I get many strange reactions when I say I'm a feminist. First, people usually look at me in a very critical way as if to determine whether I'm a lesbian or not (cause you know you can tell if someone's a lesbian just by looking at her). That's the first assumption...feminist = lesbian. The second assumption is that if I'm a feminist, I hate men. All feminists hate men right...who needs men when you have artificial insemination? Feminist = man-hating lesbian. The third assumption is usually something that revolves around abortion. Either assuming I have had an abortion, plan to have one, or am recruiting women of all ages to have them...you know cause that's how one exercises her right to choose. Feminist = abortion-promoting, man-hating lesbian. Of course there's often a bra-burning joke of some sort and then a lot of awkward silence.
Part of my education has been a personal journey for me to find the words to express the anger that I feel at the way that I am treated because I happen to have been born a female. The stereotypes of what I can and cannot be, the kinds of work I can go into, the assumptions about my intelligence, the belief that if I was ever raped I deserved it, the fact that I must care for others because it is in my "nature" as a woman, etc. The list can go on. I have to get married or I'm assumed to be a lesbian, an old spinster, a bitch or many other lovely names. I can't enjoy sex cause that makes me a whore, but if I don't like it then I'm considered "frigid". I am sexually objectified and my personal space is intruded upon by whistles, stares, and cat-calls everytime I leave my home. I don't feel safe in many spaces at many times because my body could become the site of sexual violence. I can hardly even stop typing the things that I worry about and think about as a woman. My education has given me the words to use to identify and label the ways that I am wronged because I am a woman. But more than that it gave me an even wider scope to see than just my own oppression as a woman. It gave me the ability to recognize, critique, and challenge oppressions that happen across the lines of race, class, and sexuality, as well as gender.
These oppressions, as well as many others, are the center of a feminist outlook. As a feminist, it's not just about looking at how woman are wronged. It's about critically looking at how people who are not white, male, heterosexual, rich, able-bodied, and young are wronged within society and how that discrimination is justified and made to seem normal. I recently came across a quote that really summed up well my feelings on what feminism is.
“Labels circulate all the time in every sphere of our lives, and once more, it all depends on how one uses them. One can use it in an eye-opening way, so that the term "feminist" does not actually only concern women, for example. But it has to do with society in general. So you are not just talking about women, but also about a feminist consciousness that informs both men's and women's actions in daily life. Being a feminist is therefore being a critic of society in its oppressive workings.”
Trinh Mihn-ha
The last sentence is precisely how I view and live out feminism. For me, feminism is an awareness that our society is very oppressive on many levels to many different people, and that every aspect of society needs to be critiqued through that awareness. Because I was raised in this society that normalizes oppression, I must also critique myself to see where I may be oppressing others and myself, either consciously or unconsciously. Feminism is about being aware of what's around me and within me, so that I can recognize and change oppressions that exist there.
