Democracy by Design: Practicing Rainbow Feminism

By Emily Hardy

How does architecture influence politics? Physical design is traditionally seen as an objective or neutral component of the legislative process, divorced from political desires and strategic engineering. However, legislative architecture is acutely informed by political will power. This book explores the ign

• Language: English
• Publisher: New Degree Press
• Release date: Aug 26, 2021
• ISBN: 9781637304068

Book preview

Out of the Closet and into the Streets

Practicing Rainbow Feminism

Emily Hardy

new degree press

copyright © 2021 Emily Hardy

All rights reserved.

Out of the Closet and into the Streets

Practicing Rainbow Feminism

ISBN

978-1-63676-491-7 Paperback

978-1-63730-405-1 Kindle Ebook

978-1-63730-406-8 Digital Ebook

Dedicated to Abigail, Rachel, and Ryan Hardy.

May you all be free to think Queerly.

Contents

---

Introduction

Acknowledging My Privilege

Terminology

We Are the Fourth Wave: An Homage to Rebecca Walker

What Is Rainbow Feminism?

Patriarchy with Adjectives

Feminism as a Faith System

Practicing Feminism

EquALLity

Down with the Cistem

Invisible Identities

We the People

Let’s Get One Thing Straight—I’m Not

If It’s Not Intersectional, It’s Not Feminism

Somewhere over the Rainbow

The Future Is Feminist

Acknowledgments

Appendix

Introduction

---

My Intellectual Exploration

Although I cannot remember the first time I saw the ocean, it has always played a significant role in my life, both literally and figuratively. Growing up in the coastal city of Vancouver, Canada, walks along the beach populated my childhood. Salty spray, sandy toes, and knotted hair were byproducts of my intimate relationship with the sea. As a child, I often played in the waves, dancing in sea foam as I watched tiny fish dash between my toes. My sister and I would line up along the wet sand, playing a game of chicken, to see who was courageous enough to stand at the water’s edge before the waves plowed in. When we built magnificent sandcastles, I would beg the tide to leave our works of art untouched as it mercilessly plowed toward the shore. But no matter how desperately I would plead, the waves rolled in, consumed my creations, and then retreated back to the sea.

Although the days spent building sandcastles may be behind me, I frequently find myself seated on the sand staring out into the vastness of the Pacific Ocean. I love watching wave after wave roll onto the shore: ebb and flow. I am still fascinated by their energy and amazed by their persistence. But my interest in waves has never been exclusively limited to the natural world or the ocean. Instead, the concept manifested in my academic engagement, ultimately leading me to feminism. Just as ocean waves and sea foam provided my childhood self with enjoyment, the conceptual ideas of feminism now engulf me: First Wave, Second Wave, Third Wave, and Fourth Wave. Each movement more purposeful and impactful than the last. Each movement with its own peak and trough, its own unique energy and power. I have always been deeply impacted by the relentlessness of feminism, and I often marvel at the urgency inherent in each wave.

One of the first papers I wrote for a Women and Gender Studies (WGST) course at Georgetown University—essentially the precursor to this book—outlined in depth my belief that the mission of the Fourth Wave is to integrate Queer liberation into the definitional understanding of feminism. Feeling rife with overconfidence at the time of submission, I was later alarmed when my paper was returned with the word wave circled in red ink. Scribbled in the top righthand corner was a note to see my WGST professor, Dr. Nour, after class. As I shuffled to the front of the room, she nodded, indicating we were going on a walk. I found myself tripping over both my words and the uneven pavement as we rushed across campus. Every step of the way, she challenged my usage of the term wave, detailing her opposition as we filed up the narrow staircase to her office.

Dr. Nour—a brilliant feminist—argued that by contextualizing feminism in waves, we accidentally imply dormancy, stillness, and inactivity. The wave metaphor denotes off-periods, which Dr. Nour believed to be a dangerous mischaracterization of the social and political organizing that occurs when popular media is not fixated on social justice causes. I fervently nodded, vowing to abandon the term for good and find a word that appropriately characterized the integrate nature of the feminist movement. After conducting some independent research, I soon discovered Dr. Nour was not the only academic who opposed the term.

In a virtual conversation with Dr. Nadia Brown—a WGST Professor at Purdue University and author of several books on Black Feminism—she outlined her specific contentions with the term. To Brown, the wave metaphor presents a linear version of how the dominant form of feminism has been viewed in the US. But [feminism] isn’t linear…It’s messy. It’s inconsistent. To Brown, the desire to codify feminism in monolithic waves is an inaccurate representation of a complicated history. She notes that different sects of feminism coexisted within the same space during each successive wave—a nuanced diversity that Dr. Brown fears remains absent from popular culture. She cautions that by painting each movement with a singular brush, we ignore the multiple perspectives, ideologies, and manifestations of feminism that resisted temporal norms. To Dr. Brown, the wave metaphor is a tool to teach people rather than a philosophy integral to feminism. She sees the conceptual development of the wave as an attempt to make history and feminism legible to…students and the general public, but Dr. Brown fears this understanding fails the subtleties of feminist discord.

