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“I Am Not a Feminist, but . . .”: How Feminism Became the F-Word [ PMLA

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“I Am Not a Feminist, but . . .”: How Feminism Became the F-Word [ PMLA 1 2 1 . 5 ] theories and methodologies “I Am Not a Feminist, But . .”: How Feminism Became IF PMLA INVITES us TO REFLEct ON thE stATE OF FEMINIst thEORY to­AY, IT must BE BECAusE thERE IS A PROBLEM. Is FEMINIst thEORY the F-Word thought to be in trouble because feminism is languishing? Or because there is a problem with theory? Or—as it seems to me—both? Theory is a word usually used about work done in the poststructuralist tra- toril moi dition. (Luce Irigaray and Michel Foucault are “theory”; Simone de Beauvoir and Ludwig Wittgenstein are not.) The poststructuralist paradigm is now exhausted. We are living through an era of “crisis,” as Thomas Kuhn would call it, an era in which the old is dying and the new has not yet been born (74–75). The fundamental assump- tions of feminist theory in its various current guises (queer theory, postcolonial feminist theory, transnational feminist theory, psycho- analytic feminist theory, and so on) are still informed by some ver- sion of poststructuralism. No wonder, then, that so much feminist work today produces only tediously predictable lines of argument. This is not a problem for feminist theory alone. The feeling of -ex haustion, of domination by a theoretical doxa that no longer has any- thing new to say, is just as prevalent in nonfeminist theory. For more meaningful work to emerge, we shall have to move beyond the old par- TORIL MOI, the James B. Duke Profes- adigm. Theorists, whether they are feminists or not, need to rethink sor of Literature, Romance Studies, and their most fundamental assumptions about language and meaning, the Theater Studies at Duke University, is the relation between language and power, language and human commu- author of Sexual/Textual Politics: Feminist Literary Theory (Methuen, 1985; 2nd ed., nity, the body and the soul (or whatever we want to call the inner life). Routledge, 2002), Simone de Beauvoir: The Feminist theory is sustained by feminism. Today, however, the Making of an Intellectual Woman (Black- future of feminism is in doubt. Since the mid-1990s, I have noticed well, 1994), and “What Is a Woman?” and that most of my students no longer make feminism their central Other Essays (Oxford UP, 1999). The two political and personal project. At Duke I occasionally teach an un- lead essays in “What Is a Woman?” were dergraduate seminar called Feminist Classics. In the first session, I published separately as Sex, Gender, and ask the students whether they consider themselves to be feminists. the Body in 2005 (Oxford UP). She is also the editor of The Kristeva Reader (Colum- The answer is usually no. When I ask them if they are in favor of bia UP, 1986) and French Feminist Thought freedom, equality, and justice for women, the answer is always yes. (Blackwell, 1987). Her most recent book is “Doesn’t this mean that you are feminists after all?” I ask. The answer Henrik Ibsen and the Birth of Modernism: is usually, “Oh, well, if that’s all you mean by feminism, then we are Art, Theater, Philosophy (Oxford UP, 2006). [ © 2006 by the modern language association of america ] 1735 1736 “I Am Not a Feminist, But . .”: How Feminism Became the F-Word [ PMLA feminists. But we would never call ourselves who is intolerant of any point of view that feminists.” When I ask why they wouldn’t, a challenges militant feminism. I often use it to long, involved discussion slowly reveals that describe women who are obsessed with perpet- on my liberal, privileged American campus, uating a modern-day holocaust: abortion. young women who would never put up with A feminazi is a woman to whom the most important thing in life is seeing to it that as legal or institutional injustice believe that if many abortions as possible are performed. they were to call themselves feminists, other Their unspoken reasoning is quite simple. people would think that they must be stri- Abortion is the single greatest avenue for dent, domineering, aggressive, and intolerant militant women to exercise their quest for and—worst of all—that they must hate men.1 power and advance their belief that men Of course, some young women gladly call aren’t necessary. (193) theories and methodologies themselves feminists today. What I find unset- tling is that there are so few of them at a time Some of Robertson’s and Limbaugh’s ex- when at least some feminist views are shared treme claims have disappeared from view. The by most women and men. After all, women reference to witchcraft has had no shelf life. who sign up for a course called Feminist Clas- Robertson’s accusations of socialism and anti- sics are not usually against feminism, yet they capitalism have not lived on either, not because are determined to keep the dreaded F-word at socialism has become more acceptable