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A review by thevampiremars
The Future of Difference: Beyond the Toxic Entanglement of Racism, Sexism and Feminism by Sabine Hark, Sophie Anne Lewis, Paula-Irene Villa
challenging
slow-paced
2.5
The foundation of this book is an occurrence dubbed “The Cologne Incident” wherein hundreds of women reported cases of sexual violence on New Years Eve 2015 by “dark-skinned” “foreign” men in Cologne and various other cities around Germany. I hadn’t heard about it but it seems to be something of a touchstone in German political discourse.
It would be more accurate to say this book is around the attacks in Cologne than about them. And that would be fine if the topic were used as a jumping-off point to then discuss feminists’ susceptibility to racism or how racists co-opt feminist rhetoric as a Trojan horse for their agendas, but it isn’t. It’s just referred to repeatedly without much being contributed to the conversation.
It would be more accurate to say this book is around the attacks in Cologne than about them. And that would be fine if the topic were used as a jumping-off point to then discuss feminists’ susceptibility to racism or how racists co-opt feminist rhetoric as a Trojan horse for their agendas, but it isn’t. It’s just referred to repeatedly without much being contributed to the conversation.
I think it ought to be noted that both authors are white and non-Muslim (as far as I’m aware, at least). I don’t bring this up to argue that they can not or must not write a book on racism and Islamophobia, but they don’t really have any new insight to offer and so they end up making fairly basic observations or repeating what has already been said by countless scholars and activists before them. Perhaps they could have taken a different approach. I’d have been interested to read about their perspectives as white women on being used as pawns in a game of xenophobia. To what extent are white women complicit in this? Which came first, the racism or the feminism? Is the feminism just a cover for the racist rhetoric, or are Muslims/immigrants/POC just collateral damage in the struggle for (white) women’s liberation? Are feminazis a real thing now?
I know it’s crass to tell authors how they should have written their books, but this is one of those instances where I do wish this book were something else.
The Future of Difference isn’t really about the “Future” of anything, and it’s only about “Difference” insofar as it mentions othering and us-vs-them narratives. It could have been so much more. I have to admit I’m disappointed. I wouldn’t recommend this book, not because it’s outrageously bad; rather, it simply has very little to offer.
CONTENT WARNINGS: xenophobia, racism (re: Arabs and North Africans especially), Islamophobia, misogyny, sexuality and sexualisation (consensual and not), sexual assault/harassment discussed but not described in graphic detail