RACHEL, EDITORIAL ASSISTANT: There are definitely times where “mainstream feminism” just doesn’t feel that relevant to me. …Plenty of it still seems to be focused on how to have an egalitarian heterosexual relationship.
I’m pretty privileged in that, as a white girl, the mainstream feminist movement has most of my interests at heart. Historically, what we usually think of as “feminism” has done the most for my demographic, so I would feel weird about complaining too much.
There are definitely times, though, where “mainstream feminism” just doesn’t feel that relevant to me. I start to feel bored, like I want to fast forward to the revolution. It’s definitely not all of the modern feminist discourse, but plenty of it still seems to be focused on how to have an egalitarian heterosexual relationship — how to make sure your husband does his share of the laundry, how you shouldn’t feel pressured to have sex with your boyfriend on prom night, how a real man doesn’t require you to wear makeup or starve yourself to attract him, etc.
After a while you get tired of hearing “Well, we want to have a feminist wedding, so we’re taking the ‘honor and obey’ out of the bows,” and having to think to yourself “That’s nice, but I WOULD LIKE TO BE ABLE TO GET MARRIED PLEASE.”
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I understand that these are important concerns for many American women, and that they do affect me to some extent because they’re about what the norms and expectations are for all of us, but after a while you get tired of hearing “Well, we want to have a feminist wedding, so we’re taking the “honor and obey” out of the bows,” and having to think to yourself “That’s nice, but I WOULD LIKE TO BE ABLE TO GET MARRIED PLEASE.” Or hearing a lot about how important it is for survivors of abuse to be able to leave their husbands, but having the queer community be left on its own to figure out its own issues of partner violence.
Feminism has been hugely important to me since a very young age, but eventually I just stopped going to the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance chapter on my campus after a few semesters of feeling totally disconnected from the issues they discussed and getting tired of being the token queer woman there. Maybe it’s insular of me, but I feel more comfortable talking with my queer friends about the same topics. It’s not that we always have the same opinion, but at least I don’t have to preface every statement with “Well, as a gay woman, I feel…”
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EMILY CHOO, INTERN: Yes, I’m Chinese, but I’m also Awesome and no one seems to talk about that.
As a person who represents four minorities (Chinese, Jewish, lesbian, woman), I often feel trapped/beaten by all the stupid jokes and comments I’ve heard and that made me the angry adolescent I was in high school. I never said “I’m Chinese”; people said it for me. I hate when people assume things about me. Yes, I’m Chinese, but I’m also Awesome and no one seems to talk about that.
My race does not affect my feminist identity one bit. In fact, I’d rather identify as Canadian rather than Chinese because I feel way more attached to Canadian culture. However, most people see me as Chinese when they look at me because, well, I look Chinese. Out of the four minorities I represent, I identify the most with lesbian woman. Firstly, no matter how much people say that being gay is only a small part of who they are, it is a HUGE part of who I am and has played a huge role in making me the person I am today. Secondly, being a woman is fucking awesome. I would rather be a woman than be part of the sex that repressed and treated women like shit for centuries. Kind of like how I feel ashamed of the way Europeans crossed the Atlantic and shat on the natives.
I would rather be a woman than be part of the sex that repressed and treated women like shit for centuries.
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China is really far away for me. I’ve never been there, I don’t speak the language, and my household is so “Canadianized” that it’s almost impossible to get a grasp of what “Chinese” is really supposed to mean. However, I have a first-hand account of what it’s like to be a woman. As a woman, I’ve faced struggles and sexist comments, and I feel a connection with other women who can understand period problems or how it feels when an unwanted guy tries to grope you at a club.
Life isn’t easy being a minority x 4. But I feel like definitely, as a woman and as a bisexual lesbian, I have something to fight for and a person I can be proud of.
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LILY, INTERN: I wish I could separate these two identities so that each demand a bigger impact on the people I meet.
I wish my sexuality always influenced my feminist identity in a positive light, but I’m afraid that is not necessarily the case. More often than not, I’m afraid my personal association with feminism is diminished because of my sexuality. It has even been said to me before “Oh of course you’re a feminist, you don’t like men.” It is so ridiculously frustrating to try to explain that yes, I’m not predominately attracted to men, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like them, and being a lesbian does not always correlate with being a feminist (and vice versa).
Sometimes, I feel that I have two strikes against me because not only do people often assume that lesbians hate men, but they also assume that feminists hate men. I wish I could separate these two identities so that each demand a bigger impact on the people I meet. Each would come as a surprise and as a learning tool, rather than expected attributes of my identity.
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ZAHRA, INTERN: I think that I wouldn’t have such a strong concept of how important women’s rights are if I didn’t live my life as who I am.
