amia asks, what justice is? - why justice is always available only to selective bodies but not to everyone. why justice always comes with color, gender, caste, sexuality, shape, etc? so, what justice is? or how these bodies are selected for entitling justice but no other bodies? or who make these selections? – is that the system itself or the system that is constructed by patriarchy?i would say amia is one of the greatest living philosophers who is from a non-european, non- alpha male, non-white group of human thinkers that creates a ground for more fierce argument against the normative of our present system, which is highly stratified - of course, caste is still a quotient to think of, but to note that her writings brutally disown the caste identities and intensify to talk about the stratification of bodies and privileges based on caste.
the series of six essays with haunting titles published recently under the label ‘right to sex’, question whose right to sex? and how they got that right? – men, just because they are cis hetero men. the identity of being a cis hetero man makes men to think that they have right to have sex with anyone, they wish. and the recent shift in the social paradigm makes some men think that they are denied sex by women or the society – the incels for example. the issue is not that men are denied sex, but the problem is with the men idea of thinking what is a desirable body for having sex. amia says cis hetero men in the west – particularly from us and uk, desire to have sex with white blondes. in turn, according to patriarchal values ‘other’ bodies are not desirable– including women of color, disabled women, transwomen etc.
this social position gives power to men to turn violent on women who denies their progress. this poised the next argument why the transwomen are not part of feminist propaganda. does a feminism within the boundaries of reformation make a real change? why the american feminism – supposed to be the feminism of current world, from the regan era (1980’s) moved toward the reformist mode, by acting in congenial with the state. why the revolutionary/radical feminism give away its illumination to the reformist notion of feminism which refuge within the values of capitalism.
what makes the capitalist feminist to think that violence against women is an individual human issue but not a social pathology? why we are excited to see when a woman runs for presidency or becomes ceo of a big corporation and why we forget that they are part of power that has caused immense damage to women in afghanistan and orchestrated one of the longest wars – which destroy entire afghanistan or iraq or many other middle eastern states. or these ceo’s who are part of the corporations that exploit the frontline labors. for example, post george floyd’s murder by a police officer and the evolution of black lives matters movement, google, amazon etc, encouraged their employees to celebrate juneteenth – the abolition of slavery day but amia’s question is who are the employees? the employees in glass topped skyscrapers or the migrants and employees of color toiling in the amazon’s warehouses without even a bio break.
these essays take a trip to every corner of radical politics and openly call for the intersectional politics of the radicals, left movements, and identity politics. they make the readers to realize the need for more inclusive movements to fight the system that established a belief that there is no alternative. if no alternative narrative is true then humans would have still believed earth is flat (although we have the flat earthers occupying social media) or humans would have still believed that slavery or caste system is for common good. contrary to the famous myth american capitalist system is not a free system as we are made to believe in and in two ways: 1) there is no scope for thinking about an alternative system, because capitalist propaganda machinery is very strong to make us believe that capitalism is the best social system that we have for human, and it will be buttered with the slogan of democracy 2) free state for whom? which bodies? answer would be obvious, english speaking, white skinned, hetero sexual male with super economic privileges – supraposition.
amia is equally surprised as most of the radicals that affirmation of western feminist movements, including anti-sex work feminism towards the carceral systems. according to amia, the quest for the feminism should be social revolution rather than being reformists which is relatively true. indeed, many of the radical demands which are part of structural reforms were absorbed by rights and capitalism, including abolition of slavery or criminalization of caste or 8-hour labor or weekend off etc. these assimilations are helpful for capitalism to re-establish the power.
she questions does feminist dependency on carceralism, makes any difference? Of course, being an abolitionist does not mean that waking up tomorrow without prisons rather what we the radicals have done more than convicting the individuals or does it make sense to arrest a human being for stealing food or crossing a border etc? shouldn't these values be out of carceral and economic political systems? how can we expect justice from a system that itself needs reform in a bigger scale? how come a state that drives its law through policing and surveillance will bring changes in human societies? or rather the system enacted by the cis-men may tell that these laws are being used against them and they are the victims of these laws that protect women – is this a fact? obviously the numbers tell us a different answer. something same as what indian casteist howling about scheduled caste and scheduled tribe (prevention of atrocities) act.
amia writes that mere ‘yes’ is not a consent rather that yes has lot of political factors attached to it. a student’s consent to a professor might be because of the fear that her grades are in the hands of the professor. it applies with the same logic in workplace as well. or someone’s consent in the past doesn’t mean that the ‘yes’ is always a yes and it goes on. are we really living in a social condition where sex is a personal interaction? sex is defined by human beings through infinite masks which affects all the oppressed genders – transwomen, intersex, women, transmen etc. supposed to be a personal interaction is governed by infinite political factors and pornography. this leads to next question from amia, does the sex women learnt is really an innate behaviour or social/political conditioning which makes then to accept it?
#metoo campaign which gained a wider attention on the internet has supported number of women from different background – at least women who has access to internet and social media to voice out the harassment, abuses they have faced. However, amia’s concern is that the acknowledgement of this movement happened only after it has been appropriated by women from Hollywood. This is not to demean or underestimate the movement (as amia says) rather why this was not gained this much attention when this slogan was coined by a black anti-violence campaigner, tarana burke. black women were asked to stand in solidarity with the white women, but no one was bothered to acknowledge even tarana burke. or with many situations in the third world women who voiced out the abuses faces/faced a lot of hurdles. also, the whole movement end up as a universally accepted women issue – sexual harassment. a feminist politics which sees the punishment of bad men as its primary purpose will never be a feminism that liberates all women, for it obscures what makes most women unfree.
amia also says that feminism’s embrace of carceralism will give a progressive cover to the existing capital system whose main function is to prevent the political reckoning. the existing governing bodies, in the name of protecting women has spend a lot on carceral systems rather it has to be invested on social re-engineering and restructuring. as she concludes her book, the paradox of powerlessness is, collectivised, articulated and represented, powerlessness can become powerful.
the whole book reminds me of what writer siva sankar said in his recent interview with neelam magazine, the ultimate aim of identity politics is to lose or abolish the identity! - supposed to be the tag line for identity politics!
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