Feminist history is full of examples, big and small, of women making valuable contributions, then being deemed entirely unworthy after being wrong about a particular issue. This is a logical fallacy called “poisoning the well;” if someone is wrong about one thing or bad in one way, they are therefore wrong about everything and bad in every way. Omar is a thief; I tell you that while he’s describing a crime he witnessed, and therefore you doubt Omar. Until he gives a stirring speech about how he and I are part of the same dirty system, because I am describing a memorable scene from The Wire. Or, a more common example: Your marriage ended in a bitter divorce. Therefore your former spouse is a terrible person who is wrong about everything, even the topics on which s/he was charmingly well-informed while you were married. Naomi Wolf attacked two women for filing rape claims; therefore, she is not a real feminist and can’t give advice about consensual sex.
To be blunt: This is just not how grown-ups think. And the increasingly Manichean slant of some contemporary feminists, in which one is either a perfect feminist who has never been wrong or a traitor who must be disgraced and expelled from the ranks, risks teaching us all to think less like like grown-ups. No-one is “a liar” or “a bad person.” People lie about some things, and are honest about others; people do bad things sometimes, and at other times they do good ones. This is the principle that allowed some feminists, myself included, to allow that Assange might be guilty, when other progressives were too much in love with WikiLeaks to admit that possibility. It should be the same principle that allows us not to make a punching bag out of Naomi Wolf.
From Sady Doyle at In These Times on the backlash against Naomi Wolf’s book, Vagina.
This is a particular thing with the “social justice tumblr” community or as I would describe them, activist writers to the left of me. Writers such as Jessica Valenti, who, it’s true, have f**ked up from time to time, are constantly held up as examples of the Worst Person in the World. Rather than kicking them out of feminism, these writers loudly and publicly abandon feminism themselves (although next day they’ll be writing a post the gist of which looks suspiciously feminist 😉 )
Imma agree with you here, but…
How as feminists do we deal with prominent feminists who are wonderful sometimes and absolutely fucking awful other times? I worry that it is easy for me as white/het/cis etc to forget about the damage done to women who are not white/het/cis by prominent feminists claiming that those women don’t have a role in feminism, aren’t really women etc.
Are there any discussion spaces that are still just internal to feminism?
I spent a summer reading magazines from the ’70s at the women’s house on campus, and vicious shunning used to happen even when these discussions went on via letters printed in the backs of feminist press magazines, but at least they weren’t all done at the same time as defending/explaining to trolls and mainstream press. That seems like it should make the criticism-with-love thing easier.
I agree that the Wolf takedown has been over the top and generally with Sady’s point. However, surely there is a tipping point where someone’s “wrong” positions begin to outweigh their “correct” positions and they justifiably lose the regard in which they were once held?
I agree with you, Tamara. Getting it wrong is perfectly reasonable from time to time, we are all human after all. There are plenty of prominent feminist voices out there with whom I agree on plenty of things, but then they will go ahead and post something on their blog or write an article from a pov that simply staggers me with its wrongness. After I get over my initial reaction I can usually still see where she is coming from even if I still disagree.
But then there are others who just seem to continue digging themselves into a deeper and deeper hole without ever redeeming themselves in any significant way. Eventually, I also agree with you that when the number of wrong positions begins to far outnumber the right ones it only seems correct to stop giving the benefit of the doubt or respecting their right to agree to disagree.
I’m deeply uncomfortable with the vitriol masquerading as criticism levelled at prominant people (and feminists) who fuck up. And even who *continually* get it wrong. And criticism is one thing but if it looks and quacks like a free for all, how can the person gain anything meaningful from it in order to grow or move forward? How do you trust the criticism that may be useful and worth thinking about from the vitriol that is just part of a generalised take down? I want to be able to disagree with the actions of certain people, and disagree vehemently, but I’ve no interest in diminishing them in the process. And so I feel I commit a greater wrong in the silence I keep… not criticising or questioning, not supporting, but not adding to the epic backlash stream either.
