1

A. Interpretation- the affirmative must defend the hypothetical

implementation of a governmental action.
B. Violation – they don’t
1. Resolved entails questions of lawmaking
Words and Phrases 64 (Permanent Edition)

Definition of the word “resolve,” given by Webster is “to express an opinion or determination by
resolution or vote; as ‘it was resolved by the legislature;” It is of similar force to the word
“enact,” which is defined by Bouvier as meaning “to establish by law”.

2. Arsenals are military weapons.

Los Alamos ’09 http://www.lanl.gov/natlsecurity/nuclear/stockpile/ WHAT'S IN A STOCKPILE?

The stockpile, also called the nuclear arsenal, refers to a country's supply of readily
available nuclear weapons. The term nuclear weapons refers to the explosive
warheads and the bombs and missiles that can deliver them to enemy
targets.

3. Eliminate means permanent.

Blonna ’10 -- ED.D [Richard, Stress Less Live More, google books, accessed 12-21-19]
Most people fail in their attempts at stress management because they confuse managing stress with
eliminating or controlling it. By definition, “eliminate” means to cause something to disappear or to
permanently get rid of something. There are many things in your life you can eliminate. If you don’t like your job,
you can quit and find a new one. If you don’t like the color of your house, you can paint it a new color. If you don’t like your car, you
can get rid of it and buy a new one. But stress doesn’t work quite like that.

their own geopolitical aims.

4. Here’s a list of nuclear armed states

ACA ‘19 [Arms Control Association, () "Nuclear Weapons: Who Has What at a Glance" Sources: Arms Control
Association, Federation of American Scientists, International Panel on Fissile Materials, U.S. Department of Defense, U.S.
Department of State and Stockholm International Peace Research Institute., July 2019,
https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/Nuclearweaponswhohaswhat, DOA:12-3-2019 // WHSRS]

Nuclear-Weapon States: The

nuclear-weapon states (NWS) are the five states—China, France, Russia,
United Kingdom, and the United States—officially recognized as possessing nuclear weapons by
the NPT. The treaty legitimizes these states’ nuclear arsenals, but establishes they are not supposed to build and maintain such
weapons in perpetuity. In 2000, the NWS committed themselves to an “unequivocal undertaking…to accomplish the total
elimination of their nuclear arsenals.” Because of the secretive nature with which most governments treat information about their
nuclear arsenals, most of the figures below are best estimates of each nuclear-weapon state’s nuclear holdings, including both
strategic warheads and lower-yield devices referred to as tactical weapons. China About 290 total warheads. France: About 300 total
warheads. Russia: March 2019 New START declaration: 1,461 strategic warheads deployed on 524 intercontinental ballistic missiles,
submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and strategic bombers. The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) estimates approximately
4,490 stockpiled warheads and 2,000 retired warheads for a total of roughly 6,490 warheads, as of early 2019. United Kingdom:
About 120 strategic warheads, of which no more than 40 are deployed at sea on a nuclear ballistic missile submarine at any given
time. The United Kingdom possesses a total of four ballistic missile submarines. Total stockpile is estimated up to 200 warheads.
United States: March 2019 New START declaration: 1,365 strategic nuclear warheads deployed on 656 intercontinental ballistic
missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and strategic bombers. FAS estimates approximately 3,800 stockpiled warheads and
2,385 retired warheads for a total of 6,185 warheads as of early 2019. Non-NPT Nuclear Weapons Possessors: India, Israel,
and Pakistan never joined the NPT and are known to possess nuclear weapons. India first tested a
nuclear explosive device in 1974. That test spurred Pakistan to ramp up work on its secret nuclear weapons program. India and
Pakistan both publicly demonstrated their nuclear weapon capabilities with a round of tit-for-tat nuclear tests in May 1998. Israel
has not publicly conducted a nuclear test, does not admit or deny having nuclear weapons, and states that it will not be the first to
introduce nuclear weapons in the Middle East. Nevertheless, Israel is universally believed to possess nuclear arms, although it is
unclear exactly how many. The following arsenal estimates are based on the amount of fissile material—highly enriched uranium
and plutonium—that each of the states is estimated to have produced. Fissile material is the key element for making nuclear
weapons. India and Israel are believed to use plutonium in their weapons, while Pakistan is thought to use highly enriched uranium.
India: Between 130-140 nuclear warheads. Israel: An estimated 80-90 nuclear warheads, with fissile material for up to 200. Pakistan:
Between 150-160 nuclear warheads. States of Immediate Proliferation Concern: Prior to the implementation of the Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iran pursued a uranium-enrichment program and other projects that provided it with the capability
to produce bomb-grade fissile material and develop nuclear weapons, if it chose to do so. Iran’s uranium enrichment program
continues, but it is restricted and monitored by the nuclear deal. North Korea announced its withdrawal from the NPT in 2003
and tested nuclear devices and nuclear-capable ballistic missiles. Uncertainty persists about how many nuclear devices North Korea
has assembled. In 2007, Israel bombed a site in Syria that was widely assessed to be a nuclear reactor being constructed with North
Korea's assistance. Syria has refused to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency's attempts to investigate. Iran: No
known weapons or sufficient fissile material stockpiles to build weapons. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the
institution charged with verifying that states are not illicitly building nuclear weapons, concluded in 2003 that Iran had undertaken
covert nuclear activities to establish the capacity to indigenously produce fissile material. July 2015: Iran and six world powers
negotiated a long-term agreement to verify and significantly reduce Iran's capacity to produce material for nuclear weapons. As part
of this agreement, the IAEA and Iran concluded an investigation into Iran’s past nuclear weapons-related activities. The agency
concluded that Iran had an organized program to pursue nuclear weapons prior to 2003. Some of these activities continued through
2009, but there were no indications of weaponization activities taking place after that date. North Korea: Estimated as of June 2019
to have approximately 20-30 warheads and the fissile material for 30-60 nuclear weapons. While there is a high degree of
uncertainty surrounding North Korea's fissile material stockpile and production, particularly on the uranium enrichment side, North
Korea is estimated to have 20-40 kilograms of plutonium and 250-500 kilograms of highly enriched uranium. The estimated annual
production of fissile material is enough for 6-7 weapons. North Korea operates its 5-megawatt heavy-water graphite-moderated
reactor used to extract plutonium in the past for nuclear warheads on an intermittent basis since August 2013. There has also been
intermittent activity at North Korea's reprocessing facility since 2016, indicating that Pyongyang has likely separated plutonium from
the reactor's spent fuel. North Korea unveiled a centrifuge facility in 2010. It is likely that Pyongyang is using the facility to produce
highly-enriched uranium for weapons. U.S. intelligence suggests that there are several additional centrifuge facilities in North Korea.
By 2020, experts estimate that North Korea could have anywhere between 20-100 nuclear warheads based on the rate of its
stockpile growth and technological improvements. Syria: September 2007: Israel conducted an airstrike on what U.S. officials
alleged was the construction site of a nuclear research reactor similar to North Korea’s Yongbyon reactor. The extent of Syrian-North
Korean nuclear cooperation is unclear, but is believed to have begun in 1997. Investigations into U.S. claims uncovered traces of
undeclared man-made uranium particles at both the site of the destroyed facility and Syria’s declared research reactor. Syria has not
adequately cooperated with the IAEA to clarify the nature of the destroyed facility and procurement efforts that could be related to
a nuclear program.
Evaluate topicality through the lens of a game designer – any
framework which shifts from the primary commitment of debate as
its own ends must explain why we switch sides, why there has to be
a winner and a loser, and why there are procedural rules - the aff
destroys the ability for competitive argumentation
Standards:
1. First is clash – having an agreed-upon stasis point is critical for left
on left debates, key to creating an accessible point of clash to
evaluate the efficacy of radical political engagement—predictable
ground and clash are key to evaluating whether the method of the
affirmative is good for womxn – the ability to defend a position
against a knowledgeable opponent is key to export feminist politics
to help womxn Otherwise radical politics turn into intellectual
masturbation and neoliberal self-care strategies designed to limit
feminist disruption of the State and capital. Debate is a multi-faceted
training ground for people to work out the costs and benefits of
engagement with the political.

3. TVA – 1) they can defend state action to resolve the material

conditions of womxn 2) they defend implementation with the same
advantage areas of the aff, defending state action doesn’t mean you
have to support it

4. Switch side Debate solves all of their offense – there is no

independent reason as to why they can’t read their nontopical
advocacy as a K on the neg. Their model of debate produces insular
debates that destroy education, ethics and reproduces violence–
turns case
Evans 12 [Rashad, JD., Black debate extraordinare and JD, “The 1NC,” Nov 20,
http://www.rwesq.com/the-1nc/]
Now, the debate! First, let me look at Casey Harrigan’s (“CH”) definition of SSD. He says that : Definition: switch side debate (SSD) is
the practice that requires debaters to argue both for and against a given topic in alternating rounds. In effect, it has meant that
debaters’ arguments are divorced from personal conviction and instead made contingently as a means of “testing” the truth value of

SSD, at a
a proposition. I will accept this definition, but I think it requires some more refinement. In a practical sense,

minimum, requires that the affirmative defend the resolution. For the most part, the
negative is unconstrained (except by competition) and most debates in which SSD comes up the question is whether the affirmative
team should be required to affirm the topic, including some defense of an action by the United States Federal Government (“USFG”).
The essential question posed by SSD is whether the affirmative team should be required to
defend the resolution even when they (1) fundamentally disagree with all or part of it and/or
(2) are compelled to affirm other ideas because of their “personal convictions .” The answer to this
there are multiple ways to skin a cat and even more ways to affirm the
question must be yes. First,

resolution in the world of parametric debate because one need only affirm
an interpretation of the resolution and not the resolution writ large. Therefore,
there are rare instances in which there is no interpretation of the resolution
that you cannot defend and these rare instances are most likely the
product of lack of creativity and research. So in reality, the question is an even simpler one: should
the affirmative team be required to defend an interpretation of the resolution. There are immense constitutive and instrumental
benefits to SSD that cannot be otherwise obtained and therefore must be required. I ask that the judges: George, Justin and Kyla
evaluate this debate holistically, which requires that they evaluate the benefits of SSD to the speaker (constitutive) and to society

Debaters
(instrumental). This also requires that they exclude nothing in their analysis of this debate. The Constitutive

benefit from SSD. It requires that they engage in topics that they may not
otherwise engage. The resolution poses a unique question and the debate round is a unique time to answer that
question. One is much more likely to consider their personal convictions outside of the debate round than they are to consider the

Therefore, independently of whether one agrees with

resolution outside the debate round.

