrow 1998, p. 18). By revealing weaknesses in the political elite and disrupting the balance of power, political opportunities contribute to a growing sense of political efficacy, amplifying the salience of collective action. This thesis suggests that a group of ­people who maintain deep grievances but have few internal resources may not be capable of forming a politically efficacious movement. Armstrong and Bernstein (2008) offered a new model that built on political process theory. The explain that: “While the political process model assumes that domination is organized by and

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around one source of power, the alternative perspective views domination as organization around multiple sources of power, each of which is simultaniously material and symbolic.” Since the 1990s, social movement scholarship has revisited the emotional p ­ aradigm, with assertions that social action is motivated by emotion and reason, challenging the previously polarized opposition (Aminzade and McAdam 2002; Flam and King 2007; Goodwin and Jasper 2006; Reed 2005). This paradigm contends that a combination of rational and informal factors informs social movement formation. In this formulation, opportunity is not a prerequisite for social movement formation. Rather, emotion is the fundamental vehicle through which individuals recognize their needs and achieve those needs. This developing scholarship challenges the rationalist approach of political process theorists without returning to collective behavior theory, which reduces individuals involved in social movements to psychologically disturbed actors and understands social movements as depoliticized collectives.

What Makes Social Movements Successful? Opposition to the United States’ involvement in the Vietnam War played a critical role in bringing that war to an end. The Anti‐Vietnam War movement shut down college campuses, canceled ROTC (Reserve Officer Training Corps) programs, prompted American soldiers to question the ethics of their service, and ultimately changed public opinion, which has been widely attributed as influencing President Richard Nixon’s decision to end the war. What makes collectives like the Anti‐ Vietnam War movement successful? The study of social movements seeks to understand not only how social movements form, but what makes them effective. Embedded in the concept of social movement is an understanding that each group possesses a common goal: The Civil Rights Movement seeks legal rights for Black Americans; the Feminist Movement strives for long‐term transformation of gender relations; the Labor Movement strives for higher wages and better working conditions. To explain what allows movements to achieve their collective goals, recalling Lenin’s organizational theory, scholars pursued theories of collective action. John McCarthy and Mayer Zald (1977) suggested a resource mobilization approach, which emphasized societal support and constraint of social movement phenomena. Seeking to understand how social movements most effectively accomplish their social and political goals, McCarthy and Zald proposed that access to, and control over resources is one crucial factor for measuring the potential success of a movement. Resource mobilization scholars have identified a variety of tangible and intangible resources that contribute to this assessment: cultural, moral, social‐ organizational, human, and material assets (Edwards and McCarthy 2004). Cultural resources include cultural products like poetry, music, and artifacts, or conceptual tools and specialized knowledge like how to enact a protest or run a meeting (Oliver and Marwell 1992). Moral resources mostly originate outside a social movement and are comprised of legitimacy, solidary and sympathetic support, and celebrity. Movements may also rely on preexisting infrastructures like media, institutions, and established networks (Meyer and Rowan 1977; Powell and DiMaggio 1992). Social‐ organization resources refer to both “intentional social organizations,” created to further a social movement’s goals, as well as “appropriable social organizations,”



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which are created for other purposes through which social movement members can gain access to resources (Coleman 1990). Human resources such as labor, skills, expertise, and experience are garnered from individual members of an organization as well as sympathizers (Edwards and McCarthy 2004). Finally, material resources include financial and physical capital often delivered as monetary resources, property, and supplies (Edwards and McCarthy 2004). According to resource mobilization scholars, accessibility to resources enhances the probability and impact of collective action. By the 1980s, scholars began to find fault with resource mobilization theory’s narrow focus. For these critics, resource mobilization theory failed to account for the psychosocial elements of social movements, thereby decentralizing grievances. By claiming that all social movements are extensions of institutional action, this approach focused almost exclusively on dominant movements. More recently, scholars have suggested that framing processes are a central dynamic in understanding the success of social movements (Gamson 1988; Klandermans et al. 1997; 1988, Snow et al. 1986; 2004). Social movements, they explain, implement collective action frames, which generate meaning in order to motivate individuals to act collectively toward a shared goal (Gamson and Meyer 1996). Collective action frames instill members with a belief that their grievances can be overcome through concerted efforts, by identifying problems and articulating proposed solutions to those problems. In concert with collective action frames, scholars posited that an individual’s emotional, moral, and cognitive connection to a wider community impacts their initial decision to join a movement and the probability of continued engagement. This paradigm, referred to as collective identity theory, asserts prolonged engagement is more likely for individuals with affective connections to the existing members of a movement or individuals who feel personally represented by the movement (Klandermans 1997; Melucci 1995; Taylor 1995). By organizing around a shared identity, movements separate the identities of the disempowered from the powerful, assign human actors to impersonal forces, and strengthen internal movement solidarity (Gamson 1988; Klandermans 1997; Taylor and Whittier 1992). Further, because many movements lack infrastructure, generating collective identities is a necessary pathway for creating networks with other organizations with whom they can share resources (Polletta and Jasper 2001, p. 291). From traditional social movement scholarship, we may recognize that social movement formation and growth are influenced by a range of variables including emotional responses to personal grievances, witnessing the plight of others, and the availability of political opportunities. Further, movements are most successful when internal and external resources are available. One of these resources is a sense of efficacy, when cultural framing of grievances is communicable to an outside audience in a way that assures members their action can make a difference. However, each social movement faces challenges that are particular to its circumstance, its location and cultural meaning, its members, and its goals. Due to a broad constituency and complex, distinct feminist movements have experienced moments of growth and decline throughout their tenure. Given this multifaceted history, understanding the successes and challenges of feminist movements allows social movement scholars an opportunity to build on and improve their theories.

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Feminism and Social Movements What Is Feminism? Feminist scholars suggest that in order for any social movement to be successful, it must first integrate gender equality as part of its agenda and methodology; goals of transforming social and structural inequality must adopt feminist values and ideologies to promote and protect a truly equal society (Batliwala 2014; Horn 2013). Even when women are at the center of social movements, gender equality is often sidelined as a marginal aim. By marginalizing gendered grievances, social movements threaten to reinforce the status quo. For example, Maxine Molyneux’s (1985) analysis of the Nicaraguan liberation struggle shows that while women’s participation in the Sandinista movement against Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza was central to popular mobilization in Nicaragua, the movement demanded subordination of women’s interests in favor of broader goals of overthrowing the dictator. Further, while gender equality may be part of a movement’s political agenda, underlying assumptions about women’s place in society at large and movements more specifically can marginalize women’s interests, thus raising the possibility of successful movements reinforcing existing oppressions. If adopting feminist values and ideologies is necessary for movement success, interrogating those values is integral to understanding what makes social movements successful. It is important to note that definitions of feminism are fluid, informed by the diversity of women and their varied needs and desires. Defining feminism is a complex endeavor (Delmar and Oakley 1986; Offen 1988). The scope of engagement can range from a feminism that combats gender norms to demanding recognition of the ways in which patriarchal institutions promote principles that are damaging for all people. That said, beginning with an inclusive model of feminism grounds an understanding of a broad range of feminist movements’ successes and challenges. As its foundational ideology, feminism espouses gender equality and the transformation of all power relations that subjugate, exploit, or marginalize any set of ­people (Batliwala 2014, p. 4). Feminists pursue social change and gender equality within an entirely new social order, one in which individuals of all genders can individually and collectively experience social and economic equality and universal human rights, free from violence and conflict. As a social change strategy, feminism deploys a gendered perspective, insisting that all interventions must examine how the change is impacting women. Specifically, feminism assesses whether gender equality and women’s rights are being consciously centered and advanced by distinctive movements and activist efforts.

What Is a Feminist Movement? Feminist movements exist in nearly every corner of the world and manifest in innumerable ways, mobilizing to demand equal rights for women from South Africa to China, demanding peace (e.g. Women Wage Peace in Israel and Palestine), combating authoritarianism (e.g. Madres de Plaza de Mayo in Argentina), advocating for gun violence prevention (e.g. Moms Demand Action in America), and intervening in countless other social problems across their communities. These are feminist



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­ ovements in that they share the characteristics of social movements described m above but have feminist features, which other social movements lack. While not all feminist movements manifest each of these qualities, Batliwala (2014, p. 5) asserts there is an “ideal prototype” to which feminist movements should aspire. Those practices include an agenda built from a gendered evaluation of a grievance; women forming a critical mass of the movement’s constituency; advocating feminist values and ideologies; centering women’s leadership in the movement; gendering political goals; and using strategies and methods that build on women’s mobilizing capabilities. One exemplar was the Madres de Playa de Mayo, a movement of Argentine mothers whose children had been “disappeared,” organized in response to state terrorism and military dictatorship. They challenged dominant conceptions of women’s roles in Latin America while simultaneously raising awareness of human rights violations on both global and local scales. With women at the center of the movement, Madres de Playa de Mayo mobilized women to combat authoritarian violence, through women’s leadership and a feminist analysis. Through the collective efforts of women, the movement focused on human rights violations while being rooted in combating gendered oppression and promoting gendered opportunities.

Feminist Contributons to Social Movements Theory Drawing on social movement theories, feminist movements have implemented various strategies to promote gender equality within a new social order. Feminist movements have employed derivatives of collective behavior theory, resource mobilization, framing and collective identity theory, and political process theory to further their goals. Interrogating traditional social movement theories, feminist scholars offer insight into the constraints and advantages of traditional scholarship, broadening the scope of analysis to a global context and a gendered perspective.

