Antagonizing White Feminism

Intersectionality’s Critique of Women’s Studies and the Academy

Edited by Noelle Chaddock and Beth Hinderliter - Foreword by Beverly Guy-Sheftall - Contributions by Piya Chatterjee; Timothy W. Gerken; Laneshia Conner; Pablo Ariel Scharagrodsky; Magalí Pérez Riedel; Vanessa Drew-Branch; Sonyia Richardson and Sara Salem

Antagonizing White Feminism: Intersectionality’s Critique of Women’s Studies and the Academy pushes back against the exclusive scholarship and discourse coming out of women-centered spaces and projects, which throw up barriers by narrowly defining who can participate. Vehement resistance to using inclusive language and renaming scholarly spaces like Women’s Studies and Critical Feminism expresses itself in concerns that women are still oppressed and thus women-only spaces must be maintained. But who is a woman? What are the characteristics of a woman’s lived experience? Do affinity and a history of oppression justify exclusion?

This book shows how intersectional feminism is often underperformed and appropriated as a “woke” vocabulary by elite women who are unwilling to do the necessary emotional work around their privilege. As Trans Women, Femmes, Women of Color, Queer Women, Gender Variant, and Gender Non-Conforming scholars emerge, the heteronormative, cisgender, colonial idea of women and the feminine is rapidly under attack. The contributors believe that to engage in the necessary conversations about the oppressed performing oppression is to disrupt the exclusionary basis of monolithic understandings of the feminine. Only then can we advance the coalition needed to forge a multiracial, multicultural, queer-led, anti-imperialist feminism.

Lexington Books

Pages: 176 • Trim: 6⅜ x 9¼

978-1-4985-8834-8 • Hardback • November 2019 • $111.00 • (£85.00)

978-1-4985-8836-2 • Paperback • June 2021 • $44.99 • (£35.00)

978-1-4985-8835-5 • eBook • November 2019 • $42.50 • (£35.00)

Series: Feminist Strategies: Flexible Theories and Resilient Practices

Subjects: Philosophy / Social, History / Women, Social Science / LGBT Studies / General, Social Science / Black Studies (Global), Philosophy / Philosophy of Race

Antagonizing White Feminism

Intersectionality’s Critique of Women’s Studies and the Academy

Hardback

Paperback

eBook

Summary

Antagonizing White Feminism: Intersectionality’s Critique of Women’s Studies and the Academy pushes back against the exclusive scholarship and discourse coming out of women-centered spaces and projects, which throw up barriers by narrowly defining who can participate. Vehement resistance to using inclusive language and renaming scholarly spaces like Women’s Studies and Critical Feminism expresses itself in concerns that women are still oppressed and thus women-only spaces must be maintained. But who is a woman? What are the characteristics of a woman’s lived experience? Do affinity and a history of oppression justify exclusion?

This book shows how intersectional feminism is often underperformed and appropriated as a “woke” vocabulary by elite women who are unwilling to do the necessary emotional work around their privilege. As Trans Women, Femmes, Women of Color, Queer Women, Gender Variant, and Gender Non-Conforming scholars emerge, the heteronormative, cisgender, colonial idea of women and the feminine is rapidly under attack. The contributors believe that to engage in the necessary conversations about the oppressed performing oppression is to disrupt the exclusionary basis of monolithic understandings of the feminine. Only then can we advance the coalition needed to forge a multiracial, multicultural, queer-led, anti-imperialist feminism.

Details

Lexington Books

Pages: 176 • Trim: 6⅜ x 9¼

978-1-4985-8834-8 • Hardback • November 2019 • $111.00 • (£85.00)

978-1-4985-8836-2 • Paperback • June 2021 • $44.99 • (£35.00)

978-1-4985-8835-5 • eBook • November 2019 • $42.50 • (£35.00)

Series: Feminist Strategies: Flexible Theories and Resilient Practices

Subjects: Philosophy / Social, History / Women, Social Science / LGBT Studies / General, Social Science / Black Studies (Global), Philosophy / Philosophy of Race

Author

Noelle Chaddock is vice president of equity and inclusion at Bates College.

Beth Hinderliter is assistant professor of art history and director of the Duke Hall Gallery of Fine Art at James Madison University.

Table of Contents

Foreword: Beverly Guy-Sheftall

Introduction: “Antagonizing White Feminism.” Noelle Chaddock and Beth Hinderliter

1. “White Feminism is the Only Feminism.” Noelle Chaddock

2. “Unsettling Dominant Femininities: Promissory Notes Towards an Antiracist Feminist College.” Piya Chatterjee

3. “Repo Fem.” Timothy W. Gerken

4. “White Innocence as a Feminist Discourse: Intersectionality, and the 2016 US Presidential Elections.” Sara Salem

5. “Building Kinfulness.” Beth Hinderliter

6. “Trans Youth in Argentina.” Pablo Ariel Scharagrodsky and Magalí Pérez Riedel

7. “To Be New, Black, Female and Academic: Renaissance of Womanism within Academia.” Vanessa Drew-Branch, Sonyia Richardson, and Laneshia R. Conner

8. “A Rejection of White Feminist Cisgender Allyship: Centering Intersectionality.” Beth Hinderliter and Noelle Chaddock

Reviews

An unflinching testimonial on the need to defy and erase margins and centers in the practice of feminisms and the discipline of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies. The editors and contributors demand the decolonizing and de-whitening of structures, languages, methods, philosophies, and central actors within these spaces.
— Besi Muhonja, James Madison University

"This is a timely and provocative collection. The editors have shaped a volume that moves beyond critique and points the way towards an inclusive politics of liberation."--Marjorie Hass, Rhodes College
— Marjorie Hass, Rhodes College

Features

12/2/19 - Ms. Magazine featured this title in an article entitled “December 2019 Reads for the Rest of Us” as part of the Ms. Feminist Know-It-All column. Link: https://msmagazine.com/2019/12/03/december-2019-reads-for-the-rest-of-us/