You're Probably a Feminist: Reflections from Feminist Camp, Day One
This week I’m attending 5 days of feminist camp. A program for young, budding activists, thinkers and truth-seekers, chock full of talks, internships, thought provoking lectures and movie-watching meant to water whatever feminist flower you’ve got growing.
What can one day in feminist camp do for you? Make you realize that you're probably a feminist.
The first day of camp began with a group conversation, 15 women strong, over bagels, clementines, bacon and Greek yogurt. The crew sat around the tastefully decorated Lower East Side apartment and explained when their feminist “click” moment happened. The “click” being, when you realize you’re a feminist.
For activist Jennifer Baumgardner, one of the organizers of the camp, it was after her sister got drunk at a party in high school and the class started calling her a “slut.” It wasn’t until a Women’s Studies course freshman year of college when everything came together. She realized her sister was raped.
For Adele, a musician, it was when she noticed the proliferation of porn on studio walls.
Another participant said she became a feminist at a young age, because she had a “really strict mom who wasn’t a feminist.”
Carly Romeo, one of the Project Managers running camp, said for her, feminism is about “taking the step to push away what’s expected of you.”
The necessity of truly equal rights for women is a defining feature of feminism, but I learned today that the phrase is more inclusive. It's about accepting that no one is normal, there is no normal, and we need to make the word a place that recognizes and honors that complex truth in a lived way, and ensure it is reflected in our politics.
If you think no one should be denied health care, you're a feminist. If you think painting your nails two-tone colors is fun, you're a feminist. If you believe in any persons' right to choose what they do with their bodies and their relationships, free of fear of judgment or persecution, you're a feminist. If the way you define yourself is as a runner, a writer, a carpenter or a doctor, and not by your gender or ethnicity, you're a feminist. If you think no one should be tyrannized because of they way they were born, or the way they choose to live, you're a feminist.
What I learned today is that feminism is about throwing over the yolk of whatever is holding you back from your truth, facing it down and asking it what the hell it's doing there.
This is a privileged definition of feminism, but I think the idea of overturning pernicious labels can have tangible, lived results.
On Sunday I asked Carly if she thought there was an innate difference between men and women. She said yes, acknowledging that one group can birth children and one cannot. But Carly also pointed out, if I were to ask, “do you think there's an innate difference between black people and white people?” that question would (fairly) be considered offensive. Why do I feel comfortable asking that question about the difference between men and women?
What defines us is who we are on the inside. Feminism is about taking the agency to live as you feel you ought on your own terms. Labels that keep you down play into legitimizing unjust policies that enforce antiquated systems.
I learned a lot today.