in the arm’s length. We are witnessing the emergence United States but because capitalism has en- of a whole new generation of women who are joyed virtually unchallenged global rule since careful to preface every gender-related claim 1989. The antiabortion rhetoric has not changed that just might come across as unconventional much since 1992: such language remains as di- with “I am not a feminist, but. .” visive as ever. The truly distressing part is that the rest of this demagoguery has become part of the mainstream of American culture. Conservative Extremists Robertson begins, cleverly, by splitting What has caused the stunning disconnect feminism off from its historical roots, namely between the idea of freedom, justice, and the demand for equal rights for women. This equality for women and the word feminism? move trades on the fact that in 1992 femi- One reason is certainly the success of the nists had succeeded in gaining more rights for conservative campaign against feminism in women than ever before. Because equal rights the 1990s, when some extremely harsh things have become generally accepted, Robertson were said by conservatives with high media implies, that demand can no longer define profiles. In 1992 Pat Robertson infamously feminism. Instead, feminists are presented as declared, “The feminist agenda is not about irrational extremists who want far more than equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, equal rights: they hate the family, detest their anti-family political movement that encour- husbands (if they have any), and go on to be- ages women to leave their husbands, kill their come lesbians. (Robertson takes for granted children, practice witchcraft, destroy capital- that the idea of becoming a lesbian will be ism and become lesbians.”2 The same year, distasteful to right-thinking Americans.) By Rush Limbaugh did his bit for patriarchy by calling feminists child killers, he reinforces popularizing the term “feminazis”: the theme of the destruction of the family and casts feminists as demonic destroyers, the polar I prefer to call the most obnoxious feminists opposites of the angelic Christian mothers who what they really are: feminazis. [A friend of love their husbands and cherish their children. mine] coined the term to describe any female Feminists, the message is, are full of hate. 1 2 1 . 5 Toril Moi 1737 ] theories and methodologies Limbaugh’s infamous neologism fore- be reformers of feminism spent a lot of time grounds abortion: feminists are nazis, glee- distancing themselves from such ideas, thus fully fueling the holocaust of unborn children. reinforcing the thought that most feminists But this is not all there is to it. The claim is, were in fact given to simplistic and melodra- after all, that a “feminazi” is “any female who matic thinking. “[M]en are not guilty simply is intolerant of any point of view that chal- because they are men and women are not lenges militant feminism.” If we wonder what beyond reproach simply because they are “militant feminism” is, we learn, at the end women,” Katie Roiphe complained in 1994 of the quotation, that “militant women” are (xvii).4 In the same year, one of America’s characterized by their “quest for power” and leading feminist bashers, Christina Hoff their “belief that men aren’t necessary.” Sommers, went so far as to claim that femi- However objectionable they may be, Rob- nists hate men so much that they also hate ertson’s and Limbaugh’s vociferous rantings all the women who refuse to hate men: “no outline three fundamental ideas about femi- group of women can wage war on men with- nism that have become virtual commonplaces out at the same time denigrating the women across the political spectrum today: (1) femi- who respect those men” (256). “Gender femi- nists hate men and consider all women inno- nists,” as Sommers calls them, constantly cent victims of evil male power; (2) feminists “condescend to, patronize, and pity the be- are particularly dogmatic, inflexible, intoler- nighted females who, because they have been ant, and incapable of questioning their own as- ‘socialized’ in the sex/gender system, cannot sumptions; and (3) since every sensible person help wanting the wrong things in life. Their is in favor of equality and justice for women, disdain for the hapless victims of patriarchy feminists are a bunch of fanatics, a lunatic is rarely acknowledged” (258). fringe, an extremist, power-hungry minority In Sacred Cows (1999), the British col- whose ideas do not merit serious assessment. umnist Rosalind Coward, once a well-known feminist theorist, proclaimed that she could no longer consider herself a feminist, since Disenchanted Feminists she no longer shared the “fundamental femi- If such ideas had been promoted only by ex- nist convictions that women can never be treme conservatives, they would never have powerful in relationship to men, and con- gained widespread acceptance.
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