I’m glad that there is at least a minority who does see the truth. Thinking there is any way to unravel a system that self perpetuates down to the genetic level, well . . .

None the less, seems to me a horrendous line of reasoning (then, locke stuffed up property rights well and properly, didn’t he?): if humanity is dependent on agency, what happens if the whole notion of free will is questionable (if you maintain that everyones behaviour/choices are the product of their environment, not of independent action) – are then none of us human/possessing humanity?

that’s a rather horrible thought. though it creates a more even playing field, if nothing else.

I think that the question of agency within constraint is so problematic at least partly because of the dominance of the liberal tradition in Western discourse.

The Lockean conception of the acting individual doesn’t actually leave any room for existing as both subject and object. I think in Twisty’s writing we’ve seen this idea most clearly exposed in the matter of holding ‘consent’ as a non-functional category for engaging in sexual relations.
In this tradition there really is no possibility for the separation of agency and subjectivity. Either you can act freely or you’re just not fully human, and therefore society doesn’t have to care about you. Humanity is definitively contingent on agency.

I think there’s some response in the Hegel-Marx-Lukacs line, I’ll report back if I can think of it (/find the proper citations).

I ask myself all the time, is there room to tell stories about the agency demonstrated by oppressed people who game a system that is stacked against them, without implying “hey the status quo is a-ok and no one’s being oppressed”? Campbell’s attempt was pretty clumsy. I think it’s really hard to tell those kinds of stories well, and with the right amount of nuance.

metamanda, I think the answer to this question is yes. More than yes – necessarily yes. But I think we have to go about it very carefully. I think part of the problwm with telling these stories is caught up in language and meaning.

One: the idea of the innocent victim; one must be without any responsibility at all for the situation that befalls them.

Two: the idea that if one has a degree of agency they have a responsibility to act in a way that is not detrimental to their own interests (which of course is always defined by the person making the analysis – in this case, us) . Otherwise, see above.

I think both of these notions are false. We can be act in a way that contributed to our misfortunes; this doesn’t make it our fault. We can chose to act in a way that harms us; it does not somehow make acceptable the harm outcome; it just means we chose to act in a certain way.

short version : agency and victimhood are not mutually exclusive.

i think if we can convince – first ourselves, and then – others of this idea that having agency over some aspect of our behavior does not mean we are responsible for the situation that befalls us we create the space in which we can tell these stories.

i mean: you could tell the story of viet girl going to korea to marry a farmer as victim – in country where she doesn’t speak the language and has no rights; throwing herself at the feat of chance; who could be beaten; abused; used as the household servant; who is sold by her parents to her husband

or, the story of a young woman finding a way to get the hell away from her rural village and see somewhere other than her own country; of her bravery in facing the unknown; her independence in leaving her close knit community ; the potential for a happy ending.

and no matter if she ends up happy and sending good money back to her family, and raising one of her own, maybe getting decent work and having a wonderful life in korea – or returning to vietnam in a coffin after being beaten to death by her husband – it’s not her fault; she is not responsible for what happens.

but at the point at which she made the decision to marry a korean – she clearly exerted agency, demonstrated independence and faced the unknown. that the patriarchy builds a world where the odds are stacked against individuals doesn’t mean that we can’t act with agency within the limitations of our existence.

I’ve got a book entitled ‘Suffragettes in pictures’. The stuff those women got up to!

*Ducks head in anticipation of the shitshower from funfeminists*

AdmirerofEmily: Pankhurst or Dickenson?