In her article “Testimonial Injustice”, Miranda Fricker writes “The idea is to explore testimonial injustice as a distinctively epistemic injustice, as a kind of injustice in which someone is wrong specifically in her capacity as a knower” (page 9). This can definitely be applied to Kavanaugh/Ford — Dr. Blasey Ford holds the knowledge that Brett Kavanaugh assaulted her thirty years ago. The degree and validity of her knowledge was investigated thoroughly and intensely at the hearing. Additionally, a large percentage of Americans outside of the Senate Judiciary Committee room questioned her from afar.
New York Times writers Sherly Gay Stolberg and Nicholas Fandos write “Her (Dr. Ford) main challenge was to prove that she is credible, and she appeared to have little trouble doing so”. One of the reasons that Dr. Blasey Ford’s testimony was received well was due to the fact that she presented herself as a little timid, but answered her questions in a composed manner. Additionally, she seemed to remain consistent in regards to details and content. Judge Kavanaugh’s defense, on the other hand, was very emotional to the point of being flawed — he was erratic, sometimes angry and sometimes crying, and claimed that he had never blacked out from drinking (which has been refuted by many people who new him at Yale). Kavanaugh actually reminded me of Leontes from “The Winter’s Tale” — I’m thinking specifically about the scene where Leontes concludes that Hermione is sleeping with Polixenes after watching them converse for only a few minutes. Leontes exhibits an erratic attitude and convinces himself of a reality that is simply untrue. I’m curious to know if other members of our class see similarities between Kavanaugh and Leontes, and if so, why?
These are such perceptive comments! I hadn’t thought of the Leontes connection, but it has just that unhinged kind of feeling…also totally agree on the application of Fricker’s piece to Blasey-Ford–the point that she had to prove her credibility…why was that such an issue?
Following the reading of Fricker and the examinations of Dr. Blasey Ford’s testimony, I was struck by the way that Fricker is able to denote the epistemological logic behind the commonly known fact that women who come forward about sexual assault may not be believed. Haley Sweetland Edwards underscores the gender dynamics in the performances of Blasey Ford and Kavanaugh, drawing a direct connection between their perceived credibility and their performance of “correct” gender roles. There are few identities that separate Blasey Ford’s and Kavanaugh’s access to power: they are both white, upper class and wealthy. Importantly then is the distinction of sex, and the testimonial injustice working against Blasey Ford. Even when Orrin Hatch admits that she is a credible witness, he betrays the very machinations that have him prefer Kavanaugh’s testimony; he stated, “I think she’s an attractive, good witness.” When pressed, he said, “In other words, she’s pleasing.” Despite assertions that Hatch has used “attractive” to describe other witnesses in the past, the focus on Blasey Ford as an easy witness to swallow expresses comfort in the passive way she approached her questioning. She is a “pleasing” witness because she did not respond with understandable anger when her character was being questioned, like the explosive fury exhibited by Kavanaugh.
The reading about testimonial injustice made me think of the news story about Blasey Ford’s father, who attends the same ELITE ALL-MALE COUNTRY CLUB (emphasis necessary; I did not know this was a thing) as Kavanaugh’s father, told the elder Kavanaugh that he was pleased by Brett’s election to the supreme court. Right-wing outlets immediately jumped on this as evidence that even her own father doesn’t believe her, so she must be lying. To me, this story was a disappointing example of how pervasive rape culture is that a woman’s own father cares more about his country club reputation than his daughter’s suffering. In terms of Fricker’s argument, the social power of Blasey’s old boys’ club overrides the potential credibility Blasey Ford might be afforded as his own daughter; this is testimonial injustice in action.
