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Why
feminist autonomy right now?
Patricia
McFadden
June 04, 2004
Pat McFadden
is a feminist activist and writer currently based in the US.
http://www.fito.co.za/sub/articles.htm
Writing about
Autonomy
Sometimes
when I set out to write about the things that concern me most, matters
that often keep me pre-occupied for nights on end even as they nurture
and sustain my political soul, it seems to take forever to find
that specific entry point; that intellectual "soft spot"
that is at once so elusive and yet so vital to the rhythm and essence
of written ideas and dreams. Every writer knows when she has found
"it" - that turn-key phrase; that sensation she feels
in a space between her heart and her navel - and the realisation
that the idea is ready to be set free.
Often it takes
many nights and days of "dreaming" about the words, the
sensations and sensibilities that I need to gather into one little
mound, each one slipping and sliding, playfully coming in and out
of my mind whenever it feels like it - and never knowing when a
part of an idea will tap on my consciousness in the early hours
of the morning, demanding that I lift it up gently and add it to
my "treasure trove" of intellectual resources. It's a
truly fascinating experience once one stops to watch it unfold:
every moment creates its resources, its own lexicon. Each moment
provides the means through which those who dare, can speak, and
speak clearly and unequivocally to the realities that confront them.
Once one begins
to think about Autonomy - to probe its inner depths, one soon realises
how easily it can slip away from a thoughtful space. Somehow, the
notion ebbs and flows, defying the ease with which so many other
feminist notions or terms can be retrieved. Even when one tries
to peg it down - with the weight of a lived political experience,
for example, the notion seems to defy easy definition - invariably
demanding that one look more deeply into oneself, and open up to
emotions that are both challenging and saturated with promise.
It is the ambivalence
that characterises the use of this notion, its immeasurable potency,
(a potency which remains largely unexplored, even suspect among
many), that has drawn me to journey into its meanings at a personal
and political level. The joy is in journeying to that place, where
the words, feelings and inspiration come together for a precious
yet limited moment, clarifying both the political challenges which
the notion poses, and relishing the sense of freedom and openness
that its embrace encourages in the writer. This is what makes a
journey into its wonder-lands not only desirable but also imperative
for any feminist worth her salt.
The fascinating
possibilities of unbounded liberation that "Autonomy"
suggests are linked to being a writer able to speak and dream through
the written word. And the written word allows one to make magic
every time one enters forbidden domains. I'm anticipating this magical
moment in the next few pages in the hope that they will share with
the reader both the pleasure and courage of what it means to be
a thinking, imagining, passionate Autonomous woman.
Somehow I also
had to write on Feminist Autonomy for myself - for the pleasure
and the pain of thinking things through, over many weeks; collecting
the "nuts and bolts" of what I was feeling at first; then
imagining the contours and textures of the notion, its possibilities
and energies, as it seemed more and more possible to say something
about a critical issue that is receiving too little attention in
African feminist writing and discourse, even though it has become
even more pivotal to the character of feminist consciousness, especially
in these darkening days of easy compromise and collusion.
New Challenges
for Feminist Autonomy
Recently,
as they struggle to respond to the challenges posed by neo-imperialism
and militarism across their worlds, there has been a renewed interest
in issues of Feminist Autonomy among radical feminists in Europe,
Latin America, Asia and the Caribbean. At a general level, the African
continent is faced with a multitude of threats - both old and new
- and the need for a new, principled, and honest leadership at the
level of the state cannot be over-stated. How Africa can become
"autonomous" in the face of a renewed, voraciously neo-imperialist
agenda is truly the challenge of the century. I will not pretend
to consider the enormity of that quest. But for feminists on the
continent, the question is both urgent and unavoidable. Given the
"spill-over" of nationalist ideological influences and
rhetoric into the spaces we have come to regard as the "African
women's Movement", I am convinced that an interrogation of
the relevance of Autonomy for individual feminists is not only unavoidable,
but essential to our continued existence and the viability of our
political praxis.
