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Quote by Lola Olufemi

“Everybody has a story about how they arrived and keep arriving at radical politics. Some of us are politicised by the trauma of our own experiences, by wars waged in our names, by our parents and lovers, by the internet. It’s useful to share the ways we become politicised if only because it helps politicise others.”

Quote by Lola Olufemi

Work

Feminism, Interrupted: Disrupting Power

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Lola Olufemi

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“I read about how freedom requires upheaval and must be fought for, not romanticised. It was during this period that I realised that feminism was not simple. There were no pre-given solutions. The ‘answer’, if there was one, required us to place different feminisms in conversation and necessitated a radical flexibility in our organising. Feminism was complicated and messy in ways that made me reconsider my foundational political beliefs: equality versus liberation, reform versus abolition. Feminism meant hard work, the kind done without reward or recognition, the kind that requires an unshakeable belief in its importance, the kind that is long and tiresome, but that creates a sense of purpose. It proposed a new way of being that transformed the way I looked at the world.”

“We all begin somewhere. A feminist understanding is not inherent; it is something that must be crafted. Theory does not only mean reading dense academic texts. Theory can be lived, held, shared. It is a breathing, changeable thing that can be infused in many political and artistic forms. Learning requires the patience and empathy of those around you and an investment in the importance of radical education.”

“Perhaps a hopeful pessimism is our best chance — we organise across difference not because it solves our problems, but because the visions we seek to enact must be able to account for everyone. We are too involved in one another’s lives, for better or worse. Chandra Mohanty argued ‘the practice of solidarity foregrounds communities of people who have chosen to work and fight together.’ She cites Jodi Dean, who argies that ‘reflectice solidarity’ is crafted by an interaction involving three persons: ‘I ask you to stand by me over me and against a third.’ Solidarity is a belief in one another that should be extended and rescinded accordingly. At the very least, it helps sharpen our focus on that third, who threatens our attempts to build a feminist future.”

“Refusing neo-liberalism will open you up to a world where ‘feminist’ means much more than ‘woman’ or ‘equality’. Making these connections is crucial to any revolutionary work because it means that nobody is left behind, nobody’s exploitation goes unseen. It asks us to practice radical compassion, to refuse to ignore the pain of others. It demands that we see how tackling seemingly unrelated phenomena like prison expansion, the rise of fascism, neocolonialism and climate crisis must also become our priorities.”