Socialist Feminism

[bcholmes]

I saw an interesting panel yesterday.

I know a guy from Haiti activism circles. He's the head honcho in a local socialist organization, and his group puts on an annual socialism conference. Over the last few years, this conference has been scheduled on the weekend that conflicts with Wiscon, so I haven't been to very many of the conferences, but this year, he was holding it on the May Two-Four weekend.

The panel description is as follows:

Origins of Sexism and the fight for Women's Liberation Today

Christine Gauvreau, leading member of [Socialist Action]-USA, based in Connecticutt; and Cheri MacDonald, veteran socialist-feminist and campaigner for Ontario Coalition of Abortion Clinics.

The two speakers had very different styles but both were good speakers. Cheri, in particular, had a very comfortable, story-telling style and she talked in anecdotes, describing her hopes and fears for the coming triple-threat conservatives (Harper, Hudak, Ford). Christine approached her part of the talk much more academically, but her talk was really good.

What I liked, especially, about Christine's talk was that she rooted her talk in the origins of sexism. Her argument (which I'm sure is hyper-simplified, given that she was only speaking for about a half hour) was that many of the cultural constructs of patriarchy originate as feudalism was facing its first big economic crisis (she situates this in the late 1500s). It's around this time, she argues, that the state becomes interested in registering marriages and births, that church edicts about reproduction begin, etc. And it's also when there's a real market driver for accusing people of witchcraft: if they're witches, then the feudal lord can seize any belongings after they're dispatched. (Never again the squooshed under rocks times!)

I like the analysis because of the way that it echoes this particular idea that I've quoted before. Another Socialist Action dude, Jeff Mackler, used this line a few years ago at one of the predecessors of this conference. He described talking to other, non-socialist activists and said (I'm paraphrasing): "We all agree about what the great evils in the world are: sexism, racism, homophobia. The only difference is that we socialists don't believe that those things come from nowhere."

I don't have enough background knowledge in this area to assess Christine's analysis. But it's the kind of analysis I'd like to see more of. I confess that it's a type of conversation that I'd like to see more often at Wiscon. I think that it's one of the reasons why I find myself underwhelmed by conversations about class at Wiscon. Now, I've been part of some of those conversations, so I share the blame for any failings on those conversation. But the Wiscon framework for discussing difference is to look at representation, and the clear articulation (often through artistic means) of how a particular -ism looks and feels like to the people in the margins. I don't want to deny that that's important and potent stuff. But there is something weird about using that starting position for the discussion of class given the size of material that looks at the structural apparatus and root causes of classism. To start with "what books represent class well?" seems kinda weird to me.

I was somewhat apprehensive about comments later in Christine's talk where she seemed to diss third wave feminism. Her argument was that third wave feminism had no ability to organize or mobilize. She cited, for example, the absence of a real national movement to fight for abortion rights in the states to counter the very well-organized anti-abortion movement. In her mind, the absence of such a movement was causing the loss of political ground. (She did point to the Slutwalk as an exception to this criticism).

I was mentally rehearsing a question in response to this. I was interested in asking them to comment on the idea, often expressed by wisconers-of-colour that 2nd wave feminism really failed to come to grips with intersectionality. (In retrospect, I think I should have just gone with where I stood in the conversation: 2nd wave feminism had nothing good to say about trans women. Discuss.) But during a different question, Cheri broached similar ideas. She was talking about the perception of 2nd-wave feminism as a white, middle class movement. She argued that the people who were on the frontlines were certainly not so heterogeneous homogeneous. Instead, she argued that for too many people, 2nd wave feminism was defined by the way women's studies departments looked at major universities, and those circles were very heterogeneous homogeneous.

They also talked about the multiple feminisms and acknowledged that today, in many important conversations, groups such as aboriginal or immigrant feminist groups are way ahead in the analysis and organizing and we need to look to their leadership. I ended up coming to the conclusion that a Q&A question could not actually address this topic. Due to time constraints, if nothing else, the answer would be too facile. It'd hafta be some bigger conversation.

I was a bit wary of offhanded remarks that both presenters made about porn, hinting at what I suspect is a pretty typical second-wave view of porn. And, sure, I get that (in boxofdelights' words) so much porn has no aspiration whatsoever to crush the patriarchy. But I still don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. But, in general, I really enjoyed the material and the speakers.