I didn't like feminism while I was growing up.
I was a tomboy. I liked sports and rock music and the X-Men. All my best friends were boys until age 12 when all that 'sexual' tension shit started to seep into the picture and fucked things up. But then I found the girls who were also badass and who'd go see Tank Girl with me or were listening to alt-rock.
The feminism I was around while I was growing up was fairly anti-male. It put down a lot of things I liked; boys included. I couldn't relate to 'Boys are Stupid' tees when I was 13. I've since called many a boy stupid, but they usually deserved it and I've said the same about many women, too.
In high-school the feminists my age were dominated by the Lilith fair folks. I couldn't relate to hairy armpits and acoustic covers of the Indigo girls by peole calling themselves hippies. It was as if the women's rights movement was stuck in bell bottoms with flowers in their hair. It didn't help that bell bottoms were back in style while I was in high school! There was some crossover. For example, I did like artists like Suzanne Vega and The Cardigans. The overall vibe, however, was totally unrelatable to me as I was listening to Radiohead, Nirvana, and No Doubt. No Doubt before they went soft, that is. Basically I wanted to be Gwen Stefani from Tragic Kingdom.
My relationship with feminism didn't get better in the early college years. At around 19 I remember getting into a fight with a friend of my mother's (and mine) who said that women of my generation were letting feminism down. She said we were leaving the work place to raise families and were letting the fight for equality die. We were ruining the progress her generation had worked so hard for. I remember feeling like feminism was telling me what I should and shouldn't do. I lumped it in with the male sexism that had come before. I can see now that was ridiculous and exaggerated, but the anger I felt then had the the affect of continuing my disdain toward feminism. Don't tell me how to behave, feminism!
Still I gravitated toward women's rights. From the time I first read about women being mistreated in other countries: their clitorises being mutilated, not being allowed to leave the house without a man or a veil, or being told that women's rights were a western convention; I screamed at whoever would listen. Literally. My poor mother and father. I also found myself angry when people had expectations about how I should be, told me what I could do with my body, told me I wasn't being lady-like, or when I saw men and women slut-shaming those who were just feeding their sex drives. I surrounded myself with women who were strong and independent and men who liked opinionated and smart women.
I still hated the feminism, though. In my world I saw it as stagnant, exclusionary, and often mean. Then when I was twenty-one or so, things changed. I found out that feminism I'd dreamed of was alive, I'd just been missing it. I found Sleater-Kinney and it snow-balled from there. I fell in love with this new-to-me modern feminism. It was not about telling men their behavior was sexist--though, sometimes--it was about breaking the perceptions of what it means to be a woman, about loving whatever you are, and about not taking shit from anyone who wants to hurt you or get in your way. It was inclusive and opinionated and stong.
As I'd known deep down, feminism wasn't dead in the western world and society still needed it. We needed it not just to get through to old dudes who filled the seats of congress, but because there are still liberal progressives who are tainted by the stereotypical idea of what it means to be a women or what it means to have feminine sexuality, or by those who believe that women need to proove the stereotype wrong by being the opposite.
I knew we still needed feminism from firsthand experience. For example, just a year and a half ago I went from long hair to short hair. My girlfriends loved it. A small handful of my dudefriends did, too. A pleasant side-effect was that icky men hollered at me less, but so did the cute men at bars and pubs. In fact, I was more invisible to almost all men. Disappointing for a single girl in her 30s, but not soul crushing. The sad thing came from some of the reactions I got from friends. Friend who were are self-proclaimed progressives. Suddenly my biker boots were 'lesbian boots.' My LGBTQ+ friend half-jokingly suggested I may be somewhere on a lesbian spectrum. Not once but quite a few times. As if trying to see if I would reveal a hidden truth about my sexuality I'd bottled up inside.
I've never been stereotypically feminine girl. I like sports. I like rock. I speak my mind about everything: politics, religion, sex. I don't cry about things and I rarely ask for help or talk about my emotions. I can handle myself with the boys. I drink whisky and beer along with my cocktails. I love getting dolled up, but I'm more comfortable in jeans than in a skirt. I don't like the way I look in skirts, but I love fashion. And that's not being anti-feminism. That just being a me. If I wanna sleep with boys or girls, or both, it's not because I have biker boots or cut my hair short. It's because that's who I am and that's what I want to do. I promise whatever I do, I'm not the type who'd be afraid to tell you honestly who I am. I'm not all that excited, however, to hear what or who you think I am.
I still struggle against others perceptions of sexuality and gender and battle with my views of feminism in a world with complex social structures and difficult issues of fairness. I'm so happy to have found my relationship with feminism, though. I only wish I handn't missed the salvation I could have had in high-school if I'd known about riot grrrl back then. I obviously was not reading my Sassy magazines closely enough.
