The Feminine Mystique. 

To be a woman is to live in a state of paradox. Woman is not only a label, it is an expectation: to be amicable, self-contained, and most of all, happy. Betty Friedan’s magnum opus, The Feminine Mystique, catalyzed second-wave feminism and illuminated the social constraints put on women in the 1950s. For the most part, women were relegated to the domestic sphere as subservient housewives. Articles, advertisements, and media depicted the average housewife as eager and fulfilled, face frozen in a smile to welcome her working husband home with dinner ready. Beneath the picturesque images, Friedan realized that a majority of women were deeply dissatisfied but kept their frustration private. She called attention to “the problem that has no name,” the chronic unhappiness that women experienced due to the erosion of identity. Even in a modern context, to be a woman is not to be human; it is to be a manufactured product of social roles packaged neatly into a feminine box in order to preserve others’ joy. What happens if we kill that joy? 

To Kill Joy. 

Sara Ahmed, feminist writer and independent scholar, coined the term “Feminist Killjoy” in response to the growing backlash against feminism as a movement. In a conversation with the Dresher Center for Humanities, Ahmed points out that attributing happiness to social norms suggests that these norms possess an inherent goodness that causes happiness. The danger of attaching happiness to institutions (marriage, family, etc.) is that it can be weaponized against women. Institutions are built as promises of happiness; promises that hide injustices while suppressing all that does not meet the demands of a perfect utopia. This renders those who are not happy responsible for their own misfortune (as opposed to recognizing structures of power) and obscures ongoing relations of inequality and violence. 

Ahmed proposes that killing joy is a willingness to disturb artificial peace by pointing out apparent and systemic unhappiness. Annica Kronsell, Professor of Political Science at the University of Gothenburg, writes that a “silence on gender indicates a normality” in which “masculinity is not a gender; it is the norm.” For example, men can also suffer from expectations of “toxic masculinity” perpetuated by the patriarchy. Yet men’s issues are discussed in neutral, ungendered terms because they have become synonymous with global issues; they do not need a distinct label to affirm their presence. King’s College Professor of Global Development and Anthropology Andrea Cornwall notes a similar phenomenon in her chapter of Shifting Burdens, namely that “only women’s concerns are treated in terms of ‘gender.’” While it seems that women-centric terms bring about more attention to women’s issues, it also risks creating silence on women’s issues by ostracizing them as extraneous to global “masculine” policy. Breaking the silence for feminists is to ask questions and make visible the reality of gendered inequalities, while failing to do so indicates a justification of its existence. 

However, being a killjoy is not without its risks. A killjoy who exposes the reality of injustice is placed in a vulnerable position where she becomes the very violence that she criticizes. In society’s perspective, that she describes what was said by another as problematic means she has created a problem. She has become the problem she appears to have created. This is not because society is wholly ignorant of these injustices, it’s because they are aware but choose to remain comfortable in complacency. They’d prefer happy feminists with an optimistic demeanor and happy-go-lucky attitude. This is digestible; a killjoy is not. A killjoy also risks falling into a self-perpetuated anxious narrative of self-doubt and disappointment: “Why am I not made happy by this? What is wrong with me?” Marilyn Frye articulates that “it is often a requirement upon oppressed people that we smile and be cheerful. If we comply, we signify our docility and our acquiescence in our situation.” Anything but the sunniest countenance leads [women] to be perceived as mean, bitter, angry or dangerous. 

Though the public is eased by a façade of happiness, refusing to submit is both uncomfortable and necessary. In her book Living a Feminist Life, Ahmed elaborates on the paradox of a feminist killjoy. When you name something as problematic, the intention is to make that issue more tangible so it can be easily communicated. However, for those who do not have a sense of the issue you are talking about, to bring these issues up is to bring them into existence. The problem would simply go away if you would just stop talking about it. When the feminist killjoy talks about sexism and racism, she is labeled as sensationalist, the cause of tension, a container of discord. Feminism is reduced to a simple formula: Rolling eyes = feminist pedagogy. If she disagrees with something, it is because she is being disagreeable. The blame is placed on her, not the topic at hand. The feminist killjoy is frustrated at being heard as frustrated; she is angry that she is seen as angry and nothing else. It is a vicious cycle of constantly bringing up wrongdoings and being dismissed as emotional. But if sensation brings us to feminism, to become a feminist killjoy is to cause a sensation. 

