Here We Are: Feminism for the Real World

by Kelly Jensen

In the Eye of the Typhoon

I don’t remember talking about feminism with her, and I don’t know whether she identified as one, but in my mind, my grandmother was every inch a feminist.

Edna St. Vincent Millay.

Madeleine L’Engle’s Austin Family novels, including my favorite, A Ring of Endless Light

I saw all the ideals of feminism. Self-motivated, not selfish. Human, not perfect. Bold and adventurous in spirit—just like my grandmother.

I didn’t know much about the complexities of feminism or the academic or political arguments about what it meant, but at a gut level, I got it. I was a feminist, even if it was my own definition,

This is important. I think as a feminist, it's important to not only know how "the system" and society and scholars define feminism, but to define it for oneself and to abide and defend, even if that definition gwta reassessed and/or changes.

When I was seventeen, to me a feminist was someone who lived life fully, who endured what came at her and triumphed over it. A feminist was someone who acted, who set her sights on a dream and made it come true. A feminist was someone who loved deeply, and who allowed that love to change her. She was complicated and sometimes contradictory, witty and full of integrity. A feminist, in my mind, was a woman at full potential.

“Feminism means finally that we renounce our obedience to the fathers and recognize that the world they have described is not the whole world . . . Feminism implies that we recognize fully the inadequacy for us, the distortion, of male-created ideologies, and that we proceed to think, and act, out of that recognition.”

This might be my favorite definition.

But here’s to hoping the coming years will see more victories in favor of feminism, both the word and the movement.

I get that femimism is an alienatimg term. I think because of the root of the word- fem- it is often determined by the misinformed or uninformed that the movement focuses solely on the struggles of cis women.

FEMINIST SONGS TO SING ALONG TO

I love love love this chapter

but I resent how hard I have to work to be taken seriously, to receive a fraction of the consideration I might otherwise receive.

I identify so strongly with this, and even further than being a woman, the fact that my jeans and stature mean I'm often not only treated lesser by men, but am often seen as 20ish and young/dumb/inexperienced rather than 27 and therefore almost 30 with 2 degrees and 7 years of so-called real world & work experience.

Good feminists, I assume, are independent enough to address vehicular crises on their own; they are independent enough to care.

I am a bad feminist. I would rather be a bad feminist than no feminist at all.

BAD FEMINIST: ESSAYS BY ROXANE GAY.

But feminism—and I am talking about intersectional feminism here—is more than that. And saying that my involvement in feminism is for my daughter is, again, part of the problem.

This is so important.

You may have to take many small steps to reach this kind of body confidence.

Literally teared up here. Body image struggles are real.

When I can’t escape hateful, mean thoughts about my body, I ask myself what I would do if I heard someone talking that way about a friend. I would speak up for my friend. I would defend her and boost her up.

Treat yourself like you would treat your best friend.

You, too, have the right to enjoy the big blue ocean on your terms and for yourself.

This illustrates the systemic imbalance in how the genders are taught to measure their success.

To move from obsession to body love is difficult. You can’t just flip a switch and instantly forget the body image pressure.

Every so often, I hear someone comment that wearing makeup isn’t feminist because it’s all about appealing to the male gaze and supports the sexualization of women. I don’t entirely buy that argument. My makeup is all about me. Makeup helps to keep me safe and find joy in my appearance. Makeup reminds me that I get to define what pretty looks like for me, reminding me that I love my cheekbones and my lower lip and the fact that my dark thick eyebrows underscore my emotions.

Juxtapose this against the fact that we have so many unquestioned and accepted narratives about male characters who hurt and use girls to cope with their own pain, who are lauded for their emotional depth and complexity. It doesn’t matter if they are nice to female characters; they are allowed to be complicated—just like real people happen to be.

You learned early (so very early) that desirability was the goal. It didn’t matter that you liked your reflection if boys didn’t like it, too.

You are beautiful and desirable, and those are not the most important things you are. You are worth more than all the stars and all the galaxies and all the mysteries of the universe combined.

Langston Hughes essay “My Adventures as a Social Poet.”

Your feminism can be more powerful than any generation’s has ever been, if it opens itself to everyone who needs it.

JUDGMENTS by Pomona Lake

I've seen this and it speaks volumes,and i hate that the stigmas are so real that it's this easy to portray

bell hooks

Simone de Beauvoir wrote in The Second Sex

Cornel West

Somewhere in America BY ZARIYA ALLEN

Everything in this poem is important

movie Set It Off

That itself is what is so complicated when it comes to black culture. I mean the line between cultural appropriation and cultural exchanges is always going to be blurred,

what would America be like if we loved black people as much as we love black culture?

Courtney Summers THREE BOOKS ALL GIRLS SHOULD READ

Laurie Halse Anderson THREE BOOKS ALL GIRLS SHOULD READ

Brandy Norwood,

In a feminist relationship, all parties should have equal standing when it comes to whose feelings are honored, whose needs are met first, and whose desires are prioritized.

Shouldn't that just be love- is that where the issues lite,that feminism is simply the new word for "how ____ should be"

Get sliced open enough, bleed enough, and you start to hold back. You ball yourself up tight, so there’s less of you showing.

There were many other modes of keeping people marginalized or shut down, methods like insisting you didn’t matter if you weren’t white. If you weren’t straight. If you weren’t Christian. If you weren’t able-bodied and neurotypical. If you weren’t at least middle class. If you weren’t cisgender. If you weren’t thin.

the playground belongs to all of us.