Toxic White Feminism | Outlawed by Anna North

For a book that markets itself as a subversive alt-history tale, Outlawed is screamingly reductive, gender essentialist, and trans exclusionary. This book is the very definition of White Feminism, and it uses Black and queer women as set dressing and props for the cishet white protagonist’s own journey. In 2021, one would hope that a book whose stated purpose is to provide feminist social commentary would be able to offer a sensitive, intersectional view of its proposed topics. I’m willing to give Anna North the benefit of the doubt as to her intentions, but this ain’t it.

Outlawed is the story of Ada, a young white woman living somewhere in an alternative version of the American West. In the mid-19th century, a mysterious Flu swept the United States of America and decimated the population. Now, individual towns exist as self-governed sovereignties, and an only-slightly distorted fundamentalist Christianity reigns supreme. In this dystopian setting, women serve only one purpose: to bear children. If a woman cannot get pregnant within a “reasonable” time after marriage, she is deemed barren and, often, is hanged as a witch. This is the fate that Ada walks into, when she fails to conceive within one year of her wedding. She is exiled from her town and permitted to live in a local convent, but eventually she grows dissatisfied with that life and leaves to join the notorious Hole in the Wall Gang, headed by a vaguely creepy cult-leader-like figure known only as The Kid.

To begin with, Outlawed is incredibly heavy-handed in its agenda: in a society where child-bearing is of paramount importance, women are unfairly blamed for all fertility issues. Ada’s “goal” is to discover the cause of infertility, which she is sure cannot be blamed on either witchcraft or a curse from god. Beyond this simple mission, there’s not much to Ada’s character, and North certainly isn’t interested in developing either a well-rounded narrator or a complicated plot.

I suppose that I could have gotten behind this narrative, but the problem is that North, like many white feminists, grows myopically attached to the single issue that confronts her cishet main character, and fails to place it in the wider context of an oppressive colonialist patriarchy. For instance, Ada wants to discover the cause(s) of infertility because she thinks that this knowledge might bring relief to women who are unfairly accused and mistreated. However, Ada is not interested in interrogating or dismantling the structural oppression that has reduced women in her society to glorified breeding machines. She does not ever seek to question a definition of “womanhood” that is dependent upon a person’s ability to give birth. Indeed: Ada’s thoughts and actions throughout Outlawed reinforce the gender essentialist viewpoint that the only “real women” are those who can have biological children. Because of Ada’s own presumed infertility, she doesn’t consider herself to be a woman—at one point, she comments that a milk cow is “more woman than I would ever be.” At no point does Ada rethink this position, nor do any characters explicitly or implicitly challenge her mentality.

Outlawed accepts that to be a woman, you must be capable of successful gestation; any “subversion” that occurs is only within this larger framework. I think that we can all agree that feminism seeks to completely dismantle patriarchal structures, not make life “just a little easier” for those who are oppressed. The so-called “subversive” element of this novel is weaker than skim milk.

I’ve also seen excitement regarding the inclusion of queer characters in the book. But let me be clear: there are some characters in Outlawed that are coded as queer, but this is not a story about queer people. This is Ada’s story, and North is only interested in queerness (and Blackness) as it relates to and furthers that character’s progression. Cishet white women are the intended audience, and their sensibilities are catered to and coddled at all costs. In fact, I would argue that the “queer utopia” that’s meant to be exhibited by the Hole in the Wall Gang is no more than a group of trans exclusionary radical feminists—hardly the stuff of dreams. Each member of the gang, including The Kid, was assigned female at birth, although some appear to be genderqueer and/or trans. When a queer cis male character is brought to the camp, it’s made very clear who is and is not allowed to join the gang:

“Doing a job with him is one thing,” Cassie said, “but bringing him here? News, we’ve never had a man here before.”
“What does that matter?” News asked. “Out in the world, I’m as much a man as he is. I don’t see you kicking me out.”
“News, you know what I mean,” Cassie said.