the resolution or not, there are benefits to defending an interpretation of

the resolution in that it requires you to consider something you may not
have otherwise considered. These thought experiments create more
informed and thoughtful debaters and citizens. SSD creates a unique
opportunity for self-reflexivity. The idea is to let your personal convictions guide you in the debate. The
resolution doesn’t require that you suppress your identity or convictions,
but is instead an opportunity to infuse that identity and those convictions
into the resolution and public policy discussion. So, given who you are, what you believe and
what you know what say you regarding energy production? What say you regarding democracy assistance? What say you regarding

the resolution is an opportunity for you to refine

federal control in Indian Country? Therefore,

your personal convictions and put your identity in politics instead of relying
exclusively on identity politics. SSD allows you to check your own privilege.
Here, I will rely on my personal experience. I once participated in a 30 day creative challenge where the challenge leader would pose
questions on facebook and the group would answer them in the comments section. One day he asked us to imagine we could be the
other gender for 3 days and to discuss what would we do. I thought about this on the A-train from Harlem to Chelsea and again from
Chelsea to Harlem and had no answer because I couldn’t imagine being a woman. I explained that as a gay man I don’t need to be a
woman to have sex with a man, I don’t want a baby in me and more importantly I don’t want the physical vulnerability of being a
woman. This realization really forced me to reevaluate my previous jokes even that as a gay many I was ontologically indistinct from
a woman. I am not. I am gay and I am black…in many ways I am the the worlds bottom, but even I could would not want to occupy
the body of a woman. That thought experiment taught me a lot about myself, privilege and the world. Sometimes, you have to take
a walk in someone else’s stiletto to learn who you really are. Seriously CH, have you walked in stilettos? It will change your life.

SSD is both necessary and sufficient to ensure that you debate your
personal convictions. Remember, if you are staunchly opposed to the
resolution you get to lodge those complaints on the negative. Also,
remember that what is good for the goose is good for the gander and if you
don’t have to debate the resolution then no one has to debate the
resolution. This loosening of the restrictions on the resolution may mean
that no one gets to debate anything they want. I mean lets face it, no one wants to be topical!
There’s always a better version of your aff that isn’t topical. Every 2AC considers severance or intrinsicness because the resolution is

to debate on the affirmative

flawed or insufficient. However, a true debater understands that they both have

and the negative and that in order to do either effectively there must be stability in the
relationship between the affirmative and the negative. Therefore, committing yourself to
the resolution is key preserving your own negative ground to engage in your critique of the resolution. As goes the resolution so

goes your personal convictions about that resolution. The Instrumental SSD is the only way to organize a
fair debate tournament. We must have a topic. There must be rules and allowing any and everyone go rogue
because of their “personal convictions” it is a recipe for disaster. I don’t want to live and debate in that world. There must

be strict requirements on defending the resolution to allow for fair and

predictable negative ground. By the way, protecting fair negative ground is easier and
more important than all other concerns regarding fairness. All people of all
convictions have to be negative at some point. Which means that the
affirmative-negative dialiectic is the only intersectional analysis that can be
performed because all people of all identities will eventually find
themselves on the affirmative or negative side in debate. Preserving
negative ground then preserves the ground of women, minorities and
hippies. SSD ensures that we have all hands on deck in these extraordinary times. We need all perspectives and all peoples to
engage in all debates. SSD facilitates this. Allowing students to pick their own topic because

of their “personal convictions” may mean that important issues get ignored
all together. I mean, what would happen if we let the students set the curriculum? Would they learn anything, ever? How
many times have you heard these questions in a classroom: why do I have to learn this? Will this be on the exam? My major is X,
why do I need to learn Y? Blah. Yes, students would almost always like to do what they want to do. If we allowed this where would
we be as a country? Who will be there to tackle the important questions pertaining to immigration, energy production, the Arab

Engaging the resolution from your specific social location can cause
Spring, etc?

others to change their views. There are several examples of creative interpretations of the resolution that have
inspired folk to view the topic and life differently. This is when debate is at its best and when it’s engaging in important knowledge
production. Debate and debaters have the potential to infuse new arguments, ideas and perspectives into the resolution and into
the broader discussion. Now, the line by line! CH says: 1. It presumes debate as a “pedagogical bull-pen”, which undermines the
activity’s potential for radical change. Students are told “you can’t know anything until you debate both sides”, ignoring the VAST
WEALTH of lived experience that underwrites specific claims about identity, the world, praxis, and the topic. In some ways, it is like
Loyola’s argument about info accumulation – we are told to place a hold on “conviction” until we have “enough information” and
“enough testing” when in reality there is either never a point where “enough is enough” OR we have *already* crossed that point
and should be able to utilize the debate space for advocacy. It makes debate into a game about hypothetical action rather than a

how does one

potential site for social justice. First, there are radically topical interpretations of the resolution. Second,

know that their lived experience is dispositive of any debate without testing
it against the research and lived experiences of others. It’s not that you
can’t know anything until you debate both sides but more importantly that
you debate both sides before you conclude you know anything. Lastly,
there is no internal link between resolutional debate and the loss of social
justice. In fact, one should always debate the resolution in a way that
produces social justice. 2. It is anti-Black. The norm of SSD and topic construction mandating USFG action presume
that public policy is valuable because it is equally accessible to all participants, when in reality access is ANYTHING BUT that, relies on
a belief that USFG action is a locus for change when in reality and history it has produced the opposite, marginalizes individual
perspectives as “too local”, and does not account for the specific conditions of Black participation in debate. Your anti-Blackness

argument is without warrant. To the extent that anti-Blackness is a problem, SSD is the
solution. Certainly, holding on to ones conviction in avoidance of debate
has never benefited Black people in the past. Thinking itself is Blackness
(whiteness is anti-thought), so avoiding a debate because of personal conviction is

quintessentially anti-Black. In fact, many of debates current ills stem from people avoiding debates and holding
fast to their convictions. Also, the USFG is not uniquely anti-Black. The world is anti-

Black, so to isolate the USFG is to fundamentally misunderstand Blackness.

The USFG has been a locus for change where others have failed. For
instance, the civil rights act regulated the racist behavior of private
individuals and corporations. School desegregation required federal intervention to ensure state compliance
with the constitution. The Violence Against Women’s Act regulates individual behavior in the home which was once considered a

This is not to suggest that the USFG is a saint, but to suggest that
private matter.

the question requires more nuance and that nuance is provided only by
SSD. The specific conditions of Blackness require SSD. After years of exclusion from
education generally and debate specifically, its right time that we jump into the discussions. Black SSD not equal

white SSD. Black debaters are the future and they will remake the world
partially in an image of themselves. This requires that they theorize their
Blackness across topics
Drop the Debater on T – they foreclose the ability to generate neg
offense so they should lose
Vote on competing interps over reasonability:
a. no brightline for reasonability – forces judge intervention
b. incentivizes a race to the bottom hy
No RVIs – a] illogical – you shouldn’t win for defending the topic b]
baiting—they’ll bait theory and prep it out—justifies infinite abuse.
T outweighs theory—a] timeframe—3 weeks to set my norms, they
can set theirs anytime b] my abuse was necessary to check their
original abuse of reading a non-T aff.
 2

Their method increases essentialism because anger essentializes the

experiences of white womxn with womxn of color – also crushes
concrete movements by preventing negotiation and fracturing
coalitions.
Bixler 10, Melina, MA University of London, Sociology, Goldsmith College, The University of London, "The Use of Anger in
Constructing Inclusive Feminist Movements", ghs//BZ

Defining a group by its anger can imply that all women experience and are
motivated by the same anger. Anger can become a mechanism whereby
group solidarity is desired yet never fully attainable as long as the anger is
seen as a collective, as opposed to an individual, experience (Ahmed 2004a). This
essentialist approach to mediate solidarity through an apparent shared
emotion can be counterproductive to building an inclusive feminist
movement. On the other hand, expressions of anger shared among the group that are seen as individual stories and
experiences can form connections. Sharing our story in a way that acknowledges each story as different is the only way in which the
story can truly form connections between subjects. This cultivates sameness through difference and solidarity from the diversity of
the collective. ―Feminist theory and consciousness -raising groups [allow] women to make connections between their experiences
and feelings in order to examine how such feelings were implicated in structural relations of power‖ (Ahmed 2001, p.172).

Expressing anger against a system of injustice may in some ways unite a

movement, but knowing what to do with that ange r can be tricky. ―It is on
the ‗now what?‘ stage that the fate of anger depends‖ (Tavris 1982, p.248) . I am angry
about the continued popularity of the sex trafficking of girls and young women. I am angry about rape laws that protect predators. I
am angry about persistent pay inequalities. I am angry about welfare-to-work programs that rob single mothers of time with their

I am angry, now what? It 9 becomes too easy to sit in a feeling of

children.

anger that prevents any movement forward. If a movement becomes

defined or unified by anger we can miss the opportunity to do something
productive. We need to move out of anger into action. ―Once anger has
drawn attention to the grievance, it does not do much to change anything.
Change, over the long haul, requires organisation, patience, good humor,
and the ability to negotiate and compromise; all of which may be energised
by ang er or killed by it.‖ ( Tavris 1982, p.253) Just as anger can fester within immobility, so can it become
ambivalent — either ablaze with fury or dormant with suppression. On the one hand, we pathologise anger,
conduct countless social research projects and provide therapeutic services that dedicate their work to helping subjects ―deal‖ with

their anger.Anger becomes something to get rid of; an unfavourable emotion. At

the same time, the expression of anger is encouraged and concealing or

containing one's anger is viewed as unhealthy, consequently leading to

social or psychological problems (Tavris 1982). Tavris identifies two American icons that embody this
ambivalence. Both champion the fight against evil, yet experience anger in extreme opposition. Clark Kent rarely expresses anger,
and his frustrations with injustice appear as mere irritations. He simply emerges as his alter ego, Superman, rushes off to defend
what is right and conquers evil. David Banner, on the other hand, experiences an anger that transforms him into a vehement beast,
the Hulk, with uncontrollable wrath. "These incarnations of anger represent dual attitudes: is anger handsome or ugly, righteous or
dangerous? Is it under our control, or do we have as much chance of telling it what to do as of regulating the carotid artery? Is it a

It is an age old story that women's anger is

human blessing, or a bestial sin?" (Ibid., p.29)

misunderstood and/or disregarded. It is viewed as irrational, hysterical or

even crazy. The focus is not on exploring the object of a woman's anger but
instead on calming her down and either dissolving or overpowering the
expression as quickly as possible. Just as women experience men's unwillingness to validate or appreciate
their anger about sexism, women of colour also experience white women's failure to

see the value in their anger about racism. As observed by Marilyn 10 Frye (1983), judging
anger as extreme or unfounded both minimises the feeling of the
expresser and stifles any learning that can come from the expression.
However frustrating this failure to understand anger may be, it is still a barrier for women to overcome if anger is going to be a
useful political tool in feminist movements.