Then there is the idea that… the problematic ideas someone has, or says or talks about publically cancels out any of the insightful ideas they’ve brought to the table. I don’t think that’s true either – there is an argument to be made that some works/ideas/books/speeches/etc are important, are also problematic, and we should keep them and advance them, qualify them where the problematic aspects are and not be tied into the entirety of what someone says or does.
Things like this make me sad as a person to look on the community, but also, make me less want to speak up – what if I get it wrong? What if I fuck up my apology, what if… And doesn’t that just perpetuate all the things we’re trying to break through and let go of, and move on from? In many ways kyriarchy is the status quo that we seek to dislodge, but it is also so very good at preserving itself and situations like this… it is easy to see why.
On the other hand, isn’t it reasonable to be completely terrified that the public face of something that is dear to us, something that is supposed to create justice in the world – feminism – has just been made to look… absurd? I feel a gut-level threat from this book: it could be used to (rightly) consider the movement ridiculous.
Wouldn’t we be up in arms if some public face said, for instance, how they love gays because of their sense of style or blacks for their rhythm? Or some other ridiculous generalization/stereotype? Don’t we get to feel this way about Wolf?
But as Transcendancing pointed out, let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater. To do so would be… to do the thing we criticize.
that’s not so much on the individual writers/speakers who get so much prominence as it is about the way those voices are the ones most valued by mainstream press/news, though. It seems like the real attacks should go to the publishers who print/promote Wolf at the expense of more thoughtful voices and a reasonable level of criticism should go to Wolf.
She might be ridiculous at this point, but there’s no reason there shouldn’t be a much larger number of public big-publisher feminists who aren’t ridiculous, so she’s not treated as the face of the movement. That part isn’t about her at all, it’s the whole system.
There’s wrong, and then there’s WRONG.
Let me tell you the story of my life. My father says he is a feminist. While yelling at 16-year-old me for being in a stage play ‘like a brazen hussy’, he said he is a feminist but women should be modest. While cutting me off without a penny in the second year of college for having a boyfriend, he said he is a feminist but he cannot tolerate a woman making her own sexual decisions.
My mother says she is a feminist too. When I was sexually assaulted on the streets, the first question she asked was “What were you wearing?” and when I objected she said she is a feminist but that doesn’t mean I get to wear whatever I like. She shamed me over and over and over again for having sex before marriage; said she is a feminist but a “maiden’s” worth in the eyes of her inlaws is her virginity and now I was worthless.
Is everyone who claims to be a feminist, a feminist?
What about Sarah Palin and other “Feminists for Life” who think pregnant women are nothing but vessels for babies? Are they feminists too?
I fully recognize the concept of many different feminismS. There are ecofeminists who are just silly imo and essentialist feminists who are very fundamentally wrong about biology and transphobic radical feminists who imo are bigoted. There are womanists (feminists of color), there are liberal feminists, there are anarcha feminists, there are trans-friendly radical feminists. All these feminists exist, all these feminists are real feminists. This is because THEY FIGHT FOR WOMEN’S RIGHTS, no matter what their definition of woman.
When Naomi Wolf stopped fighting for women’s rights and fought for accused rapists’ rights instead, and did it in the name of feminism, she stopped being a feminist. Same goes for Feminists For Life: they fight against women’s rights and for fetal personhood in the name of feminism.
And that is what makes them anti-feminists, this deliberate hijacking of feminism into activism for the supremacy of something else over women’s fundamental rights.
I’m with you, Nandini. Excellent points, all. One cannot claim to be a feminist while at the same time fighting for, or speaking out for, the continued oppression of women by the patriarchy.
This is really the bottom line I think.
Preach!
I think you need to link to the actual piece/s that Naomi Wolf wrote on the Assange complainants. Coz, yeah, I agree with Nandini that there is wrong and there is WRONG:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/naomi-wolf/interpol-the-worlds-datin_b_793033.html
and that isn’t the only time she has been a rape apologist for Assange. She has done it again in the Huff Post, another internet article, and on television (at least twice). Indeed, bizarrely, her Huff Post article is based on incorrect facts about the Assange case taken from the Daily Mail, of all places.
