She had some radical ideas. She was a feminist, but definitely not your normal, mill-running women’s rights advocate. This chick was more militant than that. Is militant the right word? If we equate Miss Friedan to MLK she’d be Malcom X for sure. Yeah, I’d say that’s militant. And like Mister X, she didn’t want legal and ideological change to equalize men and women, she’d explode on you if you suggested such a thing. Nah, she wanted a total do-over. I mean, what? Like undoing the patriarchy entirely and totally removing it’s rubble before rebuilding society upon a feminist foundation with feminist materials. And I guess the word “feminist” wouldn’t even exist anymore. She’d sooner live a shortened, disease-ridden, cave-dwelling, Paleolithic life rebooting civilization than even consider any kind of logical, realist-type middle ground. Crazy right?
I told her once, in a moment of drunken frustration, that “It’s not going to happen!” that she must be out of her laundry-washing mind if she thinks society, our incredibly advanced society, is capable of anything more than a minor tune-up. And I told her Western society is rapidly approaching the long-sought equality feminist have been pinning for. And I asked her “why? Why do you want a restart?” I told her that “to you equally built upon a history of patriarchy might not be ideal, but that’s all you’re going to get.” I didn’t understand why she couldn’t just be happy with the progress women have made and are continuing to make. I told her, loudly and slurring, that “if you’re rebelling when there is no problem, no harm, and no struggle, then you’re just an annoying, whinny bitch who’d rather live in a fantasy world than actually devote her life to a real-world cause. She reacted to that barrage the same way you expect a militant societal restartist to react. She shut down, didn’t argue, turned around, and walked off. Yeah, go ahead, I thought as she was leaving, just reject reality.
Now I consider myself a feminist, and a strong one at that. I’m against any and all injustice, and if there’s something I can do about it, you’d better believe I’ll be on my feet and marching. It was during my sophomore year, I believe, that I had an epiphany: there’s plenty of time to be prejudiced when I’m old and conservative and angry. Getting old is inevitable. My goal was to out-do that person’s hate so that my net contribution to the world would be positive, progressive, and lasting. There are very few ideals I’m opposed to… but this girl… I couldn’t stand her ideas. I’d lay awake in bed sometimes and get pissed. Like actually pissed for no reason. Maybe it was just the illogical nature of her personal idealism. She’s doing more harm than good. I was convinced people, men and women, would look at her and think “oh god, is that what a feminist is, no thank you.” I knew she’d drive people away from feminism just so they wouldn’t be associated with her.
As far as I was aware, she had no followers. And I also doubt anyone taught her these ideas, she came up with them on her own. God, I spent so much time dwelling on this girl. Why? I thought, to be positive, maybe she’s trying to further feminism by being on the cutting edge. But then the more cynical part of my mind would interject with nah, she just can’t handle the fact that the life’s cause is popular opinion now. She’s just a damn hipster.
The Feminist by Travis Tyler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Reimaginings by Travis Tyler 