I identify as black, while I am biracial. I identify as queer, while I am only attracted to women. I identify as a feminist, as I believe that I have many values and ideas that conform to feminist thought. I feel that each of those labels —black, queer, feminist — act as umbrella terms. That is, I can be a part of those groups without compromising my identity. When I present myself as a black woman, I’m able to be part of a group that is inclusive and diverse, yet I don’t have to give up any of my own heritage. My story stays the same. If I use the term queer, I can be proud of who I am, find my community, and yet feel comfortable to not have been pigeonholed in terms of the way I present myself to others.
I think the term feminist works similarly. Being a feminist doesn’t mean that I have to share the same ideas as every other feminist any more than I would be expected to think the same way as anyone who is black or who is queer.
My experience being black shapes my experience being queer and vice versa. Both of those things mold the type of feminist I am.
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These three categories impact each other in an interesting way. For example, combining any two of them together immediately brings up different things. Is a black feminist so different from a queer feminist or a woman who is black and queer? Are they problematic when they overlap? I think some things can be in conflict but more often they contribute to each other. They’re also inherently connected — I can’t take away any of those parts of me and my being one thing has a lot to do with my being another. For instance, my experience being black shapes my experience being queer and vice versa. Both of those things mold the type of feminist I am. I think that I wouldn’t have such a strong concept of how important women’s rights are if I didn’t live my life as who I am. Of course, it’s kind of a circular argument because I haven’t lived any other life, but I still feel strongly that not one part of me can be separated so easily from another.
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RIESE, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: I guess you could say I put feminism first because I think anti-feminist sentiments are at the root of all homophobic evil.
I think feminism and homophobia are more married than I’ll ever be. Homophobia is rooted in gender-related fears: men being intimidated by female sexual power, a societal obsession with strict gender roles, religious dogma, ancient patriarchal systems of economic and psychological control… so I guess you could say I put feminism first because I think anti-feminist sentiments are at the root of all homophobic evil. And I don’t put feminism first “as a woman,” because I think feminism aims to make a better world for men and women both.
Sooooo race. Listen: I keep putting off writing the answer to this question. Does it matter that I’ve read everything I can? Does it sound patronizing to say “I don’t know what to say besides that I know what you think when you look at me but I am trying, and have always tried, to learn as much as I can about what my life would be like if I didn’t look like a paper plate?”
I’m a white girl, right? Yup. I’m Jewish on one side. At my Bat Mitzvah, I did a Torah Portion about the importance of women in the synagogue. Then I stopped going to Religious School because the other girls there were bitches. The other side of my family is mostly Native American and Quaker. My Dad’s family were farmers, they sold the farm a few years before my Dad died. Both of my parents grew up poor but did okay later on. Now my Mom is a lesbian and her partner has two adopted kids. One of my half-brothers is African-American. So that’s my family. I didn’t realize people thought Jews were yappy girls with too much money ’til college; growing up it was just something else that made me feel Different.
I know that the burden of responsibility is on me to understand how to acknowledge where feminism fails to be inclusive and how to change that.
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Over the past six years I’ve mostly lived in neighborhoods where I was the racial minority, which I generally prefer. But as I describe in this blog post, one particular neighborhood really wore me down when I was called a “cracker” and heckled daily “hey white girl” this and that; the only times I could avoid heckling when I was with my not-white then-girlfriend or when I was dressed as a boy (I cut my hair to pass), but maybe I felt like I deserved it.
I just read a lot and took a lot of classes and did a lot of volunteer work with kids in the juvenile detention system (a racially mixed group, but socioeconomically similar). I know what you see when you look at me. I cannot speak from anyone’s experiences from my own, but I know that the burden of responsibility is on me to understand how to acknowledge where feminism fails to be inclusive and how to change that. Which I try to do — especially now, with this website.
So I was sitting here trying to answer this and I remembered having a conversation with my ex-girlfriend where she said she felt racism totally trumps sexism or homophobia in her day-to-day life; I think we were talking about the relative importance of Prop 8 or something. So last night I thought maybe I could just g-chat her and ask her to answer the question for me, again, even though we hadn’t spoken in months.
She didn’t really remember the conversation but said now that she identifies more as a hermit and a writer than as part of any greater community, like even a feminist community. She said she’s more concerned about human rights and international politics than women’s rights per se. So I suggested perhaps the majority of feminist discourse felt distant to her — issues such as workplace discrimination or sexual objectification — because her overall attitude and gender presentation is essentially male, and she’s totally removed herself from pop culture and has no body image issues. And she said maybe that’s true.
So then she said she identifies as an “individualist.” I said a lot of earnest things about breaking down patriarchal institutions that maybe sounded stupid. And so ultimately I didn’t really know what to do with that conversation. Or if it was important to like, talk her into being a feminist just because she is a woman, and I want every woman on our team because I genuinely believe it’s the best team to be on.
But maybe for some people it just isn’t. Maybe the world will go on if it isn’t. What did I remember about the conversation? Did she need to even answer my question. Or maybe she did, maybe she answered the exact question, “do you feel like you have to pick one?” Her answer was yes; I did feel that way, and none of those boxes fit me. And so I made my own. And I don’t know that I entirely blame her for that.