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Feminism, Interrupted: Disrupting Power

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Lola Olufemi

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“[…] it’s not enough to argue that because the ‘wrong’ kind of people end up in prison we should rethink it. We must rethink the prison system and work to abolish it because feminism demands the abolition of systems and structures that make it impossible for us to live collectively. Prison obscures the causes of social ills; it sweeps violence under the rug and affirms the idea that it is inevitable. In a society that produces ‘criminals’, we all bear responsibility for transforming the structures that make this label possible.”

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Book:Feminism, Interrupted: Disrupting Power
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“मेरी उच्च शिक्षित और आत्मनिर्भर माँ जानती थी कि महिलाएं किसी भी पद पर पहुंच जाएं, घर-बार उन्हें खुद ही सम्हालना होगा इसीलिए माँ की ट्रेनिंग हर समय निर्बाध चलती रहती थी। हाँ, पापा के साथ खड़े होने के लिए मैं एक मजबूत कंधा बनने की कोशिश करती रहती थी।”

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Book:आई डोन्ट लाइक यू
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“Women had less opportunities to obtain food and required a lot of help, she needed a man. In order to ensure her own survival and the survival of her children, the women had little choice but to agree to whatever conditions the man stipulated so that he would stick around and share some of the burden. The feminine genes that made it to the next generation belonged to women who were submissive caretakers. Women who spent too much time fighting for power did not leave any of those powerful genes for future generations. The result of these different survival strategies, so the theory goes, is that men have been programmed to be ambitious and competitive and to excel in politics and business, whereas women have tended to move out of the way and dedicate their lives to raising children. But this approach also seems to be belied by the empirical evidence. Particularly problematic is the assumption that women's dependence on external help made them dependent on men rather than on other women, and that male competitiveness made men's socially dominant. There are many species of animals, such as elephants and bonobo chimpanzees, in which the dynamics between dependent females and competitive males results in a matriarchal society. Since females need external help, they are obliged to develop their social skills and learn how to cooperate and appease. They construct all female social networks that help each member raise her children. Males meanwhile spend their time fighting and competing. Their social skills and social bonds remain underdeveloped. Bonobo and elephant societies are controlled by strong networks of cooperative females, while the self-centered and uncooperative males are pushed to the sidelines. Though Bonobo females are weaker on average than the males, the females often gang up to beat males who overstepped their limits. If this is possible among bonobos and elephants, why not among Homo sapiens? Sapiens are relatively weak animals whose advantage rests in their ability to cooperate in large numbers. If so, we should expect that dependent women, even if they are dependent on men, would use their superior social skills to cooperate to alt maneuver and manipulate aggressive, autonomous, and self-centered men. How did it happen that in the one species whose success depends above all on cooperation, individuals who are supposedly less cooperative, men, control individuals who are supposedly more cooperative, women?”

Feminism
Book:Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
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“European culture, along with fake Christianity and capitalism, has transformed Western women into mere sex objects and showpieces of sexualized features. However, the greatest success of this culture and its business model has been its ability to convince women that being a single mother is a symbol of empowerment—that they are bold, not deceived. It has also led them to believe that walking naked in the street is a sign of beauty and intelligence, and that the more they expose their bodies, the more they represent freedom. Most women live under this illusion, thinking they are free and challenging outdated societal norms. But in reality, their thoughts and minds have been successfully hijacked. They have become mental slaves to new norms—norms carefully crafted and cleverly designed by a European male-dominated society to use women for their own purposes, and by businesses to exploit their bodies for profit. In the past 50 to 70 years, nothing has been commercialized more than the female body.”

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Book:"Zaki's Gift Of Love"
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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.”

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Book:Feminism, Interrupted: Disrupting Power
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“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.”

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Book:Feminism, Interrupted: Disrupting Power
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“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.”

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Book:Feminism, Interrupted: Disrupting Power
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