Sweaty Feminism

Personal reflections on sweaty concepts, gender, and discomfort

I am a sweaty person. Sometimes by choice, and sometimes not. Sometimes being sweaty is necessary. Sweat cools my body when I push myself to run faster, harder, further. In these instances, I welcome and cherish it as a temporary experience. I become awake, self-aware. I'm meant to be here, where the sun shines overhead and where my effort is natural.

Other times, being sweaty is a consequence of anxiety, stress, embarrassment, fear, shame, or any other variations on that theme. Sometimes, internal emotional turmoil and discomfort manifests into a bead of sweat that slips down my back and down my leg, activating the worst kind of self-awareness. Sometimes the sensation of sweat is so unwelcome and so unpleasant that it makes me wish that I could just yeet myself into deep space and float away from Earth as a frozen, lonely, fleshy asteroid. Being sweaty in this body also feels shameful in a way that is particularly gendered. Being sweaty, in my case, isn't very ladylike. It's not acceptable for me to walk into the office with enormous pit stains. My sweatiness also can be uncomfortably attention-grabbing. That unmistakeable feeling of the male gaze on my sweaty skin can make me not only want to cannon myself into deep space, but also makes me want to launch the offender directly into the sun.

Most of the time, my body is just sweaty-neutral. After a longer-than-normal walk to the train, too many layers of winter clothes before leaving the house, or falling asleep under too many blankets- I accept my situation without much thought.

Being sweaty is a nuanced state of discomfort- sometimes pleasurable, at times intentional, often necessary, usually annoying and occasionally loathsome. This is also what it feels like to exist in my body and navigate the mild discomfort of gendered interactions, the loathsome discomfort of misogyny, and the gratifying discomfort of feminist efforts.

When I first encountered the term "sweaty concept", I immediately felt a deep resonance. Here was an idea that respected both intellectual intention (concept) as well as real-world presence and *effort* (sweaty). I've always thought of myself as an "effort-ful", rather than "effortless" person. Intellectual work, without physical presence, without acknowledgement of and participation in the labor that sustains life- feels indulgent and silly. What's more- the sweaty concept placed emphasis on gendered experiences in a way that didn't feel overly positivist - or pessimist. I could bear the uncomfortable awareness of gendered discomfort, knowing that the sensation would always leave and come back.

This "sweaty concept" comes from scholar Sara Ahmed. She notes that the idea is grounded in a specific awareness of positionality, that "a 'sweaty concept' is one that comes out of a description of a body that is not at home in the world. "She also describes how sweaty concepts might originate, stating that, "sweat is bodily; we might sweat more during more strenuous activity. A 'sweaty concept' might be one that comes out of a bodily experience that is difficult, one that is 'trying,' and where the aim is to keep exploring and exposing this difficulty." For me, I understand this to mean that "good" intellectual work can be produced through embodied, personal experience, and that experience, though uncomfortable, isn't unbearable. We can't avoid the discomfort of effort or the discomfort of injustice- nor should we.

As Ahmed explains, words are also sweaty concepts- yet academics try to eliminate the sweat-stains from their works, and appear as fresh, crisp words on a white page. Cool, indifferent, and 100% correct. As a sweaty feminist, I know that my writing isn't like that. Actually, I want to engage through impassioned personal experience, enter discussions honestly and intentionally, with painful self-awareness and vulnerability, and then go home and take a cold shower.