Thus the counter method: use subversive feminist humor – solves

entirety of case and accesses rage better.

Crawford, 95 – University of Connecticut Women’s Studies Program director and psychology

prof [Mary, PhD from University of Delaware, Talking Difference: On Gender and Language,
1995, p172]

The functions of humor were several. First, the story-teller gained respect and admiration as an inventive and entertaining user of language. 'The ability to evoke
laughter with bawdy material is important to these women's positive images of themselves' (1977: 33). Secondly, the sexual humor of these family gatherings is educational. Green sug gests that the sexual
information children gleaned from stories of lustful young married couples, cynical prostitutes, rowdy preachers, impotent drunks and wicked old ladies was at least as accurate as a parental lecture on where

women's bawdy humor was educational in subversive ways. The

babies come from, and much more creative and fun. Finally,

bawdy tales 'debunk and defy' the cultural rules controlling women's sexuality. 'The very telling
defies the rules .. . Women are not supposed to know or repeat such stuff. But they do and when they do, they speak ill of all that is
sacred - men, the church, marriage, home, family, parents' (1977: 33). Green speculates that in their humor the
women vent their anger at men, offer alternative modes of understanding to their female
hearers, and, by including the ever-present children in the circle of listeners, perform 'tiny act(s) of revenge' on the men who have power over their lives. Just such a 'tiny act of revenge' in a more public
setting occurs in the story-telling of Bessie Eldreth. Eldreth is a renowned Appalachian story-teller in a tradition largely dominated by males. To succeed in this genre, Eldreth must negotiate norms that women
should be subordi nate and silent in public. Patricia Sawin, who has studied Eldreth and the functions of her stories, shows how Eldreth manages her role incon gruity and achieves public acclaim and status within
her community by positioning herself as the 'good woman,' telling stories of'bad women' whose sins and transgressions wreak havoc. However, Eldreth also takes advantage of the role of the story-teller to offer
commentary on her own life, which included an oppressive marriage to a man who was unable or unwilling to help provide for his large family. In the follow ing 'ghost story,' Eldreth describes to Sawin how she
told the story of a 'haunting,' a popular form of Appalachian folktale, and simultane ously managed a public criticism of her late husband's inadequacies. In the last line of this transcript ('I had them all laughing')
Eldreth indi cates the positive effect of her own transgression: ΒΕ.Ύοη know, I've thought about that, about / when my husband died, he / they was / about that light, you know, that would flash up in my bedroom
so much. Did I ever tell you about it? PS: I think so. BE: And, uh, it was / for a long time it would kindly / it'd dashed me, you know. But I got 'til 1, when I'd turn the light off I'd close my eyes right tight. But now,
honestly, that light would go down in under the cover with me. I one time, and these people said, 'Well, you know, maybe,' said, 'maybe it was the Good Lord watching over you.' I said, 'Well, I've thought of that,
'cause,' I said, 'it was / it was as bright a light as I ever saw.1 And, I said, Ί / a few times I've thought, well, it might be my husband.' And I thought / and then I said, 'But he wasn't that protective over me when he's

The Power of Humor What, then, do people do with humor? The

living' [laughs]. I had them all laughing, those people, I said that. (Sawin, 1993)

answer seems to be - virtually anything. Humor is a flexible conversational strategy . People collaborate in
creating and sustaining interaction in the humor mode. With it, they can introduce taboo topics, silence and subordinate indi viduals, create group solidarity, express hostility, educate, save face, ingratiate, and
express caring for others. The power and flexibility of conversational humor is related to its indirectness. It allows the unspeakable to enter the discourse. Yet humor has been characterized as conservative; that is,
it may release tension but it does not disrupt the social hierarchy. Much of the research on humor in hierarchical social settings confirms this view; humor moves largely down the hierarchy. Moreover, the degree
of structure in the social setting is an important determinant of the kind and amount of humor generated (Mulkay, 1988). Highly structured sit uations generate less humor. Less formal settings lead to less obvious
structural constraints on participants' discourse and therefore more humor. (For example, joking during a wedding ceremony is extremely rare; joking during a wedding reception is common.) While informal

much of
settings may generate more humor, it tends to be 'pure' humor, or play, unlikely to have the biting edge of subversion. At best, it may permit 'tiny acts of revenge.' However, I suspect that

women's selfaware humor in informal social groups is critical and disruptive and does challenge
social structures At this historical moment, women have arrived at a group con- sciousness that had been absent since the dissipation of the last wave of feminism in the 19205 (Weisstein,
I973). Gender is both a highly salient and highly unstable social category. As women began to question received wisdom about gender roles and relations in the conscious- ness-raising groups and political

organizations ofthe l970s, they evolved a distinctive humor that is expressed in public and private set~ tings and is a powerful tool of political activism .
Humor as a Feminist Strategy Feminist Humor Goes Public As I noted earlier, the stereotype of the humorless woman has long been a part of Western culture. There is an interesting paradox in this stereotype. If
we accept the argument that humor is a subordinate mode of discourse that rarely disrupts social hierarchies, there seems to be no reason for the culture to represent women as lacking a sense of humor. Much
as we enjoy the wit or the clown, we award public power to those who can perform competently in the serious mode (with a few exceptions, of course Dan Quayle leaps to mind). The general rule cross-culturally
is that any behavior or task that is low status is assigned to women (and any task assigned to women becomes low status). Humor should be the specialty of women. Just as women have been allowed to specialize
in the devalued forms of visual art (quilts, ceram ics, watercolors, lace making), writing (diaries and domestic novels), and the low status, underpaid work of industrialized societies (caring for children, the ill, and
the elderly; serving food and cleaning up), women should get assigned that most trivial, low-status form of cre ativity, spontaneous humor. Racist stereotypes of African-American people traditionally portrayed

Why, then, the cultural representation of women as humorless?

them as smiling and laughing, joking, and telling tales - as exaggeratedly comic.

The answer may lie in the subversive potential of humor. Feminists have noted that women are the only subordinated group that is fully
integrated with the dominant group. Perhaps women's humor poses more of a threat than the humor of other subordinated groups because of the social proximity of women and men. Humor can