Collective Behavior Theory Where collective behavior theory has been disregarded because of its focus on irrational actors and “magical” thinking, feminist scholars have analyzed the mobilization of women’s emotions as a valuable resource for feminist movement building that leads to direct action. For many feminist movement members, emotional energy is central to organization. Take for example the comments of one member of the Red Stockings, a Danish women’s rights movement: Our politics begin with our feelings. Feelings are a direct response to the events and relationships that we experience; that’s how we know what’s really going on. For centuries women’s information has been categorized as magic, instinct, intuition, witchcraft, and more recently projections, distortion, personal hang‐ups, and other variations on a theme to render our knowledge meaningless and empty. (Ferree and Yancy Martin 1995, p. 227)

According to feminist scholars, women are generally deemed more emotional and subjective than men. The denigration of the role of emotion in social movements is

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viewed as an attempt to frame masculine rationality as superior to women’s e­ motional standpoint, thereby rendering feminist movements incapable of change (Harding 1986; Jaggar 1983; Smith 1987). Feminist scholars have pointed to myriad examples of emotion being mobilized as a vehicle for social and structural change: channeling feelings of fear, guilt, and depression into anger, which is essential to believing in the possibility of change; challenging patriarchal norms for women’s expression of emotion; and legitimizing emotion and empathy to promote female bonding and sisterhood (Collins 1990; Hercus 1999). Cheryl Hercus argues that “anger is a motivating emotion that leads to action” (1999, p. 40). One example Hercus offers is Verta Taylor’s discussion of the motivating, mobilizing nature of anger, which elevates the emotion as an essential component of political action. Studying the postpartum depression movement, Taylor (1996) found that women directing their anger toward unjust social and structural practices surrounding motherhood led directly to “attempts to challenge physician authority” and “to restructure marriages and partnerships in ways that undermine … dominant ideology” (Taylor 1996, p. 146 quoted in Hercus 1999). Where collective behavior theorists deprecate emotion and assert that emotion depoliticizes movements, ­feminist scholars have shown that emotion is central to collective action and movement ­building.

Resource Mobilization Resource mobilization theorists suggest that the success of social movements depends on various resources, among which are social‐organizational, cultural resources, and moral resources. Feminist scholars argue that some feminist movements have derived social‐organizational resources from appropriable social organizations, such as “parent movements,” preexisting organizational structures with similar foundational ideologies, constituency identities, or specific grievances (Buechler 1993). For instance, parent movements like the Civil Rights Movement, Black Power, Chicanismo, and the New Left have served as social‐organizational resources for feminist movement building (Roth 2006). Benita Roth notes that: feminists in the Chicano movement challenged the movement’s shortcomings regarding the liberation of the Chicana in her community, arguing from the inception of their [Chicana feminist] movement that it was only with Chicanas’ liberation as women that the entire community could move forward. (2006, p. 12)

In this way, long‐standing feminist grievances combined with recently discovered resources from parent movements have catalyzed the formation of various feminist movements. Another central claim of resource mobilization theory is that individual members weigh the relative costs and benefits of movement participation, opting to join when the prospective benefits outweigh the anticipated costs. One antecedent to joining the feminist movement is perceiving high levels of social support wherein the benefit of community and “sisterhood” outweighs the external social costs of participation (Friedman and Leaper 2010; Hercus 1999). In this way, preexisting social networks



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have mobilized feelings of “sisterhood” and comradery which have been crucial for feminist movements to recruit and keep new constituents. One deployment of this strategy was the “kiss‐in,” organized by women of the Indy Media Brazil, in support of two lesbians who were kicked out of a bar for a public display of affection. Through their collective efforts, the Indy Media Brazil sought to generate feelings of solidarity among women activists by conveying outrage at gendered discrimination. By creating the feeling of “sisterhood,” this feminist movement assured potential members of one benefit of participation. While many feminist scholars agree that movement success depends on resource mobilization, they identify one consequence of resource dependence as the “NGOization” of feminist movements. Non‐Governmental Organizations (NGOs) are often large‐scale, non‐profit organizations active in humanitarian, environmental, and social rights activities with systemic connections to global capital. Social movement theorists posit that when relying on outside organizations, political elites, and the resources they provide, movements adopt structural norms, reinforcing hierarchal order by shifting power away from movement members, and counteracting the fundamental goals of the movement (Batliwala 2014; Piven and Cloward 1977). Because NGOs are accountable to their donors, what Jessica Vivian (1994) refers to as the “magic bullet syndrome” ensues: NGO leaders must appear successful to maintain their resources and as a result, NGOs coopt the work of social movements and gloss over failures, thereby disempowering movement members and preventing organic growth within the movement. For instance, in the early 1990s NGOs began intervening in the work of Palestinian women’s movements, taking on the role of sustaining women’s organizations by coopting their work (Jad 2010; Kuttab 2008). Seeking to transform national politics, Palestinian NGOs: undermined the role, credibility and legitimacy of the women’s movement, through the erosion of mass movements and the weakening of mass mobilization in favour of formal political power and peace brokering. (Kuttab 2008, p. 108)

Caught in a bind between movement success and fear of member disempowerment, some feminist social movement scholars have suggested that social movements should rely solely on internal resources rather than partnering with political elites (Batliwala 2014; Jad 2010).

Collective Action Frames and Collective Identity Theory Feminist movements have long deployed collective action frames defined as a method for organizing group action by diagnosing a facet of social life as problematic, recommending solutions, and providing a justification for action. Feminist scholars concur, as Batliwala suggests, “raising [women’s] consciousness of their oppression and exploitation” is a “critical first step in building feminist movements” (2014, p. 21). As research shows, exposure to gender bias catalyzes movement participation (Bolzendhal and Myers 2004; Kaysen and Stake 2001; Liss et al. 2004; Stake 2007). For instance, students who learn about patriarchal gendered structures and practices in women’s, gender, and sexuality studies classrooms are statistically more likely to

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join feminist movements and work for social and structural change (Stake 2007). Additionally, being exposed to feminist grievances through contact with feminist friends and family members may lead to feminist movement membership (Friedman and Leaper 2010; Liss et al. 2004; Nelson et al. 2008). Feminist collective action frames of personal and collective experience increase awareness of patriarchal oppression and lead to movement action. Witnessing gender discrimination first hand at home, work, or school is a predictor of feminist activism (Bolzendhal and Myers 2004; Kaysen and Stake 2001; Liss et  al. 2004; Nelson et al. 2008). Further research shows that by legitimating the expression of moral indignation and righteous anger aimed at the source of injustice, feminist movements have mobilized the energy to overcome social and structural oppression. In this way, feminist movements that have used collective action frames have succeeded in transforming social and structural inequalities. Collective identity scholars claim that identities play a crucial role in mobilizing and sustaining participation in social movements. Consequently, movements that do not represent the identities of their members experience a decline in constituent participation. Some feminist movements have experienced what Francesca Polletta and James Jasper (2001, p. 292) refer to as “cross‐cutting identities,” where members’ intersectional identities were disregarded, in favor of the broader category of “woman.” Defining women as a distinct constituency is a critical element of what creates feminist movements, yet throughout their history, feminist movements have faced the challenge of defining who constitutes the category of “woman” (Bassel and Emejulu 2014; Jihye et al. 2013; Polletta and Jasper 2001; Townsend‐Bell 2011). For instance, women of color in North America have called attention to the ways that feminist movements often equate “women” with white middle‐class women (Collins 1990; hooks 1984; Hull et al. 1982; Spelman 1998). Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique (1983), thought to have propelled the second‐wave feminist movement, myopically focused on the problems of white, upper‐and middle‐class mothers and wives, ignoring women of other races and classes (hooks 1984). Queer scholars have pointed out that the category “woman” is culturally constructed and challenges dominant assumptions about who counts as “woman” in feminist discourse (Butler 1990; de Beauvoir 1949; Wittig 1992). They contend that assuming an existing identity of “woman” reinforces heteronormative notions of who matters and limits potential transformative outcomes of feminist movements. Thus, when collective identity is inclusive and acknowledges intersectional oppressions, feminist movements are able to mobilize and sustain member participation.

Political Process Theory Political process theorists argue that the opening up of political opportunity catalyzes social movement formation. Capitalizing on political opportunities, feminist movements and their constituencies have experienced a growing sense of political efficacy, afforded members more leverage with which to press demands, and developed indigenous organizational strengths to fight for their goals (McAdam 1999, p. 230). Feminist scholar Alana Jeydel (2004) contends that open political opportunity structures such as the political climate and institutional arrangements of a political system, and feminist movements that have historically gained increased access



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and response to gendered grievances from policymakers, enable concrete structural change. Jeydel suggests that one example of movement formation in response to a change in political opportunity was the feminist movement mobilized in response to President Kennedy’s Commission on the Status of Women. The goal of the Commission was to suppress discussion of the Equal Rights Act, yet by bringing previously isolated women together, the Commission inadvertently acted as an antecedent to movement formation: The unintended and unanticipated consequence of the Commission was to facilitate mobilization, because it became an effective agency in the pursuit of other women’s goals, promoted visibility of women in governmental positions, and institutionalized a forum for heightened discussion of women’s issues within the government itself. (Buechler 1990, pp. 27–28 quoted in Jeydel 2004)

By capitalizing on open political structures and the opportunities they create, feminist movements can enjoy increased political leverage. Still, this model is problematized by geographic context. Where political process theory focuses on “repertoires of action,” courses of action deliberately undertaken by members of social movements to extract gains from their supporters, not all feminist movements occur within a culture or society where political efficacy is a realizable goal. In a global context, feminist movements employ a range of small‐scale actions which are not aimed at making demands of political elites but focus on the collective empowerment of ordinary women by ordinary women (Maiguashca 2011, p. 139; Armstrong and Bernstein 2008). These small‐scale actions do not rely on political opportunity as theorized by political process scholars. Rather, through alliances between feminist movements and their constituents, small‐scale actions and indigenous resources can improve women’s quality of life. Social movement theories offer insight into how feminist movements form and sustain their constituencies. Emotion, resources from other movements, and feminist social bonds have served as antecedents to many feminist movements. Further, exposure to feminist grievances and collective identities that encompass intersectional oppressions may increase and sustain group membership. When and where obtainable, seizing political opportunities has enabled structural change informed by feminist ideologies, while in other contexts small‐scale actions have served as a means of improving women’s lives. Many feminist movements have experienced challenges and successes around these issues. Two feminist movements  –  the PWWSD and BLM – offer further insight into how feminist movements negotiate these challenges and which areas require sustained attention.