A feminist notion
of Autonomy must respond to the upsurge in rightwing reactionary
tendencies both within the broader African political, social and
cultural context, as well as within the African women's Movement
as a gendered space. In both instances, Autonomy can derive only
from rejecting archaic notions of identity and belonging (what it
means to be "authentically" or "traditionally"
African), and actively resisting the conservative proclamations
of "gender activists" that have thus far served to dull
the political edge of the women's Movement (by accepting gradual
and token changes to the extent of forsaking radical feminist agendas).
Both the valorising of an essentialised African authenticity and
tradition, and the trend towards piece-meal "gender transformation"
stifle the political agency of women and redirect the orientation
of the women's Movement towards a more accommodative stance with
the national and global status quo and with the men who control
and exploit women.
Feminist Autonomy
is therefore connected to our consciousness as politically engaged
women who critically read the political maps of our societies -
in general terms as well as in terms of the special spaces that
we ourselves have crafted and in which we have invested our energies:
the places we call "home". Feminist Autonomy allows us
to discover the ideological gaps, the inadequacies, the machinations
and the lies that are sapping the strength of our movement, and
pushing us back into the grip of a beleaguered patriarchal system
that gasps for breath as our demands storm its musty corridors of
power and repression.
Feminist
Backlash
Through
courage, insolence and resistance, African women, from the colonial
period, began to break down the walls of the fortress that kept
us chained to backward practices and systems of exploitation and
degradation. As individuals and collectivities of women and girls,
we used language and political agency to change our worlds, to make
them a more habitable for ourselves and for those we love and work
with/for. We became fearless warriors, as Audre Lorde would have
insisted, and made the world look different. The past half century
was a time of great momentum and transformation - through liberation
struggles as well as national, local and personal struggles across
the continent.
But the changes
that we initiated have been met increasingly with resistance and
cunning, and our enemies are re-strategising and re-assessing their
hold on power. And now, what seemed to be an inevitable march towards
un-bounded freedom and rights is being sabotaged by the state and
its allies. Through religion, culture, violation and the policing
of identity, our enemies are seeking to reinforce ancient traditions
of patriarchal dominance.
In April 2003,
the DAWN collective had this to say about the resurgence of neo-conservativism
at a global level:
Contrary to
the relatively open environment for such advances that existed
during the 1990's, the first decade of the 21st century confronts
us with the extreme conservatism, aggressive unilateralism, and
support for militarism of the Bush administration, and the worsening
of fundamentalist trends elsewhere as well. In such a context,
it is very important to protect the gains made for women's human
rights through careful and considered action. (2003)
In our current
environment of recession, authoritarianism and conservatism are
thriving, and there has been a resurgence of traditional claims
of security in familiarity, and re-invention of the dangers of newness
and political openness.
As the continent
battles with a plethora of crises - from the devastation associated
with war and primitive accumulation by black ruling classes jockeying
among themselves for greater chunks of the national cake, to HIV
infection and the death of millions of mainly poor Africans - the
right-wing swing of the social and political pendulum is growing
increasingly obvious. When people are faced with crisis and death;
with deepening poverty and unimaginable deprivations; and with the
seemingly unavoidable failure of states all around them, they tend
to lean towards the familiar systems of past lore. Somehow it seems
as though the past was better, less harsh and more accommodating.
We therefore
notice the re-emergence of archaic feudal cults in countries like
Kenya, Zimbabwe, Namibia and Mozambique, and we hear the call for
a return to the "old African ways" by so-called intellectuals
in the anthropology and sociology departments of many universities
on the continent. Conservatism is rearing its head in ominous ways,
and as is always the case, the enemies of freedoms come wearing
the garb of sanctity ( in fundamentalist religions); authenticity
( in nativist cults and practices); security ( in appeals to women's
feminine decency) and rationality ( in claims that women have "enough
rights" already).
Impact on
Women and Feminism
Women
are again repeating the old mantras of patriarchal submissiveness
and domination, re-learning how to be "seen and not heard"
This is especially pronounced in relation to the fear that the HIV/AIDS
pandemic has unleashed within heterosexual relationships. The ancient
socialisation practices that kept women enslaved have resurfaced,
side by side with the unfettered misogynistic violence and denigration
of the bodies of women and girls across the continent, and the task
of freeing ourselves from patriarchal bondage once again looms monumentally
before us.
