Living a Feminist Life is more than just advocating for gender equality and subverting patriarchy. Gender is connected with so many other things that can affect someone’s livelihood. Race, socioeconomic status, sexuality, physical and mental disabilities are just some of the issues that interlink with gender. Perhaps, the most poignant questions that need address include what feminism is all about, its objectives, its challenges and the implications on feminists. Feminism has been a range of cultural, political, social and ideological movements that share a common goal of establishing and achieving justice and equality of sexes (Ahmed 9, 2017). This paper analyzes, Living a Feminist Life by Sara Ahmed with the aim of demystifying the forces, personalities, activities, implications, and the consequences of embracing a feminist life. It also explores the feminist theory as outlined by Ahmed, assesses her fictional character Killjoy, and Ahmed’s lived experiences with the aim of clarifying the implications and consequences that feminists encounter.
Ahmed’s use of a killjoys as a willful subject is the driving force for the feminist movement. The figure of a feminist as a radical and revolutionist is ready to pose a threat to those bodies that may cause ruin to women. It is quite axiomatic, therefore, to point out that Ahmed’s work has a significant contribution to the contemporary society in debunking and inverting paradigms. Her work forms a compelling gesture in realizing a fee, just and equal society in different realms; political, social and economic. In spite of the fact that embracing life as a feminist comes with hefty prices, it is a life worth to be emulated for a rational society.
1.1 Purpose and Background Information
For a significant time, feminist movements have campaigned for women’s rights and access to particular issues like legal abortions, social integration, and protection of women from rape, sexual harassment, and domestic violence. The main purpose of this study is to analyze the implications and consequences of leading a feminist life. The study will also assess the feminist theory as depicted by Ahmed with the aim of identifying the implications and consequences feminists face. This study will employ the feminism theory and phenomenology paradigm in analyzing Sara Ahmed’s work.
Ahmed was born in the era when women liberation and empowerment movements were nascent cases around the world. She grew up not only as a witness but also a victim of the social and economic injustices directed towards women. Thus, Ahmed took the initiative of mirroring and advocating for the women’s rights, space and equipping them with the possible for becoming an advocate of women in the fight against violence and injustice meted on women in society.
Ahmed’s take of a killjoy is a remarkable work worth impacting on feminists in the contemporary society. She has meticulously managed to devise tools necessary for feminists to ape in the struggle toward equality and justice in the society. Her work on how one ought to become a feminist, manipulation of work as a tool to achieve feminist goals and the consequences that come with embracing life as a feminist is a practical tool for gaining a level ground for all people. From my point of view, Ahmed’s concern with the ethical question regarding feminist lives, how to live it, how to relate, care and how to stand up against obstacles, stereotypes, and histories inherent in their lives forms a masterpiece for aspiring feminists.
Ahmed draws her inspiration from real characters she has interacted with in life and great feminist writers whom she has acknowledged like Adrienne Rich, Virginia Woolf, Toni Morrison, Gloria Anzaldua, Audre Lorde Butler and other writers who have made a significant impact on her life (Parker-Hay, 839). She also manipulates her fictional character killjoy as a role model for those willing to live as feminists.
A feminist life is synonymous to being an agitator, a misfit, pest, and a killjoy (Ahmed 9, 2017). Feminism encapsulates what it needs for one to stand up against all social evils marring the society and exposing the flimsiness and vulnerability of power which exerts men’s position over women’s (Ahmed 117, 2017 & Hamilton 66). In her work, Ahmed meticulously develops tools for feminist survival by giving shape and form to the figure of the feminist killjoy who is assertive, brave, willful and subjective, and a speaker against female ruin. She argues that being a feminist involves dedication and sacrifice through ones work as described in chapter two on “Diversity and Work” (Ahmed 116, 2017). Living a Feminist Life is all about paying hefty payments as pointed out in chapter three, “Living the Consequences.” In this section, Ahmed talks about the personal and uncomfortable realities feminists are bound to face.
Ahmed’s work, Living a Feminist Life, portends its implications on feminists, and the repercussions involved. She argues that feminism is all about making sore points that others will not want to hear and deriving them from their comfort zones (Hamilton 66). This paper examines the implications of Ahmed’s work, Living a Feminist Life, on feminists, and the consequences of living feminist consciousness. However, in attempting to answer these questions, first I will have to demystify Ahmed’s theory of feminism, the do’s and the don’ts as depicted in her theory of feminism.
