Living a Feminist Life

“No one is born a woman; it is an assignment (not just a sign, but also a task or an imperative, as I discuss in Part I) that can shape us; make us; and break us. Many women who were assigned female at birth, let us remind ourselves, are deemed not women in the right way, or not women at all, perhaps because of how they do or do not express themselves.”

Ahmed here refers to the idea that gender is a social construct rather than an inherent biological quality. In this statement, she echoes many important gender and sexuality theorists, including Judith Butler (See: Key Figures). Additionally, she makes it clear that her vision of feminism does not exclude trans women, but accepts them as women.

“[I]f becoming feminist cannot be separated from an experience of violence, of being wronged, then what brings us to feminism is what is potentially shattering. The histories that bring us to feminism are the histories that leave us fragile. Feminism might pick up (or more hopefully pick us up) from the experiences that leave us vulnerable and exposed.”

In this quote, Ahmed argues that the process of awakening to feminist consciousness is linked to experiences of violence (physical, verbal, emotional) that women face in the world. She envisions feminism as both a consequence of that violence and the answer to surviving and making meaning from that violence. She also introduces the idea of fragility, which she returns to in Chapter 7.

“Girling is enacted not only through being explicitly addressed as a girl, but in the style or mode of address: because you are a girl, we can do this to you. Violence too is a mode of address. Being girl is a way of being taught what it is to have a body: you are being told; you will receive my advances; you are object; thing, nothing.”

The gender fatalism of “girling,” happens not only in the language society uses to describe and “name” bodies, but also in the violence enacted upon bodies that are labeled “girl.” Ahmed argues that girls learn they are girls through the experience of this violence.