Sara Ahmed and the Joys of Killjoy Feminism

Reading Sara Ahmed’s The Feminist Killjoy Handbook comes as a great relief—and not just to me: Upon reading it, my friends report laughing or crying with recognition and gratitude. For too many who are living in subjugated conditions, isolation and self-doubt can become corrosive. Reading Ahmed, one feels relief from living alone with the feeling that when one spoke up, one was too much, too direct, repeated the same thing too often, interrupted someone else’s offensive speech too many times, spoke when one knew the audience was either not listening or, worse, offering an occasional nod as an empty and pacifying gesture.