MAHVISH AHMAD: Sara Ahmed argues that the fragility from which the possibility of feminism is born is simultaneously a fragility to which we must remain attentive and, in some senses, loyal. The point is not to recreate another hard structure that produces another norm in which all do not fit. In fact, Ahmed warns against feminist movements that become too rigid, for instance those that exclude trans* women as women or, alternately, those who demonize feminists who point out differences between women; she urges the reemergence of the killjoy in such moments to destroy structures yet again. Unlike the brick walls of the master’s house in institutions of privilege and power, feminist dwellings must be built of a lighter material that give space for movement.
The centrality of brokenness as a condition of feminism, politics, even being is brought home in some lines of poetry that Lorde recited in 1977 in Chicago, dedicated to Winnie Mandela, who was imprisoned at the time:
Broken down gods survive
in the crevasses and mudpots
of every beleaguered city
where it is obvious
there are too many bodies
to cart to the gallows.
and our uses have become
more important than our silence
. . .
and our labor
has become more important
than our silence
Our labor has become
more important
than our silence.
It is at a moment of shattering and splintering that feminism is, or can be, born: as a powerful and dangerous army of broken-down gods. More here.