Living a Feminist Life

Ahmed uses the term “diversity work” in two different but related ways: “first, diversity work is the work we do when we are attempting to transform an institution; and second, diversity work is the work we do when we do not quite inhabit the norms of an institution” (91). Specifically, the first kind of work refers to appointments to various diversity officer and diversity committee roles within an institution (university, workplace, etc.) intended to make positive changes in inclusiveness. The second kind of work is the labor of merely existing in an institutional space without quite fitting in “correctly.”

Ahmed expands and complicates her concept of “feminism” throughout the entire text. However, she posits a few foundational elements. First, she opens with bell hook’s definition of feminism as “the movement to end sexism, sexual exploitation and sexual oppression” (5). Additionally, she insists feminism “will be intersectional or it will be bullshit,” paraphrasing from Flavia Dzodan (5). She further adds that “feminism is homework,” meaning both that it is an “assignment” one gives oneself, and that it is work that happens at home as well in political/public spaces.

As with “feminism,” Ahmed explores the figure of the “feminist killjoy” throughout the text. This figure originates from Ahmed’s previous work, The Promise of Happiness, but it is fully realized both in this book and in Ahmed’s blog, feministkilljoys. A feminist killjoy is a woman who refuses to follow the flow of traffic and becomes an obstruction. She does not laugh at sexist jokes; she does not keep the peace at tense family dinners or office meetings. She refuses the gender fatalism that requires girls to behave a certain way. She is an affect alien.

Ahmed uses “snap” as a verb, with a “feminist snap” being the moment when a woman snaps under the pressure of the many obstacles she faces, like a twig that is slowly stepped on. One reaches these breaking points through moments of fragility. Ahmed defines snap as “to break suddenly, to give way abruptly under pressure or tension, to suffer a physical or mental breakdown, especially while under stress” (188). Importantly, however, Ahmed argues that a feminist snap only appears sudden from the outside, because the many moments of pressure leading up to it are not visible to those who do not experience them.

Ahmed defines “fragility” as the “quality of being easily breakable” (168). It is both the act of being “shattered” by history, experience, or obstacles, and being more likely to be shattered by virtue of who one is. In this context, fragility comes from “the wear and tears of living a feminist life” (163), often in ways that are not apparent until one hits a final breaking point. She discusses fragile objects, fragile relationships, and fragile bodies. Fragility and brokenness lead to feminist snap.

Ahmed builds the idea of “gender fatalism” from Judith Butler’s ideas of gender performativity. She argues that “girling” and “boying” are verbs, social mechanisms for shaping a person into a gender. Gender fatalism “rests on ideas about nature as well as time: what ‘will be’ is decided by ‘what is’” (25). Her example is the phrase “boys will be boys.” The words “will be” become a description of what boys are naturally like; it then becomes a prediction, and from prediction it becomes a command. Boys WILL be like this. Girls WILL be like that, with no argument or deviation.

Ahmed borrows her concept of “lesbian feminism” largely from poet and feminist activist Adrienne Rich, who describes lesbian feminism as a cultural and philosophical movement (predominantly in the 1970s and 80s) that advocates for women to turn their focus away from men, and turn their efforts, attentions, relationships, and activities towards their fellow women (from her essay “Compulsory Heterosexuality and the Lesbian Experience,” 1980). It often, but not always, advocates lesbianism as the logical result of feminism. Ahmed calls for a return to lesbian feminism as the best way to survive the obstacles and fragility of living a feminist life.

Ahmed defines a “manifesto” as “a statement of principle, a mission statement, […] a declaration of intent of an individual or organization or group” (251). She adds that the word manifesto comes from the verbal phrase “to make manifest,” which means to make something come about, to make it tangible or real. Thus, a manifesto does not only cause a disturbance (as if by accident), it fully intends to cause a disturbance.

A “sweaty concept” is an expression Ahmed first coined while trying to describe the intellectual labor she sees in Audre Lorde’s work. She uses this expression to signal the connection between conceptual work and more material kinds of work. Where conceptual work is usually viewed as separate from material reality, Ahmed argues that the conceptual work arises out of material circumstances. A sweaty concept “might come out of a bodily experience” or out of the “practical experience of coming up against a world” (12-13).