be used in ordinary social interaction to introduce and develop topics that would be taboo in the
serious mode, while protecting the speaker from the serious consequences of having broken a
taboo. This provides a unique opportunity for members of a subordinate group. Perhaps creating humor is culturally specified to be something that women cannot and must not do precisely because
women's humor undermines the social order. And perhaps this danger is the source of the even more strongly made claim that feminists in particular lack a
sense of humor. When a charge is directed against a political and social movement, it is wise to examine the politics behind the charge (Weisstein, 1973). Mary Douglas (l975) offered the intriguing analysis that
humor occurs when there is "˜a joke in the social structure.' For women, there are very many jokes embedded in the social structure. The Big Joke is not only that women are second-class citizens but that their
subordina- tion is culturally represented as apolitieal, natural, or even as privilege. Thus, the fact that women are judged by a harsh standard of youth and beauty is presented as an opportunity for women to
'express their indi viduality' through fashion, starvation dieting and cosmetic surgery (Wolf, 1991). The discourse of the romance novel represents male indif ference and brutality as evidence of love, and promises
women that their endurance in abusive relationships will be rewarded with their men's transformation (Unger and Crawford, 1992). Social conserva tives argue that women belong in the home in patriarchal
marriages, and indeed that they can find happiness and fulfillment in no other way (Faludi, 1991). Motherhood is idealized in ways that have changed lit tle in the past half-century (Silverstein, 1991; Unger and
Crawford, 1992). Women are asked to believe that arrangements of inequality are all for the best: women and men are just naturally different and one is lucky to be a woman. And, if women are unhappy, we are
told that it is not current social practices but feminism that is to blame (Faludi, 1991). Feminist humor exposes these jokes in the social structure (cf. Merrill, 1988). Much of women's humor subverts aspects of The
Big Joke - for example, the premise that women are less competent than men and cannot wield power. A feminist aphorism on T-shirts and lapel buttons in the 1970s stated that 'To be seen as equal, a woman has
to be twice as good as a man. Fortunately, that isn't difficult.' A more subtle mes sage about the ways women may wield power, even in constrained roles, is encoded in the following joke: The mayor and his wife
were strolling down Main Street when they came upon some men digging a ditch. One of the men gave a cheery hello to the mayor's wife, who replied, 'Why, hello, Frank, how are you?' They engaged in friendly
talk for a few minutes and then the couple moved on. After a while, the mayor asked his wife, 'How do you know that guy?' She replied, 'We went to high school together. In fact, we dated for a while before I met
you.' The couple walked on in silence. Then the mayor said, "Isn't fate strange. Just think - if you'd married Frank you'd be married to a ditchdigger instead of to a mayor.' His wife smiled and replied gently, "˜No
dear. I'd still be mar- ried to a mayor.' This is a curious and quite atypical joke. It was told to me by a woman. When I have told it in mixed-sex groups, men often fail to comprehend it. (The mayor's wife is implying
that it is her influence that has led to her husband's success.) lt violates formulaic joke patterns in which women appear only when they are to be the butt of aggression or sex- ual innuendo. Therefore, to men
who hear and tell many formulaic jokes, the married-couple-meets-other-man set-up in this joke may lead to false expectations (a revelation about the wit`e's sexual promiscuity, perhaps). While we cannot know
whether it originated with a woman, women seem not only quicker to comprehend it but more likely to appreciate it. An updated version of this joke, current in 1993 and cir- culated on a feminist electronic mail
network, has Bill and Hillary Clinton in place of the mayor and his unnamed wife. Just as the sexual humor of some men expresses the premise that all women are sexually available at all times even when they
profess not to be, feminist humor mocks the idea that women need men to fulfill their sexual and emotional needs and cannot survive without them. Another 1970s feminist aphorism is A woman without a man is
like a fish without a bicycle.' A current example of feminist humor that pokes fun at women`s presumed obsession with men is Nicole Hollander's two-panel cartoon seen on T-shirts and calendars. The first panel,
titled "˜What men hope women are saying when they go to the washroom together] depicts two women bragging about the skill of their lovers. The second, "˜What they`re really saying] shows the women's
actual conversation: "˜Do you think cake is better than sex?' "˜What kind of cake"˜?' (Hollander, I994). In an interview, Hollander noted that "˜Men are frightened by women's humor because they think that when
women are alone they're making fun of men. This is perfectly true, but they think we're making fun of their equipment when in fact there are so many more interesting things to make fun of such as their value
systems' (quoted in Barreca, 1991: 198). Feminist humor deconstructs the ideology that the roles and activities designated for women are fulfilling and sufficient. ln Walker's study of 150 years o1` women's
written humor, she concludes that a common theme is "˜how it feels to be a member of a subordinate group in a cul- ture that prides itself on equality, what it is like to try to meet standards for behavior that are
based on stereotypes rather than on human beings` (Walker, 1988: 10). ln a long tradition of domestic humor, middle-class white American women writers have catalogued the l` rus- trations and complexities of
their unpaid work: out~of`-control children, rampaging dogs, exploding appliances, dense husbands, boring tasks, crazy relatives. However, this writing is much more than a catalog of housewives' failures. Rather,
the writers manage to convey through wit and humor that the real failure is a social system that makes women solely responsible for the functioning ofthe household and sets impos- sibly high standards for their
performance. Comedian Rosanne Barr, as an independent-minded working-class housewile, talks back with "˜Hey, I figure if the kids are stil] alive when he gets home at night, l've done myjob' and "˜l'll do the
vacuuming when they invent a ride-on vacuum cleaner. As Mulkay noted, the silencing of women and the suppression of their views of the world is frequently played out in mcn's humor. In a comic postcard, a
man is depicted driving a car while a woman sits blank-eyed beside him with a large auto muffler protruding t`rom her mouth. The man is saying cheerfully, "˜New muffler really keeps the car quiet, eh honey?'
Even this sort of humor, in which men control the dis~ course of gender and can silence women, can be turned on the aggressor: a feminist friend sent me this postcard for my collection, with the note, "˜How
about the air bag in the driver's seat?' A great deal of feminist humor can be thought of as the humor of a muted group in that it acknowledges men's ability to define reality in ways that meet their needs. Yet, in
making that acknowledgment pub- lic, it subverts men's reality by exposing its social construction. As Florynce Kennedy said, "˜lf men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament' Gloria Steinem's (1983)
essay, "˜lf Men could Menstruate' describes how "˜menstruation would become an enviable, boast-wor- thy, masculine event' and "˜sanitary supplies would be federally funded and free.' Women would. of
course, suffer from acute cases of "˜menses envy.' Another much-reprinted feminist classic applies the blame-the- victim logic of the dominant culture's assessment of rape victims to male robbery victims. An
exchange between the investigator and the robbery victim in "˜The Rape of Mr Smith' illustrates the absurdity of the questions posed to victims of rape: "˜Have you ever given money away'?' "˜Yes, of course-~
"˜And did you do so willingly?' "˜What are you getting at?' "˜Well, let's put it like this, Mr Smith. You've given away money in the past in fact, you have quite a reputation for philanthropy. How can we be sure that
you weren't conzriving to have your money taken from you by force"˜?` "˜Listen, if I wanted--' "˜Never mind . . .' And later: "˜What were you wearing at the time, Mr Smith"˜?' "˜Let's see. A suit. Yes, a suit.' "˜An
expensive suit'?' "˜Well, - yes.' "˜ln other words, Mr Smith, you were walking around the streets late at night in a suit that practically adverzised the fact that you might be a good target for some easy money, isn't
that so? 1 mean, if we didn't know better, Mr Smith, we might even think you were asking for this to happen, mightn't we?' (Unknown, l990) In the following joke, which was told to me in conversation, a man
learns about the social construction of women's reality the hard way: Joe used to spend many evenings at his neighborhood bar with his friends, having a beer and socializing. Then, inexplicably, he was absent for
over a year. One evening, a beautiful woman came into the bar, sat down, and said, "˜Hello everybody. Do you remember me? I used to be Joe, but I had a sex change operation, and now I'm Debbie' His/her
friends were astounded. They gathered around to hear the story. "˜What was it like? Did you have to take hormones?` `Yes, I took hormones for a year, but it wasn't too bad.' "˜Did you have to learn how to dress
and walk like a woman? And wear high heels?` "˜Yes, but that`s okay, I liked it actually' "˜But . . . the operation! You know _ . . Wasn"˜t it horrible? I mean, when they cut _ _ .' "˜Yes, l know what you mean. No,
that part wasn`t too bad, it was all done by medical experts' "˜Well, then, what was the imrsr par! about becoming a woman?' Joe/Debbie replied slowly and thoughtfully, "˜I guess it was when I woke up from the
operation and found out that they'd cut my paycheck by forty per- cent.’ With the re-emergence of a feminist sensibility and culture since the late 1960s, there has been increasing attention given to feminist
humor. Several anthologies have been published (Kaufman, 1991; Kaufman and Blakely, l98O; Stillman and Beatts, I976). Researchers in the empiricist tradition have measured appreciation of nonsexist and fem-
inist jokes, cartoons, and slogans in women and men with different degrees of allegiance to feminism. While they have been valuable in naming and claiming womens humor, anthologies of feminist humor should
not be taken as necessarily representative of feminist humor; nor should we assume that all feminists will find them funny. Moreover, research projects on humor appreciation do not analyze the functions of
feminist humor within a feminist culture. ln addition to studies and collections of mediated humor, there is a need to analyze feminist humor in natural settings among feminist participants (White, l988). Humor
and Feminist Identity There has been almost no research on women's humor in informal groups. However, there are compelling reasons for doing such studies. The work of Michael Mulkay, Rose Coser, and Franca
Pizzini all sug- gest that highly structured situations lead to humor that functions to maintain the structure. If humor tends to maintain social structures in formally structured settings, we might expect that less
formal situations, such as women`s groups, would generate more subversive humor. This might be especially true in those groupings where women are gathered as women - where the purpose of the group is
gender-related or femi- nist issues, such as in a consciousness-raising group. Cf course, it is important to attend to other aspects of subjectivity and context as well, to avoid the Generic Woman fallacy. In an early
study of discourse in feminist consciousness-raising groups, Susan Kalcik (l975) noted that humor was used supportively to increase group cohesion. The women in these groups frequently mocked themselves.
When one woman had dilliculty expressing herself, she apologized with, "˜Well, you know how we women are; our hor~ mones get up in our brains and fuck up our thinking." This superficially self-denigrating
humor (also noted by Jenkins in her groups) seems to echo the strategies of the post-war domestic humor writers: by pointing out the stereotypes of women and their own fail- ures to meet patriarchal standards,
these women mock the norms and standards. Like Jenkins, Kalcik also observed a collaborative story- telling style in which "˜kernel stories' emerge, become part ofthe group repertoire, and are repeated or
mentioned to support another story with a similar point. Mary Jo Neitz (l980) reports an impressionistic study of humorous interaction in a group she describes as radical feminists tending toward separatism who
met on a college campus over a two-year period (l97l-72). According to Neitz, set-piece jokes were rare; most humor consisted of spontaneous witticisms. The two most common themes for conversational humor
were selfldenigration and hostility toward males. Like Jenkins and Kalcik, Neitz speculates that apparently self-deni- grating remarks (for example, a group of women climbed into a car and the driver remarked,
"˜Do you think you can be safe with a woman dri- ver"˜?') functioned to help women manage role incongruities and to affirm group values in opposition to the dominant culture. Remarks denigrating women and

their roles generated no laughter when they were contributed by outsiders. Hostile humor , much of which consisted of castration
themes, functioned to overcome two taboos for women, sexuality and aggression. Moreover, " ˜These
jokes gloried in women's strength rather than colluding to hide it' (l980: 221). The group used hostile humor in mixed-sex as well as
same~sex settings, but used woman-denigrating humor only among themselves. These studies are but first attempts to examine feminists' talk in context. Ka|cik's study focuses on narrative structures and styles,
with little direct examination of humor. Neitz's report is sketchy. and pro- vides no details of how the humor episodes were collected or analyzed There is a need for methods that permit connections between a
dis- tinctive feminist culture and the specific humor generated (White. 1988). What values are expressed in feminist humor? How do feminists dif- ferentiate themselves as feminists in and through their humor?
And what functions docs humor serve in the creation of a feminist culture? To address these questions, Cindy White (l988) asked self-identified feminists to keep diaries of feminist humor in mundane settings over
an eight-week period. From an analysis of three diaries, White concluded that the values expressed were generalized positive evaluation of women, celebration of womens experiences, affirmation of women's
strengths and capabilities, and autonomy and self-definition for women.The rarity of anti-male humor suggested to White that these diary-writers also valued men, and that they made a distinction between men
as individuals and patriarchal culture. One reported witticism that reflects some of these values is the fol- lowing: At a staff meeting at a college health center, the clinic director told a story about Harvard
University's struggle with their health fee. Men objected to paying the same fee as women, since they couldn`t get a Pap smear. So Harvard went through all this rigmarole to figure out what part ofthe health fee
was attributable to the Pap smear. Finally, they notified the men that they could come pick up their 50-cent checks. K (. . . a feminist and therapist) says quietly, "˜Pap smear envy.` (White, l988: 82-3). This
example uses word play to ridicule the Freudian-based belief that women are more envious by nature than men due to penis envy. The feminists in the group were able to reverse the notion of penis envy to their
own advantage. (Interestingly, the diary writer noted that the feminists were the only ones who laughed at this joke.) Moreover, the feminist speaker takes a routine gynecological test as the norm and celebrates
it. The Pap smear becomes an enviable experience, one that men feel deprived of, and this explains their over-reaction to differen- tial health fees. The value ofautonomy and self~definition for feminists is
suggested by the following diary entry quoting a woman who presented a paper on lesbian sexuality at a conference: Politically correct sex lasts at least three hours, since everyone knows wc`re process-oriented
and not goal-oriented. lf we do have orgasms, those orgasms must be simultaneous. And we must lie side by side. Now I know that some people think that orgasms are patriarchal. But I "˜ve given up many things
for feminism, and this isn`t going to be one ofthem. (White, 1988: 83) White notes that, just as feminist humor subverts the inflexible gen- der roles of the dominant culture, it mocks inllexibility in feminism. ln the
orgasm example, a teministjokes about how the notion of political correctness can be coercive for women, and asserts her autonomy, plac- ing limits on the influence she will allow to feminist doctrine in her own
life. White argues on the basis ofthe humor diaries she analyzed that the most important role for humor in the creation ofa feminist culture is the articulation of common meanings. Feminists ditlercntiate them-
selves as feminists through humor not by adhering to a doctrinaire or monolithic notion of leminism. but by expressing shared, in-group meanings. When a diarist records that one woman has referred to another
as "˜a witch in the patriarchal sense ofthe word,' she is acknowl- edging that the speaker and her hearers share another, more positive definition of "˜witch' than the dominant group's. By creating and affirm- ing
their own meanings, feminists create a sense of community. When common meanings express in-group/out-group relationships, they help set the boundaries for feminist culture . These factors allow women to

