Beauvoir and Lorde confront the honorary man trope: Toward a feminist theory of political resistance

Abstract

Feminist historians of political resistance have drawn attention to the ‘honorary man’ tradition—the belief women resisters must overcome their feminine bodies and act like their male counterparts to be taken seriously in resistance movements. Yet they have not fully explored the resources of feminist theory to counter it. Building a bridge between history and theory, we address this gap by turning to the work of Simone de Beauvoir and Audre Lorde. We highlight their shared understanding that resistance is embodied and situated in social contexts shot through by oppressive gender, race, and class norms. We sketch out a view of feminist resistance that reveals that women resisters have novel possibilities for action, confront gendered vulnerabilities, and encounter difficult dilemmas that have no easy answers. Our paper deepens our understanding of the failures of the honorary man tradition, and it offers conceptual tools for scholars and activists to think beyond it.