APSA Panel on Feminism, Resistance, Violence
I have co-organised (with Professor Jennet Kirkpatrick) a panel on “Feminism, Resistance, Violence” at this year’s APSA.
The panel addressed the ambiguous role of violence in feminist resistance struggles. Can the use of violence be justified in the service of abolishing patriarchy? This difficult question remains neglected in much of feminist thought. Indeed, feminism is often associated with a pacifist critique of violence or tends to cast women primarily into the role of victims rather than agents of violence. Recently, however, these simplistic associations came under sustained attack from within feminist theory itself. This panel contributes to this momentum. It draws on feminist theory as a rich resource through which to rethink the complex and contested role of violence in resistance and inquire into the grey, messy and potentially violent reality of struggles against patriarchy. The contributors explore the ambiguities of violence in a range of historical contexts and forms of feminist resistance, from the second wave feminist movement to recent intersectional forms of struggle, contestation and refusal.
The list of papers included:
Jennet Kirkpatrick (Arizona State University) & Maša Mrovlje (University of Leeds): Theorising Feminist Civil Disobedience with Black Lives Matter
Menaka Philips (University of Toronto): Legible Resistance: Feminism, Vulnerability, and Violence
Rose Owen (The New School): The Reciprocity of Violence in Simone de Beauvoir’s Thought
Melany Cruz (Leicester University): Funa: Feminist Disobedience?
Tal Correm (New York University): Feminist Freedom, Violent Resistance, and Responsibility
Nazlı Konya (Colby College) and Rinku Lamba (National Law School of India University) have kindly agreed to act as discussants.
The panel was part of our broader project on women’s resistance experience, and how focusing of women’s resistance experience can help us rethink various forms of resistance, including violent resistance. We’d like to thank the presenters and discussants again for such an exciting conversation!