WORLD WORLDWIDE FRANCE News Journal Update - (en) France, OCL CA #334 - Postmodern lures against the social reality of women - Vanina (Acratie, October 2023) (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 This book is written by a libertarian communist activist. Its main axis

is a critique of "queer theory" and intersectional analyses, fashionable
in far-left and even libertarian activist currents. Currently, any
criticism of "queer" tends to be voluntarily assimilated to the extreme
right, justifying acts of violence against those who make it. Vanina
therefore knows that she risks experiencing "inconvenience". And it is
therefore a salutary militant book from a comrade who has been part of
the anarchist movement since the mid-1970s. She does not claim to
develop theoretical aspects but rather, posing a militant materialist
point of view, to develop his personal view on different axes associated
with "queer theory" in order to encourage reflection with the aim of
better fighting against "the capitalist and patriarchal system".
For Vanina, capitalism and patriarchy are two different systems, but the
first relies on the second and they must therefore be fought together.
On this basis, she returns to the currently dominant so-called feminist
movement, its theoretical frameworks, its vocabulary. The chapters of
the book are thematic. It is very easy to read because the speech given
clearly recalls the evolution of political and social relations.
Furthermore, the text is embellished with a multitude of quotations
which, analyzed in a lucid and intelligible manner, give substance to
reasoning that is often too abstract in other works.

The first chapter reviews the history of the feminist movement with its
different currents. Vanina recalls that at the beginning of the 1970s
"men and women are[considered as]two categories which make up human
society and which are distinguished by their sexual organs. It is from
this physiological difference that the system of patriarchal oppression
has established the domination of men over women." Chapter 2 returns to
postmodernism, a school of thought where it is discourse that shapes
reality, and therefore discourse must be deconstructed to redefine
reality. Through a historical and political reading, Vanina shows the
convergence of views between postmodernism and neoliberalism: the
postmodernist current criticizes any large-scale political project,
sacrificing social class to the individual, reasoning therefore centers
on the person and his emotions, forgetting social structures and social
classes; consequently, the objective becomes to improve the existing
situation rather than to disrupt it. The third chapter poses a critique
of intersectionality as practiced today. If intersectionality is right
to consider that multiple relationships of oppression coexist in
society, this theoretical framework reinforces in its activist practice
the atomization which prevents a collective consciousness of protest
against capitalist social structures. The fourth returns to the
theoretical developments of Butler for whom gender constructs sex.
Butler's goal is to blur gender and sexual identities, a founding theory
of what will become "queer thought." Vanina presents a nuanced and
intelligible critique of what Butler exposes. The following two chapters
therefore question "queer theory". For the latter, the enemy becomes
heteronormativity. "Queer", which is difficult to define as this term is
appropriated in different ways, refers in some way to a citizenist
reformism under the pretext of a new insurrectionalism. Indeed, the
transgressions, claimed to be radical, driven by "queer" through the
deconstruction of gender, are intended to be the lever for a radical
transformation of society, but are ultimately quite harmless in
modifying social relations. This current, essentially made up of
intellectuals or people from the middle classes, tends to ignore the
importance of sexuality and procreation in the oppression of women. All
the vocabulary is modified because today, even at the institutional
level, a man becomes "woman" ("transwoman") by simple feeling and
declaration. There is no longer sexual bipolarity, we are on a sexual
"continuum" and everyone can define themselves according to their desire
on this continuum: man, woman, agender, non-binary, pansexual... Social
questions are reduced to individual identity recognitions. Vanina
therefore poses a critique of this dilution of the social into a
composite, fluid and infinitely extensible whole.

 From there, chapters 7 and 8 summarize what "transidentity" is in the
world, allowing a broad and clear look. The "woke" current and the
"cancel culture" are then discussed with all the critical eye that we
must bring to them. The book then takes a turning point: chapter 9
develops the concrete facts of GPA in today's world and the
commodification of poor women's wombs; chapter 10 is an updated and
welcome synthesis of the reality of oppression and exploitation of women
on the socio-economic field; Chapter 11 offers an overview of feminist
movements around the world, with all their social and political
disparities. In the last chapter, the author questions the limits of
attempts at convergence between materialism and intersectionality,
Marxism and "queer".

Controversial poster from Planned Parenthood on "pregnant men"
The conclusion is a call to go beyond the postmodern theories in vogue
today. It should be noted that the gaze is always social and political,
so Vanina does not criticize the individual choice of a person who
decides to "transition" to another "gender identity", but questions the
social and political dynamics behind these individual acts. The
ideological regression that postmodernism marks is part of a social
regression since the 1980s. Intersectional analyzes have put the class
struggle in the background. "Queer theory" "has recycled the notion of
gender into a formidable instrument against women" because it "does not
analyze anything in terms of social relations. She rightly points out
the invisibility of the heterosexual norm, but without worrying about
the hierarchical social structures which impose this norm. However, "the
fight against patriarchy requires identifying the relationships existing
between the State, the economy and material (family, school, business,
medicine[...]) and ideological power structures". The atomization of
individuals favors the search for individual identities and thus allows
us not to question the fundamental problems of our society, which are
structural. Today, "being "revolutionary" seems to consist of adding up
the "antis" (we are anti-racist + anti-sexist + anti-fascist +
anti-colonialist, etc.) without necessarily trying to have an overall
view." All these postmodern theories "largely reflect the self-centered
and consumerist aspirations and modes of operation dear to the "middle
classes"". Vanina recalls that "it is because of their biological sex
that most women are oppressed and doubly exploited in the private and
public spheres; and it is "social sex" renamed "gender" that we must
re-attack." Categorizing "women" for men who feel like "women" because
they assimilate to feminine codes does not serve the cause of women in
any way, quite the contrary, because such an approach reinscribes women
in the normative straightjacket of "social sex". If we must combat the
oppression suffered by men who do not conform to masculine norms, this
should not lead us to deny biological sex at the source of sexist
oppression. "The problem with postmodernists is that they brandish
individual freedoms to "settle" social questions, only want to see these
questions through the prism of these freedoms, and too often claim to be
"silent" who does not give in to their wishes."
In conclusion, Vanina believes that "we will not resolve the issue of
female oppression by eliminating that of economic exploitation. The
fight against capitalism cannot, on its own, overcome patriarchy; but,
without it, feminism will remain in the impasse of postmodern lures."

VR

P.-S.
To order the book from Acratie

http://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article3977
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