Another connection I made between Fricker and the other sources was to Brittney Cooper’s “White Women’s Tears,” in which Cooper stressed that a woman can not expect that abiding by white supremacy will protect her when she is at odds with patriarchal powers. In some way, this made me think of the fantastical example Fricker gives about the over-privileged man whose own credibility excess led to testimonial injustice by closing off his mind. I won’t speak to Ford’s own relationship to credibility excess, but the case Cooper speaks of generally, of white women who believe that their proximity to white male power will protect them despite their gender, can be viewed as one of the very few examples of testimonial injustice following from credibility excess. These white women of privilege are told that they are believable and more deserving of recognition than people of color (again, very generally), but this leads them to support systems of power in which they actually have a credibility deficit when compared to men; this is only realized when power is exercised not passively but directly, as in the case of accusing a powerful man of sexual assault.
fantastic observations Rachel–I was also struck by Orrin Hatch’s view that Blasey Ford was a good witness because she was “attractive” and “pleasing”–read: pliable and compliant. Loved the discussion of Blasey Ford’s father–it suddenly reveals her to be in a system that she thought was supportive and “on her side,” but which is actually, under pressure like this, hostile. Very good!
Social Power: “A practically socially situated capacity to control others’ actions, where this capacity may be exercised (actively or passively) by particular social agents, or alternatively, it may operate purely structurally”
In the Testimonial Injustice article, the definition of social power is strikingly simple, but also complex in its ramifications when applied to reality. Power is asserted on others, more than often inadvertently asserted when it is passive. In a way, passive power is more dangerous than active power, because passive power is stagnant and consistent, whereas power loses its culpability once it is acted upon actively. It helps for me to picture power as a coagulation of things, it has a constant and a dependent. And as Fricker argues, “Any given power relationship will also have a more significant, direct dependence on co-ordination with the actions of some social others in particular.” This reminds me of the theory around binaries that exist within rhetoric: everything has a dominant and a supplement. So it makes sense that power as well has binaries, because so much of the social power structure relies on verbality and communication. So because of this binary, there is constantly a dominant and a supplement co-ordination that continues to promote the structure. This structure exists within many social issues like race, gender and class.
It was interesting to keep this theory in mind while reading the other articles for today. The Kavanaugh pieces clearly had to do with overtness of emotions and feelings that were displayed throughout the trial. There was a very clear binary between Kavanaugh’s reactions, which were defensive and fiery, compared to Dr. Blasey’s reaction’s, which were gentle and endearing. Dichotomous emotions were only one of the ways in which toxic gender standards were on display in the trial. In a way the traditional notions of passive power (implicit tales of assault and harassment around influential men) were on trial, only after the enacting of the active power (the attempted assault).
excellent points, Mel–you picked out the central statement from Fricker’s piece, and applied it in really interesting ways. I totally agree about the way the performances in this hearing seemed to fall into binary categories (really interesting to think about how that works), with Blasey Ford at the quiet and compliant end and Kavanaugh doing an extreme intemperate performance–as Faraz says, Leontes-like.
Watching the video of Sen. Orrin Hatch’s opening statement was incredibly disturbing on many different levels. First and foremost, he continually referenced having known Kavanaugh for a long time, which to him means that inherently he must be a good guy. Sen. Hatch repeatedly used the language of “brother” and “friend” in conjunction with “integrity” and “intellect,” framing his credibility as something that can be measured by the longevity of their acquaintance. This reflects Fricker’s idea of credibility excess, in which his status as an educated, white male who has achieved a certain degree of success in his career is virtually untouchable, and any attempt to undermine or limit him, particularly by those who do not experience the same levels of privilege and are seen as inferior by virtue of their gender or class or race, such as Christine Blasey Ford, are a threat to men in general.
Sen. Hatch also referenced a list of female colleagues of Kavanaugh who have come forward in support of him. This reminded me of Traister describing the type of women who defend the patriarchy and disparage the #MeToo movement, usually white women with proximity to power, who do so in order to find some kind of reward. However, as Brittney Cooper said in her interview, to get in bed with white supremacy is to get in bed with the patriarchy. Whatever their motive was to support Kavanaugh, against a fellow woman, they also supported a system that could result in which women are continually vulnerable to sexual violence.
