The Geek Feminist Revolution: Essays

by Kameron Hurley

You can fight all you want for individual wins, and fight to be the “exceptional” woman, but so long as there’s institutionalized oppression, bias, and unregulated, out-of-control capitalism that treats people as disposable objects, you’re an exception, not a rule. So long as the people with the power—to hire and fire you, approve or deny your loan, or write up your speeding ticket—look at you through the lens of institutionalized racism, sexism, homophobia, or any other -ism they’ve learned from stories, videos, media, and other biased individuals, a single win means nothing. We cannot effect true change alone.

When I speak to people about some of my concerns about how important stories are to the way we view our own lives and desires, and why words matter (even in posts on Reddit), I don’t think a lot of people understand just how many regimes have sought to and succeeded in rewriting our past.

Story is powerful. It can hold us back. Box us in. But it can also challenge our assumptions. Teach us to build structures. Or tear down those structures altogether and start over again anew. Anything is possible. But to make it possible, we must first acknowledge that none of it is normal.

Storytelling is how we’ve passed on social mores, history, and morality in our cultures for tens of thousands of years. Storytelling is a universal: every culture does it. There’s a reason our religious books aren’t simply a list of shall-and-shall-nots. Morals and teachings are contained in stories, which are studied, dissected and passed down; we remember stories in a way we don’t remember lists of facts.