Citation

Taylor D. Signs 2021; 47(1): 81-104.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2021, University of Chicago Press)

DOI

10.1086/715226

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This essay argues that feminist rage counters sexual humiliation resulting from sexual violence, as well as the gendered power relations that give rise to and legitimize such violence and humiliation. It begins by showing that sexual humiliation manifests within women's self-relation in ways that inhibit their countering of oppressive, normalizing gendered power relations; normalization here is understood in the Foucauldian sense of the simultaneity of enablement and constraint, with the latter overshadowing the former in complex and nontransparent ways. The analysis proceeds by presenting rage as an affect and, thus, a manifestation of the self-relation that points to, opposes, and facilitates countering of gendered power. Next, it shows that due to its counternormalizing, counteroppressive character, women's rage is suppressed. Whereas sexual violence reinforces this suppression in all women, sexual humiliation redoubles it in victims/survivors. The final section of the essay shows that suppressing the counternormalizing, counteroppressive potential of women's rage does not eradicate it. Cultivating a feminist consciousness can redeploy counternormalizing and counterhumiliating potential in the form of a feminist rage that challenges gendered power, sexual violence, and sexual humiliation. The analysis thus illustrates that expressions of feminist rage are crucial for both individual victim/survivors and more broadly within feminist anti-sexual violence protest and resistance.

Language: en