The F-Word... or, "I'm not a feminist, but..."

From Megan Seely's book, "Fight Like a Girl: How To Be A Fearless Feminist" (p. 1):

"These are some of the negative words that regularly surface when I ask people what comes to mind when they hear the word 'feminist'":
Bitch.
Fat.
Ugly.
Dyke.
Man hater.
Bra burner. (Note: [from me] no bras were burned -- they were thrown in trash cans along with other accoutrements of femininity at the protest of the 1968 Miss America pageant in Atlantic City, NJ, which received a lot media attention)
Hairy.
Butch.
Loud.
Militant.
Radical.
Angry.

Seely then goes on to say: "But for me, 'independence', 'strength', and 'equality' come to mind when I think of feminism."

Me, again: What's wrong with "bitch," "loud," "butch," "hairy," "radical," "angry," etc.?

I get very angry when I think about the recent supreme court ruling that makes it more difficult for women to sue employers for gender-based wage discrimination, or when I think about how hard it is for poor rural women to have access to abortion, or that women in the military have difficultly getting access to emergency contraception. Does that make me a feminist -- yes. An angry one, yes. A "bitch," maybe. Am I radical? Yes. Am I loud? sometimes. Am I hairy? Sometimes.

A lot of women don't like labels. "Feminist" is too monolithic, old fashioned, hippy-ish... but labels sometimes create community and communities incite change.

I have to come clean before Sunday... I am very steeped in generational ideas about Feminism, as my dissertation is on connections between second and third wave feminism and I've been reading and researching this topic all summer. Still -- like all of us, I get very emotional when this topic comes up.

The goal of consciousness raising is to listen to each other -- to try to understand each other's feelings and understand where these feelings come from and find *commonalities* among our experiences.

Wimmin and grrrls, we are all in this together.

See you Sunday - 6 p.m. my place.

In sisterhood,
Lyz