Russ, Joanna - What Are We Fighting For?: Sex, Race, Class, and the Future of Feminism

[oyceter]

I am not even sure how to start writing about this book; there is so much in it and so much to think about for me.

As a caveat, I add that I am woefully undereducated in Feminism 101, Anti-Racism 101 and Feminist Women of Color 101, and pretty much completely uneducated in Class 101, so I may very well be flailing over what is common knowledge for most people.

Russ first looks at the state of feminism today ("today" roughly being around the 80s, when she was writing the book) and noting the appropriation of "feminism" to mean "anything related to women" or "insane radical bra-burning blahblah you know the stereotypes." She makes a pretty convincing argument for separatism, although she also points out later on that this means separating women of color from allies against racism or lesbians from allies against heterosexism, which I think are excellent points. I'm not sure if she ever goes back to point out that excluding male-to-female transgendered people via female separatism is a way of sticking with binary gender and also a judgment on mtfs as "not real women;" I wish she had, because I had a problem with that.

I didn't take that many notes in the early chapters; they cover Russ' frustration with critical theory via psychoanalysis, the misogyny of Freud, and other issues. This isn't to say they weren't thought-provoking; they were, but I have been thinking about feminism for longer than I have been thinking about race or class, so the territory was more familiar.

But then she goes into class and feminism, which I found very interesting and thought-provoking. Alas, I have no really good comments about this section because I feel like I need to read up more.

The part of What Are We Fighting For? that affected me most was the final section, in which Russ adds race to the picture.

Feminism has and always will be a huge part of how I view the world, but I've often felt excluded from it, even when I wasn't able to articulate that exclusion or my distance from it. And much of that exclusion has been because of race. And so, it was so good to have Russ address that, so much so that I nearly cried through the chapters that followed.

This is, by the way, not to credit Russ as the sole proponent of women of color; she states very clearly that she is not and that she has often gotten in the way of women of color, to her shame. And I have encountered these ideas before, even though I still need to read more women of color. But because I didn't grow up reading women of color, because I am only finding them now, I suspect any acknowledgement of this intersection will affect me a lot for a long time to come.

These were just a few of the quotes in the book that got to me and had me saying, "Yes, yes, thank you, yes."

"Perhaps it's clearer now that being in a "multiple minority" doesn't simply mean being in a small group located within a larger one that is, in its turn, a minority group inside the dominant U.S. society. What matters is, first, that both groups are oppressed and, second, that the oppressions do not simply add up; they interact -- and that they do so in a particular way. That is, membership in the groups conflicts, and furthermore, this conflict lies at the very heart of one's being."

"But above all, the women whose work I'm quoting from solve their impossible situations not by choosing this or that identity and letting the rest go, nor by constructing their own universes but by refusing to let any part of themselves go at all. In a society that insists they must be one thing or another, between groups that insist they cannot bring their whole selves anywhere, they solve the "problem" by refusing its terms."

"None of the above is as simple (or as simple-minded) as "thinking of people as individuals only" or "transcending" any kind of group identity or experience. These thinkers have not "forgotten" their marginality. Their understanding of their multiple oppressions is exquisitely sensitive, tough, active and constant. To think otherwise is like watching the lady in pink sequins in the circus, who stands with her right foot on the back of one galloping horse, her left foot on the back of another, with the reins of fifteen more in her hands, and concluding that because she isn't falling down, she must be standing on solid ground."

Marilyn Frye, as quoted by Russ: "Often, in discussion about prejudice and discrimination, I hear statements like these: 'I don't think of myself as heterosexual'; 'I don't think of myself as white'; 'I don't think of myself as a man' .... If one is the norm, one does not have to know what one is. If one is marginal, one does not have the privilege of not noticing what one is." (from The Politics of Reality)

And it's not just the intersection of race and gender and class, it is life in that intersection, in all those intersections, when any one movement -- be it anti-racism or feminism or socialism or anti-imperialism or queer pride -- does not work because it means obscuring yet another part of your identity. It is not being able to pick an oppression over another, not ever being able to forget that you are marginal not just among the majority culture of the US, but also in the smaller groups that you have chosen for yourself. And while I think the "more oppressed than thou" game is stupid and divisive, I think it is also important to recognize when someone is dealing with more than one axis of oppression.

Also, Audre Lorde says it much, much better than me.

Anyway, highly recommended, and I need a copy for myself.

Comments

[rozk.livejournal.com]

Apparently she has since retracted some of the hateful anti-trans stuff, but I have to say that when I first read this book, it struck me how inconsistent with her general principles it was, really, and how ill-considered. It's why I stopped writing about Russ for a long time - I felt that she didn't want me to do so and that nothing I could say would be regarded as valid. This is a shame, because she is one of the writers I most admire.

[oyceter]

Apparently she has since retracted some of the hateful anti-trans stuff,

Good! I was really disturbed by her attitude on that, especially given the sections later on intersectionality.

But yes, it really was just a slap in the face.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

Have I already done the jumping up and down and recommending bell hooks (http://www.allaboutbell.com/home.html)?

[oyceter]

Hee! Possibly? I am not sure if it was you specifically, but Audre Lorde and bell hooks are the first people on my to-read list.

[kintail.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the review, I'm going to request it from the library.

Also thanks for speaking out against the issues with her take on trangenderism, too. The fact I have a biologically female body and don't try to pass as male in most of my offline life, but I identify as male (or at least more male than female, or other days "other" or "third gender") brings up a lot of thorny issues for me when I tackle issues of feminism.

[oyceter]

*nods* Yes to the transgenderism! The worst bit was that it was so casually tossed in there and not examined at all later.

[fmanalyst.livejournal.com]

And not just bell hooks but Donna Haraway. You must read Simians, Cyborgs and Women.

[delux-vivens.livejournal.com]

has anyone told you about June Jordan yet? I strongly rec "Some of Us Did Not Die: Selected Essays."

[oyceter]

No, no one has. Thank you for the rec!