The Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Social Justice Noted Scholars Series (the event is supported by the Canada Research Chairs Program) presents:
“What Does Feminist Solidarity Look Like In A Time of Genocide Against Palestinians”
Dr. Sherene Razack
WHEN & WHERE
Wednesday October 15th,
12-1pm
Buchanan Tower, Room 323
Please RSVP below in advance
A light lunch will be served at 1:00pm
ABOUT Dr. Sherene H. Razack
Dr. Sherene H. Razack
Sherene H. Razack is a Distinguished Professor and the Penny Kanner Endowed Chair in Gender Studies. She is an interdisciplinary critical race and feminist scholar whose work engages several fields including Sociology, Legal Studies, Gender Studies, Ethnic Studies, American Studies and Political Science. With a central focus on racial violence, she explores how imperialism, colonialism, capitalism and patriarchy interlock to produce and sustain a racially structured world where racialized populations are marked as disposable and subjected to an unrelenting violence. Her books and publications examine settler colonialism, colonialism, neo-colonialism and global white supremacy with a particular focus on the gendered effects of anti-Indigenous, anti-Black, anti-Asian and anti-Muslim racism as they operate in law. Her most recent books are: Nothing Has to Make Sense: Upholding White Supremacy Through Anti-Muslim Racism (2022) and Dying from Improvement: Inquests and Inquiries into Indigenous Deaths in Custody (2015).
ABSTRACT
Does your feminism include Israel? In the ongoing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, this is the question that feminists in the West who express solidarity with Palestinians have been asked, and explicitly singled out for censure by states, universities and media for our condemnation of the genocide that is ongoing in Gaza. The targeting of feminist groups for censure and specifically for an alleged failure to care about Israeli women who may have been sexually violated on October 7, 2024, rests on several assumptions, chief among them the proposition that the sexual violation of Israeli women counts more than any violence done to Palestinians. More concerning, the assumption that Hamas committed mass rapes on October 7, a situation about which it is impossible to even ask questions without incurring censure, is meant to render the genocidal violence in Gaza legitimate and acceptable. In stark contrast the targeted killing of women and children in Gaza and the rape and torture of Palestinian prisoners, have not been framed as a feminist issue in the West and the counter question ‘does your feminism include Palestine?’ is seldom posed except by those who condemn the genocide and express solidarity with Palestinians. How might we understand what feminist solidarity looks like in this time of genocide?
