Dissociative Feminism

Or, my excuse to talk about Fleabag and Marx

The portrayal of women in media has evolved over the decades. Though, evolved is an odd choice of word due to its positive connotations, whether the portrayal of women in mainstream media has gotten better or worse is subjective and varying. One thing I can say for certain, however, is that it has changed. I won’t be so naive as to claim that there has been a rise in complex-female-characters in the mainstream, but there have been a select few personas that do women around the world a great service by showcasing just how nuanced, loathsome but also relatable women can be. They represent a departure from the Madonna-whore complex female characters are often confined to. 

Marianne Sheridan from Normal People, Frances Flynn from Conversations with Friends, and Fleabag from Fleabag are examples of this trope. Other than the fact that they are fairly well-off, WASP women, they share the trait of being a feminist in a loose, blasé manner – of being dissociative feminists. In an article entitled “The Smartest Women I know Are All Dissociating”, Emmeline Clein states that she has, “noticed a lot of brilliant women giving up on shouting and complaining, and instead taking on a darkly comic, deadpan tone when writing about their feminism.” And this is a phenomenon which, alongside its implications about cultural consciousness and feminism in our age, is well worth exploring. 

These characters break the mold of what a woman is capable of being. And not in some stereotypically gallant way, but in a way that is antithetical to the ‘girl-boss’, ‘break-the-glass-ceiling’ narrative that dominated fourth-wave feminism. Moreover, they represent women who are simply exhausted. Exhausted by the mundaneness of life. From how unchangeable everything seems. From how they know that for one reason or the other they are rather difficult people to be around. A cathartic sigh for women similarly disappointed and dissociated. They are Amy Dunne’s (Gone Girl) with added layers, or perhaps they could be better described as the post-gone-girl: women who have -either knowingly or unknowingly- estranged themselves from the sanguine pursuit of a better world, and turned to an extreme, quotidian centering of the self.  

In Charles Taylor’s The Malaise of Modernity, he explains that a centering of the self is one of the perils of an individualistic culture, that it “both flattens and narrows our lives, makes them poorer in meaning, and less concerned with others or society.” In my interpretation, dissociative feminism has its roots in Marx’s theory of alienation which (broadly speaking) argues workers are becoming increasingly detached from the product of their labour. What happens with the product workers create is increasingly less and less within their control, thus alienating them from the products of their labour. This alienation seeps into all aspects of society, especially a society in which nearly everything is commodified. Marx argued that in this process one also becomes alienated from the human essence, one which he describes as inherently creative. A natural consequence of the hyper-individualistic nature of late-stage capitalism. In other words, alienation under capitalism extends to the alienation of individuals from their true human essence and creativity.  

In the context of dissociative feminism, we women may experience estrangement from feminist activism in a world that has successfully commodified feminism (big shoutout to 2010’s girl-boss feminism and Barbie (2023)!). In doing so, it has stripped mainstream feminism of its goal of truly liberating women, and instead strives to integrate women into the society we wished to escape. In turn this makes some of us feel like our feminism is apocryphal, our efforts futile as they will only be chewed up by some corporation and spat out as a more palatable (and probably pink) product. Dissociative feminists are those who feel alienated from the dominant strand of feminism (girl-boss feminism) which almost necessitates a high-functioning, high-energy approach to activism.

Photo Credits: Amazon

 Clein writes, “I’ve noticed a lot of brilliant women giving up on shouting and complaining, and instead taking on a darkly comic, deadpan tone when writing about their feminism.” Fleabag does this beautifully. An anti-heroine who seems to only define herself as a feminist because she is so utterly abhorred by her circumstances and decisions (illustrated most plainly when she says, “I think I wouldn’t be a feminist if I had larger tits.”) 

While these characters are fascinating, it is only because they are privileged that these characters can dissociate in such a manner. As mentioned earlier, these characters are white, middle-upper class women. Many less-privileged women, such as women of colour, trans-women, and poor women, are often forced to reckon with problems that are more institutional and unavoidable. Thus, rendering that type of dissociation out of the question. Abigail Hennessey’s Cool Girl Crisis: Why Dissociative Feminism May Actually Be Anti-Feminist, offers a similar critique to “dissociative feminism” and the characters who espouse it. Hennessey criticises how when female character of colour, for example, is to exhibit the same messy, self-loathing, and "meant-to-be-relatable" qualities they are not offered the same sympathies and admirations. She cites Devi from Never Have I Ever as an example of this phenomenon. But the feeling of alienation tends to impact the less privileged more so than anybody else, and this is much harder to romanticise.  

Dissociative feminism is reactionary and fundamentally against change. Women who do not have the cushion of a two-story house and stable income to fall onto when times get tough are barred from romantic dissociation. Dissociative feminism mystifies the world around you, separates you from it – a natural counterpart to the centering of the self – alleviating you from the problems around you even if only superficially. It represents the dulling of your senses and dissent, and the replacement of them with a dethatched nihilism. For this reason, as relatable, tempting, and narcotic it may be, dissociative feminism is antithetical to the liberation of women.