Reinvigorating the Traditions of Second-Wave Radical Feminism: Humor and Satire as Political Work (original) (raw)

When Politics Were Fun: Recovering a History of Humour in U.S. Feminism

Synoptique: An Online Journal of Film and Moving Images, 2016

Based on archival research, scholarship from the emerging field of Feminist Humour Studies, and engagements with feminist and poststructuralist theory, in this article I make the case for recovering a history of humour in feminism, with a focus on 20 th century US-based feminist practices. I argue that retrieving evidence of feminist humour-whether as political performance (street protests, "zaps") or cultural artefacts (comics, music, plays, polemical texts)-enables scholars to re-imagine feminism and its past, and opens up new ways of thinking about both. Using humour as a focal point through which to narrate feminist history allows for a recovery of neglected and marginalized voices from the feminist past. In so doing, humour facilitates a redrawing of the conceptual map that informs prevailing narratives about feminism and its history. Furthermore, engaging humour opens up new lines of inquiry for future researchers, including an investigation of how feminists' engagements with humour-and the new, subversive realities they engendered-helped shape feminist attitudes, subjectivities, and communities over the course of generations.

Reflections and Projections on American Feminism and Culture: An Interview with Gloria Steinem

Iowa Journal of Cultural Studies

This interview was conducted in September, 1995, when Gloria Steinem visited Iowa City during her book tour for the second edition of Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions. Republished in 1995, initially published in 1983, and con sisting of essays first released as early as 1963, Outrageous Acts provides an oc casion for us to think between decades of American feminist political, cultural, and academic endeavor. As academic feminists of the third wave, we took this opportunity to engage Gloria Steinem as a public intellectual whose cultural work calls us to interrogate both contemporary culture's "friendly" incorpora tions and recent "feminist" hostile repudiations of the legacy that is the second wave.1 SBM: In your Playboy bunny expose as re-released in Outrageous Acts you re veal that the well-paid, glamorous, on-her-way-to-stardom bunny was really an underpaid and sexually harassed cocktail waitress, squeezed into a corset. From this article we learned that the Hugh Hefners o f this world lie, and that the women who work fo r them, do so out o f necessity. Thus, you helped us to under stand that duped bunnies are really exploited waitresses. In Revolution From Within you expanded our understanding further by showing us how education, religion, the fashion industry, etc., seduce women into wanting to think linearly, or worship god-the-father, or sport a miniskirt. Thus, you inspired us to call "sis te r" not only the bunny who is really a waitress, but also the waitress who really wants to be a bunny. This expanded analysis seems terribly important because it helps us have grace fo r the masculinist mistakes we all make, and to have empa thy fo r even the most "duped" among us. Yet, if we say that our desires are cultur ally produced, in order to have empathy fo r one another, on what grounds can we fig h t for, or even know, what it is women want? I think we begin to suspect that our choices may be political when we see that we are following an existing pattern in society. That doesn't per se mean it's not a personal choice, but the alarms begin to go off when we see that we are impelled 9

Humorwork, Feminist Philosophy, and Unstable Politics

2019

This dissertation examines humor as a situated practice of reappropriation and transformation undertaken by a subject within a social world. I bring together insights from humor studies, philosophy of humor, and feminist philosophy (especially feminist continental philosophy) to introduce the concept of humorwork as an unstable political practice of reappropriating and transforming existing images, speech, and situations. I argue that humorwork is an unstable politics because the practice of reappropriation and transformation often exceeds the intentions of the subject practicing humor, taking on a continued life beyond the humorist's intentions. By focusing on the practice of humor, the subject who produces it, their social and political world, the affects circulated through political humor, and the politics of popular and scholarly discourse about humor, I push against a reductive, depoliticized concept of humor and the trivializing gesture of "it's just a joke." Instead, I argue that humorists are responsible and connected to (if not always blameable) for the social and political life of their humorwork, despite the unstable and unpredictable uptake of humor against a humorist's intentions.

