The Feminist Killjoy Handbook: The Radical Potential of Getting in the Way

So many of the words we introduce have killjoy histories. When we use them, we are heard as making a point, a sore point, although in time some of them become less pointed, more habitual.

The figure of the feminist killjoy teaches us how the minimization of harm and the inflation of power often work together.

Feminism is often dismissed as a personal failing, not just a tendency but a flaw, as if she disagrees with something because she is being disagreeable; as if she opposes something because she is being oppositional. Your reaction to what is said can be used to justify a judgment that has already been made: She would say that. She would say that; I

Because of killjoys, the story goes, we are not allowed to keep our traditions, to do what we had previously enjoyed doing in a relaxed and uncontroversial manner.

Cultural critic Lauren Berlant puts it eloquently: “There is nothing more alienating than having your pleasures disputed by someone with a theory.”

The killjoys kill the joy of others, not their own joy, perhaps because they do not have their own joy to kill.

Feminism is often dismissed as a personal failing, not just a tendency but a flaw, as if she disagrees with something because she is being disagreeable; as if she opposes something because she is being oppositional. Your reaction to what is said can be used to justify a judgment that has already been made: She would say that. She would say that; I

Cultural critic Lauren Berlant puts it eloquently: “There is nothing more alienating than having your pleasures disputed by someone with a theory.”

So many of the words we introduce have killjoy histories. When we use them, we are heard as making a point, a sore point, although in time some of them become less pointed, more habitual.