The Failure of Feminism

[obsolete discourse]

I posted this in disgust as a reply to the "what kind of feminist are you?" thread but I thought it perhaps would be better as its own thread.

A fragment about Italian Feminism in the 70s and some questions regarding the failures of feminism world-wide.

The feminists of the Italian '70s, unlike their American counterparts, took "the personal is political" to a very logical and advanced conclusion. Whereas the American 2nd wave was still creating parodies of anti-imperialist, national liberation movements, there was no women nation which demanded to be protected and included. Rather, the autonomous women's movement waged an impressive assault against patriarchy by becoming desexualized, going on strike against care and desire labor, (http://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/fichero_articulo?codigo=2870123&orden=0)occupying and dissolving male-dominated meetings, contributing silence and absence, and making clear the goals of a revolutionary practice of feminism: the abolition of the family. Yet even the diffused irrationality common to those times generated the conditions for a more intelligent capitalism. Today's social climate in Italy can be viewed as the result of the slow and careful counter-revolution which from the '80s imprisoned and incorporated all the most unpredictable desire of the '70s...

Perhaps queer theory put feminism to bed, but it clearly reaches its own limits in regards in to the disunity of queer practices and the construct of women. Whereas its possible to imagine and deploy practices of dis-identification and desubjectivization which alter and modify the limits of gender (genres), its difficult to claim any unity between my homosexual desire to suck cock, and the structural position of being women. I fear the ghost of Dworkin may still need to haunt us if we can't articulate why she is definitely wrong just yet.

Here's a more interesting question: By what means do we deal with the failures of feminism which take the form in an integrated economy of desire with feminized labor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminization_of_Labor)--most visibly in the global north as the service industry--at the center? The democratic and liberal demands of feminism are harnessed to give global capital a more smooth function. How can feminism's anti-democratic tendencies be harnessed to form an insurrectional war machine against patriarchy and its policeman: gender? Does this mean a rereading of SCUM to accompany our care-strike? (http://www.commoner.org.uk/11deriva.pdf)

[Rascolnikova]

I find your subject matter fascinating, but your post difficult to read from a grammar/construction standpoint. (Admissibly this might not be the case if I were more accustomed to the terminology, but I'm not.) Could you perhaps restate your point less eloquently?

[h0m0revolutionary]

going on strike against care and desire labor, (http://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/fichero_articulo?codigo=2870123&orden=0)
This for me wasn't what characterised the Second Wave, in neither America nor Italy. But that's a (probably tedious for most people) debate we can have in private :P



Perhaps queer theory put feminism to bed, but it clearly reaches its own limits in regards in to the disunity of queer practices and the construct of women.

Queer theory certainly hasn't put feminism to bed and neither, in the here and now, does it attempt to.

I appreciate the comment about the disunity, but the construct of women?

I imagine you're simply referring to social constructionism, right? In which case well absolutely, but queer theory proponents still appreciate that gender doesn't occur in isolation, it stems from something very real (where and what, is of course subject to debate). So femininity, womanhood and gender-submissiveness are very real phenomena that have a heavy bearing on many peoples lives. Our fight as revolutionaries, is to bring queer theory and feminism to the conclusion of anti-capitalism. But at the same time, to bring the conclusion of gender de-construction to the revolutionary left.



Here's a more interesting question: By what means do we deal with the failures of feminism which take the form in an integrated economy of desire with feminized labor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminization_of_Labor)--most visibly in the global north as the service industry--at the center? The democratic and liberal demands of feminism are harnessed to give global capital a more smooth function.

I can't answer this without huge overbearing generalisations of course, but it's good that you've noted the trainwreck position of liberal feminists which have replaced the glass cieling with horizontal pains of glass which segregate in accordance to gender.

And this is nothing new to us as revolutionaries, we know the state doesn't concede gains unless they can be utilised to form part of capitalist mode of production. This is perhaps best illustrated by the quite clear admission on behalf of the UK Liberal Government on 1918 that before conceding womens enfranchisement they wanted to be sure it would work to their advantage economically.

I have no answer of course as to how we bring feminism to the conclusion we have reached, but I stress again that our job isn't that linear, as much as we have to bring feminists into our ranks (and bring them to the conclusion that the gender binary is a weapon with which they're beaten) we also have to look within our own ranks and beat out machismo, homophobia etc that have poisoned our own movement.

[Hoggy_RS]

I dont see why anyone of us should identify as feminists? Surely by the fact that we are leftists it should already denote that we support equal rights for all.

[h0m0revolutionary]

I dont see why anyone of us should identify as feminists? Surely by the fact that we are leftists it should already denote that we support equal rights for all.

No, fatal mistake.

The marxist movement is so infused with machismo, and homophobia and racism, that to think racism, homophobia, transphobia and sexist will be made redundant by a communist movement just isn't true.

We *do* need to look internally at our own movement, if not for the sake of renouncing backward ideas, then for the sake of accommodating demographics that would otherwise not give the revolutionary left a second look.

[mlgb]

I dont see why anyone of us should identify as feminists? Surely by the fact that we are leftists it should already denote that we support equal rights for all.

'should' and 'does' rarely correlate.

[manic expression]

Genuine communist parties have always been at the forefront of social equality. "Genuine" is the important word here, and sometimes genuine communists are hard to come by, but the point stands. I'd stand by the record of the communist movement compared to any other in history when it comes to equal rights and universal human dignity.

Feminism is a problematic ideology because of a few reasons. First, it's so nebulous that Hillary Clinton can call herself a feminist on national television and no one in the political mainstream bats an eyelash. Second, dedicated feminists fenced themselves into college campuses and largely lost touch with the everyday struggles of our sisters (I'm looking at you, Peggy McIntosh, as well as all those "rrradical" students you fooled). Most feminist writing I've seen is dedicated more to intellectual argumentation (which usually amounts to dissing the left in general) than how to organize to achieve wage equality, for example; both organization and theoretical discussion are needed.

Those are two things I've seen, and they are simply my impressions. Perhaps other people's experiences will disagree, perhaps people have completely contrary feelings on feminism's place in the world today.

[counterblast]

Perhaps queer theory put feminism to bed, but it clearly reaches its own limits in regards in to the disunity of queer practices and the construct of women.

Queer theory didn't put feminism to bed (except in the sense that it sexualized a previously mostly anti-sex movement), it merely expanded the political definitions of "woman" from "white, cisgendered, middle class, feminine & straight" to something broader.

[ultraqueercommie]

The problem here with the revolutionary left is that whilst the majority of it does stand for women's and queer liberation, it is often seen as a tag on to the end- something that is not a priority now and will neatly follow a revolution- it wont.

Our movement needs to be thoroughly imbued with those politics. One of the key ways it can do this, as already explained, is to work with and orientate ourselves to social movements such as feminism and queer.

Also much of what has been said of feminism is true of high-ranking well known feminists and queer theorists but doesn't take account of certain sections of feminism, such as many grass roots feminist and queer groups. These can often be radical and could easily take on revolutionary, anti-capitalist politics. This approach would increasingly radicalise existing movements and certainly enrich our own.