Social Justice Movements: Two Major Examples Palestinian Working Woman Society for Development Since the start of the twentieth century, Palestinian women’s activism has been motivated by its relation to the national resistance struggle. In 1919, the Palestinian Women’s Union was formed in response to the political conditions of that period,

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including the British Mandate, its support for Zionist immigration, and the Balfour Declaration’s assurance of a Jewish State in Palestine (Kuttab 2012). In the decades that followed, women’s movements participated in the 1930s uprisings, providing support to military resistance during the Arab Revolt (1936–1939), and participating in demonstrations. The 1948 Arab–Israeli War, which resulted in the occupation of large parts of Palestine, catalyzed a second wave of women’s activism. Between 1976 and 1981, Palestinians began the process of democratization leading to an upsurge of national movement formation and participation. Women in these movements were afforded newfound visibility and voice, as Eileen Kuttab contends, “through women’s participation in national liberation struggles, access to spaces and mobility, freedom of expression, and participation in decision making become more realistic and legitimate for women” (Kuttab 2012, p. 172). As a result, women forged connections with one another, shared experiences of marginalization in national liberation movements, and began establishing national resistance movements rooted in feminist ideologies with feminist goals. One example of a feminist social movement that formed in response to this political opportunity is the PWWSD. Established in 1981 as a movement that sought to “develop the feminist struggle within national, social, and developmental dimensions,” the PWWSD’s work is organized around liberating women as a path toward ending Israeli occupation of Palestine and establishing a full Palestinian democratic sovereign civil state. Together with other regional and global networks and coalitions, PWWSD believes that improving the lives of women is an integral part of securing human rights worldwide, as their mission statement asserts: PWWSD is aware that women’s issues are largely socio, economic, and political. Consequently, achieving independence for women as well as social, economic, and democratic progress at the community level is unachievable unless there is a clear political will to eliminate all forms of discrimination and embody gender equality within the daily life of the community. (PWWSD 2018)

Specifically, PWWSD was formed in reaction to women’s marginalization in the Marxist Palestinian People’s Party (PPP) when it became apparent that “PPP was taking its women’s arm for granted” (Powers, p. 114). Like other feminist movements, PWWSD acquired social‐organizational resources from its parent movement, relying upon a preexisting organizational structure with similar foundational ideologies, constituency identities, and specific grievances while refocusing movement goals toward gender liberation. In this way, members of PWWSD were able to challenge the male‐centric ideology and hierarchical structures that sidelined women in PPP to form their own movement. PWWSD offers three main programs: women’s empowerment, psychological counseling, and capacity building. The women’s empowerment initiative aims to raise women’s awareness of their political, civic, and legal rights and help cultivate women’s ability to defend those rights in their private and public lives. Through indigenously organized educational, cultural, and social activities, the women’s empowerment initiative seeks to transform social and structural conditions to improve the conditions for women in Palestine.



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One activity the women’s empowerment initiative offers members and potential members is the “experience exchange,” through which women meet and share ­personal experiences of gendered and Israeli oppressions. This program provides attendees the opportunity to give and receive empathy and care, and express outrage. By legitimizing attendees’ emotions, female bonding and community building is promoted and women’s self‐concepts are improved. Further, by fostering social bonds with other women and confirming gendered grievances, women’s emotions are mobilized toward continued participation in the movement and movement building. This program makes gendered oppression visible and, as collective action frame theorists suggest, exposure to gender bias catalyzes movement participation. In this way, the movement offers collective action frames through which constituents have the opportunity to connect with other women by identifying with their personal narratives as well as finding support and confirmation of their own lived experiences. A second activity the women’s empowerment initiative offers is PWWSD’s community restaurant, Al Zewada. The restaurant, which employs members and works in collaboration with local women farmers, donates proceeds to Palestinian women from low‐income families and for university tuition. The restaurant raises awareness of the struggles Palestinian women face, again exposing the community to feminist grievances which catalyzes movement participation and sympathy. Through this collective action frame, PWWSD gains access to moral and monetary resources, such as sympathizers and donations that help fund movement goals. PWWSD also offers psychological counseling, becoming the first Palestinian feminist movement to provide counseling services to women and girls in 1992. Providing a range of psychosocial services to Palestinian women, PWWSD raises awareness about mental health, and offers services to individuals traumatized by, for example, Israeli occupation or domestic violence. The psychological counseling program mobilizes human resources, including labor from colleges and universities which helps train mental health professionals staffed at PWWSD. For instance, in March 2017, in collaboration with the 25 institutions, PWWSD carried out two field training workshops for their staff entitled, “Social and Psychological Services Realities and Challenges.” This workshop offered PWWSD staff training in reducing the psychological impact of Israeli and patriarchal oppressions. PWWSD’s third program, capacity building, strives to collect material resources and obtain financial stability for the organization by renting their video conference facility to Palestinians living in the West Bank to connect with friends, family, and organizations otherwise subject to Israeli imposed isolation in the Gaza Strip. The capacity building programs hosts an “Arts & Crafts Project,” which provides women the materials and training to partake in embroidery and other local crafts which are then shown and sold through local and regional exhibitions and on the PWWSD website. Using members’ proficiency in crafting, PWWSD relies on internal cultural resources to gain external support for the organization. Yet, like many other Palestinian women’s movements, PWWSD’s need for monetary resources resulted in their “NGOization.” In 1993 when members of PWWSD recognized the monetary constraints on their organization, the movement registered as an NGO, connecting the organization to external resources and networks (Gerner 2007, p. 21). As some social movement scholars have suggested, the NGOization of PWWSD shifted power away from movement members, as the priorities of these

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external resources impacted their ability to reach the originary movement’s goals (Jad 2010). As Sari Hanafi and Linda Tabari have observed, PWWSD has “arrived at a stage in which their detachment from local society is being timidly acknowledged, and ways to re‐establish relations with the population are being considered” (2005, p. 24). As a result, PWWSD has adopted strategies for returning to the social movement model aimed at “rebuilding bridges in the Palestinian society between classes and stressing the dependence on local resources instead of foreign aid” (Hanafi and Tabari 2005, p. 24). This centering of indigenous goals and resources continues to pose challenges to the movement and requires sustained attention. Many of the successes and continued challenges of PWWSD are informed by their specific geopolitical context. Palestinian women’s movements succeed at improving the lives of women and implement small‐scale change, yet due to a lack of resources, many struggle to enact structural change in the region. Specifically, due to Israeli military occupation and indigenous patriarchy, women must rely on the political elite and specialist skills to reach larger‐scale goals (Hanafi and Tabari 2005; Jad 2010; Moghadam 1997). Feminist movements in the Global North contend with differing variables for establishment and growth including challenges with political opportunities, resource mobilization, and preexisting identity frames.

Black Lives Matter BLM began in 2013 with the social media hashtag #BlackLivesMatter, created by Alica Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi in response to the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s murderer, George Zimmerman. This “breaking point” (McAdam et al. 1996) constituted the political opportunity for BLM to advocate against systemic racism practiced through state‐agencies and everyday interactions and to affirm “Black folks’ humanity… contributions to society, and … resilience in the face of deadly oppression” (“Herstory,” BLM 2018b). Mobilizing the collective outrage in response to Martin’s death Garza, Cullors, and Tometi began building the infrastructure for the BLM movement. Through the efforts of BLM’s leadership, mostly women and queer‐identifying individuals, the movement has relied on internal cultural resources like knowledge about how to enact protests, run meetings, and use social media platforms to broadcast movement events and goals. Building on the collective anger which catalyzed BLM the movement has expanded to include 40 chapters spanning North America with collaborators across the globe. Centered around guiding principles that include a focus on Black women, diversity, globalism, restorative justice, queer affirmation, unapologetic Blackness, empathy, transgender affirmation, and loving engagement, BLM produces an intersectional collective identity that includes intersecting oppressions and a multitude of lived experiences (“What we Believe,” BLM 2018d). These broad collective identities allow members and potential members to perceive high levels of social support allowing the benefit of community to outweigh potential external social costs of participation. In this way, specific grievances are validated and individual members are encompassed in the larger group identity. Like other social movements, BLM relies on social‐organizational resources, including support from other movements. BLM receives appropriable resources from Palestinian Rights movements, whose constituencies have participated in many



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BLM protests highlighting the relationship with and cooperation between United States police departments and the State of Israel (Petersen‐Smith 2015). BLM has likewise derived appropriable resources from parent movements like the Black Power Movement, the New Afrikan Movement, and previous iterations of the Civil Rights Movement (Mitchell 2018). As Mitchell notes, BLM is “continuing the work of our ancestors and fighting for our collective freedom” (Mitchell 2018). Like other feminist movements, BLM recognizes that Black liberation traditionally centralizes the work of Black, heterosexual, cisgender men, and the movement seeks to make a space for the voices of Black women, queer, and transgender people (Mitchell 2018). As a result, BLM has mobilized preexisting grievances alongside recently discovered resources from appropriable movements to form and sustain their collective action. Some of BLM’s central programs include Channel Black, Mama’s Day National Bailout, BLM Arts + Culture, and #SayHerName. Channel Black is a training program aimed at preparing Black millennials to combat dehumanizing representation of Black individuals: The Channel Black initiative provides a platform that centers the experiences and analyses of Black people, specifically Black women and Black trans women who live at the intersections of anti‐Black violence and solutions‐oriented community healing. (“Channel Black,” BLM 2018a)

Training Black youth in media spokespersonship, political strategy, and debate, Channel Black challenges dominant cultural representations of Black people and encourages empathy and understanding to combat racism (“Channel Black” website, BLM 2018a). By reframing the lived experiences of Black life through this program, BLM creates collective action frames which “develop counterhegemonic ideas and oppositional identities” to oppose stereotypical views of Black people, to show that Black life matters, and that racism and related violence are unjust (Polletta and Jasper 2001, p. 288). Through these collective action frames BLM invites members to reinterpret their lived experiences and mobilizes sympathizers as human resources. Mama’s Day National Bailout is BLM’s campaign to raise funds for bailing out more than 100 Black mothers from jail across the country. This collective action has raised over $500 000 since May 2016 in an effort to bail out the tens of thousands of queer, trans, young, elderly, and immigrant women jailed without the resources to pay for their release (“Where We’ve Been” 2018). This initiative generates empathy and outrage at the disproportionate representation of Black women in American prisons and the lack of resources available to them. Using a gendered frame to confront police brutality and prison reform, Mama’s Day National Bailout voices the grievances from parent movements with a focus on feminist ideologies. Mobilizing sympathetic and monetary resources, Mama’s Day National Bailout encourages movement members and sympathizers that the inequalities of everyday life can be challenged. Following in the footsteps of the Black Arts Movement, a group of Black artists in America from 1965 to 1975, the BLM Arts + Culture initiative asserts that Black art is central to recasting Black narratives. Through this initiative, Black artists are encouraged to share personal definitions of self in opposition to the centering of false depictions of Blackness created by non‐Black artists. These efforts serve as

