Neoliberalism, Feminism, and and "Occupy" Activism

In The Twilight of Equality, Lisa Duggan spends considerable time (in chapters 2 and 3 in particular discussing the SUNY conference and the gay and lesbian rights movement) asserting the connection between neoliberalism and social/cultural politics. The response to the SUNY conference, using moral panic as an excuse to cut public funding of universities, in particular clearly supported Duggen's claim early in the book that "despite their overt rhetoric of separation between economic policy on the one hand, and political and cultural life on the other, neoliberal politicians and policymakers have never actually separated these domains in practice," (xiv). The discussion of "equity politics" in chapter 3 evidenced just how alarming and dangerous the supposed separation of economics and politics and the rhetoric of two party politics as their own culture wars are to progressive social reform. Mohanty's discussion of the marginalization of intellectual feminism is an excellent continuation of what I find to be the most important part of Duggan's work; the suppression of genuine social reform by the ruse of neoliberalist social reform.

Both Mohanty and Duggan published these works in 2003, well before the outbreak of the Occupy movements, which I found significant to Duggan's calls for and predictions that "The realities of economic disaster and the collapse of social supports under neoliberal policies around the globe...might expose neoliberal coercion and inequality if progressive-left forces around the world can seize the opportunity, in the face of danger and tragedy, to connect, circulate ideas and information, expand the bases of opposition to neoliberalism, and nurture alternative visions," (70). From 2003, Duggan predicts that neoliberalism will collapse under itself in a global protest -- which is essentially what Occupy was. In addition, Occupy was appealing to feminists and activists that had been previously separated into single-issue lobbies because its goal was to dismantle the oligarchal system of economic oppression as a mechanism of social inequalities.

As a romantic supporter of the Occupy movements, despite their many practical flaws (in particular, the failure to answer Duggan's call for an alternative), I regard them as the most meaningful activist response to neoliberalism. Work such as Duggan's and Mohanty's suggest that social change and/or political reform should emphasize class equity - I'd be interested to discuss in class the argument that solving economic inequality/rejecting neoliberalism would largely solve many racial, gender, sexual, etc inequalities.