OVERTURE

AN INTRODUCTION

BY BJORK GRUE LIDIN

 One hundred years ago hysteria referred to a medical condition in women caused by disturbances of the uterus. This may appear as a long gone era, and indeed feminists have put up a brave fight since then. 2013 itself seemed like a year that broke from a history of gender inequality: Beyoncé Knowles and John Legend came out as proud feminists; gang rape in India sparked outrange that led to the passing of a new Criminal Law (Amendment) Act; Malala Yousafzai held ‘groundbreaking speeches’; and ‘women’s choice’ became a buzz-phrase. But as we all know too well, hysteria as a cultural construction remains, and when we scratch the surface of Beyonce-feminism, Indian-upper-caste-feminism, Malala-confirming-that-the-East-is–a-dangerous-place-feminism, and liberal-choice-feminism it becomes all terribly clear that we do not live in an equal world free from patriarchies and empires. It becomes obvious that feminism is in fact multiple feminisms, but the single current conquering all others is one, which may be less about degendering hysteria and more about reproducing it as a phenomenon that marginalises the feminine subject.     

 It is for this reason that the publication of HYSTERIA does not strive to ‘sell’ a coherent, all-embracing feminism, since that would lead to the appropriation of the currently conquering feminism and thereby to blindness to the injustices that feminists are here to address. HYSTERIA calls for challenging feminist perspectives that are committed to transform rather than reproduce, to disagree rather than agree and to contradict rather than consent. As contributors of this issue point out, there is no single flesh-and-blood misogynistic monster out there for feminists to fight. Fortunately or unfortunately. The monster is everywhere – in all of us. No safe spaces exist and in that sense ‘trigger warning’ is the most appropriate label to mark our time. This makes HYSTERIA a necessary initiative since the only way to transform all of us – the structures within us and outside of us - is through debates, radical feminist debates that is.  

 The theme of this first issue thus came to be ‘Backlash’. It serves as an introduction to important feminist discussions and demonstrates that the real axis of evil is the one between structure and agency. In other words, should we focus on ‘the only game in town’, namely capitalism, patriarchy and empire or should we rather critically analyze the players making the rules for that game. In this issue Katie Auchterlonie shows us how Sheryl Sandberg assumably works to improve gender equality whereas Katie Pitts and Zara Powell argue that we must direct our attention to structures hindering such improvements. In that same vein, Tove Lyssarides asserts that feminist porn is merely a new patriarchal construction while Katie O’Reilly-Boyles believes that feminist porn initiatives are steps in the right direction.      

 I urge all readers of this publication to get their hands dirty and stir up internal and external spaces with some radical feminisms. Read on. Trigger warning.