PERFORMATIVE ALLYSHIP
July 20, 2022
By Coco Jia
In the past, activism required participating in protests, calling out acts of discrimination in the work place, or volunteering at related organizations. In general, activism requires advocating and taking actions to ensure women’s and the LGBTQ+ communities’ rights even when it takes tremendous effort and does not benefit that individual. Currently, the development of social media has made “allyship” much easier. You no longer have to walk out of your house and spend a day under the scalding sun; in fact, it only takes a few clicks to demonstrate that “I am an ally.” However, this ease that comes with the rapid development does not help to foster social changes, and in some cases, even causes harm.
Currently, we are witnessing a rising number of performative allies on social media, as well as in real life. These performative allies utilize the trend of gender and political activism as a way of promoting themselves. In the eyes of performative allies, being an ally and supporting a marginalized community is a type of identity: once you claim to be an ally, you will appear “virtuous” and “socially responsive.” No further action is needed.
Some might say that although it’s on a surface level, performative allyship helps to spread awareness of the issues faced by marginalized groups. This must mean that performative allyship must somewhat be positive to marginalized groups, right?
Well, answers differ.
It is, in fact, true that performative allyship helps spread awareness. Despite this, performative allyship may actually harm activism. By doing surface level activism or performative activism, the voices of marginalized groups will drown in the voices of millions of performative allies and go unnoticed. The attempts of those who are genuinely trying to make changes may also be suppressed. Organizations can easily deny the presence of discrimination or gender inequality by claiming some kind of “inclusive statement” that has no actual value.
For example, when performative allies put a rainbow emoji in their Instagram bio during pride month and claim they support the community, the focus of movement shifts from the marginalized community to the presence of allies. The center question of this discussion changes from “whether the community is gaining the power they deserve” to “whether you are an ally”.
So what distinguishes a real ally and a performative one?
A real ally reads studies or books about issues that concern marginalized groups. They take actions in their workplace, in non-profit organizations, or school, while a performative ally may just stick a rainbow sticker on their laptop during pride month, but does not mention it for the rest of the year.