Bartky: On Feminist Consciousness

"To be a feminist, one has first to become one." Bartky contends that one cannot become a feminist simply by claiming they are a feminist or supporting a feminist movement, they must experience a profound personal transformation. This transformation is determined by change of behavior, making new friends, responding to events and people differently, changes in habits of consumption, altered living arrangements, or completely reformed style of life. She emphasizes the importance of feminist consciousness and the steps taken to get there. Similar to Marx, Foucault, and Fanon, in regards to freeing from oppression; Bartkey says its the recognition of oppression, awareness of contradictions in social reality and victimization of women that will bring about the onset feminist consciousness. However, mere apprehension of contradictions and other social injustices towards women does not transform into feminist consciousness. She says the consciousness of victimization is "revelatory and immediate"; however, one must understand that there is a division within that consciousness; "I have already sustained an injury... yet, feminist consciousness is a joyous consciousness of one's own power." With the comprehension of the injuries sustained and the gaining of new found power and personal growth, the feminist consciousness can grow.

Bartky's emphasis on apprehension of contradictions and realization of victimization is the key that unlocks the oppressed female cage. Bartky insinuates that one must not look outside to find truths, but look inside first to understand how and to what extent one has been victimized and oppressed. Though the injustice derives from external social reality, Bartky expresses, that women who refuse to acknowledge it, in turn, also create injustice. Therefore, in order to combat the external victimization, one must combat the internal victimization first. This is what, I believe, Bartkey refers to as the "consciousness of strength" and the "consciousness of weakness". It seems as though, as alluded to earlier, Bartkey is expressing the same importance of awareness, recognition, or consciousness that Marx, Foucault, and Fanon emphasized.