Feminism, Interrupted: Disrupting Power (Outspoken by Pluto)

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options to choose from: male and female. These categories refer to our ‘biological makeup’. To deviate from either option is unnatural But loosely, feminists have understood gender as our sense of self in the world, how we present our bodies, speak, move--anything that refers to our own bodies.

sex assignment: they recognise that throughout history, to be ‘female’ has often meant death, mutilation and oppression. Sex categorisation has been the starting point for well-known feminist theories. But the idea of sex as immutable became a focal point of radical, lesbian feminism in the West, and more specifically, Apolitical approaches, or approaches that seek to deaden the resistant potential of artistic practice are merely another mechanism through which the status quo is reproduced. The pressure to ‘do’ gender correctly is so embedded in our social lives that it is hard to conceive of a world without it. Coming to the realisation that everything you have been told about the fixed nature of your own body is a lie can shake you to your core. There is a kind of feminism that thrives off the anxiety caused by this realisation. Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists (TERFs) or those who call themselves ‘gender-critical’ use a specific feminist logic to locate the source of women’s oppression in biology. For them, sex is a fixed category that cannot be changed. While many young feminists espouse TERF ideology, the public face of TERF organising is often older liberal white and middle class women who vocalise ‘concerns’ about the inclusion of trans women in feminist spaces and women’s rights discourse, lamenting the ‘generational divides’ in feminist thinking. They view the changing nature of language to describe gender and sexuality as a threat to feminist advancement, tending to be dismissive of newer kinds of feminist practice that take a radically materialist and intersectional approach as their starting point. They use these concerns to foster a ‘trans panic!’: a manufactured fear that newer feminist movements erase cis women’s sex-based oppression, undermining the structural nature of misogyny and pushing more people to medically transition.In this context, Lola Olufemi’s new book is both a timely and stirring intervention. Feminism, Interrupted expresses the radical voices which are coming into feminism from the solidarity work taking place on the ground. It both unravels a silenced history of radicalism — and points toward a truly just future. In another timely facet of the book, Olufemi challenges attitude to prisons — and advances arguments for their abolition. Following in the footsteps of such luminaries and pioneers as Angela Davis, Ruth Gilmore, and Gina Dent, Olufemi argues that “the history of prisons is inseparable from the history of the British colonial endeavor.”

Whilst a number of feminist collectives/groups did rationalise themselves through essentialisms during what what is called ‘the second wave’ – many did not and its important to note how those feminists, placed on the periphery, were also invested in questions of race, class and exploitation. There has and will always be a tug-of-war of groups making different claims about what feminism is under the term and for this reason, it is important to clarify what you mean and understand by it when you deploy it. Running through Kendall’s work is the notion that “ solidarity is for white women”, the name of a campaign she started in 2013. It sounds divisive (and has been accused of being so), but look closer and it’s obvious what Kendall and others mean when they identify cliques and exclusivity among white feminists. They seek not to eject white women from the movement, of course, but to point out how those women, because of their platforms and access, bury the needs of others. Kendall cites as an example the fact that concern about rape culture in the US focuses on the date rape of suburban teens, and not the much higher rate of sexual assault faced by, for instance, indigenous and Alaskan women. Women of colour suffer twice, as the patriarchal state can also be racist a violation of ‘harmony – wholeness, being.’ Though disguised, the credence given to biology in these arguments affirmed theOlufemi’s book is a brave manifesto. There is a lot at stake in asking us to dismantle our current systems and overhaul them completely. And women who have benefited from these oppressive systems by being allowed an inch of hegemony will not give up without a fight. The commonplace idea of “waves” of feminism may give a misleading picture of incremental achievements, inch by inch, stride by stride — allowing us to tell ourselves comfortable stories about progress. However, these histories are built on colonial, racist, capitalist narratives that leave patriarchy intact while excluding many women. Perhaps the most ironic aspect of white feminism is that, by subscribing to a limited struggle, women lose out on a prospect of overarching liberation which would benefit us all. Olufemi starts from looking at “the sexist state” and its use of austerity and state violence. Here, she maintains a decisive focus on British cases — avoiding the all-too-common tendency for discussions of racist police violence to end up deflecting attention to the United States alone. The incarceration of asylum seekers in institutions such as Yarl’s Wood detention center is a crucial focus, here: feminist struggles which focus on citizenship-based rights neglect the fact that some of the most vulnerable women, most in need of solidarity, are denied access to those very rights. This demands an overhaul of a state system whose own structures perpetuate patriarchal violence. Often, it is hard to credit these movements because they are leaderless and made up of working class women who strategically work through a collective voice rather than as individuals. I’m interested in what gets considered “feminist work” and how the liberal engulfing of feminism as a discourse has led to the idea that movements against ecological crisis, state power, facism and neo-colonialism are somehow unconnected from feminism and feminist thinking. When I say feminism, I mean trans liberation – and the refusal to impose limits on the possibility of queer life that confounds everything we know and understand by ‘gender’, ‘sex’, ‘race’, ‘the family’ and so on. In the book, I was trying to speak to feminism in the broadest terms, not to argue that everyone should be happy with the term or adhere to it or (I don’t think that’s particularly important) but to underline the very serious demands that it makes of us those interested in making the world more liveable. And to hammer home that if we are committed to feminist principles, that will change how we move through the world, what our priorities are and how we organise. A brave manifesto ... [Feminism Interrupted] unravels a silenced history of radicalism and points toward a truly just future'

