Feminism or Women Behaving Badly

When thinking about and discussing gender performativity, it seemed impossible not to write about the new wave of feminism that seems to be sweeping the country. Although there is no denying that women have come a long way since, say, first earning the right to vote in 1920, ask any women and she will tell you that archaic expectations of what it is to be a “proper” or “well behaved” woman still annoyingly find ways to slip into our subconscious and cause us to edit our behavior. Whether it’s those moments when I see friends getting engaged and feel a weird sort of panic about “needing to find a man” (what?!) or not wanting to seem too confrontational or contradictory to those around me (really?!) because someone somewhere told me that wasn’t very ladylike, these moments are always simultaneously maddening and heartbreaking for me.

So this wave of movements (perhaps spurred into action by our election of Drumf into office, who’s to say) has been pretty exciting to witness and be a part of. I have marched, posted, rallied, protested, called, and written letters to my feminist heart’s content. And lucky for me, my mother has been the greatest of feminist role models.  

A child of the 1960s, my mom is well versed in political protests. She was a badly behaved woman before behaving badly was trendy. Recently she participated in a very theatrical, very performative protest of visiting veep, Mike Pence.

Before I dive too deeply into the details of the protest and why I think it’s a good example of a “queered” performative action, I’m going to assume that most people are familiar with Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale. Now widely popularized by the Hulu produced TV series, it tells the story of a dystopian future in which women who are fortunate enough not to be barren are pretty much reduced to birthing vessels for the barren upper-class. Let’s just say in Atwood’s nation “Gilead,” women are not recognized “subjects” who have any sort of right to the performative actions described by Judith Butler in her essay “Performativity, Precariety and Sexual Politics.”

Now back to the protest. My mother, along with 200 other women decked out in the signature red cloaks that marked a woman’s “Handmaid” status in the Atwood’s novel marched outside of Pence’s hotel. The performance of the “handmaids” outside of Pence’s hotel was pretty obvious in it’s symbolism. These women were using Atwood’s symbol of a completely marginalized woman to draw attention to the current administration’s outdated beliefs in regards to women’s reproductive rights. The women in Atwood’s novel are forced into silence and must fight against the oppressive regime that governs them through subtle and subversive acts. Just as the illegal immigrants Butler references in her essay, the female characters in The Handmaid’s Tale are not seen as subjects and therefore do not have the right to protest their government (they do it anyway, duh). The women who gathered outside of the Marriott, however, are American citizens (that we know of). They therefore count as subjects, according to Butler’s logic. And on that day they were not silent like the handmaids in the book. They screamed and cursed at the Vice President. They held up signs to reiterate their demands and concerns let their shouts be swept away by the winds or passing cars. They donned the robes representative of silenced women and proceeded to do everything in their power to be heard and acknowledged.

I think it will be interesting to see how the performance of femininity or femaleness continues to change as a result of these sorts of protests and movements. If women keep behaving “badly” or not like women are expected, then maybe, just maybe, the way we perform our gender and the way our gender is performed upon us may begin to change.

This is a link to a video of the protest if you're interested! 

https://www.facebook.com/ProgressNowColorado/videos/10156112837559162/?hc_ref=ARSQccJ9Yw9ZUrWF01u3IjkQh7LnFuoE8GFxWGv7z5zNeRX5qchkkReulMnUYfhg-cY