Female Rage. 

A dilemma arises between the role of a killjoy in disrupting spaces and expectation for women to not take up space. The latter is requisite of the stifling conditions placed upon women to uphold an image of peace. Susi Kaplow, in her 1973 work “Getting Angry” in Feminist Reprise, notes that women have learned to hold back their anger: to be angry or crazy is unseemly, aesthetically displeasing, and against the sweet, pliant feminine image. As Ahmed writes, to speak is already a form of defiance if you are supposed to recede into the background. The troublemaker is the one who violates the fragile conditions of peace, so women who speak are troublemakers. Reasonable callouts and thoughtful criticisms of injustice are dismissed as outbursts of irrational anger or annoying complaints. Already we can witness the relationship between being conscious of injustice and being attributed as the cause of unhappiness. 

Instead of tainting emotionally charged oppositions with a negative connotation, we should lean into rage and grief to disrupt the complacent status quo and push for change. Anger at patriarchal norms and misogyny is an act of moral protest by making that which is invisible, visible. Anger is self-confident, willing to fight for itself in an assertive, risky way. The traditional woman is the opposite. She is a living, walking, apology for her own existence. Melissa Shew, in the Philosophy of Girls, writes that we should embrace the Medusa trope—depicting angry, blameworthy women as having no real reason to be angry—rather than attempt to escape it. By expressing one’s rage and refusing to give up one’s anger in order to appease misogynists or silence racists, we become a danger to oppression by refusing to give in to its demands and perceptions of women. Despite feminist figureheads being labeled as cautionary tales to other women and men, embracing rage allows women to assume control over their own narrative instead of allowing dominating systems to speak for them. 

Once a woman learns to harness her anger, it becomes her most valuable tool in directing progress. That’s because feminist anger fulfills the hope of liberation by killing patriarchal joy. But achieving liberation can be devastating once the full pictured is revealed. Eve Kofosky Sedgwick writes that “hope can be a fracturing, even a traumatic thing” to experience because it releases one from the shackles of oppression, but also delivers the corollary realization that “one needn’t have been shackled in the first place” (Wunker, Notes from a Feminist Killjoy). Anger is part of a reflective process that gives full weight to past injustices as opposed to forgiving and forgetting like women are taught to do. Being able to express frustration that has accumulated over a lifetime of being wronged is an emancipating experience, culminating in fury. Channeling this fury into a means of addressing grievances restores a woman’s autonomy because it takes her out of social roles and makes her a whole person. When the killjoy is angry, she is powerful. As English playwright William Congreve exclaimed, “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” 

Advocacy in Debate. 

The most active areas of discussions about feminist literature are often in Speech and Debate. However, misogyny is endemic to traditionally intellectual activities, and debate is no exception. Simply participating as a female debater can be an uphill battle. No matter how hard she works or how well she performs, a culture of masculinity erects a barrier between her and her teammates, casting a shadow of inferiority and doubt on her abilities. This often translates into self-consciousness about acting too feminine or the pernicious suspicion that she will never be equal to her male peers. She is criticized for the way she speaks (too brazenly, too meek), dresses (too conservative, too whorish), talks (too nasally, too high-pitched), acts (too pick-me, too cringe), and thinks (too simplistic, too contradictory). There is no way out. She is undermined or undersupported by her male teammates, leaving her to observe the masculine debate world from the outskirts. 

Across the nation, lack of female representation is apparent: a glass ceiling seemingly blocks female debaters from advancing to late elimination brackets. In order to establish oneself into this community, a girl cannot afford to be shy or passive for fear of fueling the idea that women are deferential; simultaneously, she cannot be overly assertive because of the higher expectations of grace and civility placed on female debaters. Professor Martha Chamallas of the Moritz College of Law discusses that if women fear that their remarks are likely to be ignored, they may decide not to speak at all to avoid a loss in prestige. Because women confront this double bind, silence becomes a habit. The conflicting expectations are a result of the respectability politics that women are forced to engage in to be taken seriously. Despite these restrictive and discouraging norms, there exists a unique privilege in debate as a platform to speak and be heard. The advocacy format of debate is ripe for debaters to point out injustices. 

