Feminism as Revolutionary Practice: From Justice and the Politics of Recognition to Freedom

Abstract

In the 1980s extra‐parliamentary social movements and critical theories of race, class, and gender added a new sociocultural understanding of justice—recognition—to the much older socioeconomic one. The best‐known form of the struggle for recognition is the identity politics of disadvantaged groups. I argue that there is still another option to conceptualize their predicament, neglected in recent political philosophy, which understands exclusion not in terms of injustice, more particularly a lack of sociocultural recognition, but in terms of a lack of freedom. I draw my inspiration from Hannah Arendt's model of political action. Arendt diagnoses exclusion not solely as a mode of injustice, but as a lack of participation and public freedom. Consequently, she advocates a struggle for participation, political equality, and freedom as a strategy for emancipation or empowerment. Arendt could help feminists see that collective empowerment is made possible not by a shared identity (the target of poststructuralist critics) but by common action in the service of a particular worldly issue or common end. In other words, feminists would do well to appreciate the revolutionary quality and heritage of the feminist movement better, that is, its character as a set of practices of freedom.

A New Dawn for the Second Sex

“…In line with this approach, feminist 'identity politics' can be re-articulated in terms of a set of freedom practices 31 that have a -certain -relationship 31 Marieke Borren (2013), in reference to Linda Zerelli (2005), also argues for a feminism in terms of 'a set of practices of freedom,' from the perspective of Hannah Arendt's concept of the political. Feminist freedom practices concern a political, non-identity based feminism.…”

Inside/Outside/In-between: Understanding how Jewish Identity Impacts the Lives and Narratives of Ashkenazi Female Public School Educators

“…Identity politics: a political movement first used in the 1980s that refers to how one bases his/her sense of identity on conditions of structural and systematic stigmatization and disadvantage (Moon, 2012) in which gender, race, and class are the primary deviations from the standard of middle/upper-class White men of European descent (Bernstein, 2005;Borren, 2013;Greenebaum, 1999;hooks, 1994;Jackson, 1993; as cited in Greenebaum, 1999;Lorber, 1999;Nelson-Barber & Harrison, 1996;Nicholson, 2008;Scott, 1992).…”

“…Drawing from this notion of "twoness", identity politics is the tendency to base one's politics on a sense of personal identity that "arises out of conditions of systematic stigmatization and structural disadvantage" (Moon, 2012(Moon, , p. 1336 in which gender, race, and class, "the primary differences that 'deviate from the standards'" (Jackson, 1993, p. 146; as cited in Greenebaum, 1999, p. 43) make up a complex hierarchy (with middle/upper-class White men of European descent at the top) (Bernstein, 2005;Borren, 2013;Greenebaum, 1999;hooks, 1994;Lorber, 1999;Nelson-Barber & Harrison, 1996;Nicholson, 2008;Scott, 1992):…”

“…Although it was not discussed beyond three scholarly journal articles through the 1980s, the early writing about identity politics drew on the social justice focus of the different movements during 1960s and 1970s, such as the Civil Rights movement, the Women's movement, and the resulting development of multiculturalism and multicultural education, in which identity, and the request for recognition itself, was seen as the primary focus of political work (Armstrong, 2002; as cited in Moon, 2012;Bell & Entin, 2000;Bernstein, 2005;Borren, 2013;Brettschneider, 1996Brettschneider, , 1999Harvey, 1990;Sanbonmatsu, 2004;Tilly, 2004;as cited in Cho, 2010;McCall, 2005;Nicholson, 2008;Scott, 1992).…”