By Thistle Pettersen

“Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.”

~ from The Uses of Sorrow by Mary Oliver

I’m in the midst of re-reading All About Love by Bell Hooks at the recommendation of another member of the WLRN Collective as we prepare for our show in February about the exciting possibility of feminist love.

I don’t often write about my thoughts except to create commentaries or interviewing questions for the monthly WLRN podcast, but after recent events involving feminist women name-calling and attacking an anonymous woman who we collectively decided to publish on our website, I feel an urgency to use my voice to speak out in favor of feminist love. I feel called to act on my beliefs instead of just holding them.

Bell Hooks describes love in many different ways in her book but finally gets at the crux of it when she writes in chapter 6 about living by a love ethic that has us act on our values. Many of us value freedom, democracy, compassion and truth but when push comes to shove around acting on these beliefs, most fall short. 

The simple reason for this is that to live by our ideals means we would need to embrace change. 

No wonder then that we are a nation of people, the majority of whom, across race, class, and gender, claim to be religious, claim to believe in the divine power of love, and yet collectively remain unable to embrace a love ethic and allow it to guide behaviour, especially if doing so would mean supporting radical change. (Hooks, p.91)

“The personal is political” was a slogan many feminists embraced in the 1970s and 80s when feminist activism was popularized through consciousness-raising groups. Hooks understands that we need to align our personal values with our political values and learn to live by an ethic of love, not just for those close to us, but in how we conduct ourselves in public life.

What is “feminist love” and how is it different or the same as regular love?

Feminist love is the deliberate choice to center the safety, dignity, and liberation of women and girls in every interaction—including our conflicts with one another. It is not soft. It is a political strategy rooted in philia (loyal friendship among equals) and woman-first care. It refuses the cheap dopamine of the pile-on and insists on the harder work of understanding, challenging, and, when necessary, holding accountable—without discarding sisters we still need.

It prioritizes the spiritual, emotional and physical growth and well-being of girls and women in a patriarchal world that hates us. Feminist love brings us closer together in our sisterhood and to the goal of living in a post-patriarchal world.

The ancient Greeks came up with multiple categories of love to describe a wide range of behaviors and emotions. It is useful to look at some of these categories and apply them to our own pursuit of love for women under the circumstances of male rule.

The kinds of love I am talking about, and I think Hooks is talking about too, are called Philia and Agape by the ancient Greeks. 

Philia love is the kind of love associated with friendship and bonds between equals. On Wikihow.com, we read that “Traits of strong philia love between friends include things like acceptance of one another’s differences, honesty, compassion, and trust.” This, for me, is what feminist love should strive for in our actions and treatment of one another, especially when emotions are running high.

Agape love is unconditional love for everyone, including one’s enemies. I’m not so keen on this kind of love as it implies self-sacrificing which is something I think women do far too much at the expense of not taking care of ourselves.

I am not asking my feminist friends and comrades to be self-sacrificing when they embrace feminist love in their approach to our conflicts and disagreements. My wish is for us to trust in the goodness of each of us, often volunteers working to better the lives of women and girls, and to reach out in a spirit of teaching and learning, rather than a spirit of outrage and moral indignation.

We get enough outrage and moral indignation these days on social media to numb the senses. When calling other feminists or their work we disagree with “horrific”, “vile” or “nasty anti-feminist”, we weaken our bonds and do not gain unity in understanding. 

If, however, we embrace an ethic of feminist love, we reframe our approach and see our sisters we disagree with as friends we want to reach to open their minds to our differing point of view.

What is the purpose of expressing outrage on social media, calling out a woman for her opinion being expressed about a complex social or political issue? The only purpose I can see is to publicly humiliate and shame her into apologizing for expressing an opinion we don’t like. But if we call her names, is she likely to listen? If instead, we approach her in a calm way with our own counter-thoughts and arguments to those she expresses, she is much more likely to listen and open her mind to hearing a different point of view.

Feminists need to model civil dialogue and discussion as we explore men’s wars and violence and their impact on women and girls. We need to do this because the situation in the world is dire and if we waste our energies attacking each other about how male-led wars and male violence are carried out, then we will not make progress as a people and as a movement. 

The whole world will benefit from feminist love. The whole world is sick with male violence and hatred, with many men not knowing how to resolve conflicts by embracing an ethic of care because they have been conditioned towards war. 

It is up to feminist women to forge a path of a different ethic, one based in mature love, to bring humanity to a better place and to defend the rights and value of all women who are raped, battered and are suffering. We need to truly listen to each other and not just react to what we think is being said between the lines. 

I was tempted to be “shocked” and “horrified” by the pile-on that occurred on social media after WLRN published this piece on December 2nd about the conflicts our anonymous guest writer saw play out at the FiLia feminist conference in Brighton, UK this past October.

It is telling that not one of the women I trust most, women I have called friends and comrades for years, reached out privately or even sent a direct message. None unfollowed or blocked me. They simply performed their outrage in public, where likes and shares were guaranteed, then went on with our friendships as if nothing had happened. That is not accountability; that is drive-by shaming dressed up as principle, and it teaches no one anything except how effectively patriarchy has trained us to wound each other for an audience.

I have been in this long enough to know that outrage and indignation expressed at a feverish pitch is a weapon used to silence, not illuminate an issue or argument. They wanted me to feel guilty for doing what I thought was right, which is to consider and publish anything that offers women a platform to discuss ideas.

After weathering the storm, I see that my friends’ whipped up frenzied comments were not intended for my personal growth as a feminist nor for WLRN’s growth as a feminist organization. Even so, what they did by calling me and WLRN names is really a gift. I now see that I have it within me to stand up not only to trans activists who do not have my best interests at heart, but also to my comrades in arms, who down deep, I do believe care for me and the work I do.

So I answer them calmly and directly, refusing to mirror their public shaming. That refusal is not weakness; it is feminist love in practice. If we cannot choose it when it costs us pride or popularity, we will never choose it at all. This is where the unbreakable sisterhood begins.

Stay tuned to WLRN for our February podcast featuring Jocelyn Crawley and Esme Streachailt discussing the concept of feminist love.

Thistle Pettersen is the founding member of WLRN, an eco-feminist, and a singer/songwriter in her home state of Wisconsin.  She focuses on arts and culture and their role in building liberation and justice movements. You can learn more about Thistle and hear her original music at ThistlePettersen.com