The feminist theory is a force that comes out of the sense making process of becoming a feminist and navigating the way through a world dominated by violence, injustices, and inequalities (Ahmed 19, 2017). How one ought to live as a feminist is what is essential toward the feminist course. Feminism challenges feminists to challenge and help themselves grow as they try to push the world to become fair with women (Parker-Hay 839 & Hargreaves 117). Ahmed’s work serves as a woman’s honest account of what it might look like to rise to the challenge.
On ‘Becoming a Feminist,’ Ahmed discusses the processes of becoming a feminist, and the consciousness of gender as a world of knowledge that allows one to revisit places, become estranged from gender and the heteronomous shape of life (Ahmed 18, 2017). She starts with her personal experiences as a child and how these particular experiences become ways of being inserted into collective feminist history (Ahmed 18, 2017). Under this section, Ahmed generates new insights into how gender works as a social system that tends to spit some bodies out. She posits that to become a feminist, one should be prepared to stand up against the world (Ahmed 19, 2017 & Hargreaves 116).
History is essential for a living feminist. Ahmed’s painful experiences and struggles while trying to maneuver through the established patriarchal space shaped her sense of being. Alternatively, the role of sensation in knowledge formation, the sociality of emotions; operation of power through directionality and orientation; and ways of thinking about happiness, as well as the relationship between will and force are essential tools in becoming a successful feminist. According to Ahmed, feminism should be provocative enough to trigger excitement and reactions through its presence as disturbance movement in the public culture (Ahmed 20, 2017; Hamilton 66). Thus, feminists are expected to speak in readiness for dealing with intense reactions. In other words, one is likely to be referred to as being too reactive, as overreacting and even malicious against particular issues. She points out that it is through the setbacks she faced that she attained materials essential for the feminist instruction (Parker-Hay 839).
The need for a becoming feminist calls for a sharp sense in gauging situations, identifying the wrongs and seeing that indeed there is a problem and things are not right. Alongside this, the role of memory becomes useful in the feminist course. Memory recollects one's past experiences and history to find a way of accounting for what happens in life and hence act accordingly (Ahmed 21, 2017). This is explained by experiences of violence, physical or internal, become instructions and narrative worth remembering. The ability to sense the wrongs and the inability to see those irrelevant to the feminist movement is essential. This consciousness should help one to unravel the name problems.
Having an identity as a person helps one to notice sexism and racism (Rossi 118). Thus, feminist should develop a way of having particular names for problems. Ahmed argues that being a feminist entail not just locating the words, but via how these words point, and realize how violence is perpetrated: violence is directed towards certain bodies as compared to others (Shane 30). Therefore, it is essential for a feminist to acquire words, for instance, sexist or racist, to describe what one comes up against.
The second aspect, “On Being Directed,” contains Traffic Systems, The Path to Happiness, Misdirection and Disaffection, An Unhappy Archive and finally, a Feminist Inheritance. Here, Ahmed calls upon feminists to take a position towards a goal they want to achieve as feminists and then acquire a momentum. Thus, this becomes the channel through which one will encounter a relief of pressure when going in the right direction. However, the one vital point one ought to look for is a change of direction and even become undetectable. For instance, she challenges one to be a killjoy even before speaking; do not entertain the injustices by joining its talk, laughter or even smile (Hargreaves 117).
Ahmed grounds her theory in her an unhappy archive. For instance, she points out that feminists should not be happy with what is supposed to make them happy, rather, learn to break through a happiness seal (Ahmed 43, 2017) as this happiness can be a sign of impending danger. It is in this position that one should recall an incident which can trigger unhappiness especially through taking note of something which can make one realize the world on is in.
Ahmed places her emphasis on the affective nature of feminist history where one needs to pick up feelings that are not supposed to be felt because they get in the way of expectation of who one is and what life should be (Rossi 118). On willful girls and feminists, Ahmed calls for a company with those you share your ideologies and have a typical course (Shane 27). These companies should be geared towards making them more of feminists’ beings and collectively speak the language of injustice. In reclaiming willfulness, subjects should become the cause of their unhappiness and engage in acts of self-description. Willful should become a style of politics to refuse the injustice, violence, and resist history. Persistence is the essential element, and hence feminists should strive to live and exist in disobedience.
