Freedom Fallacy the Limits of Liberal Feminism Cover Art
Let's talk about the wizard backside the curtain: if I drank, I would accept made a game where I took a drink every time someone mentions Catharine MacKinnon. Two pages in to the introduction and the editors have already cited her, and nearly every essay in this collection references her at to the lowest degree one time, if not extensively. It'due south official: every contributor loves MacKinnon! (Andrea Dworkin also gets an epigraph and lots of love too.) Look, I'yard not going to merits a huge familiarity with MacKinnon's writing, and other people have written far amend rebuttals of MacKinnon'due south work. So rather than get into that, let me broadly summarize the approach these essays take to critiquing "liberal feminism."
The thesis that runs throughout these essays concerns the debilitating nature of liberal feminism, aka 3rd-moving ridge feminism, popular feminism, or choice feminism. The editors and contributors argue, with focus on various topics and tactics, that liberal feminism is a neoliberalist corruption, an individualist betrayal of "true" feminist ideologies, which are collectivist. Its popularity has been driven by media and corporate attempts to co-opt feminism as a branding strategy, to position it equally "women'south choice" instead of "women's liberation." Kiraly and Tyler say in their introduction:
What unites our contributors in this book is non a unmarried perspective — there is a range of unlike feminist positions included — but rather, a unified conventionalities that liberation cannot be found at a purely individual level, nor can it be forged from adapting to, or just accepting, existing conditions of oppression.
On the one hand, I don't actively disagree with the denotative meaning of this statement. Indeed, this is possibly what intrigued me by this book—at the time, I was probably looking for academic writing that would acuminate my understanding of the systemic nature of women'southward oppression, and I was concerned by the notion that we should frame all feminist idea as a matter of "pick," given the amount of internalized misogyny that society saddles us with.
Still Kiraly and Tyler clearly mean to imply much more than that. If you go on to read the subsequently chapters, of course, you see that the connotation of this statement means women who embrace makeup and loftier heels and sex entreatment and phone call it feminist are not, actually, feminist. They're liberal feminists. Beyoncé is mistaken when she shakes her booty in front of a huge sign that says "feminist." No, honey reader: the ones doing the real piece of work are these poor, radical feminists who toil in the obscurity of academia because their feminism isn't fun enough for the mainstream, apparently.
Radical feminism is the term that many of these essays employ equally the counterpart to liberal feminism. Information technology's similar second-wave feminism, only many of the contributors don't want to use that term. Actually, though, this book reads similar second-wave feminism tweaked for the social media age.
The frustrating thing (from my perspective) nearly Freedom Fallacy is that, on some level, in that location is a cogent and necessary critique of neoliberalism happening here. Many of the essays make valid points about the mode capitalism tin co-opt feminist ideas. When I teach about gender stereotypes in media to my English classes, and I bear witness them the "Dove Real Beauty" campaign ads, I utilise the videos to help them visualize the means in which media manipulates appearances, yes. But I also ask my students to consider why Dove (owned by Unilever, which besides sells Tag and Axe) would launch this campaign. So, aye, I do think that these authors are on to something when they signal out that information technology'south not enough for u.s.a. to phone call ourselves feminist, treat individual women equally, brand certain women can have jobs and whatnot. Definitely at that place is more work, deeper piece of work to exist done. I agree with the radical feminist proposition that the oppression of women is structural, that no amount of "leaning in" on the role of women will ever exist plenty to truly achieve equity.
Nevertheless, I can't become behind many, if any at all, of the propositions inside these pages. They're anti–sex work and gender essentialist (I don't know how many are directly-up TERFs except that Meghan Tater, the only name I recognize, is included in this drove, which is a huge red flag). And I'm guessing, just from the way they write at least, that near of these contributors are white women. Some of them definitely aren't, and I'm not trying to whitewash the book—just my point is that attempts at intersectionality hither are tepid at best. This is i of the features of second-wave feminism that I most strongly dislike, this thought that no thing who you are, if yous are a woman, another adult female is the but/best person to understand your experience.
Beyond that, there is but such a bitterness to these essays. These are academic lamentations at how astray we've gone, hand-wringing over the ways in which feminism has been co-opted by neoliberalism. I agree with a lot of the critiques of neoliberalism here—but the ways in which they're applied to feminist ideas is overly-broad, overly prescriptive. I don't similar academic ruminations on what "is" or "is not" feminism. Feminism is similar porn: I know information technology when I encounter it. And rather than fight you on whether yours and mine line up point-for-signal like there's supposed to be some kind of master feminist checklist, I'd rather judge your feminism based on your actions. Y'all tin tell me yous think trans women are women all you like, but do you really include them in your spaces? Are you actually open to the fluidity of gender, or exercise yous want to be only as prescriptive equally patriarchy—only in a different style? Take your prescriptiveness to some other door delight.
Just, if you really do need some kind of litmus, I hereby propose "the Lizzo examination."
I've been listening to a lot of Lizzo lately. I think Cuz I Love You is brilliant. Well-nigh every single rails is my jam in some style, and I'k a white asexual
Freedom Fallacy identifies a real problem in our modern club (neoliberalist co-option of anti-oppressive moments). Yet I have no interest in its solutions. Because, at the cease of the day, I don't think the feminisms described herein accept whatsoever place for feminists like Lizzo, or the indescribably brilliant Janelle Monáe. Their definitions don't stretch that far, aren't inclusive plenty, are not cute enough to recognize that feminism has to be more than a stark and academically-defined struggle against oppression. It has to be lived, taught, shared—in this case, sung. It has to be built from the ground-up by the people who are, indeed, struggling. Academic essays can describe merely should not prescribe.
Source: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/25218885
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