The video was also fascinating because of the disruption of the women yelling. It was shocking to not only hear the interrupting feminine voices, which are never supposed to speak over the man, but to also hear it turn into a scream. You could literally feel the anger released as if from behind a dam, as it changed from words and chants to screaming. The weight of all that was unsaid over the many years, in which women have endured what Christine Blasey Ford went through and were silent about it, finally being able to burst through. It also seemed to speak for Dr. Blasey Ford, since she could not yell or scream or cry herself, as that would have jeopardized her ability to prove her credibility, since she was already at a disadvantage compared to Kavanaugh’s credibility excess. Sen. Hatch was clearly rattled and had to keep making remarks about it, to turn it into a joke like Biden did to Sen. Warren during the debate. Otherwise, people might try to listen to the women, which would pose a threat to his position of power and to the patriarchal system that’s trying to defend Kavanaugh.
Excellent comments! Yes, completely agree on the homosocial bonding aspect of Hatch’s comments–brotherhood–and also on the incredibly striking effect of what he calls the “loudmouth” in the background. We could hardly ask for a better example of what we’ve been talking about this semester…Also liked your application of Fricker’s terminology, which for me really helps to clarify what’s going on in these dynamics.
Before beginning Kimberlé Crenshaw’s piece, “Whose Story is it, Anyway? Feminist and Antiracist Appropriations of Anita Hill”, I wondered what Judith Butler might have to say about the way race is viewed in the mainstream, social discourse. Is it a performance in the way that gender is, constituted through repeated, culturally recognizable acts? I think the answer would be no, as the social situation of race seems to be largely determined not by the individual to whom it is applied; but by third parties who place people into predetermined categories based on externally assigned, stereotypical traits. While any individual might appropriate culturally recognizable gender expressions to convey their own gender identity, people of color are forced into a presumed narrative based on their non-white appearance, consequently lacking the agency to shape how they are perceived and received by the world.
Crenshaw addresses the tension inherent to the intersectional identity of a black woman in her piece when she says that “the central disadvantage that Hill faced was the lack of available and widely comprehended narratives to communicate the reality of her experience as a black woman to the world” (Crenshaw, 404). Since there is no existing set of markers used to generalize the black, female experience, black women cannot rely on a common reception to (and acceptance of) their identity: instead, they are forced to constantly combat the negative stereotypes that fill the place of a narrative.
As we’ve examined subversive texts that seek to dismantle discursive paradigms concerning gender and class (for example, Tamer Tamed and The Witch of Edmonton), I was interested in how the consideration of race would fit into the realm of critical social movements. As Crenshaw explains, black womanhood is “unique and in some cases unassimilable” into cultural conversations regarding gender and race domination (Crenshaw, 404). As a result, not only do feminist and antiracist groups tend to oppose one another; but they also deny the legitimacy of the struggles faced by those who experience intersecting marginalizations.
Crenshaw elaborates on the complexity of belonging to multiple identity groups by recognizing “the idea that reality is socially constructed in part through ideologically informed images of ‘men’ and ‘women’” (Crenshaw, 408). This limiting method of sorting and recognizing gender identity assumes whiteness, and doesn’t accommodate signifiers of gender expression in non-white cultures. Thus, a black woman’s behavior is left up to interpretation by outside parties other than herself. Instead of affirming positive social constructions of black women, black women must worry that their performed identities will be dissected: gender and race will be separated to conform to discursive conceptions of white women and black men, further removing black women from the stage and potentially being used as fodder for negative stereotypes of both women and black people.
Really excellent comments, Leila–your question about how/whether Butler’s ideas about performative identity fit with race are really interesting. Do you think code-switching might be an example of an element of performativity within a racial identity?I do agree with your overall sense that people of color often have narratives and meanings coercively applied to their experiences. In terms of Crenshaw’s analysis, I also found her argument about the unassimilable nature of black women’s identity particularly compelling–the notion fo “doctrinal exclusion” in particular.
