Feminism for the 99%: towards a populist feminism?: Can Feminism for the 99% succeed as a new kind of populism?

Abstract

A s they seek to find a place in and/or confront the contemporary populist zeitgeist, feminists supporting intersectional justice-claims face very real, destabilising and contradictory challenges. Intersectional feminists recognise race, class, gender, sexuality, disability and legal status as interlocking systems of oppression, and pay attention to the ways in which these particular intersections generate agency and solidarity for different kinds of women. Populism, on the other hand, is a political strategy that seeks to articulate popular grievances in a way that can unify a ‘sovereign people’ against corrupt and self-serving political, economic and cultural elites. It is less interested in recognising difference within its construction of the people.