Bad Feminist

I went on a date with a guy. I confessed that in a few of my past dates, it never made it past the first date. I told him I thought it was because I discussed politics. He told me the guys probably thought I was too intense. I was too much work. I told him that these things - politics, feminism, society - were all important things to me, and part of who I am. This guy told me later that night that he didn’t think things would work out between us.

I am finishing Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay. Here are some quotes I found interesting. Really hit home.

• “This is what is so rarely said about unlikeable women in fiction - that they aren’t pretending, that they won’t or can’t pretend to be someone they are not. They have neither the energy for it nor the desire. They don’t have the willingness of a May Welland to play the part demanded of her. In Gone Girl, Amy talks about the temptation of being the woman a man wants, but ultimately she doesn’t give in to the temptation to be ‘the girl who likes every fucking thing he likes and doesn’t ever complain.’ Unlikeable women refuse to give in to that temptation. They are, instead, themselves. They accept the consequences of their choices, and those consequences become stories worth reading” (p. 95).
• “The solutions are obvious. Stop making excuses. Stop saying women run publishing. Stop justifying the lack of parity in prominent publications that have the resources to address gender inequality. Stop parroting the weak notion that you’re simply publishing the best writing, regardless. There is ample evidence of the excellence of women writers. Publish more women writers. If women aren’t submitting to your publication or press, ask yourself why, deal with the answers even if those answers make you uncomfortable, and then reach out to women writers. If women don’t respond to your solicitations, go find other women. Keep doing that, issue after issue after issue. Read more widely. Create more inclusive measures of excellence. Ensure that books by men and women are being reviewed in equal numbers. Nominate more deserving women for the important awards. Deal with your resentment. Deal with your biases. Vigorously resist the urge to dismiss the gender problem. Make the effort and make the effort and make the effort until you no longer need to, until we don’t need to keep having this conversation” (pp. 171-172).
• “The right way to be a woman is to be thin, to wear makeup, to wear the right kind of clothes (not too slutty, not too prudish - show a little leg, ladies), and so on. Good women are charming, polite, and unobtrusive. Good women work but are content to earn 77 percent of what men earn or, depending on whom you ask, good women bear children and stay home to raise those children without complaint. Good women are modest, chaste, pious, submissive. Women who don’t adhere to these standards are the fallen, the undesirable; they are bad women” (p. 304).

I am a feminist. I have never considered myself to be a good feminist or a bad feminist, although after reading this book and following in her line of thought, I am like Roxane Gay, a bad feminist. I revel in the fact.

In a third year feminist philosophy class, it was the first time I’ve heard of the time “feminisms”. I had considered and claimed myself to be a feminist since some time in high school. Anywhere from grade 10 to 12, with the force growing stronger as the years went on and my knowledge and experience grew. Yet it was only in a third-year feminist philosophy class with maybe 16 people that I learned feminism can be nuanced and different. There can be difference within feminism. White, rich, heteronormative feminism (”essentialist feminism”) is not the only brand of feminism. I was flabbergasted.

I am a feminist. I am a bad feminist. I am a mess of contradictions, and I dare you to tell me I am anything but exceptional for it.

I am. The last line of the book is: I am a bad feminist. I would rather be a bad feminist than no feminist at all.