Feminist Accountability: Disrupting Violence and Transforming Power PDF
Preview Feminist Accountability: Disrupting Violence and Transforming Power
Feminist Accountability Feminist Accountability Disrupting Violence and Transforming Power Ann Russo NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS New York NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS New York www.nyupress.org © 2019 by New York University All rights reserved References to Internet websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author nor New York University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Russo, Ann, 1957– author. Title: Feminist accountability : disrupting violence and transforming power / Ann Russo. Description: New York : New York University Press, [2019] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018020948| ISBN 9780814777169 (cl : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780814777152 (pb : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Feminism. | Responsibility. | Feminist theory. | Women—Violence against. | Sex discrimination against women. Classification: LCC HQ1155 .R87 2019 | DDC 305.42—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018020948 New York University Press books are printed on acid- free paper, and their binding materials are chosen for strength and durability. We strive to use environmentally responsible suppli- ers and materials to the greatest extent possible in publishing our books. Manufactured in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Also available as an ebook For Frannie and Cece Contents Introduction: Cultivating Feminist Accountability 1 Part I: Accountability as Intersectional Praxis 1. Building Communities 19 2. Navigating Speech and Silence 41 3. Disrupting Whiteness 57 Part II: Community Accountability and Transformative Justice 4. Shifting Paradigms to End Violence 85 5. Collective and Communal Support 110 6. Everyday Responses to Everyday Violence 132 7. From Punishment to Accountability 156 Part III: (Re)Imagining Feminist Solidarity 8. Disentangling US Feminism from US Imperialism 185 9. Resisting the “Savior” Complex 214 Acknowledgments 243 Notes 249 Index 269 About the Author 275 vii Introduction Cultivating Feminist Accountability If we ask ourselves the most simple questions, such as where do we get our food from, we can see that we are tied up in networks of relationships with millions of other people. Our actions are constantly creating, recreating, challenging and transforming the networks of relationships that make up the fabric of our shared world. We influence the fabric of society by the choices we make, about whose actions we choose to acknowledge and whose we choose to ignore; by where we take a stand and where we choose not to; by how we treat others and how we expect to be treated. — C. Kaufman, A User’s Guide to White Privilege What does it take to build communities to struggle against the multi- tude of injustices we face and to create the social change we envision necessary for the world in which we want to live—a world with love, lib- eration, and justice at its center? How do we work together to transform the deep historical, structural, and interlocking systems of oppression and violence that shape our relationships with one another without reproducing these same systems and the violence they produce?1 In thirty- plus years of participation in antiracist, feminist, and queer antiviolence critical-c onsciousness community building, organiz- ing, and activism, the most important lesson I have learned is that our praxis often reproduces the very power dynamics that we are seeking to transform. So often the hierarchical and inequitable divides produced by global capitalism, imperialism, white supremacy, patriarchy, and het- eronormativity get played out in our relationships and communities as well as in our organizations, activism, and advocacy. In teaching, writ- ing, and organizing around the everyday oppression and violence that 1
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