The Future of Difference: Beyond the Toxic Entanglement of Racism, Sexism and Feminism

How feminism is used to attack immigration in Europe

In recent years, opponents of 'political correctness' have surged to prominence from both left and right, shaping a discourse in which perpetrators are 'defiantly' imagined as Muslim refugees, i.e. outsiders/others, while victims are identified as 'our women'. This poisonous and regressive situation grounds Hark and Villa's theorisation of contemporary regimes of power as engaged primarily in the violent production of difference. In this moment, they argue, the logic of 'differentiate and rule' thoroughly permeates the social; our entire 'way of life' is premised on endless subtle hierarchical distinctions, which determine whole populations' attitudes, feelings and actions.

How can learn to value difference, sabotaging all attempts to enlist difference in the service of domination? Hark and Villa make a compelling case for the urgent necessity for a detoxification of feminism as a matter of urgency; and for an ethical mode of living-with the world, that is, living with alterity.

Sabine Hark is a German feminist and sociologist. She is Professor of Interdisciplinary Women and Gender Research at the Technical University of Berlin.

Paula-Irene Villa is Professor and Chair for Sociology and Gender Studies at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.

Sophie Lewis is a theorist, critic and translator. She is the translator of Communism for Kids by Bini Adamczak (with Jacob Blumenfeld) and A Brief History of Feminism by Antje Schrupp and the author of Full Surrogacy Now: Feminism Against Family.