I walk down the street with my friends marching for something bigger than us. I'm not just with my friends that I hang out with, but I'm with my friends that I don't know, too. I'm standing alongside people who are willing to give up their gorgeous Saturday afternoon and find parking in hectic downtown Cincinnati and walk around the block with thousands of other people. I may not know all these people personally, but I like to believe that they are my friends.
To me, a friend is somebody who is willing to stand up for you, protect you, and grow with you. I have no doubt that these people would do just that for me.
As I walked down the block, a little girl behind me, about three or four, tugged on the woman next to her sleeve. "Mommy," she whispered loudly, "what's a feminist?" Some people may shy away from such a steep topic with their very young child, but not this mom. This mom seemed proud that her daughter wanted to know. This mom was excited to tell her daughter.
She responded, "A feminist believes in equal rights and opportunities for women. A feminist can look like anyone. A feminist is white, black, Latina, man, woman, gay, straight, me, and YOU." She smiled and her daughter smiled back seeming to be satisfied with the answer.
I keep going back to this moment. I can't help but think how incredibly powerful it was. I think often feminism is a scary word for people. Feminism has taken on many faces, forms, and battles, and those things can feel exclusive. But this mom wasn't about that type of feminism. This mom was about the feminism that so many of us are working towards: an intersectional feminism. And she didn't want her daughter to feel like feminism was a scary topic, a concept much too hard for her to understand. She made feminism simple, and in doing that, she was raising a feminist.
I don't often get sentimental about being a mom. It's something that I have mixed feelings on, but that one conversation got me excited about mothers of our generation, maybe even me. It made me feel a rush of confidence and pride to be a part of something bigger than me, to be influencers and fighters for the next generation, so that way they continue on any battles we haven't yet faced.
It also made me forever grateful for the feminists who have fought the hard battles before us, the mothers of revolution. The Susan B's, the Rosa P's, the Gloria S', the Sojourner T's, the Frida K's, and all of the rest.
I stood in a crowd of friends marching around a block. We stood for women's rights and equal opportunity. We stood for human rights. My fellow feminists were proud that day. That weren't scared of hard concepts. They made it simple. They said, "We are here, and you will hear us."
So, who was at that march? Anybody. Including, but not limited to: white, black, man, woman, gay, straight, me, and YOU.
Feminists.