Ahmed’s focus on diversity work emphasizes doing a feminist job as a form of transforming lives. She depicts how questions of consciousness and subjectivity can be understood regarding materiality and transformational actions, especially in challenging the traditional notions that males and learning institutions are meant only for each other and not women (Hargreaves 117). Therefore, it is upon feminists whether working for companies or institutions which have no feminist commitments, to take upon themselves to fight for quality. Diversity workers should become conscious of the resistance to their work (Ahmed 65, 2017) and involve themselves in many ways they deem possible for creating a better environment. For instance, Ahmed herself faced severe problems when feminist students could not access materials for their feminist projects. Thus, feminists ought to advocate for the furnishing of libraries and even a change of curricula if it does not favor women. Ahmed’s suggestion for feminists is that they have to adopt diversity work as willful work and keep pushing for things to work out if they are to open up spaces to those who have not been accommodated.
In the last section, Ahmed outlines her reflections on how feminists need feminism to handle what is directed towards them. Hargreaves (117) posits that being a feminist is a recipe for attracting a lot of attention, opposition and hostility. Therefore, being strong enough to handle the mocking and hostile responses they encounter is the only way to go. Some of the challenges she mentions include being worn out, coming against walls, and breaking up. Nevertheless, she calls upon feminists to use these challenges and invent ways of dealing with them.
The question of being and being in question is essential for feminists. Despite the walls they encounter, they should learn to be go-getters. Fragile relationships, shelters, and bodies should always act as reminders of illness and fragility that is unwanted and intruders into social consciousness (Parker-Hay 840). In this way, vulnerability should serve as a thread, and a connection between those things deemed breakable.
On the feminist snap, Ahmed posits that the crises and challenges one faces on the way should make one creative and affirmative the breaking point and device other channels of getting out (Ahmed 121, 2017). Using her killjoy figure as a snappy one, Ahmed challenges feminists to be snappy. This is so because it is a channel through which they will be able to correct a wrong and make it right. Speaking should be a way of being snappy hence a way of resisting being straightened out. Thus, snap should act as a way of self-prophecy, trying to get to others and thus a feminist communication system towards injustices.
One of the subsections that Ahmed gives much emphasis to is Lesbian feminism. According to Ahmed, feminists should strive to resuscitate lesbian feminism as a form of cultural feminism. She argues that lesbian feminism is a way of fighting against established structures in the society and that this is one force that can bring feminism back to life (Ahmed 137, 2017).
Some dos motivate and evaluate one’s actions as a feminist. Though becoming a killjoy is a hard task to carry, Ahmed posits that stopping to notice the alienations is one way of easing one’s burden (Ahmed 151, 2017). In considering the following do’s that motivate a self-evaluation of one’s actions as a feminist; one is sure of surviving the hardships that come with obstacles to feminism. Some of the do’s Ahmed mentions include speaking against violence, breaking the happiness bond, dedicating your work for accessibility and equity, and relying on materials and things which can help in making the feminist relationship stronger. For instance, books, use of feminist tolls like a pen, the keyboard, table and books, use of other killjoys, restraint from humor meant to provoke, being too emotional and use of their bodies for their survival and as survival kits.
One way of telling a feminist story is through a table scenario. The spacing, position, and direction by which each member is sitting are vital as it acts as a way of securing a childhood memory which is a critical tool within the feminist theory. In this context, become the problem that you create (Ahmed 8, 2014) and be the act of shared disapproval that not only will generate tension but alienate you from others. The family gathering is a presupposition that happiness should come to reign. However, a feminist should choose the contrary and ruin it what ruins feminism's course. Becoming a feminist alienates one from the happiness. Willing to go against a social order, which is protected as a moral order is what means by causing the unhappiness around the table (Ahmed 8, 2014). The feminist table should be a guiding force here in that a call to be a feminist might emerge as a call to anger and to develop a sense of rage and emotions about collective wrongs. Feminism in this way becomes a way of chipping away from regimes that continue to exert extreme force and oppression against one party (Fraiman 299).
