Pursuing the Bandita | CU Experts

Overview

Abstract; This chapter develops the figure of the “bandita” as a metaphor for understanding the structural position of feminist political theorists. Borrowing from Linda Singer, Iris Marion Young once described herself as a “Bandita”—a feminist outlaw who steals ideas from male philosophers while leaving behind whatever in their work is sexist or unhelpful. Through close readings of Singer, Young, and Chris Kraus’s I Love Dick, the chapter argues that feminist political theorists (i.e., banditas) inhabit a position of “internal exclusion”: formally included in academia, yet persistently misread, ignored, or dismissed by nonfeminist colleagues. Young thus functions throughout the book as a Case Study of the bandita, enabling a critical diagnosis of the structural dynamics that produce and sustain this condition and illuminating possibilities for its transformation.