This episode of The Dig is brought to you by our supporters at patreon.com and by Nplus1 magazine,

which features some of the most urgent and exciting political writing, essays, fiction, and cultural

criticism on the left today. Nplus one's new issue, Headcase, is available in print and online and is full of

great pieces that are perfect for dig listeners like you. One that you might like is Andrea Long

Chew's essay, The Pink, on bottom surgery and the puzzles of feminist coalition building.

When she appeared here on The Dig this past winter,

Chu and fellow N-plus-1 writer Marissa Brostov discussed sex in the city and the X-Files,

unraveling the tangled history of Marxism and queer theory.

In her new essay, Chew takes up the phenomenon of the pussy hat as an occasion to consider

political symbolism, universality, and the problem of constructing women as a coherent political

subject.

Chew writes, quote, feminism never succeeded in securing women as a collective subject of history,

as the Marxist intellectual tradition once hoped to do with the working class.

Instead, she argues, contemporary feminism, quote,

has become the go-to signifier for what the legal scholar Janet Haley calls

convergentism. Feminism has resigned itself to the modest virtues of playing hostess for other,

frankly, more persuasive political discourses. Most of whose constituencies are composed of women, of course, but never simply as women.

This month, dig listeners can take 25% off a year subscription to Nplus1. Go to Nplus1mag.com

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Welcome to The Dig, A podcast from Jacobin Magazine.

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