I found Crenshaw’s piece to be really intriguing and informative. I went into the essay with a superficial understanding of the Hill/Thomas issue, but Crenshaw’s contextualization helped me better understand the historical and sociological elements at play. Her statement, “America simply stumbled into the place where African-American women live, a political vacuum of erasure and contradiction maintained by the almost routine polarization of ‘blacks and women’ into separate and competing political camps” (403) captured a substantial essence of her argument; the intersection of race and gender in the US has exacerbated the effects of both identities for black women at the same time that it has canceled them out, so as to neglect black women’s experiences in relation to those of white women and of black men. She reiterates this when she discusses the social dichotomy of rape and lynching narratives, as “Neither narrative tends to acknowledge the legitimacy of the other; the reality of rape tends to be disregarded within the lynching narrative; the impact of racism is frequently marginalized within rape narratives” (405). Through this, “race and gender politics often end up being antagonistic to each other and both interests lose” (405), so that both fail to fully acknowledge how they remain tools of the white patriarchy by opposing, rather than combining forces, and in doing so, neglect the intersection of identity within both their communities.
I find it very interesting that in the situation of a woman accusing a black man of sexual harassment, the general public’s (including a large part of the black community) erasure of black women’s experience saw Hill embodying the role of a white feminist. This makes sense even though it is unjust; in the dichotomy of gender and race politics, where the broader black community has “been reluctant to expose any internal conflict that might reflect negatively on the black community” (420), at the same time that an administration such as George H.W. Bush’s (himself not a neoconservative, but whose presidency gave way to the neoconservative policies of his son’s administration) might value a token black neoconservative on the Supreme Court. Through this, both white conservatives and the black community would superficially benefit from this “antiracist” discourse, while of course ignoring the reality of Hill’s intersectional identity and the combined racial and gendered context of black womanhood in the US. As Crenshaw describes, the “tough” demeaner of black women is not inherent in an ability to handle with ease where white women might reveal “weakness,” but rather, “The humor or verbal competition that typifies the way some black women react to harassment probably results from the dearth of options available to nonelite black women within a society that has demonstrated manifest disregard for their sexual integrity” (429).
Much of the rhetoric that Crenshaw refers to in the classification of black women and their sexuality reminded me of the oh so many classifications of women and justifications of their treatment that we’ve looked at in this class. Specifically, her statement, “Rape and other sexual abuses were justified by myths that black women were sexually voracious, that they were sexually indiscriminate, and that they readily copulated with animals, most frequently imagined to be apes and monkeys” (411), calls to mind witch accusations. Ideology around a woman in a state of unnaturalness or lack of human-ness can be legitimized through common rhetoric such as her intimate relationship with a familiar or an ape, and these tactics to continually disarm her for the sake of a larger system’s values are used by some members of her own group, such as a witch’s female neighbors, or for a black woman in the US, white women, black men, and even black women.
P.S. Hidden Brain’s podcast episode from today actually looks at the Anita Hill testimony in the context of psychological actions in the “heat of the moment,” referring to Hill’s and other women’s fear and shock in the moment of harassment as opposed to the anger they experience in retrospect.
Excellent comments, Maya–a truly thorough and incisive response to Crenshaw’s important article. She’s the first theorist to really develop the notion of intersectionality, and she uses it to powerful effect here, as you point out. I also found her point about the use of humor or “banter” as a defensive tactic by black women very interesting–as push back against that “cultural” reading of Thomas’s behaviour as just a form of courting that Hill was presumed (“should have been able to”) to understand.
December 5, 2019 at 12:14 am
In her article “Testimonial Injustice”, Miranda Fricker writes “The idea is to explore testimonial injustice as a distinctively epistemic injustice, as a kind of injustice in which someone is wrong specifically in her capacity as a knower” (page 9). This can definitely be applied to Kavanaugh/Ford — Dr. Blasey Ford holds the knowledge that Brett Kavanaugh assaulted her thirty years ago. The degree and validity of her knowledge was investigated thoroughly and intensely at the hearing. Additionally, a large percentage of Americans outside of the Senate Judiciary Committee room questioned her from afar.