Feminist Humor as Political Action Kate Clinton (1982), a lesbian

self-identify as feminists and re-create (enact) their feminism in every- day interaction.

comedian, has described feminist humor as not just a string of jokes but a " ˜deeply radical analysis of

the world and our being in the world because it, like the erotic, demands a commitment
to joy Feminist humor is a radical analysis because we are saying that we have the right to be
.

happy, that we will not settle for less' (19821 40). Because feminist humor allows its makers to enact
their feminism in ongoing social interaction, it is readily used in the service of political activism .
Interaction among feminists disrupts rather than reproduces gender. Instead of creating self-fulfilling prophecies in which
women's "˜deficiencies' are confirmed, feminist interaction opens the way to exposing gendered social structures . A core
shared value of feminisms is the necessity for social change to benefit women, whether one identities as a liberal, radical, socialist, separatist or any other variant. Indeed, there are many examples of feminists'
use of humor and irony to gain a political voice. I will briefly describe four. Activism in the Art World: the Guerrilla Girls ln 1985, a series of inflammatory posters began appearing in New York's SoHo art district.
"˜Do Women Have to be Naked to Get into the Met Museum?' asked one, which featured a nude woman in a gorilla mask with statistics on the Metropolitan Museum's modern artists (over 95 percent men) and
depictions of nudes (85 percent women). Other posters listed galleries and critics that ignore women artists and proclaimed that only four galleries in the entire city show the work of black women artists. The
posters were signed "˜The Guerrilla Girls ~ Conscience of the Art World.' The Guerrilla Girls is an anonymous group of women involved in the visual arts who have used ironic public humor so effectively that they
have become national spokespersons for gender equity in the creative arts. Group members use the names of women artists of the past as "˜covers,' and encourage supporters to sign gallery visitors' books
"˜Guerrilla Girl' to increase their visibility. Anonymity protects them from reprisals, allows them to focus on issues rather than individual fame or personality, and, most important, gets press coverage. In response
to charges that anonymity is cowardly, they reply, "˜No one accuses the Lone Ranger or Batman of being cowardly.' I had heard about the Guerrilla Girls but I did not expect to see their activism celebrated in
Mirabellu, a large-circulation fashion magazine aimed at allluent midlife women (Carr, l992). It seems that the group's use of humor to highlight the taboo topic of sexism made it palatable to a mass audience of
women (who may or may not identify as femi- nists, but who are normally addressed largely as consumers of fashion in this magazine). The appearance of this article is potentially quite subversive. It plants the
idea that women as gallery visitors, buyers of art, arts administrators and volunteer workers ~- can and should engage in direct and indirect political tactics to make sure that women get a fair share of the art
world's rewards. The Guerrilla Girls were commissioned by Mirabel/a to design a new poster. ln this poster, and other recent work, they have moved beyond arts equity to encompass other social issues. The
Mirabella poster, Guerrilla Girls Explain the Concept ry"NaIural Law, is shown in Figure 5.1. "˜We wanted to have some fun with our anger. Then it snow- balledf a founding member reported. After seven years
and more than 40 posters, the Guerrilla Girls now travel the world for speaking engagements in which they appear in gorilla masks, often with lishnet stockings and mini skirts. Their unique form of feminist humor
has been a signilicant force for change in the New York art world. They see the need to continue their guerrilla act because "˜Making art is making the culture. lf we aren't included in the culture-making process,
all women are marginalized' (Carr, 1992: 34). Critical Street Theorizing: Ladies Against Women ln an interview for Socialist Review, "˜Virginia Cholesterol' and "˜Edith Banks' talk about their political organization,
the San Francisco Bay Area branch of Ladies Against Women: lnterviewerz I think I would like to start out by asking a rather basic question, and that is: What do you see as the role of women in politics? Edith
Banks: That's exactly thc problem, we don't believe that anyone should be women at all; our organization is Ladies Againsz Women. We believe that ladies should be ladies; no one should be women, especially
men. interviewer: Let me rephrase the question: What is the role of Ladies in politics? Virginia Cholesterol: Preparing coffee cake, standing beside successful husband candidates on election night, giving fund
raisers and bake sales. (Omi and Philipson, 1983: l()-I l) A feminist comedy troupe, LAW uses street theater to satirize reac- tionary views of women. Wearing white gloves. fur coats, and ladylike hats, LAW
members stage public demonstrations carrying signs such as "˜Roses not Raises] "˜Sperm are People Too,' and "˜Misterhood is Powerful] At an appearance of arch-conservative Phyllis Schlafly, a LAW
spokeswoman was quoted as saying, "˜It's so thrilling to have a visit from someone like Mrs Schlally, who represents everything that women should stand for militarism, racism, true religion, and women's sub-
mission.' In response to Schlal`ly's speech opposing the Equal Rights Amendment to the US Constitution, which she titled "˜Do We Want a Gender- Free Society] a LAW member voiced her enthusiastic support:
"˜We can't just hand out genders free to anyone who wants them. The only thing that should be free in America is the market' While President Ronald Reagan held a prayer breakfast with con- servative clergyman
Jerry Falwell, LAW simultaneously held a bake sale "˜for the (federal) deiicitf The group claimed wholehearted support for the 1984 Republican platform, except that they had hoped for a plank condemning the
Democrats for nominating a "˜girl' for vice- President, on the grounds that "˜real ladies never run; they walk gracefully or are driven.' Among the group's other political policy tac- tics were a "˜Reagan for Shah'
campaign, the tbrmation of Students for an Apathetic Society ("˜How can we invade El Salvador if no one is apa- thetic"˜?') and a proposed revision ofthe US Criminal Code to include a Dress Code banning the
"˜feminist blight' of comfortable clothes and "˜female facial nudity' Who sponsors their demonstrations and press conferences? "˜Another Mother for World Domination,' "˜Future Fetuses of America] and the
"˜National Association for the Advancement of Rich White Straight Men,' of course. M. Nawal Lutfiyya (1992) (whose work provided the examples above) analyzes their humor as "˜critical street theorizingf By
conduct- ing "˜nonserious' demonstrations, LAW disrupts the serious context of public conservative politics. Humor and satire open an avenue for ques- tioning the social construction of women's second-class
status, whether in the claims of anti~teminist speakers or the alliance ofa US President and a right-wing evangelist. Lutliyya notes that the binary opposition of left/right (in the political sense) is deconstructed
when LAW parrot the rhetoric of the right in the protest style ofthe left. This tactic, which draws on the tolerance for ambiguity and incongruity charac~ teristic of the humor mode., could only `work' within that
mode. Moreover, ['I`]he purpose ofthe demonstrations is to critique by challenging and mak- ing a comment on explicit opposing standpoints. The demonstrations not only make a comment on the debate, the
lecture, or the breakfast in light of the contemporary situation of' women in the United States, but because of their fanciful essence which recontextualizes they encompass the scene and therefore momentarily
become the political situation of women in the United States. As this happens, the binary opposition of acting/real life is decon- structed. (Lutiiyya, 1992: 38-9) Ladies Against Women "˜self-consciously and
purposely demonstrate that the creation of meaning is a political activity occurring within language by historically situated actors' (Lutfiyya, 1992: 43). Their comedy is aimed at creating solidarity in a critical
community of fem- inists and liberal activists and at educating people across the political spectrum. ln an interview, one member noted that contradictions and inconsistencies about gender relations are part of
most women's lives, and that humor which "˜pushes things to the extreme' can help raise awareness of unexamined assumptions: "˜l think it helps to keep the edge on people's commitment to change, to take
the other side and exaggerate it so badly that they see the absurdity of the hypocrisy in their own lives' (Omi and Philipson, 1983: 22). By adopting the dress and stereotypical speech style of privileged white
women, Ladies Against Women play at being those in power. This humorous play shows their hearers that "˜political policies and power structures are people acting and creating, and as we act and create we all
participate in the structure of power. Accordingly. if people act and create dqkrently, then different social and organiza- tional structures will emerge' (Lutfiyya, l992: 26). The Politics of Labeling Feminists have
analyzed the pervasive sexism in psychiatry in many of its guises (Unger and Crawford, 1992). One of the most obvious is in the politics of diagnosis and labeling. Mental health practitioners rely on the Diagnostic
and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), a 567-page tome that contains a list of diagnostic labels, descriptions of each disorder, and criteria for their application. The DSM is the stan- dard diagnostic
reference, and the "˜bible of many mental health professionals' (Pantony and Caplan. l99l). Its categories are used not only in diagnosis but in much mental health research, and, in the US, to determine whether
government agencies or private insurers pay for mental health services for a client. The DSM is periodically updated by a panel of experts drawn pri- marily from among white male psychiatrists. When the most
recent version of the manual was being revised, feminist therapists realized that several new and highly misogynistic categories of "˜mental illness' were being considered for inclusion. Two of these, now termed
"˜Self- defeating Personality Disorder' and "˜Late Luteal Phase Dysphoric Disorder,' correspond to popular notions of the masochistic personal- ity and to premenstrual syndrome respectively. Feminist
psychologists marshalled empirical and theoretical argu- ments against these new diagnostic categories, which they viewed as codifications ofthe misogynistic opinions of privileged white men. They pointed out
that the self-defeating personality classification pathologized women by ignoring sociocultural causes of` apparently self-defeating behaviors. For example, the researchers who conducted the field trials in
developing the self`-defeating personality category never questioned the participants about their experiences of` sexual, physical, or emotional abuse, although abuse may precipitate appar- ently self-defeating
behaviors (Brown, I986). Moreover, many of` the behaviors that define the category disappear when a victimized person is removed from the abusive environment for even a short time (Committee on Women in
Psychology, 1985). Instead of` recognizing the social consequences of` victimization, the self-defeating personality category essentializes behavior by treating it as internally driven, fixed. and enduring. Ignoring a
history of abuse, and the behavioral consequences of abuse, results in blaming the victim. The label sell`-defeating or masochistic allows both mental health practitioners and the larger society to blame women for
their `f`ailures' without requiring anyone to question the effects of cultural and situational contexts on psycholog- ical functioning (Brown, l98f»). As for "˜late luteal phase disorder] this label establishes a mental
dis- order purportedly caused by a normal process unique to women. By targeting women`s biology as the source of their problems, it adds another layer of taint to an already maligned physiology. Although DSM
categories are expected to be based on empirical research, there is no empirical validation of such a disorder. The arguments made by feminist psychologists enlisted all the stan- dard rhetoric of the social
sciences in discrediting the scientific basis of the sexist new categories. The lack of scientific justification for the new disorders, both theoretical and empirical, was strongly and persua- sively presented (Caplan
and Gans, l99l; Committee on Women in Psychology, l985). Despite what may seem to be a compelling case, both "˜disorders' were added to the revised DSM in 1987 in an appendix of`labe|s deserving further
study. Once a category is rendered official by DSM inclusion, it takes on a life of its own as a "˜proven, valid and legit- imate diagnostic category with a firm scientific fbundation;` it becomes "˜an existing,
legitimate, clinical construct' (Caplan and Gans, l99l: 267). The politics ol` the DSM illustrate yet again how masculine norms combined with sociostructural power vested in males lead to viewing women as
deficient and problematic to others. However clear this might be to feminists, others have remained unconvinced. Using a classic role-reversal strategy, Paula Caplan and Margit Eichler (1989) exposed the social
construction of female pathology by constructing another new diagnostic category, one they claimed is more character- istic of men: Delusional Dominating Personality Disorder. Its taxonomy includes the
following: The presence of any one of the following delusions: (a) the delusion of per- sonal entitlement to the services of (l) any woman with whom one is personally associated, (2) females in general for males in
general, (3) both of the above; (b) the delusion that women like to suffer and be ordered around; (c) the delusion that physical force is the best method of solving interper- sonal problems; (d) the delusion that
sexual and aggressive impulses are uncontrollable in (1) oneself. (2) males in general, (3) both of the above; (e) the delusion that pornography and erotica are identical _ _ . A pathological need to affirm one's
social importance by displaying one- self in the company of females who meet any three of the following criteria: (a) are conventionally physically attractive; (b) are younger than oneself; (c) are shorter in stature
than oneself; (d) weigh less than oneself; (e) appear to be lower on socioeconomic criteria than oneself; (f) are more submissive than oneself. A distorted approach to sexuality, displaying itself in one or both of
these ways: (a) a pathological need for flattery about one's sexual performance and/or the size of one's genitalia; (b) an infantile tendency to equate large breasts on women with their sexual attractiveness. Caplan
and Eichler have said that Delusional Dominating Personality Disorder began as a consciousness-raising exercise. By pathologizing stereotypically male personality attributes they were able to show how judgments
of "˜pathological' behavior depend on who is doing the observing and labeling. By adopting the dry, pompous style and authoritative stance with which the North American psychiatric establishment presents its
opinions in the DSM, they were able to ques- tion the fundamental authority of those opinions. When I talked with Paula Caplan about whether the category was intended to be no more than a humorous
rendering of "˜Macho Personality] she noted that when she gives professional talks about the DSM and Delusional Dominating Personality Disorder, the audience's initial reaction is often laughter. However, this
initial reaction changes to the recognition that they know people who meet the diagnostic criteria for DDPD. The new diagnostic category is now available to professional audiences as a perfectly serious
psychological problem that has its own research liter- ature, assessment instruments, and documented effects on those who interact with the disordered individual (Pantony and Caplan, l99l). Perhaps it will
eventually be listed in the DSM. The Ideology ofFemininity.' Making the Personal Political In my own study of people's accounts of humor, both women and men defined an outstanding sense of humor as one that
breaks social ten- sion, eases another's unhappiness, cheers rather than wounds, and is sharp, clever. and spontaneous, but ref`rains from hurting others. In short, they viewed humor as "˜social lubrication," 
compassion, and connection. In a sense what my respondents told me was self- contradictory. Although they more likely thought of` a male, the definition of humor they used -a nonhostile, contextually sensitive,
emerging spontaneously from the fabric of" their lives ~ is much closer to the women's self"-reported humor than the men's. Can this sort of personal idiosyncratic humor be turned to activism? I believe that it
can, and as an example l will describe the humor of feminist psychologist Nancy Datan. I came to know Nancy only near the end of her life, when l asked her to speak at a conference. At the time (1987) l was a
visiting prof`essor in a small psychology department that had never tenured a woman in its long and distinguished history. In fact, no woman had ever been hired in a tenure-track position until five years before.
The first two women, both involved in studying women and gender, were about to come up for tenure. One of my goals in organizing the conference was to represent gender studies to the senior members ofthe
department as a legitimate, rigorous area with its own highly developed body of knowledge. and thus to facilitate the evaluation ofthese two women's credentials. To that end. I invited only speakers with high
national visibility and very distinguished reputa- tions ~ and Nancy Datan was perhaps the most distinguished of the group. I expected Datan to talk about her research. Instead, she decided to make the personal
political by talking about the nonconscious ideology of femininity underlying advice to breast cancer patients, with an n of one e herself Datan stood at the podium, pulled a large foam rubber prosthesis out of her
tote bag. and began to wave it around. The effect on the audience was stunning. The effect on me was similar. My thoughts were that the scientific credibility of my conference was doomed ~ l had let a crazy
woman into the room. But Datan pulled it off brilliantly. Her thesis was that Breast cancer is not a cosmetic disease, but it is embedded in a larger social and political context in which the cosmetic industry is itself
a social and political phenomenon. Thus, if one rejects the a priori assumption that a missing breast demands an all-out cover-up. one finds oneself at war with the very material which is meant to promote healing.
(Datan_ |9892 l78) Nancy took on this topic, so terrifying and so close to home for women, with grace and humor. She spoke ofthe problem of preventing one's breast prosthesis from riding up on the body: The
Reach to Recovery solution: fill the form with birdseed, rice, barley, small plastic beads . _ .drapery weights, fishing sinkers, gunshot or BBs. My first response to this suggestion was the cognitive equivalent of
wound shock. Surely this represented a merger of Frederick's of Hollywood, Ace Hardware, and the American Cancer Society. ( 1989: I79) She also spoke of the implied identity that the breast cancer patient
should strive for, which she labeled as "˜perpetual would-be cheerleaderz' "˜l've never been a cheerleader, and I couldn't see trying out for the part with falsiesf But her humor was compassionate too. Because
Nancy agreed with Audre Lorde (1980) that the cosmetic response to breast cancer leads to self-alienation, and scorned the life of perpetual disguise it implied, she refused breast reconstruction surgery. But she
respected the different choices made by other women: If a hospital room is no place fora crash course in Total Womanhood, nei- ther is it the place for retroactive consciousness-raising. Breast cancer is a trauma.
lf a woman feels she is entitled to jour silicone breasts after a mas- tectomy, l applaud her originality. (l989: l8l) This humor was strong stuff It achieved one ofthe classic functions of interactional humor, facilitating
talk about taboo topics. In this case, the focus on the unspeakable gained additional impact and poignancy because the events were so clearly part of the fabric of the speaker's life. Datan's chemotherapy-induced
baldness was covered by a scarf, and loose clothing softened but did not deny the physical evi- dence of mastectomy. Her personal, social, psychological and political analysis of the workings of the gender system
in cancer treatment was moving and unforgettable. Twenty years or so before the Guerrilla Girls, Ladies Against Women, Paula Caplan's DDPD and Nancy Datan's courageous humor, Naomi Weisstein wrote about

