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bcholmesI have two computers that I use on a regular basis: one at home and one at work. I've just updated the .sig file of the computer at home. I've thrown a nice Ani quotation in there:
'cause I know the biggest crime
is just to throw up your hands
say this has nothing to do with me
I just want to live as comfortably as I can- "Willing to Fight"
I've been thinking a lot about radicalness, lately.
Seven or eight years ago, I started talking with an ex of mine after a hiatus of several years. We'd both changed a lot, and were catching up on each other's lives, and she said something that's stuck in my brain ever since. I was talking about my conversion to feminism, and she shrugged her shoulders in a dismissive way and I was really surprised. Eventually, while talking about that, she talked about how she felt that feminism had lost its radical potential. She said: "What if feminism managed to get equal pay for equal work, and still nothing was right with the world?"
I think there's a lot of shorthand in what she was saying. Her point didn't really acknowledge the plurality of feminisms and the existence of Mary Dalys and Catherine McKinnons. But, yeah, sometimes it seems like the movement that I think of as feminism isn't as radical as was once imagined.
Heck, I've sat through panels at uber-cool places like WisCon where people were openly contemptuous of radicalness. "Who's to say that there's something wrong with our society? Isn't that a value judgement and value judgements are baaaaaaad." Remember, we're supposed to be nice and liberal and non-judging and just repeat the mantra: YKIOK.
And I have similar reservations about trans politics, too. There are huge divisions in the trans community about what form trans politics should take. On one had, we have people like Susan Cook and the whole "women born transsexual" movement who say that all trans folk need is full legal recognition as their correct gender; after that, everything like marriage rights fall into place. On the other hand, we have people like Riki Anne Wilchins who believe that the whole idea of legal recognition of gender is flawed ab initio and needs to be thrown out.
And so when I hear the more conservative elements of the trans movement arguing for full legal recognition of gender, I think "what if we get that, and still nothing was right with the world?" Transfolk who argue against the more radical positions in trans politics say that throwing out gender isn't an achievable goal. People just won't change that way. Radicalness is self-marginalizing, and won't go anywhere as a result. Because, let's face it, the mainstream still sets the agenda about what discourses are really listened to.
And this is what Audre Lorde meant when she said that "the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house".
Around about here, my head starts to hurt. My sympathies clearly lie with the more radical voices in the trans community, but I'm well aware of just how unpalatable radicalness is to so many people. I try to think up a parallel saying to David Suzuki's "Think globally, act locally".
Hard problems. Hard, hard problems.
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(no subject)
Date: 2002-08-30 08:29 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2002-08-30 09:10 am (UTC)<smile>
Well said, oh serene one.
(no subject)
Date: 2002-08-30 09:13 am (UTC)Radicalism is hard; let's go shopping. ;-)
(no subject)
Date: 2002-08-30 09:58 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2002-08-30 11:22 am (UTC)*faint*
(no subject)
Date: 2002-08-30 11:41 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2002-08-30 11:49 am (UTC)she of the way-too-many see-through clothes
(no subject)
Date: 2002-08-30 01:53 pm (UTC)Is it getting warm in here?
(no subject)
Date: 2002-08-30 02:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2002-08-30 04:24 pm (UTC);)
living on the outside
Date: 2002-08-30 09:37 am (UTC)The most common criticism I hear thrown at radicals is that they are striving for something they can never acheive. I think that's missing the point.
Radicalism is necessary because it moves the centre.
Re: living on the outside
Date: 2002-08-30 11:14 am (UTC)Radicalism is necessary because it moves the centre.
Oooo. That's a nice, juicy idea. Have I mentioned being in love with you, recently?
Re: living on the outside
Date: 2002-08-30 12:50 pm (UTC)>>>preen<<<
(no subject)
Date: 2002-08-30 12:08 pm (UTC)Yeah, I think that any movement that's been around for a while and has any (oh dear, shakey ground here) relevance to the mainstream is going to get integrated into and coopted by that mainstream eventually, at least to some extent. But it's not all bad. Cf Siobhan's comment about shifting the centre.
Around about here, my head starts to hurt. My sympathies clearly lie with the more radical voices in the trans community, but I'm well aware of just how unpalatable radicalness is to so many people. I try to think up a parallel saying to David Suzuki's "Think globally, act locally".
What I think is that both aspects are needed. What you said about trans politics reminds me very much of the gay marriage issue currently. While many applaude the fight, many others feel it's misguided because marriage is such a corrupt institution that no one should participate in it.
My sense is that you're not likely to move directly to the radical, total social change place without passing through the less dramatic places. Any given change can be, in itself, *good*, without being sufficient in the long run. And that no one person needs to create all the change single-handed. Does that make sense?
What I get disheartened by is when the radicals and the moderates fight with each other, sometimes forgetting that they have a common foe that they can both oppose in their different ways.