Multicultural Feminism - Elizabeth Harrison

3/14/17 Blog Post
Ella Shohat
Talking Visions: Multicultural Feminism in a Transnational Age

In this blog I would like to take up the idea of “multicultural feminism” and explore Shohat’s methodology of genre mixing.

Multicultural Feminism

This reading was very relevant for me today, given the recent debates going on in my online feminist communities about intersectional feminism – specifically, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s comments about trans women (claiming she thinks trans women benefit from male privilege) and also Gloria Steinem’s recent interview stating that “there is no such thing as white feminism” (feminism is either intersectional or it is not feminism, she claims). These recent events have been fascinating – to watch famous feminists negotiate exactly what feminism is and who they think it applies to. Recent activist movements have also revealed divisions in the feminist community/communities – such as critiques of the women’s march by trans women and women of color.

I think that Shohat’s idea of multicultural feminism may offer a partial answer to these tensions.  Shohat explains multicultural feminism as a “multi-voiced” project that includes the critiques of many marginalized groups. Multicultural feminism – and Shohat’s writing project- strives to create a “plurilogue among diverse resistant practices”. Like previous scholars we have read in this class, Shohat recognizes the importance of highlighting “tensions and overlappings that take place “within” and “between” cultures, ethnicities, nations”.  Multicultural feminism seeks to explore “not only the range of culturally distinct gendered and sexualized subjects, but also the contradictions within this range”.

Shohat recognizes that multicultural feminism does not mean an always-happy intersectionality, but rather that diverse identity groups may “meet and sometimes crash at the intersection” – perhaps this is what is happening as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s understandings of gender as a Nigerian feminist crash into trans women’s understandings of gender. How can she, and other cis feminists, negotiate this conflict and move forward in coalition with trans feminists? How can we learn from our missteps? Shodat acknowledges that multicultural feminist projects might feel “often uneasy and painful, alliances are not conflict-free spaces” (Shohat, 33), especially since “those on the margins have sometimes had to survive at each other’s expense” (Shohat, 34).

“Generically Polyphonic” Methodology

Shohat declares her project as one that crosses genre borders by drawing on visual and verbal media and taking from art, science and everywhere in between. She describes this approach as consistent with her views on transnationalism, “like national borders, disciplinary borders too are out of synch with such transnational movements. The relational feminist approach demands moving beyond nation-bound and discipline-bound teaching, curating and organizing.” This border-crossing methodology means that her book is sprinkled with visual art prints and many ‘alternative’ forms of writing in addition to academic text. She rejects the pressure to sign a “loyalty oath” to any one discipline, and insists upon discussing both/and – both race and gender, both art and academia. She even wants to discard these dichotomies and dive into the many possibilities for a genre-mixing feminist project.

Implications for Disability Studies

The idea of mixing genres is very exciting to me, because I think flexibility of genres has exciting implications for accessibility (in addition to enhancing the scholarly project and providing more diverse perspectives). Including forms of expression outside the typically-glorified academic text allows for inclusion of those who do not or cannot write academically - people who may express themselves nonverbally, or who may have intellectual disability that means their expression is not deemed ‘academic’ enough, or who simply prefer not to write. While Shohat does not discuss this implication (nor does she include disabled women and queers in her listing of cultures represented by multiculturalism – a very unfortunate gap)- I think that her project could be a valuable model for disability studies scholars.

As one additional side note, I was struck by the use of disability as a metaphor throughout this text. Shodat refers to “seeing” and “being seen”, “being silenced”, “talking back”, “speaking out”, “gaining voice” and “being heard”. These expressions, frequently used in activist and feminist struggles, rely on the use of the able body as an ultimate ideal in the metaphor – rely on the reader to assume that to be able to speak and see and hear is normative and desired. While I realize that these are common expressions and not meant to harm disabled people in this context, I think it will be interesting and important for future feminist scholars – especially those seeking to be multicultural- to carefully consider use of disability as a metaphor in their work. Disability culture can add another layer of nuance, another “voice” (to use the metaphor) to the polyphonic project of multicultural feminism.

Questions:
1. How do we see the clashes of multicultural feminism played out in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s recent comments? Are feminisms that exclude other women welcome in the multicultural feminist project? How can we negotiate our different experiences, highlight the contradictions (e.g. cis women have different experiences than trans women), and work together?
2. How can disability be included as a culture of women in a multicultural feminist project?