Living a Feminist Life

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Ahmed’s description of feminist snap, that point when the pressure of the cumulative injustices ruptures one’s ability to be complacent any longer, is a powerful metaphor. When those who are behind question those in front, they are assumed to put themselves in front, to care only about themselves. You are taught to be careful: to be full of care as to become anxious about the potential to be broken. Race might seem immaterial or less material if you are white; gender might seem immaterial or less material if you are a cis man; sexuality might seem immaterial or less material if you are straight; (dis)ability might seem immaterial or less material if you are able-bodied, and so on.

Lesbian feminism is radical feminism (in the sense of feminist at its root) and thus lesbian feminism demands our full involvement; as Marilyn Frye describes, “Bodily energy, ardour, intelligence, vitality” all need “to be available and engaged in the creation of a world for women” (1991, 14). I appreciated Ahmed’s transforming everyday words that we don’t think about, words like willful, arm, wall, and snap and making us think more deeply and see them as something profound, something activist and powerful. Once feminist consciousness is turned on, evidence of injustice seems to rear its head at every turn, leaving the feminist killjoy feeling like an alien in a world full of people who seem incapable of breathing the same air she does. How we are perceived as making trouble when everything is "supposedly" fine and dandy, how our pointing out sexism and/or racism is judged as a wish to direct attention to ourselves, and how eyes roll when we dare to protest injustice and oppression. Ahmed explores the constant under-estimation of female professors, and the institutionalised sexism that still exists in academia today.Being estranged from one’s own life can be how a world reappears, becoming odd…to become conscious of possibility can involve mourning for its loss” (Ahmed, page 47). It’s okay to discuss different experiences but it’s exhausting not to have allies that don’t also attack. I didn’t like the idea that she put forward of feminists (be the feminist women, men, trans, other races, disabled) constantly snapping at each other. He did not stop; he just carried on cycling as if nothing had happened, as if he had not done anything.

Ahmed's work continues to illustrate and illuminate the joys of being a killjoy: to refuse happiness when happiness means complicity in structural exclusion and violence. But likeness becomes not only an explanation (he is being such boy; what a boy he is being) but an expectation.To be a lesbian is to stray away from the path you are supposed to follow if you are to reach the right destination.

this is no step-by-step guide to living better or living well, but a rigorously argued, elegantly accessible exploration of feminist politics as praxis. We are creating a support system around the killjoy; we are finding ways to allow her to do what she does, to be who she is. But I fear that anyone would take advice from the first two chapters as they would have you "turn off" that part of your brain when needed, and that equate feminism to a garment. Furthermore, the exhaustion of constantly fighting for the right to exist in an academic setting is explored.To become girl is to learn to expect such advances, to modify your behavior in accordance; to become girl as becoming wary of being in public space; becoming wary of being at all. While Ahmed is a scholar, I found the language relatively accessible but will require a basis in feminist thought. Experiences like this: they seem to accumulate over time, gathering like things in a bag, but the bag is your body, so that you feel like you are carrying more and more weight. The middle portion of the book includes interviews with people doing diversity work at universities, followed by reflections on several films. The second part of the text is particularly significant, as it focuses on how diversity can be a more ‘palatable’ word for racism and sexism, as well as the role of diversity workers within universities.

You are learning, too, to accept that potential for violence as imminent, and to manage yourself as a way of managing the consequences. Indeed, if you do not modify your behavior in accordance, if you are not careful and cautious, you can be made responsible for the violence directed toward you (look at what you were drinking, look at what you wearing, look at where you were, look look).A beautifully written, smartly provocative book that belongs on our shelves, in our classrooms, and in our daughters’ hands. Sara Ahmed spinning the fabric of feminism reminded me of my grandmother who grew her own flax, harvested it, spun it into thread, wove it into fabric and made her own linens.