Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representations (Routledge Classics) (14 page)

Meeting Naomi Wolf when I gathered with a group of
feminist thinkers to engage in dialogue at the behest of Ms. magazine, I did not realize that I was in the presence of “power feminism.” I did see that I was in the presence of a young feminist who has come to power without in any way interrogating the way her body-politic and speech patterns negate possibilities of meaningful dialogue. Rapid, aggressive speech, a refusal to acknowledge others who wish to speak (recognizing them only after they interrupt and talk over you), and not listening are all tactics that remind me of the strategies for power outlined in patriarchal manuals that teach folks how to win through intimidation. These same strategies were used by Wolf when she appeared on the Charlie Rose talk show to discuss date rape. Appearing on a panel with women and white men, she seemed to find it easier to aggressively interrupt the black woman speaker while patiently listening to the words of white male speakers. A critical examination of this video would be a useful way to illustrate the practice of “power feminism.” When Wolf and I were introduced at the Ms. discussion she told me that she had been using my work to inform the writing of the then unpublished Fire with Fire but that she had to “stop reading it because of anxiety about influence.” At the time this seemed to be a rather backhanded compliment. I responded in my usual direct manner by sweetly stating, “I hope you won’t be like other white women who use my work and never acknowledge it.” She assured me that this was not the case. And any readers who choose to pore over the copious notes at the end of Fire with Fire will find my work cited and long passages quoted. In the prefatory statements to Note 180 Wolf writes:

“Victim Feminism”: Many feminist theorists have addressed the issues I raise. bell hooks’s work in Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center on sisterhood, victim culture, “trashing” and differences, has been particularly influential.

The long passages from my books Wolf appreciatively cites in her notes (which are not correlated numerically to specific passages in the main body of her work) seem to belie the fact that the one time my work is mentioned in the text its meaning is distorted and it is evoked as part of a passage that is meant to illustrate wrongminded thinking. Wolf contends, “Rather than bringing mainstream women to feminism in what writer bell hooks calls ‘a conversion process,’ insider feminism should go to them.” In actuality, I used the phrase “conversion process” to speak about the experience we undergo to become revolutionary feminists—when we give up one set of ideas to take up another. Concurrently, in the context in which this phrase was used I was emphasizing the need for feminist thinkers to create feminist theory that speaks to masses of women and men (not simply “mainstream women,” which seems in Wolf’s work to be a comfortable euphemism masking her central concern with women from mostly white and/or privileged class groups).

Throughout Fire with Fire, Naomi Wolf skillfully manipulates the meaning and message of much feminist thought so that she stands heroically alone as the “power feminist” with the insights and the answers. In a critique I wrote of Katie Roiphe’s work, I shared that I was compelled to write about The Morning After because I was so struck by the erasure of progressive feminist standpoints that recognize race and class to be factors that shape what it is to be female, and by her gratuitous attack on Alice Walker. Symbolically, I saw this attack as a form of backlash against those women within feminist movement, particularly women of color, who challenged all women and men engaged in feminist politics to recognize differences of race and class. It is as though privileged young white women feminists, unlike their older counterparts, feel much more comfortable publicly dismissing difference, dismissing issues of race and class when it suits them. As though given their own competitive vision, they see themselves as heroically wresting the movement away from
issues that do not centralize the concerns of white women from privileged classes.

Wolf consistently universalizes the category “woman” in Fire with Fire when she is speaking about the experiences of privileged white women. Though at times she gives lip service to a politics of inclusion, even going so far as to suggest that we need to hear more from feminist thinkers who are women of color, her own writing in no way highlights any such work. And even though she selects a quote from Audre Lorde as an epigraph for her book (“The Master’s tools will never dismantle the Master’s house”), she critiques it throughout as faulty, misguided logic.

Finally, in the middle of the book, she triumphantly declares in opposition not just to Lorde, but to the challenge to oppose patriarchy implicit in the original quote, that “the master’s tools can dismantle the master’s house.” Although I would never pick this particular quote (so often evoked by white women) to represent the significance of Lorde’s contribution to feminist thinking, Wolf decontextualizes this comment to deflect attention away from Lorde’s call for white women and all women to interrogate our lust for power within the existing political structure, our investment in oppressive systems of domination.

While trashing Lorde’s quote and making no meaningful reference to the large body of work she produced, Wolf attempts to represent Anita Hill and Madame C. J. Walker (inventor of the pressing comb and other hair straightening products) as examples of “power feminism.” The choice of Hill would seem more appropriate to the “victim category,” since her rise to prominence was based on the very premise of victimhood Wolf castigates. Madame C. J. Walker may have become a millionaire, but she did so by exploiting black folks’ profound, internalized racial self-hatred. I can respect Walker’s business acumen and long to follow that example without needing to claim her as a “feminist.” I can also fight for Hill’s right to have
justice as a victim of sexual harassment without needing to reinvent her as a feminist when she in no way identified herself as such.

Wolf’s flowery rhetoric tends to mask the aggressive assault on radical and revolutionary feminist thinking her work embodies. Charmed by her enthusiasm, by the hopefulness in her work, readers can overlook the frightening dismissal and belittling of feminist politics that is at the core of this book. Her insistence that capitalist power is synonymous with liberation and self-determination is profoundly misguided. It would be such a dis-empowering vision for masses of women and men who might easily acquire what she calls “a psychology of plenty” without ever having the kind of access to jobs and careers that would allow them material gain. In keeping with its denial of any political accountability for exploitation and oppression, particularly in relation to class elitism, “power feminism” is in no way inclusive. It resolutely chooses to ignore the lived experiences of masses of women and men who in no way have access to the “mainstream” of this society’s political and economic life. This rejection and erasure occurs because it would be impossible for Wolf to represent all the material and political gains of “power feminism” within the existing political and economic structure if she were to include folks who are underprivileged or poor. Her new vision of female power works best for the middle class. Indeed, she seeks to avoid political critique by stripping feminist practice of its radical political significance.

