Crisis Feminisms: How Convenient Forgetting, Feminist Ambivalence, and Racial Gaslighting Maintain the Status Quo

In this paper, we interrogate what are considered feminist issues for feminist sociologists, prodding us to expand our definitions of “crisis” and “feminist sociology” in light of what we have and are still learning from global crises. We take our cue from Black, indigenous, women of color, and transnational feminisms, who highlight the importance of the self, center not only gender and sexuality but also racialization, class, power and transnational processes, and have a commitment to praxis. In doing so, we introduce the concept of “crisis feminisms” as a theoretical tool to unpack how and why feminists practices and processes re-enact epistemic violence and maintain the status quo, despite rhetorically declaring otherwise. These processes, we argue, occur through three intertwined mechanisms: convenient forgetting, feminist ambivalence, and racial gaslighting. Documenting how these processes are enacted through publications, COVID-19, and Palestine, we argue that radical potentialities for change are possible, but only if we truly embrace and practice what such feminist knowledges teach us. Finally, we invite readers to sit with their own practices and how to be part of dismantling hegemonic knowledges to create lasting change, including close reading across disciplines, feminist citation practices, and valuing different forms of knowledge production.