At Public Books, Rinku Sen reviews three recent high-profile books on the current state of feminism. She finds that the authors make the mistake of separating political agitation from cultural agitation—a mistake, however, that on-the-ground activists are not making:
Feminism Unfinished by Dorothy Sue Cobble, Linda Gordon, and Astrid Henry and Pro by Katha Pollitt are on policy change, while Bad Feminist by Roxanne Gay constitutes cultural criticism. Aside from their individual strengths and shortcomings, as a whole the three books rarely connect the cultural and political realms. Political and cultural strategies don’t have to come from the same people—I don’t really want my novels and movies to be written by politicos. But without the muscle that enables thinking through both politics and culture, regardless of which arena any specific person or organization works in, we are unlikely to win the many changes that women still need.
The disconnect between the two fields evident in these books may reflect a weakness in feminist thinking and strategy more broadly. The books are about different aspects of life, to be sure, and every writer does not have to cover everything. Yet these gaps tell us something important about the emerging movement’s unaligned, and in some cases undeveloped, cultural and political strategy. On the ground, activists have been understanding this for several years, and innovations incorporating cultural strategy into political planning are in development…
Such work has been developing for years, especially in immigration and racial justice, and increasingly among feminists. Favianna Rodriguez is a visual artist who is one of the founders of Culturestrike, which organizes artists, musicians, and writers on immigration issues. Rodriguez has recently started a project called Pussy Power to explore feminist ideas about female sexuality. The Citizen Engagement Lab, which has incubated groups like the online women’s organization Ultraviolet, provides innovation labs for activists, including a culture lab. Organizations of domestic workers, restaurant workers, and other low-wage workers have cultural strategists on staff. We will be seeing many more cultural products with progressive, political, and feminist themes emerging from these efforts in the near future. Over time, I wouldn’t be so surprised to see a new Tumblr called Women Who Used To Be Against Feminism.