As the newest guest here at Feministe, I’d like to begin by thanking my hosts – I’m enormously excited and honored to be included in this summer’s series of guest-bloggers. For those who are curious about me, you can find an introduction here. The short version is that I’m a regular contributor to a blog called The Feminist Underground, I have completed the first sixty pages of the novel I’m writing, and (like most people) I dream of someday taking-over This American Life when Ira Glass retires.
The Feminist Underground recently ran a series of posts by guest bloggers that focused on the diverse ways that those of us who consider ourselves to be feminists define the term, how we put our beliefs into practice, and what led us to embrace feminism. I was particularly struck by a comment made by Sally from Jump off the Bridge, who asserts that ‘click moments’ with feminism are rare, writing “usually people either accept that they’re a feminist through time or completely reject it.”
In thinking about this insight, I realized that while I can’t point to one definitive moment when I ‘turned feminist,’ I did have a series of ‘click moments.’ Oddly enough, the most powerful of these have not been the times I’ve realized that others were treating me in a sexist way, but moments when I recognized that I was internalizing the sexism around me, and that it was causing me to treat other women – or myself – unfairly.
Even after declaring “I am feminist!,” which I once naively believed could save me from all sexist thoughts, I still find myself confronted with my own internalized sexism from time to time. As a teacher, I have to remain constantly vigilant to ensure that I am not stricter with girls who shout-out answers and have difficulty staying in their seats than I am with boys who display the same behaviors. And, while each new recognition of internalized sexism makes me think “And I’m supposed to be a feminist,” it seems that a continuous self-vigilance against sexist attitudes is a central part of what feminism is about. Amelia and Lindsay of Female Impersonator have both written posts describing moments when they became aware of some internalized sexism, and how it helped them become better feminists. Bluemilk also eloquently describes one such post-’declaration of feminism’ feminist epiphany, writing:
A little while ago while sitting on the beach I realized how good I am at picking faults in women’s bodies, my own included of course but that’s not really so surprising because I know my own body very well and I’ve been living in a misogynist world, oh all my life. What I found while sitting on the beach was that I could size up a woman in 10 seconds flat. So well trained was my eye that I could spot her imperfections in an instant…
I was repulsed by myself. So I tried something new. When I was next at the beach I made it my mission to find something I liked about every female body that my eyes came to rest upon. Once I got going it wasn’t even that difficult. And the most surprising thing for me? Not how differently I started to view other women (for that had been the whole point of the exercise) but how differently I started to view myself. My participation in the hatred of women’s bodies had been every bit a form of self-hatred.
The real test will be when I can view women’s bodies without any kind of objectification what so ever, to just let us be. I’m still a way off.
The experiences related by Amelia, Lindsay, and Bluemilk imply that, if espousing feminist ideals is like ‘taking the red pill’ (as Kandee of Lots of Thinking suggests), the red pill is the first of a regular prescription rather than a one-time dose. Even the most dedicated among us ‘drop our feminism’ from time to time. Since it isn’t easy or comfortable to recognize sexist attitudes in yourself, or in those you love, I worry that this constant self-evaluation is part of what makes many ostensibly feminist women shy away from the term – it is simply too tiring and uncomfortable to keep questioning assumptions.
So I am curious to know what other people’s ‘click moments’ -or series of feminist epiphanies- have been, and what keeps you dedicated to the cause, even when merely ridding ourselves of sexist expectations seems an up-hill struggle.