oppressed groups - Jews, African-Americans ~~ used humor as a survival strategy and

the missing comic tradition of women. She noted that other

a weapon against oppression. She could point to no comparable tradition in women's humor: By women's humor, I don'ti mean women being funny. I mean a humor which
recognizes a common oppression, notices its source and the roles it requires, identities the agents of that oppression . . . if such traditions existed or exist now, I have been denied them. I remember no redemptive
or fight- ing humor about my condition. (Weisstein, I973: 5) Weisstein acknowledged that this conclusion was a very painful one for her. At the same time, she recognized that the seeds of change had already
been planted with the re-emergence of the women's movement. Recently, she articulated again the power of humor in an interview with Celia Kitzinger (I993: l9l): 1 think that the uses of comedy and

performance have not been explored enough by feminist academics. Comedy is a beautiful way of equalizing power in the most
intimidating of circumstances, and it should be deliberately and consciously used by us. I've always tried to
make my scientific presentations e-well, all my talks - funny. When you're doing insurgent science, that is, you are dissenting from the

reigning theories, you have to challenge them with more than just the truth of your findings if you're
going to be heard. You have to challenge the theater of science, its authoritarian grandeur and elitist

majesty. Naomi Weisstein anticipated that women would reclaim humor. Her visionary description of the processes taking place has been realized in the feminist political humor l have described:
The women's movement is taking back what has been taken from us. We are reclaiming our
autonomy and our history, our rights to self-expression and collective enjoyment. In this process, we are
taking back our humor. The propitiating laughter, the fixed and charming smiles are over. When we laugh, things are going to be funny. And when we don`t laugh, it`s because we have
a keen and clear sense of humor, and we know what`s not funny we are constructing a women`s cultur e with its own character, its fighting humor, its defiant

celebration of our worth, a women's culture that will help get us through to that better world, that just and generous

society. (I973: 9~l0)

This is mutually exclusive to the aff:

1. requires a commitment to joy

2. doesn’t isolate allies and encourages coalition-building rather than fracturing coalitions along
lines of race and orientation [
 
 3
[Cowan 14] We reject the antitrans and antiprostitute feminism that
feminist killjoys and modern 3rd wave feminism defend

[Cowan, T. L. “Transfeminist Kill/Joys. Rage, Love, and Reparative Performance”, in Transgender Studies Quarterly, Vol.
1, No. 4, 2014. SaiK]
In her 2002 one-woman show, Yapping Out Loud: Contagious Thoughts of an Unrepentant Whore, sex worker and transsexual cultural activist Mirha-Soleil Ross stages a cabaret-style performance in seven monologues that transverse genres
from talk show to academic lecture to confessional and more. What I want to pay particular attention to here are the ways that Ross performs perhaps the ultimate transfeminist kill, by equating within the structure of her piece the violence done
by antiprostitute (and antitrans) feminists—“feminist-identified feminist” (Ross 2002b: 8), Bridge It Taylor!, and ”Women’s Sciences” (17) graduate student Judy Cuty Q — with the violence done by the Whore Hunter, a serial killer who targets
prostitutes. Within the seven-part structure of the performance, these are the only times when Ross is not playing herself, “Mirha-Soleil Ross” (Salah 2007: 65). These three figures, then, are performed as threats to prostitutes, and especially to

antitrans antiprostitute feminisms

transsexual prostitutes, and by framing the performance in this way, Ross draws attention to the killing logics of and , which

contribute to the carceral culture in which “trans [womxn] are , to use Cox’s terms, women being

stigmatized criminalized and murdered”

and then ultimately (Hill et al. 2013). In similar ways to Aoki’s playing of Sierra as all wrong and violently

