Idealize This | Feminism

So I'm working (slowly) on a paper for Dr. Wallwork on Durkheim's sociology, specifically his notion that individualism has been steadily developing and gaining prominence in (European and European derived) cultures from the beginning of human time. He warns us though -- as recently as 1895 -- that individualism, with all the inevitability of its ascension and attendant empowerments, orients individuals to their own particular interests and not to the interests of the society that for all its ills still sustains us in what peace and harmony we can muster.

The larger two-paper project is to try and fit Durkheim's analysis with some of the transnational feminisms I read with Angela Davis. Part of Prof. Davis' project with us was to try to conceptualize a collective individuality, a notion of our interdependence that can short-circuit the inevitable divisions of identity politics and civil rights movements in a way that does not give in to the simplifying and homogenizing unity or solidarity that would trivialize our very real differences. The radical realization is that a homogenizing solidarity can only ever be a reinstatement of some empowered and thus defining hegemony. We are not all "one", we are many, and we depend on each other. What would a political consciousness that can tolerate that kind of ambiguity look like?

Well, as usual, I was procrastinating at a good breaking point and read this article on Racialicious:

Idealize This | Feminism

by Guest Contributor Catherine Traywick, originally published at Hyphen and Femmalia

Part of what really impresses me about this article is the way Traywick articulates her own sense of ambivalence and frustration, critiques the institutions that support the opposition, and then remains on the fence. I think that's what we have to do. We have to start to understand ourselves as standing in multiple camps simultaneously. We have to critique the institutions and points of view that exclude or dehumanize the people with whom we identify in those several camps, and narrativize our lives as individuals amidst all that ambiguity such that we can share them. An engagement with people cannot be structured as an oppositional binary. Spivak's "strategic essentialism" has its place -- in my view -- in opposition to institutions, which cannot but function in binary. Human beings, individuals, are not binary. My allegiance with "feminism" doesn't function on an on-off basis, I don't recognize "feminism", I recognize women and the feminisms they bring to the table.

Part of the privilege of living in a culture where life is in the key of individualism is that I get to develop my perspective as a person who is accorded certain powers and dignities. I get to say yes and no, and I am expected to live with the consequences. I can move as a white, straight, monied, able-bodied woman in the world. As such is the case, I will develop my perspective to try and comprehend as much as possible the ways in which my movement is made possible and supported by the individuals I meet and do not meet. As such a moving person, I will recognize as much as possible that my movement is contingent, that it is not guaranteed and that it does not come without a human cost, however much the market seeks to obscure this cost. However much the heroic stories of the ages want to convince me that one person can rise above the fray and live on that azure mountaintop, autonomous and independent, I will remember that however far I may rise, whatever freedom I may enjoy, I have risen within a collective wave that reaches back to the beginning of human time and moves through to the distant end. I will remember them, and I will recognize you, as far as is humanly possible. I will stay on the fence, in order to see better, and I will work for our future together, because we are together, even now.