Hearing Dr. Brown’s lengthened explanation left me feeling mentally exhausted and dismayed by the clear academic resistance to classifying feminism through the wave system. Equipped with these two arguments, I began to contemplate the history of feminism and the origin of the term. Wave. Had I been wrong to see feminism through such a lens? Was the ocean metaphor that had once drawn me to the movement outdated and reductive?

Noting the criticism of both Dr. Brown and Dr. Nour, I had to decide for myself if the term was truly worth abandoning. As I began my investigation into the metaphor, I remained mindful of the two camps: proponents (often found in popular media or online) and opponents (represented by scholars and academics). I found this pattern to be rather revealing of the chasm often erected between the ivory tower of scholarly elitism and the accessibility required by a general audience when distilling social justice discord. This theme—the inaccessibility of academic/elitist feminist theory—appears throughout feminism and therefore will appear throughout this book as well. Creating a feminist discourse that is personal, individual, and impactful remains one of my sincerest aim for the Fourth Wave. That’s why I hope to exist in the space of accessible academia, liberating theory from the ivory tower whilst retaining the critical, intellectual lens cultivated through research.

Intrigued by the commentary of Dr. Brown and Dr. Nour, I knew I needed to forge my own path and independently identify the merits of the wave metaphor. Through both internal reflection and several visits back to the sea, I began to notice immense similarities between the term wave and the feminist movement. First and foremost, each movement is contextually situated in a historical moment that operates with substantially different rules. This is just like the diverse and vast bodies of water (sometimes tranquil and receptive, other-times hostile and stormy) in which a wave may find itself. When I visited the ocean throughout the writing process, I marveled at its susceptibility to environmental factors: raging winds would force violent seas, whereas a sunny sky would produce calm lapping at the shoreline. Contextually, feminism is situated in a cultural landscape that is constantly evolving, just as the ocean changes with the weather. Both are influenced by external factors that inform mobilization and energy trends. But despite limitations of the external environment, the energy of the wave continues to exist, and therefore the motion persists. Secondly, each feminist movement possessed broad goals, objectives, or missions that advocates of the era sought to achieve. To me, this is represented by a wave’s direction. The central tenant of each movement, whether political representation, reproductive justice, racial representation, increased intersectionality, or Queer liberation, gave/gives a feminist wave purpose and orientation. The wave’s directional ability reinforces the need of a social movement to enact change on a particular front—the shoreline.

Then came the most telling insight: social movements are electric and exponential. When watching ocean waves peak, I have become increasingly aware of their sudden emergence and rapid influx from a state of rest to action. This phenomenon is also present in social justice movements: they pass the tipping point of engagement overnight until, suddenly, everyone is marching. Whether it is an event—like the election of Donald Trump—or a collective outcry for help—like #MeToo—there has always been massive, sudden, and abrupt spurts of engagement in feminism at different key junctures in history. This immediacy and urgency embody a wave’s swell. Fueled by a larger purpose, individuals engage in collective action to form a wave’s peak. Ultimately, this joint mobilization creates a moment in which change feels powerful, imminent, and inevitable.

But just as in nature, this heightened, energized state cannot be sustained forever. Slowly the wave recedes, falling back down into a trough once the fierce stir of energy has passed through. Although disappointing, this phenomenon is present in every social movement. From #MeToo to Black Lives Matter (BLM), it is hard to engage in constant protest when people have jobs, lives, and families. Activism is exhausting and it is okay to acknowledge this pent-up energy is difficult to sustain for prolonged periods of time. In a trough, the water is present and bobbing, just as feminism is still present and active even when the cries for equality are not heard in the streets. Our ability to organize and stay energized ebbs and flows, merely as a byproduct of the human condition. Dr. Nour took issue with the period of inactivity that follows the traditional peaks, as she thought it implies the depletion of the feminist spirit. But such a characterization could not be further from the truth.

Yes, at first glance, the concept of a wave may denote a temporary energy reduction, but never inactivity or stillness. To disprove any notion of dormancy, all one must do is turn to the sea. When watching waves, it quickly becomes clear just as one wave has passed through, another has already begun forming on the horizon. Even when it was not trendy to be out in the streets, feminists rallied, organized, and educated others about the movement and goals of liberation. These actors were still present during so-called off-periods, even if feminism was not experiencing a heightened state of engagement.

The wave metaphor also embodies the feminist spirit of gradual progress. Waves masterfully create the illusion of motion, as if the water itself traverses miles of open ocean. Yet the water particles are not actually propelled forward; rather, the visual rise and fall effect is caused merely by energy passing through. The same water that was once relaxed changes shape as a byproduct of energy. The same can be said of social movements. Just as the same water was present all along, so too were the same people. The only difference is the energy and urgency has forced these actors to uniquely engage in advocacy work. Individuals are compelled to do