TIARA, GUEST CONTRIBUTOR: [TheMerchGirl.net] To ask me to “choose one” or accuse me of non-solidarity because we don’t share the same views is to silence me.
For me, race and gender and sexuality, they’re all interconnected. But I do face frustration when other people — particularly people that come from a position of privilege, such as white feminists — think they don’t have much to do with each other. It all comes down to kyriarchy. There are certain characteristics that make up a dominant class, and anyone who doesn’t fit faces oppression. We all have a mix of privileges that intersect and can sometimes make up for the lack of privileges in other areas, but not always.
Growing up, my main issue was racism. I was an uber-minority and had racist teachers and peers in school. I was so regularly othered for my race that I didn’t have the time or opportunity to think about other aspects of my identity. My experiences with racism gave me a deep awareness of why othering is wrong. I was mostly unaware of feminism, though; I spent 11 years of my life in an all-girls school, but we NEVER talked about feminism. I think they would have considered it an “evil liberal Western concept” if it ever came up.
When I first went to college, my race became less of an issue, and at the same time I was starting to get involved with women’s rights. In Malaysia, domestic violence is a huge issue, and there are plenty of feminist orgs working towards protecting abused women. I learned about the depths of abuse women suffer just for being women — not just in terms of domestic violence, but also in more subtle ways such as not being taken seriously or being told how to be “proper”. I was still dealing with my thoughts on abortion or pornography. I had taken the stance of “that’s BAD! None for you!” and the prevalent culture in Malaysia supported that.
The seminal moment for me as far as the abortion question goes was during my Up with People tour. We were doing an activity where you stand on different sides of a line depending on your take on a question. One question was “I believe abortion is wrong,” and I was the only one who was stuck in the middle. When asked why, I said “Well I don’t think I would want an abortion for myself, but that’s just me. I don’t think we can speak for anyone else.” Then one of my friends on the pro-choice side yelled “That makes you pro-choice, silly!” And I’ve identified as pro-choice ever since.
I may not want to be a sex worker, but some women do. The most feminist thing I can do is respect their agency and fight to ensure they are not degraded, oppressed, or abused when making that choice.
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When I came to Australia, my awareness of sexuality blossomed, and with that came a more nuanced view of feminism. I saw how feminist issues played out — especially as they interacted with race, religion, etc. — in a completely different culture. I started learning more about sexuality, especially in queer culture and sex work, and adopted a sex-positive view of feminism. I may not want to be a sex worker, but some women do. The most feminist thing I can do is respect their agency and fight to ensure they are not degraded, oppressed, or abused when making that choice. She’s not suddenly anti-feminist just because she decides to commodify her body. Ever since doing burlesque I’ve been more and more baffled and how much with a big deal we make about our bodies and sexuality, as though no one can ever make money out of them or choose to control when they’re being “objectified”. The Gaze, male or female or otherwise, isn’t always a bad thing, especially if you have control over it.
My experiences growing up in Malaysia, as well as being exposed to various Muslim cultures from my parents and the outside world, has given me a different perspective on things that white Western feminists tend to dismiss as “unfeminist” — burqas, for example. People who want to ban burqas tend to have a narrow-minded, stereotypical view of Islam, and they don’t appreciate that there are a lot of different opinions about veiling even among Muslims. Sure, you have the conservatives who try to control women and say ridiculous things about people who don’t veil up or be modest, and a lot of what counts as normal fashion in Australia or the US is seen as revealing.
But there are also many feminist Muslim women, such as Sisters in Islam, who work with Islam and its history of being a woman-forward, feminist religion, to find the best ways to encourage women’s rights within an Islamic context – even withing the ideas of veiling and modesty. Not all women who veil are oppressed, silenced, terrorists in the making. Many women make a conscious choice to wear it, and some women don’t put much stock in the significance of the veil. It’s frustrating to me when I hear people dismiss Islam so easily as anti-feminist because they haven’t taken the time to understand the cultural context and history or to realize that their values are not universal.
I have felt left out from some contemporary discourses on feminism because they assume a position of relative privilege and take local power structures as true across the world. I can appreciate people who say “I’m not a feminist AND” because they usually have good reason to not associate with the feminist crowd even though their feelings are very feminist. Womanism, trans issues, queer feminism — they all intersect. And even feminists can oppress people in other ways. To ask me to “choose one” or accuse me of non-solidarity because we don’t share the same views is to silence me.
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TAYLOR, TECH EDITOR: I think an identity succeeds when it becomes so normative and so integrated that it dissolves entirely.
Even though I used to feel like my identity as a feminist would implicate my sexuality, the two aren’t really related at all for me. I actually don’t articulate my identity as a feminist very often at all, but I often verbally identify myself as gay. And that isn’t reluctance or shame anymore for me, thank god. I find that I only socially “employ” my identity (as a feminist, a gay woman, a southerner, a geek, an Irishwoman, sexy-as-all-get-out, whatever) when I need to: these parts of myself are sometimes a means to an end for me, and they tend to emerge selectively.
Like when I attend civil rights rallies, my queer identity emerges. When everyone in my office is talking about American Idol, and I was playing WoW the night before and don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about, my geek identity emerges. Being a feminist and being gay and all of those other identities are there all the time, but they’re kind of translucent when I don’t engage with those parts of myself directly, if that makes any sense.
Being a feminist and being gay and all of those other identities are there all the time, but they’re kind of translucent when I don’t engage with those parts of myself directly.
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Maybe it’s a good thing that my identity as a feminist doesn’t really come up — it’s assumed (and desiring gender equality should be assumed for most anyone with a brain). I think I unconsciously express feminism through all of my actions, choices and words. And now I’m comfortable with that. Of course, I’ll rush to the side of the word ‘feminism’ when it’s in danger or needs defending, and unfortunately that does come up from time to time. But I’d like to think feminism has become normative now for almost everyone in my life. Ideally, for me, an identity succeeds when it becomes so normative and so integrated that it dissolves entirely. Like how we don’t need to identify as Suffragists any more. Or as supporters of interracial marriage. Unless we start moving backward, that is. Let’s just pray or incant or something so that doesn’t happen.
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KATRINA, EDITORIAL ASSISTANT: Just by being unapologetically “different,” I’m making a feminist statement in the Filipino community. And just by being visibly Filipino, I’m representing Asians in the feminist community.
As far as being a minority in America goes, being a queer woman of color is supposed to be a pretty sizable mess of trouble. As much as feminism may be a bad word in the U.S., it’s pretty much non-existent in the Philippines – there’s no room to be a feminist because there’s not much room to be anything outside of a mother or a wife …to a man of course. These restrictions make me feel like I don’t have to choose one, though; the choice seems to have been made for me. Just by being unapologetically “different,” I’m making a feminist statement in the Filipino community. And just by being visibly Filipino, I’m representing Asians in the feminist community.
When it comes to sexuality, though, being a lesbian is what solidified me as a feminist because it exposed me to communities full of and centered around women. And even though lesbian cliques can tend to get exclusive or catty once in a while, what really defines them is the way that women support each other, not because they need to make up for the absence of men but because they know that women are simply capable.