“feminists” devalue the lives of prostitutes, especially

repressive because of her transmisogyny and racism, Ross’s staged

transsexual [womxn] prostituteswomen working as . For example, Bridge It Taylor! presents a talk called the “Sleazy Business of Getting Whores Out of Business,” animated
by three blow-up dolls as her “victims of prostitution.” As she narrates the story of the third blow-up doll—a transsexual woman named Xtazeee, who appears in a cage—Bridge It Taylor! revels in heavy-handed rhetoric: Xtazeee was his or “her”
name when he got arrested on several pending prostitution-related charges and forced into our program by a Human Rights’ court order that declared that a transsexed man’s access to women only services was more important than maintaining
the safety and dignity of women who have been sexually abused by men. . . . We had to fight tooth and nail in order to obtain an injunction that would allow us to put him in a cage to protect both our staff and our participants. . . . He has, from a
very early age, internalized the notion that sexual abuse, violence, and platform heels are essential and defining experiential aspects of femininity and of a woman’s identity. The daily intake of dangerous dosages of hormones, the regular shooting
up of [an] industrial quantity of industrial quality silicone, the multiple mutilating surgeries performed on his face, his chest, his penis are just some of what he actually enjoyed subjecting himself to in order to satisfy his clients’ desire for a
grotesque deformation of a male body that they could use without having to call into question their masculinity and male sexuality. (Ross 2002b: 11–12) Here, Ross ventriloquizes and embodies the canonical texts of antitrans feminism in which

transsexual people are always already figured as both predatory and (killers) the

victims of violence to maintain assigned-essentialist logics

(medicalized gender normative) (killed) as a way , adding

transfeminist kill/ joy

new density to a practice. As Bridge It Taylor!, she does the work that Stryker, Currah, and Moore called for in the then-emerging field of transgender studies: to

produce “new frameworks, and practices within which

epistemological new representational

variations in the sex/gender relationship can be understood as morally

neutral and representationally true through which anti-transgender , and

violence can be linked to other systemic violence forms of such as poverty and racism” (Stryker, Currah, and Moore 2008: 10). Making fun
of but not making light of these feminist violences, Ross concludes Bridge It Taylor!’s speech with “The Three F’s: Forget where you come from. Forget who you love. Forget who you are” and dictates the following “empowering radical feminist
concepts”: We teach them that there is no such thing as agency, informed consent, the ability to control one’s own body. . . . We force them to get in touch with their own experiences of rape, molestation, sexual degradation, and battery. And
when they cannot see how these factors have made them vulnerable to recruitment for prostitution, we make a drawing for them and give it a glamorous title: the circle of victimization [she shows a picture of a frowny face]. (Ross 2002) Yapping
Out Loud highlights the ways that abolitionist/savior feminist and religious-based organizations get precedence in the fight for the decriminalization of sex work. It also unsettles the (moral) certainty of abolitionist feminism through the spoofing
of feminist zealots and by foregrounding trans and sex-worker love as a sustaining reality—an inconceivable (or inconvenient) reality in the righteous savior imaginary. In a monologue by “Mirha-Soleil Ross” midway through the performance,
Ross speaks with tenderness and compassion about her clients and turns the tables on abolitionist feminists, whose lack of tenderness and compassion are the subtext of Yapping: “For the most part, it is their courage to see me, a transsexual
woman, again and again, because yes, in this culture, it takes courage for a man to get so close, so intimate with an individual whom a large portion of the population considers a freak” (Ross 2002b: 15). This

transfeminist kill/joy affect holds antitrans and anti- might be understood as a trans (re)structuring or disorienting affect, as it

sex-work feminists accountable for violences and lack of love of their the

politics offering a repaired love as a model of transformative resistance

, while

and demanding audiences feel implicated in this tension and feel the
that

potential of rage and love as a full politics not as irreducible affects but . Koyama (2006: 702) notes, “It is not the lack of knowledge or information that
keeps oppression going; it is the lack of feminist compassion, conscience and principle.” And in her exploration of transformational feminism, bell hooks (1989: 26; emphasis added) writes, “In reconceptualizing and reformulating strategies for
future feminist movements, we need to concentrate on the politicization of love, not just in the context of talking about victimization in intimate relationships, but in a critical discussion where love can be understood as a powerful force that

The kill/joy affect

challenges and resists domination. As we work to be loving, to create a culture that celebrates life, that makes love possible, we move against dehumanization, against domination.” of

Yapping Out Loud offers an opportunity to politicize love and joy, to politicize jouissance ,
as a critical framework and methodology. As Chela Sandoval (2000: 140) argues, taking up Roland Barthes, “The act of falling in love can thus function as a ‘punctum,’ that which breaks through social narratives to permit a bleeding, meanings

that can transit all citizen-

unanchored and moving away from their traditional moorings.” We can “understand ‘love’ as a hermeneutic, as a set of practices and procedures

subjects toward a differential mode of consciousness and its

, regardless of social class,

accompanying technologies of method and social movement ” (139); love is a methodology through which we
become that “drifting being . . . where political weapons of consciousness are available in a constant tumult of possibility” (140). As an expression of love and pleasure, Sandoval reinscribes jouissance as a political position: “It is coming to a
utopian nonsite, a no-place where everything is possible—but only in exchange for the pain of crossing” (140). Ross’s Yapping Out Loud performs this pain of crossing, reveals the political damages of denied love, and unanchors the possibility for
love and pleasure as a social-justice methodology. Stryker has emphasized the importance of understanding transgender studies as knowledge production, and I want to make a connection here between Stryker’s vision and Audre Lorde’s (1984:
53) understanding of love, joy, and the erotic as knowledge production, as a “source of power and information within our lives,” and anger, which she figured similarly as “loaded with information and energy” (127). Stryker (2006: 8–9) writes,
“Epistemological concerns lie at the heart of transgender critique, and motivate a great deal of the transgender struggle for social justice. Transgender phenomena, in short, point the way to a different understanding of how bodies mean, how

These have material consequences for the quality

representation works, and what counts as legitimate knowledge. philosophical issues

of transgender lives.” The dialectical structure of transfeminist kill/joy

scenarios that call out the ways in which we “participate in , knowingly or otherwise, [our] sister’s

oppression” and acknowledge anger, love, joy, and the erotic as

(Lorde 1984: 128)

transformative sources/sites of power and knowledge, creates the

possibility for change and reminds us that we are not stuck in current conditions. Significantly, these transfeminist moments of joy are not examples of what Ahmed (2010: 84) would call the
obscuring act of taking cover “by looking on the bright side . . . to avoid what might threaten the world as it is,” but rather, this is love as resistance tactic, performing the powerful material consequences of loving trans women.
 4
CP: I endorse the aff except for the fact that you read it against womxn

Don’t read killjoy against woman. If your method is true, it is forcing me to negate something
that is good for me, causing psychological violence. New 2NR answers because implications of
arguments in the 1AR are unclear and unpredictable. Give me the 2NR to compensate
 CASE
1. Gatekeeper DA: The call for the ballot dooms their politics –
a. Agency – their politics is deemed “successful” insofar as the
judge in the back deems it “worthy.” That cedes agency to external
patriarchal structures while their politics always waters down to fit
the judges needs.
b. Identity – their insertion of identity into the game structure
of debate without a plan to negate ensures that teams always end
up negating other’s identities. That devolves into ad-hom attacks
that make debate way worse for womxn than it already is.

Killjoy as a movement inevitably brackets out those who haven’t

experienced gendered violence. This politics absolves patriarchal
structures of the responsibility to act because of their lack of
personal experience of gendered violence. Prefer understandings of
gendered violence through an epistemological framework rather
than individualized understandings.
Bhambra 10 (U Warwick—AND—Victoria Margree—School of Humanities, U Brighton, Identity Politics and the Need for
a ‘Tomorrow’, http://www.academia.edu/471824/Identity_Politics_and_the_Need_for_a_Tomorrow_)

We suggest that alternative models of identity and community are required from those put forward by essentialist theories, and that
these are offered by the work of two theorists, Satya Mohanty and Lynn Hankinson Nelson. Mohanty’s ([1993] 2000) post-positivist,
realist theorisation of identity suggests a way through the impasses of essentialism, while avoiding the excesses of the
postmodernism that Bramen, among others, derides as a proposed alternative to identity politics. For Mohanty ([1993] 2000),

identities must be understood as theoretical that enable subjects to read

the world in particular ways; as such, substantial claims about identity are, in fact,
implicit explanations of the social world and its constitutive relations of
power. Experience – that from which identity is usually thought to derive– is not something that
simply occurs, or announces its meaning and significance in a self-evident fashion: rather, experience is always a
work of interpretation that is collectively produced (Scott 1991). Mohanty’s work resonates
with that of Nelson (1993), who similarly insists upon the communal nature of meaning of knowledge-making. Rejecting both
foundationalist views of knowledge and the postmodern alternative which announces the “death of the subject” and the

impossibility of epistemology, Nelson argues instead that, it is not individuals who are the agents of
epistemology, but communities. Since it is not possible for an individual to know something that another
individual could not also (possibly) know, it must be that the ability to make sense of the world proceeds from shared conceptual
frameworks and practices. Thus, it is the community that is the generator and repository of knowledge. Bringing Mohanty’s work on
identity as theoretical construction together with Nelson’s work on epistemological communities therefore suggests that, “identity”
is one of the knowledges that is produced and enabled for and by individuals in the context of the communities within which they
exist. The post-positivist reformulation of “experience” is necessary here as it privileges understandings that emerge through the
processing of experience in the context of negotiated premises about the world, over experience itself producing self-evident

This distinction is crucial for, if

knowledge (self-evident, however, only to the one who has “had” the experience).

it is not the experience of, for example, sexual discrimination that “makes” one a
feminist, but rather, the paradigm through which one attempts to understand
acts of sexual discrimination, then it is not necessary to have actually had the
experience oneself in order to make the identification “feminist”. If being a “feminist” is
not a given fact of a particular social (and/or biological) location – that is, being designated “female” – but is, in Mohanty’s terms, an
“achievement” – that is, something worked towards through a process of analysis and interpretation – then two implications follow.

