Cornell and Zerilli

Lynette Dixon 

The theme that jumped out to me in both readings was theme of freedom. I have been thinking about freedom in feminism a lot since the discussion we had in class on Beyoncé wherein a classmate made a claim that Beyoncé was not a feminist despite the fact that she claims to be one. I disagreed with that point precisely for the reason that I believe that feminism gives women the freedom to be what they want and gives them the agency to name and label themselves. Cornell really speaks to this point when she states that “to understand feminism physically is to defend its spirit of generosity because each woman or man will internalize it as an ideal in her or his own way.”(144)Therefore, feminism will manifest its self differently for every woman according to her situation granting each woman complete agency. Following this theme, Zerilli speaks of the danger of losing sight of openness because that leads to the exclusion of many groups in feminism. When considering feminism from the standpoints of these two thinkers, it is clear why such agency in feminism is important. I think that if feminist thought is imposed with rigid structures and epistemologies, the logic of patriarchy starts to seep in and serves to limit that which feminism allows to be limitless. It is due to patriarchal thought that so many groups have been excluded from the dominant discourse for so long, but feminism is supposed to be the alternative that combats such practices. I can understand if one says they do not agree with another’s conception of feminism, but I do not think that we can deny anyone the right to claim feminism. In an effort to consider another viewpoint however, I do wonder if there is danger to such openness. If one wants to claim feminism are there conditions/ what are the conditions under which they shouldn’t be allowed to? Who has the right to decide? What are the stakes?