Quick Hit: Radicalizing Love
Check out my piece in The American Prospect about how Laura Kipnis' Against Love: A Polemic shook up my feminism.
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Jessica-
Thought you might want to know that when I opened the page, the ad next to your article is for "Asian Girls for Love and Marriage." Not something you would approve of, I am guessing! I doubt you have much ability to change this, but I thought you might wanna give the Prospect the whats-for if you can.
Great article, also, btw. :o)
I noticed that ad as well and I was going to point it out also.
Thanks for pointing out the offensive ad. I'm the web editor over at TAP, and we're pulling the ad right now.
I also really loved Jessica's piece, and just wrote a post about it for our blog, TAPPED.
It's still there.
A tip: I think it's often more helpful for feminists to engage and analyze our culture than police what touches their eyeballs and insist that offensive things be removed from their sight, which implies that so long as you personally can stay ignorant of it, that's the main thing.
I think it's less about being feminists' dainty sensibilities being offended, and more about the fact that when a publication has an ad directly next to an article that for whatever reason criticises the premise or marketers of the ad, the publication looks silly because it makes it clear they don't pay enough attention to their content.
See this: http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s2541787.htm
I bought this book over a year ago after hearing her interviewed on a podcast (I don't remember which one). I opened the book and immediately got very uncomfortable, perhaps in fear that the words would change my relationship, beliefs...me. I have never felt that way when opening a book, I usually love the challenge the unfolding stories provide me.
I know am a little bolder now and after reading your article I think it is time to start my summer reading. Thanks!
I like your take on the book, and the twist you put in about how it changed your views on feminism.
I haven't read the book myself, but every time it gets brought up people talk about that list of things you "can't" do in a relationship.
I'm pretty sure most of that stuff CAN easily be done in an honest and stable relationship. Or maybe I've just been doing it wrong all these years? Or maybe people are just continually giving me the wrong impression of the book by mentioning that part?
Either way, nice job.
my sentiments exactly. the idea that because i'm married i CAN'T leave the dishes for later is every bit as fallacious as the idea that because i'm female i CAN'T be a dominant sex partner. it baffles me that some feminists can so easily acknowledge the one but not the other. you have the power to make your own marriage every bit as much as you have the power to make your own gender role.
Wait, so does the book praise adultery as the way out of the boredom of institutionalized relationships? As in, cheating? Am I misunderstanding that?
How in the world is that progressive? Why not just write a much more powerful, much less 'polemical' book about consensual POLYAMORY and its potential for transgressing gendered oppression, the capitalist logic of production and existential boredom all at once?
Does the book address these things? How is adultery understood in it? "The sit-down strike of the love-takes-work ethic", yeah, that's real damn catchy, but should we not pause for a minute and ponder who is working, struggling, or striking and against what? It sounds like (just from the review) she sees adultery as a way of breaking out of the confines of the oppressive relationship..rather than suggesting that, WITH the ones we love, we mobilize for an active, open, progressive struggle (and certainly not a sit-down strike!) toward new possibilities of loving and nurturing, exciting and reliable entanglements.
Yeah, I'm sure all the middle-aged men who're cheating on their wives with 20-year olds are heroes striking against the oppression of the "love takes work" ethic. Please.
And talk about cheapening real strikes where people are fighting for living wages or better working conditions.
Kipnis's book is trying to be provocative; it isn't seriously justifying or lionizing cheating. If her point were that monogamy is bad as such, she'd probably have joined the recent spate of books arguing for open nonmonogamy as an ethical and healthy option. Her point, rather, was to bring into sharp focus the often unrealistic and sometimes soul-sapping limitations of monogamous romance and marriage are they have traditionally been conceived, and to challenge readers to rethink their assumptions and expectations about relationships. That style and approach were offputting to many readers, and wildly misunderstood by many who only read about the book rather than reading it.
Sorry, but Kipnis' analysis isn't revolutionary or feminist--it's misanthropist and reminds me of the libertarian attitude: "It's all about me; fuck everyone else."
Accd. to the article, "Kipnis lists pages of answers to the question, what can't you do because you're in a couple?: You can't just walk out on your job or quit in a huff. You can't make unilateral career decisions, or change jobs without extensive discussion and negotiation. You can't have your own bank account." She continues, "You can't leave the dishes for later, wash the dishes badly, not use soap, drink straight from the container."
