My Journey to Feminism

I've been thinking about how I got where I am quite often. For all the different facets of my life.

I was a "tom-boy" growing up. Not only did this entail spending recess playing soccer instead of hop-scotch, but for me it meant being one of the guys. This meant that when I was challenged to an arm wrestling competition, I gave it my all (and often won). Once I remember saying "uncle", but only because the boy dug his fingernail into my hand and made me bleed (yeah, I'm still bitter about it).

Being one of the boys also meant that I was subject to more bullying than I woul have been as a girly-girl I think. I mean, I doubt I would have gotten teased any less. But I never saw any of the other girls get punched or hit.

Part of my getting-bullied stemmed directly from my own stubbornness. I was not one to be controlled, even if I knew that it would result in pain. If a bigger bully came up and told me that I needed to move, because he wanted to sit there, I would look him in the eye and say that I had every right to sit here and he can deal with it. Then I'd get a black eye and have the wind knocked out of me. Then he'd get suspended and I would go home and, in the safety of my mom's arms, cry. Not until then though, other people ought not to see my weakness. Our school had lots of bullies, and somewhere along the line I stuck a giant bullseye on my back.

There was no reason in my mind that boys and girls ought to be considered different, and really I encountered very little pressure to conform to social norms.

I was always expected to go to college, to excel in school,told that I could be anything I could dream of when I grew up, and assured that I belonged in church. I remember being about 5 or 6 and watching the Gullah Gullah Island cast perform "I can do anything better than you can" divided by girls singing against boys. It seemed weird to me, of course girls can do anything just as good as boys, what a silly division. At 5 and 6, my best friends were both guys. We went "tornado chasing" and climbed fences and did everything else together--there was no difference.

So, really, I was born a feminist. I can't remember a time that I wasn't.

My favorite song at 11 was "Cinderella" by the Cheetah Girls:
I don't wanna be like Cinderella,
Sitting in a dark, cold, dusty cellar,
Waiting for somebody to come and set me free
I don't wanna be like someone waiting
For a handsome prince to come and save me
On my own I will survive...
I'd rather rescue myself...

Somebody who will understand I'm happy just the way I am
Don't need nobody taking care of me
I will be there for him just as strong as he will be there for me
When I give myself then it has got to be an equal thing

I can slay my own dragons.
I can dream my own dreams
My knight in shining armor is me
So I'm gonna set me free

I loved that song like no other. It was inspiring and so fun--they believed in female power, which I found very cool.

Eleven was also around the age that I began reading everything I could get my hands on. I had always liked having my mom read books to me, but it wasn't until then that I enjoyed the process too. This started with Harry Potter, and continued to everything and anything. By 12, I was reading autobiographies (everything from Interviews with J.K. Rowling to Mein Kampf by Hitler). At thirteen, I found "The Feminine Mystique" in our middle school library and devoured it against the will of my mother. She didn't think it was age appropriate. Stubborn as I had always been, I ignored her.

Once I picked up that, I began reading other books too. I read The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir. I found it interesting, but the chapter on lesbians was a bit of a turn-off for me. It started with "We commonly think of the lesbian as the woman wearing a plain felt hat, short hair, and a necktie..." which I found hilarious and showed to several friends. One friend responded after laughing and said "Now a days we think of a lesbian as a girl wearing doc martens with socks and a flannel shirt" I laughed but I had never heard those stereotypes before.

The book went on though, saying that "She [the lesbian] is unfulfilled as a woman, impotent as a man, and her disorder may lead to psychosis". I skimmed the chapters that followed, but after that sentence, I basically lost respect for the book.

That was about the time that my feminist leanings started to become applied to church teachings. Things like being told that we needed to be modest for the boys drove me insane. Once there was an article in the New Era about that, and the next month a boy had written in and got published on the front page, saying basically that acted like boys have no agency and that they were being ridiculous (and somehow it got published?!?). I ran downstairs and showed the article to my mom and told her that I wanted to marry that kid. She told me I should go find him on Myspace lol.

I don't know the exact question I asked, but around 14 the bishopric counselor tried to explain to me why only men have the priesthood. His explanation could have been worse, but it was basically that boys suck. Boys need the priesthood to develop qualities that women just naturally are born with. To get into heaven girls just have too be good, boys need to have the priesthood and be good. I walked away more confused than I started. The reverse-sexism aspect of it and the "girls are naturally just more spiritual" paradigm was foreign to me. I don't know how I escaped it, growing up in an very mormon family, but I guess I had just always blocked it out.

At 15, my favorite song was Fairytale by Sara Bareilles. It was basically about how we're raised on these stories of girls who just wait for the perfect man to come in and sweep them off their feet. "I would have cut it myself if I knew men could climb hair" said Rapunzel in a fashion that made me love the hardcore heroine perspective.

Sixteen was when I truly became a cynic. Everything was fallible and required scrutiny. Most weeks at church I found at least one thing if not to consider ridiculous (not doctrine, annoying opinions/comments)

It wasn't until 17 that I ever visited FMH, and it wasn't until eighteen that I was even willing to admit to myself that I might be a feminist.

At 19 I've given in and become a Women's Studies Minor. Today my favorite song is... Hmm, there are many. I like Strength to Go On which says:

What we are is the sum of 1000 lies
What we know is almost nothing at all
But we are what we are until the day we die
Or until we don't have the strength to go on

And I love Survive which says:

Life for you has been less than kind
So take a number, stand in line
We've all been sorry, we've all been hurt
But how we survive is what makes us who we are

I swear I'm not emo. Lol. That's a very summarized version of how I got here.