Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-4hhp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-11T00:34:22.225Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

A Golden Lever for Politics: Feminist Emotion and Women's Agency

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Abstract

Pervasive feminism is a component located in emotionality—feminist emotion—and contains women's primary agency. Because affect and emotions are elusive, an interpretive conceptual tool is necessary and is key to making use of their potential for feminist politics aimed at women's empowerment and well‐being and to build gender equality. This essay builds on contemporary feminist theory and affect theory and draws from multidisciplinary research. It presents a new theoretical framework anchored in hermeneutics and phenomenology to pin down the affective component of women's multifaceted, intersectional emotional experiences of gender. A case study also illustrates how the theoretical premises around the concept of feminist emotion are compatible with and useful for feminist praxis.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © 2016 by Hypatia, Inc.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ahmed, Sara. 2004. The cultural politics of emotion. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Ahmed, Sara. 2010. Happy objects. In The affect theory reader, ed. Gregg, Melissa and Seigworth, Gregory J.Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Ahmed, Sara. 2012. Whiteness and the general will: Diversity work as willful work. PhiloSOPHIA 2 (1): 120.Google Scholar
Anderson, Ben. 2010. Modulating the excess of affect: Morale in a state of “total war.” In The affect theory reader, ed. Gregg, Melissa and Seigworth, Gregory J.Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Benhabib, Seyla. 2004. Los derechos de los otros: Extranjeros, residentes y ciudadanos. Barcelona: Gedisa.Google Scholar
Benson, Paul. 2000. Feeling crazy: Self‐worth and the social character of responsibility. In Relational autonomy: Feminist perspectives on autonomy, agency, and the social self, ed. Catriona Mackenzie and Natalie Stoljar. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Blackman, Lisa. 2011. Affect, performance and queer subjectivities. Cultural Studies 25 (2): 183–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brennan, Teresa. 2004. The transmission of affect. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Churchland, Patricia S. 2012. El cerebro moral: Lo que la neurociencia nos cuenta sobre la moralidad (originally: Braintrust. Princeton: Princeton University Press). Barcelona: Paidós.Google Scholar
Code, Lorraine. 2000. The perversion of autonomy and the subjection of women. In Relational autonomy: Feminist perspectives on autonomy, agency, and the social self, ed. Mackenzie, Catriona and Stoljar, Natalie. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Davidson, Richard J. 2012. The emotional life of your brain: How its unique patterns affect the way you think, feel, and live—and how you can change them. New York: Plume.Google Scholar
Davidson, Richard J., and McEwen, Bruce S. 2012. Social influences on neuroplasticity: Stress and interventions to promote well‐being. Nature Neuroscience 15 (5): 689–95.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
De Lauretis, Teresa. 1987. Technologies of gender: Essays on theory, film, and fiction. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Denzin, Norman K. 2009. On understanding emotion. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers.Google Scholar
Gilligan, Carol. 1982. In a different voice: Psychological theory and women's development. Boston: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Gilligan, Carol. 2013a. Daño moral y la ética del cuidado. Cuadernos de la Fundació Grifols i Lucas 30: 1039.Google Scholar
Gilligan, Carol. 2013b. La resistencia a la injusticia: Una ética feminista del cuidado. Cuadernos de la Fundació Grifols i Lucas. 30: 4067.Google Scholar
Harding, Sandra. 1993. Rethinking standpoint epistemology: What is strong objectivity? In Feminist epistemologies, ed. Alcoff, Linda and Potter, Elizabeth. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Hemmings, Clare. 2012. Affective solidarity: Feminist reflexivity and political transformation. Feminist Theory 13 (2): 147–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jaggar, Alison M. 1989. Love and knowledge: Emotion in feminist epistemology. Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 32 (2): 151–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lagarde, Marcela. 2001. Género y feminismo: Desarrollo humano y democracia. Madrid: Horas.Google Scholar
Langle de Paz, Teresa. 2010. La rebelión sigilosa: El poder transformador de la emoción feminista. Madrid: Icaria.Google Scholar
Lingis, Alphonso. 2010. Emanations. Parallax 16 (2): 1219.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mackenzie, Catriona. 2000. Imagining oneself otherwise. In Relational autonomy: Feminist perspectives on autonomy, agency, and the social self, ed. Mackenzie, Catriona and Stoljar, Natalie. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Maitra, Keya. 2013. The questions of identity and agency in feminism without borders: A mindful response. Hypatia 28 (2): 360–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Massumi, Brian. 1995. The autonomy of affect. Cultural Critique 31 (II): 83109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Massumi, Brian. 2010. Ontology of threat. In The affect theory reader, ed. Gregg, Melissa and Seigworth, Gregory J.Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Meyers, Diana Tietjens. 2000. Intersectional identity and the authentic self: Opposites attract! In Relational autonomy: Feminist perspectives on autonomy, agency, and the social self, ed. Mackenzie, Catriona and Stoljar, Natalie. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Mibenge, Chiseche. 2010. Investigating outcomes of a limited gender analysis of enslavement in post‐conflict justice processes. Journal of Peacebuilding and Development 5 (3): 3446.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Narayan, Uma. 2006. Cross‐cultural connections, border crossings, and the “death of culture.” In Theorizing feminisms, ed. Hackett, Elizabeth and Haslanger, Sally. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Nussbaum, Martha C. 2001. Upheavals of thought: The intelligence of emotions. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Pres.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nussbaum, Martha C. 2011. Creating capabilities: The human development approach. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nussbaum, Martha C. 2013. Political emotions: Why love matters for justice. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Pinker, Steven. 2012. La tabla rasa: La negación moderna de la naturaleza humana (originally The blank slate. New York: The Penguin Group). Barcelona: Paidós.Google Scholar
Riley, Denise. 2005. Impersonal passion: Language as affect. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Russell, J. A., and Barrett, L. Feldman. 2009. Core affect. In The Oxford companion to emotion and the affective sciences, ed. Sander, D. and Scherer, K. R.New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Scherer, Klaus R. 2009. The dynamic architecture of emotion: Evidence for the component process model. Cognition & Emotion 23 (7): 1307–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shiva, Vandana. 2005. Earth democracy: Justice, sustainability, and peace. London: Zed Books.Google Scholar
Waitt, Gordon, Ryan, Ella, and Farbotko, Carol. 2014. A visceral politics of sound. Antipode 46 (1): 283300.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wetherell, Margaret. 2012. Affect and emotion: A new social science understanding. London: Sage Publications.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wolff, Jonathan, and De‐Shalit, Avner. 2007. Disadvantage. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar