Welcome back to The Academic Feminist, a series that aims to bridge the blogging/academic divide by linking discussions in feminist academia to those taking place online. Today’s interviewee is Imani Perry, Professor at the Center for African American Studies at Princeton. You can learn more about Perry’s work on her website . All comments on the series and suggestions for future interviewees can be sent here. And thank you to all the Feministing readers who have offered suggestions and positive feedback on the series so far!
*Editor’s note: Due to concerns raised that there might be confusion with Barnard Center for Research on Women’s awesome The Scholar and Feminist Conference and S&F Journal, we have renamed The Scholarly Feminist to The Academic Feminist.
1) Your work lies at the intersection of law, history, culture, and literature. You wrote a 2007 law journal article that combines these elements to argue that third wave feminists understand sexual harassment in different ways than their predecessors. Can you describe the main points of this article and how your views may have shifted (or not)?
In that piece I wanted to consider how the concept of sexual harassment can at times work to punish rituals of courting, and not simply harassment. I wanted to fine tune an understanding of what harassment is, because we sometimes talk about it in ways that cast the net too wide. So I tried to develop a basis for distinguishing between harassment and an acceptable expression of romantic interest. Then I tried to offer an way of thinking about how people ought to respond to indicate they aren’t interested, at which point we need to see how interested party replies to the rejection: do they persist, or do they accept that response and move on? I think this is important to consider in what we deem harassment. In particular, I was thinking about the way that “hollering” commonplace African American practices of approach in public spaces, is frequently universally called “harassment” when there are significant variations in how it is performed.
Additionally, part of what I wanted to do with that piece was to revive the second wave feminist language of “talking back” or “taking back the night” or “speaking out” in ways that are useful for today. Unfortunately, in legal terms, the way feminist causes are sometimes recognized depends upon an idea of victimization that can discourage or implicitly punish assertiveness.
This is related to my interest in the gender dynamics that don’t fit into clear legal categories. For example, I think there is an under-discussed area of sexual trauma and woundedness that comes from women “going along” with sexual encounters. This is significantly different from rape and sexual assault, but still necessary to address. I’m thinking of instances in which they haven’t said no, and may have even explicitly said yes, but really don’t want to. I recall a conversation with two friends, many years ago, explaining how they’d both said yes a number of times because they were afraid that if they didn’t that they might be raped. That is technically consensual, but emotionally tragic. I find this heartbreaking, and the fact that we have a culture that socializes women into this kind of acceptance, infuriating. So I believe that it is good idea to encourage young women and men to feel empowered to say, “No, I’m not interested in you.” Or “No I don’t want this.” We want to create a feminist culture in which speaking out and claiming power is valued, and a society in which talking back and being assertive is safe.
A point also about my thoughts about the “waves” of feminism: I came of age during the third wave of feminism, and I think there were some important interventions: we were talking about feminisms in plural, about multiple women’s experiences, about how gender coexisted with race and class and sexuality, identities and experiences. However, somewhere along the way, certain branches of third (and fourth) wave feminism got caught up in the neoliberal fixation on personal choice and the individual experience, embracing sexiness without challenging the larger power relations that socialize the very ideas about what sexy is. We need to keep what is good about third and fourth wave interventions, but also keep alive the second wave focus on broader liberation and justice, alongside the truths from non-mainstream feminist and queer thought and activism.
The Academic Feminist: Transforming Sex Education with Mimi Arbeit
Can you talk a little about your main research interests, and what led you to choose this area?
I study adolescent sexuality using a positive approach, which means I believe sex and sexuality are important, meaningful, and potentially positive elements of adolescent development. I’m interested in how school-based and out-of-school-time programs can help adolescents develop a sense of embodiment and sexual agency, and cultivate the social, emotional, and cognitive skills they need to make healthy decisions and engage in fulfilling relationships.
My whole life has led me to choose this area of research! In high school, I taught workshops to eighth grade students about gender stereotypes, sexual harassment, and gender violence. My classroom experience helped me frame my analysis of my own problems, and the problems I saw in the world, through a lens of gender. In college, I provided education and counseling to students seeking HIV tests. I’ll never forget when they told us at our training, “We are pro-sex and pro-gay.” The idea was that it’s good for people to have sex, and it’s good for them to choose with whom to do so. It seems obvious, right? But at the time, I was just starting to learn the meaning of sex positivity. Then, as a counselor, I heard people’s stories. I am so grateful to all of them for showing me that window into their lived experiences. What I heard from them solidified my desire to do prevention work, to focus on education, and to get it started at as early an age as possible.
These experiences shaped my current work, which is about promoting positive possibilities for adolescent sexuality development. I’m thinking about what positive sexuality development in adolescence could look like—what are the key elements? What people, institutions, and experiences could or should be involved? How can we, as a society, prioritize healthy sexuality, and what steps can we take to make positive change?
You are now working towards a degree in Applied Child Development. What was behind your decision to work on sex education from that perspective?
I didn’t always expect to go the academic route. After college, all I wanted to do was teach. I taught health and sexuality education at a middle school in a city near Boston. I loved lesson planning, and I adored my students. I wanted more time to hone my sex ed lessons and weave them into a great curriculum. But the debate around abstinence-only versus comprehensive sex education has all but stifled more nuanced conversation about differing visions for “comprehensive” sex ed. I want to do cutting-edge work, and I felt the need to spend time developing my own knowledge and skills about adolescent development and adolescents’ lives in all their wondrous complexity.
Studying in an applied department was really important to me. To me, sex and sexuality are lusciously personal aspects of our lives that reveal how utterly politicized our world is. Human sexuality is strongly shaped by socialization, prescribed by patriarchy and fought for through generations of resistance. History matters. Politics matter. How we treat youth matters. Applied Child Development takes all of that into account.
I think that sexuality education and youth development can do a lot for each other. Youth development is about nourishing the strengths of diverse youth, connecting youth and adults, building life skills, and providing opportunities for leadership and civic engagement. Sex ed should be all of those things, too. I would love to see more sex ed programs built through a youth development approach. Furthermore, I think the youth development approach can be invigorated by an infusion of feminist and sex-positive values. Some of that is happening already, some of that is on its way, and some of that we need to be working on for a long time coming. I named my blog “Sex Ed Transforms” in order to play on that duality. I write about how we can transform sex ed; I also write about how sex ed can transform how we live our lives and how we run the world.
As you know, Jessica Valenti recently published The Purity Myth, a book which exposed some pretty disturbing trends in sex education (or lack thereof!) nationwide. She also talks about the lack of a comprehensive sex education standard, something that I know that you’re working on. Can you describe your vision for such a program?
The way I think about it now, I see three essential elements to a comprehensive, medically-accurate, age-appropriate sex education program: safe space, critical analysis, and positive possibilities.
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