The tyranny
of conformity is baring its fangs with impunity in the lives of
women globally. In a lecture on the future of feminism delivered
in 1997, Andrea Dworkin presciently noted this trend among women
in North America and this is what she had to say:
Women are
indeed taught to be seen and not heard. But I am talking about
a deep silence: a silence that goes to the heart of tyranny, its
nature. There is a tyranny that preordains not only who can say
what but what women especially can say. There is a tyranny that
determines who cannot say anything, a tyranny in which people
are kept from being able to say the most important things about
what life is like for them. That is the tyranny I mean. (1997)
The rightwing
patriarchal project's coercion of silence encompasses what has become
casually known as "gender mainstreaming". This has basically
two ideological objectives: to make gender equality manageable (
through small concessions to women and girls by tinkering with key
patriarchal institutions), and by taking the anger and the fire
out of feminist politics (by representing feminists as extremist,
unreasonable and frustrated individuals who will never be satisfied
until the society is "destroyed").
The manipulation
of women's fears and hesitancies in the face of political power
is beginning to have the desired impact on the pace and content
of the African women's Movement. The appeal to women's "reasonableness"
is actually very seductive. Women have been well-schooled to feel
that their interests should come last, that they exist only to serve
others, and struggling for personal freedoms in a situation where
everything is already so dire is both personally and intellectually
taxing.
Feminist activism
has few immediate benefits. It requires an endless process of re-visioning
and re-membering of the goals of women's imaginary worlds. It should
therefore come as no surprise that many among us, many who once
proclaimed themselves "feminists" and "radicals",
are quietly slipping away to focus on lucrative careers as "gender
consultants" instead of taking up positions at the front-line
of the battle against patriarchy. Some of the most strident and
sinister attacks on "rash feminist behaviour" come from
the "consultancy divas", who are also often quick to warn
against the threats that radical feminism poses to the so-called
gains made by women. It is also among many doyens of the African
women's Movement that we discover deep-seated and pervasive conservativism:
women who have used the Movement as a stepping stone to fancy jobs
in the UN system or to other sites in the international capitalist
system. It is these individuals who function as gatekeepers of deeply
reactionary politics, and it is within their ranks that the new
challenges facing the African women's Movement must be identified.
Our staid matrons
(the continent's "experts" on gender training and mainstreaming)
also serve as the link between the women's Movement and the state
in almost every country on the continent. They control the flow
of resources between the state and donor communities. The latter
are of course only too relieved to hand funds over to a politically
compliant female middle class which supports the impression that
donor funds are "empowering" African women. They carefully
tread the thin lines drawn by Northern donors on issues of reproductive
health and sexuality; cautiously referring to difficult issues like
abortion and sexual orientation only in moderate tones, and rarely,
if ever, rocking the national or international boat. Ultimately,
they are no different from the male nationalists who occupy the
neo-colonial state, tip-toeing around critical issues, always looking
behind their shoulders, and never, never breaking free of the "ideological
reservation" which the conservatives in the donor community
and the international agencies like the World Bank and the IMF have
constructed in their minds and ideas.
Occasionally,
these ideological askaris are joined by newly arrived divas who
proclaim their "feminism" with great fanfare - even as
they frantically scramble up the ladder of social mobility, trampling
with total disregard any feminist attempts to create truly innovative
and radical feminist spaces. Selectively using the rhetoric of feminist
activism, they are driven mainly by unscrupulous greed for public
recognition and acceptance by males in the state, as well as by
the need to reassure the males with whom they live that they are
acceptably "feminine", and not the "dangerous"
women that feminists have been constructed to be. They silence any
emerging voices that might cast them in dis-favour with the state
and donor agencies, while insisting that they understand issues
of feminism and "gender activism" best. In fact, the network
of rear-guard "gender activists" stifle any idea that
appears to shift new ground, to present a radical challenge to the
accommodated status quo by creating a climate of intimidation, and
invoking patriarchal ideas about, for example, the "ownership
of projects", or "control over resources", or "authority
in organisations". In many cases, then, young feminists may
be terrified and alienated by the display of repressive power and
blatant anti-feminism within the women's Movement.
Asking the
difficult questions
Reactionary behaviour is not new within the African women's Movement.
