ON SOLUTIONS OF ANTIMILITARIST FEMINIST THINKING IN THE PANDEMIC ERA

Abstract

The article analyses discussions in modern feminist theory about perspectives for promotion of feminist politics and criticism of neoliberal and anti-gender politics in pandemic situation. In particular, the critical arguments of C. Arruzza, T. Bhattacharya and N. Fraser in their manifesto Feminism for 99% (2019) against liberal feminism and their project of "another feminism" as alternative to the liberal one, which will be focused not on elites but on masses of "real women". The controversial character of the thesis of Manifesto authors is shown: in the situation of a pandemic as a radical rupture of social bonds, an effective argument for international feminist solidarity can be their proposition that all women, regardless of their ethnic, class and racial affiliation, should be united on the basis of their unpaid reproductive and domestic work. The reflections of J. Butler on opportunities of restoring social bonds and resisting the forces of destruction and militarism are analyzed in her book Forces of Nonviolence (2020), in which she develops S. Freud's ideas about the possibility of overcoming the death drive, which in his opinion is the driving force and cause of any war. It is shown that Butler, following Freud, identifies mania as a force capable of overcoming death drive and understands mania as a protest of a living organism against its destruction or self-destruction. The article analyses Butler's thesis about modern feminism, that if uncovering appropriate forms of education, it can develop in human beings a manic aversion to violence and war as means of destroying organic life. In the conclusion, author suggests that it is possible to reconsider feminist criticism of liberal feminism and return to its slogans, while radicalising them.