Professional Documents
Culture Documents
"I Am Not A Feminist, But " How Feminism Became The F-Word
"I Am Not A Feminist, But " How Feminism Became The F-Word
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
today, 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
the Body in 2005 (Oxford UP). She is also
ask the students whether they consider themselves to be feminists.
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).
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. . . .
A feminazi is a woman to whom the most
young women who would never put up with
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)
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.
121.5 ] Toril Moi 1737
bunch of fanatics, incapable of questioning their ever been burned on feminazi bonfires.
own assumptions, intolerant of criticism, hell- The most insidious form of feminist bash-
bent on suppressing opposition—in short, the ing subtly promotes the idea that feminists
Savonarolas of contemporary gender politics. are a lunatic fringe, divorced from the preoc-
This too was taken up by women with compet- cupations of ordinary women. Whereas con-
ing projects, not least by Camille Paglia, who in servatives will say this openly, in the books by
1992 claimed that “feminism is in deep trouble, feminists and ex-feminists from the 1990s the
that it is now overrun by Moonies or cultists same work is done through a series of vague,
who are desperate for a religion and who, in disparaging references to what “some” or
their claims of absolute truth, are ready to sup- “many” feminists do or think. Such formula-
press free thought and free speech” (Sex 304). tions have now become ubiquitous, not least
The complaint that feminists are a bunch in liberal newspapers and magazines.
of dogmatic Stalinists is particularly use- Reviewing Faludi ’s Stif fed in 1999,
ful for people with books to promote. If the Michiko Kakutani casually remarked, “[This
author insists that she is writing against an book] eschews the reductive assumptions pur-
“establishment” ferociously opposed to her veyed by many feminists” (B8). Here the word
views, even tired old thoughts can be pre- doing the dirty ideological work is “many.”
sented as new and radical. Perhaps that is why “Some,” “most,” “much,” “often,” “certain,”
Roiphe’s The Morning After also denounced and so on work in the same way. “A dogged
feminism for promoting “[t]he lethal belief stupidity pervades much feminist writing
that we should not publicly think or analyze about sexuality,” Daphne Patai claimed in
or question our assumptions” (xxi).5 Accord- Heterophobia (178). A young British feminist
ing to Roiphe, the feminist thought police basher, Natasha Walter, piled up the modifi-
had even taken over the media: “On issues ers: “the theme that has often been given most
like sexual harassment and date rape, there attention by recent feminists is the theme of
has been one accepted position in the main- hostility [toward heterosexuality]. The rejec-
stream media recycled and given back to us tion of heterosexual romance came to domi-
again and again in slightly different forms,” nate certain feminist arguments” (110; my
she complained (xxii). By contrast, her own italics). Such formulations enable the speaker
book is presented as a courageous act of dis- to avoid having to name the “some,” the
sent from such all-pervasive dogmatism.6 “many,” and the “certain” feminists who are
If Roiphe thought of herself as a dissenter, said to espouse them. (This has the added ad-
Young, who grew up in the Soviet Union, vantage of sidestepping the pesky question of
called herself a dissident (10). Alluding to the evidence.) No need, either, to ask whether any
courageous resistance of the anti-Stalinist dis- feminists have ever maintained the “reductive
sidents of Eastern Europe—the Solzhenitsyns assumptions” manufactured for the purpose
and Sakharovs of the cold-war era—the word of presenting the writer as the soul of reason.
casts the feminist basher as a lone voice speak- The subtle little sideswipes against “some”
ing up against the gender gulags constructed or “many” or “certain” feminists gain ideo-
by the feminist central committee that runs logical power precisely from their vagueness,
the country, once perhaps the land of the free which acts like a blank screen for readers to
but now delivered up to the “radical feminist project their worst fears on, thus enabling the
establishment.”7 Given such conspiracy theo- feminist basher to trade on every negative ste-
ries, it is sobering to discover that these dissi- reotype of feminism in the cultural imagina-
dents seem to have suffered no persecution by tion. The seemingly mild-mannered references
121.5 ] Toril Moi 1739
in fact mobilize a set of unspoken, fantasmatic rejecting, cold, domineering, and powerful
Moi, Toril. Sex, Gender and the Body: The Student Edition Sommers, Christina Hoff. Who Stole Feminism? How