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c­ollective frames and a conduit to resource mobilization. One means of creating ­collective action frames is the reframing of Black narratives through Black Art which Andrea Dennis suggests plays a “key role in Black America’s next‐generation battle for criminal justice and civil rights” (Dennis 2016, p. 30). These cultural resources provided by BLM members garner support from celebrities, working with “allies and collaborators in the greater art and entertainment communities” (Limar 2018). Celebrities such as Christine Teigan, John Legend, LeBron James, Kim Kardashian, The Weekend, and Jay Z have offered moral, monetary, and cultural resources to BLM (Price 2016). This initiative has increased movement membership and sustainability by publicizing the movement and generating popular empathy. BLM’s #SayHerName campaign draws attention to Black women, whose experiences of police brutality remain largely unacknowledged. Following George Floyd’s murder by a police officer during an arrest for allegedly passing a counterfeit $20 bill in May 2020, protests against police violence spread across the globe. While outrage over Floyd’s murder received mass attention and precipitated charges brought against the officers involved, the brutal shooting of Breonna Taylor received far less media attention. The 26‐year old woman, who was killed by police officers in her home a month before Floyd death, did not lead to charges against the offending officers in the summer that followed. Invoking the names of female victims, the campaign seeks to combat dominant media narratives which consistently represent police brutality as a crisis primarily experienced by Black men (“Say Her Name” BLM 2018c). Organizing rallies and vigils in memory of murdered women and girls, the #SayHerName campaign has fought against the erasure of Black women from dominant accounts of police assault and mass incarceration. Through collective action frames this campaign identifies an otherwise marginalized problem, mobilizes human resources, and generates empathy and anger that can be marshaled for further action. While BLM relies on many internal and external resources for support, the movement rejects support from political elites, seeking to avoid reentrenching hierarchical structures, having their movement action coopted, or diminishing the revolutionary nature of their demands. For instance, in 2015 the Democratic National Committee attempted to align itself with the movement by signing a resolution affirming BLM and offering support for the #SayHerName campaign. In response, BLM leadership released a statement rejecting their support: The Democratic Party, like the Republican and all political parties, have historically attempted to control or contain Black people’s efforts to liberate ourselves. True change requires real struggle and that struggle will be in the streets and led by the people, not by a political party…While the Black Lives Matter Network applauds political change towards making the world safer for Black life, our only endorsement goes to the protest movement we’ve built together with Black people nationwide…not the political machine seeking our vote. (Facebook page, BLM 2015)

Despite the movement’s clear position, in response to the 2020 global BLM protests, many city and state officials commissioned Black Lives Matter murals. In New York City, the words “Black Lives Matter” were painted on Fifth Avenue in front of Trump Tower, in a particularly electoral statement. In Washington DC, Mayor



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Muriel Bowser named a two‐block‐long section of 16th Street NW in Downtown Washington DC “Black Lives Matter Plaza” after the Department of Public Works painted the words “Black Lives Matter” on 16th Street in 35‐foot yellow letters. The Washington DC BLM chapter condemned the artwork, which they deemed hollow, merely “a performative distraction from real policy changes” (Wright 2020). BLM’s reliance on internal resources empowers members to believe in the efficacy of their actions and avoids reentrenching white cooptation of Black work.

Conclusion Social movements have changed and continue to change the way we live in the world. Feminist social movements aimed at dismantling patriarchal structures and fighting for women’s equality, gendered justice, and human rights are aimed at improving conditions for all people regardless of race, sex, gender, sexual orientation, and religion. There is always growing attention to new movements as they reshape the world we live in. This avenue of research asks how social movements are built, how social movements are sustained, and how social movements are effective. The study of social movements has evolved tremendously since its early theory. Initially, the study of social movements was aimed at attending to gaps in the classical model, attempting to account for movement formation, sustainability, and effectiveness. Examining the experiences of feminist social movements has allowed for new insight into movement development (Armstrong and Bernstein 2008). Contemporary analyses of social movements are further enriched by attention to intersectionality and global contexts. Feminist social movement scholars have built upon traditional social movement models  –  collective behavior theory, collective action frames and collective identity frames, resource mobilization, and political opportunity  – ­identifying the mobilizing power of emotion (Collins 1990; Hercus 1999; Taylor 1995), analyzing the consequences of relying on external resources (Batliwala 2014; Jad 2010; Kuttab 2008), and stressing the necessity of all‐encompassing collective identities (Bassel and Emejulu 2014; Jihye et  al. 2013; Polletta and Jasper 2001; Townsend‐Bell 2011). These interventions continue to provide insight into which methods allow movements to enact their goals of sustainable and inclusive change. Attention to traditional social movement theory as well as feminist interventions highlights the achievements feminist movements have made as well as the challenges that require sustained attention. Feminist contributions to social movement scholarship are seen in the patterns of feminist social movement mobilization evidenced by the PWWSD and BLM. Feminist social movement theorists continue to stress the role of feminist social movements to change the world we live in. Still, some recent scholars worry that feminist movements have “lost much of the momentum, coherence, and impact that they had up to the nineties” while others feel that “in many contexts and constituencies, women are building their collective power in vibrant new ways” (Batliwala 2014, p. 1). Therefore, to sustain existing movements and build new movements that confront the complex geographic and political contexts many feminist movements face, we must ask what aspects and strategies are transferable across social, cultural, and geopolitical contexts that feminist social movement theory may identify as a means of engendering the ideal prototype for feminist social movements worldwide.

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Index

Ableism, 41, 147 Abortion, legalization of, 393 Academic imperialism, 200 Accumulation, 38, 41–44, 149n3, 198, 269, 272, 273 Activism, 4–6, 8–10, 23, 43, 58, 62–64, 66, 67n6, 73, 85, 91, 96, 100, 102, 108, 115, 117, 146, 157, 160, 165–166, 177–180, 182, 185, 187, 193–196, 199, 201–206, 216, 220, 239, 282–284, 291, 293, 294, 303, 323, 328, 333, 344, 347, 350, 360, 361, 398–401, 407, 411, 430, 433, 437, 441, 456–458 Activist, 4, 6–8, 10, 24, 39, 45, 59, 62, 65, 67n4, 85, 91–93, 96–98, 101, 102, 105, 107, 108, 110, 116, 121, 133, 145, 147, 160, 169, 177–182, 186, 193–195, 198, 200, 202, 205, 216, 220, 221, 257, 281, 284, 289–294, 304, 314–316, 324, 328, 333, 343, 347, 350, 351, 364, 367, 394, 396, 397, 399–401, 405, 406, 412, 418, 432, 435, 436, 449, 452, 455 Affective labor, 40 Africana Womanism, 98, 161–162 Afrodescendant, 187 Agency, 27, 100, 109, 159, 164, 197, 199, 219, 234, 236–238, 243, 267, 268, 273, 287, 307, 309, 321, 327–329, 366, 374, 375, 377, 379, 398, 417, 457 Agency of nature, 432 Algeria, 179 Algerian Women’s Union, 42 All China Women’s Federation, 42, 179

All India Democratic Women’s Association, 46, 402 All India Muslim Women’s Rights Network, 166 Allouchiche, Baya, 42 Anarcho‐syndicalism, 44 Ancient DNA, 255, 256 Androcentric beliefs, 345 Anglo‐American culture, 325 Anglophone‐Caribbean, 187 Anthropocene, 258, 439–441 Anti‐Blackness, 97, 253, 254, 311, 460, 461 Anticolonialism, 41–42 Anti‐racism, 108, 185, 203 Anti‐racist feminists, 197, 198, 204, 360 Anti‐racist social movements, 108 Antiwork, 45 Anzaldúa, Gloria, 113, 133, 146, 389 Archaeology of gender, 255 Archival research, 220, 221, 226, 312 Ashley X, 257 Asia‐Pacific feminisms, 176–177 Australia, 4, 46, 53, 170, 177 Authoritarian, 175, 176, 179, 181, 183, 202, 452, 453 Autoethnography, 218–219, 221, 226, 286, 293 Awaaz‐i‐Niswan, 166 Backlash, 10, 86, 393, 403–405 Bannerji, Himani, 40 Baroque economies, 45 Barrett, Michèle, 74, 78, 81, 84

Companion to Feminist Studies, First Edition. Edited by Nancy A. Naples. © 2021 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Published 2021 by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

470 Index Barry, Kathleen, 65 Bartky, Sandra, 326 Beauvoir, Simone de, 23, 54, 73, 327, 403 Beijing Platform for Action, 269 Benston, Margaret, 84 Berger, John, 326 Bhattacharya, Tithi, 40 Binary sexuality, 130 Bioarchaeology, 255 Biological anthropology, 258 Biological determinism, 15–31 Biological essentialism, 15–31, 77 Biology, 15, 16, 18–20, 24–31, 58, 61, 78, 118, 197, 251, 252, 258, 374, 377, 379, 394 Biopsychosocial perspective, 26 Birth control, 393, 396–398, 402–405, 408n1 Black feminism, 91–102, 161, 364, 417, 418 Black feminist praxis, 92, 343 Black Feminist Science Studies, 251, 253–254 Black feminist thought, 6, 92, 96, 97, 99, 100, 143, 148, 254, 258, 347 Black lesbian feminist thought, 129 Black Lives Matter, 10, 91, 93, 99, 101, 102, 185, 447, 460–463 Bobo, Jacqueline, 329, 330 Bodily autonomy, 38, 46 Body, 9, 23, 25–26, 28, 60, 81, 83, 106, 132, 136, 139, 141, 142, 144, 146, 148, 149n1, 165, 184, 193, 199, 213, 219, 247, 248, 250–255, 257, 268, 289, 315, 323, 325–328, 332, 361, 373–383, 385, 386, 388, 389, 393, 394, 404, 428, 432, 433, 437, 438 Body politics, 393, 394 Bolivia, 437 Borderland/borderlands, 113, 114, 129, 145–148 both/and, 96 Brain, 5, 15, 16, 18–22, 24, 27–30, 111, 373 Brazil, 44, 187, 294, 396, 455 #BringBackOurGirls, 9, 400 Brown, Ray, 322 Bunch, Charlotte, 85 Butler, Judith, 75, 86, 125n3, 131, 133, 139, 142, 252 Canada, 143, 184–186, 204, 205, 259, 396, 403 Capitalism, 5, 6, 9, 35–47, 56, 74, 75, 79, 80, 83–87, 91, 92, 96, 101, 111, 116, 117, 135–138, 156, 177, 194, 200–203, 206, 251, 258, 267, 285, 328, 330, 331, 357, 360–362, 365, 439, 441 Capitalocene, 440, 441 Carastathis, Anna, 110 Carby, Hazel V., 84

