Feminist Attempts
Are Feminists Good People?
The amount of work it takes to keep a free-flowing, feminist collective sane is ten times more difficult with every few new people. The act of constant self-reflection, the only tool to dismantle privilege within, is an obvious requirement. But lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the question of morals. Should we assume that feminists are moral? Of course, I am not referring to social or cultural morals – I am referring to personal morals: manners, ethics, doing the right thing.
Is a feminist kind? Does she have a strong conscience? Does she struggle to do the right thing? Can a feminist cheat? Can she be corrupt? Is she polite and friendly? Does she care about others? Is she selfish or self-centered? Would she stab you in the back to get ahead? Does she hold grudges? Is she forgiving? Is she generous with her money or stingy?
Absurd questions, perhaps. It becomes obvious to us that politics have little to do with morals. One can imagine and has probably met a stellar feminist activist who is really mean or brash or selfish or passive aggressive. And not in the way that we often challenge socially, that it is, for example, rude for a woman to raise her voice in the presence of men. No, I don’t mean those. I mean plain rude, among friends, among other feminists. Someone who would hurt people’s feelings and not give a damn. A feminist who’s inconsiderate. Can one be a feminist and have zero empathy? Does feminism impose a moral duty on us?
Tough questions, perhaps. But are they questions that feminists should take up or do we leave them to the realm of spirituality? What is the link between privilege and morals? What is the honorable thing to do, if one wanted to give a new culture-ridden meaning to reclaim the idea of honorable doings? When does a feminist put others before herself without falling into self-misogynistic traps? What does sacrifice mean to us?
We want to believe there is something about feminism that would make us want to be morally better people. Perhaps we can find this in its understanding of oppression or the fact that feminism is, by default, a collective process. Perhaps we have to be moral and kind to one another because otherwise we can’t do our work. Perhaps we are left with utilitarian reasoning only and that there is nothing in political or personal identification with feminism that entails treating people with love. Perhaps love is its own political movement.
Feminist politics, in my understanding, is all about calling into question the private/public, domus/polis divide which has kept women out of civic life, and in turned has mapped ‘masculinist’ values onto the separate spheres. To do politics — to venture out into the polis — is to be engaged in the “hard stuff” of life, leaving the (unpaid, unworthy) “soft stuff” for the home. This private/public split isn’t just about an unfair division of labor; it’s also a philosophical and ethical split in the ‘doing’ of labor too. Means are disconnected from ends, because politics in the polis requires “tough decisions” and “steely minds” that “get the goods.” Men’s work in the polis is the BIG DEAL, while women’s work (worrying, caring, tending to, feeling with, etc) is not. Hence, ethical consideration in politics becomes a sign of effeminization (note: women may perform ‘men’s work’ with masculinist values that doesn’t challenge this binary opposition, there is nothing fundamentally biological about this).
But to do feminist politics, in my view, is to say no to that. It’s to say that the private is political, as are the values we mobilize in our activities. The “soft stuff” is just as fundamental as the “hard stuff.” Interpersonal communication and consideration is also a BIG DEAL. In fact, the wheeling and dealing in the ‘real world’ of the polis is based on all the tiny intersubjective exchanges that occur between people and organizations.
At the end of the day, we need to work to undo this whole map of binaries. The domus is in the polis and the polis is in the domus. The man is in the woman and the woman is in the man. Ethics is in the emotional in the practical in the theoretical in the political. The whole private/public divide is not just a means of putting women down; it’s also an illusion masking the fact that labor is labor wherever its done, always involving means, ends, and obligations.
Refreshing read. I would think that every kind, strong morals, “doing the right thing” kind of person (person not only woman) would be a political feminist but the opposite; all feminist being good people, is not necessary, since sometimes the political drive alone, pushes some people into feminism.
Meeting maybe Jad’s point, where in order to fill in the BIG DEAL positions it takes a manly arrogant attitude for exemple
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