The Feminist Killjoy Handbook by Sara Ahmed

[Igneococcus]

I have no idea who Sara Ahmed is but it seems she doesn't like GC women much. Sarah Ditum's review in the Times here:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/2aa66c3e-ac89-11ed-93b3-46d2df37c42d?shareToken=e2289e4176e0d4f2f694e80e459c6381

What a pile of nonsense! And graffiti witch-hunts is all she has to offer? Christ.

'Here is a typically lucid extract: “When feminist killjoys become philosophers, we turn the table into a door. Noticing tables is about how we can see something because of our alienation from it. Why notice doors, then?”

What is this, a mushroom trip in the Ikea showroom?'

😂

Well, I accidentally downloaded the 'killjoy manifesto'. I'd tell you what was in it, but it's 19 pages long.

People say ahmed is one of the most important feminist scholars alive today, but frankly reading has never been my thing and if the times says she's rubbish that's good enough for me! Obviously she writes in a way that is hard to understand out of context so that proves all her ideas are silly anyway and not worth engaging with.

Terrible analogy, Sara!

Won’t be buying this. Particularly if she says that NOT affirming a child’s identity as T is “violence” 😵‍💫

Noticing tables is about how we can see something because of our alienation from it.

I still don't understand wtf she means here, and I read Merleau-Ponty for fun.

It’s meaningless

Or if it has a meaning, I can’t be bothered to work it out

Fully qualified pub philosopher here, PhD in illogistics don't you know. So, I think what she means is that if a table is a door you could run through it but you wouldn't be able to put your coffee on it. She seems to have missed the fact that tables are inherently alienating due to their solidity and the fact that tables, graphs and long lists of numbers are boring.
But if the door is nonconforming we need to accept that.
I hope that helps.

Her name rings a bell. Didn't she use to write something else about the perfidy of feminists before this?

Sounds like someone has been reading too much Judith Butler!

I love how they read Butler, then fancy themselves as oh so deeply intellectual, when in fact they've just started pretending biological sex doesn't exist. The most ridiculous creatures on the planet.

It's good to laugh at queer theorists.

Which reminds me Sally Hines has been quiet for a while now. Odd.

Thanks. These seems to be reminiscent of something about ravens and writing desks.

Ah! I've got it.

She's basically dropped something and ripped off this track.

She’s written some brilliant stuff. I was so sad to see she’d gone in this direction … I just cannot understand how a feminist would denigrate other feminists who simply wish to protect women’s rights. Baffling.

I'm prepared to read the book, I like to stay informed on all sides of a discussion, however tedious.

However I don't understand what the point of SA's male-centring feminism is. What exactly is she trying to achieve that's meaningful for women on the ground? It's all nice and well to muse on the phenomenology of tables and doors in the comfort of your own home, meanwhile vulnerable women are locked up with rapists.

SA's produced an unpleasant tweet thread in response to Ditum's review, calling GCs "Karen" and "gender conservatives" and claiming that GC feminists "have a position of dominance in the mainstream media in the UK (and in government, including the equality sector)."

twitter.com/SaraNAhmed/status/1627349208129732609?cxt=HHwWgoCwwfLewJUtAAAA

Which "equality sector" organisations promote GC feminism exactly? Stonewall, GIRES, mermaids, Gendered Intelligence? Fawcett Society?

I’ve seen this unpleasant thread from SA, too, and I think what she means in terms of ‘dominance’ is the shift of some institutions towards a more neutral stance after the feminist fight back over the last few years. The Equalities and Human Rights Commission, for example, or government bodies that have left Stonewall.

It’s interesting that SA resentfully references various GC books that are coming out soon, by Victoria Smith and Mary Harrington. The feminist book market is no longer cornered by the likes of SA (anyone remember Alison Phipps’ book which sold well but essentially told middle class white women to ‘do better’ without much actual analysis?) and there is some serious competition now from other voices. This has an impact on SA’s bottom line which is perhaps why she resorts to ‘Karen has been busy’. Of course, because all middle-aged women are the same in their mediocrity and the work of such creatures cannot possibly have any value when compared to that of a genuine intellectual. What do they say on the internet, the grift’s over?

'Gender critical feminists have their own books coming out on March. Yes, Karen has been busy! These books have already been and will be lovingly referenced in mainstream newspapers in the UK.'

Goodness me, the bitterness.

Wow. Karen has been busy? What an extraordinarily unpleasant and sexist thing to write. It drips with superiority as well. I started a thread on Ahmed a little while ago - can't remember whether I mentioned her name. But I'd seen some of her tweets on gender critical feminists and just struggle to get my head around how somebody whose work I can admire can just be so ... wrong! And now she's writing about common sense?! I mean ... again, wow. What is saying men should not be in prisons with women other than ... common sense?

Given how long publishing takes, Ahmed probably thought she’d be launching her book into an anti-Karen utopia.

Instead she’s launching it in the wake of a rapist in pink leggings photo and pretty damning details of just what has been going on in GIDS.

So, obviously, she’ll just double down on demonising women who don’t agree with her. It’s more important to please the men who identify as feminists.

It's so interesting that she uses the killjoy term. I suppose us 'Karens' are also killjoys, just not the type of which she approves. I find this absolutely fascinating though, that Ahmed would use such a horribly sexist term against women whose beliefs are different from hers. Wouldn't it be preferable to meaningly engage in a debate if she disagrees? I would absolutely love to ask her about this. I wonder if anybody has - it seems as though she has reached that academic superstar status where perhaps people close to her don't ask difficult questions.

Wouldn’t want to be the wrong type of killjoy.

not the kind of killjoy who actually rains on the (rainbow bannered) parade by asking questions rather than just cheering along.

Yes, it’s bad timing for SA, and her posts do look a bit desperate. I always thought she wasn’t a particularly impressive thinker. There are passages in Living a Feminist Life that make it quite plain that her analysis is often based on misunderstandings and a misreading of evidence.

Certainly seems to have completely misunderstood what 'gender critical' means. She thinks radical feminists are 'gender conservatives'? Has she given any of this a moment's thought?

she appears to be in that pool of people who see ‘conservative’ as a kind of generalised insult rather than one with specific meaning.

As it aligns with the initials GC, it looks like a brilliant twitter sound bite. 🙄

Anyone using the Karen insult has really shown themselves to be a nasty, immature piece of work who doesn’t deserve to be taken seriously.