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When I started university at 18, I wouldn’t have described myself as a feminist. In fact, I was the archetypal “I’m not a feminist, but…” type- I was happy to enjoy the benefits of higher-tier education, employment prospects, etc. without caring about how they’d come to me. Over time, I became friends with some feminists, and started reading stuff they’d linked to on their blogs, then added sites like feministe and the f-word to the bookmarks I look at every day. As time has progressed, I’ve actually become more extremist and more radical than many of the friends who started me off on it. The main things that piss me off are street harassment and objectification of women more generally, so I’m constantly bending people’s ears about those topics, and I think I’ve changed a few people’s views- my boyfriend says that he thinks about these sorts of issues differently since going out with me. My dad has also changed his view that street harassment can be “flattering”. The other thing I’ve become interested in is gender abolitionism (although it was actually my boyfriend who pointed out to me how ridiculous it is that we have to specify gender on all application forms). I’ve posted about it on my livejournal a couple of times a few months ago, and even reading back over the posts now I’ve changed my mind about details again! (http://sir-rosealot.livejournal.com/2008/01/18/ and http://sir-rosealot.livejournal.com/2007/12/18/ they’re here if anyone feels like reading my rambling thoughts…). I’m 22 now, and I expect that by the time I’m 30, my views will have changed a lot more, and what feminism means to me now will be forgotten by then. Maybe I’ll decide I want children (please no) and that will definitely change things. I’m certainly more evangelical about it now than ever before, and am really into pulling people up on sexist codewords, much to their annoyance!
I began to describe myself as a feminist about a year ago. Before that, I was hesitant to use what I considered unnecessary labels- I’d rather just have my opinions and be done with it.
At some point, I started to realize that I was taking a bunch of feminist positions, and that I WAS a feminist, whether or not I used that word in defining myself. Once I did start using it, I felt very comfortable with it. Not only that, but it was empowering to be connected to a whole movement of people who share common goals and a certain responsibility to one another.
The idea of having a lot of different “feminisms” also made a big difference to me. I like that we can acknowledge that my feminism is different from your feminism and still be connected by what we have in common.
Once I became familiar with the word feminism from an academic perspective in college I knew that I fit well into that category. But I completey agree that those moments of internalized sexism (and even racism) are better signals of one’s feminist identity than anything else. I find that for me it is actual self criticism that triggers my thinking. I divide my time between the corporate world and the academic world and I find that when I am at work I often compare myself to other women as to how well I fit in with that image. And then I realize how narrow minded that thought process is. And then my feminist lightbulb turns on.
I think I identified myself as a feminist from the moment I knew the word, which was pretty young. Carol Tavris’ The Mismeasure of Woman really brought home how alive and well sexist thinking was, though.
If anything, more recent years have called my feminism into more doubt, as I became more aware of issues like racism within the movement. But I’ve always been a ’stand and fight’-er, I guess!
Sometimes when I’m snarky, I like to be a smart ass and give sarcastic answers to my friends and family – the people who understand my humor and that I’m not being serious. At times I have to catch myself and not be snarky because it might be misinterpreted.
Last week I was having a conversation with my mom and I said that I was going to have ugly children because I myself was ugly. I think I also said I didn’t like the way my body looked, or something along those lines. Both times she said, “You don’t really think you’re xxx, do you?” I think because both attractiveness and weight are areas that women critique themselves over (critique to the point of starving/plastic surgery) my mom felt the need to make sure I was being sarcastic and it wasn’t actually self-hatred.
However, I feel like I’m countering the patriarchy whenever I point out a feminist fallacy to someone else, and also hopefully providing a click moment for that person.
Yay on the guest blogging and huzzah for the linkage!
My friend was murdered by her “friend” that was obsessed with her. Then I started noticing all the news stories about women being killed by the men who supposedly loved them and I wondered why it was only men that felt like being spurned or whatever (maybe they “nagged too much”) was a transgression worthy of death and why the fuck there were SO MANY of them. There had to be a reason. Someone linked to some post in the feminist blogosphere at VaginaPagina and I started reading and it just clicked.
I think I’ve always believed in feminist ideals, but it took a gendered crime hitting so close to home for me to realize what that means.
I grew up with a misogynist father. When my mother finally came to her senses and left, he wouldn’t let us go without a fight (legal, not physical). My mom no longer being the de-facto maid of the family, my father stipulated that my sister and I would take over all the chores, A-L-L of them. So while everyone else in the neighborhood, girls and boys alike, were outside playing, I was doing laundry, helping to prepare meals, washing dishes, picking up after my brother (who I was convinced daily drug out all of his toys from his room just because he knew he wouldn’t have to pick them up or put them back), and cleaning. My brother and father did NOTHING during that time and that was the first big click for me. The “F” word (feminist) obviously wasn’t allowed in the house but I knew that I was different, at home and at church I just couldn’t accept that I had been “made” for a life of domestic drudgery. It wasn’t fair and I spent many young, formative years a bundle of rage over it.
