Contempt as Discursive Violence: A Feminist Sociological Analysis

• In Event: 322 - Regular Session. Feminist Thought/Theory

Abstract

This paper explores key themes for a twinned feminist theorization and sociological investigation of contempt, integrating sociology with political theory (Hannah Arendt in particular) and ethical concerns. It takes up two problems. The first is one of distinction and definition: defining and measuring contempt are difficult tasks and much work in psychology and ethics has oversimplified or distorted contempt in the effort. Definitional work segues into the second problem with contempt: its function as a tool for creating, maintaining, and deepening inequality. Borrowing a style of careful analysis from feminist political theory, and merging it with Schwalbe's work on the generic processes of inequality, I aim to show the means by which contempt functions. I highlight what Sara Ahmed (partly following Hochschild) calls the stickiness and the virality of contempt: it proliferates across certain kinds of bodies and selves, targeting those who are already unequal. I end by considering contempt as a form of emotional governmentality, and by linking these problems to Hannah Arendt's vision of democratic political action. Feminists and sociologists who theorize and pursue social justice should regard contempt as a master's tool – a tool of the oppressor may be a problematic means of fighting oppression. I argue that contempt is a form of discursive violence that has a heavy recoil – it sows the seeds for the proliferation of more contempt, and it can decrease possibilities for political action and social change.

Author

• Ginna Husting, Boise State University