Entangled Feminisms: #MeToo as a Node on the Feminist Mesh

Abstract

Entangled Feminisms:#MeToo as a Node on the Feminist Mesh Sarah Afzal (bio) and Paige Wallace (bio) FemMesh: An Introduction #MeToo and #TimesUp movements must not be treated as isolated social media campaigns against sexual violence, but as a part of a larger feminist network that we will call the Feminist Mesh or the FemMesh.1 We borrow the term "mesh" from Timothy Morton's The Ecological Thought, which defines mesh as "a vast, sprawling [network] of interconnectedness without a definite center or edge," or even "a complex situation or series of events in which a person is entangled."2 The mesh consists of both "infinite connections" and "infinitesimal differences"3 which allows for continuous interactions between nodes; the concept of a Feminist Mesh helps us imagine a "metaphysics of interconnectedness"4 within which difference and solidarity are entangled rather than set against each other. Just like the ecological mesh, the Feminist Mesh is neither static nor linear. The mesh is a fourth-wave, cyberfeminist mode of knowledge production that mends together the individual subject and the collective to combine second-wave activism and consciousness-raising, and third-wave individual choice and responsibility. Although the internet has proven to be well-suited for organizing collective action, fourth-wave feminism exists both online and offline—the flux between the real and the virtual entangle in the Feminist Mesh. Cyberfeminism has facilitated a narrative turn through which "cacophonic stories" are making the systems of power that Sara Ahmed argues "are not visible unless you come up against them"5 visible. As a method of telling stories, cacophonic story-telling consists of "different kinds of stories, told in different kinds of voices, which are meant to jar rather than harmonize." Cacophonic stories are "multiple, discordant, [and] grating."6 Movements like #MeToo and #TimesUp have made the pervasiveness of sexual assault and violence across genders and sexual representations more visible than ever before. This visibility is enmeshed in the connections being drawn between different stories to show that the forces we come up against as individuals are often not isolated but connected to fixed structures of oppression. These stories are cacophonic—there are [End Page 131] points of intersection and overlap, and as each individual narrative calls out those who have abused their positions of power, it contributes to a larger feminist objective to name structural inequality and injustice, and adds a voice to the collection of women and feminists that came before, ultimately paving the way for other marginalized people to come forward and tell their stories in the future. The Feminist Mesh is a new way of looking at feminist knowledges through intricate connections and entanglements. Feminist knowledge is traditionally described through the wave metaphor with each wave feeding into the next. This cyclical ebb and flow encourages new feminist knowledges and practices. But waves collect energy and grow steeper as they approach the shore, collapsing when they reach it. Thinking of feminism as waves ensures that once a feminist agenda has been achieved another wave will bring about the next change. While the Feminist Mesh does not aim to replace or to reject the wave model, it is a model that connects and stores the energy of each wave by holding together our lines of feminist knowledge. The simultaneous action of holding together feminist stories and allowing them the freedom to continue moving and intersecting with new knowledges is made possible by the flexibility of the mesh. The organizing characteristic of the Feminist Mesh is to illustrate the intersectional nature of patriarchal oppression—a topic which has often been discussed and written about in academic circles. But the mesh is connected to what Donna Haraway explains as "making-with" or sympoiesis.7 Haraway uses the borrowed8 term sympoiesis to describe "complex, dynamic, responsive, situated, historical systems."9 The FemMesh is a model for feminist knowledges but as Haraway posits "a model is not the same kind of thing as a metaphor or analogy. A model is worked, and it does work."10 Similarly, the FemMesh does work and must be worked. The FemMesh works in entanglements rather than isolated...