Iris Marion Young

Rather than obituaries, of which there are a few, such as this one and another here, I thought perhaps an excerpt of Iris Marion Young's "Feminist Reactions to the Contemporary Security Regime" (Hypatia, 18:1, 2003):

[...] One of the things I have learned since September 11, 2001, is how easily the state actions and political culture of a democracy like that of the United States can shift in authoritarian directions. Interpreting recent events through a gender lens of masculinist protection helps reveal the logic and desires that underlie shifts toward authoritarianism. In the security regime, the state and its officials assume the role of protector toward its citizens, and the citizens become positioned as subordinates, grateful for the protection afforded them.

A marauding gang of outsiders attacked buildings in New York and Washington with living bombs, killing thousands in barely an instant, and terrifying large numbers of people in the country. Our government responded with a security alert, at home and abroad. We were frightened, and the heads of state stepped up to offer us protection. They began to "hunt down those responsible" and eliminate the threat they constitute. The United States bombed Afghanistan and overthrew its government, even though that state did not attack us. The Administration justified the war as a necessary response to attack and as a means to protection from further attack. At home, the government devotes more resources to homeland security, screening, searching, and making plans for hiding government officials and documents. As in past moments in American history, moments that the government has regretted, the government has rounded up those it identifies as the enemy within, whom it detains without charge.

The separation of power, due process, deliberation and public accountability basic to a democratic state are suspended. The U.S. security regime has expanded the power of the executive and eroded the ability of legislative or judicial branches to review executive decisions or be independent sources of decision making. In the week after the September 11 attacks, for example, Congress passed a resolution effectively waiving its constitutionally mandated power to deliberate and decide on whether the state shall go to war. As I write, five months later, there is no debate about whether the legislature should have a role in reviewing or authorizing military action. Drafted quickly and passed with almost no debate, USA-Patriot Act signed on October 26 severely reduces the power of courts to review and limit executive actions to keep individuals and organizations under surveillance, limit their activities, search and seize, or detain individuals.

How can citizens and their representatives in a democracy allow such rapid challenge to their political principles and institutions with so little discussion and protest? Surely one part of the answer is that citizens believe that their rights are not threatened; only the aliens will suffer. The sweeping powers granted to the executive, however, clearly may include surveillance on or restriction of the rights of association and assembly of anyone. Another part of the answer lies in accepting the promise of protection. Most regimes that suspend certain rights and legal procedures declare a state of emergency. They claim that special measures of unity and obedience are required in order to ensure protection from unusual danger. We have accepted a deal: you subordinate your actions to our judgment of what is necessary, and we promise to keep you safe.

Through the logic of protection the state demotes members of a democracy to dependents, a form analogous to the patriarchal household. State officials adopt the stance of the masculine protector. Their protector position puts us, the citizens and residents who depend on their strength and vigilance for our security, in the position of women and children under the charge of the male protector (compare Berlant 1997). Because they take the risks and organize the agency of the state, it is their prerogative to determine the objectives of protective action and their means. Good citizenship in a security regime consists in cooperative obedience for the sake of the safety of all.

Patriotism has an analogous emotive function in the constitution of the security regime. Under threat from outside, all of us, authorities and citizens, imagine ourselves a single body enclosed on and loving itself. We affirm our oneness with our fellow citizens and together affirm our single will behind the will of the leaders who have vowed to protect us. It is not merely that dissent is dangerous; worse yet, it is ungrateful. Subordinate citizenship does not merely acquiesce to limitation on freedom in exchange for a promise of security; the consent is active, as a solidarity with the others who are uniting behind the leaders and in grateful love of country.

Under these conditions of protective leadership and emergency obedience, our role as citizens gives us a single minded purpose. We cannot sit by and do nothing, we cannot simply go on with our work, play, and private pains as though nothing has happened. The action each of us must take is clear and simple: display the flag: in the window, on the banister, in red, white and blue bunting tied around all the trees on the block, on the car antenna, on the lapel, on the backpack. There are so many ways to display the flag, and with each the citizen knows that at least she has done something, something that both expresses and helps to constitute solidarity.

The state of emergency also brings out gender-coded impulses of sacrifice. A few stand as the masculine sacrificers: the vice-president who effectively risks his life every time he goes before a TV camera; police and firefighters who rush to save the endangered and wounded and give their lives in the effort; pilots, air stewards, and marshals ready to face the terrorists' guns and knives; sailors, soldiers, and bombardiers facing enemy fire to defeat the enemy that threatens us. The rest of us give in smaller supportive ways, by sending money to the families of those who have sacrificed to protect us, by making parcels of food or clothing, and by giving time and money to celebrations that express our love and gratitude for their protective actions. [...]

I can't say that I agree with all of her conclusion (such as her proposition of a transnational democracy), but she was one of the few in the USA, it seems to me, who rather than opt for merely levelling (an ostensibly alternative) populist criticism at those in government, was prepared to discuss the mundane complicities that are routinely cashed out as relative advantage.   Not least:

From its torrid beginnings as a self-interested retaliation for aggressive attack, the U.S. led war against Afghanistan has morphed into a humanitarian intervention of behalf of women's rights. [...]  The stance of the male protector is one of loving self-sacrifice, with those in the feminine position as the objects of love and guardianship. Chivalrous forms of masculinism express and enact concern for the well being of women, but they do so within a structure of superiority and subordination. The male protector confronts evil aggressors in the name of the right and the good, while those under his protection submit to his order and serve as handmaids to his efforts. Colonist ideologies have often expressed a similar logic: the knights of civilization aim to bring enlightened understanding to the further regions of the world still living in cruel and irrational traditions that keep them from developing the economic and political structures that will bring them a good life. The suppression of women in these societies is a symptom of such backwardness. Troops will be needed to bring order and guard fledgling institutions, and foreign aid workers to feed, cure and educate, but all this is only a period of tutelage that will end when the subject people demonstrate their ability to gain their own livelihood and run their own affairs.

Comments

[Jodi]

Angela,
Thanks for posting this. I admire the way Iris always was attuned to the gendered aspects of conflict and justice. She and I were well acquainted, sharing meals at conferences and generally friendly. She wrote a terrific review of my first book and then served as an outside evaluator on my tenure committee. A number of feminist theorists I know commented regularly on how genuinely nice and helpful she was (while agreeing that everyone else, themselves included, was a total bitch). She showed solidarity in her everyday actions.

[Matt]

Yes, thanks.

[Kafir]

"comments are published at the discretion of the post's author"

hey, i'm new here, where is the comments policy?

[kafir]

er, i mean the link to it.

[Jodi]

Kafir--unless I'm mistaken, we haven't put up any additional policy so there isn't a link; the basic deal is that each individual author manages comments to her post; a couple of people (not me) have larger admin capabilities to delete stuff; this let's us deal with trolls and such when a post author isn't around to attend to her thread. It used to be that comments were moderated so that the author of each thread had to approve every comment; I think we've stopped that for now. I hope that answers your questions.