For the vast majority of my life and especially through my entrance into adulthood, I resisted feminism and the feminist project. I resisted the label because I accepted the notion that it was a slur. I resisted the change because I didn’t see the need for any change. I thought of feminism the same way that so many others before me have, but in reality this rejection comes out of a lack of understanding of what the movement really strives for.
I was caught up in the same tropes that so many fall for, thinking it was the demonization of men, the playing of victimhood by women, and so many more that I just won’t go into. We’ve all heard them. We’ve all seen them. Maybe we’ve even thought them. But these notions are so limiting and honestly play right into the exact same instances of sexism, heteronormativity, and other forms of microaggressions we are fighting to eradicate. To accept these tropes is to invalidate an entire group of people of all genders, all sexes, all races, ethnicities, sexualities, and all other pieces of our continuum of intersectional identities. Feminism is for everyone, and thinking, "Why feminism and not humanism?" plays into the same practice of organized forgetting that allows us to continue on without learning from our past mistakes, thus continuing to marginalize the historically forgotten. Feminism takes human rights and activism from the place and standpoint of the marginalized and says, "Where can we go from here? How can we fix this?" This is who feminism strives to empower and benefit. This is what the feminist project is continuing to build upon and fight for: the rights and empowerment of everyone.
I know, see and accept the flaws in our movement. Feminism has not always fought for everyone, and this history is something we have to learn from. This history is flawed: it has been elitist and exclusionary; it has been sexist; it has been heteronormative; it has been racist. We as feminists today have to see the problems in our past waves of feminism and work to create a present and a future which is inclusive and active.
In sight of that, we have to keep moving forward and remember we are all human. We are not always right. We always have more to learn and our own journey to continue, but we forget that this is true for everyone. We often pick and choose public figures and give them the Feminist Label and place them on a Feminist Pedestal – much to our own avail, because we forget these figures are human and thus they are fallible. Everyone makes mistakes. It’s unrealistic to think otherwise, and this means that those we put on our Feminist Pedestals will eventually trip. And when our Feminists do make mistakes, we try to disavow them, but this only reinforces the idea that feminism is elitist and exclusionary – as activists we are all learning and growing, and to attack our feminist comrades is to attack the movement. Feminism does not come with one brand. It is pluralistic with ever-changing groups of feminisms and feminists. No single feminism is correct. And that’s the beauty of it. We are all learning and growing and doing our activist long division (Franchesca Ramsey) to come to a place where we can fight for our rights as people.
The moment I stepped into my first Women’s and Gender Studies class in 2014, my life changed forever. I didn’t know how much I would learn. I didn’t know my mindset would be forever altered or that I would uncover a passion to continue down this path. I was exposed to topics I never knew existed and to people I will continue to learn from for years to come. I hope I never stop learning from these people, and I hope their voices continue to grow and partake in the now global conversation. This is the movement I have come to know and love: one of a multitude of voices and experiences which are forever growing and changing while we continue on our journey to intersectional equality.
And with that, this is me. Winding my way through the end of my bachelor’s degree in anthropology and women’s and gender studies, with a minor in art history. Paving the way for what will come after that. Winding my way through feminism and finding my place in the world of change and focusing on my activist long division. I can’t promise that I won’t make mistakes on my journey (in fact, I can promise you that I will), but the point of this type of movement is to accept growth and keep moving forward. I am a bad feminist, but that is not a bad thing (thanks to Roxane Gay for teaching me this incredibly important detail of feminism). We are all bad feminists, and if we start from a place of accepting that we are fallible, we can all grow in this community of social change together to better ourselves and the world around us.
