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Direction for the Fourth Wave | |
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> | Second Wave Feminism: Consciousness Raising | | | | |
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< | -- By MelissaMouritsen - 27 Apr 2022 | >
> | The Personal is Political. Hanisch’s iconic phrase is often repeated and more often misunderstood; the importance of this message merits revisiting. Although written in 1969, her essay is anything but anachronistic today. In the face of Roe’s reversal, feminists must revive the activism of our grandmothers, from preparing at-home abortion devices to legal petitions. But why are reliving our grandmothers' hard-fought victories? This is the defining question for fourth-wave feminists, and the answer lies, in part, in feminists’ abandonment of consciousness-raising. | | | | |
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The present echoes of a former generation as women prepare for the elimination of abortion access as a consitutional right. The pendening Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization demands that feminists revisit 1960’s acitivism. This is valuable not only for reviving the use at-home abortion devices, but also for critically inquiring why we are we reliving our grandmothers’ hard fought battles. This is the defining question for the emergent fourth wave of feminism, which may be answered by analyzing the abandonment of consciousness raising. | >
> | Principles of the Praxis | | | | |
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> | Radical feminists in the 1960s initiated consciousness raising groups as a means to confront the former meaning of self-deception. Through the praxis of critical consciousness development, women discovered the possibility of an autonomy free from internalized cultural conditioning but realized that this was only possible through political solutions. In this way, the women collectively birthed a revolutionary praxis that would transform their emotional, intellectual, and social understandings of oppression. | | | | |
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< | White Legal Feminism and Liberalism | | | | |
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< | 21st century legal feminism’s myopic focus on privacy and non-interference rights reflects the values of the white-upper class liberalism adopted by feminists at the (perceived) forefront of the third wave. Reluctant to destabilize the foundations of the legal system perpetuating inequality (such as the criminogenic nature of incarceration), this version of feminism posits the paramount recourse available to women as “liberalism’s signature cocktail of individual rights, formal equality, limited government, and the rule of law." This recourse endows feminism with a “false generosity” – a temporary softening of oppression has been reconceptualized as its goal, and the radical agenda set aside. As Audre Lorde laments, this version of feminism confines itself to using the master’s tools to deconstruct the master’s house; legal feminism has done the same by trying to work within the current conceptions of constitutional law rather than reimagining the law’s principal values.
Working within the confines of the legal system to confront structural inequality confronts the same impetus Justice Marshall acknowledged in Johnson vs. McIntosh when justifying colonization. Using the gloss of legal jargon, Marshall circumvents analysis of the legitimacy of colonialism and instead manifests that “[the legacy of colonialism] becomes the law of the land and cannot be questioned.” If the limits of constitutional values are unquestionable by the law as Marshall suggests here, then perhaps his subsequent observation is likewise true: “If it be true, that that wrongs have been inflicted, and that still greater are to be apprehended, this is not the tribunal which can redress the past or prevent the future.” | >
> | The pedagogical resistance to integrating emotion into theoretical and political discussions derives from a pervasive sentiment that a “right” interpretation of the truth can be discovered by filtering the objective from the subjective. Pursuit of an objective truth predominates feminist legal methods which assume that “knowledge [of truth] is accessible and, when obtained, can make law more rational,” which will improve the law. However, legal feminists must question the epistemological underpinnings of conceptualizing “truth” as a delineated, objective abstraction. | | | | |
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< | A New Tribunal: Consciousness-Raising Praxis
This is not to say that legal feminism’s victories – such as equal protection, affirmative consent and abortion rights, to name a few – are inutile. These battles are and continue to be integral, but a truly radical feminist ideology demands more: it demands scrutiny of the gendered psychosocial structures covertly operating in society that considers itself liberated and likewise a scrutiny of the movement’s methodology that failed to address this.
Coopting the labor of queer feminists of color, third wave white feminists dismissed intersectionality as divisive to create a heterogenous, exclusionary “collective” identity – a legacy which fourth wave feminists must actively resist, for the echo chamber of this exclusionary group has proven blind to its own shortcomings. | | | | |
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> | Consciousness-raising implicitly refutes this conceptualization and instead presumes that “truth”’ inherently has multiple meanings. CR derives its value from the fact that individuals’ social positionality will invariably induce different interpretations of the same experience and the integrated understanding will get closer to the truth." CR does not seek to filter out contradictory interpretations or to uncover the enshrouded objectivity, for the assumed concept of truth moves beyond the subjective/objective binary. With this recognition, “truth” is not an end goal to be attained; rather, the truth is something dynamic “that must be continually subject to the effort to reappraise, deconstruct, and transform”. This process of continual rediscovery is the source of radial imagination that generates individual self-realization, incentivizes new academic inquiry, and sparks social activism. | | | | |
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< | Principles of the Praxis
“A feminism that trades too freely in notions of self-deception is a feminism that risks dominating the subjects it presumes to liberate.” - The Right to Sex
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< | Self-deception has a dual meaning in this context. On the individual level, self-deception is regarding one’s own thought processes as untrammeled and unencumbered by ideologies logically rejected. On the collective level, a feminism that conceptualizes itself a cohesive unit of women with heterogenous interests is likewise deception.