In fact, it is as old as the nationalism that informs its backward,
reactionary politics. Throughout the four decades of neo-colonial
independence, as little cliques of black women have been able to
mobilise financial and social resources and deploy these in terms
of their upward social mobility, they have also exercised tighter
control over the character of politics within the African women's
Movement. And like the black male nationalists in the state, they
have proclaimed their dedication to the eradication of collective
oppression as the raison d'etre for their need to control power
in the women's Movement. These reactionary elements have closely
patrolled the borders of the women's Movement, always alert for
any new ideas or expressions of feminist politics that might endanger
their dominance over the political field.
For a long time,
they have gone about their opportunistic business without any real
critique from feminists in the women's Movement. So let me pose
a few difficult but necessary questions. Why have we been so courageous
in challenging patriarchy in the public and private arenas, yet
allowed the very forces that sap our radical energies to define
the political and ideological spaces that we have worked so hard
to craft? Why have we allowed the fact of a female body to blind
us to the reactionary politics of a clique that we would certainly
have taken to task in no uncertain terms had they had male bodies?
Why do we suffer the reactionary politics of a group of women who
have done well on the backs of our political struggles, who are
obviously in the Movement only for social and financial gains, and
who are selling our political agenda down the river? Why have we
allowed them to shut us up, to intimidate and control our political
instincts and to make us afraid of the accusation that criticism
is tantamount to "disloyalty"? These are the very stratagems
that the black male ruling classes have wielded against us for more
than half a century now - wagging the finger of state violence and
repression if we dared to challenge the manner in which they define
our identities as Africans; if we demand accountability in the use
and abuse of national resources; if we dared to critique their notions
of citizenship and inclusion and the processes through which information
and knowledge is processed and channeled in our societies.
Yet we have
allowed a group of petty bourgeois women to define our politics
in relation to the neo-colonial state; to decide what intellectual
tools we use in understanding inequality and injustice; we are even
allowing them to re-define the language we have struggled so hard
and long to find that speaks most deeply to the social and bodily
violations that confront us. Everywhere these days we see evidence
of the toned down language of "gender awareness" that
reduces radical feminist politics to neat, manageable and unthreatening
"issues" on the "development agenda". For instance,
I have not seen any counter-campaign against the re-definition of
Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) as the supposedly neutral expression
"female genital cutting". One white North American feminist,
supposedly an expert on the African women's Movement, retorted when
I asked her why she was de-politicising our language: "Because
there are many people in Africa who are more at ease with the term
'cutting'", and claimed that it was not up to her to insist
upon the word 'mutilation' because she was a Westerner. Such expression
of cultural relativism not only reflect the pathetic state of much
feminism in the West, but also its influences on the content and
orientation of African women's political stances.
We should also
ask why the women's Movement seems to be tacitly countenancing the
use of the term "rape" to describe men's experiences of
sexual violation - after all the years of struggle to use the term
in relation to a violent expression of misogynist hatred and men's
coercive occupancy of women's bodies in patriarchal society? What
is it that makes us so timid and unsure of our political language
and stances when it comes to the issue of securing and occupying
our feminist spaces in the face of heterosexist demands that we
"let men in"? Why do we feel so inadequate in the face
of such blatant manipulation? Is it possibly because we have not
considered the impact of un-critiqued heterosexuality on our sense
of autonomy as feminists and as women?
Without a clear
and radical sense of what Feminist Autonomy means for us in the
definition of our identities as feminists, we are bound to have
great difficulty in responding to expressions of rightwing backlash,
often articulated by the very women who claim to be both "gender-activists"
and "feminists" in the same breadth. It seems to me that
the perniciousness of conservatism runs much deeper in our Movement
than many African feminists have realised, and its manifestation
in the de-politicisation of language, especially around issues of
sexuality and bodily integrity, reflects the more dangerous acceptance
of the overtly rightwing politics of the Bush regimes' neo-conservative
policies on the continent.
