An examination of how mainstream feminism has been mobilized in support of racist measures
Feminist Christine Delphy co-founded the journal Nouvelles questions féministes with Simone de Beauvoir in the 1970s and became one of the most influential figures in French feminism. Today, Delphy remains a prominent and controversial feminist thinker, a rare public voice denouncing the racist motivations of the government’s 2011 ban of the Muslim veil. Castigating humanitarian liberals for demanding the cultural assimilation of the women they are purporting to “save,” Delphy shows how criminalizing Islam in the name of feminism is fundamentally paradoxical.
Separate and Dominate is Delphy’s manifesto, lambasting liberal hypocrisy and calling for a fluid understanding of political identity that does not place different political struggles in a false opposition. She dismantles the absurd claim that Afghanistan was invaded to save women, and that homosexuals and immigrants alike should reserve their self-expression for private settings. She calls for a true universalism that sacrifices no one at the expense of others. In the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo massacre, her arguments appear more prescient and pressing than ever.
“She writes with an extraordinarily clear-eyed passion … Delphy’s words are persuasive.” —Telegraph
“France’s most exciting feminist writer.” —Simone de Beauvoir
“Christine Delphy cuts through ideology like a knife. Her critical analyses of the justifications for the ‘war on terror’ are sharp, accurate and anger-inducing. Her ability to hone in on the contradictions that sustain racism and sexism and perpetuate exclusion is second to none. Delphy’s insight and materialist approach lends her arguments a rare clarity—she deserves to be much more widely recognized in the anglophone world.” —Nina Power, author of One Dimensional Woman
“Delphy’s sharp analyses serve as a corrective to widespread, unproductive ways of thinking about migration, racism, imperialism, and war. [Her] noteworthy contribution is to insistently connect geopolitical issues to constructions of feminist identity and French identity. Delphy’s uncompromising critique of her feminist countrywomen’s complicity with imperial war and national(ist) racism grows not only out of anti-imperialist, anti-racist commitments but, even more fundamentally, out of the belief that this complicity is antithetical to the feminist project she cherishes.” —Kecia Ali, Journal of the Society for Contemporary Thought and the Islamicate
Christine Delphy is a French feminist writer, sociologist, and theorist. She cofounded, with Simone de Beauvoir, Nouvelles questions féministes, and is the author of Close to Home: A Materialist Analysis of Women’s Oppression.
An examination of how mainstream feminism has been mobilized in support of racist measures
Feminist Christine Delphy co-founded the journal Nouvelles questions féministes with Simone de Beauvoir in the 1970s and became one of the most influential figures in French feminism. Today, Delphy remains a prominent and controversial feminist thinker, a rare public voice denouncing the racist motivations of the government’s 2011 ban of the Muslim veil. Castigating humanitarian liberals for demanding the cultural assimilation of the women they are purporting to “save,” Delphy shows how criminalizing Islam in the name of feminism is fundamentally paradoxical.
Separate and Dominate is Delphy’s manifesto, lambasting liberal hypocrisy and calling for a fluid understanding of political identity that does not place different political struggles in a false opposition. She dismantles the absurd claim that Afghanistan was invaded to save women, and that homosexuals and immigrants alike should reserve their self-expression for private settings. She calls for a true universalism that sacrifices no one at the expense of others. In the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo massacre, her arguments appear more prescient and pressing than ever.
Reviews
“She writes with an extraordinarily clear-eyed passion … Delphy’s words are persuasive.” —Telegraph
“France’s most exciting feminist writer.” —Simone de Beauvoir
“Christine Delphy cuts through ideology like a knife. Her critical analyses of the justifications for the ‘war on terror’ are sharp, accurate and anger-inducing. Her ability to hone in on the contradictions that sustain racism and sexism and perpetuate exclusion is second to none. Delphy’s insight and materialist approach lends her arguments a rare clarity—she deserves to be much more widely recognized in the anglophone world.” —Nina Power, author of One Dimensional Woman
“Delphy’s sharp analyses serve as a corrective to widespread, unproductive ways of thinking about migration, racism, imperialism, and war. [Her] noteworthy contribution is to insistently connect geopolitical issues to constructions of feminist identity and French identity. Delphy’s uncompromising critique of her feminist countrywomen’s complicity with imperial war and national(ist) racism grows not only out of anti-imperialist, anti-racist commitments but, even more fundamentally, out of the belief that this complicity is antithetical to the feminist project she cherishes.” —Kecia Ali, Journal of the Society for Contemporary Thought and the Islamicate
Author
Christine Delphy is a French feminist writer, sociologist, and theorist. She cofounded, with Simone de Beauvoir, Nouvelles questions féministes, and is the author of Close to Home: A Materialist Analysis of Women’s Oppression.