Wolf doesn’t just come across as anti-feminist in the above link but she is actually wrong about the particulars of the rape allegations, the law (in particular Swedish law), and even basic facts about Sweden. Here is Swedish lawyer Goran Rudling dismantling her claims:
http://samtycke.nu/eng/2012/09/checking-naomi-wolfs-8-big-problems-in-the-assange-case-and-coming-up-empty/
and here
http://samtycke.nu/eng/2012/09/the-assange-case-naomi-wolf-errs-on-facts-and-basic-geography/
Note that Wolf is also calling for the anonymity of rape victims to be lifted, on reasoning that I find totally bizarre. She says that such anonymity is responsible for victim-shaming and for less police accountability. The first basis (that rape victims who choose to be anonymous are responsible for victim-shaming) is straight up victim blaming. The second basis (police accountability) ignores the fact that rape victims can waive anonymity and, in any event, she provides no hard data for the claim that waiving of anonymity would lead to more successful prosecutions.
I find it really hard to see Wolf as a credible feminist, let alone a credible academic based on the above. It would help if she actually retracted her despicable letter along with her other pieces of rape apologism. She indicated that she regretted the “phrasing” on the Mumsnet chat and that she might write a letter of apology but I am doubtful that she was sincere about truly regretting writing the Huff post piece (or any of her other bizarre claims about the Assange case).
ps: good job on making these comments subject to moderation. When I last tweeted something about Assange, some arsehole tweeted me the names of the two rape claimants and then proceeded to smear them (calling them “publicity whores” etc).
hmmmm…it would appear that only my first comment is subject to moderation. Bizarre.
Maybe the links in it?
I have to admit to not having a clear opinion on Naomi Wolf and the recent controversies but I thought this was an interesting discussion to have.
Agree with you that the take-down of her book has been particularly vicious. The general point of that article is interesting. It is hard for me to still think of certain friends of mine as still feminists when they have certain views that I disagree with (eg: religious friends who are anti-choice) and this article forced me to have a rethink.
I can only approach this q as an outsider who has been living in this land since the seventies. But a couple of things.
The patriarchy/kyriarchy split. These are both top theories of power. From a ‘personal is political’ perspective they describe the world as it is experienced and have great predictive power, unfortunately they contradict each other quite a bit.
There is quite a bit of pain associated with reading wrongheaded tripe written by those we admire, we can respond roughly and too intensely.
Feminism/s, as part of the critical tradition of philosophy values a good takedown. Many of its classics are takedowns, TFE, Millet’s sexual politics, etc and the tradition continues. This is exacerbated by the feminism’s status as an industry as well as a philosophy and our fascination with the shiny new thing. (It could be said that Wolfe is a classic example of this tendency, i didnt feel that TBM added a lot to the discussion that wasn’t covered by Susie Orbach and Murphy Brown between them)
Fundamentally tho i think It is kind of normal to fight most bitterly against those who we were recently and closely allined with, ESP when they say something wrongheaded.
I’m sympathetic to Sady’s article here. I agree with what many of you have said about claiming to be feminist while working with the patriarchy, but here’s my take – it’s very easy to attack a person instead of an idea, a choice instead of a structure. I’m interested in ideas, in structure, and I believe that’s it’s very important to stay as far away from ad hominem attacks as possible and the kind of thinking that fixates on specific public people, rather than systemic problems. A critique of an idea, or a book, is not the same thing as a critique of a person. And as @Transcendancing wrote, we need to be extra careful in the case of women and people of color to be mindful of how we articulate our disagreement with a set of ideas (vitriol disguised as critique, to use her expression). So for example, let’s take the breastfeeding professor. The comments about that “news story” were horrifying – it was like the body of this woman was on display to the world and we all wanted our pound of flesh, to judge and shame and pull her apart. Very few people, even on feminists sites, were saying, hey maybe instead of insulting this one woman and her putative choices, we should be looking at sick leave and patriarchal norms and professional standards and what all the hell else. Those are issues worth talking about, and that’s why we’re interested in this story. Instead, it turned into something uglier; rather than talk about Real Things, we go after that one woman, like a pack of wolves. Emptying venom on some poor professor with a sick kid is just gross. And you know that great post (omg I can’t remember where I saw if, forgive me bluemilk if it was here!) about the Duchess of Cambridge and how people were so gleeful about her topless photos, and the media and everyone else just couldn’t wait to punish her for existing, for being a woman, for wanting privacy and tried to make her into a whore (a body that exists only for public consumption)? That’s 100% right and I feel like that’s what the internets did to that professor and I feel like that’s what some folks are doing to Wolf. I’ve read some critiques of the book and I get them. Wolf does not generally promote ideas that I agree with (some I find outright repugnant), but when the piling on of venom starts to turn what happened to that professor, then I gotta bail. It crosses the line for me.