I was a tomboy. I liked sports and rock music and the X-Men. All my best friends were boys until age 12 when all that 'sexual' tension shit started to seep into the picture and fucked things up. But then I found the girls who were also badass and who'd go see Tank Girl with me or were listening to alt-rock.
The feminism I was around while I was growing up was fairly anti-male. It put down a lot of things I liked; boys included. I couldn't relate to 'Boys are Stupid' tees when I was 13. I've since called many a boy stupid, but they usually deserved it and I've said the same about many women, too.
In high-school the feminists my age were dominated by the Lilith fair folks. I couldn't relate to hairy armpits and acoustic covers of the Indigo girls by peole calling themselves hippies. It was as if the women's rights movement was stuck in bell bottoms with flowers in their hair. It didn't help that bell bottoms were back in style while I was in high school! There was some crossover. For example, I did like artists like Suzanne Vega and The Cardigans. The overall vibe, however, was totally unrelatable to me as I was listening to Radiohead, Nirvana, and No Doubt. No Doubt before they went soft, that is. Basically I wanted to be Gwen Stefani from Tragic Kingdom.
My relationship with feminism didn't get better in the early college years. At around 19 I remember getting into a fight with a friend of my mother's (and mine) who said that women of my generation were letting feminism down. She said we were leaving the work place to raise families and were letting the fight for equality die. We were ruining the progress her generation had worked so hard for. I remember feeling like feminism was telling me what I should and shouldn't do. I lumped it in with the male sexism that had come before. I can see now that was ridiculous and exaggerated, but the anger I felt then had the the affect of continuing my disdain toward feminism. Don't tell me how to behave, feminism!
Still I gravitated toward women's rights. From the time I first read about women being mistreated in other countries: their clitorises being mutilated, not being allowed to leave the house without a man or a veil, or being told that women's rights were a western convention; I screamed at whoever would listen. Literally. My poor mother and father. I also found myself angry when people had expectations about how I should be, told me what I could do with my body, told me I wasn't being lady-like, or when I saw men and women slut-shaming those who were just feeding their sex drives. I surrounded myself with women who were strong and independent and men who liked opinionated and smart women.
I still hated the feminism, though. In my world I saw it as stagnant, exclusionary, and often mean. Then when I was twenty-one or so, things changed. I found out that feminism I'd dreamed of was alive, I'd just been missing it. I found Sleater-Kinney and it snow-balled from there. I fell in love with this new-to-me modern feminism. It was not about telling men their behavior was sexist--though, sometimes--it was about breaking the perceptions of what it means to be a woman, about loving whatever you are, and about not taking shit from anyone who wants to hurt you or get in your way. It was inclusive and opinionated and stong.
As I'd known deep down, feminism wasn't dead in the western world and society still needed it. We needed it not just to get through to old dudes who filled the seats of congress, but because there are still liberal progressives who are tainted by the stereotypical idea of what it means to be a women or what it means to have feminine sexuality, or by those who believe that women need to proove the stereotype wrong by being the opposite.
I knew we still needed feminism from firsthand experience. For example, just a year and a half ago I went from long hair to short hair. My girlfriends loved it. A small handful of my dudefriends did, too. A pleasant side-effect was that icky men hollered at me less, but so did the cute men at bars and pubs. In fact, I was more invisible to almost all men. Disappointing for a single girl in her 30s, but not soul crushing. The sad thing came from some of the reactions I got from friends. Friend who were are self-proclaimed progressives. Suddenly my biker boots were 'lesbian boots.' My LGBTQ+ friend half-jokingly suggested I may be somewhere on a lesbian spectrum. Not once but quite a few times. As if trying to see if I would reveal a hidden truth about my sexuality I'd bottled up inside.
I've never been stereotypically feminine girl. I like sports. I like rock. I speak my mind about everything: politics, religion, sex. I don't cry about things and I rarely ask for help or talk about my emotions. I can handle myself with the boys. I drink whisky and beer along with my cocktails. I love getting dolled up, but I'm more comfortable in jeans than in a skirt. I don't like the way I look in skirts, but I love fashion. And that's not being anti-feminism. That just being a me. If I wanna sleep with boys or girls, or both, it's not because I have biker boots or cut my hair short. It's because that's who I am and that's what I want to do. I promise whatever I do, I'm not the type who'd be afraid to tell you honestly who I am. I'm not all that excited, however, to hear what or who you think I am.
I still struggle against others perceptions of sexuality and gender and battle with my views of feminism in a world with complex social structures and difficult issues of fairness. I'm so happy to have found my relationship with feminism, though. I only wish I handn't missed the salvation I could have had in high-school if I'd known about riot grrrl back then. I obviously was not reading my Sassy magazines closely enough.
No comments:
Post a Comment