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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 is about recognizing power and fighting to distribute it equally, regardless of race or class or ability or gender. Feminism is not static, and it never has been. In fact, feminism demands change.
Despite what people think based on my writing, I very much like men. They’re interesting to me, and I mostly wish they’d be better about how they treat women so I wouldn’t have to call them out so often. And still, I put up with nonsense from unsuitable men even though I know better and can do better. I love diamonds and the excess of weddings. I consider certain domestic tasks as gendered, mostly all in my favor because I don’t care for chores—lawn care, bug killing, and trash removal, for example, are men’s work.
Maybe I’m a bad feminist, but I am deeply committed to the issues important to the feminist movement.
Bad feminism seems the only way I can both embrace myself as a feminist and be myself, so I write.
I am a bad feminist. I would rather be a bad feminist than no feminist at all.
Feminism isn’t about the specific, individual choices people make in how they look and feel. Feminism is about an individual’s ability to make choices about how they look and feel and take care of themselves.
Feminism helped me understand that my body was not up for public debate and discussion. Feminism reminds us that people have inherent worth for who they are, not how they look.
Women are taught to measure it by the number on the scale. Men are taught to measure it by their accomplishments and achievements.
To allow ourselves the freedom and joy of being imperfect humans is a feminist act.
