Refusing to acknowledge a woman’s own ethical framing paradoxically strengthens the misogyny feminists oppose

Evidence

Ethical transcoding of strategy is not impossible in our part of the world. Otherwise we remain caught in a collective disavowal that paradoxically strengthens the long-term possibility of the very thing we seek to avoid: the virulent misogyny of the Right. This is the one absence marked well in Gita Sahgal’s documentary on the sati of Rup Kanwar. None of the urban feminist radicals in that film was able to acknowledge that, quite apart from the obvious male coercion, brutality, and exploitation, Rup might indeed have seen the sati as an ethical choice; just as her obviously loving Mother comments that she believes Rup to have been happy in her choice. Without this acknowledgment and the responsible and caring process of the establishment of ethical singularity (which can only exist between equals) that is its practical consequence, no collective action on the basis of legal calculation, itself absolutely necessary, will last. — Donna Landry and Gerald MacLean, The Spivak Reader, 2242

Categorization

• QUESTION: Does ‘ethical singularity between equals’ presuppose the very agency the subaltern is denied — and what happens when equality is absent?
• XREF: Echoes the reader’s ‘exquisite corpse’ corpse-decorum interests and the sati ADDENDUM article on sacrifice. — connects to: Internalized gendering mistaken for ethical responsibility blocks women’s resistance most stubbornly. — Donna Landry and Gerald MacLean, The Spivak Reader: Selected Works of…, 2190; The misogynist neurosis argument against women contradicts itself — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1952; Idealizing women can itself breed misogyny through backlash. — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 93 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• The misogynist neurosis argument against women contradicts itself #expands (0.85) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1952
• Idealizing women can itself breed misogyny through backlash. #corroborates (0.75) — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 93