My Feminism

I am a feminist.  This may not sound terribly important, but if you read this blog long enough (assuming I keep updating it) or if you’ve talked to me much over the past couple of years, you’ll quickly realize that this colors a lot of my conversation, writing, and reaction to the world. 

When I was in college, I rarely used the word “feminist” to describe myself.  Like many people, I associated “feminism” with its most extreme ideations, and only with its most extreme ideations.  I’m ashamed to say I tossed around the word “feminazi.”  But really, I always was a feminist – I can’t remember a time when I didn’t believe that men and women (or boys and girls, since this dates back to my childhood) were equal, and should be treated as equals.  But “feminism” is such a loaded term, it was hard to remember sometimes that at its core, that’s what feminism is about – equality.

Through a miscommunication with the registrar’s office, I was missing a requirement when it came time for me to graduate college.  Thanks to my wonderful academic adviser (and former gender and women's studies professor) I was able to take a Gender and Women’s Studies 101 course as an independent study after graduation, and not have to return for an extra term.  I think I got a lot more out of the course doing it that way – just me and my professor, rather than a whole class full of people who were apathetic, or overly involved/extreme, or outright sexist.  I was able to begin to learn about my feminist self based entirely on my personal experience with the course, rather than being put off or influenced by other people.  At first I grudgingly did the readings, and forced myself into enough analysis to do responses and papers, grumbling about having to do this stupid requirement in the first place.  But the more I read and thought, the more it started to seep into my day-to-day life, and the less I minded the class.  It wasn’t long after completing this independent study that I first began to really self-identify as a feminist. 

I’m still put off by the more extreme/radical forms of feminism.  But my experience and identification with feminism colors all of my responses to the world at this point.  I am constantly aware of how our culture reinforces gender stereotypes; the people who interact with me most often have undoubtedly heard me calling out male privilege, sexist media, and misogynistic behavior, or going on rants about sexist beer commercials (at some point, I will be devoting a separate entry to the Miller Lite “man up” commercials.)  It’s probably obnoxious.  I am constantly, constantly, questioning and calling out assumptions about gender and the subtle inequalities that pervade our culture.  Sometimes my poor friends are on the receiving end of it.

Feminism has also made me think more about inequality in general – I am much more aware of racial inequality, for instance, than I was before embracing my feminism.  I question myself more, and am constantly making an effort to see and call myself out on my own privilege and assumptions as a white, upper middle class, American woman.  It’s hard, and I very often fail, but I’m always trying to be aware and correct my privileged assumptions and thoughts. I'm not always good at it, I'm still coming from a position of privilege, but I do try, which I hope is worth something. 

I know full well that sometimes this makes me annoying.  Sometimes I can’t help but pick apart the light-hearted joke, or call out a friend over a meaningless aside with no real sexism or ill intend behind it, because at this point, it’s so embedded in me that I can’t not be aware, and I have a hard time letting things slide.

And there you have it.  Even if I’m not writing about anything overtly related to feminism, this is the perspective I’m coming from.  It will most likely color everything I write, even my navel-gazing self-reflective posts (like this one.)  And it will, I guarantee you, be obnoxious sometimes.  This is very personal - I'm still coming from my own perspective, and this is just some of what feminism has brought to my own life.  But it will be here, everywhere.  Because I am a feminist, and I’m giving you fair warning that I will not shut up about it.