Learn to become willful and to get in the way of people’s happiness by distorting the picture of it. The perception created from you as one being in the path of others is in itself a reminder of histories that get in the way of the occupation of that room (Ahmed 8, 2017). Utilize unhappiness archive because it is a willfulness archive essential in this call. While engaging in arguments, for instance, feminists should be viewed as the cause of the debate and the one disturbing the fragility of peace. Thus, killjoys are likely to be perceived as troublemakers when they try to challenge the oppressive dogmas established in society (Shane 3).
A manifesto together with the survival kits is essential for living a feminist life. According to Ahmed, for instance, a manifesto is an essential tool in causing disturbances. A killjoy manifesto must be grounded in what exists; by first recognizing inequalities as existing, as a struggle for freedom against oppressive forces, and a politics of transformation that intends to cause the end of a system that is inaccessible to others Ahmed. The manifesto outlines that a feminist should be ever willing to cause unhappiness and support those who create it, failure to laugh at jokes designed to generate offense, recalling of histories that are not over, and refusal to be incorporated into an unjust, and unequal system (Ahmed 171, 2017). Identically, the will to listen and to support others is essential to killjoys (Rahman 4). Ahmed cited her personal experience at a conference when she was challenged by black British feminists on her stance as a feminist.
The don’ts include failure to listen. Ahmed noted that listening is a vital tool for feminists. Listening to other feminists’ ideas for instance instead that bitterly engaging them can prove an essential tool for them to learn crucial lessons in life. In a debate with black British feminists at a conference, Ahmed observes that she responded quickly and became defensive and wrongly classifying them without much reasoning.
Feminists should not sacrifice justice for happiness. Feminists should not engage or participate in acts deemed to promote injustices especially in cases of gender, racial, and class discrimination, and in incidences of violence perpetration just because of happiness (Rahmani 3). For instance, feminists should stand up against inequitable and unfair systems even if it calls for sacrificing your happiness (Ahmed 15-16, 2017).
Feminists should not discriminate against Trans women. Feminists should not look down Trans women as they are one group of people that should be relevant women’s liberation. Feminism should be predicated on pursuing a collective goal of freedom and not to isolate some of Trans women. As Shane (28) points out, feminism should be about showing up for each other and not merely us. She further argues that feminists should be all about a collective longing and a desire to find equal space for all. According to Ahmed (118, 2017), transwomen should be included in feminism movement since it is through trans feminism that the spirits of lesbianism feminism find its voice. Hence, discriminating against them is ruining the feminism course.
1.2 Thesis Statement
The essential stimulus of living a feminist life for a fair environment lies in the subversion of oppressive hierarchical powers through practicing and living the consequences of rejection in the society. Killjoys should neither yield to female categorizations, nor accept the masculine as the yardstick, rather prepare to utilize feminist tools at hand including risking their lives, relationships, jobs, and homes in the fight for establishing a violent-free, just, and equal environment.
1.3 Thesis statement explanation
Women in society have faced oppressive, misogynistic forces that have hampered their progress in society. Identically, though feminist movements have emerged with the purpose or creating an equal environment for all, they have always lacked the understanding, practicality, and expectations of what it takes to lead a feminist life in a society dictated by misogynistic tendencies, injustices, violence, and inequalities. Fighting against the disparities, violence, and crimes practiced against women in society calls for manipulation of personalities to create unhappiness, utilize jobs, and champion for the silenced voices of lesbians and transwomen as a prerequisite for winning this war. Feminists should be ready to sacrifice their happiness, homes, jobs, and relationships for them to achieve their goals. This paper, therefore, reveals that living a feminist life has its implications and consequences that feminists have to brace to deliver equality and justice.
1.4 Summary of Research Content
This paper observes that living feminist life calls for hefty payments in return. Nonetheless, these payments should be part of the feminist movement and sources of subverting the patriarchal tendencies that have denied women, blacks, and transgender their freedom. Regardless of the brick walls, hostilities and opposition, feminists should be creative enough to find a way that alienates them from the flow and work towards creating sobriety in the society.
