August 31st, 2007
Rebecca Whisnant on “choice” feminism
Over at SaidIt, there’s a transcript of Rebecca Whisnant’s speech from the Pornography and Pop Culture Conference. You can watch the video of the same speech here.
Structurally speaking, as a person facing oppression of whatever kind, one has two choices. One can resist the oppression—in general, or in any particular instance—in which case one is likely to get viciously slapped down. Alternatively, one can obey, that is, act in ways that please the oppressors, perhaps in hopes of gaining some limited reward (or at least of avoiding the oppressive system’s very worst consequences). As you may have noticed, neither option is altogether attractive; as the feminist philosopher Marilyn Frye points out, oppression systematically puts oppressed people in double binds, catch-22s, situations in which, as we say, they “can’t win for losing.” But the crucial point for our purposes here is that one way, arguably the central way, in which oppressive systems perpetuate themselves is by giving individual members of the oppressed group an apparent stake in toeing the line. At the very least, we “go along to get along” in many situations, and we may find that the more we curry favor with those in power, the more we are rewarded on an individual basis.
Because of this dynamic, if some role or practice X harms women as a group in that it sustains and reinforces patriarchy, it is utterly predictable that some women will choose it. Thus, again, the essential feminist question is not whether some individual women like or choose or benefit in certain ways from X, but whether the overall effect of X is to keep women as a group subordinate to men.
Rebecca gets it so amazingly right I could kiss her.