it is
First, that not all women are feminists. Second, that feminism is something that is “achievable” by men. 3 While

accepted that experiences are not merely theoretical or conceptual constructs which can
be transferred from one person to another with transparency, we think that there is
something politically self-defeating about insisting that one can only
understand an experience (or then comment upon it) if one has actually
had the experience oneself. As Rege (1998) argues, to privilege knowledge claims on
the basis of direct experience, or then on claims of authenticity, can lead
to a narrow identity politics that limits the emancipatory potential of the
movements or organisations making such claims. Further, if it is not possible to
understand an experience one has not had, then what point is there in
listening to each other? Following Said, such a view seems to authorise privileged
groups to ignore the discourses of disadvantaged ones, or, we would add, to place
exclusive responsibility for addressing injustice with the oppressed
themselves. Indeed, as Rege suggests, reluctance to speak about the experience of others has led to an assumption on the
part of some white feminists that “confronting racism is the sole responsibility of black feminists”, just as today “issues of caste
become the sole responsibility of the dalit women’s organisations” (Rege 1998). Her argument for a dalit feminist standpoint, then,
is not made in terms solely of the experiences of dalit women, but rather a call for others to “educate themselves about the

This, she argues,

histories, the preferred social relations and utopias and the struggles of the marginalised” (Rege 1998).

allows “their cause” to become “our cause”, not as a form of appropriation

of “their” struggle, but through the transformation of subjectivities that enables a

recognition that “their” struggle is also “our” struggle. Following Rege, we suggest that
social processes can facilitate the understanding of experiences, thus making those experiences the possible object of analysis and

while recognising that they are not equally available or powerful

action for all,

for all subjects. 4 Understandings of identity as given and essential, then, we suggest,
need to give way to understandings which accept them as socially constructed and
contingent on the work of particular, overlapping, epistemological communities
that agree that this or that is a viable and recognised identity. Such an understanding avoids what Bramen

identifies as the postmodern excesses of “post-racial” theory , where in this “world without

borders (“racism is real, but race is not”) one can be anything one wants to be: a black kid in Harlem can be
Croatian-American, if that is what he chooses, and a white kid from Iowa can be Korean-American”(2002: 6). Unconstrained choice is
not possible to the extent that, as Nelson (1993) argues, the concept of the epistemological community requires any individual
knowledge claim to sustain itself in relation to standards of evaluation that already exist and that are social. Any claim to identity,
then, would have to be recognised by particular communities as valid in order to be successful. This further shifts the discussion

communities that confer

beyond the limitations of essentialist accounts of identity by recognising that the

identity are constituted through their shared epistemological frameworks

and not necessarily by shared characteristics of their members conceived
of as irreducible. 5 Hence, the epistemological community that enables us to identify our-selves
as feminists is one that is built up out of a broadly agreed upon paradigm for interpreting the world and the relations between the
sexes: it is not one that is premised upon possessing the physical attribute of being a woman or upon sharing the same experiences.
Since at least the 1970s, a key aspect of black and/or postcolonial feminism has been to identify the problems associated with such
assumptions (see, for discussion, Rege 1998, 2000). We believe that it is the identification of injustice which calls forth action and

While it is accepted that there may be important

thus allows for the construction of healthy solidarities. 6

differences between those who recognise the injustice of disadvantage

while being, in some respects, its beneficiary (for example, men, white people, brahmins),
and those who recognise the injustice from the position of being at its
effect (women, ethnic minorities, dalits), we would privilege the importance of a shared
political commitment to equality as the basis for negotiating such
differences. Our argument here is that thinking through identity claims from the basis of understanding them as
epistemological communities militates against exclusionary politics (and its associated problems) since the emphasis comes to be on

the focus is
participation in a shared epistemological and political project as opposed to notions of fixed characteristics –

on the activities individuals participate in rather than the characteristics

they are deemed to possess. Identity is thus defined further as a function
of activity located in particular social locations (understood as the complex of objective forces
that influence the conditions in which one lives) rather than of nature or origin (Mohanty 1995:109-10). As
such, the communities that enable identity should not be conceived of as “imagined” since they are produced by very real actions,
practices and projects.

killjoy is a bad political strategy for change and only leads to more
violence
Gutmann 7 (Amy, a Fellow of the American Academy since 1997, is president of the
University of Pennsylvania. She is also a professor of political science in the School of Arts
and Sciences. The Lure and Dangers of Extremist Rhetoric,
www.upenn.edu/president/meet-president/extremist-rhetoric)

The remedy must help us counter what can best be called rhetorical
rage: the phenomenon of one form of
extremist rhetoric breeding another, counterextremist rhetoric. Here is an example that illustrates how far
rhetorical rage has spread–in this case, to scientists–in a country whose citizens are overwhelmingly moderate and reasonable.
Creationism is often communicated in extremist terms, as part of a comprehensive divine plan, and as such is impervious to the
mountain of evidence that refutes its claims to being a scientific theory that disproves the theory of evolution. Recently, in response
to creationism, an opposite form of extremism–which calls itself science but really is scientism–has emerged and gained a following.
Scientism expresses an equal and opposite certainty, which also defies reason, that all human understanding derives from the
comprehensive rational value of scientific inquiry. It treats religion–and religious believers–with open contempt. Richard Dawkins,
for example, proclaims that “faith is one of the world’s great evils.”10 Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens indict all organized
religions for inciting hatred and abetting humanity’s propensity for cruelty and murder. With single-minded fury, all three drive
democratic discourse deeper into the cycle of mutual disrespect and denigration. Trading one kind of extremism in for
another–creationism for scientism–does not bode well for an informed public policy. Worse than
rhetorical rage are extreme political responses to extremist rhetoric. The French parliament, for example,
adopted a bill in 2006 making it a crime to deny that Armenians suffered genocide at the hands of the Turks. This is an
extreme reaction to extremism. Democracy’s most reasonable hope for countering demagogy is
the democratic lure of morally engaged pluralism. The vast majority of American citizens realize that
they have multiple interests, ideals, and preferences. And they are more satisfied when
democratic politics attends to those interests, ideals, and preferences. How can American democracy take
better advantage of the lure of morally engaged pluralism? Well-educated citizens can practice what Dennis
Thompson and I describe as “an economy of moral disagreement.” When we argue about
controversial issues, we should defend our views vigorously while expressing mutual respect for
our adversaries. We can do this by not preemptively rejecting everything for which our political
adversaries stand. Take the controversy over creationism. I can staunchly defend evolution against creationism as a scientific
theory while also recognizing that science does not have answers to most of the great cosmological questions that religion
addresses. Nothing will thereby be lost, and much will be gained. Practicing “an economy of moral disagreement” engenders mutual
respect across competing viewpoints and, as important, makes room for moral compromise. No democracy can function–
let alone flourish–without
moral compromise over reasonable differences. Can morally engaged pluralism be an
effective rhetorical strategy? The reasonable hope lies in the fact that most
democratic citizens are not extremists.
And respecting multiple points of view carries more lasting and long-term benefits in democratic
politics than playing exclusively to a narrow political base. However, morally engaged pluralists must not check
all emotions at the door. “Rationality is a bond between persons,” the philosopher Stuart Hampshire observed, “but it is not a very
powerful bond, and it is apt to fail as a bond when there are strong passions on two sides of a conflict.” Rationality alone is apt to fail
as a bond, but morally engaged pluralists have every reason to be passionate as well as rational in their rhetoric. The moral stakes in
pursuing the public interest could not be higher; life, liberty, opportunity, and mutual respect are the lifeblood of a flourishing
democracy. For morally engaged pluralists to be effective, we must be passionate as well as reasonable in our
rhetoric. Passion supported by reason elevates democratic debate while also making it more alluring and effective. In searching
for antidotes to extremism, there is therefore no substitute for a better democratic education in robust,
reasoned, and respectful political controversy and debate. We need to teach students how to
engage with one another over controversial issues . Students must first learn how to recognize demagogic rhetoric
and then how to counter it, both individually and institutionally. Well-designed democratic institutions can
dramatically reduce the toxic effects of extremist rhetoric . We need to support institutional
structures whose incentives encourage respectful controversy. Less partisan gerrymandering
would foster more representative democratic rhetoric . Well-structured debates and factcheck.org blogs can
expose extremist and extreme rhetoric that is deceptive and subversive of the democratic pursuit of the public interest.
Democratic citizens should not wait for the media and our political leaders to reform
themselves. All pluralists–the vast majority of democratic citizens–can play an important part
today in criticizing extreme and extremist rhetoric and in defending a more democratic, less demagogic rhetoric
of morally engaged pluralism. We can do so both reasonably and passionately in keeping with our character as morally engaged
pluralists. This never-ending pursuit of the public interest in a democracy is not a value-neutral enterprise. Pluralist citizens are
committed to upholding the spirit of constitutional democracy beyond what the letter of the law requires us to do. We must
recognize that demonizing
and demeaning our opponents to mobilize like-minded people in
democratic politics is a legal but nonetheless demagogic way of driving constitutional democracy
into the ground. Democracy’s saving grace is that most citizens are put off by demagogues and their techniques. By
recognizing that the person with whom we disagree, far from being an “ignorant slut,” typically has a valid point worth considering,
we can work together as fellow citizens who respectfully disagree with one another to give our great constitutional democracy a
longer lease on life.
killjoy alone can’t solve – focus on tactics and strategy key
Rachel Saloom 6 , JD Univ of Georgia School of Law and M.A. in Middle Eastern Studies from U of Chicago, Fall 2006, A Feminist
Inquiry into International Law and International Relations, 12 Roger Williams U. L. Rev. 159, Lexis

Because patriarchy is embedded within society, it is no surprise that the theory and practice of both international law and
international relations is also patriarchal. 98 Total
critique, however, presents no method by which to challenge
current hegemonic practices. Feminist scholars have yet to provide a coherent way in which
total critique can be applied to change the nature of international law and international
relations. Some  [*178]  feminist scholars are optimistic for the possibility of changing the way the current system is structured.
For example, Whitworth believes that "sites of resistance are always available to those who oppose the status quo." 99 Enloe
suggests that since the world of international politics has been made it can also be remade. 100 She posits that every time a woman
speaks out about how the government controls her, new theories are being made. 101 All of these theorists highlight
the manner in which gender criticisms can destabilize traditional theories. They provide no
mechanism, however, for the actual implementation of their theories into practice. While in the
abstract, resistance to hegemonic paradigms seems like a promising concept, gender theorists have made no attempt to make their
resistance culminate in meaningful change. The
notion of rethinking traditional approaches to international law
and internationalrelations does not go far enough in prescribing an alternative theoretical basis
for understanding the international arena. Enloe's plea for women to speak out about
international politics does not go nearly far enough in explaining how those acts could have the
potential to actually change the practice of international relations. Either women are
already speaking out now, and their voices alone are not an effective mechanism to challenge
the system, or women are not even speaking out about world politics currently. Obviously it is absurd to assume that women
remain silent about world politics. If that is the case, then one must question women's ability to speak up, challenge, and change the
system.
A2 Collectivization
A2 Possibility
A2 Self reflexivity
A2 Resolving material violence