By Madeleine Broussard, Summer 2023 Collaborator at Power in Place
Where feminism once was the driving force behind energized young activists’ fight for social equality stands a jaded generation of politically aware nihilists. We have self-identified leftists who conservatively appreciate feminism for its intersections with other, more important class analyses, and those who have taken the “black pill” and chosen immovable pessimism as a response to the plight of women. Both are slightly embarrassed of feminism, the language of which is too easily co-opted by market demands associated with neoliberalism.
Unfortunately, even embarrassment cannot stop the ever-flowing tide of sneaky pop feminism. As Caitlín Doherty smartly discusses in her recent article, “A Feminist Style”, feminists lately have taken to the atomized snapshot of a woman’s suffering as a representation of “cool” feminism. Exhuming influential writers of the past, such as Andrea Dworkin, proves to be convenient: her highly personal prose distracts us just enough from mulling over the theory she authored. We are also under significantly less pressure to engage critically with authors who do not benefit from our monetary support. Even better, Dworkin is dead.
As the last decade’s trend of nostalgia continues to pump through the veins of fashion and culture, the lingering relevance of second-wave feminism proves to be functional not as a means of mobilizing, but of fashioning a new aesthetic. Make no mistake: if Dworkin walked onto the political stage right now and breathed life back into her radical analysis of intercourse from the eighties, she would be socially lobotomized. The outstanding feminist writer of the second wave is a dead, safe legend. And unlike any previous decade of feminism, no singular female writer or advocate stands out as having adequately described women’s “situation” in the current moment — the ones that try are too alive, and thereby too difficult to iconify.
Women in politics face much of the anger we harbor towards women assuming any systemic power. Elizabeth Warren's claim to indigenous ancestry eclipsed her 2020 presidential platform in the news, rightfully inciting more than a few flinches and prompting her to apologize. Meanwhile, Donald Trump’s campaign success soared as he racistly nicknamed Warren “Pocahontas”. A few years earlier, the internet obscured Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid with her infamously grimace-inducing “Pokémon Go to the polls” line. In light of the hair-raising “locker room” attacks on female dignity that her opponent got away with, it is an utter disappointment to see netizens joke that Clinton’s cringe factor cost her the presidency.
Yet, the girlboss archetype represented by most prominent women in politics activating our frustrations with neoliberal feminism — despite the punch that both women’s campaigns took in response to their scandals and cringey moments highlighting the disadvantages of even wealthy, white, cisgender womanhood — was a perfect match for the right’s unapologetic woman-hating. Their lovechild is the undue power of cringe.
The undue power of cringe is enough to catapult a woman’s mistakes and non-mistakes alike to the forefront of her image, dominating Google search suggestions and further sterilizing the puritanism that we currently call feminism. Meanwhile, Trump’s countless sexual misconduct allegations sit behind him scot-free, and his high-profile crimes do little to deter his fiercely loyal fanbase from tearing their loving gazes away from him. Men are expected to be gross. Women dare not commit the crime of being cringe. When we place our nostalgia for the feminism of the past under a microscope, it begins to make a little more sense: empathy is harder to have for women who dare to take up space in the same room as us.
It is a funny coincidence that the age of nostalgia in fashion has ushered in a side-by-side, age-appropriate era of regression in politics. In addition to women’s severe electoral handicap, leading up to and following Dobbs v. Jackson in the summer of 2022 was bad gender politics from both mainstream sides. Conservatives who believe children should be forced to give birth and liberals who spent a disproportionate amount of time correcting the language of other liberals to fighting the human rights violation at hand dominated the debate. (The shrill voices of those in power nearly drowned out those of the most deeply-affected low-income women of color.) Currently, nationwide book bans threaten free speech, anti-LGBTQ privacy laws in schools strip students of their freedom to safely come out of the closet, and moral panics reminiscent of years past shape our increasingly hostile political culture. We need mean, nasty feminism now that every day is a throwback, in a climate that pushes radical change to the back. When we neglect the second wave’s resonance in exchange for its fashionability, we risk watering it down to the very thing we hate: an aesthetic, a tool of capitalism.
In our yearning to relive a time we weren’t even alive to see, we unknowingly trade reading and relating to one dead woman’s stories about suffering for listening to each other’s. Consciousness is impossible where conversation does not flow. Fashionable nostalgia, which glamorizes the past and dreads the present, has defanged modern feminism. Neoliberal feminism continues to individualize feminist action as a matter of personal choice, and women and other gender minorities are deeply divided. Where does that leave those of us charged with the burden of doing something about it?
We were alive to watch the neoliberal system appropriate our most effective language for nefarious, “cringe” ends. This moment is our opportunity to reclaim the second wave’s best ideas and apply them to our current situation. Our foremothers called cultural misogyny into question; as it persists, we can do the same by rejecting fashion feminism, raising consciousness, prioritizing solidarity, having empathy, and voting for women.
References
[1] Doherty, Caitlín. “A Feminist Style.” New Left Review. July 7, 2023. https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/a-feminist-style
[2] Fraser, Nancy. Fortunes of Feminism: From State Managed Capitalism to Neoliberal Crisis, p. 472. Verso Books. 2013.
[3] Kaplan, Thomas. “Elizabeth Warren Apologizes at Native American Forum: ‘I Have Listened and I Have Learned.’” The New York Times. August 19, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/19/us/politics/elizabeth-warren-native-american.html
[4] Powell, Michael. “A Vanishing Word in Abortion Debate: ‘Women’.” The New York Times. June 8, 2022. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/08/us/women-gender-aclu-abortion.html
Madeleine Broussard is an English major at Mount Holyoke College. She is an editor for an on-campus pop culture publication and serves on a Student Government Association committee. Outside of school, Madeleine enjoys reality TV, poetry, writing Yelp reviews, and deep-fried food.