I know I’m probably alienating a lot of people here, but this will just make my “America sucks and it’s your fault” post go down a little easier so…count your blessings?
I’m not a feminist, and while we’re at it, I’m clearly not a Christian. I minored in Women’s Studies in college, which is just another thing defensive white people say, along with “Some of my best friends are black” in order to prove to everyone that they’re socially aware and not like all those other white people who are in the KKK. I don’t regret it, since I learned a lot of what I should’ve already known, because while it’s cool that history focuses solely on how George Washington was a fucking badass, it would be nice if Nancy Reagan saying “No” to drugs wasn’t the only example of women making a difference.
I wouldn’t say that I’m scared to write this post, even though I know I’m putting myself at risk of being attacked by droves of 20- something grad students marching to Ani DiFranco’s Not A Pretty Girl as they hold me down and make me wear reusable pads, I just don’t want to be misunderstood. The thing is, choosing to opt out of calling myself a feminist somehow means that I don’t support women’s rights and am part of the “You can’t rape a slut” group, which is not much different than assuming that I would illegally purchase methamphetamines or use an escort service while touting family values because I’m not a Christian.
I actually used to be an avid feminist, because I was in a shitty relationship and I figured that feminists don’t have shitty relationships. So, somehow claiming a label without context meant that I would suddenly stop trying to escape by watching Roots and thinking, “That could be nice.” Of course, I was wrong, and instead of getting myself out of the situation, I just felt ashamed every time I sacrificed my own happiness for convenience because it felt like Lucretia Mott herself was looking down on me with disgust and all I could come back with was, “nice beard.”
Eventually, I packed my suitcase of feminist platitudes and hauled it into my current relationship, only to discover that he didn’t refer to himself as a feminist. From this, a conflict sprouted in which I flew off the handle because although our beliefs paralleled one another, he chose not to assign an innocuous term to the bundle of truths he subscribed to, and that made me uncomfortable. We went through the usual play list–female genital mutilation, Purity Balls, and sex trafficking. We both agreed on their collective ability to provoke both rage and nausea, only difference being that he didn’t find it necessary to refer to this visceral reaction as “feminism” and that pissed me off.
For years, I cultivated my defensiveness–always ready to blame everything on patriarchy and Miss America Pageants, so when he said that these were human issues, not women’s issues, I lost it because it sounded like, once again, women’s issues were being put into an empty room labeled, “People who care.” I fervently tried to defend my position but in doing so, I realized that feminism, like everything else, is composed of numerous pockets of self interest that are ultimately exclusionary and contradictory. While I never would’ve admitted it then, I was having a hard time finding the reasons why feminism should even exist as an entity because when it came down to it, I was only defending a word, and that’s certainly not a business I want to be a part of. Being an R Kelly fan or two-time winner of the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest are both interchangeable with “feminist” because ultimately, none of it changes the chemistry of what I believe.
I know that there are people out there who legitimately believe that women are inferior or that equality has been reached so we should all sew up our mouths, open our cunts, and shut the fuck up. But those people also fall into a unique Venn diagram in which “People who will die of Rabies” and “People who own the Fast and the Furious Franchise Collection on DVD” intersect, so I feel safe in knowing that life has punished them enough without me quoting The Feminine Mystique. Sure, those people are assholes, but assholes come in all different shapes and sizes, some of them just happen to wear sweatshop free “This is what a feminist looks like” t-shirts made of organic cotton.
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Great post! Thank you for writing it, I feel the same way you do about this but have always struggled in expressing it.
i really respect how you write and get your thoughts across. i agree with your boyfriend about the human issues, and vicariously you both are ace motherlickers.
I call myself a feminist just because its an easy identifier but I’ve started to throw it around less and less because people assume I am gay, hate sex, makeup/dresses. And some feminists can’t believe I would love to get married and stay at home with kids. I can’t win either way…
It is absolutely a human issue. If more people had the same set of beliefs, I suppose there wouldn’t be a need to identify yourself one way or another.
Great post! I’ve just started avoiding loaded terms like “sex-positive”, “bisexual”, and “feminist” because they’re a pain in the ass to use. You always have to qualify it, like “I’m a feminist, but I use the words douche, cunt, and bitch.” We have a lot of big “human issues” to deal with, but a lot of activist groups seem to get focused on minutiae (like the use of the word douche), which, while not totally insignificant, makes the group seem douche-y.
I agree with ya. I feel ya. I was a women’s studies minor in college too and I always felt like I didn’t belong to the “hardcore” group of feminist girls because I disagreed with them on some things, which was weird because weren’t we all for the female voice? We spent way too much time talking about personal issues and ways we use words then actually doing something. Feminism is cool, but stop talking so much and getting pissed at the world and do something about it ya know? I thought it was cool you posted this, brave thing cuz you could of had some serious backlash.
So I was reading through your ‘Favorites’ archive and I have to say that, while coming across this post didn’t totally shock me, it *was* rather unexpected. After reading it I can’t say I understand any better why you don’t like the label ‘feminist.’ Your boyfriend didn’t? It can mean different things to different people? Some of its connotations are negative?
Also, this was weird: “The thing is, choosing to opt out of calling myself a feminist somehow means that I don’t support women’s rights and am part of the “You can’t rape a slut” group, which is not much different than assuming that I would illegally purchase methamphetamines or use an escort service while touting family values because I’m not a Christian.”
I get that this was a joke, but the point still stands that the analogy doesn’t work. In order to be valid, it would have to be “…which is not much different than assuming that I wouldn’t believe Christ is God because I’m not a Christian.” The only thing inherent to feminism is believing in women’s rights, and the only thing inherent to Christianity is believing that Christ is God. So, sure, you can say you believe in either of those things without adopting the label— maybe because you don’t like its other associations, maybe because you just don’t like labels— but people are going to assume that if you say “I’m not Christian,” it’s precisely because you *don’t* believe Christ is God. That is, after all, the more logical assumption.
I don’t think you got that it was a joke, because if you had, you’d know that the example was pulled straight from the life of Ted Haggard and then you wouldn’t be here drafting the painfully obvious clarification that, “inherent to Christianity is believing that Christ is God.”
Oh also, it was a joke.
No, I got the reference too. I’m just saying that the whole argument doesn’t really make sense to me, jokes aside. Then again, I readily admit that I *am* a humorless feminist.
@Kristina Millar,
Thanks, yeah it’s taken me some time to get here–but mostly just to get comfortable with the idea of rejecting this thing that I thought I had to hold on to in order to prove that I believed in something worthwhile.
@Holly Page,
Yes–great point, and I think those qualifiers exist (in feminism) because there are so many sub-groups that are in some cases resentful and critical of other similarly posed groups, so there’s this constant need to root out those who are fer it or agin’ it.