New York Times writers Sherly Gay Stolberg and Nicholas Fandos write “Her (Dr. Ford) main challenge was to prove that she is credible, and she appeared to have little trouble doing so”. One of the reasons that Dr. Blasey Ford’s testimony was received well was due to the fact that she presented herself as a little timid, but answered her questions in a composed manner. Additionally, she seemed to remain consistent in regards to details and content. Judge Kavanaugh’s defense, on the other hand, was very emotional to the point of being flawed — he was erratic, sometimes angry and sometimes crying, and claimed that he had never blacked out from drinking (which has been refuted by many people who new him at Yale). Kavanaugh actually reminded me of Leontes from “The Winter’s Tale” — I’m thinking specifically about the scene where Leontes concludes that Hermione is sleeping with Polixenes after watching them converse for only a few minutes. Leontes exhibits an erratic attitude and convinces himself of a reality that is simply untrue. I’m curious to know if other members of our class see similarities between Kavanaugh and Leontes, and if so, why?
December 5, 2019 at 10:17 am
These are such perceptive comments! I hadn’t thought of the Leontes connection, but it has just that unhinged kind of feeling…also totally agree on the application of Fricker’s piece to Blasey-Ford–the point that she had to prove her credibility…why was that such an issue?
December 4, 2019 at 11:38 pm
Following the reading of Fricker and the examinations of Dr. Blasey Ford’s testimony, I was struck by the way that Fricker is able to denote the epistemological logic behind the commonly known fact that women who come forward about sexual assault may not be believed. Haley Sweetland Edwards underscores the gender dynamics in the performances of Blasey Ford and Kavanaugh, drawing a direct connection between their perceived credibility and their performance of “correct” gender roles. There are few identities that separate Blasey Ford’s and Kavanaugh’s access to power: they are both white, upper class and wealthy. Importantly then is the distinction of sex, and the testimonial injustice working against Blasey Ford. Even when Orrin Hatch admits that she is a credible witness, he betrays the very machinations that have him prefer Kavanaugh’s testimony; he stated, “I think she’s an attractive, good witness.” When pressed, he said, “In other words, she’s pleasing.” Despite assertions that Hatch has used “attractive” to describe other witnesses in the past, the focus on Blasey Ford as an easy witness to swallow expresses comfort in the passive way she approached her questioning. She is a “pleasing” witness because she did not respond with understandable anger when her character was being questioned, like the explosive fury exhibited by Kavanaugh.
The reading about testimonial injustice made me think of the news story about Blasey Ford’s father, who attends the same ELITE ALL-MALE COUNTRY CLUB (emphasis necessary; I did not know this was a thing) as Kavanaugh’s father, told the elder Kavanaugh that he was pleased by Brett’s election to the supreme court. Right-wing outlets immediately jumped on this as evidence that even her own father doesn’t believe her, so she must be lying. To me, this story was a disappointing example of how pervasive rape culture is that a woman’s own father cares more about his country club reputation than his daughter’s suffering. In terms of Fricker’s argument, the social power of Blasey’s old boys’ club overrides the potential credibility Blasey Ford might be afforded as his own daughter; this is testimonial injustice in action.
Another connection I made between Fricker and the other sources was to Brittney Cooper’s “White Women’s Tears,” in which Cooper stressed that a woman can not expect that abiding by white supremacy will protect her when she is at odds with patriarchal powers. In some way, this made me think of the fantastical example Fricker gives about the over-privileged man whose own credibility excess led to testimonial injustice by closing off his mind. I won’t speak to Ford’s own relationship to credibility excess, but the case Cooper speaks of generally, of white women who believe that their proximity to white male power will protect them despite their gender, can be viewed as one of the very few examples of testimonial injustice following from credibility excess. These white women of privilege are told that they are believable and more deserving of recognition than people of color (again, very generally), but this leads them to support systems of power in which they actually have a credibility deficit when compared to men; this is only realized when power is exercised not passively but directly, as in the case of accusing a powerful man of sexual assault.