First, the easy part: Yes you can leave the damned dishes for later, wash the dishes badly, not use soap and drink straight from the container. This is a relationship, not boot camp!
You know what else you can do? You can squeeze the toothpaste from the middle and leave clothes on the floor. Once you two are really comfortable with each other, you can leave the bathroom door open and even fart when the other person's in the same room.
That part was just ridiculous. Now, onto the part I consider misanthropist--not being able to quit your job in a huff, switch jobs or make career changes when you feel like it. Guess what: You can't do that if you've got dependents--kids or elderly dependent parents or maybe a disabled family member who's relying on you for financial assistance. Maybe you should cut off your family as well--hurry, before those parents get old!
As for changing jobs, especially ones that require moving to another city, that's where you sit down with your partner and have an adult conversation about costs/benefits/trade-offs. Again, kids or elderly parents would probably weigh you down more than an adult partner.
Finally, what decade are we in? Can't continue having one's own personal bank account?
So maybe in "Against Love," Kipnis should not just talking about romantic love, but familial as well. And friends, too. Sometimes, those pesky friends might not want you to move to another city for that new job because they'll miss you, and then you'll have to inconvenience yourself by trying to address their feelings.
You basically just said everything I was thinking when I read this article.
Thanks! :-) After I hit "send," I thought, "OMG, that's long!"
I agree, and it's sad to think Kipnis (like many other liberals) appears to believe that such abnegation of personal responsibility is necessary for self-fulfillment. Are humans not social beings, whose happiness stems from nurturing mutually supportive relationships and making sacrifices for those we love? Kipnis' philosophy sounds like the same self-centeredness that leads adults to abandon their spousal and parental responsibilities and run off with new partners in quests for "self-actualization," leaving broken families and wounded children in their wake.
Actually, I really liked what Kipnis had to say about relationships.
And it's true for men as well - I'm not married, and I've never been in a long term live-in-partner type relationship.
And it's very liberating - compared to the lives of married folks that I know.
I don't have to check in with anybody if I don't feel like coming straight home from work, if I'm being treated badly on a job, I can quit on the spot, without having to worry about being chewed out about it when I get home (I'm also lucky enough to be in a union with a hiring hall, so I can quit my job today, and have another job in a couple of days that pays just as well and has the exact same benefit package).
And I'm a guy - I can only imagine how much worse it is for women! All the constrictions on freedom that come with any partnered relationship, along with all the sexist patriarchal bullshit!
Kipnis has a point, and I am going to buy her book tonight!
Thank you Jessica for profiling this book!
I'm single too, and happily so. I definitely appreciate all the benefits you described; in fact, I recently encouraged a single friend who is considering moving out of town to do so because it'd be so easy for her to just pick up and go.
But this isn't about being "Against Love" and saying that a romance/relationship is inferior to being single. Rosie below articulated really well how it's all just trade-offs: When you're single, you get to follow your own timeline. But companionship has its own attendant sweetness and support when it's a relationship built on mutual respect and love. Kipnis seems to miss the point that good relationships are about reciprocity, not just compromise or sacrifice.
Granted, our culture certainly values "pair bonding" over singlehood, and women especially are either pitied or derided if they remain single.
However, the solution is not the sophomoric "I want to do what I want and when I want it" argument that Kipnis makes. She could have written about why it's just fine to be single. But by denigrating love/relationships--maybe just to be provocative, which would then be intellectually dishonest--she ends up being as ideologically rigid as the other side.
Ha, thanks Vicky, you said what I was trying to articulate, but so much better and more succinctly!
But companionship has its own attendant sweetness and support when it's a relationship built on mutual respect and love
The problem is, a whole lot of people are NOT in relationships built on "mutual respect and love".
A lot of people (especially women) are pressured to be in a relationship at all costs, even if it's codependent and painful - or in many cases outright abusive.
For folks like that, being single is sweet liberty.
why do you assume that people in relationships can't do these things. I've lived with a guy and not felt the need to come directly home if there was something else that had to be done(or heck, if I wanted to walk and enjoy the day) or not to talk to anyone else.