Radical feminists in the 1960s initiated conciousness raising groups as a means to confront the former meaning of self-decption, but failed to embrace the latter. These women were focused on uncovering the way in which their adaptation, which had been an essential refuge in fighting for survival, was simultaneously a restraint. Through the praxis of critical consciousness development, women began the process of discovering the possibility of an autonomy free from self-regulation. By the 1980s, third wave feminists dismissed these groups as merely _precursors_ to political action or as psuedo-therapy for voicing complaints and instead focused their efforts on formal legal equality. Devoid of critical consciousness raising and the accompanying integration of diverse perspectives, feminism dissociated itself from the very source of its power. | >
> | CR induces self-realization because it encourages female participants to confront the “division of the self” produced by internalized sexism of which other members help them become aware. This greater awareness of covert sexism broadens the intellectual horizon, and these combined forces generate activism, which in turn incentivizes greater self and intellectual inquiry. In this way, CR is vital to effectuate action at all points on the movements’ timeline, not merely valuable as a precursor to action as it was misunderstood by subsequent generations. | | | | |
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> | Loss of the Radical Imagination
As the second wave turned to the third, the abandonment of CR practices resulted in self-deception. In conceptualizing “solidarity” as a homogenous collective rather than engaging with complexities, white feminists "trade[d] too freely in notions of self-deception" and created a feminism "dominating the subjects it presumes to liberate." | | | | |
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< | Emotion has a Place Here
Clinging to preconceived boundaries of the self - or of the movement - stems in part from a [http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon2/pedagogy/pedagogypreface.html][fear of liberation]] and a fear of the ambiguity that would be induced by integrating the rational and emotional. Western culture has lauded rationality as the ideal and as inherently part of the masculine sphere of influence; emotional inquiries have been dismissed as simply “naval gazing”. In an effort to reclaim voice in the mascuiline governance sphere, many women have internalized its fixation on rationality. This is especially potent for legal feminists, as jurisprudence gains its legitimacy from a false bifurification of emotion and reason. By confining its inquiries to the bounds of traditional law and order, legal feminism obscurificates the underlying need – a need that, if unaddressed, will confine feminits to fighting reruns of their grandmothers’ battles. This need is for consciousness raising. | | | | |
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> | Although the second-wave feminists' goal of fostering a solidarity of sisterhood intended to value each woman’s truth equally, priviledged speakers’ narratives dominated. White women often dismissed discussions of intersectional issues as divisive because of the added complexity and replaced CR practices with more “practical,” actionable reform. This shift may be attributed the idea that legitimacy in the (masculine) governance sphere requires emotionlessness. Legal feminists experience this pressure twofold, as jurisprudence itself gains its legitimacy from a false bifurcation of emotion and reason. By confining its inquiries to the bounds of traditional law and order, legal feminism obscurificated the underlying issue by offering as recourse “liberalism’s signature cocktail of individual rights, formal equality, limited government, and the rule of law." This recourse endowed feminism with a “false generosity” – instead of pursuing a radical agenda, third-wave feminists’ end goal became a temporary softening of oppression. In abandoning the praxis of consciousness-raising, the feminist movement inadvertently stifled the radical imagination. | | | | |
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< | Tension as a Source of Action | | | | |
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< | Just as individual consciousness raising destabilizes self-conception, so does the movement’s consciousness raising – embracing the coexisting and conflicting interests poised by feminists’ intersectional identities destbalizes the third wave’s imagined “collective.” Yet this destabilization does not undermine: engagement with inherent tensions– such as identifying as “women” while simultaneously recognizing the limited framework of a binary conception of gender – is essential cultivating the radical imagination. Consciousness raising groups’ lack of political agenda incentivizes inclusion of diverse perspectives without censoring individuals for having different goals: in this space, “difference[s] must not merely be tolerated, but seen as a fund of necessary polarities between which our creativity can spark.” Difference doesn’t fracture; embracing difference raises the consciousness of the movement and its members, allowing for a creatively radical reimagination of liberty beyond the confines of liberalism. It's an imagination of a world where our granddaughters will not fight this same fight again. Although this is a radical agenda, it is not so in practice – it is simply a redirection of conversation. | >