December 5, 2019 at 10:18 am
fantastic observations Rachel–I was also struck by Orrin Hatch’s view that Blasey Ford was a good witness because she was “attractive” and “pleasing”–read: pliable and compliant. Loved the discussion of Blasey Ford’s father–it suddenly reveals her to be in a system that she thought was supportive and “on her side,” but which is actually, under pressure like this, hostile. Very good!
December 4, 2019 at 9:56 pm
Social Power: “A practically socially situated capacity to control others’ actions, where this capacity may be exercised (actively or passively) by particular social agents, or alternatively, it may operate purely structurally”
In the Testimonial Injustice article, the definition of social power is strikingly simple, but also complex in its ramifications when applied to reality. Power is asserted on others, more than often inadvertently asserted when it is passive. In a way, passive power is more dangerous than active power, because passive power is stagnant and consistent, whereas power loses its culpability once it is acted upon actively. It helps for me to picture power as a coagulation of things, it has a constant and a dependent. And as Fricker argues, “Any given power relationship will also have a more significant, direct dependence on co-ordination with the actions of some social others in particular.” This reminds me of the theory around binaries that exist within rhetoric: everything has a dominant and a supplement. So it makes sense that power as well has binaries, because so much of the social power structure relies on verbality and communication. So because of this binary, there is constantly a dominant and a supplement co-ordination that continues to promote the structure. This structure exists within many social issues like race, gender and class.
It was interesting to keep this theory in mind while reading the other articles for today. The Kavanaugh pieces clearly had to do with overtness of emotions and feelings that were displayed throughout the trial. There was a very clear binary between Kavanaugh’s reactions, which were defensive and fiery, compared to Dr. Blasey’s reaction’s, which were gentle and endearing. Dichotomous emotions were only one of the ways in which toxic gender standards were on display in the trial. In a way the traditional notions of passive power (implicit tales of assault and harassment around influential men) were on trial, only after the enacting of the active power (the attempted assault).
December 5, 2019 at 10:21 am
excellent points, Mel–you picked out the central statement from Fricker’s piece, and applied it in really interesting ways. I totally agree about the way the performances in this hearing seemed to fall into binary categories (really interesting to think about how that works), with Blasey Ford at the quiet and compliant end and Kavanaugh doing an extreme intemperate performance–as Faraz says, Leontes-like.
December 4, 2019 at 6:24 pm
Watching the video of Sen. Orrin Hatch’s opening statement was incredibly disturbing on many different levels. First and foremost, he continually referenced having known Kavanaugh for a long time, which to him means that inherently he must be a good guy. Sen. Hatch repeatedly used the language of “brother” and “friend” in conjunction with “integrity” and “intellect,” framing his credibility as something that can be measured by the longevity of their acquaintance. This reflects Fricker’s idea of credibility excess, in which his status as an educated, white male who has achieved a certain degree of success in his career is virtually untouchable, and any attempt to undermine or limit him, particularly by those who do not experience the same levels of privilege and are seen as inferior by virtue of their gender or class or race, such as Christine Blasey Ford, are a threat to men in general.
Sen. Hatch also referenced a list of female colleagues of Kavanaugh who have come forward in support of him. This reminded me of Traister describing the type of women who defend the patriarchy and disparage the #MeToo movement, usually white women with proximity to power, who do so in order to find some kind of reward. However, as Brittney Cooper said in her interview, to get in bed with white supremacy is to get in bed with the patriarchy. Whatever their motive was to support Kavanaugh, against a fellow woman, they also supported a system that could result in which women are continually vulnerable to sexual violence.