In fairness, Greg said "check in". If I am going to be home from work/school/that place I hang out all day at a very different time from usual, there certainly is an expectation on me to call and inform my girlfriend of this, and vice versa. If I anticipate she will return from school around 6:00, say, and come seven, eight, nine she's not home, I will end up getting worried and calling her, or she will come home and discover I have been worried/distraught and feel guilty about it. There is, I think at least typically, some obligation to let the other person know roughly where you are and what you are up to. If that is too much of an obligation for someone, it is too much, you cannot say much to it. I do not find it to be a burden, does not mean no one does.
I agree with you completely. There is a difference between feeling tied down to a spouse/family/children because you resent your responsibilities to them, and actually having a grown-up attitude towards one's responsibilities to one's fellow human beings. After all, everybody is a "me" to themselves, and if we want the people in our lives to treat us with emotional respect then we owe the same to them.
I have been with my partner for 4 years and we've lived together for 3. We leave the bathroom door open when we piss. If one of us wanted to drink from the container the other wouldn't care. Sometimes I fart and say "oops, sorry, I farted, you should move, it's a stinky one." He squeezes my blackheads. We would NOT do these things if we were NOT in a romantic relationship, say if we were housemates. Absolutely contrary to what Kipnis seems to say, being in a romantic relationship (or a very close, loving, platonic friendship) is what gives you license to do these things. Plus, we have separate bank accounts. This is because this works for us.
If you choose to be in a domestic relationship with your partner, you choose to relinquish a certain amount of personal freedom in exchange for lots of amazing things -- like knowing that the person you love will be home when you get home, will make you lots of tea when you get a cold, will rub your feet if you've had a long day, will put away the dinner dishes if you are the one who cooked (well this is how we do it)...
Perhaps what Kipnis really argues against is not love itself, and the responsibilities this brings, but the idea in our culture that everybody should be in a monogamous, domestic, married relationship; if you're not in one then you're trying to be, if you're not trying you're a weirdo. Perhaps she's really just arguing against the antipathy in our culture towards the idea of a woman being truly independent (no interdependence with friends or family as well as spouse). I don't know, I haven't read the book. But it sounds like she is just saying "being in a monogamous domestic relationship means this and this and this, and these things are undesirable and limiting, so don't be in this kind of relationship." And all that does is perpetuate the idea that there are certain things that a committed relationship is or is not (or should or should not be), and not encouraging people to consider that you can be in this kind of relationship and still eschew or modify whatever cultural scripts you don't want. Surely this is actually quite un-feminist?
Possibly I'm wrong about all of the above, but if I am, would someone who has read the book join in?
Rosie,
You sound like you're in a happy relationship.
A lot of folks aren't.
Also, there is a lot of social pressure on women in this society that they are a failure as a person if they aren't in a relationship - which pushes a lot of women to get into bad, and even abusive relationships, and to cling to those relationships at all costs because they would be a failure as a woman if they didn't have a man in their lives.
I have a friend like that.
We went to trade school together, and I've known her for about 22 years or so.
During that time, she's bounced from one horrible relationship to another - a steady parade of control freaks, sociopaths, married guys cheating on their wives, undocumented immigrants who wanted to use her for her citizenship, thuggish ex boxers who forbade her to speak to her male friends [she wasn't allowed to talk to me the entire time she dated that creep] and ex cons - all because she felt she had to have a man in her life, no matter what.
She's never felt she had the freedom to be single - in her world, women who do that are flawed and failed people. And, in her culture (she's Jamaican) women are supposed to be with a man, no matter what - and, even worse, it's OK for those men to cheat on their women, because "men need more sex than women" but it's forbidden for women to cheat on men, (or even to ask their cheating male partners to use a condom!)
If Kipnis reaches even one woman who's in that place with her message that women have the right to not be tied down in a relationship at all costs, then she will have done a great thing for the world.
While we all can (and should) set out our relationships the way that works for us, it does necessarily involve some compromise. Yes, my girlfriend (with whom I co-habitate) can leave the dishes for later, and if it bugs me, I can do them (which I usually do). Similarly, she can drink straight from a container - seems like an odd thing for the article to bring up, since most relationships involve saliva exchange anyhow. And while I am not obligated to do dishes, give footrubs, make tea or clean the cat litter, that I choose to do these things is not made in an influence/pressure vacuum. Is she worth the pressure/responsibility? By many orders of magnitude, but it does not mean they aren't there. Someone who has been unhappy with the influences/pressures they have faced might reasonably feel like the need to reject them in their entirety, and (as the author notes) later come around to believe that they do not always have to be bad.
