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Abstract: Feminist theory worldwide is confronting - perhaps as it always has done - a series of deep challenges. On the one hand, awareness of gender and sexual inequalities seems high; on the other, co-optation of feminism for nationalist or other right-wing agendas is rife. On the one hand, feminist social movements are in ascendancy, on the other there is a continued dominance of single issue feminism and a resistance to intersectional, non-binary interventions. If we add in the collapse of the Left in the face of radical movements such as those underpinning Brexit and Trump (and the frequent blaming of feminism for fragmentation of that Left) then it is hard to know what to argue, to whom, and for what ends. In the face of such claims it is tempting to respond with a dogmatic or singular feminism, or to insist that what we need is a shared, clear, certain platform. I want to argue instead - with Emma Goldman (anarchist activist who died in 1940) as my guide - that it can be politically productive to embrace and theorise uncertainty, or even ambivalence, about gender equality and feminism.

Abstract: Feminist theory worldwide is confronting - perhaps as it always has done - a series of deep challenges. On the one hand, awareness of gender and sexual inequalities seems high; on the other, co-optation of feminism for nationalist or other right-wing agendas is rife. On the one hand, feminist social movements are in ascendancy, on the other there is a continued dominance of single issue feminism and a resistance to intersectional, non-binary interventions. If we add in the collapse of the Left in the face of radical movements such as those underpinning Brexit and Trump (and the frequent blaming of feminism for fragmentation of that Left) then it is hard to know what to argue, to whom, and for what ends. In the face of such claims it is tempting to respond with a dogmatic or singular feminism, or to insist that what we need is a shared, clear, certain platform. I want to argue instead - with Emma Goldman (anarchist activist who died in 1940) as my guide - that it can be politically productive to embrace and theorise uncertainty, or even ambivalence, about gender equality and feminism.

A teoria feminista confronta mundialmente no presente momento – talvez comosempre tenha feito – uma série de profundos desafios. Por um lado, a consciência dedesigualdades sexuais e de gênero parece alta; por outro, a cooptação do feminismo poragendas nacionalistas ou de extrema direita é frequente. Por um lado, aumentam os movimentos sociais feministas, e por outro há uma continuada supremacia do feminismo hegemônico e uma resistência a intervenções interseccionais não binárias. Se adicionarmos o colapso da esquerda face aos movimentos radicais como os que embasaram o Brexit e Trump (e a frequente acusação ao feminismo de ter fragmentado a esquerda) fica difícil saber o que argumentar, com quem e para quê. Diante desse quadro, fica-se tentada a responder com um feminismo dogmático ou singular, ou insistir na necessidade de uma plataforma compartilhada, clara e precisa. Quero argumentar, no entanto, – com Emma Goldman (ativista anarquista que morreu em 1940) como guia – que pode ser politicamente produtivo abraçar e teorizar a incerteza, e mesmo a ambivalência, com relação à igualdade de gênero e ao feminismo. ; Feminist theory worldwide is confronting – perhaps as it always has done – a series ofdeep challenges. On the one hand, awareness of gender and sexual inequalities seems high; on the other, co-optation of feminism for nationalist or other right-wing agendas is rife. On the one hand, feminist social movements are in ascendancy, on the other there is a continued dominance of single issue feminism and a resistance to intersectional, non-binary interventions. If we add in the collapse of the Left in the face of radical movements such as those underpinning Brexit and Trump (and the frequent blaming of feminism for fragmentation of that Left) then it is hard to know what to argue, to whom, and for what ends. In the face of such claims it is tempting to respond with a dogmatic or singular feminism, or to insist that what we need is a shared, clear, certain platform. I want to argue instead – with Emma Goldman (anarchist activist who died in 1940) as my guide – that it can be politically productive to embrace and theorise uncertainty, or even ambivalence, about gender equality and feminism.

As a way of trying to ensure that feminism remains accountable and inclusive, there is an institutional tendency to multiply the subjects and objects of inquiry within women's and gender studies. While sympathetic to this impulse, this essay also recognizes that such pluralization tends to reinforce the separation between subjects and objects that women's and gender studies hopes to pluralize, often positioning "gender" as a more singular object than "sexuality." In accepting such a teleology and taxonomy, is there a risk of ceding the terrain of gender to conservative forces that already harness it effectively to nation, to whiteness, to heterosexuality? This essay explores institutional stories of gender and sexuality in the u.s., the uk., and France, with a particular emphasis on the ways they align us more conservatively than we might want to imagine.

This article explores the contributions to a history of sexuality, capitalism and revolution made when we consider the work of anarchist thinker and activist Emma Goldman (1869–1940). I suggest that Goldman's centring of sexual freedom at the heart of revolutionary vision and practice is part of a long tradition of sexual politics, one which struggles to make sense of how productive and reproductive labour come together, and to identify the difference between sexual freedom and capitalist opportunity. Goldman's concern with the significance of kinship in holding together capitalism, militarism and religion, as well as sexual feeling's capacity to disrupt those relationships, echoes across more than a century to resonate with Marxist, feminist and queer scholars' engagements with similar issues. But where contemporary scholars often tend to retain the opposition between culture and society, representation and the real, making it difficult to produce a materialist analysis of sexuality as transformative rather than always already overdetermined, Goldman's energetic insistence on sexual connectivity as freeing provides an important vantage point. Not only does Goldman consistently situate sexuality in a broad political context of the sexual division of labour, the institutions of marriage and the church, consumerism, patriotism and productive (as well as reproductive) labour, she frames sexual freedom as both the basis of new relationships between men and women, and as a model for a new political future.