The video was also fascinating because of the disruption of the women yelling. It was shocking to not only hear the interrupting feminine voices, which are never supposed to speak over the man, but to also hear it turn into a scream. You could literally feel the anger released as if from behind a dam, as it changed from words and chants to screaming. The weight of all that was unsaid over the many years, in which women have endured what Christine Blasey Ford went through and were silent about it, finally being able to burst through. It also seemed to speak for Dr. Blasey Ford, since she could not yell or scream or cry herself, as that would have jeopardized her ability to prove her credibility, since she was already at a disadvantage compared to Kavanaugh’s credibility excess. Sen. Hatch was clearly rattled and had to keep making remarks about it, to turn it into a joke like Biden did to Sen. Warren during the debate. Otherwise, people might try to listen to the women, which would pose a threat to his position of power and to the patriarchal system that’s trying to defend Kavanaugh.
December 5, 2019 at 10:23 am
Excellent comments! Yes, completely agree on the homosocial bonding aspect of Hatch’s comments–brotherhood–and also on the incredibly striking effect of what he calls the “loudmouth” in the background. We could hardly ask for a better example of what we’ve been talking about this semester…Also liked your application of Fricker’s terminology, which for me really helps to clarify what’s going on in these dynamics.
December 2, 2019 at 8:57 pm
Before beginning Kimberlé Crenshaw’s piece, “Whose Story is it, Anyway? Feminist and Antiracist Appropriations of Anita Hill”, I wondered what Judith Butler might have to say about the way race is viewed in the mainstream, social discourse. Is it a performance in the way that gender is, constituted through repeated, culturally recognizable acts? I think the answer would be no, as the social situation of race seems to be largely determined not by the individual to whom it is applied; but by third parties who place people into predetermined categories based on externally assigned, stereotypical traits. While any individual might appropriate culturally recognizable gender expressions to convey their own gender identity, people of color are forced into a presumed narrative based on their non-white appearance, consequently lacking the agency to shape how they are perceived and received by the world.
Crenshaw addresses the tension inherent to the intersectional identity of a black woman in her piece when she says that “the central disadvantage that Hill faced was the lack of available and widely comprehended narratives to communicate the reality of her experience as a black woman to the world” (Crenshaw, 404). Since there is no existing set of markers used to generalize the black, female experience, black women cannot rely on a common reception to (and acceptance of) their identity: instead, they are forced to constantly combat the negative stereotypes that fill the place of a narrative.
As we’ve examined subversive texts that seek to dismantle discursive paradigms concerning gender and class (for example, Tamer Tamed and The Witch of Edmonton), I was interested in how the consideration of race would fit into the realm of critical social movements. As Crenshaw explains, black womanhood is “unique and in some cases unassimilable” into cultural conversations regarding gender and race domination (Crenshaw, 404). As a result, not only do feminist and antiracist groups tend to oppose one another; but they also deny the legitimacy of the struggles faced by those who experience intersecting marginalizations.
Crenshaw elaborates on the complexity of belonging to multiple identity groups by recognizing “the idea that reality is socially constructed in part through ideologically informed images of ‘men’ and ‘women’” (Crenshaw, 408). This limiting method of sorting and recognizing gender identity assumes whiteness, and doesn’t accommodate signifiers of gender expression in non-white cultures. Thus, a black woman’s behavior is left up to interpretation by outside parties other than herself. Instead of affirming positive social constructions of black women, black women must worry that their performed identities will be dissected: gender and race will be separated to conform to discursive conceptions of white women and black men, further removing black women from the stage and potentially being used as fodder for negative stereotypes of both women and black people.
December 3, 2019 at 9:14 am
Really excellent comments, Leila–your question about how/whether Butler’s ideas about performative identity fit with race are really interesting. Do you think code-switching might be an example of an element of performativity within a racial identity?I do agree with your overall sense that people of color often have narratives and meanings coercively applied to their experiences. In terms of Crenshaw’s analysis, I also found her argument about the unassimilable nature of black women’s identity particularly compelling–the notion fo “doctrinal exclusion” in particular.