Carceral state, 46 Care economy, 266, 274, 367, 368 Categories of analysis, 106, 116, 117, 122, 309, 311 the Center for Family and Human Rights (C‐ Fam), 405 Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), 176, 183 Chang, Cai, 42 China, 38, 42, 177–179, 400, 452 Cis women, 136, 145 Citizenship status, 41, 114, 121 Class, 4–7, 24, 30, 35–37, 39, 40, 45–47, 54–57, 59–61, 63, 73–76, 79, 81, 83–87, 92, 95–97, 99–101, 105, 109, 112, 114–123, 131, 133, 134, 139, 143, 144, 146, 147, 156, 159, 164, 165, 169, 170, 176, 178, 179, 184–188, 195, 198, 199, 203–206, 214, 216, 222–225, 233, 247, 251, 267–269, 271, 272, 283, 286–288, 294, 303–305, 311, 314, 321, 325, 329, 341–343, 347, 349, 351, 359, 366, 368, 393, 395, 397, 414, 415, 417, 419, 430, 432, 437, 448, 456 Classism, 143, 184, 240, 309, 344, 345 Coalition building, 7, 193, 194, 202–205 Collective action, 56, 327, 350, 417, 447–451, 454–456, 459, 461–463 Collective behavior theory, 448, 450, 453–454, 463 Collective identity, 119, 448, 451, 453, 455, 456, 460, 463 Collectivism, 45 Collins, Patricia Hill, 6, 105–125, 164, 305, 364, 375 Colonialism, 6, 7, 9, 42, 85, 95, 109, 110, 155, 159, 161, 169, 177, 178, 199, 202, 253, 285, 288, 295n1, 357, 358, 361, 363, 365 Coloniality/decoloniality, 285–286, 357–359, 361, 363, 434, 437 Coloniality of gender, 357–360, 366 Colonial masculinity, 157 Colonization, 85, 147, 156, 161, 197, 198, 285, 306, 315, 358, 364, 368 Combahee River Collective, 46, 84, 91, 92, 94, 96, 101, 102, 343, 360, 375 Commodification, 38, 47, 200, 437, 438 Commodity Commons, 44, 47, 368, 433, 439, 440 Communist Party, 46, 93 Comparative, 6, 22, 175–188, 202 Complexity, 31, 99, 101, 120, 122, 123, 131, 197, 206, 224, 225, 237, 290, 302, 305, 343, 346, 347, 366, 418 Compulsory heterosexuality, 18, 132, 133, 415 Conboy, Katie, 376

Index Consciousness‐raising, 54–57, 63, 342, 344, 350, 407, 412 Contextualize Empiricism, 202 Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), 176, 177, 180–182, 186 Cooper, Anna Julia, 91, 96, 305 Craven, Christa, 8, 281–295 Crenshaw, Kimberlé, 6, 99, 107, 114, 164, 305, 375, 416 Critical disability studies, 256 Critical inquiry, 105–125, 259, 344 Critical queering, 129, 135–138 Critical social theory, 6, 106, 107, 119, 124 Critical theory, 253, 258, 259, 343 Crossing gender, 135 Cultural feminism, 5, 53–67 Cultural reductionism, 159 Cultural resources, 450, 454, 459, 460, 462 Dalit feminism, 167 Davis, Angela, 95, 97 Davis, Dána‐Ain, 8, 281–295 de Beauvoir, Simone, 23, 54, 73, 327, 403 Debt, 38, 42, 43, 45, 335n6, 434 Declaration of Interdependence, 368 Decolonial, 4, 9, 125n4, 186, 219, 226n2, 253, 357, 358, 360, 364–366, 368, 433, 436, 437, 439–441 Decolonized, 286 Decolonizing/decolonization, 40, 73, 116, 137, 147, 156, 157, 169, 185, 226, 285, 286, 359–361, 363–368, 437, 441 de Lauretis, Teresa, 328 Delphy, Christine, 73–76, 81, 82 Depoliticization, 86, 188 Desire, 17, 24, 29, 37, 38, 40, 41, 47, 64, 66, 94, 131–133, 136, 140, 144, 149n1, 149n3, 160, 161, 163, 169, 215, 284, 292, 302, 310, 321, 328, 351, 378, 396, 449, 452 Determinism, 15–31 Development, 5, 8–10, 18, 20, 22, 26, 28, 31, 42, 73, 74, 80, 101, 102, 106, 110, 129, 130, 139, 141, 147, 156, 159, 160, 177, 178, 180–182, 184, 186, 193, 195–197, 199, 202–204, 213–214, 216, 219, 221–223, 232–234, 241, 244, 250, 253, 266–271, 273, 274, 282, 286, 288, 293, 302, 303, 350, 359, 362, 363, 368, 373–375, 379, 382, 385, 389, 399, 404, 405, 411, 414, 428–434, 436, 438–441, 448, 457–460, 463 Dewey, John, 342, 350 Diasporic, 157, 160, 165, 168, 169

471

Disability, 7, 8, 41, 135, 157, 165, 168, 216, 247–251, 256–258, 288, 407, 419 Doane, Mary Ann, 327 Domestic violence, 55, 63, 66, 115, 166, 179, 222, 400, 414, 459 Dworkin, Andrea, 61, 66 Dynamic systems, 26, 31 East Asia, 4, 176–179 Echols, Alice, 5, 53 Ecofeminism, 9, 428, 430–432, 434, 436, 439, 440 Ecofeminist movements, 431 Ecology, 9, 86, 258, 427–436 Economic reproduction, 37 Economics, 7, 40, 45, 176, 222, 265–274, 303, 362, 408n3 Egypt, 179, 366 Emancipatory projects, 242, 357, 366 Embodied Inquiry, 391 Emotion, 41, 348, 381, 448, 450, 453, 454, 457, 463 Empiricism, 7, 231–244 Engaged, 4, 5, 10, 92, 118, 156, 164, 202, 204, 214, 218, 221, 223, 250, 284, 285, 291, 293–295, 308, 314, 324, 351, 366, 368, 374, 413, 441 Engels, Friedrich, 35, 36, 283 Enloe, Cynthia, 43 Environmentalism, 47, 430, 431, 433 Environmental justice, 363, 367, 432, 434, 438–440 Epistemological approaches, 232, 233, 244 Epistemology, 6, 7, 47, 75, 215, 216, 218, 222, 223, 231–235, 238, 239, 241, 243, 244, 249, 252, 284–285, 287, 374, 378, 379, 386, 427 Essentialism/essentialist, 4, 5, 15–31, 59, 77, 86, 115, 159, 163, 214, 224, 242, 306–310, 341, 416, 418, 432 Essentialist identity, 115 Ethnicity, 4, 7, 24, 61, 97, 105, 114–116, 118–121, 123, 159, 164, 170, 188, 199, 206, 268, 272, 286, 288, 341, 346, 347, 414, 416, 417, 427, 429, 430, 432, 433, 435, 437, 441 Ethnographic, 8, 116, 217, 219, 221, 253, 282, 283, 286–292, 294, 295, 315, 329 Eugenics, 9, 233, 257, 396–397, 403 European Community (EC), 182 European feminisms, 182–184 European Union (EU), 175, 182 #EverydaySexism, 400–401 Evolution, 18–19, 21, 178, 269, 274n1, 347, 373, 389 Evolutionary Psychology, 18, 19 External resources, 448, 451, 459, 460, 462, 463

472 Index False consciousness, 139, 321, 326, 327, 329 The Female Eunuch, 325 Female gaze, 329 Female genital mutilation (FGM), 400 Femicide, 43 The Feminine Mystique, 148, 325, 456 Femininity, 16, 17, 19, 36, 57, 58, 78, 131, 132, 139–141, 143–145, 148, 149n1, 149n5, 150n11, 156, 224, 250, 308, 309, 327–332, 413, 419, 420, 432 Feminism/feminist theory, 4–7, 9, 10, 17, 19, 21–25, 31, 35–47, 53–67, 73–87, 91–102, 129–136, 139, 140, 142–144, 146–148, 150n11, 155–170, 175–188, 193–206, 219, 221, 222, 231, 239, 242, 247, 248, 250, 251, 254, 265, 283, 285, 289, 302, 303, 306, 308, 316, 317, 321–335, 342–344, 357, 361, 364, 366, 367, 373–389, 395, 397, 401, 405, 411–418, 430, 433, 437, 439, 447–463 Feminist archaeology, 255 Feminist bioethics, 259 Feminist economics, 265–274 Feminist environmentalism, 430, 431 Feminist epistemologies, 4, 6, 8, 216, 231–234, 238–244 Feminist health movements, 9, 393–408 Feminist historians, 8, 220, 301–310, 312, 313, 316 Feminist materialisms, 251–252 Feminist methodologies, 213–226, 284 Feminist movements, 9, 46, 54, 77, 81, 95, 100, 108, 145, 150n11, 158, 166, 185, 188, 202, 205, 214, 221, 233, 282, 307, 333, 367, 395, 401, 404, 412, 429, 431, 435, 436, 447, 448, 450–461, 463 Feminist pedagogy, 8, 341–352 Feminist political ecology (FPE), 427, 429–438 Feminist political economic theory, 421–423 Feminist praxis, 4–10, 45, 46, 92, 301–303, 306, 313, 315–316, 343, 357–368, 411–423 Feminist research, 183, 213, 214, 217–223, 231, 283, 288, 289, 303, 362, 387 Feminist science studies, 8, 247–260 Feminist sociology, 82, 133 Feminist spatialities, 9, 429, 438, 440 Feminist Studies, 3–10, 125n4, 165, 430 Feminist theory(ies), 5, 7, 22–24, 31, 47, 54, 58, 76, 77, 80, 81, 85, 86, 129–134, 140, 148, 156, 157, 159, 164, 170, 196, 197, 199–202, 242, 251, 252, 254, 283, 322, 329, 342, 376, 377, 388, 411, 414, 416, 423 Feminized work, 43, 44, 47 Fernández‐Kelly, Patricia, 38 Feudalism, 36