2. The Significance of the Study
Feminism is a contemporary issue that has found relevance in the field of academia in advocating matters to do with gender, sex, race, class, politics and economic differences. As of necessity, identities and roles of gender escape the confines of race, tribe, religions or cultures are in continual contact, constituting and being constituted by others. This paper is significant in its depiction of becoming a feminist and living as one in a hostile society. Ahmed’s text, “Living a Feminist Life,” provides an elaborate and meticulous way for feminists to emulate as they maneuver through misogynistic forces that ruin women’s coexistence. This paper also points out the challenges these feminists are bound to pay against the war against misogynistic tendencies and the satisfaction they will derive from risking their all for social, political and economic equity. Lastly, the paper will also discuss the do’s and don’ts for becoming and living feminists.
3 Research Questions
The following questions guide this paper;
i). What does it mean to be/lead a feminist life?
ii). What are the implications of Ahmed’s work on feminists?
iii). What are the consequences of living a feminist life?
4 Limitations of the Study
This paper is limited to the implications of Ahmed’s work, “Living a Feminist Life,” what it means to live a feminist life and consequences feminists are bound to face in the society.
5 Methodology
This research is located within the phenomenology paradigm of qualitative research. Phenomenology operates on the premise that construction of ‘reality’ through analysis of people’s lived experience is affected by knowledge of the social world which exists only concerning a human being’s ordinary life, existence in the world and their experience (Horrigan-Kelly et al. 1). From a phenomenology point of view, particular social action or lived experience is rendered significant through the inquirer’s ability to grasp the meanings that constitute that action or experience (Horrigan-Kelly et al. 1). It is therefore expected that the phenomenological paradigm will facilitate the construction of meaning through analysis of the actions, and lived experiences presented by Ahmed’s personal life and fictional the character Killjoy in her work, Living a Feminist Life, which has been selected purposively. The central focus of the study is on the implications of becoming and leading a feminist life and its consequences. The source of data will be from Ahmed’s work, Living a Feminist Life, through the analysis of the representation of the fictional character in the book and the real life of Ahmed. The purpose of this study is to explore ways in which one has to become a feminist, and live a feminist consciousness and finally analyze the implications and consequences of living a feminist life. In other words, the study will examine the feminist theory as presented by Ahmed and how it impacts on the life of feminists.
6 Findings
This paper has found out that feminism aims at standing up against violence, injustices, and inequalities. Feminists are, therefore, supposed to speak back, risk lives, and relationships in the struggle for an accessible and bearable world. Thus, living a feminist life should concern itself with creating a just life worth to be lived by all on the equal basis, establishing healthy relationships with other feminists, and solicit for support of each and for those alienated in the society. Feminists should be creative enough to venture into bringing equity through jobs whether it is the typical social chores or employed jobs. This section discusses ways in which people should strive to become feminists, how to live as feminists, and the ramifications they are likely to encounter in the cause of their ventures.
To be a feminist is to dismantle what has been already dismantled. Dismantling should entail fighting against the established oppressive systems. Being a killjoy means not only to pose a problem but to become the problem itself. The experience of alienation, of causing distortion and breaking happiness as a reaction makes a feminist an object of disapproval and scandalous which is essential to the feminist course. This is an implication that no feminist should be prepared to practice in a concretized system of violence, injustice, and inequality. Making trouble becomes a perfect feminism tool whether at the individual or collective level for advancing the feminist level (Shane 28).
Fully participation in political activism is an aim of transforming the society. An urge to go against the social order is an act of creating unhappiness which is essential for feminists to live individual lives and choose a contrary path to the ordinary one. Identically, feminists should contradict the expected happy agenda, create a problem and then become the problem itself. Feminism consciousness of unhappiness, through rage, anger and burst out are common ingredients for fighting against corrosion mauling the society. Hence, dark and mediated emotions, that accrues from the feminist movement act as sites of struggle towards achieving a judicial course.
Feminist actions are significant toward handling difficult categories of homework to achieve the feminist vision. Getting in the way as a willful soul creates unhappiness which persistently works toward eradicating violence and injustice. Being asserting against persuasion, instruction, or command, and acting pervasive is vital in managing brick walls that are likely to emerge during activism. Willful thus becomes a way of subverting established.
