Coalition Building: Lorde, Mohanty, Rich and the Question of Feminist Activism

In "Feminist Encounters: Locating the Politics of Experience," Chandra Talpade Mohanty suggests that, "at least in the U.S. academy feminists no longer have to contend as they did in the 1970s with phallocentric denials of the legitimacy of gender as a category of analysis." Having read the article and contemplated Mohanty's thoughts on a "politics of location," I find myself wondering what, if any, epistemological or political value Mohanty theorizes for the category "woman," as opposed to the other categories--race, social class, ethnicity, geographic residence, sexuality, etc.--that are discussed more specifically. As George W. Bush marches toward what pundits are tentatively predicting will be another campaign victory with the strong support of millions of women, I occasionally find myself doubting whether "woman" as a political category lacks the significance it had just 20 or 30 years ago, and whether such an observation does stem from any residual phallocentrism in my own political consciousness. In addition, when reading or hearing about the factionalism that seems to hinder or even perhaps obstruct completely consensus or coalition building among women, I also often question whether it might be useful on occasion to divorce, or at the very least, distance woman-centered political activism from academic feminist theory. Mohanty quotes Bernice Johnson Reagon as observing, "You don't go into a coalition because you *like* it. The only reason you would consider trying to team up with someone who could possibly kill you, is because that's the only way you can figure you can stay alive." I am not suggesting that academic theory is not useful in a political project that works against the oppression of women. I am contemplating, however, the possibility that, at a certain point, theory needs to step aside and allow political activism to step in, that, if we are to change anything, eventually we have to set aside our differences and work towards whatever agenda we can agree upon.

Anyone watching, reading, or listening to coverage of the Republican National Convention should understand how vital such a step is in U.S. politics. A political party dominated by rising moderate pro-choice superstars, and where the Vice President publicly disagrees with the President on exactly how far the federal government should go in preserving the paradigm of heterosexual marriage, nevertheless managed to agree upon one of the most socially conservative Republican platforms in U.S. political history, one that includes a strong stance against both reproductive choice and gay and lesbian marriage. Consensus and coalition building play an even more important role in parliamentary governments that are not dominated by a two-party system. For example, politics in Germany and Israel have been plagued in recent years by the "my way or the highway" stance of right-wing nationalists. Finally, on the international stage, the UN has been weakened by internal disagreements over how to handle genocide in Africa, the global AIDS crisis, and of course, unilateralism in the war in Iraq. I think examples such as these show how getting anything done on a national or international level requires those involved to put aside what might be long-term differences in order to work towards change in the short term. I think that this is a fact that feminist movements often lose sight of, and their effectiveness (or at least the public perception of their effectiveness) as advocates for legal and political change suffers as a result.

In an interview with Adrienne Rich, speaking about the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Audre Lorde suggests that creative endeavor is what keeps an oppressed group struggling for change from going over the edge. In the essay, "Poetry is Not a Luxury," Lorde provocatively argues that, "Poetry is not only dream and vision; it is the skeleton architecture of our lives. It lays the foundations for a future of change, a bridge across our fears of what has never been before." Lorde's observations highlight the perceived distinction between a creative discourse--of fiction, poetry and personal memoir--that is seen as capable of containing women's experience and the academic discourse--of observation, theory and objective analysis--that sometimes lacks this capacity. While I agree that the distinction is often a real one, I believe that these two discourses can be made to meet in the rhetoric of advocacy. Advocacy, of which political and legal discourse are two of the most obvious examples, is partisan, it is a discourse in which the speaker often must take a position on a particular question and advocate that it should be decided in a particular way. In the language of advocacy, the discourse of legal and political universals can be transformed to accommodate the realities of individual or communal experience. Advocacy is also a discourse that is designed to build consensus and coalition. It is a discourse that starts from the position that consensus does not exist and that in order to reach it, we must search for its foundations and build an argument demonstrating that it should. Although polemic fiction has been maligned by literary critics throughout its history, I am fascinated by the way in which it can turn art into a true act of political resistance and a force for change.

Perhaps my taste for fiction with an agenda explains why I am attracted to theorists such as Nussbaum, hooks, and Mohanty. In spite of their siginificant differences, they are united in the view that feminism involves activism and a reclamation of agency. Critical theory and academic feminism are valuable because they require us to understand that few truths are actually "self-evident" and political solutions are never "one-size-fits-all." Yet, although I think Nussbaum perhaps goes to far in theorizing "universals," I also believe that at some point we have to make a judgment call and decide that some ways of doing things are "wrong." Judgments should be based on more than the Western, bourgeois code of moral ethics, and solutions should be tailored to deal with the social and political realities of the culture that implements them in a way that maximizes the agency of the women and men who will be most immediately effected by political or legal change. I think that ultimately, what I take away from Lorde, Mohanty and Rich is that building an international coalition of women is a goal worth striving for. Women, as a class of cultural, legal, and historical subjects, do and have suffered from patriarchal oppression. Yet, oppression has many different forms, and perhaps activism inevitably must always take place at a local, or at most national level in order to be truly effective and responsive to the needs of those who will be most affected by change.