Flux, 115, 130–132, 134–136, 138–140 Foucault, Michel, 75, 124n1, 131, 134, 135, 307 Fourth World Conference on Women (Beijing), 179, 269, 398 #FreeTheFive, 400 Freire, Paulo, 341, 342 French materialist feminism, 6, 74–78, 81, 131, 133 Frontera, border, 146, 147, 150n9 Freud, Sigmund, 23, 77–78, 82, 321, 325 Gago, Veronica, 45 Galtung, John, 420 Gans, Herbert, 322 Gender and environment, 431, 433, 436, 440, 441 Gender‐based interpersonal violence, 411 Gender‐based violence, 9, 177, 411, 412, 414–416, 418–423 Gender binary, 130–132, 135, 139, 140, 145, 149, 223–224, 226, 256, 310, 358, 359, 423 Gender crossing, 135 Gender dimorphism, 19, 30 Gendered division of labor, 42, 251, 421 Gender equity, 344 Gender fluidity, 25, 30, 129, 140–143 Gender ideology, 328 Gender inequalities, 37, 95, 119, 121, 183, 265–267, 269, 271–273, 327, 328, 366, 400, 401, 413–415, 421, 422, 431, 434, 440 Gender justice otherwise, 366–368 Gender relations, 6, 8, 38, 44, 101, 265, 268, 271, 285, 308, 357, 367, 427, 431, 435, 438, 440, 450 Gender Studies, 3, 4, 9, 116, 117, 145–147, 215, 312, 428, 431, 435 Gender systems, 139, 140, 198, 256, 358, 377 Genes/Genetic, 5, 8, 16, 18–19, 21, 24, 27, 30, 233, 248, 250, 256, 259, 363 Giroux, Henry, 350 Global Division of Labor, 42–44 Global feminism, 144, 201, 388 Global gag rule, 406 Global Gender Gap Index, 176, 179, 180 Globalization, 7, 9, 65, 156, 175, 186, 187, 201, 202, 204, 205, 269, 357–368, 399, 432 Global macroeconomic, 421 Global neoliberal structures, 146 Global South, 175, 187, 194, 196–199, 205, 271, 357, 366, 394, 399, 403, 404 Grassroots activism, 165–166, 430 Greer, Germaine, 325 Grievance, 139, 448, 449, 451–454, 456–461 Gross Domestic Product (GDP)/GDP growth, 268, 270, 274n6

Index Grosz, Elizabeth, 252, 376 Guillaumin, Colette, 76–78 Gulabi Gang, 165, 166 Halberstam, Jack, 142, 150n6 Hall, Stuart, 109, 116, 124, 286, 323 Haraway, Donna, 249–252, 258, 376 Hartley, Linda, 373, 380 Hashtag activism, 9, 293, 399–401, 407 Hegemonic, 6, 10, 23, 155, 156, 159, 178, 197, 202, 233, 301, 316, 322, 331, 332, 358, 359, 368, 417, 418, 430, 437, 461 Hennessey, Rosemary, 133 Hennessy, Rosemary, 41, 74, 81 Henrietta Lacks, 254 Heteronormative, 6, 18, 99, 101, 112, 130–133, 135–137, 139–145, 149, 151, 187, 359, 456 Heteronormative sex/gender binary, 132, 359 Heteropatriarchal, 142 Heteropatriarchy, 101, 125, 138, 365 Heterosexuality, 18, 46, 59, 78, 81, 85, 131–133, 135, 149n1, 415 Heuristic, 28, 107, 114–120, 123, 124, 125n5 Historiography, 8, 301–317 History, feminist, 286, 302, 304, 307, 309, 311, 315, 316, 397 History, social, 305, 311, 316 HIV/Aids crisis, 134, 136, 138 Homophobia, 143, 147, 157, 170, 344, 345 Homosexuality, 24, 131, 135, 309, 310 Hope, 10, 137, 248, 303, 347, 348, 351, 374, 388, 397, 407 Hormones, 5, 16–20, 27, 30, 253 Housa feminism, 167 Human resources, 451, 459, 461, 462 Human rights, 3, 42, 105, 142, 160, 163, 194, 195, 204, 205, 257, 270, 274, 393, 395, 398–400, 405, 406, 408n6, 416, 420, 452, 453, 458, 463 Identity politics, 62, 67n6, 74, 108, 114, 160, 163, 418 Imperial feminism, 158, 361 Imperialism, 7, 36–38, 41, 42, 44–45, 47, 92, 96, 97, 142, 158, 177, 197, 199, 200, 253, 285, 286, 288, 360, 365 India, 42, 46, 83, 156–160, 163–167, 169, 170, 177, 205, 216, 221, 273, 287, 291, 315, 395, 396, 400, 402, 404 Indigenous, 4, 6, 9, 45, 107, 108, 155–157, 167, 184–187, 205, 255, 256, 258, 259, 288, 358, 359, 363–365, 367, 404, 406, 429, 436–440, 456–458, 460 Indigenous Feminisms, 156, 177, 367

473

Indigenous Science studies, 259 Indigenous Women Movements, 436–438 Infertility, 393, 396, 402, 404, 405 Ingraham, Chrys, 74, 82–87 Inman, Mary, 39 Interdisciplinary, 3, 4, 7, 9, 106, 116, 118, 119, 124, 140, 193, 214, 221, 236, 244, 289, 293 Interiorized power, 326 Inter‐movement coalitions, 206 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), 398, 399 Interpersonal violence, 411, 420, 422, 423 Interpretive communities, 117, 121, 122, 330 Intersectional/intersectionality feminism, 143, 188 organizing, 45–46 Intersectional Systems of Oppression, 345 Intimate partner violence, 414, 417, 418, 422 Islamic, 159, 162, 163, 179, 180 Islamic feminism, 156, 162–163, 168 Jaggar, Alison, 54, 57, 58, 63, 214, 216, 454 James, Selma, 39, 418 Jeffreys, Sheila, 53, 58, 62, 64, 134, 149n5 Jones, Claudia, 46, 96 Ken, Ivy, 111 Kenya, 182, 205, 430 Knowing, 22, 107, 220, 231–234, 236–238, 285, 288, 346, 348–350, 378, 386, 428, 441 Knowledge, positivism, 216, 226, 233–235, 237, 243, 284 Knowledge production, 3–10, 21, 76, 80, 92, 121, 216, 221, 231–233, 236–238, 240, 243, 244, 247–250, 253, 255, 258, 259, 265, 268, 272, 273, 284, 285, 344, 357, 358, 364, 436 Kollantai, Alexandra, 37, 38 Kuhn, Annette, 40, 74, 79–81, 376 Kuhn, Thomas, 119, 125n5, 249 Kurdish Workers Party, 44 Labor market, 201, 266, 268, 270 Labor power, 35, 39, 183 Lacan, Jacques, 77, 242, 321, 327 Ladystick(s), 144 Landlessness, 39 Landless Workers Movement, 44 Latin American and Caribbean feminisms, 186–187 Latin American feminisms, 435–439 Latin American Feminist Political Ecology ((LAFPE), 9, 428, 434–436 Leavy, Patricia, 313, 376

474 Index Lesbian feminism, 92, 133, 134, 186 Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer (LGBTQ), 105, 107, 108, 179, 184–187, 219, 282, 313, 314, 359, 360 Lesbianism, 59–60, 133, 160 Liberal feminism, 63, 81, 83, 328, 333, 361, 364, 412–416 Lorde, Audre, 41, 85, 87n1, 133, 143, 144, 148, 164, 214, 345, 346, 376 Lugones, María, 219, 243, 357–360, 365, 388, 389, 436 Lukács, Georg, 76 Mackay, Finn, 53, 55, 60, 64 MacKinnon, Catharine, 57, 59, 66, 376, 415 Maoism, 54, 75 Margaret Sanger, 396, 397 Marxian, 73–78, 80, 82, 83, 86, 87 Marxian, Distinction with Marxist, 75 Marxism, 35, 47, 67n4, 73, 74, 77, 80, 81, 86, 138, 242, 251, 308, 360 Marxist feminism, 5, 35–47, 75, 77, 79, 81, 82, 86, 167, 328 Marx, Karl, 5, 35, 36, 44, 74–76, 78, 79, 448 Masculinism, 148 Masculinity, 17, 19, 36, 57, 58, 116, 130–132, 139–141, 143–145, 149n1, 157, 224, 242, 250, 292, 308, 309, 316, 376, 412, 413, 420 Materialist feminism in France, 75–78 and lesbianism, 74, 77–78, 83, 85 in the UK, 79–81 in the US, 81–83 western vs. non‐western, 73, 83 women of color and, 74, 83 Material relations of inequality, 421 Material resources, 196, 451, 459 Maternity leave, 37, 38 Matrix of domination, 199, 240, 375, 417 McCall, Leslie, 223, 225 McIntosh, Mary, 78, 79, 81 McKinnon, Katherine, 131 McRobbie, Angela, 331 Means of production, 36, 44, 323 Measurement (in Feminist Economics), 39, 222– 224, 243, 252, 268, 272–273, 402 Media, 3, 8, 17, 22, 25, 28–30, 57, 60, 105, 118, 163, 178, 182, 287, 288, 290, 291, 293, 311, 325, 327, 329, 330, 332, 334, 398, 399, 401, 407, 447, 450, 460–462 Media representation, 325, 401 Medical anthropology, 258, 259 Medina, Nadia, 376

