Shame and the Future of Feminism

Abstract

Recent works have recowered the ethical and political value of shame, suggesting that if shame is felt for the right reasons, toxic forms of shame m y be alleviated. RereadingHannah Arendt's biography of the "conscious pariah," Rahel Varnhagen, Loch concludes that a politics of shame does not have the radical potential its proponents seek. Access to a public world, not shaming those who shame us, catapults the shamed pariah into the practices of democratic citizenship.Perhaps the question to be posed is: how do gender, race, and age intersect so as to blunt the cognitive power of the emotions?

Destroying the Joint and Dying of Shame? A Geography of Revitalised Feminism in Social Media and Beyond

“…‘False’ shame was imputed when David Koch asked breastfeeding mothers to be discreet in providing their babies with nutrients, placing his personal values as judgement on breastfeeding mothers' behaviours (see Table ). Drawing on Locke (), we see these two sorts of shame circulating in and around the feminist revitalisation and suggest that in tapping into long‐considered points of focus in feminist action, the shame trope, in at least some ways, contributed to the DTJ momentum.…”

Gender and the Politics of Shame: A Twenty‐First‐Century Feminist Shame Theory

“…Much of the latter has appeared in the pages of this journal, and I am delighted that the current special issue consolidates Hypatia 's engagement with gendered shame. Over the years, influential articles by Jill Locke, Erin Taylor and Laura Ebert Wallace, Luna Dolezal, Jennifer Manion, Anne Drapkin Lyerly, Ellen K. Feder, and Ullaliina Lehtinen have been published by Hypatia (Lehtinen ; Manion ; Lyerly ; Locke ; Dolezal ; Feder ; Taylor and Wallace ), and the special issue should be read as a continuation of this feminist work on shame, constituting an expressly feminist shame theory for the twenty‐first century that builds upon and critically extends the feminist leitmotif of shame.…”

Shatter Not the Branches of the Tree of Anger: Mothering, Affect, and Disability

“…You will insist that your children live dignified lives. You will resist policies that segregate your children “for their own good” or because “this is the best placement” or “this is where we have the resources and teachers who are trained to deal with your child.” You will embrace your outsider status as a woman who “viscerally understands the world because [you have] the vantage point of outsiders looking in on it” (Locke , 152). This will be an uncomfortable embrace—pariah, marginal, peripheral woman engorged with powerful, agitated, compelling fury.…”