Guest Post: Why I Became a Feminist, Pt. 4
by Kelly
In class last week, my professor asked us to break into small groups and come up with a definition of feminism. My group and I decided that feminism is a movement to end sexism and all other forms of oppression, discrimination, and violence (such as those based on race, gender identity, sexuality, class, faith, age, ability, etc). More positively, we might have said feminism is a movement for the acknowledgment of all people as free and equal. Judith Butler would add that in this definition, ‘free’ and ‘equal’ are contested zones, each with a constantly shifting meaning that enables feminism to remain alive and relevant. Because of the massive scope of the movement, its perpetually changing goals, and the diversity of its constituents, I believe individually tailoring your own feminism is the best way to get involved in today’s feminist movement. While bell hooks feared this would lead to compromises on important issues and argued against “lifestyle feminism,” wherein everybody is able to decide for themselves what feminism means, I believe this type of understanding is necessary in order to ensure feminism’s inclusiveness of all oppressed peoples (in our world, everyone). In my opinion, anyone who is willing to self-identify as a feminist and believe in at least one feminist cause should be encouraged. Only a welcoming and mutually respectful feminist community will be able to build the bridges necessary to unite people of varying degrees and forms of feminism in the effort to improve our world.
So, that said, why and how am I a feminist? What is the connection between feminism and my lifestyle?
The light-hearted answer that I give is that it’s impossible to like sex as much as I do, be a girl, and not be a feminist. As a female who likes to have lots of fun, frequently, with a variety of partners (safely!), I need to be outspoken and confident about the fact that I am doing exactly what I want. If I do not make it overwhelmingly clear that I am happy with my choices, the assumption is that I should be ashamed of them. I am a feminist because the world expects me to be a virgin, or at least monogamous, and I cannot tolerate either of those options.
I think one of the main reasons people are so dismayed by my sex life is that Americans seldom engage with female sexual pleasure. In high school sex ed we learn all about scary sex. We’re told abstinence is safe, sex can lead to STDs, condoms are not always safe, sex can lead to pregnancy, and birth control is not always safe. We learn about not having heteronormative sex because male orgasms make kids. Since female orgasms are not necessary for procreation, and sex ed is about preventative rather than pleasurable sexuality, female sexuality is erased. I believe the acknowledgment of male pleasure is closely tied to the fact that all of my male friends have had orgasms, and the erasure of female pleasure contributes to many of my female friends’ complete lack of awareness of their sexuality. I will continue to be a feminist at least until all my friends start climaxing.
Another major obstruction to healthy sexuality is associating someone’s self-worth with the number of sexual partners they have had. For men, worth is generally viewed as increasing with every additional partner, and for females the opposite is true. This is especially clear in our societies treatment of virginity, something for which men are ridiculed and females are rewarded (up to $3.8 million apparently). I remember that right after I started having sex, I told my mom that I was thinking about having sex in order to gauge what her reaction would be. She urged me to wait longer, saying “if you start having sex now, you’ll probably sleep with other people before you get married, and when you finally do find the right person you’ll feel bad about that and wish you hadn’t done it.” This year I emailed my mom and suggested a “performative model” for understanding sex. In this model, I explained, virgins would be analogous to amateur musicians with lofty dreams but little skill, practice would make perfect, and new partners would be seen as an exciting avenue for growth. I am a feminist because I have claimed my number, rather than let it own me.
These are some of the things I mention when I talk to people about feminism. Lots of people, male and female, have never questioned their understanding of gender and sexuality before and they find it really interesting. Many will even add additional reasons to the why I’m a feminist list, whether or not they have had experience with feminism before our conversation. bell hooks was very right when she suggested that most people do not identify as feminists simply because they are unaware of what it means.
Despite these positive responses, I only rarely tell people the serious reason I’m a feminist. For a long time I never talked about being date raped because, like many girls, I didn’t realize what happened to me was rape. There were no strangers, no weapons, and no date rape drugs. There was only a very long argument, which began when I said that I wasn’t in the mood for sex. My boyfriend yelled at me until I started to wonder if I was being as mean as he said I was for refusing to do “just one little thing for him”. I wasn’t sure what I had done wrong, but I knew it had to be really bad since he was so angry. Eventually I stopped saying no because that seemed to be what he wanted. Over a year later I read an article about acquaintance rape and finally realized I had been justified after all in not wanting to have sex. Today, I am a feminist because I think that if I had been then I might have been more aware of my rights and because I think if he had been then he might have respected my choice more.
Feminism remains essential in today’s world, because women and others continue to be oppressed by the structure and assumptions of our society. It is my hope that by encouraging everyone to work towards a feminist cause that they feel passionate about we will be able to create a movement strong enough to make a dramatic positive impact. If everyone were to become a little bit of a feminist, I think it would start to dismantle the constructions of aggressive males and acquiescing females, making our world a safer and more egalitarian place.
I personally want to help enable women to say both yes and no to sex, because I think consent is an essential component of achieving control over our bodies, which in turn is necessary to becoming both free and equal. My style of feminism has only barely started to engage with issues of race and class, because as a privileged white middle class woman I only recently became aware these issues really existed. Similarly, my knowledge about and contributions to the feminist movement have been very blog-centric, because this is an easy avenue to me. My efforts to expand beyond the internet have led to discussions with my friends, family, and coworkers but still not very far into other communities. That’s why I need you to become and remain a feminist. Please, address my flaws. Talk about the things I don’t realize matter and talk to the people I haven’t met.
Tell them why and how you are a feminist.
- Jessica Annabelle
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The “Why I Became a Feminist” series is open to anyone who identifies as feminist and wants to share their story. Please email me at rottenlittlegirls @ gmail.com and I will consider publishing your piece in this series. I’d love to have a broad range of voices and experiences.