Female debaters have taken to adopting Ahmed’s killjoy strategy in the form of arguments called Kritiks. These Kritiks—a philosophically-based argument that challenges basic assumptions made about society—intertwine debating strategies with advocacy. In doing so, they aim to reclaim a space for women in a male-dominated event and empower previously unheard voices. The Killjoy Kritik provides women a way to materially ground their resistance against patriarchal norms, where she refuses to participate in a topical debate and substitutes topical arguments with feminist literature and anecdotal experiences with misogyny. Sexism cannot be measured. It comprises individual experiences that cannot be quantified. It is an all-encompassing phenomenon where one must overcome the constant exhaustion of defending their existence. By grounding their approach in a phenomenological context of misogyny, Kritik debaters allow for women’s subjective perceptions, judgements, and emotions to be evaluated as valid criticisms of a flawed system. Thus the Killjoy Kritik challenges traditional concepts of “objectivity” by incorporating the personal. 

Calling out the rampant sexism and masculine norms in debate kills the joy of white male debaters, who participate in the activity from a place of privilege and whom the activity is catered to. It punctures the picture of debate as a liberal and inclusive space with the reality that women face. By doing so, we can reject the external demand to be happy in a space that oppresses us and resolve the psychological dissonance from this paradox. The Killjoy Kritik refuses to participate in debate to protest the patriarchal structures that have made participation in debate impossible for women. The killjoy trades surface-level peace and contentment in exchange for a deeper (albeit uncomfortable) political consciousness. The objective extends beyond obtaining a ballot win—advocates aim to alter real norms in debate. 

Reactions to the Killjoy Kritik have ranged from disbelief to complaints about breaking NSDA (National Speech and Debate Association) rules to sardonic and misogynistic hostility. A female debater may be labeled as “abusive” in her Kritikal strategy, and punished (unknowingly forfeiting the round in the eyes of the judge) for calling out white male privilege, making it her responsibility to be more respectful to her male opponents. To discourage the argument from being read, women have been ridiculed, threatened, harassed, suspected of exploiting their identities for a strategy, and belittled for resorting to non-topical arguments to win. On the other hand, Kritiks can be read in bad faith. I remember approaching a particularly stubborn male debater who used the shock value of domestic violence for a strategic advantage in his Kritikal argument. When I asked him to re-evaluate his intentions and avoid commodifying the experiences of survivors, he accused me of being sexist and claimed that I was excluding his voice. What I initially intended to be a productive conversation became a circular argument where neither side benefited. These disingenuous efforts strip Kritiks of their intellectually stimulating and progressive nature. Ultimately though, Kritiks can be a powerful and effective mechanism to push for positive change when handled correctly. 

Just Joking. 

Perhaps the most subtle and damaging justification of injustice is in the form of jokes. Though humor can be a coping mechanism for marginalized individuals to make light of and process their situation, it is important to recognize the sociopolitical context of jokes. Only appearing harmless and humorous, jokes that prey on the subjugation of a specific group contribute to injustices not being taken seriously. Jokes can very easily be weaponized to erase the severity and progress of important movements by minimizing the seriousness of the issue and trivializing concerns. Bystanders, in an unconscious effort to be included, laugh along with the joke. But the killjoy who refuses to laugh at a sexist or racist joke strips the comforting blanket of humor away to reveal an awkward, naked truth: the denial of inequality under the assumption of equality reinforces power dynamics. But when the killjoy refuses to laugh at a violent joke, she reveals herself as the object of violence. Because she does not buy into the complacency, because she is not humored at an offensive joke, she becomes vulnerable as the target of misguided hatred. 

In her Killjoy Manifesto, Ahmed proclaims that a killjoy is assumed to be inventive, to bring about what she claims exists. Instead of breaking down the walls of injustice, she is the wallmaker. There is a blameful fantasy of the humorless feminist who is deprived of joy and seeks to deprave others of their joy as well. She is bitter and relentless and her life’s purpose is to impose her anger and weakness on others. To be offended is to be too easily offended, to be weak, soft, impressionable. What others do not recognize is that humor is a crucial, powerful technique for reproducing inequality and injustice. Humor creates an appearance of distance from real issues through ironic or satirical attitudes. Though killing joy is a painful and uncomfortable disturbance for those who live peacefully within these privileged walls, it is necessary to break them down to reveal the undiluted state of injustice. When it is no laughing matter, laughter matters. 