Maybe I can analogise to, say, steaks. If you grow up in a household where your parents always really overcook steaks, you might conclude that you don't like steaks. To someone whose had steaks cooked appropriately, that sounds bizarre: "How can you not like steak? Steak is delicious!" - but if all you have ever had is burnt steaks, how can you know they are delicious? Similarly, if all your relationships have been problematic in their demands and expectations, how can you know it does not have to be like that? If you have never had a relationship where you can drink straight from a carton, how can you know it is possible to make it work for you, to not be burdened with endless obligations?
Um, I don't know if anyone wants to address this:
http://flipfloppingjoy.com/2009/04/23/oh-dear-here-come-teh-feminists/
And, err, this:
http://flipfloppingjoy.com/2009/04/23/ok-lets-start-over/
My understanding is that we're supposed to ignore the elephant in the room called "angry WOC bloggers". After all, this is a family publication...let's not pervert it with any self-reflexivity. *coughs awkwardly*
Heh. I didn't get the memo. Personally, I think bfp is acting in a misguided and mean-spirited way on this one, but that doesn't mean her anger doesn't stem from a legitimate grievance. Thought her perspective might matter to those who claim to, uh, yuh know, care about woc. But I guess I'll have to be a good white feminist and shush now...
Actually, it would go a long way to see the OP, Jessica Valenti, address these critiques.
So, how about it?
I don't think she's been mean-spirited. They've been talking about radical love forever and then Jessica up and posts about it, not recognizing the work they've done, and writes something that's significantly deradicalized about it.
Analogously, it's like when Hilary Duff or some other idiot celebrity presents their views on feminism, while totally ignoring the work of real feminists and drastically distorting what feminism is ("Oh, gosh, I'm not feminist - I don't hate men.") To Feministing, that kind of appropriation warrants one of those "friday feminism fuck you" posts.
What they've got going on over there (at BFP's) is their own brand of "fuck you" post and, I think, a great critique on how both the method and content of Jessica's writing on the subject are a far cry from radical.
I would be really surprised if Jessica a) addressed it and b) didn't address it defensively.
I feel like the criticism should be addressed. I think the picture that is up is a little over the top for my tastes, but the criticism itself is valid and should be addressed.
As for the piece itself, I don't find it that earth-shaking or interesting. After reading Jessica's piece, I have very little idea of what substantive points Kipnis' book makes or why her book is so radical.
Not to mention that bell hooks has been writing extensively about love for some time.
Adultery is a radical act? Well, fine. Maybe for people like Laura Kipnis, who have the privilege to be able to participate in it.
But there are plenty of people who aren't even granted the chance at one relationship, let alone more than one, let alone more than one at the same time.
I have to say that the book is basically out-dated. I mean, sure once-upon-a-time, marriage and monogamy for a woman involved being a 'perfect housewife' who couldn't really have any freedom without her husband's say-so, and yes for those women married life was probably hell and adultery would have been a strong political statement. But it's not the 1950's any more, people.
Does 'love' really involve having to wash the dishes these days? Or should I be asking, does washing dishes have anything to do with love? What about people who have room-mates? One of my friends lives with a bunch of people who throw their dirty dishes, covered in food, in the sink and don't wash them. Which is really selfish because it means that my friend cannot do his own washing-up without having to do everybody else's as well, because the sink is filthy. Living with others automatically involves either taking them into consideration or pissing them the fuck off.
The thing is the book only addresses women who are staying in relationships because they think being single is, like, the worst thing EVER, therefore it doesn't speak to me. But if there are women out there who are in that situation, I'm sure that Ms Kipnis' book would be a great help for them.
I haven't read the book (at least I've heard of it now, thanks to Jessica!) - but I am very interested in anything purporting to show up romantic love for what, in my view, it is - selfishness, bordering on a form of violence. I'm talking specifically about romantic monogamous love of the traditional and, for some reason socially encouraged kind - the you're-mine, if-you-leave-I-might-kill-myself type of romantic love.