At around the same time, my father joined Promise Keepers and the sexism and misogyny at home and when we were out in public just became so very much worst. My sister and I were not to speak unless spoken to, we were to answer everything with “sir,” we were not to “act-out” anywhere (and ‘act-out’ began to be very loosely defined as anytime we expressed an opinion all of our own), and life generally sucked. It was a shitty time to be a girl in that house at the time.
My mother finally gained custody and we moved in with her. She was no longer doing all of the housework and we understood, respected that, and began to do many of our own chores. My younger brother was the only one who was unhappy with the new arrangement because he was suddenly no longer the little prince that everyone had to bow and cater to. He came around after a while.
Living with my mother, a strong, independent Woman was a continuous set of ‘clicks’ for me. When I finally recognized that I could no longer belong to a religion that treated me like the property of a man, his doormat and slave, I had another big ‘click.’
It was at the end of highschool when I began getting involved in Women’s issues and organizations. It was then that I first began describing myself as a feminist and I have done so ever since.
My biggest issue with internalized sexism and misogyny come about whenever the issue is rape. I used to be very quick to be apologetic and I regret that those are often my first thoughts whenever I hear of a new case. But I am beginning to recognize just how pervasive misogyny is in our society because of it and my thinking is slowly evolving.
My first feminist moment happened in a church. It was fathers day and the minister proceeded to give the most anti-woman speech I was ever to hear.
“I am tired of all of those Godless women”, he said “announcing to the world that it is their bodies. Why didn’t they think about their bodies before they decided to get pregnant, surely temptation thy name is woman. Abortion is a sin against God.” I was 14 years old, and in that very moment I became a feminist. Something inside me boiled with a rage that I could not even put a name too. I had never read a single feminist book, or even heard a feminist speak on TV, but I knew that I wanted to be part of a group that said that I was equal, and thought my body belonged to me.
I absolutely had “click moments” with feminism. The one that stands out most clearly to me is when I picked up a copy of “The Stranger” (Seattle’s alt-weekly) on my college campus in 1999. It happened to have an article about the legal fight that Seal Press went through with Mattel over the book, “Adios, Barbie.” Because Seal Press was small and couldn’t fight the corporate giant, they had to retitle and redesign the book. (It is now “Body Outlaws.”) I immediately went home and ordered the book – something inside of me told me that I just had to get my hands on a copy before the cover and the title changed. Sure enough, it arrived in my mailbox and I read it immediately and just discovered myself in the pages of all of these people writing about their relationships with their bodies in a misogynist world. Interestingly, i was in therapy at the time for some very severe depression, and honestly – I think that Adios, Barbie did so much more for me at that age than the therapy. It was a huge “click” moment. Shortly thereafter, I went, entirely alone, to my first “Take Back the Night” march, and mustered up the strength to wear a “survivor” armband. That was click #2. There were many other clicks in the beginning that just seem so cliche – like the first time I listened to Ani Difranco. The next year, I spent a year studying abroad and started reading a bunch of “feminist 101″ books like Inga Muscio’s “Cunt” and various others. I also started coming out that year, though it took me another 4-5 to be fully out as queer with my family and friends. Since then, the clicks have been different – more about nuances and learning and recognizing my privileges, and learning that “doing” feminism means more than waving a sign at the pro-choice rally or getting into an argument with someone. The clicks continue to happen as long as I am open to them.
So, looking back, would I say I have always been a feminist? I don’t know – I really think of those first few heady years, where the clicks were happening fast, as “growing into myself.” I know that the seeds of my feminism and my queerness were there all along, but my upbringing didn’t cultivate them. So in some ways, yes – I have always been a feminist. That voice was there inside of me, it just took a long time to find its way out. But, my friends and family still say that I changed a lot over that 2 year period – to many of them, I came back from my year abroad as a totally different person.
Anyhow, cheers to the click moments!! May we all continue to have them!
I recall doing the whole “I’m not a feminist but…” thing in primary school, when these things started to impinge upon our worlds, and I’d only ever heard about the tired old dungaree-wearing-lesbian-separatist-women-are-better-than-men stereotype of feminists.