Criticism. 

Feminism is not without faults. First and second-wave feminist movements gained traction for many women to speak out, but a vast majority of those 20th century feminists were exclusively white women. Even modern day feminism struggles to account for the intersectionality between race and gender, discounting the unique struggles that women of color face in comparison to their white peers. In an interview with Guernica, Ahmed states how feminism has often been narrated as an imperial project that assumes the liberal gift of feminism as the savior of non-western women. Anti-racism can become a discourse of white feminist pride because it kills the joy of white feminists who receive the greatest attention of the feminist movement. Ahmed specifies that “Muslim women are seen as passive, oppressed, and in need of being saved by feminists who seem curiously more concerned with other women’s liberation than their own.” Lifting helpless women of color from oppression becomes the white feminist’s agenda, where she asserts her superior agency over other women. As such, the liberated white feminist becomes the new image of happiness that conceals the violent institution of racism. Women’s agency is determined by their proximity to whiteness. This happiness, functioning as proof of improved gender relations, tends to serve as a distraction and encourages women of color to find peace within broken systems rather than tearing them down. Criticizing liberal feminism is interpreted as internalized misogyny, not an attempt to make movements more inclusive. But the killjoy does not intend to infinitesimally alienate herself; her real aim is to widen the scope of discussion by revealing unjust obstacles that prevent marginalized communities from participating in these important discussions. A better approach is transnational feminism that accounts for varying cultural contexts and invites women of all backgrounds to participate in feminist struggles and movements. 

Critics also point out what seems to be a structural flaw in the logic of feminism that prevents productivity in the movement. Political Science Professor Jodi Dean, in her article “Against Gyno-pessimism,” argues that feminism’s analysis of the hatred of women as the root of social problems doesn’t explain anything. The outrage at this hatred can produce a momentary sense of unity because outrage circulates more easily than critical analysis. But what are women supposed to do? The misogyny diagnosis avoids the dilemma of how to wage a struggle by side-stepping politics altogether. It almost seems that the point is that there is nothing that can be done; anger appears to be the final destination, not the mechanism of change. Harriet Samuels continues the sentiment in her doctoral thesis, “Feminist Engagement with Law in the New Millennium,” that critique of law alone is insufficient. Pointing out flaws is only the first step. The true challenge is finding ways to improve society from those flaws. Feminists have a responsibility to engage with law to expose its gendered character and find new approaches to direct progress and reform. Being outside the system as a form of resistance is a strategy of no resistance because there is an indirect concession that the system cannot be changed. In contrast to traditional feminist academia, killjoy isn’t an abstract theory, but a movement of resistance that can be applied in everyday life, down to the most minute interactions. A killjoy fully engages in flawed systems by making the little things matter. Only by pointing out these instances do we build a world that can no longer ignore injustices. 

A critique of the killjoy movement in particular is the privilege inherent to the position. This relates to the unanswered question of feminists: How do we build a feminist world when the world we oppose is the world we still inhabit? Feminists want to actively push for gender equality, but they are unwilling or unable to quit their jobs in a blaze of glory to kill the joy of their superiors. Some women are unable to stand up to a problematic statement in the face of family for the very real fear of being ostracized, cut-off financially, outed, or more. But Ahmed disagrees in an interview with Lux, stating that the “people who are least likely to kill joy are people who are the most privileged because they have a lot of investment in the institution as it is and they benefit from that.” A true killjoy continues her path especially if she has something to lose, whether social status or professional development. On the whole, people kill joy to survive—even their own joy. 

Conclusion. 

The Feminist killjoy has often been mistaken for a pessimist. But there is a crucial distinction: while the goal of a killjoy is not unhappiness, she is also not apologetic for making others unhappy in the process. She promotes a method of gendered resistance that provides a strategy to fight oppression, rather than just acknowledge that it exists. This mode of confronting everyday gendered violence is a form that we can replicate to change the systems that allow this oppression to exist in the first place.