// they chalk it up to my anger, and never to their own fear //
God, I used to abhor the word feminist.
It caused so many arguments with my feminista friends, and later my girlfriend, who were striving to become our generation’s Betty Friedan or Germaine Greer. I think it was that annoying indie maxim of not wanting to be part of the larger group (because I was just smarter than that, I didn’t need an -ism for my brand of common sense etc). To quote the over-quoted Groucho Marx I “[didn't want] to join a club that will accept me as a member”.
As I’ve just told DIVA magazine, I suppose it was the sense of too many labels at once, and the preconceptions that come with them. To me, growing up, feminist meant ‘man-hater’ and I already felt I was struggling not to alienate male friends and family members who assumed lesbian meant that too. I mean, I like boys; just not enough to have sex with them. But for a long time, I’d have rather you called me pretty much anything but a feminist; it just had nothing to do with me.
But the reason I’m comfortable with it now is that I understand both LGBT rights and women’s rights as campaigns for equality, for access to the same opportunities and protections. It’s about similarities and reclaiming common ground, not about hate and fighting or supremacy.
I was scared of the word feminist for too long, but I’m happy to be called that now. All it means is that I expect women and men to be treated equally, and what’s so scary about that?
I didn’t abhor the term, but I couldn’t identify with it either. Now that I can, I can understand it’s because it’s a big, and very loaded, way to describe yourself and I think I didn’t have the courage to use it before.
I like the internet better when you’re all over it, that’s fo’ sho’
I think courage is a big part of it actually, now I’m not living and dying by what it might make other people think about me. Now that’s some liberation, right there!