> | Difference need not fracture; grappling with the complexities of intra-group differences cultivates the radical imagination. Without listening to the voices of women from unique positionalities, feminism reaches a glass ceiling of its own creation. Consciousness-raising groups need not pursue a united agenda; in fact, the lack of political agenda incentivizes the inclusion of diverse perspectives without censoring individuals for having different goals: in this space, "difference[s] must not merely be tolerated, but seen as a fund of necessary polarities between which our creativity can spark." Only by listening to all women can feminism conceive the creative solutions required to effectuate justice. | | | | |
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I'm not sure of your chosen readership, although Tasha is justifiably an enthusiastic part of it. If the history of US feminist thought and the value of consciousness raising are the actual as well as ostensible subjects, and the women around you in law school, like Tasha, are the intended readership, then I think there are two good routes to improvement. First, the second-wave history from which "consciousness raising" emerged could use a little more direct attention: it is here described largely in the doctrinaire terms established by later, surprisingly unsympathetic dialogue. Because my mother was so directly involved in that intellectual and political movement, and because I was the oldest male person not required to leave the apartment when conscious raising in my mother's first group was going on, I have a clearer and more empathetic relationship to these events. The women who made their collective self-analyses the root of their politics were activated in the civil rights movement of the early '60s, and anti-war and anti-draft activism thereafter. They were accustomed to anti-racial and anti-capitalist ideological self-development; their feminism was neither separated from nor at any moment unaware of those larger struggles. Recapturing what they thought and how they built is valuable to your readership and part of the conversation you want. | | | | |
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< | In particular, I think, therefore, the second route to improvement is to focus clearly and simply on the consciousness raising process for which your current draft rather abstractly advocates. The second wave intellectuals created women's studies as a discipline (my mother was one of the team that built the first undergraduate program in the US), out of which so much of the current discourse has grown. But it does not effectively capture, I think, the particular combination of real joy and ironic outrage that the form of conversation that was even more than "consciousness-raising" produced. It's the emotional tenor of that moment, as well as its reshaping of so much social, political and literary theory, that stands to benefit you in your inquiry. | >
> | This is not to say that legal feminism’s victories – such as equal protection, affirmative consent, and abortion rights, to name a few – are inutile. These battles are and continue to be integral, but a truly radical feminist ideology demands more: it demands scrutiny of the gendered psychosocial structures covertly operating in a society that erroneously considers itself liberated and likewise scrutiny of the movement’s methodology that failed to address this. | | | | |
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> | With this in mind, Fourth-Wave feminists must revive the praxis of consciousness-raising. Legal feminists should pursue a “perverse civil rights strategy”that resists the temptation to cling to traditional ‘rational’ methodology and instead remember to remake feminism and its methods routinely. | | | | |
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< | Hi Melissa, | | | | |
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< | Reading your essay, I identified with the tensions in legal feminism: sometimes the small victories (like abortion rights) seem too insignificant in the grand scheme of injustice to celebrate, yet sometimes I need to cling to the small wins to avoid feeling hopeless. This is just one of the many relics of white legal feminism and liberalism that I find myself slipping into when I do not undertake enough time for reflection and internal consciousness raising. Admitting that to myself feels both important and wholly insufficient, yet another tension.
While reading your thoughts on how third wave feminism confined itself to using the tools of the master to dismantle the master’s house, I thought of the discourse surrounding Kamala Harris becoming the first woman/ black/ South Asian American Vice President. The instinct to celebrate this historic event as progress was paired with the recognition that Harris has harmed and continues to harm communities of color and women of color. As many memes/tweets pointed out, celebrating Harris is celebrating having more diverse oppressors. This inherent tension, like so many you highlight in your essay, can be difficult to grapple with, as there seems to be no traditional legal solution (i.e. using the master’s tools) to resolve these nuances. Given this, I really appreciate your perspective on how consciousness raising in and of itself is the power of feminism. Thank you for sharing. - Tasha | | | \ No newline at end of file | |
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> | With the increasing understanding that gender exists on a spectrum rather than as a binary, feminism must redefine itself as not simply a movement for (white) women, but rather a movement for all. CR practices may also be remade. Feminists must listen to our sisters as our grandmothers did in the 60s, to our brothers about the normative grip of masculinity, and to transgender and nonbinary folx about how to enact radical self-determination. This is critical because it is only with higher consciousness can we as a society see that gender equality is far from attained and, someday, effectuate a creative, radical solution that moves beyond the noninterference right attempted (and denied) by Dobbs. |
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