Book Review: No! The Art and Activism of Complaining by Sara Ahmed

As Trump’s reign of terror and hatred continues to unfold, it is more important than ever for individuals and institutions committed to liberation to engage in discourse regarding how to practice modes of activism that  involve resistance to regimes that normalize racism, sexism, homophobia, and many other isms.

In her important book No! The Art and Activism of Complaining, Sara Ahmed provides readers with several frameworks to think about what resistance is and why it is still necessary. In the preface to her text, Ahmed discusses the incipient stages of her growing awareness regarding the structures and strategies used by those in power to oppress the masses, as well as how these systems come to define how social interactions play out in public life in ways that sustain that power. For example, Ahmed references how, during her time as a student in school, she realized that teachers operate according to principles of hegemonic power. Specifically, she notes that one teacher “singled out those of us who did not give him the respect he did not deserve” before going on to assert that “I remember another teacher who would insist she was right even when she was wrong. I was being taught authority meant the right to be wrong (xiv).” Here, hegemonic power is revealed in context of those with authority being able to garner the respect of others without engaging in actions and attitudes that would merit it. Additionally, Ahmed construes the misuse of power as involving the individual’s ability to maintain rule over others without having to conform to ethical principles and/or acknowledge one’s own fallibility. Thus during her adolescent years, the reader observes the onset or continuation of Ahmed’s inundation in a hierarchical system that quells her ability to develop a moral compass.

  In addition to conveying how public institutions play an integral role in constructing lifeworlds that are inequitable and oppressive, Ahmed outlines the role that private life has played in organizing reality in hierarchical ways that subvert individuality and independence. For example, Ahmed recalls being called out for expressing dissent from and discontent towards sexist comments made by her father. Upon observing her resistance to his sexist jokes at the dinner table, her father would frequently respond “Sara, another dinner ruined!” (xvii). Here, the reader learns that the presence of hegemonic ideologies–in this case, patriarchy–is ubiquitous, impacting not only public scenes in social life such as how education unfolds but also private scenes through which individuals consciously and subconsciously learn not to question ways of being and knowing that uphold oppressive regimes such as the sex/gender system. In recognizing these realities, the importance of Ahmed’s central tenet for the book–that complaining as a form of activism about and against regimes of domination is an art–becomes readily discernible. 

As Ahmed’s text unfolds, I became acutely aware of how the structures of domination which the writer sought to expose worked with avid assiduity in calling out individuals who sought to challenge institutional harms such as sexual harassment. At one point in the text, Ahmed recalls that 

A colleague attended a university meeting where the students were described by a senior manager as “always complaining,” as if they were a bunch of troublesome children using complaints to get what they want. We began to hear the term “vicarious trauma” floating around; it popped up in discussions and documents. I think it was used to imply we had infected each other with misery, rather than worked purposefully together to address the role of the institution in enabling sexual harassment (14)

Here, the reader learns that those who address harms in the workplace are coded as complainers, thereby enshrining them in an aura of negativity which renders them the problem rather than individuals who are actively seeking solutions to  problems. As Ahmed continued to cite evidence for these workplace reversals in the form of complaints, I realized that the antagonism of those who adopted an activist approach t resulted from non-compliance. To submit complaints, then, is really an act of refusing to be compliant. Thus as Ahmed argues, “The difference between compliant and complaint is only two letters, but they are worlds apart. When we don’t comply, saying yes, accepting things as they are, or at least appearing to, the hostility intensifies” (157, 158). The juxtaposition of the terms compliant and complaint thus makes evident how regimes of power operate and why resistance to them is necessary: authority resists the resister in her acts of challenging its oppressive affects and, in creating scenes and systems which reflect its hostility towards those who seek to end its hierarchical perversions, will quell voices of resistance and amass even more power if that power is not called into account. 

As made evident by the preceding example, the need for activism which Ahmed emphasizes in the book becomes evident not only through the contentious activity of those who complain, but by the unwillingness of those in power to do so. Ahmed makes this point plain by observing the reactions of members of upper management to forms of complaining activism such as sexual harassment conferences. In referencing a conference that took place, she notes that although it was a powerful and moving experience led by students, “the audience that needed to be there was missing. Only one senior manager turned up for that event—and she left after the first panel” (15, 16). Additionally, Ahmed observes that “Another of my heads of department, who was also supportive and sympathetic, did not go because, he said, it would be too depressing. He probably needed to be depressed” (16). This last observation was particularly interesting to me because it is consonant with a reality that many individuals who align themselves with progressive or radical politics have noted: the expression of dissident ideas and individual reaction to them are emotive-laden processes which many people are not willing to participate in because they have already consciously or unconsciously surrendered to the process of engaging in forms of emotional labor which sustain systems of domination for the purpose of keeping the crumbs that those in power throw at them. As a result, to express sentiment and emotive alignment with those who are experiencing oppression from these same systems of power would engender feelings that one might not want to make actionable–such as depression regarding the recognition of ongoing inequity and the deleterious impact of that inequity. For this reason, it seems, many people in managerial positions would simply prefer not to feel the feelings that oftentimes surface in context of recognizing the presence and portentous power of hierarchy and the subordinating regimes it creates and sustains. After all, they are deeply embedded in this power structure and are receiving material gain by operating at the higher ends of its ladder.   

In addition to citing examples of those in power expressing forms of opposition to those who complain, Ahmed’s text is helpful for activists who seek more examples and commentary regarding individuals who seem to assert solidarity with members of oppressed groups yet actually reify hegemonic norms in the process of doing so. In referencing how this type of process unfolds, Ahmed cites her response to a woman who attempted to align with her following a talk she gave on racism: 

I had to pull my arm away on another occasion. I had just given a talk on racism. A white woman came up to me after and put her arm next to mine. She said, very quietly, “We are almost the same color.” I looked at our arms, seeing how she wanted me to see them, how others too might see them, not different, in harmony, in solidarity even. When we speak of racism we are often met with denial. It might be hard to hear the aggression, but I felt it. I said nothing. I pulled my arm away, letting it do the talking. I call such gestures false positives. (210)

Here, the reader’s attention is drawn to the toxic positivity which is used to quell complaints regarding regimes of domination. Through various logical ploys, such as asserting that we are “all the same” or, in this case, alluding to the notion that similarity in skin tone somehow negated the depth and scope of racism and the specific import it has on people of color, oppressed people are encouraged to forget how they are being subjugated and align themselves with individuals who have not been subjected to the forms of humiliation, subordination, and dehumanization that they have. Examples like this make the necessity of complaints even more clear in light of the reality that the process of complaining can engender seemingly amicable, inclusive rebuttals that can work to erase the reality of the very oppression one is attempting to contend with.  

Readers who are interested in activist texts to provide them with both concrete representations of oppression as well as metaphysical abstractions which enable them to think outside the framework of dominant logics will likely enjoy Ahmed’s book. Her coining of phrases like insistence on relation (212), for example, enables readers to deidentify with oppressors and understand how they maintain systems of domination by drawing the individuals they harm into conversations and other forms of sociality after subjecting them to those harms. Ultimately, the text works to crystallize the dissident thinker’s awareness of both what complaint is and how this form of activism is received. It does this by exploring reactionary, conservative-minded individuals and institutions without giving way to assimilationist actions and attitudes which would cause activist work to dwindle and eventually die. 

Jocelyn is a 42-year-old radical feminist who believes that male violence is the most egregious problem on the planet, particularly concerning manifestations of sexual violence against women and girls. When not writing about radical feminist topics, Jocelyn enjoys yoga and building community with like-minded individuals who are sick of patriarchy precluding us from having nice things.