“If patriarchy is a result of an impulse among men to oppress an
anatomically discrete group of people called women, on the basis of
their biology, then we end up in a difficult political situation. After
all, for the radical feminists who hold this position, sex remains an
immutable category (it must, otherwise “post-op” trans women would have
to be considered women in their schema). But, if sex and anatomy are
immutable and sex and anatomy are the cause for patriarchal social
structures developing, then we can’t actually do anything to effect the
structural roots of patriarchy. Patriarchy then emerges from an
immutable and invariable anatomical reality which we are helpless to
intervene in. Such a politics can only hope to offer a form of
nihilistic ressentiment aimed at men. This analytic framework actually
leads to a rather hopeless theory where we cannot clearly see how it is
that feminists could overcome patriarchy outside of the elimination of
the opposite sex (an obvious political impossibility). Thus, the baggage
which the radical feminist theory of biology and repression carries
with it is a tragic nihilistic determinism which naturalizes political
divisions and leaves us without any clear path forward. Is it any wonder
that contemporary radical feminist activism has failed to make systemic
and structural change and has instead settled for policing the
identities and expressions of trans women and sex workers? What else
could this theory hope to produce?
On the other hand, if
biology, sex, and anatomy are not the source of patriarchy; if they, in
fact, take on meaning and become mapped out as discrete modes of
categorization as a result of patriarchal oppression, then we have a way
forward. If this conception of the relationship between biology and
oppression is true, then we can overcome patriarchal oppression through
systemic and structural political struggle against men as a class and
against the material social conditions which create the exploitation of
women, and retroactively apply social meaning to biology and anatomy as a
justification for the exploitation of women.
If the radical feminist theory of biology leads to a sort of
deterministic nihilism, this materialist account, in contrast, leads to a
hopeful politics with the ability to create structural change, and to
abolish and overthrow the conditions which produce the very notions of
male and female. Perhaps you are willing to settle for deterministic
nihilism, but for myself and most the feminists radicals I know, this is
not an option. The baggage of the radical feminist position is simply
too heavy and too cumbersome to be worth endorsing.”
ce soir, envie d’écouter Juliette Armanet en fixant le plafond de ma chambre et chialer à chaque fois qu’elle monte d’un demi ton, quand c’est tellement beau que ça me fous des frissons, et repasser chaque chanson 5 fois
