Who Owns Feminism?

I’ll admit that, in my day-to-day life, I can be pretty sensitive. Not in a weepy way, but in the way of an aggravatingly delicate instrument that requires patience and calibration. I feel others’ pain and seek to avoid causing it; I have to mentally coach myself before a confrontation. And, like most progressives, I hold the usual shield out against sexism, racism, homophobia, and other flavors of true assholery.

That said, I have a confession to make: current feminism makes me feel like a bull in a china shop. I literally feel like I have to stand real still, or pull a quick fade, before “they” find me out and attack. I see the hugs and sisterly support from the outside, but I’ve learned that I can’t have any myself unless I pretend to be a lot more diluted than I am.

I mean really—I love war movies and blood-spitting rock stars, hate predictability, and tip every sacred cow I find.

My true self (the substance inside of me that I live with every day) is not only of no value in the feminist communities I’ve found, but accidentally comes across as trolling.

I’m a white, liberal middle-class woman (supposedly the core demographic) but so much of what is discussed and rehashed feels so irrelevant to my lived experience. I call myself a feminist, but I can’t talk to feminists about feminism. Because somewhere along the way, it became bitchier—and yet somehow tamer—than the big bad world it’s trying to fight.

Is feminism supposed to be a safe haven for all women, or yet another exclusive priesthood? Because that’s how it has struck me these days, in all its line-toeing, hairsplitting formality. And what, besides hypocrisy or passive-aggression, could position anyone as its gatekeeper? There’s a reason I’ve kept myself to a holding pattern on the outskirts of feminism since first discovering it twenty years ago: the priestesses at its center hate the fucking guts of girls like me. I don’t know why. Aren’t we women?

I’m not only for the complete equality of women, I’m for the evolution of the entire human race through justice and fairness…and I’ve committed myself to practicing what I preach, by being as true to myself as I want, and accepting no less than authenticity from others. I see us all as humans first, goddesses and gods second, men and women third. To kneel to a philosophy that makes me a biological woman first—and an unacceptable one at that—feels like what it is: a comedown.

I don’t say any of this to feminists I meet. I don’t criticize feminism to anyone. In fact, I usually only reveal around feminists a small fraction of the heart I’m willing to aim at a drunk, sexist man…and I’m a heck of a lot more gentle about it. But why the hell am I supposed to put that juice away around the ladies? Why should I stand up to mean ol’ men, but then act meek and kindly and never question a sister?

I can’t do it. Screw the china shop. We each get one life, and I want to spend mine living: balancing a need for consideration and justice with a determination to suck all the marrow out of my time. If I fail at feminism, either though impatience or plain noble savagery, at least let me be remembered for trying. I meant no harm.

I can only assume it’s what the average man feels like, ironically enough.

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