Being a Good Feminist and Other Impossible Tasks

The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century. Amia Srinivasan. 2021.

What is feminism? We just don’t know.

I mean we really don’t know, and I’m not so arrogant as to try to come up with my own definition. I know I am a feminist, but I’m also a Marxist who bristles at identity-based approaches to politics. I’m of the opinion that “feminism” isn’t something you are, it’s something you do - it’s a tool for action and analysis, not an identity marker that you can earn or bestow or that comes to you inherently based on your opinions or traits. 

Here’s an example: I work for a union that is mostly made up of women: the membership, the leadership, the union organizers, and the delegates elected from within shops are almost all women. Do all of these women consider themselves feminists? Some do, many don’t. I haven’t done a poll but I’m guessing most of them don’t really think about it. I think that in organizing their workplaces and fighting for each other and working for a better world for working women like them, they are all doing feminism, and doing it in a more concrete way than most academics who worry about definitions. That’s the important thing: not the identity, but the work and whether you’re doing it on behalf of other women, not just yourself.

I read an interview with Judith Butler where they gave this working definition (paraphrased): that feminism is dedicated primarily to the idea that the social definition of “woman” is not settled. I like this one; it implies that we don’t necessarily need to come up with an affirmative answer for what feminism is because feminism is about refusing to settle the question. It is about the questioning, not the answering. The thing is though, this also possibly implies a struggle without an end. Because maybe that initial question - what is a woman - is not settled now, but could it be? And if it is, what then?

All of this is to say that there are no answers in Srinivasan’s book of essays, which can make for a frustrating read, but I really don’t hold that against her. In no way is this a what-is-to-be-done book; it’s about the questioning. Still, sometimes you do want to know what to do. It seems that “feminism in the twenty-first century” is in a tentative, apologetic state if you base your impression on this collection. Lots of questioning, lots of wringing of hands, precious little action.

If I had to name Srinivasan’s primary concern, it’s the tension between what we owe to ourselves and what we owe to other people. Every right creates an obligation somewhere else; that’s why Thomas Jefferson, ever canny and careful, stipulated that we all have the right to the pursuit of happiness, not the right to happiness itself. If a person has a right to sex, or sexual pleasure, that means some other person or institution has the obligation to provide it. What side must feminists pick, in that case? Can we advocate for the right without ignoring those who must fulfill the obligation?

You see this tension everywhere in feminism when you start looking. Women, of course, are supposed to be the caring sex, and when we posit that any person or group of people are entitled to care or attention, the unspoken assumption is that the care or attention will be given by some woman, somewhere. And as there is a stubborn libertarian streak in the American left especially, a lot of feminists come to their feminism through a desire to liberate themselves from unwanted obligations. Understandably so; it’s we women who get stuck with those obligations so much of the time. But our liberation from gendered obligation doesn’t eliminate the need for care. And that means that when certain women liberate themselves, too often the care work is left for other, less powerful women to do.

So…what is to be done? I don’t know, and neither do you, and neither does Amia Srinivasan. Is this book worth reading, despite that? I think so - sometimes knowing what to ask is enough. At least it keeps the ball of feminism rolling forward, which might be all we can ask.