Memory, 102, 147, 166, 197, 301, 315–317, 358, 382, 387, 462 Menopause, 9, 20, 376 Menstruation, 9, 20, 376 Messaging, 326, 380 Metaphor, 107–114, 119, 124, 125n2, 156, 305, 324, 367 Methodological diversity, 4 Methodology(ies), 4–10, 106, 135, 147, 198, 213–226, 235, 248, 253, 255, 265, 283–285, 289, 304, 305, 307, 314, 323, 342, 374, 380, 382, 383, 427, 452 Methods, 8, 43, 134, 138, 214–215, 221, 222, 225, 236, 237, 239, 249, 250, 258, 259, 281, 284–285, 328, 386, 453, 463 #MeToo, 332, 335n12, 401, 407, 414 Mexico, 43, 44, 47, 184–186, 194, 205, 358, 367, 398, 403, 422, 434, 440 Microcredit, 43, 270 Middle East and North Africa (MENA), 176, 179–181 Middle Eastern and African feminisms, 179–181 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), 269, 402 Millett, Kate, 56, 58, 75 Misogyny, 43, 64, 94, 101, 400 Mixed‐gender movements, 202, 204 Mode of Production debate, 39–40 Modernity, 9, 160, 163, 169, 187, 196, 201, 253, 254, 310, 357, 358, 434, 437 Mohanty, Chandra Talpade, 42, 83, 155, 159, 164, 169, 170, 175, 197, 199–203, 219, 271, 285, 287, 344, 346, 348, 357, 361 Moral resources, 450, 454 Morocco, 180 Motherhood/maternalism, 161, 187, 213, 315, 404, 454 Mulvey, Laura, 327, 377 Muñoz, Vic, 144, 146, 147 Muslim feminism, 156, 162–163 Nagar, Richa, 175, 287, 291 Naples, Nancy, 3–10, 40, 194, 196, 214, 216, 219, 249, 284, 289, 290, 302, 342–345, 348, 350, 351, 357 Narrative, 101, 102, 125n1, 147, 160, 165, 168, 201, 219, 221, 242, 249, 290, 302–304, 308, 310, 311, 313, 314, 317, 327, 330, 332, 361, 374, 377, 400, 418, 459, 461, 462 Nationalism, 96, 98, 116, 169, 180, 196, 200–202, 206, 311, 315, 361 Naturalism, 29, 234, 235, 238, 239, 244 Naturalized empiricism, 235 Natural sciences, 119, 235, 239, 248, 250, 258

Index Negritude, 161 Neoliberal, 6, 7, 44, 45, 108, 135, 146, 175, 176, 184, 186–188, 194, 195, 200, 201, 206, 248, 265, 267, 268, 321, 361, 364, 399, 432, 433, 436, 437, 440, 441 Neoliberalism, 7, 43, 44, 176, 178, 186, 195, 200–201, 204, 205, 294, 361, 362, 393, 399 Neoliberal natures, 432 Neuro‐essentialism, 29 Neuroscience, 17, 18, 20, 22 Neurosexism, 21, 28 New materialism, 26–28, 31, 251, 252 New Zealand, 177 NGOization, 175, 178, 455, 459 Nigeria, 198, 366, 394, 400 Non‐binary, 101, 223 Non‐binary theorizing, 223 Noncapitalist accumulation, Non‐governmental organization (NGO), 43, 176–180, 183, 186, 187, 194, 196, 291, 363, 394, 402, 455, 459 Nonhumans, 28, 30, 252–254, 259, 358, 362, 432, 433, 436, 439–441 North American feminisms, 184–186 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), 184, 185 Oppositional frames, 205 Oppression, 7, 10, 24, 36–41, 46, 61, 75–79, 81, 96, 110, 142, 155, 158, 159, 164, 166–168, 197, 200, 205, 233, 239, 240, 243, 250, 294, 302, 305, 306, 309, 325, 331, 341, 344, 345, 347–349, 360, 361, 365, 377, 389, 411, 414, 415, 418, 422, 453, 455, 456, 459, 460 Oral history research, 307, 313–315 Palestinian Working Women Society for Development (PWWSD), 10, 448, 457–460, 463 Paradigm, 107, 118–120, 123, 124, 147, 193, 196, 222, 242, 249, 265, 266, 270, 398, 417, 450, 451 Paraguay, 406 Parent movements, 454, 458, 461 Participants, 9, 57, 63, 105, 218, 221, 287, 288, 291, 292, 349, 386, 397, 399, 400, 447 Patriarchal structures, 345, 463 Patriarchy, 5, 30, 39–40, 43, 54–60, 62, 64, 75, 80, 81, 84, 85, 91, 92, 95, 96, 99, 116, 117, 121, 144, 155, 158, 162, 165, 177, 197, 198, 251, 282, 284, 308, 327, 328, 330, 331, 343–345, 351, 360, 361, 367, 405, 415, 421, 437, 441, 460

475

Patterson, Louise, 45, 46 Pedagogs, 344–352 Pedagogy, 8, 43, 147, 341–352, 377 Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 341, 342 Performative, 116, 125n3, 139, 141, 142, 291, 463 Philosophy, 111, 124, 231, 239, 242, 302, 343, 351, 366, 397 Pink Chaddi walk, 166 Pink Tide, 186, 187 Planned Parenthood, 396, 400, 406, 408n6 Political ecology (PE), 9, 427–441 Political economy, 36, 38, 87, 368, 421, 422 Political opportunities, 188, 449, 451, 456–458, 460, 463 Political process theory, 448, 449, 453, 456–457 Politics, 41, 45, 47, 56, 74, 75, 79, 93, 100, 160, 176, 177, 186, 281, 282, 284–289, 388, 395, 432, 441 Polygamy, 156, 162, 167, 168 Popular culture, 8, 93, 100, 321–334 Pornography, 55, 64–66, 376 Positivism, 215, 216, 222, 226, 232–235, 237, 243, 284 Positivist, 7, 24, 213, 214, 217, 222, 223, 232, 234, 235, 250, 284, 290 Postcolonial disability studies, 165 feminism, 6, 9, 155–170, 219 science studies, 247–260 Post‐feminism, 332–334 Post feminist, 333 Post‐identitarian sexual politics, 138 Postmodern feminism, 7, 133 Postmodernism, 61, 74, 75, 86, 87, 134, 136, 231, 232, 234, 239, 241–244 Postmodernist feminist theory, 133 Post‐structuralism, 75, 83, 124 Post‐structural theory, 134 Posttranssexual Manifesto, 139 Poverty, 42, 105, 138, 175, 185, 195, 271, 273, 290, 365, 397, 421, 422, 429, 431 Power, 7, 20, 39, 56, 57, 83, 107–110, 112, 117, 120, 131, 134, 135, 141, 143, 148, 158, 196, 198, 202, 216–217, 225, 241, 250, 251, 267, 268, 281, 283, 284, 286–288, 304, 314, 326, 330, 331, 344–346, 348–350, 357, 366, 378, 412, 416, 417, 421, 429, 432–434, 436, 437, 441, 452, 455 Power essentialism, 159 Praxis, 3–10, 36, 37, 42, 44–46, 92, 105–107, 119, 122, 177, 253, 255, 285, 294, 301–303, 305, 306, 313, 315–316, 342–343, 357–368, 373–389, 394, 411–423, 428

476 Index Price, Janet, 376 Primitive accumulation, 38, 41, 43, 44 Privatization, 42, 179 Privilege, 56, 59, 83, 86, 95, 97, 117, 164, 169, 198, 199, 202, 216–217, 219, 220, 240, 241, 249, 251, 257, 287, 288, 294, 314, 325, 327, 343–345, 348–351, 367, 375, 394, 414, 415, 417, 418, 429, 434 Process‐oriented frames, 205 Production, 16, 35, 36, 38–44, 46, 47, 75, 80, 86, 136, 138, 159, 201, 231, 251, 253, 268, 281, 282, 287, 289, 290, 292, 293, 307, 321, 323, 326, 360–362, 421, 427, 429, 432–435, 439, 440 Project feminism, 196 Proletariat, 38, 46, 47, 76 Prosser, Jay, 139–142, 149n1 Prostitution. see Sex work Protest, 58, 98, 178, 179, 182, 294, 316, 363, 399, 400, 403, 406, 407, 411, 437, 449, 450, 460–462 Psychoanalytic theory, 327 Psychology, 18, 19, 62, 77, 222, 225, 289, 412 Public, 22, 29, 30, 82, 160, 166, 195, 198, 248, 289, 290, 294, 332, 394, 400, 411, 412, 415, 421, 447, 450, 455, 458 Public policy, 3, 29, 53, 55, 63, 64, 66, 115, 362, 407 Purdah, 159 Qualitative methods, 213, 221 Quantitative methods, 213, 222, 225 Queer (art of) failure, 137, 149n3 Queer/queering of color critique, 41, 99, 138 place/space, 6, 136, 137 science studies, 248, 253, 259 theory, 61, 83, 125n3, 129–151, 160, 253, 259, 331, 389 time/temporality, 136, 137, 148 utopia, 137 Race, 6, 16, 46, 83, 84, 92, 95–97, 99, 111, 114–123, 132, 134, 135, 147, 169, 170, 199, 204, 233, 251, 286, 294, 305, 329, 330, 341, 346, 347, 349, 397, 414, 416, 417, 419, 433, 435, 437, 463 Racial feminism, 95 Racism, 40, 41, 54, 94–97, 101, 108–111, 116, 117, 121, 122, 125n4, 142, 143, 147, 157, 164, 169, 184, 185, 194, 197, 204, 205, 240, 309, 344, 345, 411, 415, 417, 460, 461

Radical feminism, 5, 9, 53–67, 79, 81, 85, 328, 412, 414–417 Rape (sexual assault), 55–57, 59, 63–66, 95, 97, 99, 167, 401, 407, 412–421 Raymond, Janice, 62, 139, 145, 149n5, 150n10 Realizing Sexual and Reproductive Justice (RESURJ), 401 Reception, 49, 321, 326 Reductionism, 29, 31, 159 Reflexivity, 8, 215–220, 223, 226, 248, 286, 287, 291, 352 Regional, 4, 7, 44, 123, 160, 175–178, 182, 186, 187, 194, 203, 204, 206, 286, 359, 360, 362, 368, 394, 398, 401, 441, 458, 459 Relationality, 42, 43, 99, 120–122 Relational ontologies, 255 Relations of production, 36, 40, 43, 75, 80, 421 Relations of ruling, 3, 7, 343, 347 Religious fundamentalism, 186, 200–202, 206, 393, 404, 405 Representation, 4, 23, 25, 99, 156, 163, 170, 176, 181, 182, 188, 193, 243, 268, 272, 285, 287, 292, 305, 308, 312–315, 325, 360, 376, 401, 405, 421, 461 Reproduction, 35–39, 41, 44–47, 63, 64, 76, 80, 86, 137, 250, 257, 268, 322, 358, 362, 396, 398, 403, 421 Reproductive justice, 46, 101, 393, 395, 401, 406, 407 Reproductive labor, 35, 37–39, 43, 45, 47, 97, 315, 360 Reproductive rights, 56, 97, 101, 186, 204, 393, 395, 398–401, 404–406 Research methodology, 289 Research methods, 213, 218, 288 Resource mobilization theory, 448, 451, 454–455 Revolutionary struggle, 44 Revolutionary subjects, 44–45, 47 Rights frames, 142, 146, 195, 196, 205, 395 Safe space, 349, 412 Sandra Harding, 111, 231, 238, 241, 247, 249, 250, 253, 376 Sati, 157, 158, 308 Satihood, 156–158 #SayHerName, 9, 401, 461, 462 Scholarship, 8–10, 53, 61, 66, 82, 99, 106, 115–118, 120–122, 175, 219, 247, 248, 250, 253, 254, 256, 258, 259, 284–287, 289–294, 303, 315, 323, 328, 433, 448, 450, 451, 453, 463 Science, 29, 56, 133, 231–233, 235–239, 242, 247–250, 253, 255, 257, 259, 368, 374, 413