I’ve always been a feminist, but only really became an out-and-proud one about a year ago. I started volunteering at a rape crisis centre and in the course of the training, unpicking the rape culture opened my eyes and turned half-formed notions into clear, political ideas. It was like the whole world shifted sideways and into focus. I see everything with feminist laser vision now, and I wouldn’t change a minute of it, even if it does get a bit overwhelmingly frustrating at times!
My feminist moment? God that was along time ago, I was young and being indoctrinated in my mother’s religion. You know you talk to the missionaries and they explain how “life” began etc. Well it got to the part where only boys were allowed to talk to god. (I talk in small words because the memory is that old) I think I was 7 or so, almost 8. My mom wanted me baptized in the church.
They were telling me about the Melkeznik priesthood, and what it meant. And I told the missionary that I wanted that. “nodding” to him. He looked at me like I grew a second head and said Oh, no only boys get that when they turn 16 or so. And even then they have to go on a mission for god.(Basically some kind of rite of passage where the “priesthood” is bestowed on worthy males to have a direct communication to God. but Females were unpure and not allowed this basic rite)
I said, oh no, I talk to God all the time he is with me where ever I go, Why would he leave me suddenly if I got Baptized? Course the elder whom was teaching the young missionary to bring more into the fold laughed. and said “She has you there.”
Interesting that I remember that, because it made me SO MAD that I was female. It made me want to scream and rant and rave and wonder why I had been given this particular body only to have God’s voice taken away. ((Thoroughly brainwashed))
I was a feminist from that day and while I have taken my fair share of beatings, and scathing talk I have never backed down from someone telling me I couldn’t because of my gender. I also heard later that the Elder had left the church too.
I am no longer a member of the church and I refuse to acknowledge organized religion has anything spiritual to do with God. Satan more like. but I digress.
I have more “click” moments with racism then I do with feminism. I have always known what hating me and others like me was, and it’s never been oki. I grew up in a very misogynist home. My mom was very independent though when it came to some things. She fought my dad on a number of battle grounds, the ones that count anyway.. She did love him and still does. But she showed me that she is very capable woman and she deserved that respect. My parents have been married for 38 yrs and I have seen the majority of them. ROCKY but with Love, and mutual respect. I wouldn’t want a marriage like theirs, however I do want to emulate their love, that is one thing they have always had.
That and my mom was and is a narcissist which gave her a very big opinion of herself, more then just a body image, but self confidence that I have never seen in anyone else. Which added more to her being seen as a feminist though she would never label her self as such. Nor do I think she actually IS a feminist, least not with her faults. There were just some things she demanded to be respected on and other things that she would rather be “told”. I was determined to have all of it. Not just parts.
I realised I was a feminist after I became involved in a political youth group. I had just turned 17 when I went to my first summer camp, and there was a women’s group starting up. I was interested and a bit bemused and I did the whole “I’m not a feminist, but…” thing, but I went along to the meeting.
The sheer outrage, denial that women were oppressed, and misogyny that we experienced at every step from our male comrades made me see how much misogyny and oppression of women there was in the world, and I realised I was a feminist.
I think my ‘click’ moment was during my first science internship. I realized at one point that while we were all talking as a group, the male professors only looked at the male students. Even though I’d give my opinion, the conversation would have looked the same (like if you were viewing it with no sound) whether or not I was there. I felt invisible, and I cried after work each day for at least a week. Sometimes I wouldn’t even make it back to my dorm to cry, I’d have to sneak off the path and find a spot where I could be alone. It was then that I started reading up on the treatment of women in science (and the workplace in general) and become way more vocal about it.
I’m really glad you posted about this. There are countless times when, even as feminists, it’s possible to have those moments where you find yourself thinking or reacting in a way you would jump on somebody else for. Whenever I try to bring this up with other feminists, I never do it as well as you just summed it up.
Everyone does it and it does more harm than good to try to ignore it, deny it, or put other people down for it.
The reason we all say/do sexist (and racist, ableist, etc.) things is because it is happening automatically and oftentimes without our knowledge or control. As I learned in my recent psych/women’s studies class, you have to actively make yourself realize what you’ve just done and why it’s wrong, and then try to fix it. With practice, the reaction time hopefully decreases and your awareness hopefully increases.