After reading Jessica's run-down of the book's gist, though, I get the feeling the book doesn't go the whole hog and attack "love's" weak points - instead just comes across as a bit anachronistic and counter-productive. The title doesn't even match the book. Where does she attack real, selfless love?
But at the end of the day Jessica's point was about how the book shocked her into opening her mind and finding her strength, feminism-wise - so, fair dues, and we all owe Kipnis for that!
i'm with No Way, i was waiting for the polemic to address polyamory, and was surprised to see cheating as the only option. I believe polyamory requires a radical honesty, such as not pretending you are asexual as far as the rest of the world is concerned, and also opens doors for radical models of parenting, support and sharing resources.
I agree, monogamous love is based on capitalist tropes of possession and being possessed, but i would find cheating to be kind of an easy way out instead of building a radical, supportive lifestyle where you can create protocol that surpasses the limitations of monogamy.
i must give props to yk hong and Ingrid Rivera for what i believe is the most radical manifesto on the subject, written from a queer woman of color, anti-oppression perspective.
Poly-tics: Defining Your Own Sexual Liberation
*or click this link for pdf: http://www.ykhong.com/colorlines.pdf
THIS COMMENT HAS BEEN DELETED, SEE OUR COMMENTS POLICY
THIS!
I asked above if she would address the critique and have been met with silence thus far...
What happened to Quix's comment???
I'm gonna guess it's been deleted.
The original link's been posted upthread at any rate.
I'm not sure I understand which part of the comment policy I broke. Maybe it was my tone. Let's see.
I believe that Jessica's article, linked in the OP, is a white feminist's appropriation and misconstruction of the work of women of color. I believe that brownfemipower's reaction to it is justified and not mean-spirited in the slightest. I believe that it is appropriation of the work of women of color that should be condemned, not women of color's anger about appropriation. (In this case, bfp's post is not even angry; merely amused, which is mighty generous of her.)
But most strongly, I believe that Jessica should respond to the criticisms by women of color in the threads amarilla linked to above. These are serious accusations and valid criticisms, and they deserve a response.
If this comment still breaks the comment policy, then I am not sure why. I hope someone e-mails me to explain which part of it is against the rules?
I didn't see the original comment. It would be nice to know what part of the comments policy it violated.
I said I thought bfp was being mean-spirited because it seemed to me like she jumped the gun. People make mistakes and thoughtful criticism is usually more productive than mockery. Now, instead of addressing the issue, I see that people on this website are deleting comments. I'm guessing this is par for the course; it's depressing and I don't blame bfp or other woc bloggers for being hella pissed.
I know what you mean. But I think the question is, productive for whom? For women of colour bloggers who will deal with this crap no matter how nice and accommodating they are? Or for white feminists who want to work through their own race and privilege screw-ups in a friendly self-affirming environment?
The thing is, many white feminists inadvertently say to WOC bloggers, "we're above acknowledging your work and your issues, but not above appropriating and distorting your work for our own purposes". And then, when the WOC bloggers resist, it's all "hey! you're being rude! you're damaging the movement!"
Nobody says Feministing is being rude when it has a "Friday Feminist Fuck you!" because it's understood that they're expressing righteous indignance and rudeness is a perfectly reasonable response.
WOC bloggers should have the same right to righteous indignance. Maybe their rudeness will harm relations between WOCs and white feminists, just as Friday Feminist Fuck You posts will harm relations between feminists and MRAs or whatever. The point is that it doesn't matter because they aren't actually working together anyway - relations are already awful.
I think it would be great if you would post this in the community section-- assuming critical posts are allowed on that part of the site. Maybe you could start out by complaining about a sexist ballpoint pen you saw at a Walmart to soften the blow;)
You know, I think about it from time to time. It's tempting, but I shouldn't have to write it. It's already up on WOC blogs in brilliant and searing detail and it's been rehashed time and time again. If people want to know what's going on the WOC blogger world, they have the same Internet access I do. And that Jessica does. Also, I hate the implications of me, a white "feminist", getting attention for discussing an issue that WOC bloggers have said over and over in the past, more eloquently than I ever could, with more incisive awareness than I will ever have, purely by virtue of my lack of association with WOC blogs and my wary receptivity to a community many WOC bloggers have long abandoned in frustration.