December 2, 2019 at 7:13 pm
I found Crenshaw’s piece to be really intriguing and informative. I went into the essay with a superficial understanding of the Hill/Thomas issue, but Crenshaw’s contextualization helped me better understand the historical and sociological elements at play. Her statement, “America simply stumbled into the place where African-American women live, a political vacuum of erasure and contradiction maintained by the almost routine polarization of ‘blacks and women’ into separate and competing political camps” (403) captured a substantial essence of her argument; the intersection of race and gender in the US has exacerbated the effects of both identities for black women at the same time that it has canceled them out, so as to neglect black women’s experiences in relation to those of white women and of black men. She reiterates this when she discusses the social dichotomy of rape and lynching narratives, as “Neither narrative tends to acknowledge the legitimacy of the other; the reality of rape tends to be disregarded within the lynching narrative; the impact of racism is frequently marginalized within rape narratives” (405). Through this, “race and gender politics often end up being antagonistic to each other and both interests lose” (405), so that both fail to fully acknowledge how they remain tools of the white patriarchy by opposing, rather than combining forces, and in doing so, neglect the intersection of identity within both their communities.
I find it very interesting that in the situation of a woman accusing a black man of sexual harassment, the general public’s (including a large part of the black community) erasure of black women’s experience saw Hill embodying the role of a white feminist. This makes sense even though it is unjust; in the dichotomy of gender and race politics, where the broader black community has “been reluctant to expose any internal conflict that might reflect negatively on the black community” (420), at the same time that an administration such as George H.W. Bush’s (himself not a neoconservative, but whose presidency gave way to the neoconservative policies of his son’s administration) might value a token black neoconservative on the Supreme Court. Through this, both white conservatives and the black community would superficially benefit from this “antiracist” discourse, while of course ignoring the reality of Hill’s intersectional identity and the combined racial and gendered context of black womanhood in the US. As Crenshaw describes, the “tough” demeaner of black women is not inherent in an ability to handle with ease where white women might reveal “weakness,” but rather, “The humor or verbal competition that typifies the way some black women react to harassment probably results from the dearth of options available to nonelite black women within a society that has demonstrated manifest disregard for their sexual integrity” (429).
Much of the rhetoric that Crenshaw refers to in the classification of black women and their sexuality reminded me of the oh so many classifications of women and justifications of their treatment that we’ve looked at in this class. Specifically, her statement, “Rape and other sexual abuses were justified by myths that black women were sexually voracious, that they were sexually indiscriminate, and that they readily copulated with animals, most frequently imagined to be apes and monkeys” (411), calls to mind witch accusations. Ideology around a woman in a state of unnaturalness or lack of human-ness can be legitimized through common rhetoric such as her intimate relationship with a familiar or an ape, and these tactics to continually disarm her for the sake of a larger system’s values are used by some members of her own group, such as a witch’s female neighbors, or for a black woman in the US, white women, black men, and even black women.
December 2, 2019 at 11:55 pm
P.S. Hidden Brain’s podcast episode from today actually looks at the Anita Hill testimony in the context of psychological actions in the “heat of the moment,” referring to Hill’s and other women’s fear and shock in the moment of harassment as opposed to the anger they experience in retrospect.
December 3, 2019 at 9:17 am
Thanks so much–I can’t wait to listen to this!
December 3, 2019 at 9:17 am
Excellent comments, Maya–a truly thorough and incisive response to Crenshaw’s important article. She’s the first theorist to really develop the notion of intersectionality, and she uses it to powerful effect here, as you point out. I also found her point about the use of humor or “banter” as a defensive tactic by black women very interesting–as push back against that “cultural” reading of Thomas’s behaviour as just a form of courting that Hill was presumed (“should have been able to”) to understand.