Page 45 - Šolsko polje, XXXI, 2020, 5-6: Teaching Feminism, ed. Valerija Vendramin
P. 45
b. kašić ■ feminism as epistemic disobedience ...
Of course, critical knowledge that engages feminist, antiracist or anti-co-
lonial voices has nothing to do with this and accordingly is often margin-
alised within leading mainstream studies on projective streams towards
globalisation.
Thus Judith Butler pointed out that:
It may be that knowledge will begin even more radically to circulate out-
side the university, and though there are many reasons to wish for the
displacement of the university as the center of knowledge, it would be an
unimaginable loss for the university /…/ (Butler, 2013, p. 190).
Along with the above-mentioned obstacles, there has been, accord-
ing to Chandra Talpade Mohanty, the development of a “careerist aca-
demic feminism” in which feminism has become a way of advancing
individual careers rather than a call for collective activism or radical trans-
formation (Mohanty, 2003, p. 6). Do we still cultivate a politics of solidar-
ity among feminist scholars and feminists in general as grounds for a fem-
inist agenda, or is there no obligation beyond our professional positions
and properly designed academic curricula?
In order to claim feminist alliances, we should rely on the places still
left, or new ones that would enable a creative and critical feminist cross-
ing. And yet, viewing the world today, the questions are becoming more
layered and complex, and key feminist dilemmas by gaining new contours
are becoming ever sharpened, and the feminist struggle more arduous.
A WS student recently asked me how to deal with “capitalist fem-
inism”. Although confused momentarily by this unusual question be-
cause it seems that everything is receiving a soft-fluid capitalist attribution
and coating in a global world characterised by new-capitalist expansions,
I quickly responded with a counter-question: “How to fight capitalism
with feminist tools?”. At that moment, I did not want to jump into an
elaboration of the discursive paradox based on the very incommensura-
bility between capitalism and feminism. Instead, I tried to make my ar-
guments around the contemporary capitalist “empire” as a masculinist
project and its global corporate brotherhood. The effects of global capital
production directly attack women, making them disposable and cheap la-
bour in order to make a profit (Gržinić, 2009). Not only is any pact that
enables the continuity of modes of capitalist production founded on the
division of labour and, in this regard, over-exploited female workers in the
status of “modern slaves”, but the exclusion of women as potential agen-
cy in this pact is conditio sine qua non of any capital logic and existence.
These days where co-propriety between capital and power, working closely
both nationally and internationally, functions “efficiently” by multiplying
43
Of course, critical knowledge that engages feminist, antiracist or anti-co-
lonial voices has nothing to do with this and accordingly is often margin-
alised within leading mainstream studies on projective streams towards
globalisation.
Thus Judith Butler pointed out that:
It may be that knowledge will begin even more radically to circulate out-
side the university, and though there are many reasons to wish for the
displacement of the university as the center of knowledge, it would be an
unimaginable loss for the university /…/ (Butler, 2013, p. 190).
Along with the above-mentioned obstacles, there has been, accord-
ing to Chandra Talpade Mohanty, the development of a “careerist aca-
demic feminism” in which feminism has become a way of advancing
individual careers rather than a call for collective activism or radical trans-
formation (Mohanty, 2003, p. 6). Do we still cultivate a politics of solidar-
ity among feminist scholars and feminists in general as grounds for a fem-
inist agenda, or is there no obligation beyond our professional positions
and properly designed academic curricula?
In order to claim feminist alliances, we should rely on the places still
left, or new ones that would enable a creative and critical feminist cross-
ing. And yet, viewing the world today, the questions are becoming more
layered and complex, and key feminist dilemmas by gaining new contours
are becoming ever sharpened, and the feminist struggle more arduous.
A WS student recently asked me how to deal with “capitalist fem-
inism”. Although confused momentarily by this unusual question be-
cause it seems that everything is receiving a soft-fluid capitalist attribution
and coating in a global world characterised by new-capitalist expansions,
I quickly responded with a counter-question: “How to fight capitalism
with feminist tools?”. At that moment, I did not want to jump into an
elaboration of the discursive paradox based on the very incommensura-
bility between capitalism and feminism. Instead, I tried to make my ar-
guments around the contemporary capitalist “empire” as a masculinist
project and its global corporate brotherhood. The effects of global capital
production directly attack women, making them disposable and cheap la-
bour in order to make a profit (Gržinić, 2009). Not only is any pact that
enables the continuity of modes of capitalist production founded on the
division of labour and, in this regard, over-exploited female workers in the
status of “modern slaves”, but the exclusion of women as potential agen-
cy in this pact is conditio sine qua non of any capital logic and existence.
These days where co-propriety between capital and power, working closely
both nationally and internationally, functions “efficiently” by multiplying
43