Feminist and Antifeminist Everyday Activism: Tactical Choices, Emotions, and 'Humor'

Gender Issues, 2021

[open access: https://rdcu.be/cxMiN\] Taking inspiration from responses in focus groups and an on-line survey in which feminists shared their experiences about antifeminism in their daily life, this paper demonstrates that everyday activism involves two protagonists confronting each other, in this case a feminist and an antifeminist. Focusing on feminists' perceptions, emotions and tactical reactions, this paper also shows how these confrontations are not necessarily limited to one or two attacks and counterattacks and how they can be influenced by the presence of a 'third party' (other men or women, other feminists or antifeminists). In order to shed light on these conflictual dynamics, the question of antifeminist 'humor' and its effects on feminists is discussed more in depth. Finally, we show that there is a significant relation between public or organized activism and everyday activism, for both the social movement and its countermovement.

Feminist Philosophy of Humor (Author Preprint)

Philosophy Compass, 2022

Over the past decades humor studies has formed an unprecedented interdisciplinary consolidation, connected with a consolidation in philosophy of humor scholarship. In this essay I focus specifically on feminist philosophy of humor as an area of study that highlights relationships between humor, language, subjectivity, power, embodiment, instability, affect, and resistance, introducing several of its key themes while mapping out tensions that can be productive for further research. I first cover feminist theories of humor as instability and then move to feminist theories of humor as generative of social relationships. Though I diagnose several tensions between these approaches that require further elaboration and discussion, I conclude that feminist philosophy of humor is a crucial area of humor research that focuses on systematic oppression, political engagement, embodiment, and affective ties.

Introduction: "Toward a Feminist Politics of Comedy and History"

Feminist Media Histories, 2017

This journal issue is dedicated to the vibrant feminist media histories of comedy that we have seen, time and again, vanish right before our eyes. The ability to laugh in the face of crisis and in the wake of ruins is, after all, the premise of why we commit to archival research: to make visible the forgotten histories of feminist social struggle and of women's cultural authorship, not just in their own right, but against the recurrence of their political obstruction and historical annihilation. This comedy issue follows from that momentous project. Our goal is not to supplement the archive that we already know to be important, but to challenge the ways in which—as feminist historians with our eyes toward the basis of all future progress in the unrealized potentials of the past—we come to know anything at all. These are and have always been the epistemological stakes of feminist archival labor, which we hereby unleash onto the feminist and comedic crises of the present historical moment.

Laughing against Patriarchy: Humor, Silence, and Feminist Resistance

One of the major concerns of Feminist Theory is the way in which women's ability to speak gets silenced, both in relation to sexist situations and to the way in which discourse itself is constructed. Some examples include Catherine MacKinnon's concern about the systematic silence of sexual harassment, 1 Deirdre Davis' concern about silencing through street harassment, 2 and Luce Irigaray's 3 and Monique Wittig's 4 concerns about the silence caused by the construction of discourse itself. Humor often reinforces silence, trivializing climates of sexism 5 and the act of pointing out the existence of patriarchal structures in society. 6 However, it also has been gestured to as a means of breaking silence and as coinciding with the self-articulation of women on their own terms. 7 What is the difference between silencing humor and humor that breaks silence? And what would it look like for humor to serve as a practice of feminist resistance? In this essay, I will argue ...

FEMINIST HUMOR: WHO APPRECIATES IT AND WHY

Psychology of Women Quarterly, 1987

Despite popular-media claims that feminists lack a sense of humor, there has been little actual research investigating feminist humor and people's reactions to it. Three experiments investigated reactions to humorous feminist slogans that subjects classified into thematic categories. Subjects in Experiment 1 were females and males, over 30 years old, who considered themselves feminists or strongly sympathetic toward feminism. Experiment 2 used female and male undergraduates, under 30 years old, with varying levels of sympathy towards feminism. Subjects in Experiment 3 were students enrolled in the 6th, 8th, and 10th grades of a summer enrichment program for academically gifted students. The females in Experiment 1 gave the highest humor ratings, while the females in the second experiment gave the lowest ratings. In Experiment 3, sex differences in humor ratings were not reliable, but ratings of the extent to which subjects agreed with the slogans were higher for females than for males. The results of the three experiments suggest that both gender and feminist sympathy influence reactions to feminist humor.