Engaging in substantive arguments is part of raising consciousness and arming feminists with the required power to occupy their space. For instance, examples of race alienation and class division are issues when framed as memory and kept alive would exhaust feminists. Therefore, feminists should be ready to be disloyal and dissociate themselves with acts of violence through arguments. Thus, talking about injustices, power, and subordination becomes the means of getting in the way of others.
Feminist struggle is just like banging one’s head against a brick wall and hitting brick walls which are likely to make one sore, exhausted and hated. Nevertheless, as Ahmed points out, feminists should accept to stay as sore as they get, become angry and raise those issues on several platforms as a way of agitating for accessibility and equality.
Ahmed dedicated her work and energy into transforming the university environment from the violence and injustice nature to a justice one. She delved into constructive arguments, written academic articles and persistence calls upon with the aim of adopting a whole inclusive curriculum. Later, she resigned from her position as a lecturer which in itself was a worth gesture in pushing the feminist crusade forward (Ahmed 64, 2017). As pointed out by Rahman (4), Ahmed became irked by cases of using women for stock value during interviews for jobs in institutions and companies but never hired. Additionally, she opposed the notion of giving the first privilege to whites over blacks as an injustice that feminists should be prepared to challenge to the core.
Ahmed’s resignation in the summer of 2016 from her post as a director of the Center for Feminist Research at Goldsmiths, University of London had an impact beyond the academia. Thus, resignation becomes a feminist issue because it gets in the way of those who do not want cases of violence, injustice, and inequality to die in working institutions. Ahmed argues that if violence becomes feminists’ happiness if it depends on turning away from violence (Rees 1).
Embracing life and roles of a feminist is about being an agitator, misfit, pest, and killjoy (Rossi 116) and never giving up on exposing the flimsiness and vulnerability of power, “normality “or “tradition.” This is a way of recognizing how feminism is the essential tool needed for handling the consequences of being a feminist, becoming anti-sexists and anti-racists. The fragility of a feminist life and female collectivity is a prerequisite for living a normal life with a difference and living in somehow queer relationships (Ahmed 117, 2017 & Hargreaves 116). Satisfactorily living the consequences provide feminists with a snap to serve as an example of re-inventing themselves and negotiating new ways for achieving their goals. Therefore, Ahmed’s book, Living a Feminist Life delivers is a masterpiece recommendable for all. Her ideas encapsulate principles which are critical for recognizing inequalities, violence, injustices, and how to go about fighting for a better tomorrow for all genders.
7. Conclusion and Recommendations
This paper has looked at Ahmed’s paradigm for leading a feminist life and outlined the implications of living such a life in a dominant patriarchal society. It observes that Ahmed has meticulously webbed a model that can guide feminists in generating satisfaction from the pain they derive in the process of fighting the established misogynistic systems within the society. The act of being willful, acting out of order and creating unhappiness is vital for trying to face out issues of violence, injustices, and inequalities. This paper has also observed that living a feminist life calls for hefty payments in return. Nonetheless, these payments should be part of the feminist movement and as vital sources of subverting the patriarchal tendencies that have denied women, blacks, and transgender people their freedom. Regardless of the brick walls, hostilities and opposition, feminists should be creative enough to find a way that alienates them from the flow and work towards creating sobriety in the society.
This research has revealed that although the process of becoming a feminist life is not fixed, there are specific particularities that each aspiring member should strive to depict. Growing sensitive, creating unhappiness, becoming willful, and putting your life and job on the line are just but a few prerequisites of making up for the task. The study has found out that the social experience encapsulating the general behavior, personal relations, integrity, and personal traits are relevant toward championing for the feminism course.
The study also found out that apart from the social aspect, the economic element, mainly the work sector is an essential tool for streamlining the corrupt, corroded, violent and unjust systems. For instance, Ahmed took upon herself to champion for equality in her workplaces and when the institution could not give women a fair environment to operate in; she resigned from her position and consequently, her job. Thus, feminists should diversify their work with the leading agenda of bettering women’s lives regardless of the institutions they work in or the portfolios they occupy.
This research also established that some political activities such holding public rallies, engaging in constructive debates and arguments, championing for the liberation of women in ownership of property, job acquisition, or extreme lesbianism are rich sources of advocating for accessible, justice and a better environment for women. Within the political medium, academic writings are rich sources of subverting the established dominant patriarchal tendencies with a mo