So, the message? The Hole in the Wall Gang is a safe-haven for AFAB characters who are oppressed by the patriarchy, but queer AMAB characters who are treated even worse just have to fend for themselves. Because, apparently, being born with a penis means you’re not permitted to be part of this so-called accepting and open group.

Even worse! The male character in question (who is apparently bi/pan) was literally castrated for his sexuality. Castrated. Ada finds this out, and the very first thing she thinks about are extremely invasive questions about the appearance of his genitalia, his sexual function, etc.:

I wanted to know exactly what they’d taken, and what was left; if he could still feel pleasure when he went to bed with someone; and what if felt like, to go through the world with such a wound.

This voyeuristic use of a queer character’s actual torture as a method of piquing the cishet protagonist’s inappropriate curiosity was beyond out of line. And of course, North completely indulges Ada’s line of thinking by having the character get naked, and she then proceeds to describe the situation “down there” in gory detail, on two separate occasions. Have we not been listening to trans people at all for the past several decades? What’s going on inside other people’s pants is not our business! Especially, you don’t get to use other people’s trauma as a “teachable moment” for your straight white narrator!

I should add that the ultimate fate for this cis male character is…tragic death. After giving Ada her first sexual experience that isn’t solely about reproduction, he dies. Tragically. Ada then takes her newfound sexuality and sad feelings about his death and “grows” from them. At no point are the trauma or emotions of this queer man seen on their own terms; only through the lens of “what is meaningful to Ada” do we experience this man’s life.

It’s also worth noting that the members of the gang advocate for dressing up in men’s clothing in order to trick gay men into having sex with them, which…again. Who cares if queer men are hurt so long as the Special Feminist Outlaws get their rocks off! I guess…?

My favorite bit of the plot (she says sarcastically) was when Ada’s whiteness truly reached its zenith. Apparently, a popular theory behind the cause of barrenness/birth defects in this dystopia is miscegenation. (North, I think, has bitten off waaay more than she could chew here.) Ada, of course, knows this to be false—interracial marriages are no more likely to be infertile than others. On one occasion, she and a fellow gang member are in the crowd while a traveling preacher spouts his racist pro-eugenics rhetoric; Ada decides to get into a vocal altercation with the man, which clearly puts both her and particularly her companion in danger. Later on, Ada’s friend, who is Black, tells her that she should have kept her mouth shut and not drawn attention to them. This is reasonable: why poke a hornet’s nest of racists when you have a Black friend standing next to you? Ada, being a crappy white “ally,” insists that she was “just trying to help” and then remarks:

“I’m sorry for trying to stand up for you,” I said, angry now. “I won’t make that mistake again.”
“I don’t need anyone to stand up for me, Doctor. Certainly not you.”

Ah yes, classic white savior behavior here. Rather than listening to marginalized people about what would best help them deal with their oppression, in comes Ada who clearly knows best. And then she gets angry when her clumsy (and damaging) attempts at allyship aren’t met with gratitude.

Fuck you, Ada.

At the end of Outlawed, Ada leaves the Hole in the Wall Gang. Just goes on her merry way to live the rest of her life. She literally endangers the lives of everyone in the gang, leeches their scant resources from them, and learns all of their acquired knowledge about horses, weapons, wilderness survival, etc.…then nopes out to continue her quest to find the cause of infertility. To reiterate: this book is about a white woman who uses Black and queer women to further her end goals and then leaves them high and dry—this is, in and of itself, an act of hostile colonialism. Do we ever see Ada reflect upon her actions? Do we see her readjust her concept of womanhood? Does she ever apologize for being a white savior who asks creepily intrusive questions about other people’s genitals and sex lives? Nope!

But don’t worry, the narrative assures us that Ada goes on to have a successful career as a midwife/doctor in spite of the regressive cultural situation. A single hyper-privileged straight white woman thwarts the patriarchy, so feminism has been accomplished! Hooray!

Right?

In my opinion, Outlawed can take its exploitative white feminism and choke on its own bullshit. Fuck this book.