Worlds, Ideals, and Solidarity: A Feminist Primer

“Everything that forces itself into the world is subject to the principle of particularization.” – G. W. F. Hegel

To “change the world”—to engage in responsible political and moral action—is a charged matter. It involves feeling the pull of ideals such as justice and freedom. It involves a sense of responsibility for the surrounding world. And it invokes the sense of being embedded in systemic problems, not occasional issues. In other words, it reflects a concern for realities that far exceed our situations as single individuals. In response to these realities, however, each of us makes a judgement and performs an action—both of which reflect the partiality of our insight, perspective, and location in the world. Even while our action reflects concern for a world that extends beyond us, inspiration by principles whose generality outstrips our insight, and a glimpse into complex systems of oppression, we nevertheless resolve, as this being,to do only this thing. As Hegel says, everything real has become so only at the price of becoming specific.

This insight is deeply important to the pursuit of political responsibility in general, and specifically feminist responsibility. Feminism has been forced to grapple with the partiality of feminist perspectives, to the extent that it has become uncertain about what it means to responsibly pursue a feminist project: while at one time, from a certain position, for instance, one may have thought it straightforwardly feminist to oppose the veiling of women, to focus exclusively on the rights of women, and to be antagonistic toward sex offenders and violent criminals, such things are no longer thought unambiguously true. My argument here will be that feminist responsibility requires acceptance of one’s specificity but also ongoing commitment to the realities by which it is outstripped (see McMahon’s post in this series for a similar claim), and I will show what I mean through brief discussion of three issues—feminist transcultural practice, feminism’s relation to other forms of oppression, and feminism’s relation to oppressive systems. My goal is to identify three key principles for the orientation of feminist praxis, which I will designate with the terms “worlds,” “ideals,” and “solidarity.”

Worlds

To be human is to originate in an interpersonal situation from which one acquires deeply specific behaviours and habits. These situations are themselves embedded in further systems, the norms of which infiltrate our original interpersonal contexts: cultures, religious communities, ethnic groups, economic classes, nation-states, histories of interaction between these systems and others. The roots of individual behaviour thereby lie deep in the past, in the behaviour of others, in the history of interaction between different contexts. To develop as human is to adopt a richly specific manner of being human, afforded by what Heidegger calls “world.” To become human is also to relate to this manner not as such but simply as “how things are done”: the world conceals from us its specificity and contingency (Russon). Human beings do not select from an array of worlds arranged before them; rather, it is as though a world chooses people, leaving the origins of their behavior concealed, rendering it impossible that their basic way of being could ever be a choice.

Feminism does not stop at the borders of its own world, wherever they are, for the legitimate reason that sexist oppression does not stop at borders. Feminists have often therefore engaged with worlds beyond their own (though in troublingly unidirectional ways—see Narayan). But in so doing they have often failed (and still fail) to appreciate sufficiently deeply the phenomenon of “world.” Well-intentioned feminist proposals—especially Western—can be heedless of the meaningfulness of attachment to worlds, of feeling at home in familiarity; of the rich meanings, habits, traditions, and possibilities alive in other worlds; and of their own specificity, presuming the neutrality and desirability of a “single moral vernacular” (Khader). Being “worlded” interferes with our capacity for understanding, insofar as it renders familiarity and attachment—our own and others’—invisible to us. Simply recognizing this, however, can be a powerful guide for feminist practice.

Consider a familiar example. It has not been unheard of in Western feminist thought to construe traditional Muslim culture as misogynistic and the fact that woman wear the hijab oppressive (see Sheth in this series on the broader issue of policing the comportment of women of colour). From the perspective of the existence of worlds, however, to approach another world bearing this thesis is deeply problematic: it initiates interaction by interpreting the practice through the terms of a world to which it does not typically belong as a practice (see Al-Saji), and fails to register the practice as a gesture of response to the complexity of meanings circulating in the world to which it belongs and thus as itself complex in its meanings—“there are many veils” (Hélie-Lucas). Donning the hijab may be a way of experiencing oneness with God, answering to the desire for comfort, expressing solidarity with one’s companions, opposing American imperialism, being fashionable, and so on. As a gesture of cultural belonging, wearing the hijab may be integral to a woman’s sense of agency (see Mahmood), rather than simply reflecting the isolated meaning, “oppression.” Consider the multiple meanings behind forms of dress: one answers to traditions and trends, the desire for comfort, the desirability of being fashionable, even the wish to be a desirable object to a sexist gaze. Only through communication (in-person or not) can we discern these (potentially shared and shareable) reasons for disparate practices, reasons that have already been expressed by those for whom this is a meaningful practice (see Bakht and Ahmed). Such meanings depend for their emergence on communication, since their similarity at the level of meaning is concealed by their difference at the level of appearance. Such communication must always be prior to judgement.

Ideals

This very notion of shared meanings gives rise to another challenge to feminism. Feminist struggle against sexist oppression is pursued in the name of shareable ideals such as justice, freedom, and inclusion, but the wrongness of sexist practices is then expressed in terms of how they affect women. Feminism’s interpretation of these ideals, however, has in turn inspired challenge in their very name: it has been criticized for being unjust, oppressive, and exclusionary. Because it makes these ideals its cause, it is answerable to claims from others that it transgresses such ideals: it is ongoingly outstripped by the ideals to which it aspires.

