![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Joanna Russ, What are we fighting for? Sex, race, class, and the future of feminism (1998)
This is one of my favourite overviews of social justice struggles. After two chapters which could perhaps be skipped - on the role of feminism in the academy and in literary criticism* - she goes through feminism, separatism, lesbianism, class, race, issues for feminists of colour, disability, and winds up by talking about how patriarchy hurts men.
Russ is very accessible, talks about feminism in daily life. Her big focus is on intersectionality and recognising that we can’t fix one issue only (say, white women’s position) but need to look at the broader connections of discrimination in our society.
It’s a great overview of all the issues. The style is a bit clunky as Russ tends to just list quotes by other writers. On the other hand, this is very helpful in signalling where to go for further reading. (I intend to try to find some of the feminists of colour she mentions for my next 50 books by writers of colour challenge).
Russ’ point here is that feminism as a political movement has been sidetracked into discussions of psychology in which the problem is individual. But using academia as an example does not work terribly well unless you care passionately about what is taught in English departments in the USA. She does not tie these chapters to broader society in the way she does in other chapters.
This is one of my favourite overviews of social justice struggles. After two chapters which could perhaps be skipped - on the role of feminism in the academy and in literary criticism* - she goes through feminism, separatism, lesbianism, class, race, issues for feminists of colour, disability, and winds up by talking about how patriarchy hurts men.
Russ is very accessible, talks about feminism in daily life. Her big focus is on intersectionality and recognising that we can’t fix one issue only (say, white women’s position) but need to look at the broader connections of discrimination in our society.
It’s a great overview of all the issues. The style is a bit clunky as Russ tends to just list quotes by other writers. On the other hand, this is very helpful in signalling where to go for further reading. (I intend to try to find some of the feminists of colour she mentions for my next 50 books by writers of colour challenge).
Russ’ point here is that feminism as a political movement has been sidetracked into discussions of psychology in which the problem is individual. But using academia as an example does not work terribly well unless you care passionately about what is taught in English departments in the USA. She does not tie these chapters to broader society in the way she does in other chapters.
