Five movements in an embodied feminism: A memoir

Abstract

How can bodies, embodied experiences and feelings, be recognized as central elements of becoming and being feminist? This article – a mixture of memoir and research reflection – aims to reveal the emergent and embodied nature of feminist paths using myself as case in point. Recounting five personal ‘movements’ over three decades, I show how my material situations, physically-felt struggles and embodied encounters with others, especially women, wrested – sometimes catapulted – my precarious self-identification as a feminist. Writing this as a memoir, I hope to evoke in the reader memories and experiences that highlight their own embodied feminism. The article identifies some problems feminists commonly face, contesting unhelpful hierarchies of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feminists. I explore some gifts of feminism – encounters with writing and people – which have provided theoretical innovation and personal insight for me, and offer fertile avenues for further research. Avoiding trying to ‘trap’ feminism as one set of views or experiences, I seek to show how our feminisms are always embodied: opportunistic, emergent, sometimes inconvenient, neither comprehensive nor respectable, but frequently bringing agency, invigoration and surprising pleasures. It gives all who call ourselves feminists, cause for optimism.