Consider the phenomenon of anti-Black oppression. At times, the value of defending “women” (when the women defended are assumed to have their experience defined by the issues that define the lives of white women) has lent fuel to racism (see Davis’ example of a racist campaign against sexual violence). Given feminism’s animating ideals, however, as well as its orientation toward women as such, who are racially marked, feminism may find the issue of race to be more fundamental in some cases. If genuinely concerned with its deeper ideals, the feminist cause would become the pursuit of accountability to justice in the domain of race—including its own such accountability.

Similar is feminism’s relation to transgender issues: ideals such as inclusion and justice seem to require feminism to revise its traditional priorities. The defence of women has typically been based on the idea that gender possibilities are expressed in terms of (cis) men and women, and that the first group oppresses the second. Feminism therefore can be taken to endorse an interpretation of gender that writes out of existence the multiplicity of experiences of gender identity and refuses the accompanying ambiguation of the traditional binary (see Halberstam; Stryker, Currah, and Moore). Again here, feminism’s own concern with justice and inclusion should lead it to recognize the problematic character of the founding gestures of its traditional agenda. This is not to say that there is no meaning to the category “woman”—also, importantly, for trans people (see Bettcher)—but that it is politically and morally important how the term is defined and how and when it is wielded. Feminism’s own ongoing answerability to the ideals that outstrip it should lead it to resist the interpretation of gender implicit in its founding gesture. Answering to its own animating ideals, feminism must respond to concerns that emerge outside of it but require habitation in it, such that violence against trans persons, opposition to rigid, anti-trans expectations regarding gender identification (see Heyes 2003), and so on come to be included in the feminist agenda.

The development here will be ongoing and could be radical: in some way feminism may have to abandon the category “woman” in order to be adequately responsive to its own ideals. The realization of feminist aims could require an abandonment of feminism heretofore conceived, in the name of the very ideals that animate it. To be answerable to ideals means to do something in their name and yet hold it open to criticism in their name, and thus potentially to be engaged in feminist labour even when working against problems other than sexism.

Solidarity

We saw above that differences can conceal the fact that they are animated by common ideals. There is a similar commonality when those significantly different from oneself are oppressed by the same system: we may be linked in our oppression and resistance, finding unexpected allies in those who also oppose the system targeted by feminist criticism and engaging in feminist labour even while opposing aspects of the system not clearly related to sexist oppression.

In many respects, global capitalism is the biggest problem (see Fraser’s critique of feminism here). Capitalism feeds on sexist oppression: on the vulnerability and disempowerment of women, the concealment and exploitation of domestic and reproductive labour, and so on. But capitalism is an indiscriminate predator: it also feeds on the exploitation of prison labour, racism’s divisions of the working class, the vulnerability of the poor, “big money’s” domination of legal procedure, and so on. The point is that capitalism creates a deep division between rich and poor that produces an enormous class of exploitable people, and harnesses the social forces of racism, sexism, and xenophobia in general to maintain this division while fragmenting our perception of reality (see Arruzza).

Since this system entrenching sexist oppression does not limit itself to one kind of exploitation, then we effectively belong to the same movement; we are potentially “comrades” (Dean). We should find unexpected solidarity with people facing different problems, and find ourselves pursuing feminist labour in addressing issues not traditionally feminist, if the conditions of sexist oppression extend broadly. To effectively counter its target, feminist labour should concern itself with how this system situates others who may differ deeply from feminists, building solidarity with people who are indifferent or even opposed to basic feminist goals: military veterans, for example, or sex offenders and other incarcerated persons (excluded from the relationality key to their transformation, construed as individually responsible for problems with deeply social contours, themselves victims of violence, and so on), and people under-educated into issues of gender who may not know anything about the respectful use of pronouns. If we are rooted in the same structure, (as this Circles volunteer, herself a victim of rape, reflects), then effective opposition requires collaboration. There is no reason to think we will “lose the plot” thereby; the point is not to retain a “subject-position” for feminism or struggle only beside people like ourselves, but to effectively aim at the target.

For the same reason, we should note the ambivalence of the standard feminist goal of improving the economic situation of women. While this remains an important objective, inasmuch as it involves making a move within a capitalist system and thus has the ambivalent significance of endorsing that system, the source of much of the oppression of women and our sometimes more vulnerable “allies.”

Conclusion

It can be discouraging to think that one’s efforts to be just will always also be unjust, since they are specific, reflect partial knowledge, and transform at most just one piece of the world (as Hegel says, they are confessed). But if everything must become specific in order to be real, then we know that ideals cannot enter the world except through specific actions, which thereby have a dignity (as Hegel says, they are forgiven). Thus, it is important that we support each other in our partiality. But the most significant ethical and political act may be that of improving the conditions of communication, since the goals of recognizing specificity, being responsive to ideals, and effectively resisting systemic problems through solidarity are all supported by communication. To foster engagement through which we could be answerable to realities that outstrip us is central to enacting responsibility, which will always, because of our specificity, be a collective endeavour. If others inhabit the terrain extending beyond our experience, relate to the meanings implicit in our ideals, and feel the impact of different aspects of shared problems, it is in exposure to them through communication that we may accomplish the most.

The Women in Philosophy series publishes posts on women in the history of philosophy, posts on issues of concern to women in the field of philosophy, and posts that put philosophy to work to address issues of concern to women in the wider world. If you are interested in writing for the series, please contact the Series Editor Adriel M. Trott.

Shannon Hoff

Shannon Hoff is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Memorial University in Newfoundland, Canada. She is author of The Laws of the Spirit: A Hegelian Theory of Justice, and is currently working on a book on issues in feminism. She works in the areas of political philosophy, feminism, and continental philosophy.