I get the distinction that @Nandini’s making, and I completely agree with her assessment of feminisms and faux feminisms. My position is that I’m not interested in a conversation about whether or not Wolf is a real feminist. I feel the same way about Palin; I’m not interested in some gross pile on of personal insults directed at her. I disagree with her ideas and here’s why. It’s like, let’s talk about the ideas in Wolf’s book, if they’re worth talking about even if only to refute. Otherwise, let’s ignore her and move on. If we’re angry at someone’s rape apologia, let’s talk about rape apologia, not about how someone isn’t really a feminist because she’s a rape apologist, or if she’s a “bad person” to use Sady’s example. I don’t know. I guess that’s pretty naive, since we live in a celebrity culture, which means people become more important than ideas, but shouldn’t we resist that, since we know that the association of feminism with visible feminists (all white and cis and USian and what have you) is a big Part of the Problem because that reduces public feminism to a very narrow range of ideas?
Agree with what you say about attack the idea but not the person. However, it can be difficult to draw that line when people put themselves forward as experts on certain things and then turn out not to be. The difficulty is that Wolf puts herself forward as an academic – someone whose work/writing is well-researched and methodologically sound. When someone is accepted as an academic, people generally trust what they say on certain subjects on the basis that their work is credible in that way. They become an authority and people do not go to the bother of researching the matters themselves (that is the whole point of having universities – so save the lay person from researching everything for themselves!). In Wolf’s case, time and time again she has shown that her research and methodology is shoddy so, as far as I see it, she is no longer worthy of being called an academic. That is a personal attack, I know, but unavoidable since her ideas are so intricately connected to this persona of the authoritative academic that she puts across.
I think the same goes for the term “feminist”. When someone calls themselves a feminist they are asking us to trust that they support women’s rights, equality etc. I don’t think it is unfair to then seek to challenge their use of that label if the substance of what they say is anti-feminist. That may be a personal attack but again, unavoidable.
I agree with you, Jen.
What concerns me is that there are certain prominent talking heads and bloggers who get held up as the face(s) of modern feminism. And they say some pretty heinous, privileged and offensive things that then seem to be the default position floating around the general consciousness. Much of the current discussion about breastfeeding in public, or working v staying at home, or pretty much any Mommy War topic is at times overtaken by these louder and more prominent voices even if they are not well informed from a feminist pov.
In Wolf’s case, she holds herself up as both a feminist and as an academic. Then she works the publicity machine as much as she can to get attention for the views she puts forth as a well informed, academic feminist. Of course she’s entitled to believe and say whatever she wants. But we as feminists don’t have to fall in lock step behind her (or anyone else) on these points, and it is healtly to have disagreement with and dissection of opinions with which we take issue as not being consistent with feminism.
Good point Lolagirl, especially when we know that our silence will be taken as agreement.
There is a good example of this going on at Twitter at the moment with @slutwalklondon who have just come out, along with Women Against Rape, in support of Assange.
No one actually gets “kicked out” of feminism. It’s a self-identifier. Whether you’re Roiphe or Wolfe, you can only kick yourself out, no matter what our radical “mean girlfriends” say. So people don’t like Wolfe’s book – so what? I’m sure, in part, she knew how much commentary she would drive with it. The idea of getting kicked out of feminism feels a little like playing into the old cat fight paradigm.