Few examples illustrate the political polarization of our society more clearly than the clash between feminists and incels. Many feminists view incels as misogynistic men angry about declining male privilege rather than as genuinely vulnerable, while incels depict feminists as manipulative “femoids” who control culture, politics, and social institutions while simultaneously claiming victimhood. On the surface, it seems the only connection is that each group defines itself in opposition to the other. But there is another, more subtle link: both groups rely on personal experience of marginalization as a source of authority. Each believes that, by virtue of being oppressed, it alone sees the world as it really is — and dismisses the political other as deluded or manipulative.
Given the centrality of authority and marginalization to both the feminist and incel movements, further questions insist on being asked: How can appeals to personal experience — particularly those rooted in marginalization — be politically charged, and do they come with any political limits? Feminist standpoint theory, which argues that marginalized experiences can produce valuable knowledge, certainly has analytic power, but it is not immune to misuse. When experience and marginality are claimed as authority they can — and often do — produce repressive hierarchies within both progressive and reactionary movements.
As such, the conception that our social position shapes what we know and see is uncontroversial. As Simone de Beauvoir reflected in The Second Sex, being dismissed “because she is a woman” illustrates how being positioned differently in society affects how your perspective is received. It was this very experience of not being taken seriously that made her sensitive to constructions of gender. bell hooks pointed out that people on the margins can often see dominant structures more clearly precisely because they don’t hold power over others. And Nancy Hartsock
Auteur: Evelina Johansson Wilén