Second reason is about the nature of posting itself. My one tiddly post would probably hurt more than it could help - what your average white feminist Jane needs is to actually start silently lurking at these blogs, absorbing WOC words like a sponge. There's a white feminist assumption that you learn most by asking questions and reading responses (which often amounts to "sharing my privilege-saturated opinion and tacking a question mark onto the end"), but I'm convinced that privileged people (like myself) learn the most by shutting up and listening. I don't want there to be discourse. I don't think Feministing is ready for it. I wish I could dispatch people to WOC blogs and say, be quiet and learn, and you'll come out with unrecognizable politics that are significantly more conflicted, more painful and more real. But that's not popular. People love chatter.
Also, there is no reason to believe virtually anything will come of it - just as it didn't the last time it happened, and the time before that, and the time before that, and so its effect might just be a shitstorm that causes a big headache to WOC bloggers who have had to deal with all the questions, accusations and entitlements time and time again.
So in sum, I basically have no hope whatsoever for this situation.
Also I laughed out loud at the ballpoint pen joke. Hahahaha. You are awesome.
Ohh, Feministing.
"I wish I could dispatch people to WOC blogs and say, be quiet and learn, and you'll come out with unrecognizable politics that are significantly more conflicted, more painful and more real."
You just did:)
Everybody has different learning styles - and for many, the best way for them to learn is by active engagement, in this case, by posting in the comments section and going back and forth.
Not everybody learns well by listening to others and "absorbing it like a sponge".
BTW that "absorbing like a sponge" thing is a truly horrible learning analogy!
Sponges are spineless animals that live at the bottom of the sea, they neither see, nor hear, nor speak, nor think let alone read and write...
No human should learn "like a sponge", because sponges soak up $ 200 a bottle champagne and used motor oil indiscriminately.
Humans should learn like a...human - by exploring ideas, judging them and seeing which ideas are good or bad.
And yes, White feminists get to have good ideas in that schema - and feminists of color get to have bad ideas - and everybody gets to criticize everybody else equally, because we're all equal here.
It's not about learning styles. It's not about "Oh, I'm a kinesthetic learner" or "Oh, I'm a visual-spatial learner" or "Oh, I learn best from discourse" or whatever. Most people feel like they learn best from an interactive environment. This isn't about helping privileged people learn in a way that benefits them the most. It's about helping privileged people learn in a way that benefits the marginalized people they are learning from the most. Because that's the whole point of learning about their situation to begin with!
Most people, when they're in an unfamiliar situation, choose to be a little quiet and reserved and spend most of their time observing what's going on around them, picking up cues on how people are behaving and relating to each other. It helps keep from screwing up. However, the nature of a) privilege and b) blogs is that people tend to feel very comfortable plunging headfirst into dialogue about something, sharing their opinion before really grasping the situation, asking questions that may or may not be completely offensive, and coming to conclusions that may or may not be well-informed. That might help the privileged people learn. But there are some serious ethical problems with that learning "style". You end up with lots of people who aren't really taking the time to reflect on the words of the marginalized, who aren't considering whether what they're saying would be offensive in marginalized circles, who ask questions that have already been answered by the marginalized time and time again, and whose real interest is to share their opinion and argue with others - not to learn.
Some Aboriginal cultures have talking circles, in which people take turns speaking in a circular order. You can't interrupt any speaker, not even to concur - you have to wait until your turn comes around. The effect of this is that, by having to wait your turn, you are a) forced to listen to everyone else, instead of immediately generating responses b) forced to mentally change your impulsive responses as other people cover them for you, leaving you with either nothing to say or something profound/significant and c) everyone gets a turn to speak and equal attention from everyone else.
In other words, the exact opposite of the internet.
My point in saying people need to listen and absorb like a sponge is that people with privilege - again, myself included - tend to do a lot more "listening for the purpose of responding" or "just responding" and a lot less listening and purposely forcing themselves to shut up and keep listening, resisting that impulse to raise their hand or jut in.
So it's not just about the "best" way to learn - it also requires consideration of the most respectful way to learn.
I'm not taking any sides.
But people have complained about the Friday Feminist Fuck You posts being rude in the past. I'm still looking for them. If you're going through your analytics data, that's what the "fuck you rude feministing" search term was about.