feminism

Here's the truth about nice boys and sexism.

#YouKnowYoureAFeministWhen… It’s the punchline to a good joke. It’s the start of catchy Twitter hashtag. Right?

Even setting aside the dystopian hellscape that American national politics have become, it’s been a tough year across the board. That being said, 2016 wasn’t actually the worst year in history. Some things were disastrous, of course, but focusing on the negatives doesn’t do any good. At the risk of sounding cliché, if 2017 is going to be any better, we can’t lose hope.

I reject the insistence that a woman can’t choose what makes her feel beautiful without regard for the judgement of others.

Men will say they want a smart woman, of course, but the moment they are faced with one; the moment a woman challenges him, or god forbid, proves him wrong, she becomes “hard to deal with,” “too intense” or “crazy.”

I’m not scared on the street very often, but y’all, this time I was scared. But if there’s one thing I know, it is that you do not answer these guys, because that only makes it worse. So I held my breath and hoped that if I didn’t engage, he’d drive off eventually. I felt for my cell phone in my pocket, wondering how quickly I could get ahold of someone if I needed to.

Dear anti-feminist men, 

I’m writing to you because I want to have a discussion.

It would be easy to point to my mother as the originator of my lifelong feminism. She kept her last name when my parents married in the ‘80s, refused to perpetuate schoolyard gender norms, and encouraged my sister and me not to let anyone limit us by our gender... My mother may have been the louder influence, but ignoring my father’s impact does us both a disservice.