18 Pussy Riot vs. Trump: Becoming Woman to Resist Becoming Fascist

Abstract

As a celebratory crowd chants 'U.S.A!' with an unsettling military repetition, Trump takes the stage. It is 9 November 2016. The Air Force One film soundtrack plays in the background, ushering in the new president who declares the American Dream dead and promises to bring it back. A micropolitical desire is forging, signalled by the highly emotive military musicall hail the new Sandman. The camera closes in on Trump's face as he thanks his audience and solemnly pledges himself to the nation. Of the political election process, he comments: 'difficult business'. We are reminded that he is first and foremost a businessman whose time is money, and money is king. He proceeds to apologise for keeping his audience waiting. This is showbiz, lest we forget it. This is Trump's America proclaimed only months after he was caught on camera boasting about making sexual advances to a particular woman, although he seems to be speaking of women generally, when he states: 'I don't even wait. And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything' (New York Times 2016). It is highly unsettling that these words should be spoken at all, let alone by the same man who promises to make America great again in his inauguration speech: 'From this day forward, a new vision will govern . . . it's going to be only America first, America first.' Trump's vision for America is prefaced by his self-ordained right to grab any woman 'by the pussy', and a revamping of feral misogyny, a classic in the canon of historical fascism. Therefore, we argue that reclaiming the pussy or indeed the vagina is an act of radical political protest against this misogynist fascism.As Pankaj Mishra notes, citing Mary Wollstonecraft, the project of nationalist politics is fundamentally misogynistic. Women are always supposed to know their place in a vision of lost greatness. And many white, bourgeois women seem to opt to reside in that place, considering the voting results (Philpot 2018). For many minority groups, nationalist politics has failed and continues to fail to provide a common ground to begin with.Exposed to microfascist nationalist politics that does not shy away from sexism, racism, classism and ableism on a daily basis, feminists, postcolonial and gender theorists, poets, activists and artists alike are, and have been for decades, challenging the protagonist of the dogma of an American Dream, as well as its entitlement to its land. Some dissidents have worked to bring into view the power structures inherent in what constitutes 'America' (Crenshaw 1989; hooks 2015;Lugones 2007;Mohanty 2003). Others have sought to expose the ethnocentrism and androcentrism of what is considered 'Great' (Haslanger 2008). Together they have argued for the need for a radically inclusive and