Episode 217 · 2023-10-23 · 48:15 · Original in Finnish
A critique of intersectional feminism | Binga Tupamäki | Negotiator 217
Originally published as “Intersektionaalinen feminismi | Binga Tupamäki | Neuvottelija 217”
Lawyer Binga Tupamäki joins Sami Miettinen during the leadership contest of the National Coalition Youth. The episode is strongly opinionated and marked as such. Its most durable part is the critique of identity classification, which grows out of the guest's own position as an international adoptee: the categories break down at the edges, and the people at those edges are the ones who have to explain themselves. The other half is the claim that intersectionality descends from Marxism and that critical theory abandons objectivity — a genuine but contested argument, presented here as one.
Core theses
- Identity categories break down at their edges, and the people at those edges carry the burden of explaining themselves — an argument made from the guest's own position rather than in the abstract.
- An adoptee's experience is not an immigrant's experience, which is the concrete case the classification argument rests on.
- The claim that intersectionality descends from Marxism is a contested reading of intellectual history, not a settled one.
- The episode is one candidate's case during a leadership contest, with nobody putting the opposing view.
Watch and listen
Key moments
- 00:00 — Introducing intersectional feminism
- 00:59 — Tupamäki takes the identity test
- 02:30 — Identities are a problem: labels for the good and the bad, and an adopted Finn who breaks the assumptions
- 04:08 — A university woke form in London, seen through Finnish eyes
- 06:18 — The problems with Blumenbach's classification: what is ethnic Chineseness, or Finnishness
- 08:22 — Otherness in the shadow of dominance: Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre
- 10:22 — A columnist on convincing the world that women can be as bad as men
- 12:20 — Intersectional feminism: the definition and how it works
- 14:26 — What does feminism add to intersectionality
- 15:43 — A hierarchy of victimhood, Marxist classes and a circle of privilege
- 17:32 — Ally thinking: your ally's ally is your enemy's enemy, and critical theory forgetting objectivity
- 19:11 — Fukuyama's identity theory and universalism at national level
- 20:55 — Tupamäki's own identities: an adoptee's experience is not an immigrant's
- 22:24 — A case of an invented identity problem
- 23:38 — Intersectionality has ruined feminism, with Afghanistan as the case of real oppression
- 25:15 — Supporting girls through Plan: a feminist globally, an egalitarian in Finland
- 26:01 — Sam Harris, effective altruism and Sam Bankman-Fried; how boys are doing in Finland
- 27:20 — Intersectionality is not real science, and neither is scientific communism: the Sokal hoaxes
- 29:14 — Memes are not racism
- 30:20 — Whoever shouts loudest wins, including in the debate about racism
- 31:35 — Marx had a point about capitalism, but not about the transition to socialism
- 33:24 — Lenin and Marxism
- 35:52 — Left and right political vocabulary: Acemoglu's narrow corridor and Finland's oversized public power
- 38:58 — Tupamäki's run for the National Coalition Youth chair, and what right-wing values actually are
- 40:05 — Capitalism and the market economy are both good but they are different concepts
- 42:00 — Finnish taxation and low wealth
- 43:22 — The welfare state's problems as commons problems
- 46:11 — Ben Zyskowicz as a model
- 47:55 — Inner Circle: where the name Binga comes from
Summary
Lawyer Binga Tupamäki joins Sami Miettinen during the leadership contest of the National Coalition Youth. The episode is strongly opinionated and marked as such. Its most durable part is the critique of identity classification, which grows out of the guest’s own position as an international adoptee: the categories break down at the edges, and the people at those edges are the ones who have to explain themselves. The other half is the claim that intersectionality descends from Marxism and that critical theory abandons objectivity — a genuine but contested argument, presented here as one.
The argument that holds
Identity classification breaks down at its edges, and the people who live at those edges are the ones required to explain themselves. Tupamäki makes it from her own position as an international adoptee rather than in the abstract, and the concrete case — that an adoptee’s experience is not an immigrant’s — is what gives it force.
The argument that is contested
That intersectionality descends from Marxism, and that critical theory abandons objectivity, is a real intellectual claim with a real literature on both sides. Nobody in the episode argues the other side, so it should be read as a position rather than a finding.
Watch
The recording lives on the Neuvottelija channel: Intersektionaalinen feminismi | Binga Tupamäki | Neuvottelija 217. A Finnish edition of this episode is published at www.neuvottelija.fi.
In depth
The Neuvottelija AI editions carry a long-form write-up of this episode: English · suomeksi.
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People and topics
Guests: Binga Tupamäki
Topics: Free Speech & Society