A matter of race and class: Notes on populist feminism in theorising from the South

abstract

This perspective is a short reflection on the South African #MenAreTrash campaign. The movement arose within the context of deep inequalities, shaped by colonial racism and mediated by ideas of gender, and where structures and systems of racism and classism continue to exist in various formations. The essay critiques the campaign in its prioritising of gender and camouflaging of race and class in ways that invisibilise the impact of structures and systems of racial and socio-economic inequalities for black men. Within the global South, this kind of populist feminist rhetoric of black men as trash works against the hard-won gains made by feminists regarding the centrality of race in feminist theorising and practice.

keywords:

• populist feminism
• South Africa
• race
• #MenAreTrash
• class

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, whose funds in the way of a multi-institutional project allowed me the writing time to complete this perspective.

ORCID

Nadia Sanger http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3556-8221

Notes

1 See Kimberly Foster’s (2018) critique of the ways in which identity politics is currently being practiced.

2 In the United States, for instance, ‘shopping while black’ is a common phrase which points to the experiences of black male customers, in particular, being regarded as suspicious while store shopping. See C Pittman, ‘Shopping while black’, The Guardian [Online], June 24 2019, available at: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/24/shopping-while-black-yes-bias-against-black-customers-is-real (accessed 2 August 2019).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nadia Sanger

NADIA SANGER is a senior lecturer in the Department of English Studies at Stellenbosch University. Dr Sanger’s research interests are diverse and include cultural studies, critical race and gender studies, feminist literature, auto-ethnographic writing, experimental cultural productions and speculative fiction in and about Africa. She is interested in the politics of writing and the writing of politics. Email: [email protected]