A few months ago, I stumbled upon a scholarship essay contest that, upon first glance, seemed ideal. Please describe what feminism means to you? How, in your opinion, has or hasn’t the definition of feminism evolved? Do you consider yourself a feminist —why or why not? To provide a little background, I’m a Creative Writing major with a Women and Gender Studies minor. I have printed off pages of the Ruth Bader Ginsburg coloring book, taken a picture holding 78 cents and sporting my best resting b***h face on Equal Pay Day and told my boyfriend I wouldn’t be changing my last name if we got married as a preface to our first date (surprisingly, we’re still dating two years later). I cheekily sign my sorority emails with “Service and Giving Chairwoman.” I’m a feminist. I’m a writer. These two facts about myself seem as ingrained and obvious as the address I have memorized and rattle off every time I step into a taxi.
So why did I stare at my laptop screen for days, sporadically typing and erasing names like “Gloria Steinem” and “Emma Watson” and phrases like “Women’s rights are human rights?” Why was I— an unabashed activist and queen of the Facebook rant— stuck as speechless as the first time I listened to the "1989" album? (Oh yeah, more totally necessary background… I’m a huge Taylor Swift fan).
After thinking about it for the last few days, reevaluating my smug claim that I don’t believe in writer’s block, I think I know the answer. My feminism is not…a 1,000-word essay. It’s not five paragraphs and a thesis statement and an engaging, well-placed quote. It’s not Times New Roman, 12-point font, double-spaced. It is a messy, breathless run-on sentence, too many opinions and comma splices to count. My feminism is sloppy bullet points, a red pen, passionate and angry, a ripped up and crumpled piece of paper that I believe is worth smoothing out. My feminism is in the pre-writing stage, and that is okay. It’s anxious, eager questions, not clear-cut answers.
So maybe that’s why my feminism is not…a definition. It is a noun while also a verb, an urgent action. It means everything, and serves as the lens through which I evaluate other definitions, such as those of freedom, equality, society. It is an abstraction. My poetry teacher would probably circle it, then write: What are you trying to say here?
Often times, especially for audiences like essay evaluators and scholarship providers, this question becomes loaded with what exactly I can or should say. My feminism is not…politically correct. It is not cute and smiling and trying to sell lipstick. It is not just a He for She t-shirt and #nomakeupmonday. At my university, I’m (hopefully) known as the girl who chanted the c-word on stage to hundreds of people as part of a Vagina Monologues benefit performance and the girl who stood across from pro-life protesters with a fuchsia sign reading “#StandwithPP.”
I’m the girl who has a lot to say and is still figuring how to say it. But not in a 1,000-word essay — in my everyday life.