Index Science and technology studies (STS), 248, 249, 253, 259 Second‐wave feminism, 79, 133, 136, 139, 143, 146, 219, 239, 316, 325–328, 330, 331, 412 Semiotic theory, 327, 328 Sensing, Feeling and Action, 380 Serano, Julia, 142, 143, 145–148, 149n5, 150n11 Sex, 6, 16–22, 26, 30, 37, 56–58, 61, 65, 66, 84, 130–132, 135, 136, 139–142, 160, 178, 223, 224, 253, 256, 272, 310, 314, 333, 358, 406, 413 Sex differences, 15, 17–20, 22, 29, 58, 198, 358 Sexism, 30, 40, 41, 54, 56, 63, 95, 96, 108–111, 117, 121, 147, 148, 150n11, 170, 184, 187, 204, 205, 234, 240–242, 291, 302, 305, 344, 401, 414, 415, 420 Sexual and reproductive health, 394, 395, 398, 399, 402, 404, 406, 407 Sexual assault (rape), 55–57, 59, 63–66, 95, 97, 99, 167, 401, 407, 412–421 Sexual fluidity, 25 Sexual Identities, 17, 24, 27, 118, 130, 131, 134, 135, 184 Sexuality, 6, 16–18, 24–25, 27, 37, 63, 76, 83, 87, 94, 97, 105, 112, 116–123, 131–136, 140, 147, 159, 165, 166, 168, 169, 178, 199, 204, 205, 214, 225, 251–253, 258, 301, 310, 311, 314, 316, 329–331, 341–343, 347, 366, 367, 401, 405, 415–417, 432, 455 Sexuality Policy Watch (SPW), 401 Sexual orientation, 16–18, 24, 25, 112, 132, 136, 140, 143, 148, 149n1, 183, 233, 286, 346, 463 Sexual pleasure, 38, 137 Sexual violence, 57, 63, 64, 66, 115, 166, 178, 185, 358, 401, 406, 419, 422 Sex wars, 134 Sex work, 41, 67n3, 165, 177, 178, 314, 401, 413 Shadow reports, 194 Social, Health and Empowerment (S.H.E.), 401 Shildrick, Margaret, 376 #ShoutYourAbortion, 400 Simultaneity, 41, 92, 96, 99, 197 Sisterhood, 7, 55, 56, 61, 96, 170, 193, 194, 197, 199, 205, 282, 307, 331, 376, 454, 455 Situated knowledges, 219, 239, 240, 247, 249, 251, 302, 428, 440 Slavery, enslavement, 76, 95, 96, 99, 311, 365, 421 Snowber, C., 391 Social

477

constructionism, 75 constructionist, 5, 17, 25, 28, 59, 233 context, 20, 112, 115, 120–122, 219, 363 identity, 301, 302, 348, 416, 417 imaginaries, 9, 357 inequality, 107–109, 111, 116, 117, 119–123, 155, 417, 432 justice, 3, 6, 8, 10, 40, 92, 96, 105, 106, 110, 120, 122, 157, 169, 188, 216, 220, 222, 223, 225, 267, 269, 281, 283, 285, 294, 346, 357, 365, 376, 380–382, 388–389, 394, 395, 408n6, 447–463 movements, 10, 46, 105, 107, 187, 203–206, 294, 307, 314, 316, 328, 375, 393, 394, 399, 427–431, 433, 437, 441, 447–460, 463 necessity debt, 45 reproduction, 35–41, 44–45, 47, 185, 188, 366 reproduction theory, 39–41 transformation, 108, 109, 347, 361 value, 36, 39, 233, 235, 236 Socialist feminism, 5, 35–47, 75, 80, 81, 85, 430 Social‐organizational resources, 454, 458, 460 Sociobiology, 18, 19, 29, 253 Solidarity, 7, 9, 37, 43, 44, 46, 47, 92, 116, 170, 179, 187, 195, 199, 202–206, 291, 294, 308, 361, 366, 368, 376, 398, 406, 417, 451, 455 South Africa, 41, 46, 181, 205, 397, 401, 452 South Asia, 4, 46, 163, 165, 177–178, 359 Sovereignty, 147, 358, 367, 438 Spade, Dean, 41, 146, 147 Spelman, Elizabeth, 389, 456 Spivak, Gayatri, 24, 40, 83, 157, 158, 285, 306 Stabile, Carol, 86, 87 Stacey, Judith, 286, 287, 291, 331, 342 Standpoint theory, 238, 239, 249, 251 Sterilization, 9, 187, 257, 393, 396–398, 402–405 Stone, Sandy, 24, 139 Strategic essentialism, 24, 306 Strong objectivity, 216, 250–251 Structural adjustments, 42, 186, 267 Structural violence, 9, 188, 411, 416, 417, 420–423 Structured gender inequality, 421 Stryker, Susan, 130, 138–140, 143, 150n6 Studying up, 217, 218 Subaltern studies, 40 Sub‐Saharan Africa, 162, 176, 181, 182, 408n3 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), 269, 271, 272, 274, 402 Sylvia Wynter, 254 Syria, 44, 168, 179

478 Index Systemic discrimination, 420 Systemic sexism, 420 TallBear, Kim, 247, 252, 253, 259 Taste cultures, 322, 323 Taxation, 266, 274n5 Theory, 7, 8, 25, 45, 46, 57, 63, 76, 79, 106, 111, 122, 124, 135, 140, 145, 196–197, 206, 215, 231, 235, 238, 241, 242, 269, 281, 283, 285, 305, 327, 329, 330, 342, 343, 348, 351, 375, 421, 448 Third‐wave feminism, 91, 333 Third World feminists, 197–199 Third World Women’s Alliance, 93, 96 Time‐use data/Time‐use surveys, 272 Trans embodiments and identities, 145 Transfeminism, 6, 129, 130, 143–149, 150n11, 151n12 Transgenderism, 61, 62 Transgender studies, 138–140, 143, 145 Transgender theory, 129, 138–143, 145, 148, 150n10 Transing pedagogy, 147 Transnational, 74, 85, 116, 146–148, 178, 186, 195, 197, 200, 202, 203, 205, 219–221, 360 Transnational feminism, 7, 149, 176, 193–206 Transsexual body, 141 Trans, transing, 6, 24, 92, 93, 129–151, 178, 188, 293, 341, 359, 418–420, 461 Transversal politics, 115, 203 Trans womanhood, 136 Trans women, 136, 139, 143, 145, 146, 149n5, 150n7, 293, 359, 418–420, 461 Triple exploitation, 46 True, Jacqui, 420–422 Turkey, 53, 195, 202, 403, 406 UN Fourth World Conference on Women, 179, 269, 398 United Nations (UN), 42, 194, 269, 334, 393 Universalism, 61, 205, 242, 420 UN Security Council Women, Peace, and Security Agenda, 177 United States (U.S.), 39, 46, 53, 105, 138, 164, 169, 193, 195, 197, 199, 200, 204, 233, 248, 256, 259, 282, 294, 311, 357, 361, 365, 379, 394, 396, 397, 400, 401, 405, 411, 419, 422, 450, 461 Use(s) of the erotic, 144, 148 Value, 35, 36, 38–41, 45, 47, 64, 80, 97, 98, 109, 122, 214, 216, 234, 236, 257, 271, 290, 295, 304, 311, 344, 363

Value judgments, 268 Violence against women, 55, 57, 65, 115, 176, 177, 180, 183, 185, 195–197, 204, 399, 405, 406, 411–413, 415, 416, 419–422, 438 against women of color, 110, 114 Vivir, Buen, 367 Volatile Bodies: Toward a Corporeal Feminism, 376 Wages for Housework, 39, 360 Walker, Rebecca, 91, 100, 330 War/conflict, 115, 163, 175, 178, 179, 181, 182, 188, 248, 249, 267, 287, 307, 309, 311, 315, 316, 331, 349, 361, 365, 375, 382, 393, 396, 397, 399, 411, 421, 447, 450, 452, 458 Warrior, 133, 161, 255 Ways of Knowing, 220, 285, 348–350 Ways of Seeing, 326 Wells, Anna Julia, 95 Western feminism, 7, 83, 87, 156, 158, 175, 197, 198, 361 Western vs non‐western, 83 Western vs non‐western materialist feminism, 73, 83 White supremacy, 91, 94, 96, 101, 117, 144, 365 Widow immolation, 157 Wikipedia, 23, 316 Wisdom of the Body Moving, 380 Wittig, Monique, 77, 78, 81, 82, 133, 149n2, 456 Wolpe, AnnMarie, 40, 74, 79–81 Woman, 15, 16, 23, 24, 37, 40, 58, 62, 63, 74, 77, 78, 81, 85, 97, 115, 133, 135, 139, 143, 146, 150n12, 158, 162, 164, 166, 214, 223, 224, 307, 310, 311, 331, 347, 413, 420, 422, 456, 462 Womanism, 91–102, 161–162 Womanist thought, 6, 98, 102 Woman’s nature, 15–16 Women of color, 46, 74, 83, 96, 99, 100, 102, 108, 114, 133, 139, 164, 187, 199, 288, 293, 303, 312, 316, 317, 321, 329, 330, 342, 397, 416, 456 economic empowerment, 270, 271 Women and Development (WAD), 269, 271 Women in Development (WID), 181, 182, 184, 269 Women’s March 2017, 406, 459 Young, Iris Marion, 84 Zapatistas, 44 Zetkin, Clara, 37 Zones of Sacrifice, 439