There is a dangerous liberal feminism that fetishises personal choice: Can you be a feminist and wear high heels? Can you be a feminist and shave your legs? But policing the way women present themselves distracts us from the more pressing issues at hand. Why are women the lowest paid workers? Why do women have the least access to the material resources necessary for survival? Are women free from violence? If not, then why not? The latter questions asks us to open our eyes and examine the way our society functions while the former are concerned with ‘choice’ as if choice exists in a vacuum. Our obsession with locating the singular universal cause of women’s oppression stops us from engaging with the mechanisms of that oppression that manifest in daily life: the economic, the political, the social. This narrow scope for thinking about our own oppression has undoubtedly led many feminists to fall prey to the myth that trans women pose a threat to feminist advancements. As I’ve gotten older, I believe more in the possibility of transformative gender relations and crafting political ideas/demands that account for everyone. At a certain point I changed my mind about ‘work/careers’ being the most defining aspect of a person’s life, the necessity to ‘love’ your job and instead chose to think about work in terms of what capitalism does to our bodies and minds, what we are missing out on, what we don’t get to do. There are ideological links between biological essentialism and scientific racism: both see the body in absolute terms. Many prominent TERFS and their allies have aligned themselves with members of the alt-right. Well-known British feminists have appeared in YouTube videos hosted by men spreading alt-right fascistic ideology in the art world. In the US, the ‘Women’s Liberation Front’ colluded with conservative and religious groups

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Where interventions using law and policy might mean the difference between stopping an illegal deportation, use it. Where community organising might help in providing urgent care to people abandoned by the state, use it. I think in many ways a watershed moment has come – younger feminists who are being politicised much earlier because of the breakdown of economies, the onset of this pandemic, ecological crisis, the instability of the neoliberal age are able to see through the smokescreen that liberal feminism places over our priorities.

This point about changing your mind is really key, and you made it earlier as well. Now this might be somewhat exposing, but it’s also very interesting: in what ways have you changed your mind over the years and why? I think anyone who is introduced to feminism as a political practice through engagement with white feminist thinkers of the ‘second wave’ has a lot of unlearning to do. I think that a certain kind of thinking can really limit your conception of what is possible. Lorde, Audre. 1979. The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House. In Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches, ed. Audre Lorde, 110–113. Berkley: Crossing Press.idea that women are born, and not made or named; that there is something inherent in biology that is crucial to womanhood. area where male dominance was exerted using genitalia. During the 1970s and 80s, women’s oppression was analysed exclusively by some feminists, through the lens of sex and sexuality. They argued that sex work and pornography put women in subordinate positions, and were akin to violation. This way of viewing women, their bodies and their relations with men was central to a number of high-profile Western feminist disputes. The most notable example is the pornography wars of the 1990s between anti-porn feminists who argued that pornography subjugated women and exploited their bodies, and pro-sex feminists who argued that pornography provided some possibility for agency in women’s expression of sexuality. Lola offers a crucial vision that imagines beyond racist, capitalist solutions to oppression... the necessity of this book cannot be overstated for those who call themselves feminists and those who eschew feminism as it presents itself' The women’s campaign at my university was the space where my politics developed, it was always concerned with thinking beyond the limits of student life and engaging with other radical feminist projects across the country and in our local community. Organising outside of institutions, at a grassroots level, has reminded me of the importance of not being subsumed by them and rejecting the benefits they offer you in favour of community. The occupation, strike, sit in, forms of direct action are all moments of revelation in my opinion. and to ‘journey’ from one to another is sacrilege. Because our society sees sex as ‘natural’, and therefore self-evident, it has