Lola Olufemi - Feminism, Interrupted: Disrupting Power

A well-argued, no-nonsense account, and essential reading for anyone interested in the state of feminism today.

Stella Dadzie, co-author of The Heart of the Race: Black Womens Lives in Britain

Feminism, Interrupted is a lucid and passionate call to action by one of our most dynamic young feminists. Olufemis manifesto is for a truly radical feminism that liberates us all. If you call yourself a feminist, you need to read this book.

Alison Phipps, author of Me, Not You: The Trouble with Mainstream Feminism

Lola offers a crucial vision that imagines beyond racist, capitalist solutions to oppression ... the necessity of this book cannot be overstated for those who call themselves feminists and those who eschew feminism as it presents itself.

Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan, author of Postcolonial Banter

Outspoken

Series Editor: Neda Tehrani

Platforming underrepresented voices; intervening in important political issues; revealing powerful histories and giving voice to our experiences; Outspoken is a book series unlike any other. Unravelling debates on sex ed and masculinity, feminism and class, and work and borders, Outspoken has the answers to the questions youre asking. These are books that dissent.

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Feminism,
Interrupted

Disrupting Power

Lola Olufemi

First published 2020 by Pluto Press

345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA

www.plutobooks.com

Copyright Lola Olufemi 2020

The right of Lola Olufemi to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 0 7453 4006 7 Paperback

ISBN 978 1 7868 0592 8 PDF eBook

ISBN 978 1 7868 0594 2 Kindle eBook

ISBN 978 1 7868 0593 5 EPUB eBook

This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental standards of the country of origin.

Typeset by Stanford DTP Services, Northampton, England

Simultaneously printed in the United Kingdom and United States of America

Imagine otherwise. Remake the world. Some of us have never had any other choice. Christina Sharpe

If you are not the free person you want to be you must find a place to tell the truth about that. To tell how things go for you. Anne Carson

To Amy Clark and Amelia Horgan, my first readers thank you. Amy, this book would not exist without your eyes, even though you will deny it.

To Neda Tehrani, for dropping into my inbox and guiding me through this process.

To my family, for giving me the space to write.

This book has many voices in it. Thank you to everyone who agreed to speak to me, in person and online, it was an honour to listen to and read your words. There is no way I can do justice to the conversations we had.

In her poem, the lost women Lucille Clifton writes where are my gangs/my teams/my mislaid sisters? I know mine and they are what keep me thinking about feminist futures. Thank you for knowingly and unknowingly guiding my thinking, your unwavering support, your many pep talks: Sandy O, Sarah Lasoye, Christine Pungong, Waithera Sebatindira, Abeera Khan, Miriam Gauntlett, Kate Litman, Hareem Ghani, Diamond Abdulrahim, Micha Frazer-Carroll, Jun Pang, Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan, Siyang Wei, Victoria Braid, Priscilla Mensah, Nydia Swaby, Arenike Adebajo, Christie Costello, Vera Chapiro, Hattie Read, Leo Would, Ellie Byrne, Amelia Oakley, Martha PW, Claire Sosienski-Smith, the many members of FLY, CUSU Womcam and Sisters Uncut.

It was black feminist theory from across the globe that woke me up to the violence and misery of this world and provided the most creative, comprehensive and transformative solutions to it. It gave me the sincerity that is at the core of my politics. It allowed me to live in a different way. Every single idea and thought in this book would not have been possible without it. Anybody who is interested in building a just future for all must seriously engage with that canon, in all its forms. It would be unwise not to.

And what does the gift of feminism consist of if not a certain bundle of ways of thinking historically, ways of seeing, ways of hoping? Vikki Bell

Feminism is a political project about what could be. Its always looking forward, invested in futures we cant quite grasp yet. Its a way of wishing, hoping, aiming at everything that has been deemed impossible. Its a task that has to be approached seriously. This book is for anyone who is beginning to think critically. Feminist histories are unwieldy; they cannot and should not be neatly presented. I hope this book makes you think about the limits of this world and the possibilities contained in the ones we could craft together. I hope it makes you want to read more and become more familiar with radical feminist thought and practice. If this book makes you pick up another book, or watch a documentary, search the archive, reach for a poetry book if it sparks or reignites your interest in feminism, then it has served its purpose.

Everybody has a story about how they arrived and keep arriving at radical politics. Some of us are politicised by the trauma of our own experiences, by wars waged in our names, by our parents and lovers, by the internet. Its useful to share the ways we become politicised if only because it helps politicise others. Growing up as a young black woman, I felt the oppressive way the world was organised with my body and through interpersonal relations long before I could articulate what those feelings meant. Revelling in the discovery of the word feminism and its history as a political practice in my early teenage years at school, I found a personal freedom. I read ferociously. Black feminism, Liberal feminism, Marxist feminism, Anarcha-feminism, Eco-feminism. Feminism opened up my world. I saw in it, conflicting theorists and activists, all giving their ideas about the way the world should be. Perhaps most memorably, it released me from the desire to comply with the world as it is. This meant many things for me as an individual; feminism allowed me to be wayward, the wrong kind of woman, deviant. It took me longer to realise that true liberation meant extending this newfound freedom beyond myself. Just because I felt freer in some respects, did not mean I was free.

The material conditions of my life were still determined by the same systems; poverty and racism still trapped the women around me. Disparities in healthcare, education, public services and access to resources limited the possibility for any kind of expansive existence. I saw how black women were locked out of womanhood as defined by a white supremacy and how anyone outside of those accepted boundaries simply did not exist in the eyes of mainstream feminism. I began to understand how my own rebellion, the defiance instilled in me by the feminists I admired, was raced and classed. I read about how freedom requires upheaval and must be fought for, not romanticised. It was during this period that I realised that feminism was not simple. There were no pre-given solutions. The answer, if there was one, required us to place different feminisms in conversation and necessitated a radical flexibility in our organising. Feminism was complicated and messy in ways that made me reconsider my foundational political beliefs: equality versus liberation, reform versus abolition. Feminism meant