It’s hard (and takes a long time), but it’s possible.
P.S. Thanks for the link! You’re the bomb!
Although it’s fairly recently (the last few years) that I’ve been able to say “I’m a feminist” without preceding it with “I’m not sure if men can be feminists, but it they can…”, my (rudimentary) feminist consciousness started in my mid-teens.
But, for what it’s worth, I became pro-choice in a “click moment”. I think I was about 14, and someone asked me (either in conversation or through the written word) who I was (as someone who can’t become pregnant) to make that kind of a decision for someone who can become pregnant. I became firmly pro-choice in that moment. I’ve had other click moments about different aspects of solid feminist consciousness, but that was the clearest and starkest.
i was in 4th grade. up thru this point, i had been VERY lucky in teachers, they let me move ahead in every subject.
we were doing a project with the entire 4th grade. my teacher was Miz Littleton (she WROTE MiZ, k? she was the awesome black feminist…). when the engineer who was in charge of the project called for volunteers to hand him parts (we were building an old mainframe computer) i of course jumped up. i was the ONLY one who jumped up excited (my dad used to work on mainframes in the airforce…) he was all “you might get dirty helping” and “don’t you have tiny hands” and “is this the sort of thing you want others seeing you do?”
Miz Littleton let him say it all, as i kept saying “yep, this will be fun!” and she watched me battle for the “right” to participate in a school project. and she smiled, and smiled.
the guy was finally “i don’t think this is something for girls”
and Miz Littleton didn’t just tell him off. she told him i was smarter than any of the boys in the class, and then kicked him off campus. when i asked why it was such a big deal that i work on the mainframe (please remember, i had been LUCKY in class before this) she told me that many men were afraid of smart women, because smart women were feminists and feminists were going to take over the world and make it great for everyone.
and i wanted to be Miz Littleton when i grew up.
My “click moments” began young, when my mother put restrictions on me but not my brother: “No, you can’t ride your bike too far. It’s more dangerous for girls. You’ll be kidnapped.” or “He doesn’t have to learn how to do the dishes. His wife will do that for him when he grows up.”
As a teenager my mom got into a born-again Christian mood and made us go to Sunday school for a few months, where we got “sex education” about how “girls need to save their virginity for their husbands, and boys need to respect that virginity for the sake of girls’ future husbands.”
Around that time somebody from church had given my mom a book called “The Fulfilled Family.” Out of curiousity I read through it and remember Chapter One best of all: “The Submissive Wife.” It said that a family’s chances of fulfillment and hapiness are bound and determined by the wife’s willingness to submit to her husband’s leadership. This was in the early 90s.
I went to the library and checked out a bunch of books on feminism, with no guidance whatsoever. One of the books that caught my eye, because of the title, was Simone De Beauvior’s (sorry if I misspelled her name) “The Second Sex.” I re-read it in my early 20s and understood it better then (after college). I should find a copy and see how it digests now.
I was a “Me-ist” until I realized that I couldn’t be the only living female to love science. Love of science wasn’t restricted to the mother and daughter Curies and me! Then I wondered why it was that so few girls grew up to become scientists, doctors, engineers, mathematicians. I think the transformation from “Me-ist” to “feminist” occurred somewhere around 6th grade (mid-1960s) – I was a bit slow socially, a tomboy who didn’t fit in anywhere. Feminism wasn’t really a widely used word when I became one, and certainly kids my age knew nothing about Betty Friedan and Simone Beauvoir, the two major authors published before 1965.
From as early as I can remember, I’ve always sided with girls. I couldn’t understand why we were supposed to treat them so badly. As far as I could see, there was nothing wrong with them.
One “click” was seeing how they were shunted aside during the social revolution of the 60’s and 70’s–the very people who wanted a new social order were treating them as secretaries or sexataries.
The final click was reading Eve’s Seed: Biology, the sexes and the course of history by Robert McElvaine. The whole patriarchal picture unravelled before my eyes, and I decided to write my own book about women, which I did. Now I’m a full-fledged feminist.
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