By rejecting feminism as a political movement that seeks to eradicate sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression, replacing it with the notion that feminism is simply “a theory of self-worth” even as she concedes that those who want a more social vision can “broadly” understand it as a “humanistic movement for social justice,” Wolf conveniently creates a feminist movement she can guide and direct. Thus depoliticized, this movement can embrace everyone, since it has no overt political tenets. This
“feminism” turns the movement away from politics back to a vision of individual self-help.

Both radical and revolutionary feminists long ago critiqued this opportunistic use of feminist thinking to improve one’s individual lifestyle. At times, Fire with Fire reads as a wordy, upbeat polemical tract, encouraging ruling-class white women and yuppie women of all races to forge ahead with their individual quests to, “have it all” within the capitalist culture of narcissism, and to take note of the way in which fighting for gender equality can advance their cause. Her message is that “women” can be pro-capitalist, rich, and progressive at the same time. Wolf’s insistence that “feminism should not be the property of the left or of Democrats” belies the political reality that reformist feminism has been the “only” feminist perspective the mass media has ever highlighted. No left feminism has been continuously spotlighted on national television or on the bestseller list. According to Wolf:

Many millions of conservative and Republican women hold fierce beliefs about opportunity for women, self-determination, ownership of business, and individualism; these must be respected as a right-wing version of feminism. These women’s energy and resources and ideology have as much right to the name of feminism, and could benefit women as much as and in some situations more than can left-wing feminism. The latter, while it is my own personal brand, does not hold a monopoly on caring about women and respecting their autonomy.

Sadly, Wolf’s genuine concern for women’s freedom is undermined by her refusal to interrogate self-centered notions of what it means to be on the left. Unwilling to expose the stereotype that all left feminists are not dogmatic, she reproduces it. Reading her work, one would think there is no visionary feminist thinking on the left. Such distortions of reality undermine her
insistence that she is offering a more inclusive, more respectable feminist vision. In actuality, her work (like that of Roiphe’s) exploits accounts of feminist excesses to further her argument. Her construction of a monolithic group of “mainstream women” who have been so brutalized by feminist excess that they cannot support the movement seems to exploit the very notion of victimhood she decries.

While I agree with her insistence that feminist thought and theory do not fully speak to the needs of masses of women and men, I do not think that we should strive to stimulate that interest by packaging a patronizing, simplistic brand of feminism that we can soft-sell.

Feminist movement is not a product—not a lifestyle. History documents that it has been a political movement emerging from the concrete struggle of women and men to oppose sexism and sexist oppression. We do a disservice to that history to deny its political and radical intent. Wolf’s trivialization of that intent undermines her chosen identification with left politics. Moreover, is it difficult to see the ways in which this identification informs the agenda she sets for feminism in Fire with Fire. Much of the “new” vision she espouses is a reworking of reformist liberal feminist solutions aimed at changing society primarily in those ways that grant certain groups of women social equality with men of their same class. Wolf is certainly correct in seeing value in reforms (some of her suggestions for working within the system are constructive). Reformist feminism was built on the foundation of radical and revolutionary feminist practice. Unlike Wolf, left-feminists like myself can appreciate the importance of reform without seeing it as opposing and negating revolutionary possibilities.

Luckily, the publication of Fire with Fire has created a public space where Wolf has many opportunities to engage in critical discussion about the meaning and significance of her work. Hopefully, the success of this work, coupled with all the new
information she can learn in the wake of dissident dialogues, will provide her time to read and think anew. Like Wolf, I believe feminist thinking is enriched by dissent. Opposing viewpoints should not be censored, silenced, or punished in any way. Deeply committed to a politics of solidarity wherein sisterhood is powerful because it emerges from a concrete practice of contestation, confrontation, and struggle, it is my dream that more feminist thinkers will live and work in such a way that our being embodies the power of feminist politics, the joy of feminist transformation.

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KATIE ROIPHE

A little feminist excess goes a long way

From the very onset of the contemporary movement for “women’s liberation,” feminist thinkers and activists have had difficulty coping with dissent. The call for unity and solidarity structured around notions that women constitute a sex class/caste with common experiences and common oppression made confrontation and contestation difficult. Divisions were often coped with by the forming of separate groups and by the development of different definitions and labels (radical feminist, reformist, liberal, Marxist, and so on). Significantly, conflict around the issue of common oppression reached its peak in discussions of race and class differences. Individual women of color, particularly black females, some of whom had been involved in the movement from its inception, some jointly engaged with women’s liberation and black power struggle, called attention to differences that could not be reconciled by
sentimental evocations of sisterhood; the face of feminism—the rhetoric, the theory, the definitions—began to change.

Visions of solidarity between women necessarily became more complex. Suddenly, neither the experiences of materially privileged groups of white females nor the category “woman” (often used when the specific experiences of white women were referred to) could be evoked without contestation, without white supremacy looming as the political ground of such assertions. These changes strengthened the power of feminist thought and feminist movement politically. They compelled feminist thinkers to problematize and theorize issues of solidarity, to recognize the interconnectedness of structures of domination, and to build a more inclusive movement. That work risks being undone and undermined by some of the current feminist writing by young white privileged women who strive to create a narrative of feminism (not a feminist movement) that recenters the experience of materially privileged white females in ways that deny race and class differences, not solely in relation to the construction of female identity but also in relation to feminist movement.