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Feminism has given me guiding principles for how I write, how I read, how I live. It was easy to embrace feminism when I realized it was advocating for gender equality in all realms, while also making the effort to be intersectional, to consider all the other factors that influence who we are and how we move through the world.
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I learned to separate feminism from Feminism or Feminists or the idea of an Essential Feminism - one true feminism to dominate all of womankind. But then I began to learn more about feminism.
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I resisted feminism in my late teens and my twenties because I worried that feminism wouldn't allow me to be the mess of a woman I knew myself to be. I believe women not just in the United States but throughout the world deserve equality and freedom but know I am in no position to tell women of other cultures what that equality and freedom should look like. I believe feminism is grounded in supporting the choices of women even if we wouldn't make certain choices for ourselves. Feminism is a choice, and if a woman does not want to be a feminist, that is her right, but it is still my responsibility to fight for her rights. I believe women should be paid as much as men for doing the same work. I believe in women having reproductive freedom and affordable and unfettered access to the health care they need. I believe in equal opportunities for women and men. I know feminism will not and cannot fix everything. I know feminism is complex and evolving and flawed. I get angry but I understand and hope someday we will live in a culture where we don't need to distance ourselves from the feminist label, where the label doesn't make us afraid of being alone, of being too different, of wanting too much. I get angry when women disavow feminism and shun the feminist label but say they support all the advances born of feminism because I see a disconnect that does not need to be there. I am ashamed of my fear because mostly the disavowal was grounded in the fear that I would be ostracized, that I would be seen as a troublemaker, that I would never be accepted by the mainstream. Anytime I remember how I once disavowed feminism, I am ashamed of my ignorance. I was called a feminist, and what I heard was, "You are an angry, sex-hating, man-hating victim lady person." This caricature is how feminists have been warped by the people who fear feminism most, the same people who have the most to lose when feminism succeeds. I disavowed feminism because I had no rational understanding of the movement. I had lots of strange things in my head during my teens and twenties. I had it in my head that I could not both be a feminist and be sexually open. When I was called a feminist, during those days, my first thought was, But I willingly give blow jobs. In fact, it was generally intended as such. I disavowed feminism because when I was called a feminist, the label felt like an insult. I understand why women still fall over themselves to disavow feminism, to distance themselves. When I was younger, I disavowed feminism with alarming frequency. Then they get knocked off when they fuck it up. People who are placed on pedestals are expected to pose, perfectly. I am a bad feminist because I never want to be placed on a Feminist Pedestal. I am just trying - trying to support what I believe in, trying to do some good in this world, trying to make some noise with my writing while also being myself: a woman who loves pink and likes to get freaky and sometimes dances her ass off to music she knows, she knows, is terrible for women and who sometimes plays dumb with repairmen because it's just easier to let them feel macho than it is to stand on the moral high ground. I am not trying to say I have all the answers. I embrace the label of bad feminist because I am human.