Challenges
for the African Women's Movement
I think
Andrea Dworkin had her finger on the pulse of the recent rightwing
tendency when she posed the following questions to her Canadian
audience in 1997:
What would
freedom be for us? What principles are necessary for our well-being…
What actions must be taken? What will it cost us and why are we
too afraid to pay, and are the women who have gotten a little
from the women's movement afraid that resistance or rebellion
or even political inquiry will cost them the little that they
have gotten? Why are we still making deals with men one by one
instead of collectively demanding what we need? (1997)
These are the
kinds of questions that a closer look at the notion of Feminist
Autonomy raises. They are difficult, discomforting questions that
require a deeper reflection on the core principles of the Movement
and the ways in which individuals who name themselves feminist live
their public and private lives. Bell hooks defines this challenge
when she says:
"As a
radical standpoint, perspective position, 'the politics of location'
necessarily calls those of us who would participate in the formation
of counter-hegemonic cultural practice to identify the spaces
where we begin the process of revision" (1990).
This is where
the notion of Feminist Autonomy becomes critical in making the shift
from what has become "women's politics" to "radical
feminist praxis", an activism fed by a consistently critical
and reflexive political consciousness; one that questions every
twist and turn of daily life, ever-vigilant about the opportunistic
class interests of those who hide their nationalist agendas under
the guise of feminist proclamations. As Gigi Franscisco, a Philippina
feminist insists: "…feminists must be very clear on why
we are engaging, what are relative strength is, and what we will
do after strategic alliances have been built" (2003).
Though a diversity
of political views and stances in the African women's Movement are
unavoidable, we also have to realise that nationalist ideology has
become the dominant ideological influence of those who control the
Movement, and that being part of it should not imply an unquestioning
acceptance of rightwing agendas and political definition. In fact,
re-occupancy of the African women's Movement as a radical, vibrant
and politically active space must become a feminist imperative,
and feminists across the continent must resolve to transform it
into the cutting edge that it was meant to be. At their recent Encuentro,
Caribbean and Latin American feminists tried to face up to the complexity
of crafting an open, safe, engaging and mutually respectful feminist
space through a process that interrogates issues of political diversity,
race, sexual orientation and identity in its many forms. They acknowledged
that it is a long, difficult yet politically necessary task:
The Encuentros,
like feminisms themselves, are arenas of solidarity and expansion
but also of conflict and exclusion, negotiations and renegotiations.
These dynamics do not take shape in a vacuum but are always informed
by the changing political and economic contexts in which feminism
unfold… These contextual shifts in turn have reshaped the
choices different feminists have made to interact with actors
and institutions outside of the feminist movement… These
interactions have been informed by changing and continually contested
meanings of autonomy, which, in turn, have generated shifting
criteria of inclusion and exclusion in the imagine regional feminist
community. (Alvarez, 2003)
Herstorically,
what we call the African women's Movement is largely an outcome
of the feminist energies and courage in which we have invested these
past decades. We have sought to set ourselves apart from the status
quo, and formed what aspired to be an autonomous movement - a movement
that refused to act on behalf of the state in undertaking surveillance
over women's sexuality and other life choices. It was in the desire
to be autonomous in relation to the machinations of male-inspired
agendas and narrow nationalist interests that African feminists
built a movement whose epistemic foundations are grounded in the
anti-authoritarian struggles of women of all classes, ages and social
locations. How we lost the ownership of our Movement to a clique
of rightwing divas whose collusion with the neocolonial state has
pushed our Movement into a cul-de-sac, is the fundamental reason
why we have to revisit the notion of Autonomy - and reclaim a political
space and process that rightfully belongs to us as feminists across
the continent and the world.
References
- Alvarez,
S. et al. 2003. "Encountering Latin American and Caribbean
Feminism", SIGNS. 28,2 (Winter).
- DAWN collective.
2003. "DAWN says No to Negotiations for Beijing +10 and Cairo
+10" in Dawn Informs. April, 2003
- Dworkin,
A. 1997. "Remember, Resist, Do Not Comply", speech delivered
at the Marsey College Fifth Walter Gordon Forum, Toronto on "The
Future of Feminism".
- Francisco,
G. 2003. "One World, One Fight: Building Solidarity"
in DAWN Informs, April, 2003.
- hooks, b.
1990. "Choosing the margin as a space of radical openness"
in hooks, b. Yearning: race, gender and cultural politics. Cambridge:
South End Press.
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